William Hasker

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

According to William Craig, the notion of explanatory priority is the Achilles' heel of Robert Adams' argument against Molinism. Specifically, Craig contends that (1) the notion of explanatory priority is employed equivocally in the argument; (2) Adams is guilty of conflating reasons and causes; and (3) one of the intermediate conclusions of the argument is invalidly inferred, as can be seen by a counterexample. I argue that Craig is mistaken on all counts, and that Adams' argument emerges unscathed

It is widely held that the logical problem of evil, which alleges an inconsistency between the existence of evil and that of an omnipotent and morally perfect God, has been solved. D. Z. Phillips thinks this is a mistake. In The Problem of Evil and the Problem of God, he argues that, within the generally assumed framework, “neither the proposition ’God is omnipotent’ nor the proposition ‘God is perfectly good’ can get off the ground.” Thus, the problem of evil leads to the problem of God. Phillips goes on to provide an alternative response to the problem of evil, expounded by means of his Wittgensteinian analyses of various concepts drawn from the Christian tradition. I argue that his criticisms of the traditional conception of God either fail outright or are at best inconclusive. I also point out that the religious concepts analyzed by Phillips are not and cannot be the same concepts as those employed in the Christian tradition from which they are supposedly drawn. For the concepts as traditionally employed presuppose the actual existence and activity of precisely the sort of being that, according to Phillips, “God cannot be.”

This paper presents a broad-ranging critique of the traditional strong doctrine of divine simplicity which is attributed to Augustine and Aquinas. After showing two important arguments in favor of the doctrine to be unsuccessful, it argues that the doctrine itself, in this strong version, is problematic in three main ways. First, the doctrine involves extensive category mistakes. Second, it is difficult to reconcile with truths about God that are universally acknowledged, such as that God knows contingent truths and performs actions which he is not necessitated by his nature to perform. Finally, it is difficult to reconcile with personal attributes of God which are important both for the Bible and for religious practice, such as the claims that God is responsive to human beings and that he loves them. This article contends that while there is a sense in which it is true that God is simple, the traditional strong doctrine of divine simplicity, attributed to Augustine and Aquinas, is a mistake from which theology needs to be liberated.