The Open Future, Free Will and Divine Assurance: Responding to Three Common Objections to the Open View

In this essay I respond to three of the most forceful objections to the open view of the future. It is argued that a) open view advocates must deny bivalence; b) the open view offers no theodicy advantages over classical theism; and c) the open view can’t assure believers that God can work all things to the better. I argue that the first objection is premised on an inadequate assessment of future tensed propositions, the second is rooted in an inadequate assessment of free will, and the third is grounded in an inadequate assessment of God’s intelligence

Arguing from Molinism to Neo-Molinism

In a pair of recent essays, William Lane Craig has argued that certain open theist understandings of the nature of the future are both semantically and modally confused. I argue that this is not the case and show that, if consistently observed, the customary semantics for counterfactuals Craig relies on not only undermine the validity of his complaint against the open theist, they actually support an argument for the openness position

Mens rea ascription, expertise and outcome effects: Professional judges surveyed

A coherent practice of mens rea (‘guilty mind’) ascription in criminal law presupposes a concept of mens rea which is insensitive to the moral valence of an action’s outcome. For instance, an assessment of whether an agent harmed another person intentionally should be unaffected by the severity of harm done. Ascriptions of intentionality made by laypeople, however, are subject to a strong outcome bias. As demonstrated by the Knobe effect, a knowingly incurred negative side effect is standardly judged intentional, whereas a positive side effect is not. We report the first empirical investigation into intentionality ascriptions made by professional judges, which finds (i) that professionals are sensitive to the moral valence of outcome type, and (ii) that the worse the outcome, the higher the propensity to ascribe intentionality. The data shows the intentionality ascriptions of professional judges to be inconsistent with the concept of mens rea supposedly at the foundation of criminal law

The problem of luck and free will : how counterfactuals can help.

For free will theorists, the problem of luck has been a constant source of consternation. Peter van Inwagen presents a version immune to even agent-causal conceptions of free will. However, van Inwagen’s version of the problem can be avoided if there are true propositions taking the form of counterfactuals of creaturely freedom. There are good reasons to think that there are, and no comparably good reasons to think that there are not. This defense is also resistant to common attacks based on foreknowledge and the grounding of the truth of these counterfactuals

A Study of Warfare Theodicy in the Writings of Ellen G. White and Gregory A. Boyd

The problem of evil has been an issue for all religions over the centuries. But it is a crucial issue for theism because of its affirmation of the co-existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God and evil. Theologians and philosophical theologians have developed a plethora of materials in response to the problem. However, according to critics, none of the responses in and of themselves adequately deals with theism\u27s problem of suffering and evil. As a result, this study explores the warfare theodicy, a Christian response to the problem of sin, suffering, and evil, which seems to have been neglected by scholars for a long time. The study focuses on the writings of Ellen G. White and Gregory A. Boyd, the two foremost detailed and exhaustive presenters of the warfare theodicy in the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries respectively. The goal is to assess the relationship between the two models of warfare theodicy and the plausibility of the warfare theodicy as a Christian response to the problem of suffering and evil. The approach to this study is descriptive, analytical, comparative, and evaluative. Chapter 1 provides a survey of the historical background for the problem of evil and introduces the problem, the purpose, and the methodology of the study. Chapter 2 describes three major Christian approaches to the problem of evil and scholarly critiques of these approaches, while chapters 3 and 4 analytically describe Boyd\u27s and White\u27s models of warfare theodicy, respectively. The first section of chapter 5 compares and contrasts the two models of warfare theodicy and the second section evaluates them. Chapter 6 summarizes the findings of the study and then answers the questions concerning the relationship between the two models of the warfare theodicy and their plausibility as a Christian response to the problem of evil. The study shows that the differing outlook of the authors\u27 use of science in theology leads to divergence in the two models of warfare theodicy. Therefore, to the question of the relationship between the two models, the study concludes that they may be related, but given the degree of their differences they are two distinctive warfare theodicies. Concerning the question of the viability of the warfare theodicy, the study concludes that although both models of the warfare theodicy leave some philosophical questions unanswered, the Great Controversy Theodicy is a more satisfactory Christian response to the problem of suffering and evil, and, the Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy is a less satisfactory Christian response to the problem of evil

The Antinomies of Divine Providence

This article considers several antinomies that arise in our consideration of divine providence, and shows how these antinomies are resolved in the light of the three main theories of providence: Augustinianism, Molinism, and Open Theism

Fatalism and Future Contingents

In this paper I address issues related to the problem of future contingents and the metaphysical doctrine of fatalism. Two classical responses to the problem of future contingents are the third truth value view and the all-false view. According to the former, future contingents take a third truth value which goes beyond truth and falsity. According to the latter, they are all false. I here illustrate and discuss two ways to respectively argue for those two views. Both ways are similar in spirit and intimately connected with fatalism, in the sense that they engage with the doctrine of fatalism and accept a large part of a standard fatalistic machinery