‘Molinism’, in contemporary usage, is the name for a theory about the workings of divine providence. Its defenders include some of the most prominent contemporary Protestant and Catholic philosophical theologians.¹ Molinism is often said to be the only way to steer a middle..

Skeptical theism combines theism with skepticism about our capacity to discern God’s morally sufficient reasons for permitting evil. Proponents have claimed that skeptical theism defeats the evidential argument from evil. Many opponents have objected that it implies untenable moral skepticism, induces appalling moral paralysis, and the like. Recently Daniel Howard-Snyder has tried to rebut this prevalent objection to skeptical theism by rebutting it as an objection to the skeptical part of skeptical theism, which part he labels “Agnosticism” (with an intentionally (...) capital “A”). I argue that his rebuttal fails as a defense of Agnosticism against the objection and even more so as a defense of skeptical theism. (shrink)

Opatrzność Boża a przypadek w świecie: odpowiedzi W artykule przedstawiam odpowiedzi do zarzutów, zawartych w innych artykułach tego numeru, wobec proponowanej przeze mnie w artykule otwierającym oraz monografii z roku 2014 koncepcji opatrzności i przypadku. Argumentuję, że istnienie różnie rozumianych zdarzeń przypadkowych nie implikuje tezy, że Bóg Stwórca świata nie interesuje się losem indywidualnych bytów stworzonych, w tym istot ludzkich. Staram się w swoich odpowiedziach pokazać, że powodem, dla którego Bóg może dopuszczać występowanie zdarzeń przypadkowych jest Boża wola stworzenia świata (...) względnie autonomicznego, który ma zdolność samodzielnego rozwoju. W świecie takim może występować zło bezcelowe, za które Bóg nie ponosi bezpośredniej odpowiedzialności. (shrink)

Some philosophers respond to Leibniz’s “shift” argument against absolute space by appealing to antihaecceitism about possible worlds, using David Lewis’s counterpart theory. But separated from Lewis’s distinctive system, it is difficult to understand what this doctrine amounts to or how it bears on the Leibnizian argument. In fact, the best way of making sense of the relevant kind of antihaecceitism concedes the main point of the Leibnizian argument, pressing us to consider alternative spatiotemporal metaphysics.

Einstein was notoriously confident that God doesn’t play dice with the universe. Perhaps it is a confidence born of a deeper modal presumption: that Godcouldn’t play dice with the universe. If so, such confidence almost certainly disappoints. Even if God doesn’t play dice with the universe, he might. Thus arises the issue here addressed: what implications does this datum have for a proper understanding of divine providence? My interest is in theories that aim to present complete theories of providence, ones (...) that refuse to relegate anything that happens to a domain falling outside the scope of providence. What we can learn about the parts of it that are most promising for a fully satisfying theory of providence, in light of the dice-playing possibility? (shrink)

In contemporary analytic philosophy, the problem of evil refers to a family of arguments that attempt to show, by appeal to evil, that God does not exist. Some very important arguments in this family focus on gratuitous evil. Most participants in the relevant discussions, including theists and atheists, agree that God is able to prevent all gratuitous evil, and that God would do so. On this view, of course, the occurrence of even a single instance of gratuitous evil falsifies theism. (...) The most common response to such arguments attempts to cast doubt on the claim that gratuitous evil really occurs. The focus of these two survey papers will be a different response – one that has received less attention in the literature. This response attempts to show that God and gratuitous evil are compatible. If it succeeds, then the occurrence of gratuitous evil does not, after all, count against theism. In the prequel to this paper, I surveyed the literature surrounding the attempts by Michael Peterson and John Hick to execute this strategy. Here, I survey the attempts due to William Hasker, Peter van Inwagen, and Michael Almeida, respectively. (shrink)

Alex Pruss argues that romantic love is a basic form of human love that is properly fulfilled in sex oriented towards reproduction. As a result, homoerotic sexual activity cannot obtain the proper consummation and therefore involves misunderstanding the other person’s nature and the possibility of union with them. Although same-sex sexual activity may feel like a consummation of romantic love, it is wrong to generate such a false experience in oneself or another. Presented is an apparent dilemma for Pruss’s thesis (...) suggesting that either both postmenopausal homosexuals and postmenopausal heterosexuals ought to be allowed to marry for their romantic love is not dysfunctional despite not being oriented towards reproduction, or that matrimony is inappropriate for both groups. I suggest avoiding the dilemma in either of two ways that would allow Pruss to distinguish the infertility of homosexual couples from the infertility of post-menopausal women. (shrink)

I aim to synthesize two issues within theistic metaphysics. The first concerns the metaphysics of creaturely properties and, more specifically, the nature of unshareable properties, or tropes. The second concerns the metaphysics of providence and, more specifically, the way in which God sustains creatures, or sustenance. I propose that creaturely properties, understood as what I call modifier tropes, are identical with divine acts of sustenance, understood as acts of property-conferral. I argue that this *theistic conferralism* is attractive because it integrates (...) trope theory and the doctrine of sustenance in a mutually enhancing way. Taking modifier tropes to be divine acts mitigates certain weaknesses of trope theory and safeguards divine sustenance from the threat of both deism and occasionalism. (shrink)