Contrary to the commonly held position of Luis de Molina, Thomas Flint and others, I argue that counterfactuals of divine freedom are pre-volitional for God within the Molinist framework. That is, CDFs are not true even partly in virtue of some act of God’s will. As a result, I argue that the Molinist God fails to satisfy an epistemic openness requirement for rational deliberation, and thus she cannot rationally deliberate about which world to actualize.

Molinists hold that there are contingently true counterfactuals about what agents would do if put in specific circumstances, that God knows these prior to creation, and that God uses this knowledge in choosing how to create. In this essay we critique Molinism, arguing that if these theses were true, agents would not be free. Consider Eve’s sinning upon being tempted by a serpent. We argue that if Molinism is true, then there is some set of facts that fully explains both (...) Eve’s action and everything else Eve does that influences that action; and that if this is the case, Eve does not act freely. The first premise of this argument follows from the explanatory relations the Molinist is committed to, and the second premise follows from libertarian intuitions about free will. (shrink)

Theories of truthmaking have been introduced quite recently in epistemology. Having little to do with truth serums, or truths drugs, their concern is to define truth in terms of a certain relation between truthbearers and truthmakers. Those theories make an attempt to remedy what is supposed to be lacking in classical theories of truth, especially in Alfred Tarski’s semantic theory.

The English Neoplatonic philosopher Ralph Cudworth introduced the term ‘consciousness’ into the English philosophical lexicon. Cudworth uses the term to define the form and structure of cognitive acts, including acts of freewill. In this article I highlight the important role of theological disputes over the place and extent of human freewill within an overarching system of providence. Cudworth’s intellectual development can be understood in the main as an increasingly detailed and nuanced reaction to the strict voluntarist Calvinism that is typified (...) in the thought of his near contemporary William Perkins. At the heart of Cudworth’s rejection of Calvinism is the dilemma over whether God is understood primarily in terms of will or justice. In this fleshing-out of the power of consciousness Cudworth moves from an instrumental account of the working of the human mind towards an account of human consciousness that is intrinsic to his definition of human agency. (shrink)

(No abstract is available for this citation).

Recently, several philosophers have moved from a classical account of divine omniscience according to which God knows all truths to a restricted account of divine omniscience according to which God knows all knowable truths. But an important objection offered by Alexander Pruss threatens to show that if God knows all knowable truths, God must also know all truths. In this paper, I show that there is a way out of Pruss’s objection for the advocate of restricted omniscience if she will (...) define her view in terms of ways of knowing rather than in terms of logical possibilities. (shrink)

It is sometimes supposed that, in principle, we cannot offer an explanation for why there is something rather than nothing. I argue that this supposition is a mistake, and stems from a needlessly myopic conception of the form explanations can legitimately take. After making this more general point, I proceed to offer a speculative suggestion regarding one sort of explanation which can in principle serve as an answer to the question “why is there something rather than nothing?” The suggestion is (...) that there may be something rather than nothing in virtue of the truth of certain sorts of subjunctive conditionals. (shrink)

It is widely agreed that the ‘Logical’ Argument from Evil (LAFE) is bankrupt. We aim to rehabilitate the LAFE, in the form of what we call the Normatively Relativised Logical Argument from Evil (NRLAFE). There are many different versions of a NRLAFE. We aim to show that one version, what we call the ‘right relationship’ NRLAFE, poses a significant threat to personal-omniGod-theism—understood as requiring the belief that there is an omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good person who has created our world—because it (...) appeals to value commitments theists themselves are likely to endorse. The ultimate success of this NRLAFE will rest on developing a theological ethics of right relationship that rejects as morally flawed the exercise of omnipotence first to sustain horrors and then to redeem them. Yet a vindicated NRLAFE of this sort need not require atheism, but only rejection of the standard conception of God as a personal omniGod. (shrink)

On the assumption that theistic religious commitment takes place in the face of evidential ambiguity, the question arises under what conditions it is permissible to make a doxastic venture beyond one’s evidence in favour of a religious proposition. In this paper I explore the implications for orthodox theistic commitment of adopting, in answer to that question, a modest, moral coherentist, fideism. This extended Jamesian fideism crucially requires positive ethical evaluation of both the motivation and content of religious doxastic ventures. I (...) suggest that, even though the existence of horrendous evil does not resolve evidential ambiguity in favour of atheism, there are reasonable value commitments that would preclude those who hold them from satisfying extended Jamesian fideist conditions for committing themselves to classical theism. I then begin a discussion of a possible revisionary theistic alternative (in the Christian tradition) which – one might hope – may meet those conditions. An earlier, shorter, version of this paper was delivered as a keynote address at the APA Pacific 2007 Mini-Conference on Models of God. (shrink)

