Aretological Interpretation of the (Christian) Religious Faith

  • Paweł Pijas Department of the History of Ancient, Medieval and Modern Philosophy, Institute of Philosophy, Sociology and Journalism, University of Gdańsk https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7694-7482
Keywords: faith; philosophy of religion; virtue; Julia Annas

Abstract

I argue that an aretaic model is apt for (Christian) religious faith. I begin with a presentation of two rival and radical models of faith present in philosophy of religion, which I label as, respectively, “intellectual” and “anti-intellectual” model. Then, I try to show some essential characteristics of faith that are ignored by these models, which results in a serious theoretical difficulty for philosophy of religion. I present the aretaic model as a convincing alternative, using Julia Annas’ developmental theory of virtue and some other conceptual tools provided by representatives of contemporary virtue ethics. The core of the argumentation presumes that religious faith and morality are similar, thus also the issues of philosophy of religion and ethics are similar.

References

Adams, Robert. 1987. The Virtue of Faith. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Annas, Julia. 2011. Intelligent Virtue. New York: Oxford University Press.

Anscombe, Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret. 1958. „Modern Moral Philosophy”. Philosophy 33: 1–19.

Audi, Robert. 2014. „Faith as Attitude. Trait, and Virtue”. W: Craig A. Boyd, Kevin Timpe (eds.). Virtues and Their Vices, 327–347. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Crisp, Roger. 2010. „Virtue Ethics and Virtue Epistemology”. W: Heather Battaly (ed.). Virtue and Vice, Moral and Epistemic, 21–38. Bangalore: Wiley-Blackwell.

Davies, Brian. 1992. The Thought of Thomas Aquinas. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Davies, Brian. 2006. Wprowadzenie do filozofii religii. Przełożył Wacław J. Popowski. Warszawa: Prószyński i S-ka .

Foot, Philippa. 2002. Virtues and Vices and Other Essays in Moral Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Hume, David. 1962. Dialogi o religii naturalnej. Naturalna historia religii. Przełożyła Anna Hochfeld. Warszawa: PWN.

James, William. 1996. Prawo do wiary. Przełożył Adam Grobler. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak.

Judycki, Stanisław. 2014. Książeczka o człowieku wierzącym. Kraków: Fundacja „Dominikańskie Studium Filozofii i Teologii”.

Katechizm Kościoła Katolickiego [= KKK]. 1994. Poznań: Pallotinum.

Kenny, Anthony. 1992. What is Faith? New York: Oxford University Press.

Kołakowski, Leszek. 1990. Jeśli Boga nie ma… Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Brama.

MacIntyre, Alasdair. 1996. Dziedzictwo cnoty. Przełożył Adam Chmielewski. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.

MacIntyre, Alasdair. 1964. „Is Understanding Religion Compatible with Believing?”. W: John Hick (ed.). Faith and Philosophers, 115–133. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

MacIntyre, Alasdair. 1988. Whose Justice? Which Rationality? Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.

Miller, Alex. 2003. An Introduction to Contemporary Metaethics. Cambridge (UK): Polity Press.

Moser, Paul K. 2016. „Reason and Faith in God”. Roczniki Filozoficzne 64, 4: 5–20.

Pismo Święte Starego i Nowego Testamentu. 2009. Częstochowa: Edycja Świętego Pawła.

Plantinga, Alvin, i Nicholas Wolterstorff (eds.). 2004. Faith and Rationality. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.

Scheler, Max. 1973. Formalism in Ethics and The Non-Formal Ethics of Values. Przełożyli Manfred S. Frings i Roger L. Funk. Evanston: Northwest University Press.

Szutta, Natasza. 2017. Czy istnieje coś, co zwiemy moralnym charakterem i cnotą? Lublin: Wydawnictwo Academicon.

Williams, Bernard. 1985. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. London: Fontana Press.

Williams, Bernard. 2017, „Filozofia jako dyscyplina humanistyczna”. Przełożył Paweł Pijas. Roczniki Filozoficzne” 65, 4: 325–350.

Williams, Bernard. 2006. Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline. Edited by Adrian W. Moore. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Williams, Bernard. 2003. Truth and Truthfulness. An Essay in Genealogy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1967. Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief. Edited by Cyril Barrett. Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Zagzebski, Linda. 1999. „Phronesis and Christian Belief”. W: Godehard Brüntrup i Ronald K. Tacelli (eds.). The Rationality of Theism, 177–194. Dordrecht: Springer Science + Business Media.

Zagzebski, Linda. 2010. „Exemplarist Moral Theory”. W: W: Heather Battaly (ed.). Virtue and Vice, Moral and Epistemic, 39–55. Bangalore: Wiley-Blackwell.

Zagzebski, Linda. 2011. „Religious Knowledge”. W: Sven Bernecker i Duncan Pritchard (eds.). The Routledge Companion to Epistemology, 394–398. New York: Routledge.

Ziemiński, Ireneusz. 2013. „Filozofia religii jako droga do sceptycyzmu”. Studia Religiologica 46, 4: 263–273.

Ziemiński, Ireneusz. 2014. „Kryzys chrześcijaństwa z perspektywy filozofii religii”. Filo-sofija 25, 2: 109–138.

Ziemiński, Ireneusz. 2016. „Kryzys chrześcijaństwa z perspektywy filozofii religii – odpowiedzi Polemistom”. Filo-sofija 33, 2: 153–181.

Published
2019-04-01
Section
Articles