It is often insufficiently appreciated, I submit, that so-called “classical theism” is not a monolithic model of God. There are two main varieties: Strong classical theism (SCT) = God is absolutely simple, absolutely immutable, absolutely timeless, absolutely impassible, purely actual, etc. Weak classical theism (WCT) = God is significantly simple, significantly immutable, significantly timeless, significantly impassible, etc.,… Read More »
This is part 5 of my ongoing series on Patrick Todd’s recently published book The Open Future: Why Future Contingents are All False (Oxford, 2021). (Previous installments: part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4.) Chapter 5 is a relatively short chapter that initially focuses on how to understand divine omniscience in relation to… Read More »
If there’s a “poster child” of classical theism, it would have to be Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274 AD). By the end of only the third question in the Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas has concluded that God necessarily exists and is the absolutely simple and purely actual first, uncaused cause of the moment-by-moment being of everything else.… Read More »
All theists believe—or should believe—that God’s existence is necessary in a metaphysically robust sense of “necessary”. How, after all, could we unswervingly commit our lives and our futures to an ontologically fragile God, one who could—try as He might to avoid it—cease to exist? Or one who, because He simply got bored with eternity, commit deicide,… Read More »
Introduction It’s been about a year since I last blogged. I plan to get back into it with more consistency. This last year my wife and I became foster parents and subsequently adoptive parents to a little girl (now 3 years old), and that coupled with a few other things has made it hard to… Read More »
Among open theists there has been a running in-house debate between what I will call the “passibilist” and “impassibilist” camps. T. C. Moore has lately been leading the charge on behalf of the passibilists, while Tom Belt and Dwayne Polk have been leading the charge for the impassibilists. (As noted below, by “passibilism” and “impassibilism”… Read More »
This is the final installment in a three-part commentary on philosopher Lydia McGrew’s essay on divine timelessness published in the latest volume of The Christendom Review. In part 1 of this series, I critiqued three of her arguments in favor of divine timelessness. In part 2 I looked at her responses to two categories of… Read More »
This post is the second in a three-part commentary on philosopher Lydia McGrew’s essay on divine timelessness published in the latest volume of The Christendom Review. In part 1 of this series, I critique three of her arguments in favor of divine timelessness: arguments based on divine transcendence, immutability, and perfection. In part 3, I… Read More »
In the latest volume of The Christendom Review, philosopher Lydia McGrew presents a three-fold argument in favor of divine timelessness. This is the view that God is absolutely immutable (cannot change in any respects) and exists in a manner that is completely unqualified by temporal predicates. On this view God doesn’t have a history or… Read More »
Trenton Merricks claims that truthmakers must be what truths are “about” in some unarticulated sense of “about”. He then argues against truthmaker-type principles by claiming that there are truths of various sorts for which his undefined aboutness criterion cannot be met. In two of my last three posts I have criticized Merricks for leaving this… Read More »