This article breaks fresh ground on the probabilistic problem of evil, contesting its first premise (probably, if God exists, gratuitous evil does not exist) instead of the commonly contested second premise (probably, gratuitous evil exists). In so doing, it presents a rehabilitated version of Leibniz’s argument for the irrelevance of gratuitous evil vis-à-vis the existence of God, according to which it is logically impossible for any world God might create to be devoid of pointless evil. Accordingly, my argument provides theists a more fruitful strategy for dealing with evil than asking skeptics to deny their intuitive recognition of pointless suffering.

This article is a response by the author of Defending Life, Francis Beckwith, to Kevin Corcoran’s critical review of that book. In his review Corcoran maintains that Beckwith provides only a “typical” genetic code argument for the zygote’s individual humanity, and that Beckwith fails to show that there exists an individual human organism that subsists from conception and develops into a mature version of itself. Beckwith argues that Corcoran is mistaken on both counts.

Parfit’s new two-volume book, On What Matters, is used to make three points about the use of thought experiments in philosophy: thought experiments must be relevantly focused, finely-grained in descriptive force, and, when they meet these conditions, a thought experiment can overturn a substantial philosophical position, namely Parfit’s rejection of libertarian freedom. While principally a contribution to philosophical methodology, along the way this paper defends moral realism, Parfit’s rejection of a combined egoist and contractualist ethic, and a defense of libertarian free agency.

This article contends that a God worthy of worship would care about how a human fills in the following blank: “I inquire or believe regarding God’s existence because I want _____.” It asks what human motives we should expect God to want in human inquiry and belief regarding God. This approach is widely neglected among philosophers, theologians, and oth­ers, but it can illuminate some important issues in religious epistemology. The article identifies the volitional struggle of Gethsemane as crucial to receiving salient evidence of God, and it notes how this approach manifests serious shortcomings in the arguments of traditional natural theology. It indicates that such arguments fail to accommodate the motives that God, as worthy of worship, would want in human inquiry and belief regarding God. The article proposes that divine redemption would aim for the profound moral, Gethsemane transformation of humans independent of abstract philosophical arguments. It identifies the key issue, for religious episte­mology, of whether we are willing to undergo such transformation.

In “Volitional Evidence for God,” Kate Waidler affirms Paul Moser’s view that evidence for God, that is, a morally perfect being, entails the volitional transformation of a moral agent. However, she challenges Moser’s rejection of natural theology. Waidler argues that the agent’s volitional transformation requires prior intellectual assent to the existence of a morally perfect being. For some, this entails the removal of certain intellectual obstacles to belief and requires engaging in some form of natural theology. Waidler appeals to Augustine as one whose volitional transformation becomes possible only when he comes to the intellectual understand­ing of the nature of God as a perfect being.

Paul Moser’s creative and significant proposal concerning “personifying evidence of God” is examined in relation to three questions: (1) Given a commitment to robust Christian theism, what would an explicitly Christian account of religious epistemology look like? (2) Why should one accept the claims of Christian theism as true rather than those of atheism? (3) Given our awareness of widespread religious diversity and disagreement why should one accept the claims of Christian theism as true? The essay argues that Moser’s proposal is most plausible with respect to (1) but is more problematic when understood to be addressing (2) and (3).

Moser’s dismissal of natural theology as a matter of “spectator” evidence is questioned, as is Moser’s reservations about the possibility of impartial philosophical inquiry. Some assistance from natural theology can help Moser meet some of his critics’ objections. A worry that is noted concerns whether Moser’s stress on the centrality of personal repentance and transformation in religious epistemology may blur the line between philosophy and apologetics.

This essay replies to the responses of Harold Netland, Charles Taliaferro, and Kate Waidler to my symposium paper, “Gethsemane Epistemology.” It contends that a God worthy of worship would not need the arguments of traditional natural theology, and that such arguments would not lead to such a God in the way desired by God. In addition, it explains why Paul’s position in Romans 1 offers no support to the arguments of traditional natural theology.

