•  2282
    Lucky Libertarianism
    Philosophical Studies 113 (2): 93-119. 2003.
    Perhaps the greatest impediment to a viable libertarianism is the provision of a satisfactory explanation of how actions that are undetermined by an agent's character can still be under the control of, or ‘up to’, the agent. The ‘luck problem’ has been most assiduously examined by Robert Kane who supplies a detailed account of how this problem can be resolved. Although Kane's theory is innovative, insightful, and more resourceful than most of his critics believe, it ultimately cannot account for…Read more
  •  1317
    Sceptical theism and evidential arguments from evil
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 81 (4). 2003.
    Sceptical theists--e.g., William Alston and Michael Bergmann--have claimed that considerations concerning human cognitive limitations are alone sufficient to undermine evidential arguments from evil. We argue that, if the considerations deployed by sceptical theists are sufficient to undermine evidential arguments from evil, then those considerations are also sufficient to undermine inferences that play a crucial role in ordinary moral reasoning. If cogent, our argument suffices to discredit sce…Read more
  •  1278
    Cosmological Arguments
    Cambridge University Press. 2018.
    The book discusses the structure, content, and evaluation of cosmological arguments. The introductory chapter investigates features essential to cosmological arguments. Traditionally, cosmological arguments are distinguished by their appeal to change, causation, contingency or objective becoming in the world. But none of these is in fact essential to the formulation of cosmological arguments. Chapters 1-3 present a critical discussion of traditional Thomistic, Kalam, and Leibnizian cosmological …Read more
  •  1003
    The main aim in the forthcoming discussion is to contrast theistic modal realism and theistic actualist realism. Actualist realism is the dominant view among theists and presents the most serious challenge to theistic modal realism. I discuss various prominent forms of theistic actualist realism. I offer reasons for rejecting the view of metaphysical reality that actualist realism affords. I discuss theistic modal realism and show that the traditional conception of God is perfectly consist…Read more
  •  871
    Reply to Trakakis and Nagasawa
    Ars Disputandi 5 5-11. 2005.
    Nick Trakakis and Yujin Nagasawa criticise the argument in Almeida and Oppy . According to Trakakis and Nagasawa, we are mistaken in our claim that the sceptical theist response to evidential arguments from evil is unacceptable because it would undermine ordinary moral reasoning. In their view, there is no good reason to think that sceptical theism leads to an objectionable form of moral scepticism. We disagree. In this paper, we explain why we think that the argument of Nagasawa and Trakakis fa…Read more
  •  838
    On Necessary Gratuitous Evils
    European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 12 (3): 117-135. 2020.
    The standard position on moral perfection and gratuitous evil makes the prevention of gratuitous evil a necessary condition on moral perfection. I argue that, on any analysis of gratuitous evil we choose, the standard position on moral perfection and gratuitous evil is false. It is metaphysically impossible to prevent every gratuitously evil state of affairs in every possible world. No matter what God does—no matter how many gratuitously evil states of affairs God prevents—it is necessarily true…Read more
  •  744
    Evidential Arguments from Evil and Skeptical Theism
    with Michael Almeida and Graham Oppy
    Philo 8 (2). 2004.
    In this paper we respond to criticisms by Michael Bergmann and Michael Rea in their “In Defense of Sceptical Theism : A Reply to Almeida and Oppy,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 83.
  •  739
  •  704
    Theistic Modal Realism II: Theoretical Benefits
    Philosophy Compass 12 (7). 2017.
    In Sections 1–7, I provide a detailed description of some of the advantages of theistic modal realism. The aim is to show specifically how theistic modal realism solves many of the intractable problems of philosophical theology. A detailed description of all of the advantages would require a much longer treatment. The aim is to give a good sense of the theoretical benefits that theistic modal realism affords traditional theists. I offer some concluding remarks in Section 8.
  •  689
    The Logical Problem of Evil Regained
    Midwest Studies in Philosophy 36 (1): 163-176. 2012.
  •  505
  •  501
    The Multiverse and Divine Creation
    Religions 8 (12). 2017.
    I provide the account of divine creation found in multiverse theorists Donald Turner, Klaas Kraay, and Tim O’Connor. I show that the accounts Kraay and Turner offer are incoherent. God does not survey all possible worlds and necessarily actualize those universes in the (on balance) good worlds or the worthy worlds. If God necessarily actualizes the multiverse, we have no idea which universes are parts of that multiverse. I show next that Tim O’Connor’s multiverse account of creation is also inco…Read more
  •  436
    Actuality and Anselm
    In Graham Oppy (ed.), The Ontological Argument (Cambridge Classic Philosophical Arguments Series), Cambridge University Press. pp. 155-75. 2018.
