One of Ian’s comments on an earlier post of mine got me thinking about the distinction between theoretical elimination and theoretical reduction. This is a familiar distinction in the philosophy of mind, but it comes up in lots of different contexts. In general, eliminativism (E) and reductionism (R) are reactions to a thesis (T) to… Read More »
Browsing around the Web I recently came across this post at Fides Quaerens Intellectum and thought I would put together a summary of my current philosophical outlook. Metaphysics Trinitarian theism – God exists and is essentially tri-personal. A-theory of time – There is an objective ‘now’. The totality of reality is non-constant. Presentism – Whatever… Read More »
I am an A-theorist with respect to the metaphysics of time. An A-theorist is one who believes that there is an objective ‘now’ or, what amounts to the same thing, that the totality of reality undergoes change. The opposite of the A-theory of time is called the B-theory. According to the B-theory, reality is constant… Read More »
In response to an earlier post of mine, Ian Spencer has continued to press me to clarify and defend an argument I make in a recent paper to the effect that unqualified claims about the future (i.e., ones which say that something “will” or “will not” happen) normally carry a high degree of “causal force”… Read More »
Here’s my third and final recap on the 3-week “Open Theology & Science” conference that I attended in the Boston area. This is coming a few days late because my time is precious right now, so I’m going to ‘cheat’ a bit and link to a series of blog posts on the conference by my… Read More »
Ian Spencer, a philosophy Ph.D. grad student at UC Davis, has commented on my paper (coauthored with Greg Boyd and Tom Belt) “Open Theism, Omniscience, and the Nature of the Future”, which recently came out in Faith and Philosophy (Fall 2006 issue). In this post I’d like to address some of his concerns. I’ll take… Read More »
Continuing coverage of a 3-week “Open Theology and Science” conference being held in the Boston area. For my week 1 recap, see here. On Monday (6/25) we drove out to Concord, MA. We started out at the Concord Museum, which covers the life and work of the major figures of the Transcendentalist movement, including Emerson,… Read More »
I’m currently in Boston at a 3-week seminar entitled “Open Theology and Science”. The goal of the conference is to generate new research at the intersection of science, philosophy, and theology in light of the distinctive commitments of open theism (= broadly classical theism + real future contingency + epistemic openness of the future for… Read More »
Derek, a commentator on my blog, has asked me some about whether essential divine relationality (as implied in the Christian doctrine of the Trinity) entails essential divine temporality. In other words, would God’s being essentially an active, loving, multi-personal unity require that God experience continued change and hence divine temporality? In response, I submit “no”… Read More »
Philosopher Elliott Sober thinks that design arguments against naturalism commit a fallacy that he calls ‘probabilistic modus tollens‘, which he takes to be an inference of the following form: Probably, (if p then q).Not-q.Therefore, probably, not-p. Thus, he construes the argument against naturalism from cosmic fine-tuning as follows: Probably, (if naturalism were true, then the… Read More »