Emily Qureshi-Hurst is a D.Phil. Candidate in Theology (Science and Religion) at Pembroke College, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

https://philpeople.org/profiles/emily-qureshi-hurst?app=466

Anna Pearson is a final year D.Phil. Student in the Department of Materials at St Anne's College, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=WBTN_0EAAAAJ&hl=en

, looks like you copy/pasted from the bottom of their paper?
Cited papers via ‪Google Scholar‬ are linked at their names above, check'em out.

Anyway, I'm not sure this quite counts as philosophy, definitely not science.
The McTaggart stuff, sure, philosophy, the rest is Christian/Biblical apologetics.

I'm not sure this quite counts as philosophy — jorndoe

It's a thesis in theology. They seem well-credentialed to me, I mean, they're at Oxford, not the Creation Museum. Emily's thesis supervisor was Alistair McGrath. This being 2021, she even has a Youtube presentation.

"I work broadly in the area of physics and Christianity." Where quantum mechanics meets salvation. "Given indefinite causal order and a B theory of time, we argue that salvation must be understood as subjective."

Oh, well done!

It's a thesis in theology — Wayfarer

It's a stretched exercise in Christian/Biblical apologetics (with good benefits (y) ).
Which is fine I suppose.
Tags apart from Tales‘R’Us: #quantummechanics #time #salvation #jesus #bible

we suggest ways in which Indefinite Causal Order may facilitate developments in the metaphysics of time, all the while remaining cognizant of the fact that any such conclusions inevitably require some form of hedging one's bets

If the B-theory is true, this has significant repercussions for both morality and soteriology.

(1) Conclude that salvific change is impossible on a B-theory, and that therefore the doctrine of salvation must be rejected altogether.
(2) Try and reconceptualize the mechanism of salvific change so that it is coherent within a block universe.

Let's try something else then, though still applicable to salvation (by Krishna, Jesus, Allah, or some such).

Doxastic involuntarism is easy enough to exemplify, i.e. a belief is not particularly "freely" chosen as such. That's typically belief formation from (convincing) evidence/reasoning, though faith may also have been chosen for you (indoctrination). It's the most common formation of beliefs, and seems to be the default/fallback position these days.

Doxastic voluntarism, i.e. to "freely" choose a belief, is more questionable, and examples seem more conditional. If taken as a methodology, more or less any belief is up for the taking; the methodology itself appears like a truth-maker instead. If there were (sufficient) reasons/evidence, then we'd move towards involuntarism, so voluntarism does not differentiate as such. This position was more common back in history.

What does it mean for salvation?
If faith is chosen for the person involuntarily (by indoctrination or something), then they can't really be accredited or blamed; they were assimilated, and belief revision may take more evidence/reasoning than in other cases. ^(†)
If by doxastic voluntarism, then more or less anything goes; belief is just chosen.
I don't think doxastic in/voluntarism is a strict exclusive-or, though I do think involuntarism would have to be involved here.
Any number of diverse (mutually inconsistent) religious faiths have equally diverse devout adherents, apparently with equal conviction and dedication.
So, anyway, going by the usual salvation schemes, some (supposed) "ultimate" arbiter would have to set the record straight for all to see?
What about the truth of the matter? (Isn't that what we're going for?)



^(†) There appears to be some sort of proportionality between incorrigibility and fundamentalism:

more radical participants displayed less insight into the correctness of their choices and reduced updating of their confidence when presented with post-decision evidence — Metacognitive Failure as a Feature of Those Holding Radical Beliefs (2018)

our findings highlight a generic resistance to recognizing and revising incorrect beliefs as a potential driver of radicalization — Metacognitive Failure as a Feature of Those Holding Radical Beliefs (2018)

• W L Craig's uniquely Christian explanation contra pluralism (or one of them): How Can Jesus Be the Only Way? (5m:19s) (there's a bit more variety than suggested, e.g. not all Buddhists believe the exact same, but no matter)

• Philosophical Implications of Religious Pluralism (2016)

Any number of diverse (mutually inconsistent) religious faiths have equally diverse devout adherents, apparently with equal conviction and dedication.
So, anyway, going by the usual salvation schemes, some (supposed) "ultimate" arbiter would have to set the record straight for all to see?
What about the truth of the matter? (Isn't that what we're going for?) — jorndoe

Pluralism or multiplicity of visions is one of the attributes of the period of late modernity, as explicated here by John Hick, philosopher of religion and religious pluralist.

