In spite of many claims by people who have had the kind of mystical experiences that I want to discuss, such experiences do not reveal any reality beyond the experience itself; nor does the experience itself constitute a cosmic principle such as the Godhead, Absolute, One or Chaos. These experiences are in the last analysis merely subjective experiences. I say ‘merely’ here only to deny that the experiences have any significance for the cosmologists; not to deny that the experience has significant value for the experiencer. It may be that the experiences are the ultimate goal attainable by human beings. Their value does not depend on their being the ultimate truth.

It has often been charged that the doctrine of papal infallibility is either false or incoherent. These charges stem, I believe, from a misunderstanding of the logical character of infallible papal utterances, a misunderstanding shared alike by friends and foes of the doctrine. In this paper, I shall argue that the doctrine is both coherent and correct. I devote section I to uncovering some of the sources of this misunderstanding and thereby defending what might be called my negative thesis, namely, that infallible papal utterances are not statements. In section II, I continue defending my negative thesis, not now as an end in itself, but rather as a means of advancing my positive thesis that infallible papal utterances are declarations and have the same logic as other declarations. The latter thesis requires a discussion of the difference between statements and declarations. Section III contains a formal speech act analysis of successful and non-defective statements and declarations with some additional explanatory notes. In section IV, I speak rather generally about the task of philosophical theology in the light of the results and procedures of sections I–III.

Although not a great deal has been said about heaven in the Christian tradition, it is part of the traditional notion of heaven that the blessed are in a condition of perfect happiness. In this life we can be happy to a certain degree, but mixed with earthly happiness is disappointment, frustration, and even sorrow. In heaven, by contrast, there is no sadness, nothing is lacking, happiness is complete. The usual way of explaining this perfect happiness is in terms of the ‘beatific vision’ – the face to face relationship of knowing and loving God which the blessed enjoy. On earth we experience only finite objects; nothing that we come to know ever completely satisfies our desire to know, and nothing that we love ever completely satisfies our will. But in the beatific vision we shall be in a direct relationship with the infinite God, who in his boundless perfection will completely ‘fill up’ our capacities to know and love. As the completely adequate object of these capacities, God will make us perfectly happy. As Aquinas puts it, ‘…But if God alone were seen, who is the fount and source of all being and of all truth, he would so fill the natural desire for knowledge that nothing else would be desired, and the seer would be completely happy.’

Professor H. D. Lewis' distinguished achievements in philosophy of religion are complemented by his admirable and original contributions to philosophy of mind. His Gifford Lectures, The Elusive Mind, are a model of philosophical clarity and acumen; his account of the elusive mind in the Gifford Lectures is developed and elaborated in a later work, The Self and Immortality. Professor Lewis' ability to connect philosophy of mind with philosophy of religion at a fundamental level is an outstanding feature of his work. Philosophical reflection on religion must, at some stage, include an adequate concept of person, thus the importance of the relationship between philosophy of religion and philosophy of mind. Everyone who is concerned with the philosophical aspects of religious studies has good reason to be indebted to H. D. Lewis as a thinker.

Reacting against philosophers such as Braithwaite, Hare and Van Buren, caught in what not a few would believe to be an essentially positivist rut, John Wisdom and Ilham Dilman forcefully argue that there is more to religion than commitment to a way of life and yet they both are, like Braithwaite and Hare, adamant in maintaining that believers and non-believers need not differ, and indeed will not differ, when they are informed, reflective and philosophically sophisticated, ‘in what they expect by way of a life after death’ and more importantly still – they will not differ in what ‘they infer about what lies beyond the reach of the senses’ (494).1 Moreover, they agree that not only can we not make any valid inferences about what lies beyond any possible reach of the senses, we cannot directly know - encounter, become acquainted with - such a reality either.

Religion is widely practised in Poland. This fact is well known in the West, though it is always a matter of some amazement. What is less well known and perhaps more amazing is the extent to which religion is studied in Poland. Before World War II there were of course the well-established faculties of theology in Warsaw, Wilno (now in the U.S.S.R.) and the fourteenth-century foundation in the ancient capital of Krakow. The Catholic University of Lublin is a private institution set up by the Church in 1920. It has some very distinguished scholars and its degrees are recognised by the State. Some courses in theology are also taught there, mainly for the training of priests but also for lay people who may intend to work with, for example, K.I.K., the circle of Catholic intellectuals.

This comparison of some aspects of the treatment of religious experience in the writings of Bernard Lonergan and Alfred North Whitehead is intended to be a contribution to the continuing dialogue between process thought and classical theism, especially as the latter is represented in proponents of a newer or renewed Thomism. Continued exchange will hopefully be fruitful for the common theistic task, as well as a source of insight on the problems and limitations faced by each approach.

