Tom Flint

Though the problem of divine freedom is thus resolved in Chapter III, several closely connected difficulties remain. In Chapter IV, I discuss three of these issues. Though I argue for the traditional view that God was free to refrain from creating and is both omnipotent and morally praiseworthy despite his inability to do evil, I concede that an Anselmian libertarian could coherently reach different conclusions on each of these matters. ;The dissertation concludes with a brief closing section wherein I defend the orthodoxy of the picture of God presented in the previous chapters and suggest additional areas in which the type of approach I have adopted might prove beneficial to the believer. ;In Chapter III, I present what I see as a more reasonable solution. I begin by noting that both sides to the problem of evil controversy make the reasonable supposition that God's creative activity would be guided by his knowledge of counterfactuals which indicate how free creatures would act if placed in various circumstances. I then define a world-type as a maximal consistent set of such counterfactuals. Three important facts regarding world-types can then be demonstrated: first, whichever world-type is true is only contingently true; second, God cannot cause a particular world-type to be true; and third, every world-type determines a unique set of worlds, which I refer to as a galaxy. After proving that there are only four kinds of galaxies--singular, monarchic, oligarchic, and anarchic--with which God might have been presented, I show that God would not have been compelled to actualize any particular world had he been presented with any of the latter three kinds of galaxies. Since the Anselmian libertarian can also offer strong reasons for thinking a singular galaxy to be impossible, it follows that he can consistently hold God to be free--indeed, even essentially free. ;This apparent incompatibility of Anselmian libertarianism with the thesis that God is free constitutes what I call the problem of divine freedom. It is this problem which serves as the primary focus of my dissertation. Having introduced the problem in the first chapter, I examine six alleged solutions which one might be tempted to extract from the writings of philosophers such as Thomas Aquinas, Robert Adams, and Nelson Pike, but conclude that none of them provide the Anselmian libertarian with a plausible means of upholding divine freedom. ;Many modern theists endorse the Anselmian notion of a God who exists necessarily and possesses his perfections essentially. Many such theists would also respond to the atheological argument from evil by appealing to the Free Will Defence, a defence which seems to presuppose a libertarian analysis of freedom. However, it is not clear that one can consistently endorse both of these positions and still subscribe to the orthodox conception of God as a free creator. For one might charge that an essentially good God would be determined by his very nature to make the best world he could, whereas a God whose creative action was thus determined would not be free in the libertarian sense

Philosophical theology is aimed primarily at theoretical understanding of the nature and attributes of God and of God's relationship to the world and its inhabitants. During the twentieth century, much of the philosophical community had grave doubts about our ability to attain any such understanding. In recent years the analytic tradition in particular has moved beyond the biases that placed obstacles in the way of the pursuing questions located on the interface of philosophy and religion. The result has been a rebirth of serious, widely-discussed work in philosophical theology. The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology attempts both to familiarize readers with the directions in which this scholarship has gone and to pursue the discussion into hitherto under-examined areas. Written by some of the leading scholars in the field, the essays in the Handbook are grouped in five sections. In the first, articles focus on the authority of scripture and tradition, on the nature and mechanisms of divine revelation, on the relation between religion and science, and on theology and mystery. The next section focuses on philosophical problems connected with the central divine attributes: aseity, omnipotence, omniscience, and the like. In Section Three, essays explore theories of divine action and divine providence, questions about petitionary prayer, problems about divine authority and God's relationship to morality and moral standards, and various formulations of and responses to the problem of evil. The fourth section examines philosophical problems that arise in connection with such central Christian doctrines as the trinity, the incarnation, the atonement, original sin, resurrection, and the Eucharist. Finally, Section Five introduces readers to work that is being done in Jewish, Islamic, and Chinese philosophical theology.

This article attempts to spell out more clearly the Thomist, the Openist, and the Molinist approaches to divine providence, and to indicate the strengths and weaknesses of these three positions. It begins by discussing both the traditional notion of divine providence and the libertarian picture of freedom. The article then argues that each theory of divine providence has its advantages and disadvantages. Each has had numerous able and creative defenders. As with most philosophical disputes, one can hardly expect this debate to come to an end. The field of battle may shift more clearly in the coming years to considerations of which view, when applied to specific doctrines, offers us the most satisfying overall position. Still, it seems quite likely that all three positions will continue to be defended for the foreseeable future.

Traditional Christians face a puzzle concerning the freedom and perfection of Christ. Jesus the man, it seems, must have possessed significant freedom forhim to serve as a moral example for us and for his death to have been truly meritorious. Yet Jesus the Son of God must be incapable of sinning if he is trulydivine. So if Jesus is both human and divine, one of these two attributes - significant freedom or moral perfection - apparently needs to be surrendered. In thisessay, it is argued that if (and perhaps only if) a Molinist approach to divine providence is embraced, one can plausibly affirm both the freedom of the manand the impeccability of the Son.

Traditional Christians face a puzzle concerning the freedom and perfection of Christ. Jesus the man, it seems, must have possessed significant freedom forhim to serve as a moral example for us and for his death to have been truly meritorious. Yet Jesus the Son of God must be incapable of sinning if he is trulydivine. So if Jesus is both human and divine, one of these two attributes - significant freedom or moral perfection - apparently needs to be surrendered. In thisessay, it is argued that if (and perhaps only if) a Molinist approach to divine providence is embraced, one can plausibly affirm both the freedom of the manand the impeccability of the Son.