Edward Nieznański developed two logical systems to deal with the problem of evil and to refute religious determinism. However, when formalized in first-order modal logic, two axioms of each system contradict one another, revealing that there is an underlying minimal set of axioms enough to settle the questions. In this article, we develop this minimal system, called N3, which is based on Nieznański’s contribution. The purpose of N3 is to solve the logical problem of evil through the defeat of a (...) version of religious determinism. On the one hand, these questions are also addressed by Nieznański’s systems, but, on the other hand, they are obtained in N3 with fewer assumptions. Our approach can be considered a case of logic of religion, that is, of logic applied to religious discourse, as proposed by Józef Maria Bocheński; in this particular case, it is a discourse in theodicy, which is situated in the context of the philosophy of religion. (shrink)

Edward Nieznański developed two logical systems in order to deal with a version of the problem of evil associated with two formulations of religious determinism. The aim of this research was to revisit these systems, providing them with a more appropriate formalization. The new resulting systems, namely, N1 and N2, were reformulated in first-order modal logic; they retain much of their original basic structures, but some additional results were obtained. Furthermore, our research found that an underlying minimal set of axioms (...) is enough to settle the questions proposed. Thus, we developed a minimal system, called N3, that solves the same issues tackled by N1 and N2, but with less assumptions than these systems. All of the systems developed here are proposed as solutions to the logical problem of evil through the refutation of two versions of religious determinism, showing that the attributes of God in Classical Theism, namely, those of omniscience, omnipotence, infallibility, and omnibenevolence, when formalized, are consistent with the existence of evil, providing one more response to this traditional issue. (shrink)

Edward Nieznanski developed in 2007 and 2008 two different systems in formal logic which deal with the problem of evil. Particularly, his aim is to refute a version of the logical problem of evil associated with a form of religious determinism. In this paper, we revisit his first system to give a more suitable form to it, reformulating it in first-order modal logic. The new resulting system, called N1, has much of the original basic structure, and many axioms, definitions, (...) and theorems still remain; however, some new results are obtained. If the conclusions attained are correct and true, then N1 solves the problem of evil through the refutation of a version of religious determinism, showing that the attributes of God in Classical Theism, namely, those of omniscience, omnipotence, infallibility, and omnibenevolence, when adequately formalized, are consistent with the existence of evil in the world. We consider that N1 is a good example of how formal systems can be applied in solving interesting philosophical issues, particularly in Philosophy of Religion and Analytic Theology, establishing bridges between such disciplines. (shrink)

This article argues that actual entities come first; the statistical laws of nature are their effects, not their causes. Statistical laws are mentally abstracted from their habits and are only formal, not efficient, causes. They do not make anything happen or prevent anything from happening. They evolve or change as the habits of novel creatures evolve or change. They do not control or inform us about what any individual entity is doing, only about what masses of individuals on average (...) are doing. Thus, there is no way that traditional divine miracles could “violate” them. God has sufficient efficient-causal power to create our world ex nihilo, as in the Big Bang, and to prevent evils, which God does not do from love, justice, and moral goodness. Seven elements of a viable theodicy are outlined, the most important of which is divine justice. It would be unjust for God to prevent harms in some cases but not in all. In a universe in which God prevents all evils and thus directly controls everything, no creatures would take any responsibility for what they do. A loving and just God voluntarily and consistently limits the exercise of divine power so we can be free, responsible, and creative. (shrink)

