Nick Trakakis

God is thought of as hidden in at least two ways. Firstly, God's reasons for permitting evil, particularly instances of horrendous evil, are often thought to be inscrutable or beyond our ken. Secondly, and perhaps more problematically, God's very existence and love or concern for us is often thought to be hidden from us (or, at least, from many of us on many occasions). But if we assume, as seems most plausible, that God's reasons for permitting evil will (in many, if not most, instances) be impossible for us to comprehend, would we not expect a loving God to at least make his existence or love sufficiently clear to us so that we would know that there is some good, albeit inscrutable, reason why we (or others) are permitted to suffer? In this paper I examine John Hick's influential response to this question, a response predicated on the notion of 'epistemic distance': God must remain epistemically distant and hence hidden from us so as to preserve our free will. Commentators of Hick's work, however, disagree as to whether the kind of free will that is thought to be made possible by epistemic distance is the freedom to believe that God exists, or the freedom to choose between good and evil, or the freedom to enter into a personal relationship with God. I argue that it is only the last of these three varieties of free will that Hick has in mind. But this kind of freedom, I go on to argue, does not necessitate an epistemically distant God, and so the problem of divine hiddenness remains unsolved.

This paper examines an evidential argument from evil recently defended by William Rowe, one that differs significantly from the kind of evidential argument Rowe has become renowned for defending. After providing a brief outline of Rowe’s new argument, I contest its seemingly uncontestable premise that our world is not the best world God could have created. I then engage in a lengthier discussion of the other key premise in Rowe’s argument, viz., the Leibnizian premise that any world created by God must be the best world God can create. In particular, I discuss the criticisms raised against this premise by William Wainwright as well as Rowe’s attempt to meet these criticisms. The Wainwright-Rowe exchange, I argue, highlights some insuperable difficulties in Rowe’s challenge to theism.

How is the philosophical study of religion best pursued? Responses to this meta-philosophical question tend to recapitulate the analytic-Continental divide in philosophy in general. My aim is to examine the nature of this divide, particularly as it has manifested itself in the philosophy of religion. I begin with a comparison of the stylistic differences in the language of the two traditions, taking the work of Alvin Plantinga and John Caputo as exemplars of the analytic and Continental schools respectively. In order to account for these stylistic divergences, however, it is necessary to delve further into meta-philosophy. I go on to show how each philosophical school models itself on different theoretical practices, the analytic school mimicking the scientific style of inquiry, while in Continental philosophy it is the arts and humanities rather than the sciences that provide the model for philosophical discourse. By situating themselves in such different genres, analytic and Continental philosophers have developed contrasting, if not mutually exclusive, methods for pursuing the philosophy of religion

Hard determinism, in theological dress, holds that there is no human free will since God is the sufficient active cause of everything that happens in creation. It is surprising that, in the ever-growing literature on the problem of evil, very little attention has been paid to theodicies that adopt a hard determinist outlook. It is commonly assumed that without free will the theodical project is a non-starter. I challenge this long-held assumption by, firstly, developing a cumulative-style theodicy from within a hard determinist framework, and secondly, comparing the merits of such a theodicy with two libertarian rivals, specifically, Molinism and open theism. The hard determinist model of divine providence is, I argue, in no worse shape than the principal models developed by libertarians

What would the world be like if hard determinism were true, that is, if all events were determined in such a way as to render all our decisions and actions unfree? In particular, what would morality be like? Indeed, could there be anything distinctively moral in such a world, or would we be left with a moral nihilism in which nothing of moral significance remains? In this paper I explore the ethical implications of hard determinism, focusing on the consequences that our lack of free will would have for moral responsibility , moral obligation, moral rightness and wrongness, and moral goodness. I argue that the truth of hard determinism would compel us to significantly revise our commonsensical understanding of these moral categories. I add, however, that this change in moral outlook would not have dire practical consequences, for we would retain the attitudes and emotions that are essential to forming good interpersonal relationships and to developing morally. In fact, far from being a threat to human flourishing, hard determinism offers the prospect of a life that is morally deeper and more fulfilling than in a world in which we are free