Rik Peels ( 2016 ) treats divine repentance as a biblical theme and presents this theme as a paradox in which divine repentance, divine omniscience and divine moral perfect goodness are an inconsistent triad. To solve this paradox, Peels suggests that God does not know about some of his own future acts, and distinguishes his solution from open theism, although he accepts that open theism can also escape the paradox. In this work, I criticize Peels’ account of divine repentance from (...) an open theist perspective. My first criticism concerns his dismissal of open theism as an untenable account of divine omniscience. In my second criticism, I point out that the philosophical motivations of open theism entail its success in dealing with the paradox. On the other hand, I argue that Peels’ account of divine repentance is philosophically unmotivated, and as an ad hoc solution to the paradox, it undermines God’s omniscience and subordinates it to divine repentance. In my third criticism, I address three implications that Peels attributes to his view. I emphasize that these implications have been described by open theists as strengths of their view, and compare Peels’ account and open theism in relation to them. (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)

Various philosophers have long since been attracted to the doctrine that future contingent propositions systematically fail to be true—what is sometimes called the doctrine of the open future. However, open futurists have always struggled to articulate how their view interacts with standard principles of classical logic—most notably, with the Law of Excluded Middle. For consider the following two claims: Trump will be impeached tomorrow; Trump will not be impeached tomorrow. According to the kind of open futurist at issue, both of (...) these claims may well fail to be true. According to many, however, the disjunction of these claims can be represented as p ∨ ~p—that is, as an instance of LEM. In this essay, however, I wish to defend the view that the disjunction these claims cannot be represented as an instance of p ∨ ~p. And this is for the following reason: the latter claim is not, in fact, the strict negation of the former. More particularly, there is an important semantic distinction between the strict negation of the first claim [~] and the latter claim. However, the viability of this approach has been denied by Thomason, and more recently by MacFarlane and Cariani and Santorio, the latter of whom call the denial of the given semantic distinction “scopelessness”. According to these authors, that is, will is “scopeless” with respect to negation; whereas there is perhaps a syntactic distinction between ‘~Will p’ and ‘Will ~p’, there is no corresponding semantic distinction. And if this is so, the approach in question fails. In this paper, then, I criticize the claim that will is “scopeless” with respect to negation. I argue that will is a so-called “neg-raising” predicate—and that, in this light, we can see that the requisite scope distinctions aren’t missing, but are simply being masked. The result: a under-appreciated solution to the problem of future contingents that sees and as contraries, not contradictories. (shrink)

There is a familiar debate between Russell and Strawson concerning bivalence and ‘the present King of France’. According to the Strawsonian view, ‘The present King of France is bald’ is neither true nor false, whereas, on the Russellian view, that proposition is simply false. In this paper, I develop what I take to be a crucial connection between this debate and a different domain where bivalence has been at stake: future contingents. On the familiar ‘Aristotelian’ view, future contingent propositions are (...) neither true nor false. However, I argue that, just as there is a Russellian alternative to the Strawsonian view concerning ‘the present King of France’, according to which the relevant class of propositions all turn out false, so there is a Russellian alternative to the Aristotelian view, according to which future contingents all turn out false, not neither true nor false. The result: contrary to millennia of philosophical tradition, we can be open futurists without denying bivalence. (shrink)

Paper on divine foreknowledge and human freedom.

Dans le présent article, on analyse l’assertion, avancée par Jan Łukasiewicz, que la véracité ou la fausseté des propositions portant sur les événements futurs contingents implique le déterminisme. Pour éviter le déterminisme, il faut, selon Łukasiewicz, rejeter la logique classique (binaire) et remplacer cette logique par la logique polyvalente (trivalente). La conception défendue par Łukasiewicz est examinée en rapport avec la thèse proposée par Susan Haack, selon laquelle la véracité des propositions portant sur les événements futurs n’implique aucun déterminisme. Dans (...) l’article, je démontre que le point de vue de Susan Haack est erroné, car elle ne prend pas en considération toutes les prémisses admises par Łukasiewicz. La prémisse la plus importante concerne la sémantique des verbes du futur. Or, j’essaie de prouver que Łukasiewicz s’appuie sur la sémantique dite peircienne et non ockhamienne. J’essaie de prouver que si on prend en considération la prémisse concernant les verbes du futur, le raisonnement qui a mené Jan Łukasiewicz à créer la logique trivalente s’avère correct.Dans la dernière partie de l’article, je signale que la logique trivalente proposée par Łukasiewicz pose certaines difficultés et je postule la nécessité de trouver, dans l’avenir, une autre solution du problème de la valeur logique des phrases sur le futur. (shrink)