Unlike versions of open theism that appeal to the alethic openness of the future, defenders of limited foreknowledge open theism (hereafter LFOT) affirm that some propositions concerning future contingents are presently true. Thus, there exist truths that are unknown to God, so God is not omniscient simpliciter. LFOT requires modal definitions of divine omniscience such that God knows all truths that are logically knowable. Defenders of LFOT have yet to provide an adequate response to Richard Purtill’s argument that fatalism logically (...) follows from the omnitemporality of truth. Hasker believes a distinction between hard and soft facts prevents fatalism, but I argue that his defense fails in light of arguments involving divine necessity. Additionally, I point out that Hasker’s philosophy of language concerning divine names faces problems that cannot be overcome, given the versions of the dilemma of freedom and foreknowledge that motivate LFOT. Thus, contra Hasker, Swinburne, and van Inwagen, open theism necessitates the alethic openness of the future. (shrink)

ابوالبرکات بغدادی یکی از فیلسوفانی است که علم پیشین الهی به آینده را انکار کرده و این دیدگاه او متأثر از نگاهش به نحوۀ تحقق علم، تجدد اراده در خداوند، و انتساب زمانمندی به اوست. همچنین، در میان مکاتب الهیاتی نوین، خداباوری گشوده نیز قائل به گشودگی آینده و نفی علم پیشین الهی است. الهی‌دانان گشوده برای رسیدن به این اعتقاد نظریۀ علم مطلق پویا را مطرح کرده و تجربۀ زمان را به خداوند نسبت داده‌اند. پس از بررسی دیدگاه ابوالبرکات (...) بغدادی و الهی‌دانان گشوده در مسئلۀ علم پیشین خداوند، می‌توان پی برد که انتساب زمانمندی به خداوند و انفعالی دانستن علم الهی از جمله زمینه‌های لازم برای نفی علم پیشین الهی از سوی این دو بوده و منجر به پذیرش گشودگی علّی و معرفتی آینده توسط قائلین به الهیات گشوده شده است. پژوهش حاضر به بررسی مشابهت دیدگاه ابوالبرکات و الهیات گشوده در نفی علم پیشین الهی می‌پردازد و این موضع را مورد ارزیابی قرار خواهد داد. (shrink)

در پاسخ به مسئلۀ ناسازگاری میان مشیت مطلق الهی و آزادی مخلوقات، مولینیزم نظریه علم میانی را مطرح می‌کند، نظریه‌ای که با فرض علم خداوند به شرطی‌های خلاف واقعِ آزادی ادعا می‌کند که می‌توان بدون حذف یکی از طرفین مسئله فوق را حل نمود. بدین نحو که خداوند با علم به این شرطی‌ها و بالفعل کردن مقدم آنها می‌داند که مخلوقات، آزادانه چه فعلی را محقق خواهند کرد. لذا بدین طریق هم آزادی مخلوقات حفظ می‌گردد و هم مشیت خداوند که (...) عبارت است از علم پیشین و کنترل او بر افعال مخلوقات. نوشتۀ پیش رو سعی دارد نشان دهد از آنجا که عدم تغییرپذیری خداوند یکی از مفروضات اصلی مولینیزم است، لذا این دیدگاه نمی‌تواند صفت اراده را به خداوند نسبت دهد، زیرا صفت اراده برای مولینیزم امری است دوسویه که مستلزم حرکت از امکان به سمت فعلیت است و این امر معنایی جز پذیرش تغییر در ذات الهی ندارد. در پایان استدلال خواهیم کرد که چون معلومات شرطی نیازمند بالفعل شدن توسط اراده الهی هستند، در نتیجه طرح شرطی‌های خلاف واقع در داخل علم الهی طرحی ناموفق است و بحث پیرامون صدقِ آن کمک شایانی در حل مسئله فوق نمی‌کند. (shrink)

This book launches a sustained defense of a radical interpretation of the doctrine of the open future. Patrick Todd argues that all claims about undetermined aspects of the future are simply false.