The basic principle that we are aware of anything, not as it is in itself unobserved, but always and necessarily as it appears to beings with our particular cognitive equipment [pace Kant], was brilliantly stated by Aquinas when he said that ‘Things known are in the knower according to the mode of the knower’ (S.T., II/II, Q. 1, art. 2). And in the case of religious awareness, the mode of the knower differs significantly from religion to religion. And so my hypothesis is that the ultimate reality of which the religions speak, and which we refer to as God, is being differently conceived, and therefore differently experienced, and therefore differently responded to in historical forms of life within the different religious traditions.

What does this mean for the different, and often conflicting, belief-systems of the religions? It means that they are descriptions of different manifestations of the Ultimate; and as such they do not conflict with one another. They each arise from some immensely powerful moment or period of religious experience, notably the Buddha’s experience of enlightenment under the Bo tree at Bodh Gaya, Jesus’ sense of the presence of the heavenly Father, Muhammad’s experience of hearing the words that became the Qur’an, and also the experiences of Vedic sages, of Hebrew prophets, of Taoist sages.

But these experiences are always formed in the terms available to that individual or community at that time and are then further elaborated within the resulting new religious movements. This process of elaboration is one of philosophical or theological construction. Christian experience of the presence of God, for example, at least in the early days and again since the 13th-14th century rediscovery of the centrality of the divine love, is the sense of a greater, much more momentously important, much more profoundly loving, personal presence than that of one’s fellow humans. But that this higher presence is eternal, is omnipotent, is omniscient, is the creator of the universe, is infinite in goodness and love is not, because it cannot be, given in the experience itself.

In sense perception we can see as far as our horizon but cannot see how much further the world stretches beyond it, and so likewise we can experience a high degree of goodness or of love but cannot experience that it reaches beyond this to infinity. That God has these infinite qualities, and likewise that God is a divine Trinity, can only be an inference, or a theory, or a supposedly revealed truth, but not an experienced fact.

And so Jesus himself will have understood the experienced loving and demanding presence to be the God of his Jewish tradition, and specifically of that aspect of the tradition that emphasized the divine goodness and love, as well as justice and power. But as his teaching about the heavenly Father was further elaborated, and indeed transformed, within the expanding gentile church, it grew into the philosophical conception of God as an infinite co-equal trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

And so what we inherit today is a complex totality in which religious experience and philosophical speculation embodied in theological doctrine have interacted over the centuries and have to a certain degree fused. In the other great traditions the same process has taken place, in each case taking its own distinctive forms. For religious experience always has to take some specific form, and the forms developed within a given tradition ‘work’, so to speak, for people within that tradition but not, in many cases, for people formed by a different tradition. — John Hick, Who or What is God?

.

It's a stretched exercise in Christian/Biblical apologetics (with good benefits (y) — jorndoe

The project appears to be to find new constraints on theology in light of new empirical evidence, rather than to co-opt science into existing theological ideas, making it more critical than apologetic.

Why limit it just to religious epiphanies? Why not posit that a scientific calling arises from witnessing the wonder of God's work as understood by an empiricist? Might Marx be the Moses of his tradition, doing God's work to free people from slavery but in a way he could understand it?

Why not posit that a scientific calling arises from witnessing the wonder of God's work as understood by an empiricist? — Kenosha Kid

That was Newton's attitude. According to Karen Armstrong, historian of religion, this had major adverse consequences for public religion.

Ms. ARMSTRONG: Well, because Newton and Rene Descartes said that they'd found proof for God, and the churchmen - theologians, priests, church bishops - they were intoxicated by this notion of a scientific religion, a scientifically-based religion that was in touch with the most exciting thought of the day and that could give them cast-iron certainty. And so they started to make Newton's God absolutely central to Christianity.

GROSS: What was Newton's God? How did he prove that God existed?

