This paper considers a problem that arises for free will defenses when considering the nature of God's own will. If God is perfectly good and performs praiseworthy actions, but is unable to do evil, then why must humans have the ability to do evil in order to perform such actions? This problem has been addressed by Theodore Guleserian, but at the expense of denying God's essential goodness. I examine and critique his argument and provide a solution to the initial problem (...) that does not require abandoning God's essential goodness. (shrink)

Many philosophers of theistic religions claim (1) that there are powerful a posteriori arguments for God’s existence that make it rational to believe that He exists and at the same time maintain (2) that God always has the freedom to do otherwise. In this article, I argue that these two positions are inconsistent because the empirical evidence on which the a posteriori arguments for God’s existence rest can be explained better by positing the existence of a God-like being without (...) the freedom to do otherwise. (shrink)

I examine three accounts of divine freedom. I argue that two recent accounts which attempt to explain God’s freedom without appealing to alternative possibilities fail. I then show how a view of divine freedom based on Robert Adams’s idea that God’s grace means he has no obligation to create the best world is able to explain how God can be free while also being perfectly good and perfectly rational.

William L. Rowe’s argument against divine freedom has drawn considerable attention from theist philosophers. One reply to Rowe’s argument that has emerged in the recent literature appeals to modified accounts of libertarian freedom which have the result that God may be free even if he necessarily actualizes the best possible world. Though in many ways attractive, this approach appears to lead to the damning consequence of modal collapse i.e., that the actual world is the only possible world. (...) But appearances can be deceiving, and in this paper I argue that the threat of modal collapse dissolves when we consider Alvin Plantinga’s critique of the purportedly Leibnizian notion that God can actualize any possible world, and incorporate the implications of this critique into the divine freedom debate. Developing a suggestion by Edward R. Wierenga, I argue first that the modal collapse objection fails within a Molinist context, and then I extend the discussion beyond that context to show that the objection also fails on the assumption that Molinism is false. (shrink)

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.

It is not uncommon to think that the existence of exhaustive and infallible divine foreknowledge uniquely threatens the existence of human freedom. This paper shows that this cannot be so. For, to uniquely threaten human freedom, infallible divine foreknowledge would have to make an essential contribution to an explanation for why our actions are not up to us. And infallible divine foreknowledge cannot do this. There remains, however, an important question about the compatibility of (...) class='Hi'>freedom and foreknowledge. It is a question not about the existence of foreknowledge, but about its mechanics. (shrink)

The problems with grace and free will have prompted long-standing theological conflicts, chiefly revolving around certain disagreements over the nature of divine causality in respect to the free will's of creatures and His foreknowledge of free acts. Eleonore Stump offers a new interpretation of divine action on the will that holds God only acts by way of formal causality and that human cooperation with grace is only by way of "quiescence." I argue that this account lacks coherence in (...) certain important respects, especially in how human beings freely decide upon conversion - a process impossible on this model. I also argue that any model of divine causality cannot escape the dichotomy of holding a Molinist or a Banezian model of efficacious grace. In response, I offer a new interpretation of classical Thomist models of grace that preserves human freedom and divine sovereignty in grace. (shrink)

Following an Open conception of Divine Foreknowledge, that holds that man is endowed with genuine freedom and so the future is not definitely determined, it will be claimed that human freedom does not limit the divine power, but rather enhances it and presents us with a barrier against arbitrary use of that power. This reading will be implemented to reconcile a well-known quarrel between two important interpreters of Duns Scotus, Allan B. Wolter and Thomas Williams, each (...) of whom supports a different interpretation of the way God acts according to right reason. (shrink)

What we must do is step back and take a grand view of the perspectives in order to understand it on a more particular level. If we can picture all of God’s attributes on a bar graph scale, all of God’s attributes would max out at 100% each. These attributes are always operating at 100%; at no time does any attribute diminish or decrease below 100%. However, there are times when one of His attributes shows forth more than another does, (...) but they are all operating at a maximum level. (shrink)

In this paper I defend the eternity solution to the problem of human freedom and divine foreknowledge. After motivating the problem, I sketch the basic contours of the eternity solution. I then consider several objections which contend that the eternity solution falsely implies that we have various powers (e.g., to change God’s beliefs, or to affect the past) which, according to the objector, we do not in fact have.

