Followup infrared spectroscopy is reported for V1647 Ori, a young star whose recent eruption illuminated McNeil's Nebula. Lines of HI, H2, and CO are compared to previous observations. We find that the accretion rate fell two orders of magnitude and the CO bandheads disappeared at the end of the outburst. We also report a striking metamorphosis of the fundamental CO spectrum from centrally peaked profiles to emission lines with superimposed blue-shifted absorption lines and back again one year later. This remarkable change in spectral appearance indicates that the system did not return to equilibrium immediately following the outburst. In this paper we propose a mechanism to explain the emergence of a transient post-outburst outflow.

Ian Ramsey (1915–1972) had a significant impact on analytical philosophy of religion in the second half of the twentieth century. This article claims that one of his early articles, “The Systematic Elusiveness of ‘I’,” and the passing comments on Thomas Aquinas in his most famous work, Religious Language (1957), are keys to understanding his contributions. Though his work is out of vogue with many philosophers of religion today, he anticipated a number of significant developments in philosophy and his work remains used by and useful for systematic theologians.

This essay argues that “essentializing” history and theology is less useful as an approach to the problems of “faith” and “history” than a more piecemeal and pragmatic approach. It begins by invoking the intellectual virtues learned in communities of character. It analyzes role-specific responsibilities of historians and argues for evaluating historical claims in terms of historians' execution of their professional responsibilities, rather than in terms of the presuppositions they bring to their work. It examines a recent controversy involving the Catholic Theological Society of America and argues that serious confusions in that dispute about the practices of history and theology can be overcome using the approach advocated here. It concludes by arguing that overcoming specific conflicts between historical and religious claims requires exercising one of the virtues of the mind, phronēsis, and by showing how the constructivist epistemology ingredient in this approach is appropriate for a Catholic theologian.

After being dismissed for decades in philosophical theology, experiential arguments for the justification of religious belief, including belief in God, have again come to centre stage. One of the most thorough of these is William Alston's recent study, Perceiving God. Alston's purpose is to show that it is rational for someone to participate in what he calls Christian Mystical Practice (CMP) because CMP ‘is a socially established doxastic practice that is not demonstrably unreliable or otherwise disqualified for rational acceptance’ and to hold beliefs which that participation reliably generates. The thesis of this essay is that his individuation of mystical practices is not sufficiently nuanced. Once his naturalistic approach is brought more closely into line with actual practices, what he calls CMP splinters into multiple practices. A more complete account requires a more pluralistic understanding of the Christian traditions than Alston acknowledges.