ABSTRACT
The topic of thought experiments intersects with theology in a number of ways. Six intersection points will be discussed in what follows. (1) Thought experiments have been dismissed as an ill-founded method in ethics on theological grounds. (2) They have been compared to theological reasoning in order to support the view that they are absolutely useless as sources of evidence. (3) In contrast, others have used the fact that thought experiments arise in both theology and science as an argument to the effect that theology is methodologically rational in some of the same ways that science is. (4) Intriguing are the connections between thought experiments and theology that emerge from discussions concerning their literary aspects. (5) The claim that philosophy would be severely impoverished without thought experiments is supported by examples from philosophical theology. (6) Finally, revealed theology – to be distinguished from philosophical theology – has added its own examples of thought experiments. A discussion of these examples can raise new questions, or help to address some of the questions already raised in the philosophical analysis of thought experiments.