Mark Murphy argues that the property identity version of divine command theory, coupled with the doctrine that God has freedom in commanding, violates the supervenience of the moral on the nonmoral. In other words, they permit two situations exactly alike in nonmoral facts to differ in moral facts. I give three arguments to show that a divine command theorist of this sort can consistently affirm moral supervenience. Each argument contends that there are always nonmoral differences between worlds (...) with different divine commands. If there are such nonmoral differences, then there’s no conflict between divine command theory and moral supervenience. (shrink)

The success of the atheistic hiddenness argument depends on the “consciousness constraint” it imposes on the divine-human loving relationship: namely, that this relationship requires human conscious awareness of being in the relationship with God. I challenge the truth of this proposition by introducing the concept of a physical relationship with God that is not subject to this constraint. I argue, first, that a physical relationship with God is metaphysically possible; second, that its plausibility is supported by natural theology; and (...) third, that a perfectly loving God would prefer physical relationships with human beings over consciousness-constrained relationships, because a perfectly loving God would prefer to preserve the integrity of human freedom of participation and allow inclusion of all people regardless of their natural cognitive capabilities. I also offer an interpretation of apparent divine hiddenness in the light of the idea of God’s openness for physical relationships. (shrink)

Arguments against our free will pose a serious problem. Although there are not very many philosophers who call themselves fatalists, quite a few are convinced that fatalism follows from common assumptions. Assuming that most believe themselves to be free, identifying ways to avoid the conclusion of such fatalist arguments is quite an important task. I begin by dealing specifically with theological fatalism. I present many versions of theological fatalism, but come to the conclusion that only one version constitutes a genuine (...) problem. That version, I argue, is reducible to a deeper fatalist dilemma that follows from assumptions so common that it must be faced by even the atheist: the mutually incompatibility of human freedom, the principle of alternate possibilities and bi-valance. After considering other objections to my argument, I conclude that the only way to avoid the fatalist conclusion is to either deny the principle of alternate possibilities or deny bi-valance. I argue that, although each option is somewhat problematic, denying bivalence is the more defensible of the two options. (shrink)

Edwards’s views on the nature of the human will demonstrate his unique ability to unite philosophical rigor and theological fervor. Edwards was a staunch defender of the Reformed doctrines of absolute divine sovereignty and meticulous providence, but he was also a proponent of the intellectual tools and methods of early modern philosophy (and of John Locke in particular). His ultimate statement of his doctrinal position, Freedom of the Will, is the masterful result of these dual commitments.

Recently, several authors have utilized the notion of dependence to respond to the traditional argument for the incompatibility of freedom and divine foreknowledge. However, proponents of this response have not always been so clear in specifying where the incompatibility argument goes wrong, which has led to some unfounded objections to the response. We remedy this dialectical confusion by clarifying both the dependence response itself and its interaction with the standard incompatibility argument. Once these clarifications are made, it becomes (...) clear both (1.) that the dependence response does not beg the question against the proponent of the incompatibility argument and (2.) that the dependence response advances the dialectic whether it is developed as a version of Ockhamism or as a version of multiple-pasts compatibilism. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the theory of divine ideas of Walter Burley. The medieval common theory of divine ideas, developed by Augustine, was intended to provide an answer to the question of the order and intelligibility of the world. The world is rationally organized since God created it according to the models existing eternally in his mind. Augustine's theory, however, left open problems such as reconciling the principle of God's unity with the plurality of ideas, the way in (...) which ideas can or cannot be said to be eternal, their ontological status. Medieval authors discussed such questions until at least the late 14th century. By resorting to the semantic tool of connotation, Burley explains both in what way ‘idea' can signify the divine essence as much as the creatures, and in what sense we can say that God has thought them from eternity, without slipping into a necessitarian view that undermines the principle of divine freedom. Moreover, by envisaging the objective mode of being as the only mode of being of ideas, he explains in what way they truly differ from one another on the basis of their different conceptual contents. (shrink)