According to typical ought-implies-can principles, if you have an obligation to vaccinate me tomorrow, then you can vaccinate me tomorrow. Such principles are uninformative about conditional obligations: what if you only have an obligation to vaccinate me tomorrow if you synthesize a vaccine today? Then maybe you cannot vaccinate me tomorrow ; what you can do instead, I propose, is make it the case that the conditional obligation is not violated. More generally, I propose the ought-implies-can-obey principle: an agent has (...) an obligation only at times at which the agent can obey the obligation. I also propose another principle, which captures the idea that ‘ought’ implies ‘can avoid’. I defend both principles mainly by arguing that they help explain why agents lose obligations, including conditional ones. (shrink)

This book discusses fundamental topics on contemporary Ockhamism. The collected essays show how contemporary Ockhamism can impact areas of research such as semantics, metaphysics and also the philosophy of science. In addition, the volume hosts one historian of Medieval philosophy who investigates the way in which William of Ockham “in flesh and bone” construed time and, more generally, future contingency. The essays explore the different meanings of this theory. They cover three main topics, in particular. The first examines the thesis (...) that sentences and propositions about the future have a definite truth value, without any ensuing commitment to determinism or fatalism. The second topic looks at the problem whether the branching-time model needs to countenance a privileged branch (the so-called Thin Red Line). Finally, the third topic considers the idea that there are so-called soft facts. These would be the subject matter of sentences and propositions verbally about the present or the past, but metaphysically about a later time, and which might change in the future. Overall, the book provides an updated and rigorous idea of the debate about Ockhamism. It gives readers a deeper understanding into this philosophical approach influenced by William of Ockham, characterized by the rejection of the Aristotelian idea that, in order to preserve the contingency of the future, future contingents must be deemed neither true nor false. (shrink)

Sometimes you make a choice. Whether or not you made it was up to you. The choice was free. But how can this be? A scientific view of the world may leave no room for free choice. Free will literature continually explodes. Yet experts still focus on control or on a power to do otherwise. Sadly, they neglect another intuitive feature of free will: being an underived source or ultimate originator. When acting freely, one is a self-determined, self-directed, sole author (...) of change. Surprisingly, though the literature is replete with this pre-theoretic feature of free will, virtually no one makes rigorous use of it when constructing arguments. Equipped with fresh research, this book contends that agent-causation—currently an unpopular theory—deserves serious reconsideration. Only agent-causation accounts for ultimate origination, and popular objections fail under rigorous scrutiny. This book is tightly argued. It challenges and deepens recent advances in free will scholarship made by Peter van Inwagen, Robert Kane, Carl Ginet, Randy Clarke, Stewart Goetz, Tim O’Connor, and others. (shrink)

We care not only about what experiences we have, but when we have them too. However, on the B-theory of time, something’s timing isn’t an intrinsic way for that thing to be or become. Given B-theory, should we be rationally indifferent about the timing per se of an experience? In this paper, I argue that B-theorists can justify time-biased preferences for pains to be past rather than present and for pleasures to be present rather than past. In support of this (...) argument, I appeal to the doctrine of temporal parts or “four-dimensionalism” for short. When held in conjunction with a certain evaluative principle about whose experiences matter, four-dimensionalism reconciles B-theory with some time-biased preferences. (shrink)

یکی از نظریات بسیار مهم و چالش‌برانگیز خداباوری گشوده، دیدگاه خاص آن درباره صفت علم مطلق الهی است. خداباوری گشوده اذعان دارد که خدا عالم مطلق است، اما با این قید که علم خدا به افعال اختیاری که انسان در آینده انجام می‌دهد تعلق نمی‌گیرد. پذیرش اختیار مطلق برای انسان توسط خداباوران گشوده و پذیرش تعارض میان «افعال اختیاری انسان در آینده» با «علم پیشینی خداوند» سبب شده است که آنها علم پیشینی خدا به این افعال را انکار کنند. در (...) عین حال، از نظر آنان عدم علم پیشینی خداوند به این نوع افعال، خدشه‌ای به علم مطلق او وارد نمی‌کند. خداباوران گشوده با ذکر انواع دیدگاه‌ها درباره علم خدا و بیان اشکالاتی که در این نظریات وجود دارد، دیدگاه خاص خودشان را اثبات می‌کنند و این دیدگاه را هم به لحاظ منطقی-فلسفی سازوارتر و هم به لحاظ مبتنی بودن بر کتاب مقدس سازگارتر می‌دانند. آنها، در یک تقسیم رایج و کلی، سه دیدگاه را قسیم دیدگاه خودشان می‌دانند که عبارت‌اند از «علم بسیط یا صرف»، «علم میانی» و «دیدگاه آگوستینی-کالونی». مدافعان خداباوری گشوده بعد از بیان اشکالات وارد بر هر کدام از این نظریات، که غالباً بر محدود شدن اختیار انسان، یا تعارض با کتاب مقدس تکیه دارند، نظریه خاص خودشان را تثبیت می‌کنند. (shrink)

Argues that divine timelessness is at best irrelevant and at worst counterproductive for addressing the problem of foreknowledge and future contingents.

