What distinguishes a true faith from a fake faith? The fact that the believers of the fake faith themselves do not really believe in the truth of the propositions they formulate but are part of a community of people who believe in the same propositions? If so, all faiths would perhaps be fictions. What distinguishes faith from fictions believed by many, from common legends? What are the epistemological criteria, if any, for distinguishing authentic from fake faiths?  Some kind of evidence, or the mere fact that in authentic faiths the propositions of faith are believed to be true? But all other faiths are regarded as untrue, as fictions, by believers of a given faith. For any given (theistic) faith, the ultimate object of assent is God. What is God's nature, then? Are there any conceptions and models of God that are generally worthy of assent and capable of being considered true, also by members of different religions?

Fake Faiths: God, Beliefs and the Rationality of Assent

Day 1, July 3rd 2023 Faith, Belief and Assent

Chair: Marta Borgo (Lucerne)

9.00-09.30 Giovanni Ventimiglia (Welcome)
09.30-10.45 Roberto di Ceglie (Vatican City) Faith, Charity and the Spiritual turn in epistemology
10.45-11.15 Coffee Break
11.15-12.30 Amber Griffioen (DukeKunshian University) Making-Believe without Making Believe: Faith, Authenticity, and the Religious Imagination
12.30-14.00 Lunch Break
14.00-15.15 Katherine Dormandy (Innsbruck) On Whose authority? Religious Evidentialism
15.15-15.45 Coffee Break
15.45-16.45 Graduate-undergraduate student session 
19.00 Dinner

Day 2, July 4th 2023 God, the object of faith
Chair: Dario Affronti (Lucerne)

09.30-10.45 R.T. Mullins (Lucerne, Palm Beach) Should I trust an impassible God?
10.45-11.15 Coffee Break
11.15-12.30 Tasia Scrutton (Leeds) Relational agency and spiritual well-being: an argument for Denisian passibilism
12.30-14.00 Lunch Break
14.00-15.15 Simon Hewitt (Leeds) Apophaticism as a therapeutic philosophy of religion
15.15-15.45 Coffee Break
15.45-16.45 Graduate Student Session
19.00 Dinner 

Day 3, July 5th, 2023 Faith and Assent in the History of Philosophy
Chair: Marta Borgo (Lucerne)

09.30-10.45 Behnam Zolghadr (Munich) Al-Ḫūnaǧī and Speaking about The Impossible 
10.45-11.15 Coffee Break
11.15-12.30 Ursula Schumacher (Lucerne) and Giovanni Ventimiglia (Lucerne) Faith and Assent: Thomas Aquinas and the Christian tradition 
12.30-14.00 Lunch Break
14.00-15.00 Graduate Student session
15.15-15.30 Coffee Break
15.30-16.30 Graduate Student session
16.30-17.30 Graduate Student session

19.00 Dinner

Throughout the whole conference, there will be presentations by undergraduate and graduate students.