The text published below is the translation of a part of this published article: "Il Dio che rischia e che cambia: introduzione all’Open Theism". The issue of omniscience is one of the most debated in contemporary Analytical Philosophy of Religion. However, what is often lacking in this discussion is a deep understanding of the dilemma of omniscience and human freedom within a complete epistemological (what can we really say about the divine and the world), metaphysical and theological framework. (...) For example, it is often forgotten to frame some issues within a clear definition of the notion of mystery. (shrink)

W. Matthews Grant has argued that it is possible to reconcile a strong theory of God’s causal sovereignty with libertarian freedom by denying that God causes the acts of free creatures by means of some factor intrinsic to Himself. Grant argues that the accounts on which God causes those actions of His creatures in virtue of His decrees cannot be libertarian. I will argue that two classical theories of grace, despite holding that God causes creaturely acts in virtue of (...) a divine decree or intention, remain libertarian in just the same sense Grant’s account is. I controversially propose that this is true even of Banezian theories of grace, on which God causes free actions directly. Instead, I suggest that we can characterize what it is for a theory to be theological determinist according to a distinction proposed by Eleonore Stump. (shrink)

The problem of divine hiddenness discussed among both theist and non- theist circles. From an atheistic perspective the existence of people who are sincerely looking for God but cannot reach Him is a supportive point for atheism. On the other side, same problem supports agnosticism since there are equal evidence from both side for the existence of God from an agnostic perspective. The theists who are belonging to different religion have tried to find some solutions to this problem. For (...) instance; there is a theistic understanding which claims hiddenness of God provides us freedom to believe and another one says it is the only way to have personal relationship with God. A different position brings solution from the Jewish idea that chosen people of God. In this article, I have evaluated those different approaches. In the first section, I have indicated that there is no agreement on the implication of divine hiddenness problem even amongst non-theistic positions by shortly introducing atheistic and agnostic approaches. In the second section, I dealt with theistic approaches and the problems that they produced while trying to provide a solution to the problem. After an inquiry on how we are supposed to understand hiddenness, I have tried to show the problem has nothing new since premises of the divine hiddenness problem are not verifiable by everyone. As a conclusion I have offered postponing the divine hiddenness problem and discussing existence of God on a rational ground by presenting a counterargument. (shrink)

This is an English translation of Emilie Du Châtelet's "Sur la liberté." This 18th century text discusses freedom of the will, determinism, and divine foreknowledge. Translated from French by Julia Jorati, with the help of Julie Roy. French edition of this text, on which this translation is based: “Sur la liberté,” in Oeuvres complètes de Voltaire, vol. 14, edited by William H. Barber, 484–502. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1989.

After a brief discussion of the terms determinism and free will, the paper sets out to compare some recent philosophical approaches to the problem of free will with a theological anthropology account of the notion. It aims to defend the claim, that even though different kind of questions are asked on both sides, they tackle similar issues and a complementary approach is needed. Recent philosophy considers the problem mostly from the standpoint of logic, naturalist evolutionary ontology and cognitive science. In (...) the Christian theological tradition, the idea of free will has been discussed mostly from the perspective of the problem of sin and grace, thus on the grounds of soteriology, hamartiology and theological ethics. The paper shows similarities between the approaches, mainly between the problem of physical determinism and theological determinism and also divine foreknowledge. (shrink)