The advance of mechanism in science and philosophy in the 17th century created a great interest to machines or automata. Leibniz was no exception - in an early memoir Drôle de pensée he wrote admiringly about a machine that could walk on water, exhibited in Paris. The idea of automatic processing in general had a large role in his thought, as can be seen, for example, in his invention of the binary code and the so-called Calculemus!-model for solving controversies. In (...) metaphysics, the idea of an automata was expressed most clearly in the 1695 article New System of the Nature of Substances and their Communication, and the ensuing correspondence with, among others, Foucher, Bayle, Lamy, Jaquelot and Masham. In the article Leibniz discusses the soul as a spiritual machine in the context of pre-established harmony, arguing that God can "give to a substance at the outset a nature or internal force which could produce in it an orderly way (as in spiritual or formal automaton; but a free one, in the case of a substance which is endowed with a share of reason) everything that is going to happen to it, that is to say, all the appearances or expressions it is going to have, and all without the help of any created thing." The basic idea of Leibniz's spiritual machine is that the soul or entelechy is an autonomous and spontaneous unity, consisting of internal active force and producing its own perceptions (both confused and distinct). It is a self-moving machine, driven by its perceptions and appetites, but it follows (without being conscious of it) a lawful series or programme created by God. The entelechy remains the same despite undergoing an infinite number of changes. To Foucher he explained that each state of the individual substance is a consequence of its preceding one, "as if there were only God and the substance in the world". Despite this, the spiritual machine is related not only to God, but through the pre-established harmony to bodies or natural machines. However, as it is not dependent on them, the spiritual machine is superiot to natural machines. In this paper I concentrate on three moral themes related to the spiritual machine: moral deliberation, moral identity and the goal of moral action. All these themes are more or less implicit in the New System, but are discussed in more detail in the ensuing correspondence after the publication of the article. Finally, the themes are given an extended discussion especially in the second book of New Essays on Human Understanding (1704, published 1765), written partly at the same time as some of the correspondence and unpublished related material. I will first give an overview of Leibniz's position concerning the spiritual machine or automaton in the New System and then go on to explore the three moral themes one by one, as they feature in the subsequent correspondence and in the New Essays. I will show that the three topics are essential to the function of the spiritual machine – to Sophie Charlotte Leibniz wrote: "...let us say that everything in bodies happens mechanically, or in accordance with laws of motion, and that everything in the soul happens morally, or in accordance with perceived good or evil." There are many texts that anticipate the views in the New System (notably the unpublished memoir De Affectibus of 1679) and Leibniz continued to discuss its themes later on (in addition to correpondence, for example, in Theodicy of 1710 and Monadology and Principles of Nature and Grace of 1714). Here I focus on the short-term development of Leibniz's views on the topic (around 1695-1705), but I argue that his basic view of the spiritual machine did not change much after finishing the dialogue with Locke in 1704. (shrink)

The literature on the problem of evil does not draw enough upon the relevant debates in (meta)ethics, and ethical theorists (broadly understood) can engage with the problem of evil as a way of inquiry in their field. I review how the problem of evil is essentially formed based on (evaluative and deontic) ethical judgments, and how responses to it, either theistic or atheistic, are mainly based on the relevant ethical judgments. Meanwhile, though contemporary debates in metaphysics and epistemology have influenced (...) the literature on the problem of evil, the same does not hold true for ethics. This suggests that there are ways to engage with the problem of evil as doing axiology or ethical theory more generally, which may be fruitful regardless of their being theodicy. I end by briefly discussing an example focused on the idea of moral progress. (shrink)

The Preface to Leibniz's famous Theodicy offers a perspective on the work that has been insufficiently studied. In this paper, I ask that we step back from the main text of the Theodicy and attend to its Preface. I show that the latter performs two crucial preparatory tasks that have not been properly appreciated. The first is to offer a public declaration of what I call Leibniz’s radical rationalism. The Preface assumes that any attentive rational being is capable (...) of divine knowledge. The basic idea is that it is knowledge about a divine perfection that can be understood more or less completely. In the Preface, Leibniz entices his readers to seek such knowledge and explains why doing so has been so difficult before now. What makes this rationalism radical is that divine knowledge is severed from any religion or set of religious beliefs. While some Christian doctrines make it easier to approach God, they are neither necessary nor sufficient to do so. The author of the Theodicy thereby informs his readers that they have access to divine perfections, regardless of religious affiliation. To acquire such knowledge, they need only work through his book. The second task of the Preface is closely related to the first. It invites readers to seek divine love and virtue. To set themselves on the path to virtue, they need only avoid the pitfalls of religion and use reason in the right way to grasp a divine perfection. Once they enter the main text of the Theodicy, they have begun that journey. (shrink)

‘Simulation Hypotheses’ are imaginative scenarios that are typically employed in philosophy to speculate on how likely it is that we are currently living within a simulated universe as well as on our possibility for ever discerning whether we do in fact inhabit one. These philosophical questions in particular overshadowed other aspects and potential uses of simulation hypotheses, some of which are foregrounded in this article. More specifically, “A Theodicy for Artificial Universes” focuses on the moral implications of simulation hypotheses (...) with the objective of speculatively answering questions concerning computer simulations such as: If we are indeed living in a computer simulation, what might be its purpose? What aspirations and values could be inferentially attributed to its alleged creators? And would living in a simulated universe affect the value and meaning we attribute to our existence? (shrink)