Ms. ARMSTRONG: Well, Newton and Descartes, too, both felt that unless you had God, the solar system made no sense. God was absolutely essential, they thought, to the universe. Something needed to start the whole thing off, to get things going. And Newton discovered such a magnificent order in the universe that he said that the only way you could explain this was by an absolute, divine intelligence that was omnipotent, omniscient, all-knowing, and that - and here I quote - was also very well-skilled in mechanics and geometry.

He said that you couldn't have a solar system unless you had an intelligence designer. Well, of course, we know what happened. It was only a few generations before later scientists were able to dispense with God as the beginning of the universe, a necessary explanation. — Karen Armstrong, interview transcript

Armstrong's point is that religion is NOT concerned with 'how things work' or the analysis of physical causal relations. That, she says, is 'logos' - whereas the role of religion is 'mythos', not in the trivial sense of 'it's only a myth', but that

myth was a programme of action. When a mythical narrative was symbolically re-enacted, it brought to light within the practitioner something "true" about human life and the way our humanity worked, even if its insights, like those of art, could not be proven rationally. If you did not act upon it, it would remain as incomprehensible and abstract – like the rules of a board game, which seem impossibly convoluted, dull and meaningless until you start to play.

Religious truth is, therefore, a species of practical knowledge. Like swimming, we cannot learn it in the abstract; we have to plunge into the pool and acquire the knack by dedicated practice. Religious doctrines are a product of ritual and ethical observance, and make no sense unless they are accompanied by such spiritual exercises as yoga, prayer, liturgy and a consistently compassionate lifestyle. Skilled practice in these disciplines can lead to intimations of the transcendence we call God, Nirvana, Brahman or Dao. Without such dedicated practice, these concepts remain incoherent, incredible and even absurd. — Metaphysical Mistake

That last article addresses the confusion about this in contemporary culture. I think @jorndoe's view is that as all religious beliefs are categorically wrong, then the only avenue of analysis is to find out how its possible for anyone to hold them, how anyone could be that mistaken and still somehow feed themselves and function in the world.

Could be called, Salvation in a Block Universe. Kudos for the authors for conjuring up the unanticipated.

Were it not so well written I might suspect it came out of a community college in Oklahoma.

What has become of Oxford? But then it must be hard to explore anything original in theology.

But what do I know? Not much. :roll:

Might Marx be the Moses of his tradition, doing God's work to free people from slavery but in a way he could understand it? — Kenosha Kid

Good point. Messianic socialism seems to have been taken seriously by some in the past, and perhaps still is. But that would depend on a number of factors, such as how we define "freeing people from slavery". Can the Marxist "class dictatorship of the proletariat" be equated with "freedom"?

Emily Qureshi-Hurst is a D.Phil. Candidate in Theology (Science and Religion) at Pembroke College — Wayfarer

“I work in the philosophy of religion and its intersection with the philosophy of physics. This comes under the bracket of science and religion, which is an academic discipline or set of academic conversations, which is dominated by people who are normally committed to a particular religion. But I'm not religious myself. “

Science and Salvation | Spirituality & Health (spiritualityhealth.com)

So, Hurst works in the philosophy of religion but is not religious herself. Sounds about right. Just what I thought.

Yeah, ain’t the post-modern condition confusing? :yikes: Confounds all kinds of borders and boundaries.

I think the problem is that declaring yourself a 'religious believer' in a context such as the modern Oxford university carries many implications which you would then be expected to defend. Perhaps she is one of those who say 'spiritual, but not religious' meaning that she 'respects' religion and spirituality but is not bound by religious conventions. There are many people who describe themselves that way in modern culture.

Jesus Christ. He did not even speak of nanodilation and complex flux of large molecules in a viscuous liquid. Even my spoof on the Holy Trinity has more credence than this miasma. It seems that to publish philosophy these days you need three things:
1. A pH.D.
2. A vocabulary and an ability to juxtapose those words, that occur once every three trillion years in the English language.
3. Comprehensibility of final version of paper is optional, but highly jeered at.
4. Mention of qm.

, and more or less denied by the theists that Hick speaks on behalf of (and Craig, Chaturvedi, ...).
Apropos salvation, you're not going to find many Christians accepting Quran 4:157.
What does Hick have to say about salvation?
Remaking "the elephant" needs coherence, which means a good lot of vacuuming.
You're not going to accept contradictions, are you?

