The special issue The Existence and Nature of God: Contributions from Latin America collects a selection of seven papers of Latin American philosophers concerning the existence and nature of God. Between 2019 and 2022 twenty projects were funded by the John Templeton Foundation, supporting the research of more than thirty philosophers in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Uruguay. It is not easy to characterize precisely what is or might be a Latin American perspective on philosophy of religion. Latin American culture has been from its beginning a mestizo culture that integrates a European Christian heritage with an indigenous frame of mind. In many parts of Latin America there is also a strong African influence. So, multiculturality and pluralism of perspectives are not novelties. They have been the base situation from the foundation of the young mestizo societies across the Andes, on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, or in the La Plata River basin. It is also worth noting that there is a Latin American philosophical and theological production since, at least, the sixteenth century. The first universities in Lima (Peru 1551), Mexico (1553), and Salvador de Bahía (Brazil, 1553) had chairs of Philosophy and Theology from their inceptions. These were followed by other institutions in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil, 1567), Bogotá (Colombia, 1580), Córdoba (Argentina, 1613), and Santiago (Chile, 1622). So, it is no surprise, for example, that an important part of the production in philosophy of religion is still today a philosophical discussion that begins with a contemporary appropriation of Thomas Aquinas. There is a tradition of four centuries of reflection in philosophical theology and metaphysics that is alive nowadays.

The articles in this special issue show this diversity of perspectives, the importance of the received Latin American tradition, as well as the impact that modern science has for our worldview. They can be divided into three groups dealing with three main topics. The works of the first group address the justification of theistic belief (Bertato, Warman and de Brasi, Silvestre). The works of the second group consider the nature of God and its consequences (Huneeus, Spica). The articles of the third group examine the impact and value of natural science for our understanding of God, and a theistic conception of reality (Silva and Recio, Marques Segundo, and also Warman and de Brasi).

In relation to the justification of theistic belief, Bertato, Warman and de Brasi, and Silvestre consider a range of issues from the a priori plausibility of the concept of ‘God’ to the kind of evidence that would be relevant for a justification. Ricardo Sousa Silvestre (‘Conceptual Plausibility and the Rationality of Theistic Belief’) develops a general framework to define and evaluate ‘conceptual plausibility’ as a form of modality between actuality and mere possibility. The degree of ‘plausibility’ is cashed out in terms of explanatory fertility. Silvestre argues that considerations of plausibility are a preparatory work for a full-blown defence of the existence of a case of the concept ‘God’. If Silvestre presents a way to assess the explanatory credentials of a concept in advance of any justification, Jack Warman and Leandro de Brasi (‘Scientism and the Value of Scientific Evidence for Religious Belief’) consider what the range of admissible evidence is for such a justification. They argue that there are forms of ‘personal’ evidence in the context of relationships like friendship. In many such cases, scientific evidence is not only out of the question, but could be inappropriate. According to Warman and de Brasi, this kind of epistemic situation happens in religious contexts when there are – or are perceived to be – personal relationships between the believer and God. The epistemic partiality of believers in such cases cannot be assessed as irrational. Fabio Maia Bertato, finally, discusses modal-epistemic arguments for theism (‘Modal-Epistemic Arguments for the Existence of God Based on the Possibility of Omniscience and/or the Refutation of Strong Agnosticism’). Many philosophers are inclined to admit the metaphysical possibility of omniscience, that is to say, the possibility that everything is known. Under certain modal assumptions, if one accepts additionally that the non-existence of God is not knowable, God’s existence can be derived. One cannot be agnostic and, at the same time, suppose that omniscience is possible. This argument follows from fairly modest modal premises.

In relation to the nature of God, Clemente Huneeus (‘The Functions of Natural Theology in Thomas Aquinas: A Presumption of Atheism?’) criticizes the idea that the nature of God should be elucidated prior to any justification of His existence or, at least, with independence to the assessment of His existence. It has been characteristic of ‘Perfect Being Theology’ to examine the coherence of the concept of ‘God’ before considering reasons to admit if there is something that exemplifies the concept. Huneeus, following some ideas based on Aquinas’s theology, argues that the concept of ‘God’ should be construed as a theoretical term individuated by its explanatory functions. Those explanatory functions cannot be identified independently of the reasons that justify the postulation of God as something whose existence is required precisely because of those functions. Marciano Adilio Spica, on the other hand, argues that religious pluralism follows from the nature of God (‘God’s Creativity and Religious Diversity: A Theistic Argument for a Transformative Pluralism’). If God is a being of infinite creativity and infinite power, it seems to follow that no finite revelation will be adequate to His nature. On the contrary, what is to be expected is a sequence of diverse revelations all mutually complementary.

The article by Ignacio Silva and Gonzalo Recio as well as the one by Marques Segundo address issues arising from scientific perspectives. To these works it should be added the contribution of Warman and de Brasi, to which we have already referred. Silva and Recio consider the general question concerning what the attitude of theologians and philosophers towards the results of natural science should be (‘Aquinas’s Science Engaged Theology’). The point of departure for their examination comes from a reflection about Aquinas’s engagement with the science of his day. Both in his time and today, the dialogue with empirical sciences can be very fruitful to theology (and to the sciences too – why not?). However, they also conclude that caution is recommended in those engagements, both in relation to thirteenth-century science, and in relation to twenty-first-century science. Scientific theories and scientific explanations change often. L.H. Marques Segundo (‘Darwin’s Doubt or Plantinga’s Conviction? Some Failures in Plantinga’s Attempt to Debunk Naturalistic Evolution’), finally, criticizes Plantinga’s contention that the probability of the development of reliable human cognition because of natural selection is low. According to Marques Segundo, Plantinga has rejected the naturalistic explanation considering only the chance of accurate singular cognitive acts, but reliability should be assessed in mechanisms that have a dispositional character.

The possibility of finding common denominators to such diverse articles is a sign that they perhaps are not that diverse. The same could also be said of Latin America, after all in that immense area basically only two similar languages are spoken (Spanish and Portuguese), and it is also homogeneous in religious terms, with a vast majority of Christians. In fact, there is nothing remarkably ‘Latin American’ in these contributions, except for the geographical origin of the authors. Nevertheless, we believe they are world-class contributions and hope this initiative can encourage more philosophers from that region of the world to participate in the international philosophy of religion debate.