The paper has two major parts. The first part articulates a working definition of what is a traditional religious Jew. This includes a discussion of whether it is necessary to have certain beliefs in order to be a religious Jew. Given the definition in the first part, the second part argues that it is rationally defensible for some persons to be traditional religious Jews. Included is a discussion of the notion of rational defensibility. The paper closes by discussing whether different religions can be rationally defensible for different persons.

One of Śankara's most fundamental claims is that nirguna brahman, ‘unqualified reality’, is the origin of the world of experience. A serious challenge is posed by the Sānkhyan philosophers in terms of a principle of material causation, that the properties manifested in the effect are inherited from the material cause. Since nirguna brahman and the experienced world are so different, the principle implies that the former cannot be the material cause of the latter. Versions of the principle in relation to alternative kinds of candidates for the role of material cause are discussed, considering the particular cases which motivate both Śankara's and the Sānkhyans' metaphysics alike. Śankara seems forced to accept an implausible version of the principle by his own analysis of material causation.

Since theistic faith involves the notion of God as personally agential and since it faces difficulties in establishing its credibility in view both of problems in warrantably ascribing natural, historical and personal states to divine activity and of the counterevidence of evil, this paper takes up the story of a quadriplegic patient and certain remarks by Whitehead and Hartshorne to explore the viability of a concept of divine activity that is non-coercive but significant. In order to develop this concept of God's agency and to warrant its credibility, the essential kenoticism of the divine is also discussed.

We present a valid deductive cosmological argument for the necessary existence of a powerful and intelligent creator of the actual universe. Whereas traditional cosmological arguments had to employ a strong version of the principle of sufficient reason that held that every fact actually has an explanation, our argument can make do with the weak version of Duns Scotus according to which every fact possibly has an explanation. As a result, our argument is less vulnerable to the charge of begging the question than are these traditional cosmological arguments.

I show that if the ontological argument is sound, it proves that a number of maximally great beings must exist. I show that maximal greatness does not imply uniqueness, that such beings can be omnipotent and yet not restrict each other's power, and that each must have its own separate stream of consciousness. I also show that attempts to unify the beings by unifying the streams of consciousness leads to a form of pantheism.