The goal of this paper is to defend open theism vis-à-vis its main competitors within the family of broadly classical theisms, namely, theological determinism and the various forms of non-open free-will theism, such as Molinism and Ockhamism. After isolating two core theses over which open theists and their opponents differ, I argue for the open theist position on both points. Specifically, I argue against theological determinists that there are future contingents. And I argue against non-open free-will theists that future contingency (...) is incompatible with the future’s being epistemically settled for God. This paper is a follow-up to the author’s Rhoda (Religious Studies, 2008) which was delivered during the APA Pacific 2007 Mini-Conference on Models of God. (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)

If God knew I were going to write this paper, was I able to refrain from writing it this morning? One possible response to this question is that God's knowledge does not take place in time and therefore He does not properly fore-know. According to this response, God knows absolutely everything, it's just that He knows everything outside of time. The so-called timeless solution was one of the influential responses to the foreknowledge problem in classical Christian Theology. This solution, however, (...) seemed to lose support in the recent debate. For example, Pike claims that "the doctrine of God's timelessness entered Christian Theology because Platonic thought was stylish at the time" and Hasker catalogues this as one of the minor solutions to the problem. One possible source for this general attitude towards timelessness is the thought that the very idea of timelessness is incoherent. In this paper I argue that that the timeless solution to the foreknowledge problem is congenial with the supervaluationist theory of branching time and that this formal framework provides, in fact, a precise characterization of the timeless solution to the foreknowledge problem. The views presented in this paper are in line with those of Kretzmann and Stump, Leftow and De Florio and Frigerio. (shrink)

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

Most libertarians think that some version of the Principle of Alternative Possibilities (PAP) is true. A number of libertarians, which I call ‘Frankfurt-libertarians,’ think that they need not embrace any version of PAP. In this paper, I examine the writings of one such Frankfurt-libertarian, Eleonore Stump, for her evaluation of the impact of Frankfurt-style counterexamples (FSCs) to PAP. I show how, contrary to her own claims, Stump does need a PAP-like principle for her account of free action. I briefly argue (...) that this discussion also goes some distance to showing that any Frankfurt-libertarian is in a similar position regarding the need for some PAP-like principle. If I am correct, then Frankfurt-libertarians must either renounce their incompatibilism or concede that FSCs fail to show all PAP-like principles to be false. (shrink)

According to Michael Almeida, reflections on free will and possibility can be used to show that the existence of an Anselmian God is compatible with the existence of evil. These arguments depend on the assumption that an agent can be free with respect to an action only if it is possible that that agent performs that action. Although this principle enjoys some intuitive support, I argue that Anselmianism undermines these intuitions by introducing impossible options. If Anselmianism is true, I argue, (...) then both God and creatures may be free to do the impossible. (shrink)