, I concede some of my comments; much too hasty.
The two researchers brought quantumatics in to amend the blockverse with blurry causation, in order to make better room for Christian/Biblical salvation — becoming saved by volition.

It's a stretched exercise in Christian/Biblical apologetics (with good benefits (y) ).

Anyway

What about the truth of the matter? (Isn't that what we're going for?)

What does Hick have to say about salvation? — jorndoe

He wrote of undergoing a religious epiphany whilst on the top deck of a London bus. Thereafter, he went on to a long career in theology and philosophy of religion. He was well-known as a spokesman for religious pluralism.

There are contradictions, then there are paradoxes. Contradictions arise from conflicting beliefs or statements, paradoxes from viewing a complex whole from different perspectives. So paradox doesn’t have to be contradictory. I think that passage I quoted first from Hick provides a way of understanding that. Of course it’s true that ‘on the street’, conflict is often rife between different faiths but Hick is arguing, this doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re ultimately irreconcilable.

Regarding the truth of the matter, I believe that ‘doctrines of salvation’ are about something real, i.e. they’re not simply social constructs, although there’s an element of that. But if it puts me on the religious side of the ledger, so be it. I hope to be able to justify that philosophically, though, rather than simple acceptance.

He said that you couldn't have a solar system unless you had an intelligence designer. — Karen Armstrong, interview transcript

Yeah, that sounds familiar. He also came up with the original Bible code. And liked torturing people.

But my question was more about irreligious epiphany. In Hick's view, God obviously isn't too fussed about religious belief itself, rather people are inspired to understand according to their own ways of thinking. I'm wondering what argument he might have for excluding, say, the people who dispensed with God as a Newtonian first cause. If the knower "knows" there is no God, would he not interpret a religious experience from an atheist perspective?

And liked torturing people. — Kenosha Kid

Newton tortured people???

In Hick's view, God obviously isn't too fussed about religious belief itself, rather people are inspired to understand according to their own ways of thinking. — Kenosha Kid

I’d be careful about that interpretation. Hick is saying something more like, humans will interpret a religious epiphany in accordance with their experience and culture. That doesn’t mean, necessarily, that they could adopt any interpretation they like. I don’t think he’s endorsing wholesale relativism although that’s obviously one of the dangers of his kind of religious pluralism.

If the knower "knows" there is no God, would he not interpret a religious experience from an atheist perspective? — Kenosha Kid

The Buddha never interpreted or understood his realisation in theistic terms. Atheist philosophers sometimes try to lay some kind of claim to Buddha on that account, as if he’s an atheist, but:

Buddhism has sometimes been called an atheistic teaching, either in an approving sense by freethinkers and rationalists, or in a derogatory sense by people of theistic persuasion. Only in one way can Buddhism be described as atheistic, namely, in so far as it denies the existence of an eternal, omnipotent God or godhead who is the creator and ordainer of the world. The word "atheism," however, like the word "godless," frequently carries a number of disparaging overtones or implications, which in no way apply to the Buddha's teaching.

Those who use the word "atheism" often associate it with a materialistic doctrine that knows nothing higher than this world of the senses and the slight happiness it can bestow. Buddhism is nothing of that sort. In this respect it agrees with the teachings of other religions, that true lasting happiness cannot be found in this world… — Nyanoponika Thera

Atheist philosophers sometimes try to lay some kind of claim to Buddha on that account, as if he’s an atheist, — Wayfarer

That has been my experience, too. Buddhism is often seen as a convenient tool for weaning people away from religion and herding them into the atheist and neo-Marxist fold.

Newton tortured people??? — Wayfarer

Sure did. He was head of the Royal Mint. He hard pretty barbaric means of finding out where counterfeit money came from.

That doesn’t mean, necessarily, that they could adopt any interpretation they like. — Wayfarer

Agreed, that's not what I meant. I mean that, if two people had the same religious experience, one was an atheist, one was devout, would they not know of that experience in different ways, the former making sense of it in his atheist fashion, the latter in her devout way of knowing?

The Buddha never interpreted or understood his realisation in theistic terms. — Wayfarer

Yes, good point. Aboriginal Australians likewise. So you can know God without knowing God.