Repentance is central to the doctrinal philosophies of all major religions. From a theoretical point of view, however, the practice poses significant challenges. As the past cannot be altered, the guilt that obtains from already committed sins appears forever fettered to the sinner. In this article, I explore this conundrum and discuss a number of solutions that have been proposed in religious traditions. I show how these solutions fail to satisfy from both theological and philosophical perspectives. Finally, I propose a novel approach that, I believe, solves the problem.

This article aims to provide a new solution to the Logical Problem of the Incarnation by proposing a novel metaphysical reconstrual of the method of reduplicative predication. This reconstrual will be grounded upon the metaphysical thesis of ‘Ontological Pluralism, proposed by Kris McDaniel and Jason Turner, and the notion of an ‘aspect’ proposed by Donald L. M. Baxter. Utilising this thesis and notion will enable the method of reduplicative predication to be further clarified, and the central objection that is often raised against this approach can be successfully answered.

Some have held that this question cannot be given a satisfactory answer within the constraints imposed by a traditional theistic framework, a framework which sees the universe as contingent on God's free choice to create it. However, I shall argue that, while traditional theism certainly does place constraints on possible answers to the title question, on assumptions which are themselves plausible, these constraints leave open various possibilities for understanding the reasons God may have had as He decided whether or not to create something other than Himself.

Critics of Berkeley's divine language argument usually dismiss it for one of two main reasons: (1) it appears to be a mere variation on Descartes's argument for the existence of other minds, or (2) there is too little similarity between human languages and the ‘discourse of nature’. I will first show that the compositional features of language on which Berkeley partially bases his argument include systematicity and productivity – not merely the generativity on which Descartes's is based. I will then show that the analogy between human languages and the discourse of nature is stronger than typically appreciated, even given contemporary understandings of language.

To bolster his consequence argument against David Lewis's rejoinder, Peter van Inwagen uses the concept of miracle. He claims that the Lewisian compatibilist must admit that under determinism, we possess the ability to work miracles par excellence, that is, not just in some purely technical sense of the term. The article argues that van Inwagen's definition of a ‘miracle’ is too broad even if it is interpreted merely as an explication of one component often thought to be inherent in the religious concept of miracle, namely the concept of an event that breaks the laws of nature. Nomological effects of miracles are not miracles themselves.

Compositionalists hold that God the Son became human by acquiring all the parts that ordinarily compose a human being (his ‘human nature’). To be orthodox, though, they must deny that Christ's human nature is a person, even though it has all the parts that human persons ordinarily have. One way to do this is by appealing to the principle that no member of a natural kind can have another member of the same kind as a proper part. Since Christ is a person, he cannot have another person as a part, so if his human nature is a part of him, it cannot be a person. This principle is defended on the grounds that it can resolve metaphysical problems involving apparently multiple individuals of the same natural kind that share the same space. I argue that this is a weak strategy. First, it leaves unanswered key questions about how and why the principle applies to the incarnation. Second, counter-examples to the principle exist, suggesting that it is not true. Third, there is a better solution to the kinds of metaphysical paradoxes for which this principle is usually invoked, but this solution cannot be applied to the case of Christ. Consequently, compositionalists should not rely on this principle as a means of avoiding Nestorianism.

According to religious fictionalism, a non-believer can participate in religious life by playing a game of make-believe. Considering how games of make-believe build on imagination and pretence, I argue that religious fictionalism requires the non-believing participant to engage in role-playing. Turning to the literature on role-playing games, I demonstrate how religious fictionalism conforms to a qualified definition of such games. I also explore the theoretical consequences of adopting the role-playing perspective, by considering its impact on two key issues concerning religious fictionalism.

