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63Anselm on the Ontological Status of ChoiceInternational Philosophical Quarterly 52 (2): 183-197. 2012.If God is the cause of everything that has any sort of existence at all, where is there room in the universe for rational creatures to have freedom of will? Isn’t a choice made by a created agent a sort of thing, and hence made by God? But if God causes our choices, how are we responsible such that we can be appropriately praised and blamed? Call this the dilemma of created freedom and divine omnipotence. Anselm solves the dilemma by proposing a description of free choice in which what is contri…Read more
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56A Clone by any Other NameJournal of Philosophical Research 32 (9999): 247-255. 2007.The possibility of cloning human beings raises the difficult question: Which human lives have value and deserve legal protection? Current cloning legislation tries to hide the problem by illegitimately renaming the entities and processes in question. The Delaware cloning bill, (SB55 2003/2004) for example, permits and protects the creation of human embryos by cloning, as long as they will be destroyed for research and therapeutic purposes, but it adopts terminology which renders its import uncle…Read more
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36Libertarianism in Kane and AnselmProceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 81 279-290. 2007.Anselm of Canterbury is the first Christian philosopher, perhaps the first philosopher, to offer a systematic analysis of libertarian freedom. His work prefigures that of Robert Kane, and looking at the two philosophers together is helpful in understanding and appreciating the work of each of them. In this paper I show how Anselm adopts a view of choice that foreshadows Kane’s doctrine of ‘plural voluntary control.’ Kane proposes this doctrine as an attempt to answer the ‘luck’ problem. Alfred M…Read more
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68A Defense of Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo ArgumentProceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 74 187-200. 2000.
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136St. Augustine on Time and EternityAmerican Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 70 (2): 207-223. 1996.
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202Anselmian EternalismFaith and Philosophy 24 (1): 3-27. 2007.Anselm holds that God is timeless, time is tenseless, and humans have libertarian freedom. This combination of commitments is largely undefended incontemporary philosophy of religion. Here I explain Anselmian eternalism with its entailment of tenseless time, offer reasons for accepting it, and defend it against criticisms from William Hasker and other Open Theists. I argue that the tenseless view is coherent, that God’s eternal omniscience is consistent with libertarian freedom, that being etern…Read more
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84Evidence for God from CertaintyFaith and Philosophy 25 (1): 31-46. 2008.Human beings can have “strongly certain” beliefs—indubitable, veridical beliefs with a unique phenomenology—about necessarily true propositions like 2+2=4. On the plausible assumption that mathematical entities are platonic abstracta, naturalist theories fail to provide an adequate causal explanation for such beliefs because they cannot show how the propositional content of the causally inert abstracta can figure in a chain of physical causes. Theories which explain such beliefs as “correspondin…Read more
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77Hume on Necessary Causal ConnectionsPhilosophy 66 (258). 1991.According to David Hume our idea of a necessary connection between what we call cause and effect is produced when repeated observation of the conjunction of two events determines the mind to consider one upon the appearance of the other. No matter how we interpret Hume's theory of causation this explanation of the genesis of the idea of necessity is fraught with difficulty. I hope to show, looking at the three major interpretations of Hume's causal theory, that his account is contradictory, plai…Read more
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God, time, and freedomIn Paul Copan & Chad V. Meister (eds.), Philosophy of religion: classic and contemporary issues, Blackwell. 2008.
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3Pt. 2. God in relation to creation. IncarnationIn Charles Taliaferro & Chad V. Meister (eds.), The Cambridge companion to Christian philosophical theology, Cambridge University Press. 2010.
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1IncarnationIn Charles Taliaferro & Chad V. Meister (eds.), The Cambridge companion to Christian philosophical theology, Cambridge University Press. 2010.
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103God is Not the Author of SinFaith and Philosophy 24 (3): 300-310. 2007.Following Anselm of Canterbury I argue against Hugh McCann’s claim that a traditional, classical theist understanding of God’s relationship to creation entails that God is the cause of our choices, including our choice to sin. I explain Anselm’s thesis that God causes all that has ontological status, yet does not cause sin. Then I show that McCann’s God, if not a sinner, must nonetheless be an unloving deceiver, McCann’s theodicy fails on its own terms, his proposed requirements for moral authen…Read more
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77Retribution, Forgiveness, and the Character Creation Theory of PunishmentSocial Theory and Practice 33 (1): 75-103. 2007.
