FEMINIST PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION87Farrer’s first book, Finite and Infinite
(1943) was written, by his own admission,
while he was “possessed by the Thomist
vision, and could not think it false.” But
Farrer’s relation to Thomism was com-
plex and indirect, and he is perhaps best
thought of as an original metaphysician
who used—for his own purposes—
certain Thomistic themes such as the
uniqueness of God and the consequent
need for analogy in reference to deity, the
technical language of being and sub-
stance, and a preference for cosmological
over ontological reasoning. Farrer’s sec-
ond major philosophical text, The Free-
dom of the Will (1958), was less Thomistic
and more indebted to contemporary
British linguistic philosophy, although his
arguments against determinism and in
defense of libertarian free will were dis-
tinctive. Love Almighty and Ills Unlimited
(1962) put forward a theodicy for natural
evils, and A Science of God? (1966)
defended the compatibility between the-
istic belief and science, particularly bio-
logical evolution. Farrer’s last book, Faith
and Speculation (1967), attempts to sum-
marize and revise his previous work in
light of criticism and further reflection.
Among many themes, it is perhaps most
noted for articulating a “double-agency”
view of divine action, in which God
acts through created finite agents without
compromising their own character and
integrity. In terms of theology, Farrer
belonged to the Anglo-Catholic wing of
the Church of England and wrote numer-
ous essays on various doctrinal topics.
Perhaps his most creative book in this
area was The Glass of Vision (1948), in
which he articulated a theory of divine
revelation through images (rather than
propositions or events) and which also
contains an important defense of the
role of imagination and “wit” in human
reason.FATE / FATALISM. One’s fate is one’s
destiny, and fatalism is the view that one’s
fate is fixed or predetermined so that any
acts to alter the inevitable future are done
in vain. See also DETERMINISM.FEMINIST PHILOSOPHY OF RELI-
GION. “Feminist” is an attribute increas-
ingly applied to both women and men
who are bound together in gender map-
pings of the Anglo-American field of
philosophy of religion across the bound-
aries of different religions, and between
theism and atheism. Feminist philoso-
phers of religion seek greater philosophi-
cal, religious, and gender integrity in all
argumentation, engaging women philos-
ophers, not only men. A gap remains
between the dominant works in philoso-
phy of religion and the new directions
taken in feminist philosophy of religion.
For instance, feminist debates about
the injustice of our epistemic practices
remain hidden from the philosophical
mainstream, while the latter can appear
blind to salient material and social differ-
ences in their own philosophical thinking.