Philosophia Christi

Molinism entails that God cannot actualize just any possible world because God has no control over what counterfactuals of freedom (CFs) are true. This fact confronts the Molinist with a dilemma. If God has a plan for the course of history logically antecedent to his cognizance of the true CFs, then God would have been implausibly lucky if any actualizable world corresponded to his plan. If, on the other hand, God did not have a plan for the course of history antecedent to his cognizance of the true CFs, then Molinism is incommensurate with a meticulous view of providence.

In “Molinism, Meticulous Providence, and Luck,” Steven Cowan argues that the doctrine of meticulous providence creates a damaging dilemma for Molinists. I argue that Molinists can overcome this dilemma without giving up the doctrine of meticulous providence.

Scott Davison has raised some challenges to my case against the commensurability of meticulous providence and what I call Scheme-B Molinism, the view that God formulates his plan for the course of history consequent to his cognizance of the true counterfactuals of freedom. In this rejoinder, I attempt to clarify certain points of my argument and respond to his criticisms by showing that he has not dealt adequately with the relevant biblical texts or alleviated the worry that the Molinist view of providence reduces God to just “choosing which movie to play.”

Most philosophers agree that libertarian freedom and the ontology most naturally associated with it is not easily harmonized with epistemically robust versions of naturalism. And while he continues to remain a bit skeptical of such harmonizations efforts, John Searle has recently proffered hope for such reconciliation and the general contours to which any such attempt must conform. I state Searle’s views, criticize each step in his argument, and conclude that his attempt at a rapprochement is a failure.

Glenn Andrew Peoples has criticized my mind-body theory, emergentism or emergent dualism, on the grounds that it does not, as claimed, allow for the possibility of disembodied survival. I show that his criticisms are misplaced. His objections to my scientific analogies for mind-body emergence misstate what was said by the scientific authorities (Roger Penrose and Kip Thorne) on which I rely. And his philosophical argument relies on a definition of emergentism to which I do not subscribe.

The present paper is a response to the criticisms that Mark McLeod-Harrison makes of my book Relativism and the Foundations of Philosophy. If secular, intuition-driven rationalist philosophy yields a belief that p, and Christian, revelation-driven epistemic methods yield a belief that not-p, what should we do? Following Alston, McLeod-Harrison argues that Christian philosophers need do nothing, and remains confident that their way is the best. I argue that this is a serious epistemic mistake, and that relativism about philosophical propositions is a superior approach. McLeod-Harrison also raises two objections to my account of relativism, the first against my rejection of the skeptical alternative, and the second attempting to show that I am committed to an epistemic theory of truth. I rebut both arguments.

Steven Hales’s defense of his philosophical relativism in “What to Do about Incommensurable Doxastic Perspectives” challenges a number of my criticisms made in my “Hales’s Argument for Philosophical Relativism.” I respond to each of these challenges and make a number of further observations about Hales’s position.

In this review essay, I consider J. P. Moreland’s Kingdom Triangle as a recent example that takes seriously the incursion of God’s Kingdom into the human realm. Among other things, Moreland’s book helpfully provides some needed leadership and modeling for Christian philosophers as we reflect upon what it means to know and indeed experience first-hand the supernatural in-breaking of God’s power. Moreland’s approach locates the experience of God’s miraculous activity within the panoply of the Christian knowledge tradition and alongside what it means for Christ to be formed in our interior. I conclude with some of my own research examples of God’s healing power.

An overview and critical evaluation of personal testimonies and arguments by some contemporary atheist philosophers. Feldman’s case that epistemic parity (where equally intelligent persons adopt incompatible beliefs) should lead to agnosticism is examined and found to be self-refuting.

Alexander Vilenkin’s recent book is a wonderful popular introduction to contempo­rary cosmology. It contains provocative discussions of both the beginning of the universe and of the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life. Vilenkin is a prominent exponent of the multiverse hypothesis, which features in the book’s title. His defense of this hypothesis depends in a crucial and interesting way on conflating time and space. His claim that his theory of the quantum creation of the universe explains the origin of the universe from nothing trades on a misunderstanding of “nothing.”

The pronunciation of Augustine’s name is a matter of some dispute, between those (including most British scholars) who pronounce it aw-GUS-tin, and those who pronounce it AW-gus-teen. This essay argues for the former as the preferred pronunciation. It is (humorously) modeled on the technical argumentative model of the medieval disputation, which is known best by philosophers in the form of Thomas Aquinas’s masterwork, Summa Theologiae.

David Horner has recently offered a medieval argument for an Anglophilic pronunciation of the name of St. Augustine. I claim his disputatious account fails, both on an account of interlinguistic phonological equivalence, and on a Kripkean-style rigid-designator theory of reference. It turns out, surprisingly, that Floridians are closer to the truth about the correct pronunciation of the medieval saint’s name than are Englishmen.