Human Aspiration is the first chapter of the magnum opus book "Life Divine". Here in in this chapter Sri Aurobindo one of the most modern prolific philosophers of Renaissance India has highlighted his focal points as to what Man's eternal aspiration has been, that is, God, Light , Freedom & Eternity. Despite technological and scientific advancements, Mans is still thirsty, it is because he aspires for a Divine Life. The article talks about the "Human aspiration" of eternity (...) in details. (shrink)

An increasingly popular approach to reconciling divine foreknowledge with human freedom is to say that, because God’s beliefs depend on what we do, we are free to do otherwise than what we actually do despite God’s infallible foreknowledge. This paper develops a new challenge for this dependence response. The challenge stems from a case of backward time travel in which an agent intuitively lacks the freedom to do otherwise because of the time-traveler’s knowledge of what the agent (...) will do, and this is so despite the fact that the time-traveler’s knowledge depends on what the agent will do. (shrink)

John Martin Fischer has argued that Molinism does not constitute a response to the argument that divine foreknowledge is incompatible with human freedom. I argue that T. Ryan Byerly’s recent work on the mechanics of foreknowledge sheds light on this issue. It shows that Fischer’s claim is ambiguous, and that it may turn out to be false on at least one reading, but only if the Molinist can explain how God knows true counterfactuals of freedom.

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)

The chapter presents Anselm’s incompatibilist account of human freedom within the context of his theodicy and presents two arguments against his account. Both arguments aim to show there is a genuine conflict between his account of freedom and the role of God’s grace in making agents just. The first argument, the problem of harmonization, highlights the conflict within the soteriological context where an agent changes from being unjust to being just. The second argument, the problem of just creation, (...) highlights the conflict within the context of the creation of agents prior to the presence of evil. Holding fixed his incompatibilist account and the necessity of divine grace, the upshot of both arguments is that Anselm must endorse a version of Pelagianism. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider Augustine’s attempted solution of the problem of divine foreknowledge and free will. I focus on two distinct notions of God’s relationship to time as they relate to this problem. In Confessions XI, Augustine develops an understanding of time and foreknowledge that cIearly offers a possible solution to the foreknowledge/free will problem. I then turn to On Free Will 3.1-4, where Augustine conspicuously declines to use a solution similar to the one in the Confessions, rather (...) developing a response that demands a very different conception of foreknowledge. I subsequently argue that in On Free Will, Augustine’s argument requires that God’s foreknowledge, when considered in light of events involving human freedom, must be in a real sense dependent on the results of free choice. (shrink)

The paper discusses two conceptions of divine freedom. The first, Hugh McCann’s, proposes that God is a timelessly eternal act, whose agency is not deliberative and who, in that act, creates himself and the contents of his will. God is such an act. Following discussion of this view, its costs and benefits, a more traditional account of God’s freedom, in which he possesses vestigial alternativity, the freedom to choose an alternative should there have been a sufficient (...) reason to do so. (shrink)

One way that philosophers have attempted to defend free will against the threat of fatalism and against the threat from divine beliefs has been to endorse timelessness views. In this paper, I argue that, in order to respond to general worries about fatalism and divine beliefs, timelessness views must appeal to the notion of dependence. Once they do this, however, their distinctive position as timelessness views becomes otiose, for the appeal to dependence, if it helps at all, would (...) itself be sufficient to block worries about fatalism and divine beliefs. I conclude by discussing some implications for dialectical progress. (shrink)

We argue that there is an incompatibility between the two basic principles of Molinism, i.e., God’s middle knowledge of counterfactuals of creaturely freedom, and divine immutability. To this end, firstly, we set out the difference between strong and weak immutability: according to the latter only God’s essential attributes remain unchanged, while the former affirms that God cannot change in any way. Our next step is to argue that Molinism ascribes strong immutability to God. However, according to Molinism, some (...) counterfactuals of freedom need to be actualized by divine will. We argue that this claim does entail a change in God because it attributes a knowledge to God that involves moving from possibility to actuality through divine will. Therefore, claiming God knows counterfactuals of freedom leads us to reject the strong sense of divine immutability. Further, we argue that assuming God’s knowledge encompasses counterfactuals of freedom cannot be consistent even with weak immutability because, according to Molinism, a change in God’s knowledge requires a change in His essence. We conclude that Molinism is incoherent. (shrink)

One problem for Molinism that critics of the view have pressed, and which Molinists have so far done little to address, is that even if there are true counterfactuals of freedom, it is puzzling how God could possibly know them. I defuse this worry by sketching a plausible model of the mechanics of middle knowledge which draws on William Alston’s direct acquaintance account of divine knowledge.

