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8Future contingency, future indeterminacy, and grounding: comments on ToddInternational Journal for Philosophy of Religion 95 (2): 209-215. 2024.
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24Patrick Todd. The Open Future: Why Future Contingents are All False (review)Journal of Analytic Theology 11 738-742. 2023.
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174Bootstrapping Divine Foreknowledge? Comments on FischerScience, Religion and Culture 4 (2): 72-78. 2017.Critiques John Martin Fischer's bootstrapping model of divine foreknowledge. Invited contribution to a special journal issue on John Martin Fischer's _Our Fate: Essays on God and Free Will_ (Oxford, 2016).
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226Open Theism and Other Models of Divine ProvidenceIn Jeanine Diller & Asa Kasher (eds.), Models of God and Alternative Ultimate Realities, Springer. pp. 287-298. 2013.Compares and contrasts Open Theism with Theological Determinism, Molinism, and Process Theism.
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228Foreknowledge and Fatalism : Why Divine Timelessness Doesn’t HelpIn L. Nathan Oaklander (ed.), Debates in the Metaphysics of Time, Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 253-274. 2014.Argues that divine timelessness is at best irrelevant and at worst counterproductive for addressing the problem of foreknowledge and future contingents.
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149Future contingency, future indeterminacy, and grounding: comments on Todd: Book symposium: Patrick Todd, The Open Future: Why Future Contingents are All False. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021. 224 pp. $80.00 (review)International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 95 (1): 103-109. 2024.Invited discussion paper on Patrick Todd's book, _The Open Future: Why Future Contingents Are All False_ (Oxford, 2021).
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12Trent Dougherty and Justin McBrayer, eds. Skeptical Theism: New EssaysJournal of Analytic Theology 6 784-788. 2018.ㅤ
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47Is an Open Infinite Future Impossible? A Reply to PrussFaith and Philosophy 37 (3): 363-369. 2020.Alexander Pruss has recently argued on probabilistic grounds that Christian philosophers should reject Open Futurism—roughly, the thesis that there are no true future contingents—on account of this view’s alleged inability to handle certain statements about infinite futures in a mathematically or religiously adequate manner. We argue that, once the distinction between being true and becoming true is applied to such statements, it is evident that they pose no problem for Open Futurists.
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The Problem of Induction: An Epistemological and Methodological ResponseDissertation, Fordham University. 2004.In this dissertation I respond to two related problems of induction. The negative problem is to rebut the Humean skeptical argument, which argues that induction cannot result in epistemically justified beliefs because the substantive assumptions upon which induction depends cannot be appropriately justified. The positive problem is to show that it is reasonable to rely on induction as a source of epistemically justified beliefs. With respect to the negative problem, I examine and reject several …Read more
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136Presentism, Truthmakers, and GodPacific Philosophical Quarterly 90 (1): 41-62. 2009.The truthmaker objection to presentism (the view that only what exists now exists simpliciter) is that it lacks sufficient metaphysical resources to ground truths about the past. In this paper I identify five constraints that an adequate presentist response must satisfy. In light of these constraints, I examine and reject responses by Bigelow, Keller, Crisp, and Bourne. Consideration of how these responses fail, however, points toward a proposal that works; one that posits God’s memories as trut…Read more
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18Fumerton’s Principle of Inferential Justification, Skepticism, and the Nature of InferenceJournal of Philosophical Research 33 215-234. 2008.I argue that Richard Fumerton’s controversial “Principle of Inferential Justification” (PIJ) can be satisfactorily defended against several charges that have been leveled against it, namely, that it leads to skepticism, that it confuses different levels of justification, and that it involves a fallacy of “misconditionalization.”The basis of my defense of PIJ is a distinction between two theories of the nature of inference—an internalist conception (IC), according to which inferring requires that…Read more
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14In Defense of Weak Inferential InternalismJournal of Philosophical Research 37 379-385. 2012.David Alexander has argued that “weak inferential internalism” (WII), a position which amounts to a qualified endorsement of Richard Fumerton’s controversial “principle of inferential justification,” is subject to a fatal dilemma: Either it collapses into externalism or it must make an arbitrary epistemic distinction between persons who believe the same proposition for the same reasons. In this paper, I argue that the dilemma is a false one, for weak inferential internalism does not entail inter…Read more