Compares and contrasts Open Theism with Theological Determinism, Molinism, and Process Theism.

Thomas Bradwardine (d. 1349) was an English philosopher, logician, and theologian of some note; but though recent scholarship has revived an interest in much of his work, little attention has been paid to an early treatise he wrote on the topic of future contingents, entitled De futuris contingentibus. In this thesis I aim to address this deficit, arguing in particular that the treatise makes original use of the divine power distinction to resolve the apparent conflict between God’s foreknowledge on the (...) one hand, and human free will on the other. Bradwardine argues that God’s foreknowledge operates in accord with God’s ordained power, and so relative to God’s ordained power, our actions are indeed compelled; however, because of Bradwardine’s appeal to the distinction in power, he is able to maintain that our actions remain free relative to God’s absolute power, and are thus free, absolutely speaking. This solution is, I argue, unique to Bradwardine, although it seems to be abandoned in his later writing. Bradwardine’s approach to the problem is heavily influenced by three figures in particular — Boethius, Anselm of Canterbury, and John Duns Scotus — each of whose solutions I discuss in some detail. Furthermore, Bradwardine explicitly places his own solution in opposition to that of William Ockham, and so I give substantial attention to examining Ockham’s position. But while I agree with Bradwardine’s assessment that Ockham’s position undermines God’s foreknowledge in ways that should be untenable to someone of 14th-century Christian commitments, I argue that Bradwardine’s solution amounts to an equally untenable determinism. An appendix contains excerpts from my own English translation of the De futuris contingentibus (the first into any modern language), in parallel with the original Latin. (shrink)

This thesis philosophically examines, critically discusses, and proposes how a plausible philosophical framework of consciousness and free will should be formulated. This framework takes into account contemporary scientific research on human consciousness and free will and its possible challenges; also it is examined how this framework should be related to theistic beliefs – especially those connected to human and divine consciousness and free will. First, an overview of important research within the natural sciences about the conscious mind is presented together (...) with its challenges to a theistic worldview. Next, questions related to reductive physicalism and dualism as a thesis and an antithesis are discussed. This dialectical approach leads to two lines for possible alternatives: emergence theories and process panpsychism. The subsequent analysis suggests that a form of process panpsychism in combination with a weaker form of emergence is most plausible. After a discussion of some central ideas about determinism and indeterminism, together with a brief overview of standard arguments within the philosophical free will debate, the proposed emergent process panpsychism is related to these standard arguments in the free will debate and scientific research about decision-making. As a result it will be suggested how free will should be understood in relation to the emergent process panpsychism. The consequences of these results are then discussed in relation to a theistic worldview. Here panentheism will be suggested as the most reasonable conception of God. Also, the consequences for divine consciousness, divine action and interaction, the human soul, life before birth and after death, and more briefly a personal relationship with God, theological determinism, omniscience, and omnipotence will be discussed specifically in relation to panentheism in an emergent process panpsychist setting. (shrink)

The Abrahamic traditions regard God as the world’s author. But what kind of author? A novelist? A playwright? Perhaps a composer of classical music? I will argue that it is best to regard God as like an improvisational play director or the leader of a jazz ensemble. Each determines the broad melodic contours or coarse-grained plot beforehand, while allowing their musicians or actors, and chance, to fill in the more fine-grained details. This analogy allows us to regard God as the (...) ultimate author of this world, while allowing us to be, while less than co-authors, more than mere enactors of a pre-written piece. These metaphors are particularly well-suited to illustrate and flesh out an Open Theistic view of things. (shrink)