In this paper I offer a discussion of chapter 3 of Adrian Moore’s The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics, which is titled “Leibniz: Metaphysics in the Service of Theodicy.” Here Moore discusses the philosophy of Leibniz and comes to a damning conclusion. My main aim is to suggest that such a conclusion might be a little premature. I begin by outlining Moore’s discussion of Leibniz and then raise some problems for the objections that Moore presents. I follow this by raising (...) a Moore-inspired problem of my own and offer a possible response. The response is based on a little-known essay of Leibniz’s called “Leibniz’s Philosophical Dream” and leads me to consider Leibniz’s deepest motivations for engaging in philosophical reflection. (shrink)

Theodicy and Toleration Seem at first glance to be an unlikely pair of topics to treat in a single paper. Toleration usually means putting up with beliefs or actions with which one disagrees, and it is practiced because the beliefs or actions in question are not disagreeable enough to justify interference. It is usually taken to be a topic for moral and political philosophy. Theodicy, on the other hand, is the attempt to solve the problem of evil; that (...) is, to explain the origin of suffering and sin in a way that does not make God a moral cause of those evils.1 While theodicy concerns the notions of good and evil, and could therefore be considered a moral topic, historical and contemporary discussions of it have .. (shrink)

The problem of evil is one of the most significant challenges to theism and Christianity in particular, asking why there seems to be so much evil if an omnibenevolent (all good), loving God exists. The problem of evil, as posed by many atheists and agnostics today, (following Epicurus) often asserts that the following premises cannot all be true: 1. God exists, and is omnipotent (all-powerful) 2. God exists, and is omnibenevolent (all-good) 3. God exists, and is omniscient (all-knowing) 4. Evil (...) exists Christian thinkers over the past two thousand years have given various responses to the problem of evil in the form of various theodicies, or attempts to explain why evil exists (or appears to exist) given the existence of an Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omnibenevolent God. This document serves as a brief overview of different theodicies offered by Christian thinkers throughout history. (shrink)

The nineteenth century English Jesuit poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins struggled throughout his life with desolation over what he saw as a spiritually, intellectually and artistically unproductive life. During these periods, he experienced God’s absence in a particularly intense way. As he wrote in one sonnet, “my lament / Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent / To dearest him that lives alas! away.” What Hopkins faced was the existential problem of suffering and hiddenness, a problem widely recognized by analytic (...) philosophers to be left relatively untouched by conceptual explanations. In this essay, I argue that Hopkins’ poems themselves fill this gap left by conceptual approaches by articulating the existential crisis faced by those who feel the searing pain of suffering and the numbing, leaden echo of silence. His lyric speaks into existential suffering in ways akin to biblical laments and, as such, creates a space in which those who suffer can meet God, even if only to contend. Understood within Hopkins’ view of the incarnation and passion, these poems also suggest a way to identify with Christ in the experience of hiddenness, thereby making God present even in divine absence. (shrink)

The article reviews different antitheodicies in response to Toby Betenson’s article “Anti-Theodicy”. Antitheodicies involve rejecting the position that God or meaning exist only, if evils have justifying morally sufficient reasons. The article builds on Betenson’s division into moral and conceptual antitheodicies and his characterization of antitheodicies as a metacritique of the problem of evil. Moral antitheodicies are problematic, as they do not address the key conceptual issues and might end up in question-begging or moralism. Dissolving the problem of evil (...) requires a conceptual antitheodicy that exposes its presuppositions as speculative metaphysics. Religious conceptual antitheodicies help to focus on different ways of sense-making that do not fall into theodicism. (shrink)