  •  404
    Supervenience and property-identical divine-command theory
    Religious Studies 40 (3): 323-333. 2004.
    Property-identical divine-command theory (PDCT) is the view that being obligatory is identical to being commanded by God in just the way that being water is identical to being H2O. If these identity statements are true, then they express necessary a posteriori truths. PDCT has been defended in Robert M. Adams (1987) and William Alston (1990). More recently Mark C. Murphy (2002) has argued that property-identical divine-command theory is inconsistent with two well-known and well-received theses: …Read more
  •  349
    On Stone's Evidential Atheism
    Theoria 72 (1): 5-22. 2006.
  •  329
    Is it impossible to relieve suffering?
    Philosophia 32 (1-4): 313-324. 2005.
  •  327
    Most theists do not put a (subjective) probability of 1 (certainty) on God's existence. Most atheists do not put a probability of 0 on God's existence. I argue that these familiar positions are incoherent. On the assumption of S5 and the probability calculus it can be shown that the only coherent (subjective) probabilities an agent can assign to God's existence/non-existence are 0 or 1. Believers must be completely committed believers and non-believers must be completely committed non-believers.…Read more
  •  317
    Review of: W. Matthews Grant, Free Will and God’s Universal Causality: The Dual Sources Account (review)
    European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 12 (4): 240-244. 2020.
  •  282
    Assuming divine command theory is true, there are no moral limits on the commands God can issue. Nevertheless there are no possible worlds in which divine command theory is true and God commands cruelty for its own sake or the sacrifice of ten-year-olds in a gruesome ritual, or anything of the kind. The main conclusion of the argument is that God cannot command the morally horrible not because of God's moral perfection or God's lack of power, of God's kindness, etc., but because commanding the m…Read more
  •  277
    Endurantism, Fixity, and Fatalism
    Science, Religion, and Culture. 2018.
  •  274
    Evil is not Evidence
    Religious Studies 1 (1): 1-9. 2022.
    The paper aims to show that, if S5 is the logic of metaphysical necessity, then no state of affairs in any possible world constitutes any non-trivial evidence for or against the existence of the traditional God. There might well be states of affairs in some worlds describing extraordinary goods and extraordinary evils, but it is false that these states of affairs constitute any (non-trivial) evidence for or against the existence of God. The epistemological and metaphysical consequences for philo…Read more
  •  267
    Theistic modal realism?
    Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion 3 1-15. 2011.
  •  259
    Rowe's Argument from Improvability
    Philosophical Papers 35 (1): 1-25. 2006.
    William Rowe has argued that if there is an infinite sequence of improving worlds then an essentially perfectly good being must actualize some world in the sequence and must not actualize any world in the sequence. Since that is impossible, there exist no perfectly good beings. I show that Rowe's argument assumes that the concept of a maximally great being is incoherent. Since we are given no reason to believe that the concept of a maximally great being is incoherent we have no reason to believe…Read more
  •  249
    A Posteriori Anselmianism
    Topoi 36 (4): 599-607. 2017.
    I argue that Anselmians ought to abandon traditional Anselmianism in favor of Moderate Anselmianism. Moderate Anselmianism advances the view that a being x = God iff for every essential property P of x, it is secondarily necessary that x has P, for most essential properties of x, it is not primarily necessary that x has P and the essential properties of x include omnipotence, omniscience, perfect goodness and necessary existence. Traditional Anselmians have no cogent response to most a priori at…Read more
  •  243
    Bringing About Perfect Worlds
    In Kevin Timpe & Daniel Speak (eds.), Free Will and Theism: Connections, Contingencies, and Concerns, Oxford University Press Uk. pp. 195-213. 2016.
  •  226
    Is It Impossible to Be Moral?
    Dialogue 44 (1): 3-13. 2005.
    ABSTRACT: Recent work in moral theory includes an intriguing new argument that the vagueness of moral properties, together with two well-known and well-received metaethical principles, entails the incredible conclusion that it is impossible to be moral. I show that the argument equivocates between “it is true that A and B are morally indistinguishable” and “it is not false that A and B are morally indistinguishable.” As expected the argument is interesting but unsound. It is therefore not imposs…Read more
  •  217
    Refuting Van Inwagen's 'refutation': Evidentialism again
    International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 44 (1). 1998.