Against caricatures of the poet-philosopher Friedrich Schiller as an unoriginal popularizer of Kant, or a forerunner of totalitarianism, Frederick Beiser reinterprets him as an innovative, classical republican, broadening his analysis to include Schiller’s poetry, plays, and essays not widely available in English translation, such as the remarkable essay, “On Grace and Dignity.” In that spirit, the present article argues that the latter text, misperceived by Anglophone critics as self-contradictory, is better understood as centering on gender and dance. In brief, grace (...) is a virtuous power of beautiful gestures associated with women, while dignity is a power of sublime gestures associated with men, and the improvised combination thereof is a divinely androgynous power of gesture that I term “stateliness,” in a three-step choreography of aesthetic education. (shrink)

At Yannaras and to Zizioulas there is an absolutization and idealization of otherness, which, together with freedom, are two fundamental attributes of personhood. Alterity acquires value and meaning only in relation with relational factors: love, fellowship and, also, being/nature. Due to the fact that, at Yannaras, nature denies apriori the person as otherness (the ratio between person and nature is defined under the aspect of: priority, inclusion, transcendence or conflict). S. Agouridic qualified both Zizioulas and Yannaras as “fighter against/opponent (...) of ousia” their ontology becoming personhood-ology. It may be however dangerous to submit the person to a “dictated or imposed otherness which reduces or diminishes the size of the identity (the common nature of people). In a conception about intersubjectivity Other is more important than Ego and dominate it, and “the dialogically element and reciprocity, which are being inherent to the intersubjectivity and to the communion between people, are inevitably reduced”. In reply to a “theology of the relationship” developed through ontology’s speculations of the person was the assertion of both Lossky, as well as Panagopoulos of meta-ontological and apophatic character of the person. (shrink)

One major aim of the book is to articulate a view of the mechanics of infallible divine foreknowledge that avoids commitment to causal determinism, explains how infallible foreknowledge is compatible with human freedom, and explains how God’s divine providence is compatible with human freedom and indeterministic events. The modest epistemic goal is to articulate a view that enjoys a not very low epistemic status. But even with such modest goals, I think the view cannot credibly be (...) said to offer or . In fact, at critical moments when and are in question, we find very little detailed discussion.There is another epistemological goal in the book. It is to show that we are not in an epistemic position to know that causal determinism provides the basis for explaining how God knows the future and so we are not in a position to know that God’s infallible foreknowledge is incompatible with human freedom . But if infallible foreknow .. (shrink)

This volume collects a set of papers that were presented at a conference on “Big Questions in Free Will,” held at the University of Saint Thomas in October of 2014. It is dedicated to its editor, who passed away shortly after completing the manuscript. I will briefly summarize each of the 11 chapters and then offer a few critical comments.

In Nemesius' treatment of providence we find an original and suggestive step in the historical development of this teaching. His treatise 'On the Nature of Man' calls for a special attention that focuses on it not only as a testimony of the reception of ancient thought, but also as a personal contribution. In particular, in addition to his criticisms of the doctrine of fate and the conception of general providence advocated by some pagan authors, we find the introduction of (...) class='Hi'>divine freedom as a predominant factor in the presentation of providence. Divine power and its freedom (even with respect to necessary entities) establish a new and specifically Christian approach to the problem. The divine will gains in prominence and, as a consequence, the metaphysical scope of God's power, which is above the creatural concepts of contingency and necessity, is emphasised. Thus, Nemesius anticipates the more complex expositions that would later be given by the medieval scholastics, who, like him, would make an ever wider use of Aristotelian philosophy without limiting themselves to taking Platonism and the other Hellenistic schools into account. (shrink)