In this article, I show that: (1) There is a transcendence strain in African Traditional Religion (ATR) and traditional African thought that agrees perfectly with traditional monotheism and legitimizes the question of the relation of God with evil in the world. (2) There is incontrovertible evidence of the conception of God as a limited deity that subverts the categories of omnipotence and omniscience. (3) African philosophers of religion must show how a transcendent or, conversely, a limited God is related to the evil that exists in the world, since the overwhelming stance of ATR is that God is the creator of the world and wields effective power. I substitute the categories of omnipotence and omniscience with the novel categories of power and glory and argue that while a powerful and glorious God is not the author of evil and cannot eliminate evil in the world, such a God can be conceived as working to reduce the evil in the world through the instrumentality of human moral agency.

In much of the emerging literature in African philosophy on the question of life's meaning, little, if anything, has been said about the relationship between African conceptions of death and the question of life's meaning. Drawing from clues in the literature on African metaphysics/philosophy of religion, this article will argue that within the context of an African conception of death, life is ultimately meaningless. To do this, I will begin by curating an African conception of death that sees death as primarily the disembodiment of subjective consciousness. Through this disembodiment, the individual can approach death with meaning in life and pivot into meaning after life. However, I will show this view to be mistaken on several grounds – the implausibility of the metaphysics grounding the possibility of disembodiment; and the idea of a second death inherent in the African conception of death. Thus, I will conclude that the finality of death provides good reason to acknowledge that life is ultimately meaningless.

We argue that the problem of evil, logically, stems from the unequal binary that characterizes the bivalent structure of Western discourses in the philosophy of religion. This structure pits God against the devil, but also the value of good against evil they are believed to represent. The difficulty is that those who subscribe to creationism, for example, hold that God as an omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect entity created everything. Ironically, this must include evil or the devil himself. If one says He did not create evil, then one is faced with the challenge of explaining how evil emerged and how an omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect God could continue to allow evil in the world. Our strategy would be to dilute the problem by dismantling logical bivalence. With an appropriate logic background like the African truth-glut three-valued system of Ezumezu as an explanatory mechanism, we will demonstrate that the problem of evil is resolvable, even if negatively. Using the principle of value-complementarity, we will argue that the notions of good and evil are not merely opposites but complementary. In this way, God, would be construed, especially from logical ideas inspired by the viewpoint of the African Traditional world-view, as ‘harmony-God’.

Up to now, a very large majority of work in the religious philosophy of life's meaning has presumed a conception of God that is Abrahamic. In contrast, in this article I critically discuss some of the desirable and undesirable facets of Traditional African Religion's salient conceptions of God as they bear on meaning in life. Given an interest in a maximally meaningful life, and supposing meaning would come from fulfilling God's purpose for us, would it be reasonable to prefer God as characteristically conceived by African philosophers of religion to exist instead of the Abrahamic conception of God? At this stage of enquiry, I answer that, in respect of the range of people to whom God's purpose would apply, a more African view of God would plausibly offer a greater meaning, but that, concerning what the content of God's purpose would be, the Abrahamic view appears to offer a greater one. I conclude by reflecting on this mixed verdict and by suggesting respects in which non-purposive facets of the African and Abrahamic conceptions of God could also have implications for life's meaning.

The article provides a philosophical explication of an African religious moral philosophy. Often philosophers repudiate the view that African Traditional Religions (ATR) can embody a religious moral philosophy. Theologians, on the other hand, tend to believe that ATR can, but they often do not provide a systematic account of such an ethical system. The article demonstrates that ATR can embody an under-explored moral philosophy. ATR refers to indigenous religious ideas, beliefs, and practices of the indigenous people below the Sahara. The article will invoke the metaphysical and moral concept of vitality as the basis to construct an African religious moral philosophy. (It is worth noting that this article merely constructs, but it does not defend, this ethical system.) Vitality is the spiritual energy that originates, maximally inheres and defines God, and God has since distributed it to all that exists, albeit in varying degrees. By ‘moral philosophy’, the article focuses on (1) meta-ethics (it proffers a vitality-based account of the moral terms right and wrong); (2) normative theory (it expounds on the perfectionist and deontological principles of right action); and (3) applied ethics (it invokes a vitality-based conception of moral status to explore environmental ethics and select bioethical themes).