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166Anselmian EternalismFaith and Philosophy 24 (1): 3-27. 2007.Anselm holds that God is timeless, time is tenseless, and humans have libertarian freedom. This combination of commitments is largely undefended incontemporary philosophy of religion. Here I explain Anselmian eternalism with its entailment of tenseless time, offer reasons for accepting it, and defend it against criticisms from William Hasker and other Open Theists. I argue that the tenseless view is coherent, that God’s eternal omniscience is consistent with libertarian freedom, that being etern…Read more
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34The medieval approach to aardvarks, escalators, and GodJournal of Value Inquiry 27 (1): 63-68. 1993.
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128Augustine's compatibilismReligious Studies 40 (4): 415-435. 2004.In analysing Augustine's views on freedom it is standard to draw two distinctions; one between an earlier emphasis on human freedom and a later insistence that God alone governs human destiny, and another between pre-lapsarian and post-lapsarian freedom. These distinctions are real and important, but underlying them is a more fundamental consistency. Augustine is a compatibilist from his earliest work on freedom through his final anti-Pelagian writings, and the freedom possessed by the un-fallen…Read more
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36David O'Connor God and inscrutable evil: In defence of theism and atheism. (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1998). Pp. XIII+273. £53 hbk, £19.95 pbk (review)Religious Studies 35 (2): 229-240. 1999.
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138The necessity of the present and Anselm's eternalist response to the problem of theological fatalismReligious Studies 43 (1): 25-47. 2007.It is often argued that the eternalist solution to the freedom/foreknowledge dilemma fails. If God's knowledge of your choices is eternally fixed, your choices are necessary and cannot be free. Anselm of Canterbury proposes an eternalist view which entails that all of time is equally real and truly present to God. God's knowledge of your choices entails only a ‘consequent’ necessity which does not conflict with libertarian freedom. I argue this by showing that if consequent necessity does confli…Read more
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63Barry Miller, a most unlikely God (notre dame and London: University of notre dame press, 1996) 175pp., £21.50 Sterling (review)Religious Studies 34 (3): 353-367. 1998.
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7God and Inscrutable Evil: In Defence of Theism and Atheism (review)Religious Studies 35 (2): 229-240. 1999.
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444God and Moral RealismInternational Philosophical Quarterly 45 (1): 103-118. 2005.Only God, or a very god-like being, can provide both the objectivity and the normative power necessary for a really robust moral realism. Further, I argue that the classical theist position—the view of Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas—that morality is grounded in the nature of God, supplies a better metaphysical background for a strong moral realism than Divine Command Theory does. I respond briefly to the criticism that belief in God can have no positive role to play in solving ethical problems, …Read more
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45Peter van Inwagen (ed.) Christian Faith and The Problem of Evil. (Grand Rapids MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2004). Pp. xiv+316. ISBN 0 8028 2697 0 (review)Religious Studies 42 (1): 111-116. 2006.
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8Defending Boethius: Two Case Studies in Charitable InterpretationInternational Philosophical Quarterly 51 (2): 241-257. 2011.Among those who study medieval philosophy there is a divide between historians and philosophers. Sometimes the historians chide the philosophers for failing to appreciate the historical factors at work in understanding a text, a philosopher, a school, or a system. But sometimes the philosopher may justly criticize the historian for failing to engage the past philosopher adequately as a philosopher. Here I defend a philosophically charitable methodology and offer two examples, taken from John Mar…Read more
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21Back to EternalismFaith and Philosophy 26 (3): 320-338. 2009.Against my interpretation, Brian Leftow argues that Anselm of Canterbury held a presentist theory of time, and that presentism can be reconciled with Anselm’s commitments concerning divine omnipotence and omniscience. I respond, focusing mainly on two issues. First, it is difficult to understand the presentist theory which Leftow attributes to Anselm. I articulate my puzzlement in a way that I hope moves the discussion forward. Second, Leftow’s examples to demonstrate that presentism can be reco…Read more