I propose to begin with some fairly unexciting and uncontroversial remarks about possibility-statements, and then in their light to examine two problems philosophers have raised about certain statements of this kind which might be made in Christian theology where it touches on the doctrine of the Incarnation.

This paper has been prompted by the conviction that a number of ethical and political doctrines in Plato remain obscure and somewhat unintelligible unless related to the contemplative experience of the Platonic philosopher.1 I shall concentrate here on one such doctrine, the distinction between philosophic and popular virtue, especially as it appears in the Phaedo and the Gorgias. But in order first to clarify our conception of the relationship between contemplation and virtue, I shall examine the fourteenth-century English classic, The Cloud of Unknowing, which is mainly concerned with the practice of contemplation and only remotely connected with Plato.2 One finds in The Cloud a perceptive account of the contemplative's acquisition of ‘perfect’ virtue which enables us to see the distinction between philosophic and popular virtue in Plato in a fresh light. After discussing the important passage in the Phaedo (69A–C) where the distinction is drawn, I shall criticise the account of virtue in Plato given by D. Z. Phillips and H. O. Mounce in Moral Practices where the contemplative context is minimised by their endeavour to see morality wholly in terms of conventions (albeit, for Plato, ‘non-conventional’ conventions).3 In this section, the argument between Socrates and Polus in the Gorgias will be discussed in light of the way Phillips and Mounce distinguish their respective ethical positions. The object of the paper is not only to point to the significance of contemplation in Plato's ethics which has been overlooked by many modern philosophers, but also to note the way our understanding of the dialogue form in Plato depends on the unique perspective of the contemplative philosopher.

Professor Gill's recent defence of the notion of ‘reasons of the heart’ in religion1 depends upon Polanyi's view that through ‘tacit knowledge’ of lower levels of reality we can come to know something of higher levels - even, I take it, of God, himself, as the highest level of all. Unfortunately, Polanyi's argument for such a hierarchy of being is confused and depends for its apparent strength on an illicit mixing together of ontological and what may be loosely called methodological claims. Because of this and other confusions, the argument is difficult to state concisely. For convenience I will first use Marjorie Grene's formulation.

The problem of evil has traditionally been formulated as a claim about the incompatibility of the statements ‘God exists’ and ‘There occur instances of suffering’. Hume, for example, in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, part x, claims that the statements ‘God exists’ and ‘There occur instances of suffering’ are incompatible. In his esssy ‘Hume on Evil’, Nelson Pike argues that it has not been shown that the statements ‘God exists’ and ‘There occur instances of suffering’ are incompatible because it has not been shown that God could not have a morally sufficient reason for permitting suffering he could prevent.1 Moreover, according to Pike, the theist who is convinced that God must have a morally sufficient reason for permitting suffering he can prevent will claim that the statements ‘God exists’ and ‘There occur instances of suffering’ are not incompatible. He will claim this even though he cannot specify the morally sufficient reason why God permits suffering he can prevent. The theist will thus maintain that God exists even given the occurrence of suffering in the world.2 Robert Richman, in his essay ‘The Argument from Evil’, argues that Pike is too generous to the theist. According to Richman, only if the theist can specify the morally sufficient reason why God permits suffering he can prevent will the theist be rationally justified in maintaining that God exists in the face of suffering in the world. Richman supports his position by reformulating the argument from evil in terms of what he calls ‘the logic of our moral judgmentsr’.3 Richman thinks that his formulation of the argument from evil is successful against the theist who cannot specify the morally sufficient reason why God permits evil he can prevent. In this paper, I shall argue that Richman's argument is not successful against the typical theist, i.e. the person who accepts the existence of God on the basis of faith or a priori arguments.4

The written material for this course will be ofinterest and value to all engaged in the study of religion not least for its pedagogical enterprise. The course is divided into six blocks containing thirty-two units which are presented in fourteen booklets. These are designed to be read in conjunction with the Course Reader (Whitfield Foy, ed., Man's Religious Quest, The Open University, 1978) and other components such as films, cassettes, sixteen television programmes, twenty-four radio programmes, a wallet of maps and a pronunciation cassette tape. Very little is left to chance. Interspersed throughout the written texts is a symbol to signal the need to pause for reflection and precise instructions are given as to when an exercise is to be completed. Specimen answers are provided to specific questions. Those who would criticise this apparently overpowering prescription should bear in mind that the course is designed for what is in the main learning at a distance, and it is better to err on the side of over solicitude than to leave unsaid what ought to be said. The more resourceful student will find abundant guidance for further independent exploration in the well chosen lists of recommended books and lists of works of reference.