Although Christ’s atoning work on the cross is perhaps the most central tenet of Christianity, understanding precisely how the cross saves remains a theological mystery. We follow the Abelardian tradition and argue that Christ’s death on the cross acts as an example of God’s love for humanity and a means of drawing us back into communion with the triune God. However, our view avoids the standard objection to exemplar views—that they are Pelagian—by introducing an alternative conception of the problem of sin, according to which Christ’s example of God’s love is in fact required for salvation and sanctification.

Some critics claim that ontological arguments are dialectically ineffective against sceptics, whatever the sceptics’ broader metaphysical commitments. In this paper, I examine and contest arguments for this conclusion. I suggest that such critics overlook important claims about God’s nature (viz. divine simplicity and divine inimitability) typically advanced by proponents of ontological arguments who endorse classical theism. I reformulate two representative ontological arguments in light of this characterization of God, arguing that for philosophers prepared to endorse Meinongianism or modal Platonism, alongside divine simplicity and inimitability, such arguments are not invalid, question-begging, or obviously liable to parody. Accordingly, two species of ontological argument may possess some persuasive force, albeit for a select audience.

Many atheists argue that because gratuitous evil exists, God (probably) doesn’t. But doesn’t this commit atheists to wishing that God did exist, and to the pro-theist view that the world would have been better had God existed? This doesn’t follow. I argue that if all that evil still remains but is just no longer gratuitous, then, from an atheist perspective, that wouldn’t have been better. And while a counterfactual from which that evil is literally absent would have been impersonally better, it wouldn’t have been better for anyone, not even for those who suffered such evils.

Concurrentist views concerning Divine and secondary causes seek to establish both that secondary causes are fundamentally dependent upon God (contra deism) and that they make genuine, non-superfluous causal contributions (contra occasionalism). However, traditional (or strong) concurrentism struggles to establish a genuine, non-superfluous role for secondary causes, while weak concurrentism (aka, mere conservationism) has been accused of amounting to a sort of “weak deism” that grants too much independence to created beings. This essay introduces a moderate concurrentist alternative and argues that it preserves the most important benefits of the strong and weak varieties, while avoiding their most familiar difficulties.

Scott Williams has provided a careful and detailed response to my critique of his Latin Social model of the Trinity. I reply to his defense, and I argue that this model is, in fact, indefensible.

WilliamsThe disagreement between William Hasker and myself includes discussion of Gregory of Nyssa’s Trinitarian theology, the relevance of Conciliar Trinitarianism for evaluating models of the Trinity, and the defensibility of my Latin Social model of the Trinity. I respond to Hasker’s recent objections regarding all three areas. I contest Hasker’s interpretation of Gregory and argue that Gregory is indeed a “one-power” theorist. I make historical connections between Gregory’s Trinitarian theology and Pope Agatho’s “one-power” statements that were endorsed by the Sixth Ecumenical Council (680-681ce); and I make explicit the Sixth Ecumenical Council’s interest in the general issue of how “ousia” and “hypostasis” pertain to the Trinity and the Incarnation. Lastly, I defend and develop the Latin Social model in response to Hasker’s five objections. In light of my findings in the Sixth Council, I retire the name “Latin Social Trinity” for my model and replace it with a name more apt for my model, that is, the “Conciliar Social Trinity.”

HaskerI argue that Scott M. Williams’s “Latin/Conciliar Social Trinity” is unable to give a coherent account of some undisputed divine actions. The reason for this lies in Williams’s failure to recognize the different senses in which the trinitarian Persons can be said to have “powers.”