Jim Keller

Those who believe that miracles (temporary suspensions of some law of nature accomplished by divine power) have occurred typically hold that they are rare and that only a small percentage of all people have been eyewitnesses to them or been direct beneficiaries of them. Although a claim that they occur far more frequently would be empirically highly implausible, I argue that the claim that God performs miracles in such a pattern unavoidably implies that God is guilty of unfairness. I articulate a criterion of fairness, discuss various types of miracles, and defend my conclusion against a variety of possible rejoinders.

In a recent article in FAITH AND PHILOSOPHY, Alvin Plantinga advised Christian philosophers to philosophize in light of their fundamental beliefs as Christians. Believing that his discussion does not give proper weight to the necessary role of secular beliefs in modifying our Christian beliefs, in this article I propose that Christian beliefs and secular beliefs should be related more dialectically than Plantinga suggests--i.e., that neither should always be given precedence. I defend this proposal with several examples on a variety of topics from the history of Christian thought and suggest how much weight to give to beliefs of each type.

In discussions of the probabilistic argument from evil, some defenders of theism have recently argued that evil has no evidential force against theism. They base their argument on the claim that there is no reason to think that we should be able to discern morally sufficient reasons which God presumably has for permitting the evil which occurs. In this paper I try to counter this argument by discussing factors which suggest that we should generally be able to discern why God permits evil events. I close by suggesting that the theist use the evidential force which evil does have as a reason to question her understanding of the divine attributes.