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62Probability, Truth, and the Openness of the FutureFaith and Philosophy 27 (2): 197-204. 2010.Alexander Pruss’s recent argument against the open future view (OF) is unsound. Contra Pruss, there is no conflict between OF, which holds that there are no true future contingent propositions (FCPs), and the high credence we place in some FCPs. When due attention is paid to the semantics of FCPs, to the relation of epistemic to objective probabilities, and to the distinction between truth simpliciter and truth at a time, it becomes clear that what we have good reason for believing is not that s…Read more
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149Gratuitous evil and divine providenceReligious Studies 46 (3): 281-302. 2010.Discussions of the evidential argument from evil generally pay little attention to how different models of divine providence constrain the theist's options for response. After describing four models of providence and general theistic strategies for engaging the evidential argument, I articulate and defend a definition of 'gratuitous evil' that renders the theological premise of the argument uncontroversial for theists. This forces theists to focus their fire on the evidential premise, enabling u…Read more
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34Peirce and Lonergan on Inquiry and the Pragmatics of InferenceInternational Philosophical Quarterly 51 (2): 181-194. 2011.Drawing on the work of Charles Peirce and Bernard Lonergan, I argue (1) that inferences are essentially related to a process of inquiry, (2) that there is a normative pattern to this process, one in which each of Peirce’s three distinct types of inference—abductive, deductive, and inductive—plays a distinct cognitive role, and (3) that each type of inference answers a distinct type of question and thereby resolves a distinct kind of interrogative intentionality
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98The fivefold openness of the futureIn William Hasker Thomas Jay Oord & Dean Zimmerman (eds.), God in an Open Universe, Pickwick Publications. pp. 69--93. 2011.
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102Generic open theism and some varieties thereofReligious Studies 44 (2): 225-234. 2008.The goal of this paper is to facilitate ongoing dialogue between open and non-open theists. First, I try to make precise what open theism is by distinguishing the core commitments of the position from other secondary and optional commitments. The result is a characterization of ‘generic open theism’, the minimal set of commitments that any open theist, qua open theist, must affirm. Second, within the framework of generic open theism, I distinguish three important variants and discuss challenges …Read more
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102Fumerton’s Principle of Inferential Justification, Skepticism, and the Nature of InferenceJournal of Philosophical Research 33 215-234. 2008.I argue that Richard Fumerton’s controversial “Principle of Inferential Justification” (PIJ) can be satisfactorily defended against several charges that have been leveled against it, namely, that it leads to skepticism, that it confuses different levels of justification, and that it involves a fallacy of “misconditionalization.”The basis of my defense of PIJ is a distinction between two theories of the nature of inference—an internalist conception (IC), according to which inferring requires that…Read more
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227The philosophical case for open theismPhilosophia 35 (3-4): 301-311. 2007.The goal of this paper is to defend open theism vis-à-vis its main competitors within the family of broadly classical theisms, namely, theological determinism and the various forms of non-open free-will theism, such as Molinism and Ockhamism. After isolating two core theses over which open theists and their opponents differ, I argue for the open theist position on both points. Specifically, I argue against theological determinists that there are future contingents. And I argue against non-open f…Read more
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20In Defense of Weak Inferential Internalism: Reply to AlexanderJournal of Philosophical Research 37 379-385. 2012.David Alexander has argued that “weak inferential internalism” , a position which amounts to a qualified endorsement of Richard Fumerton’s controversial “principle of inferential justification,” is subject to a fatal dilemma: Either it collapses into externalism or it must make an arbitrary epistemic distinction between persons who believe the same proposition for the same reasons. In this paper, I argue that the dilemma is a false one, for weak inferential internalism does not entail internalis…Read more
Alan Rhoda
Christian Theological Seminary
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Christian Theological SeminaryOther
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Religion |
Areas of Interest
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Religion |
Philosophy of Action |