I develop a new theodicy in defense of Anselmian theism, one that has several advantages over traditional and recent replies to the Problem of Evil. To make my case, I first explain the value of a positive trajectory: a forward-in-time decrease in ‘first-order-gratuitous’ evil: evil that is not necessary for any equal-or-greater first-order good, but may be necessary for a higher-order good, such as the good of strongly positive axiological trajectory. Positive trajectory arguably contributes goodness to a world in (...) proportion to the magnitude of this trajectory, and worlds that contain first-order-gratuitous evil thereby have the potential to contain a strongly positive trajectory. This would arguably explain why God would permit first-order-gratuitous evils: he may be indifferent between a world with no first-order-gratuitous evil and a world with some first-order-gratuitous evil but a strongly positive trajectory. Next, I answer the most salient objections to this theodicy. Finally, I explain how this theodicy is superior to some common theodicies. (shrink)

In reply to the problem of evil, some suggest that God created an infinite number of universes—for example, that God created every universe that contains more good than evil. I offer two objections to these multiverse theodicies. First, I argue that, for any number of universes God creates, he could have created more, because he could have created duplicates of universes. Next, I argue that multiverse theodicies can’t adequately account for why God would create universes with pointless suffering, and hence (...) they don’t solve the problem of evil. (shrink)

Logical limits of omnipotence, the problem of evil, and a compelling cosmological argument suggest the position of supreme providence and the foremost creation out of nothing that coheres with the constraints of physics. The Supreme Being possesses everlasting love, perception, and force while governing the universe of probabilistic processes and freewill creatures. For example, the Supreme Being intervenes in the processes of creation by the means of synergism with freewill creatures and cannot meticulously control the created universe.

Moral anti-theodicists have posed a consequentialist argument against the theodical enterprise: that theodicies lead to harmful consequences in reality and that this should be sufficient reason to motivate abandoning the practise of theodicising altogether. In this paper, I examine variants of this argument and discuss several prominent responses from theodicists, including the separation thesis. I argue that while these responses are effective in resisting the global conclusion by the anti-theodicist, it still leaves the theodical enterprise vulnerable to a weaker version (...) of the consequentialist critique. In response, I develop an account of ‘theodicies-of-embrace-protest’ which is able to preserve the meaningful strides made in traditional theodicies while taking seriously the criticisms of the moral anti-theodicists. I suggest that sceptical theism fits this bill. (shrink)

The paper explores the way in which we can make sense of the seemingly contradictory presentations of God and the gods in tragic literature by looking to the thought of Martin Heidegger. The duplicity of the gods in tragedy is found to be a function of the uncertainty and questionworthiness of being.

This essay re-reads François Hemsterhuis's philosophical dialogue Alexis (1787) as a post-Copernican cosmic theodicy that prefigures a central nexus of concerns in Early German Romanticism. This theodicy is cross-scalar, in that it functions across three disparate scales: the history of global humanity, the geo-cosmic history of the Earth, and the broader processuality of the universe. From the perspective of this cross-scalar entanglement, I reconstruct Hemsterhuis's vision of the ages of the world and his theodical narrative of the golden (...) age, the Fall, and the cosmic destiny of humanity. Additionally, I offer a counter-reading of this destiny through the story of the Moon in Alexis, and through the contingency, uselessness, and cosmic failure that the Moon embodies. (shrink)

Several recent critiques of theodicy have incorporated some form of moral objection to the theodical enterprise, in which the critic argues that one ought not to engage in the practice of theodicy. In defending theodical practice against the moral critique, Atle O. Søvik argues that the moral critique (1) begs the question against theodicy, and (2) misapprehends the implications of the claim that it is inappropriate to espouse a theodicy in certain situations. In this paper I (...) suggest some sympathetic emendations for Søvik's theodical apologetic, but I argue against Søvik's claim that the moral critique of theodicy is altogether irrelevant. (shrink)

One popular theodicy says that good can’t exist without evil, and so God must allow evil in order to allow good. Call this the counterpart theodicy. The counterpart theodicy relies on a metaphysical claim about existence—good cannot exist without evil. A second popular theodicy says that we would be unable to know/recognize/appreciate the good without evil, and so God is forced to allow evil in order to allow for such appreciation. Call this the appreciation theodicy. (...) The appreciation theodicy relies on an epistemological claim about recognition or appreciation—we are unable to know/recognize/appreciate good without evil (even if it is possible for good to exist without evil). Determining whether either of these theodicies is a success requires a careful discussion of whether either meets the conditions on a successful theodicy. I argue that both fail. (shrink)

