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31Dancers, Rugby Players, and Trinitarian PersonsFaith and Philosophy 29 (3): 325-333. 2012.Brian Leftow has replied to the objections I raised against his trinitarian views in “A Leftovian Trinity?.” I explain why I don’t find his replies persuasive, and add some additional points based on his recent response.
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68Is free-will theism religiously inadequate? A reply to CiocchiReligious Studies 39 (4): 431-440. 2003.David Ciocchi has charged that ‘open’ or free-will theism is religiously inadequate. This is it is because it is unable to affirm the ‘presumption of divine intervention in response to petitionary prayer’ (PDI), a presumption Ciocchi claims is implicit in the religious practice of ordinary Christian believers. I argue that PDI and Ciocchi's other assumptions concerning prayer are too strong, and would upon reflection be rejected by most believers. On the other hand, God as conceived by free-will…Read more
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60How good/bad is middle knowledge? A reply to BasingerInternational Journal for Philosophy of Religion 33 (2). 1993.
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93Concerning the Unity of ConsciousnessFaith and Philosophy 12 (4): 532-547. 1995.Ever since Descartes there have been philosophers who have claimed that the unity of conscious experience argues strongly against the possibility that the mind or self is a material thing. My contention is that the recent neglect of this argument is a mistake, and that it places a serious and perhaps insuperable obstacle in the way of materialist theories of the mind.
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97Constitution and the TrinityFaith and Philosophy 27 (3): 321-329. 2010.Jeffrey Brower and Michael Rea have proposed a model for the Trinity using a particular understanding of the relation of material constitution. I examine this model in detail and conclude that it cannot succeed. I then suggest, but do not fully develop, a model of the Trinity using an alternative notion of constitution.
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237All too skeptical theismInternational Journal for Philosophy of Religion 68 (1-3): 15-29. 2010.Skeptical theism contends that, due to our cognitive limitations, we cannot expect to be able to determine whether there are reasons which justify God’s permission of apparently unjustified evils. Because this is so, the existence of these evils does not constituted evidence against God’s existence. A common criticism is that the skeptical theist is implicitly committed to other, less palatable forms of skepticism, especially moral skepticism. I examine a recent defense against this charge mount…Read more
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83Are alternative pasts plausible? A reply to Thomas FlintReligious Studies 36 (1): 103-105. 2000.Thomas Flint has claimed that my argument against Molinism suffers from a 'seemingly irreparable logical gap'. He also contests a key assumption of that argument, namely that 'something which has had causal consequences in the past is ipso facto a hard, fixed, settled fact about the past'. In reply, I show that there is no logical gap at all in the argument. And I argue that, even though Molinists have reasons, based on Molinist principles, for rejecting the assumption in question, the assumptio…Read more
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4Does God change?In Steven M. Cahn (ed.), Exploring philosophy of religion: an introductory anthology, Oxford University Press. 2009.
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58Alston on the Rationality of Doxastic PracticesFaith and Philosophy 27 (2): 205-211. 2010.John Turri claims to have refuted the main argument of William Alston’s Perceiving God. He contests Alston’s claim that “for any established doxastic practice it is rational to suppose that it is reliable.” I show that Turri has misinterpreted Alston at several key points, and that his refutation of Alston’s argument fails.
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42Deception and the Trinity: A Rejoinder to TuggyReligious Studies 47 (1). 2011.Dale Tuggy argues that his divine-deception argument against social Trinitarianism remains unscathed, in spite of my recent objections. I maintain that his argument is question-begging and exegetically weak, and does not succeed in refuting social Trinitarianism
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95Can God be free?: Rowe's dilemma for theologyReligious Studies 41 (4): 453-462. 2005.In his book, Can God Be Free?, William Rowe has argued that if God is unsurpassably good He cannot be free; if He is free, He cannot be unsurpassably good. After following the discussion of this topic through a number of historical figures, Rowe focuses on the recent and contemporary debate. A key claim of Rowe's is that, if there exists an endless series of better and better creatable worlds, then the existence of a morally perfect creator is impossible. I show that this argument is unsound, si…Read more
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92Anti-Molinism is Undefeated!Faith and Philosophy 17 (1): 126-131. 2000.William Craig has recently objected to my defense of Robert Adams’ anti-Molinist argument. I argue that all of Craig’s objections fail, and anti-Molinism stands undefeated.
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67Book review: Gregory E. Ganssle (ed.), God and time; William Lane Craig, God, time, and eternity (review)International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 53 (2): 111-114. 2003.
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55Analytic philosophy of religionIn William J. Wainwright (ed.), The Oxford handbook of philosophy of religion, Oxford University Press. pp. 421--46. 2005.Analytic philosophy of religion was gestated in the nineteen forties, born in the early fifties, spent its childhood in the sixties, and its adolescence in the seventies and early eighties. Since then it has grown into adulthood, and it reached the turn of the millennium in a state of vigorous maturity, with decline and senile degeneration nowhere in sight. This chapter unpacks this metaphor by tracing the main stages in the development of this discipline, beginning with the preoccupation with r…Read more
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249AfterlifeThe Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2010.Human beings, like all other organic creatures, die and their bodies decay. Nevertheless, there is a widespread and long-standing belief that in some way death is survivable, that there is “life after death.” The focus in this article is on the possibility that the individual who dies will somehow continue to live, or will resume life at a later time, and not on the specific forms such an afterlife might take. We begin by considering the logical possibility of survival, given different metaphysi…Read more
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80A Leftovian Trinity?Faith and Philosophy 26 (2): 154-166. 2009.Brian Leftow has proposed a “Latin” doctrine of the Trinity according to which “the Father just is God,” and so also for the Son and the Spirit. I argue that Leftow’s doctrine as he presents it really does have the consequence that Father, Son, and Spirit are all identical, a consequence that is inconsistent with orthodox Trinitarianism. A fairly minor modification would enable Leftow to avoid this untoward consequence. But the doctrine as modified will still retain a strongly modalistic flavor:…Read more
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58Can Social Trinitarianism Be Monotheist?Faith and Philosophy 30 (4): 439-443. 2013.Dale Tuggy has criticized my proposal for the doctrine of the Trinity, claiming that social trinitarianism cannot be monotheistic. I present a counter-argument, and consider the ways in which Tuggy might respond to it.
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992Beauty and MetaphysicsEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Religion 1 (1). 2009.It is shown through examples ranging from Parmenides and Plato to Whitehead and Wittgenstein that beauty is central among the values that have made metaphysical theories appealing and credible. A common attitude would be that the aesthetic properties of metaphysical theories may be important for effective presentation but are irrelevant to the cognitive value of the theories. This however is question-begging, since it assumes without argument that ultimate reality is indifferent to ’value consid…Read more
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20Anti-Molinist ArgumentsIn Ken Perszyk (ed.), Molinism: The Contemporary Debate, Oxford University Press. pp. 73. 2011.
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27Deception and the trinity: A rejoinder to Tuggy: William HaskerReligious Studies 47 (1): 117-120. 2011.Dale Tuggy argues that his divine-deception argument against Social Trinitarianism remains unscathed, in spite of my recent objections. I maintain that his argument is question-begging and exegetically weak, and does not succeed in refuting Social Trinitarianism