William Hasker

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.

Thomistic dualism, based on the Aristotelian view of the soul as the form of the body, presents us with a conception of the person as part of the natural world in a way that deserves our attention. The view is outlined, following Eleonore Stump’s exposition, and some objections to it are noted. Consideration is then given to a modified version of Thomistic dualism developed by J. P. Moreland. Finally, attention is directed at the theory of “emergent dualism,” which obtains many of the benefits aimed at by the Thomistic view without its drawbacks.

George Mavrodes has argued, on the basis of John Hick’s _An Interpretation of Religion,_ that Hick is ‘probably the most important philosophical defender of polytheism in the history of Western philosophy’. Hick, however, denies that this description pro­per­ly applies to him. This paper concludes that insofar as Hick maintains the Kantian-constructivist view of the divine _personae_ and _impersonae_ that is predominant in the _Interpretation,_ he is able to avoid being classified as a polytheist. That work, however, also contains a realist view of such beings, a view which Hick defends as a viable alternative and at times seems to prefer. Where this realist view is concerned, this paper shows that Hick’s position is straightforwardly polytheistic. In his response, Hick explains his openness to a certain kind of polytheism, which he contends is consistent with his views on religious pluralism.

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 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