The popularity of theodicy over the past several decades has given rise to a countermovement, “anti-theodicy”, which admonishes attempts at theodicy for various reasons. This paper examines one prominent anti-theodical objection: that it is hubristic, and attempts to form an approach to theodicy which evades this objection. To do so I draw from the work of Eleonore Stump, who provides a framework by which we can glean second-personal knowledge of God. From this knowledge, I argue that (...) we can derive a theodicy which does not utilise the kind of analytic theorising anti-theodicists accuse of intellectual hubris. (shrink)

There are two tensions in Smith’s system of ideas: the first is between the postulate of an invisible “noumenal” order of the Universe and the imaginary principles through which we connect the phenomena; the second is between a hypothetical noumenal order of the world where “is” and “ought” converge and the partial and imperfect normative order issued by our sympathetic judgements and a never perfectly impartial spectator. These tensions, which gave occasion to old misrepresentations and recent ones, are tensions in (...) a unitary (though rhapsodically completed) system of ideas where the final unanswered question was the problem of evil. Against a widespread belief, Smith was no secularist but a fideist who took Bayle’s question seriously: why is man wicked and unhappy? The private ethics of prudence, justice, benevolence and the public ethics of liberty, justice, and equality were modest proposals for coping with the problem of social evil, of a “practical” kind, the only one available after Smith’s refutation of natural theology, his last word on the causes for evil. (shrink)

I develop a theodicy (Non-Identity Theodicy) that begins with the recognition that we owe our existence to great and varied evils. I develop two versions of this theodicy, with the result that some version is available to the theist regardless of her assumptions about the existence and nature of free will. My defense of Non-Identity Theodicy is aided by an analogy between divine creation and human procreation. I argue that if one af rms the morality of (...) vol- untary human procreation, one should af rm the morality of divine creation; conversely, deny- ing the morality of divine creation commits one to denying the morality of human procreation. (shrink)

Attempts to resolve the problem of evil often appeal to a greater good, according to which God’s permission of moral and natural evil is justified because (and just in case) the evil that is permitted is necessary for the realization of some greater good. In the extensive litany of greater good theodicies and defenses, the appeal to the greater good of an afterlife of infinite reward or pleasure has played a minor role in Christian thought but a more important role (...) in Islamic thought. In a recent article, Seyyed Jaaber Mousavirad invites us to reconsider a greater good theodicy of compensation. He contends that not only are all evils justified in that God compensates the sufferer in an afterlife, but because evils experienced produce some good, God has reason for bringing about or allowing evils in the first place (Mousavirad 211). In what follows I argue that this modified compensation theodicy is flawed in its premises, faces serious problems about its concept of justice, treats people as means only and not as intrinsically valuable, and ultimately fails to show that an afterlife compensation, along with some good produced here and now by evil, justify God bringing about or allowing evil. (shrink)

Contemporary proponents of theodicy generally believe that a theodical reply to the evidential argument from evil must involve some appeal to the afterlife. In Richard Swinburne's writings on theodicy, however, we find two arguments that may be offered in opposition to this prevailing view. In this paper, these two arguments - the argument from usefulness and the argument from assumed consent - are explained and evaluated. It is suggested that both of these arguments are rendered ineffective by their (...) failure to distinguish between the different ways in which persons may be of-use in the attainment of some good state of affairs. (shrink)

Formal ontology as a main branch of metaphysics investigates categories of being. In the formal ontological approach to metaphysics, these ontological categories are analysed by ontological forms. This analysis, which we illustrate by some category systems, provides a tool to assess the clarity, exactness and intelligibility of different category systems or formal ontologies. We discuss critically different accounts of ontological form in the literature. Of ontological form, we propose a character- neutral relational account. In this metatheory, ontological (...) forms of entities are their standings in internal relations whose holding is neutral on the character of their relata. These relations are “formal ontological relations”. Entities belong to ontological categories because they stand in the same formal ontological relations. We hold a nominalist relationalism about ontological categories and forms. We conclude by showing that our metatheory is useful for understanding categorial fundamentality/non- fundamentality, different formal ontologies, and for unifying metaphysical questions. (shrink)

This article examines the process theodicies of David Ray Griffin and Philip Clayton. It explains their differences on such issues as God’s primordial power and voluntary self-limitation, creativity as an independent metaphysical principle that limits God, creation out of nothing or out of chaos, and God’s voluntary causal naturalism. Difficulties with their positions are discussed. The Clayton-Knapp “no-not-once” principle is explained, and a more comprehensive process theodicy is outlined.