I begin with a distinction between narrow and broad defenses to the logical problem of evil. The former is simply an attempt to show that God and evil are not logically incompat­ible whereas the latter attempts the same, but only by appealing to beliefs one takes to be true in the actual world. I then argue that while recent accounts of original sin may be consistent with a broad defense, they are also logically incoherent. After considering potential replies, I conclude by proposing an account of original sin that is both logically coherent and consistent with a broad defense.

Many state that they have a friend in Jesus, but close analysis reveals that this claim is difficult to defend. Furthermore, only once does Jesus claim that humans can be friends with him. This essay explores whether humans can be friends with Jesus. In arguing that this is possible, attention is given to what kind of friendship is possible in Aristotle’s taxonomy of utility, pleasure, and character-friendships. None of these describes the kind of friendship possible between humans and Jesus, but holy-friendship (developed from character-friendship) suffices to demonstrate how such friendship is possible.

In the course of defending the doctrine of universalism (the teaching that God will eventually reconcile all created persons to Himself ), the philosopher of religion Thomas Talbott has defended the logically independent claim that God loves every created person with what might be termed “supreme love”: the love that makes it so that God, without internal conflict and cessation, truly desires and seeks a created person’s supreme or highest good. Talbott’s arguments concerning God’s supreme love for all have received considerably less attention than his arguments for universalism, a regrettable fact given the relative paucity of philosopher literature dealing with the nature and scope of divine love. Therefore, in this paper, I defend not universalism, but develop and defend one of Talbott’s arguments for the universal scope of God’s supreme love.

Alvin Plantinga’s Warrant and Proper Function gives two major definitions of warrant. One states that reliable cognitive faculties aimed at true belief and functioning properly in the right environment are necessary and sufficient for warrant; the other definition only states that they are necessary. The latter definition is the more important one. There are different kinds of knowledge, and justification is necessary for some beliefs to be warranted. Even a belief warranted by proper function can receive a higher degree of warrant by justification. This implies that natural theology has a useful role within the contours of a Plantingian epistemology.

I argue on empirical grounds (1) that consciousness is not nothing but a self-scanning mechanism in the central nervous system; (2) that consciousness is not reducible to an epistemic ability, such as the ability to recognize an object; (3) that mind could not merely be a (material) cause that is apt to bring about a certain range of behaviors; and (4) that recent empirical investigations reveal new problems and new evidence that should compel advocates of causal functionalism (of the sort defended by David Armstrong and David Lewis) to reconsider the feasibility of their account of mind.

This paper advances the discussion on an issue which is hotly debated in discussions on the kalam cosmological argument today, by developing a philosophical argument which is stronger and more rigorous than other arguments which have been proposed thus far.

Ontological dualism is energetically resisted by a range of Christian scholars includ­ing philosophers such as Baker and Corcoran who defend accounts of human persons based on material constitution. Whilst Baker’s view fails to account for diachronic identity, Corcoran’s account of life after death makes use of Zimmerman’s problematic “Falling Elevator Model.” It is argued that Zimmerman’s recent reassessment of the model overestimates its value for materialists. In fact, the model generates either a fatal encounter with the nature of identity, or absurdity. A lack of alternatives is illustrated by anticriterialist proposals. Thus it seems materialism and resurrection belief remain incompatible.

In this philosophical note I first offer a brief sketch of a Christian conception of humility. Next, I consider two criticisms of the claim that humility is a virtue, one from David Hume and a second from contemporary philosopher Tara Smith. What follows in this note is not a comprehensive defense of the claim that humility is a virtue. However, if humility is not a virtue, it will be for reasons other than those proffered by Hume and Smith, as their criticisms fail on philosophical and empirical grounds.

Central to classical theism is the conception of God as the sole ultimate reality, the creator of all things apart from Himself. Such a doctrine is rooted in Hebrew-Christian scripture and unfolded by the ante-Nicene church fathers. Platonism, which postulates the existence of uncreated abstract objects, is therefore theologically objectionable. In order to overcome the presumption which anti-Platonism enjoys theologically, the Platonist would have to show that all other positions, both realist and nonrealist, are rationally untenable. No one has even attempted so audacious a project, nor is there any reasonable expectation that it could be carried out.