William Hasker

I contend that William Hasker’s argument to show omniscience incompatible with human freedom trades on an ambiguity between altering and bringing about the past, and that it is the latter only which is invoked by one who thinks they are compatible. I then use his notion of precluding circumstances to suggest that what gives the appearance of our inability to freely bring about the future (and hence that omniscience is incompatible with freedom) is that, from God’s perspective of foreknowledge, it is as if the event has already occurred, but that as if conditions do not tell us about the conditions under which the act was performed (whether it was free or not).

This paper discusses the “constitution view” of human persons, as set forth by Lynne Rudder Baker in her book, Persons and Bodies. The metaphysical notion of constitution is explained and briefly defended. It is shown, however, that the view that human persons are constituted by their bodies faces difficulties in specifying the “person-favorable conditions” under which a human body constitutes a person. Furthermore, none of the arguments in support of the claim that humans are constituted by (but not identical with) their bodies is persuasive. It is proposed that the mind-body theory of “emergent dualism” offers many of the benefits of the “constitution view” without sharing in its drawbacks

This chapter begins with a brief exposition of divine timelessness, emphasizing the particular aspects of the doctrine that are crucial for the present discussion. Then the argument is presented to show that a timeless God cannot be present — in particular, that a timeless God cannot have “immediate knowledge” of the created world. This is followed by a discussion of several different attempts, by adherents of timelessness, to show that the argument fails and that a timeless God can indeed be present in the sense that the argument denies. In the course of responding to these objections, it considers additional reasons why the aspects of the doctrine of timelessness that generate the problem are essential to that doctrine and cannot well be abandoned while retaining timelessness itself.

This paper carries forward the discussion initiated by the publication in 1986 of “A Refutation of Middle Knowledge.” Answers are given to two objections that have been raised against the original argument. Next, an alternative argument by Robert Adams is discussed; this argument has the advantage of avoiding reliance on one of the most controversial premises of the original argument. Finally, a definition is given for “S brings it about that Y,” and this definition is used to construct a proof of the “power entailment principle.”

The last two decades have seen an unprecedented amount of philosophical work on the topics of divine foreknowledge, middle knowledge, and timelessness in relation to human freedom. Most of this effort has been directed at logical and metaphysical aspects of these topics – the compatibility of foreknowledge with free will, the existence of true counterfactuals of freedom and the possibility of middle knowledge, the conceivability and metaphysical possibility of divine timelessness, and so on. Far less attention, in contrast, has been devoted to the broader theological ramifications of these theories. Yet insofar as they are theological theories, they are properly appreciated and indeed fully understood only when placed in the appropriate theological context

This article reviews a number of objections to social Trinitarianism that have been presented in the recent literature, especially objections alleging that social Trinitarianism is not truly monotheistic. A number of the objections are found to be successful so far as they go, but they apply only to some versions of social Trinitarianism and not to all. Objections to social Trinitarianism as such, on the other hand, are not successful. The article concludes with a proposal for a social Trinitarian conception of the unity of God

The second part of Richard Double’s Metaphilosophy and Free Will restates arguments first given in his The Non-Reality of Free Will and answers some objections to them. The first, and longer, part of the book sets these arguments in a wider context. Since writing his previous book, Double has come to believe that no theory about free will can be shown to be more worthy of acceptance than others. The reason for this is that different theories are supported by different metaphilosophical views, views that cannot be “shown to be objectively best, because their plausibility [depends] on subjective facts about us,” namely on our “non-truth-valued desires”.

In 1999 Dean Zimmerman proposed a "falling elevator model" for a bodily resurrection consistent with materialism. Recently, he has defended the model against objections, and a slightly different version has been defended by Timothy O’Connor and Jonathan Jacobs. This article considers both sets of responses, and finds them at best partially successful; a new objection, not previously discussed, is also introduced. It is concluded that the prospects for the falling-elevator model, in either version, are not bright