If one starts with absolute simplicity, then the only way to develop trinitarianism is to view the divine Persons as relations of the simple divine essence (e) to itself. We might, for example, think of the Father, Son, and Spirit in terms of the three relations entailed by identity. Thus, the Father is a monadic… Read More »
This post is the second in a series on a recent book by James D. Gifford, Jr. titled The Hexagon of Heresy: A Historical and Theological Study of Definitional Divine Simplicity (Wipf & Stock, 2022). In the previous post I discussed the problem of the One and the Many and why the idea of absolute… Read More »
After a several month blogging hiatus, I’m resuming my eleven-part series responding to the essays in Ben Arbour’s edited volume, Philosophical Essays against Open Theism (Routledge, 2019). In this post I tackle chapter 10 by Ken Perszyk, “Open Theism and the Soteriological Problem of Evil” (pp. 159–177). In this essay Perszyk compares and contrasts Open… Read More »
In 1 John 4:8, the Bible says categorically that “God is love.” This suggests a hypothesis, namely, that love is God’s fundamental essential attribute. Can we plausibly derive all of God’s other essential attributes from the central attribute of love? To do so we need three things: A clear and plausible definition of love or,… Read More »
I have a Ph.D. in Philosophy. Etymologically, ‘philosophy’ means love of wisdom and a ‘philosopher’ is therefore a lover of wisdom. But etymology doesn’t necessarily map onto semantics. Much that is currently labelled ‘philosophy’ is at best only tangentially concerned with wisdom. Indeed, many self-styled philosophers and other credentialed “smart” people promote astonishingly misguided forms… Read More »
This is part 6 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, part 4, and part 5.) Chapter 6 is a long chapter that arguably should have been split into two parts—at the very… Read More »
My wife and I were recently charged (indirectly and by email) by a well-meaning Christian brother with being part of an heretical, non-Christian cult. In this post I’m going to rebut the “cult” and “heresy” charges, respectively. Along the way, I’ll make some observations about baptism, faith vs. works, and what counts as “salvation”. I.… Read More »
Of all the objections that have been made against open theism, one of the most serious ones, to my mind, is the challenge of Church tradition. Simply stated, the objection is that open theism is not only too novel, but also contrary to Church tradition, and is therefore not a viewpoint that Christians should even… Read More »
By the alethic openness of the future I mean that there is no complete, true, linear story of the future. The main motivation for believing that the future is alethically open comes from future contingency. If the future is not alethically open but alethically settled, then there is a complete, true, linear story of the future. But,… Read More »
In 2008 I published a paper called “Generic Open Theism and Some Varieties Thereof” (Religious Studies). My stated goal in that paper was to “facilitate ongoing dialogue between open and non-open theists” by making precise what “minimal set of commitments any open theist, qua open theist, must affirm.” I thus advocated, and still advocate, for… Read More »