Descriptivist reference and the return of classical theism
pp. 207-223
in: Jeanine Diller, Asa Kasher (eds), Models of God and alternative ultimate realities, Berlin, Springer, 2013Abstract
Publications addressing traditional questions in philosophical theology have increased in recent years, and have come largely from analytic philosophers. This marks a substantial shift in relations between theology and analytic philosophy, which only a few decades ago were best described as adversarial. What accounts for this shift? In this paper I argue that theology's disenchantment with analytic philosophy resulted from the dominance of Russell's descriptivist program in philosophy of language and the falsification challenge that depended on it. By the time Kripke's causal theory of reference, and his contributions to modal logic and possible world semantics began to revolutionize analytic philosophy of language and metaphysics, theologians had turned their attention elsewhere. Consequently, while theologians mostly remain reticent about engaging analytic philosophy, new developments in classical theistic doctrines are in large part the work of philosophers able to explore the opportunities that Kripke, his cohorts and followers have opened up.