Is Divine Knowledge Incompatible with Human Freedom? An Analysis of Some Arguments The problem that divine omniscience or divine foreknowledge makes free will impossible belongs to notoriously difficult to solve. In XX century one of the most important interpretation of this difficulty was provided by Nelson Pike. If God believes infallibly and in advance how Smith will act, this fact about the past excludes out all alternatives for Smith. But libertarian account of free will requires alternatives (...) possibilities, so, it could be argue that God’s foreknowledge is incompatible with our free will. This paper carefully criticizes Pike’s argumentation and suggests that because God’s foreknowledge doesn’t eliminate future alternatives through causal means, it is compatible with free will and that Pike’s argument and two briefly analyzed standard arguments for fatalism presented by Zagzebski failed. (shrink)

In the years that saw the transition from the sixteenth to the seventeenth century, a controversy arose in Spain over the problem of the harmony between created freedom and divine omnipotence. This dispute arose in Salamanca, but it would have important consequences for the conception of man in Europe from then on. In my proposal, I pay attention to Domingo Báñez, an important member of the School of Salamanca, which point of view has been somewhat blurred due to (...) the heat of the polemic. In particular, I would like to emphasise his way of pointing to human dignity as the basis of the relationship between divine and human freedom. Such dignity does not lie in a misunderstood autonomy but in its dependence on God. Thus, according to Báñez, human freedom is an image of divine freedom, so that its dignity is not so much reflected in its independence from the power of God—which only occurs, to a certain extent, in sin—but in the concord between the two freedoms. (shrink)

Between Schelling’s Über Dante in philosophischer Beziehung (1803) and the Dantean drafts of die Weltalter (1811-1815) stand the transitional texts of his middle period, the Philosophie und Religion (1804) and Freiheitsschrift (1809). His short essay on Dante contrasts an ancient conception of the closed cosmos with the modern universe as dynamic and expanding, then claims to extract from the Divine Comedy its eternal, threefold form. This article considers these schemata as they relate to the Philosophie und Religion and the (...) Freiheitsschrift, disclosing an enduring Dantean influence which first predicts, then persists throughout this stage of Schelling’s philosophical development. (shrink)

In a recent article, David Hunt has proposed a theological counterexample to the principle of alternative possibilities involving divine foreknowledge (G-scenario). Hunt claims that this example is immune to my criticism of regular Frankfurt-type counterexamples to that principle, as God’s foreknowing an agent’s act does not causally determine that act. Furthermore, he claims that the considerations which support the claim that the agent is morally responsible for his act in a Frankfurt-type scenario also hold in a G-scenario. In reply, (...) Icontest Hunt’s symmetry claim and also raise a worry whether, given theological fatalism, the agent’s act in a G-scenario can be deemed a free act in the libertarian sense. Finally, I offer an independent argument why in a G-scenario the agent should not regarded morally blameworthy for his act. (shrink)

Luiz Henrique Lopes dos Santos, em seu texto sobre "Leibniz e a questão dos futuros contingentes”, argumenta em favor de seu diagnóstico segundo o qual, no fundo, a principal diferença entre as doutrinas de Espinosa e Leibniz reside no fato de que o primeiro, diferentemente do segundo, não sabia lógica. Este texto procura objetar à sua posição, respondendo às críticas do autor à posição de Espinosa quanto à liberdade divina. Procurarei mostrar que, sob o aspecto preciso da articulação aí estabelecida (...) entre a distinção vontade/entendimento e a questão dos possíveis jamais realizados, ela não poderia estar disponível para a metafísica de Espinosa, não por ele ter ignorado um princípio básico da lógica modal, como alega o autor, mas porque ele compreende diferentemente o estatuto ontológico da unidade das coisas individuais e, portanto, dos agentes humanos. (shrink)

