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: Am I a heretic? Thoughts on faith, works, salvation, and… »
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: Open Theism and the Challenge of Church Tradition »
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: Alethic Openness and Bivalence (Part 1 of 2) »
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: What Is Open Theism? »
There’s a simple and valid argument for fatalism based on a proposition which most analytic philosophers would accept. The assumption is this There is an actual world, alpha, which contains a complete history. Unlike other merely possible worlds, alpha is the possible world that “obtains”. For the sake of argument I take this assumption for… Read More: The Modal Openness of the Future »
Theists believe that God is not only responsible for creating or bringing about (the initial state) of a world of concrete finite beings but also that God in some sense sustains those beings throughout their existence. But what does divine sustaining amount to? I’d like to identify three possible models of divine sustaining. continuous creation:… Read More: Three Models of Divine Sustaining »
By ‘Ockhamist semantics’ (‘Ockhamism’ for short) I mean the thesis that what’s true at a time about other times depends entirely on what occurs at those other times. Thus, if a coin is flipped at T and lands heads at T*, then Ockhamism implies that “The coin will land heads at T*” was true at… Read More: Cahn on Ockhamist Semantics »
Many discussions of logical fatalism and of the compatibility of divine foreknowledge and future contingency turn on the question of whether propositions about future contingents are true in advance. More exactly, they raise questions about whether any ‘will’ or ‘does’ propositions about events which have an intermediate chance of occurring (i.e., a current single-case objective… Read More: On a Misguided Application of Excluded Middle »
I’ve now finishing my re-reading of Trenton Merricks’ book Truth and Ontology and I’m still quite unconvinced by his contention that what’s true does not depend on what exists in any substantive way. A couple posts ago I noted my main reasons for dissatisfaction with Merricks’ arguments: He loads down truthmaker principles, which affirm a… Read More: More on Merricks on Truthmaking »
I’m really happy right now because a paper of mine (“Gratuitous Evil and Divine Providence”) was just accepted at Religious Studies. In my experience, at least, the turnaround at that journal is phenomenally fast. This is the second paper I’ve submitted there. On both I received an acceptance notice within a week or less. I’ll… Read More: Gratuitous Evil and Divine Providence »