Leibniz wished that his Theodicy (1710) would have as great and as wide an impact as possible, and to further this end we find him in his correspondence with Caroline often expressing his desire that the book be translated into English. Despite his wishes, and Caroline’s efforts, this was not to happen in his lifetime (indeed, it did not happen until 1951, almost 250 years after Leibniz’s death). But even though the Theodicy did not make quite the impact (...) in England that Leibniz had hoped it would, it did draw some attention from the English intelligentsia. In this paper I shall focus on two responses to the Theodicy that were made in England in the years immediately following its publication. First, I shall consider the response of Michel de la Roche and his efforts to promote the book to an English audience in 1711 (efforts which only came to Leibniz’s attention much later, in 1713). De la Roche’s response was broadly positive, though his admiration for the Theodicy was tempered by his belief that Leibniz had struggled – unsuccessfully – to reconcile free will with divine foreknowledge. Second, I shall consider the largely negative response of George Smalridge, the Bishop of Bristol, who delivered his verdict on the book in a letter to Sophie written in 1714. Leibniz subsequently wrote a point-by-point rebuttal of (most of) Smalridge’s criticisms in a letter to Caroline, conceding only one very minor point to the Bishop. As we shall see, some of the points of substance raised by de la Roche and Smalridge have loomed over the Theodicy ever since. (shrink)

It is often assumed that concepts from the formal sciences, such as mathematics and logic, have to be treated differently from concepts from non-formal sciences. This is especially relevant in cases of concept defectiveness, as in the empirical sciences defectiveness is an essential component of lager disruptive or transformative processes such as concept change or concept fragmentation. However, it is still unclear what role defectiveness plays for concepts in the formal sciences. On the one hand, a common (...) view sees formal concepts to be protected against defects because of their precise and stable nature. On the other, studies going back as far as Lakatos (1963) showcase the changeability of such concepts. -/- In this paper, I will investigate if and how defectiveness based on the occurrence of inconsistencies can appear with formal concepts. To make the case as strong as possible, I employ a strict notion of formal concept that assumes the concept to have a fixed and definite extension. I will show that there are indeed certain types of defectiveness that cannot occur with such concepts; but that there are other types of defectiveness that do occur. This means that while formal concepts have to be treated differently than non-formal concepts, questions about defectiveness---as raised in the conceptual engineering debate and philosophy of science---can still be applied to them. I will highlight this point by showing how formal sciences have special strategies available to them that allow them to resolve defectiveness of their concepts in a flexible and informative manner. (shrink)

In "Evil and the Justice of God", N.T. Wright presses the point that attempting to solve the philosophical problem of evil is an immature response to the existence of evil--a response that belittles the real problem of evil, which is just the fact that evil is bad and needs to be dealt with. As you might expect, I am not inclined to endorse this sort of sweeping indictment of the entire field of research on the philosophical problem of evil. (I (...) sort of doubt that Wright really meant to either.) But I do think that there is a kernel of truth in what I take to be Wright's fundamental objection to attempts to solve the philosophical problem of evil. In the first section of what follows, I will try briefly to explain why. I will then go on to argue that, despite this fact, certain efforts at solving the problem of evil avoid Wright's objection. Indeed, drawing on recent work by Elenore Stump, I will argue that one perfectly legitimate way to try to solve the philosophical problem of evil is to follow precisely what seems to be the main piece of advice in "Evil and the Justice of God": namely, to look more seriously than we have at the attitudes taken toward evil by human authors of and characters in the Bible, and to attend more carefully to what the Bible says about how God deals with evil. (shrink)

This article is a response to William Lynch’s, ‘Social Epistemology Transformed: Steve Fuller’s Account of Knowledge as a Divine Spark for Human Domination,’ an extended and thoughtful reflection on my Knowledge: The Philosophical Quest in History. I grant that Lynch has captured well, albeit critically, the spirit and content of the book – and the thirty-year intellectual journey that led to it. In this piece, I respond at two levels. First, I justify my posture towards my predecessors and contemporaries, which (...) Lynch shrewdly sees as my opposition to deference. However, most of the response concerns an elaboration of my theodicy-focussed sense of social epistemology, which is long-standing but only started to become prominent about ten years ago, in light of my involvement in the evolution controversies. Here I aim to draw together a set of my abiding interests – scientific, theological and philosophical – in trying to provide a normative foundation for the future of humanity. (shrink)