According to Aquinas, divine omniscience, omnipotence and providence, do not contradict the existence of either true contingency in the natural world or freedom but, on the contrary, they support them. In short, the two peculiarities of the doctrine of providence in St. Thomas here exposed are: first, that God's will is the ultimate foundation of all contingency (and not merely the deficiency of secondary causes); second, that the divine causality cannot be reduced to any of the two (...) groups of created causes (necessary or contingent) but it is only known to us by analogy. (shrink)

The paper will explore a key tension between eternity and temporality that comes to the fore in the seeming contradiction between freedom of the human will and divine foreknowledge of future contingents. It will be claimed that Duns Scotus’s adaptation of Thomas Aquinas’s view reduces the tension between a human being’s freedom and divine foreknowledge of future contingents to the question of how to conflate the now of eternity and our experience of the instantaneous now. Scotus’s (...) account of the matter is unfortunately not satisfying and it is the purpose of this paper to develop this insight further in a speculative manner. In order to make such co-nowness possible, it will be asked how the eternal and the temporal can co-cause together. This problem will be tackled through a development of Scotus’s doctrine of the will taken elsewhere, in order to examine how the divine and the human wills can occur together. It will be claimed that such co-willing produces a co-nowness of the eternal and the instantaneous ‘nows’ which generates a logical temporal movement. (shrink)

According to the argument from gratuitous evil, if God were to exist, then gratuitous evil wouldn’t; but gratuitous evil does exist, so God doesn’t. We can evaluate different views of divine providence with respect to the resources they are able to bring to bear when encountering this argument. By these lights, theological determinism is often seen as especially problematic: the determinist is seen as having an impoverished set of resources to draw from in her attempts to respond to the (...) argument from gratuitous evil. In particular, there is an important resource – an appeal to free will – that many have claimed is unavailable to the determinist. I argue that the determinist does not in fact suffer from this particular resource deficit. I do so by examining some recent work on determinist responses to the problem of evil, analyzing some of the ways in which they fall short, and proposing a new response that is informed by those shortcomings. This new response is built on an appeal to the reactive attitudes. (shrink)

The philosophical thought of Massimo Cacciari and the conceptual issues of « open theism » are two speculative routes apparently very distant from each other. This contribution highlights the common goal in their going to the root of philosophic problems in order to seek an answer: they think of a divine way of becoming explaining the reason of both the reality of the world and the paradoxical reality of human freedom. The two routes tend to converge and recover (...) concepts pertaining to the Trinitarian speculation whose philosophical « translation » in philosophy passes, today, through the relational and trinitarian ontology, and also the « iperphatic » theology. In this convergence there is ground for thinking not only a truly Trinitarian theism, but also a Trinitarian philosophy, which considers Trinity as the essential summit of a good metaphysics. (shrink)

Richard Swinburne recently released a paper titled, “Causation, Time and God’s Omniscience.” In this paper, Swinburne argued that God’s omniscience must be understood in a way that excludes divine foreknowledge. Swinburne deems this a necessary step in order to protect our freedom of the will. The purpose of my paper will be to refute Swinburne’s central argument. The goal of refuting Swinburne’s argument is to maintain the possibility of the compatibility of both divine foreknowledge and free human (...) agency. (shrink)

In a series of recent papers John Martin Fischer argues that the Molinist solution to the problem of reconciling divine omniscience with human freedom does not offer such a solution at all. Instead, he maintains, Molina simply presupposes theological compatibilism. However, Fischer construes the problem in terms of sempiternalist omniscience, whereas classical Molinism adopts atemporalism. I argue that, moreover, an atemporalist reformulation of Fischer’s argument designed to show that Molinism is not even consistent is unsuccessful as well, since (...) it employs a transfer principle about causal inaccessibility that Molina rightfully rejects. (shrink)