A Forthcoming Publication in Faith and Philosophy

In this article, I briefly introduce to you my forthcoming paper in Faith and Philosophy, widely considered as the leading journal in the field of the philosophy of religion. Beyond the attaching the abstract, I write mostly about the writing and submission process to give you an insight into what it is like in academic publishing.

Abstract:

I argue that Immanuel Kant’s philosophy, with specific reference to the unconditionality of morals and his transcendental idealism, provides sceptical theists with novel resources to respond to the three most powerful objections to sceptical theism: that it leads to moral quietism, that it implies divine deception, and that it undermines natural theology. I further show that the contributions of this paper are not restricted to those who adopt Kant’s Critical philosophy, but that commitment to the unconditionality of morals alone allows the philosopher to retain most of these advantages. I argue that the positions advanced in this paper not only undermine the problem of evil but provide fruitful directions for future engagement with it.

The writing process:

The idea for this paper came up when I was reflecting on the varying ways that Kant’s philosophy, especially his anti-theodicy, could be applied to broader discussions in the problem of evil. During this reflection, I was helpfully encouraged to write an essay on sceptical theism by Prof. Tim Mawson for one of my tutorials.

This made me think about the connections between Kant’s philosophy and sceptical theism which, for those who know some of Kant, would seem like an obvious connection, which unfortunately has not been explored sufficiently. For this reason, I set out to explore the connections between Kant’s Critical project, which limits knowledge to make room for faith, and sceptical theism, which also recognises the limits of knowledge to undermine the problem of evil.

Through this reflection, I noticed that what was most helpful from Kant’s project was not actually his Critical project, but his emphasis on his pratical (moral) project, especially the unconditionality of morals. By beginning with practical theology, one is able to navigate some of sceptical theism’s main objections.

Thus, I put together this paper, beginning with a brief introduction to the relevant ideas from Kant, then I discussed how it can be formulated as a sceptical theist framework, then how it responds to the major challenges to sceptical theism.

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The submission process

A few words on the submission process which might be of interest to those who are in high school/ looking into publishing academic papers. This paper serves as a good illustration as it really shows the contingency and luck which arises in academic publications.

I first submitted this paper to Religious Studies, as it has published a lot concerning sceptical theism of late. However, the paper was sent to Kant experts for peer-review and was rejected on the grounds of insufficient Kant engagement. I do not have any problem with this, these are valid concerns, and I would not describe myself as a specialist Kant scholar. Their feedback was insightful and helped me develop the Kant section of the paper in more depth.

Then, I sent the paper to Faith and Philosophy, which, as of writing, has a turn around time of 1-2 months, which is very good (my reviews came back after a month and a half). This was accepted by scholars who were more focused on the sceptical theist contributions, than the Kant content.

I think the major take away from all of this is that the decision of peer-review is often based on the expertise (area of specialisation) of the reviewer. Especially when writing inter-disciplinarily, the paper is often reviewed by experts coming from a specific discipline (PoR for F&P and Kant for RS). While it is good to be knowledgable in all the disciplines that you engage with (as a mentor of mine always emphasises), there will always be aspects where an expert would know way better!

Which is, in other words, to say, don’t be disheartened if your paper is rejected, learn, do the extra reading that is recommended (these experts have kindly taken the time to inform you of areas of literature that you may have overlooked), then submit it to somewhere else!

I hope you found this insightful!

Future Research Directions

I will spend a section discussing some of the potential future research directions that I think this paper might lead to. Indeed, these are all directions that I might explore myself in future publications:

1. How does starting theology on the grounds of practical (moral) reasoning help our engagement with the problem of evil? (Indeed, I am presenting a paper on a topic relating to this at the upcoming ESPR in KU Leuven)
2. Are there any further non ad hoc ways for sceptical theists to mediate their scepticism of divine action/ justification?
3. Should philosophers of religion and theologians follow Kant in placing more emphasis on what we can learn from practical (moral) reasoning?
4. What is the apologetic value of practical (moral) reasoning? Can we establish more aspects of the Christian truth through practical reasoning than Kant initially lays out in Religion Within the Bounds of Mere Reason? (I am quite interested in this)
5. As a more joking note: Have I defeated the (evidential and common sense) problem of evil?

Publication process

This paper is currently in the works to be published in April 2027. However, I have attached the accepted (forthcoming) version below, stay tuned on the Faith and Philosophy journal website for updates and the print version!