The soul-making theodicy seeks to explain how belief in the existence of God is compatible with the evil, pain and suffering we experience in our world. It purports to meet the problem of evil posed by non-theists by articulating a divine plan in which the occurrence of evil is necessary for enabling the greater good of character building of free moral agents. Many philosophers of religion have levelled strong objections against this theodicy. In this essay, Leslie Allan considers (...) the effectiveness of the counterarguments advanced by theist philosopher, Clement Dore, to two key objections to the soul-making theodicy. (shrink)

In this paper, I present a Kantian theodicy, i.e. one based on some of the leading ideas in Kant's ethics, to the classical problem of evil and recommend it as an adequate solution to the problem of evil so understood.

I argue that normative formal epistemology (NFE) is best understood as modelling, in the sense that this is the reconstruction of its methodology on which NFE is doing best. I focus on Bayesianism and show that it has the characteristics of modelling. But modelling is a scientific enterprise, while NFE is normative. I thus develop an account of normative models on which they are idealised representations put to normative purposes. Normative assumptions, such as the transitivity of comparative credence, are (...) characterised as modelling idealisations motivated normatively. I then survey the landscape of methodological options: what might formal epistemologists be up to? I argue the choice is essentially binary: modelling or theorising. If NFE is theorising it is doing very poorly: generating false claims with no clear methodology for separating out what is to be taken seriously. Modelling, by contrast, is a successful methodology precisely suited to the management of useful falsehoods. Regarding NFE as modelling is not costless, however. First, our normative inferences are less direct and are muddied by the presence of descriptive idealisations. Second, our models are purpose-specific and limited in their scope. I close with suggestions for how to adapt our practice. (shrink)

The formal sciences - mathematical as opposed to natural sciences, such as operations research, statistics, theoretical computer science, systems engineering - appear to have achieved mathematically provable knowledge directly about the real world. It is argued that this appearance is correct.

I develop a theodicy that begins with the recognition that we owe our existence to great and varied evils. I develop two versions of this theodicy, with the result that some version is available to the theist regardless of her assumptions about the existence and nature of free will. My defense of Non-Identity Theodicy is aided by an analogy between divine creation and human procreation. I argue that if one affirms the morality of voluntary human procreation, one (...) should affirm the morality of divine creation; conversely, denying the morality of divine creation commits one to denying the morality of human procreation. (shrink)

To explain why God is not the author of sin, despite grounding all features of the world, the early Leibniz marginalized the divine will and defined existence as harmony. These moves support each other. It is easier to nearly eliminate the divine will from creation if existence itself is something wholly intelligible, and easier to identify existence with an internal feature of the possibles if the divine will is not responsible for creation. Both moves, however, commit Leibniz to a necessitarianism (...) that is stronger than what prominent interpreters such as Robert Sleigh and Mogens Lærke have found in the early Leibniz, and stronger than the necessitarianism that threatens his later philosophy. I defend this reading of Leibniz and propose that some features of Leibniz’s later metaphysics, including his “striving possibles” doctrine, are an artifact of the effort to rescue the early theodicy from its unwelcome implications. (shrink)

As conceived by analytic philosophers ontology consists in the application of the methods of mathematical logic to the analysis of ontological discourse. As conceived by realist philosophers such as Meinong and the early Husserl, Reinach and Ingarden, it consists in the investigation of the forms of entities of various types. The suggestion is that formal methods be employed by phenomenological ontologists, and that phenomenological insights may contribute to the construction of adequate formal-ontological languages. The paper sketches an account (...) of what might be involved in this new discipline, an account which is illustrated in application to the formal-ontological problems raised by negative states of affairs. (shrink)

Not focusing on the history of classical logic, this book provides discussions and quotes central passages on its origins and development, namely from a philosophical perspective. Not being a book in mathematical logic, it takes formal logic from an essentially mathematical perspective. Biased towards a computational approach, with SAT and VAL as its backbone, this is an introduction to logic that covers essential aspects of the three branches of logic, to wit, philosophical, mathematical, and computational.