Classical theism has long affirmed impassibility to be both a philosophically sound and scripturally warranted attribute of God. An affirmation of this attribute of divine apatheia is found in the works of theologians and philosophers of classical Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. However, over the last century, there has been a significant shift away from this tradition of divine impassibility. Divine impassibility has been challenged from many quarters, especially from Protestant Christianity, as a doctrine foreign to the scriptures of Abrahamic monotheism (...) and philosophically incompatible with a scriptural conception of God as personal, reactive, and relational. Many of the critics of divine impassibility suggest that there is a dilemma for these monotheists: that God may be impassible and yet unable to engage in personal, pathic, or relational ways with creation as the scriptures of the Judaism, Christianity, and Islam suggest, or that God may indeed express some pathos and reactivity but may no longer be understood to be impassible. In this work, I argue that this dilemma is a false one and that a third way, or via media, is possible. In support of the proposal I offer, I provide a critical analysis of impassibilist and passibilist arguments on historical, philosophical, and theological grounds. I demonstrate that strong affirmations of either position are indeed untenable, and in their places I propose a model of divine interaction based on an energetic kenoticism. In the via media offered below, I argue that we may yet retain a robust notion of divine impassibility in the essence or ousia of God, while allowing for a fuller account of divine pathos, reactivity, and interaction with creation via the kenotic and self-limiting divine energies. In this way, we may retain many of the classical commitments regarding the nature of God and yet provide more room to speak to these scriptural accounts of God’s interaction in the cosmos. (shrink)

John Martin Fischer’s core project in Our Fate (2016) is to develop and defend Pike-style arguments for theological incompatibilism, i. e., for the view that divine omniscience is incompatible with human free will. Against Ockhamist attacks on such arguments, Fischer maintains that divine forebeliefs constitute so-called hard facts about the times at which they occur, or at least facts with hard ‘kernel elements’. I reconstruct Fischer’s argument and outline its structural analogies with an argument for logical fatalism. I then point (...) out some of the costs of Fischer’s reasoning that come into focus once we notice that the set of hard facts is closed under entailment. (shrink)

ویلیام هاسکر یکی از چهره‌های مهم خداباوری گشوده است. شاخصۀ خداباوری گشوده انکار معرفت پیشین خداوند به افعال اختیاری آیندۀ انسان است. هاسکر تحلیل خاصی از اراده آزاد ناتعین‌گرایانه در ذهن دارد و برای دفاع از این مفهوم دست به تعدیل مفهوم علم مطلق الهی می‌زند و از این طریق استدلال تقدیرگرایی الهیاتی را به استدلالی به نفع ناسازگاری اختیار و معرفت پیشین تبدیل می‌کند. او با ارائۀ تحلیل خاص خودش دربارۀ تمایز واقعیات سخت/نرم، دفاع از اصول استلزام قدرت، و (...) نفی قدرت عام نشان می‌دهد معرفت پیشین خدا مستلزم آن است که انسان نتواند قدرت ترک فعلی که خدا بدان علم دارد را داشته باشد. در این صورت یکی از لوازم اصلی اراده آزاد ناتعین‌گرایانه یعنی اصل امکان‌های بدیل محقق نخواهد شد، و این مستلزم نقض اختیار انسان است. اما مثال‌ نقض هری فرانکفورت تقریری را که هاسکر از PAP ارائه کرده ابطال می‌کند، و به همین دلیل رویکرد گشوده هاسکر با مشکل مواجه است. (shrink)

ویلیام هاسکر یکی از چهره‌های مهم خداباوری گشوده است. شاخصۀ خداباوری گشوده انکار معرفت پیشین خداوند به افعال اختیاری آیندۀ انسان است. هاسکر تحلیل خاصی از اراده آزاد ناتعین‌گرایانه در ذهن دارد و برای دفاع از این مفهوم دست به تعدیل مفهوم علم مطلق الهی می‌زند و از این طریق استدلال تقدیرگرایی الهیاتی را به استدلالی به نفع ناسازگاری اختیار و معرفت پیشین تبدیل می‌کند. او با ارائۀ تحلیل خاص خودش دربارۀ تمایز واقعیات سخت/نرم، دفاع از اصول استلزام قدرت، و (...) نفی قدرت عام نشان می‌دهد معرفت پیشین خدا مستلزم آن است که انسان نتواند قدرت ترک فعلی که خدا بدان علم دارد را داشته باشد. در این صورت یکی از لوازم اصلی اراده آزاد ناتعین‌گرایانه یعنی اصل امکان‌های بدیل محقق نخواهد شد، و این مستلزم نقض اختیار انسان است. اما مثال‌ نقض هری فرانکفورت تقریری را که هاسکر از PAP ارائه کرده ابطال می‌کند، و به همین دلیل رویکرد گشوده هاسکر با مشکل مواجه است. (shrink)