The doctrine of reincarnation is usually associated with Buddhism, Hinduism and other Eastern religions. But it has also been developed in Druzism and Judaism. The doctrine has been used by these traditions to explain the existence of evil within a moral order. Traversing the boundaries between East and West, we explore how Jewish mysticism has employed the doctrine to help answer the problem of evil. We explore the doctrine particularly as we respond to objections against employing it in a (...) class='Hi'>theodicy. We show how it supplements traditional punishment, free will and soul-building theodicies, and helps these theodicies avoid various objections. (shrink)

The paper investigates how greater good theodicies are supposed to work, and argues that, in principle, appeal to greater goods can explain why God, if he exists, is justified in refraining from ensuring that there is little or no evil. (Readers interested in objections from alternative goods might also want to look at the rather different discussion of them in Section 7.11 of my book God, The Best, and Evil (OUP 2008).

In my old manuscript “Formal Theology” that now is out as a preprint I show that science and theology can be founded upon the same set of basic assumptions. I now follow up this idea with the thought that Formal Theology may be used to ground also a religion. “Religion“, in this regard, as related to beliefs. I’m not going into any details, neither concerning the original manuscript, nor this new idea. The important thing, I think, is to (...) explore if this kind of “religion”, in any way, can be accommodated with “ordinary” religions. I leave more rigorous work to myself or to others for the future. (shrink)

How does one formalize the structure of structures necessary for the foundations of physics? This work is an attempt at conceptualizing the metaphysics of pregeometric structures, upon which new and existing notions of quantum geometry may find a foundation. We discuss the philosophy of pregeometric structures due to Wheeler, Leibniz as well as modern manifestations in topos theory. We draw attention to evidence suggesting that the framework of formal language, in particular, homotopy type theory, provides the conceptual building blocks (...) for a theory of pregeometry. This work is largely a synthesis of ideas that serve as a precursor for conceptualizing the notion of space in physical theories. In particular, the approach we espouse is based on a constructivist philosophy, wherein ``structureless structures'' are syntactic types realizing formal proofs and programs. Spaces and algebras relevant to physical theories are modeled as type-theoretic routines constructed from compositional rules of a formal language. This offers the remarkable possibility of taxonomizing distinct notions of geometry using a common theoretical framework. In particular, this perspective addresses the crucial issue of how spatiality may be realized in models that link formal computation to physics, such as the Wolfram model. (shrink)

It is commonly said that some standards, such as morality, are ‘normatively authoritative’ in a way that other standards, such as etiquette, are not; standards like etiquette are said to be ‘not really normative’. Skeptics deny the very possibility of normative authority, and take claims like ‘etiquette is not really normative’ to be either empty or confused. I offer a different route to defeat skeptics about authority: instead of focusing on what makes standards like morality special, we should focus on (...) what makes standards like etiquette ‘not really normative’. I defend a fictionalist theory on which etiquette is ‘not really normative’ in roughly the same way that Sherlock is ‘not really a detective’, and show that fictionalism about some normative standards helps us explain the possibility of normative authority. (shrink)

Although Kant (1998) envisaged a prominent role for logic in the argumentative structure of his Critique of Pure Reason, logicians and philosophers have generally judged Kantgeneralformaltranscendental logics is a logic in the strict formal sense, albeit with a semantics and a definition of validity that are vastly more complex than that of first-order logic. The main technical application of the formalism developed here is a formal proof that Kants logic is after all a distinguished subsystem of first-order logic, (...) namely what is known as geometric logic. (shrink)

This paper reviews the central points and presents some recent developments of the epistemic approach to paraconsistency in terms of the preservation of evidence. Two formal systems are surveyed, the basic logic of evidence (BLE) and the logic of evidence and truth (LET J ), designed to deal, respectively, with evidence and with evidence and truth. While BLE is equivalent to Nelson’s logic N4, it has been conceived for a different purpose. Adequate valuation semantics that provide decidability are given (...) for both BLE and LET J . The meanings of the connectives of BLE and LET J , from the point of view of preservation of evidence, is explained with the aid of an inferential semantics. A formalization of the notion of evidence for BLE as proposed by M. Fitting is also reviewed here. As a novel result, the paper shows that LET J is semantically characterized through the so-called Fidel structures. Some opportunities for further research are also discussed. (shrink)