Dispositionalism is most often paired with some form of realism about universals, whether moderate or Platonic. However, both historically and in the contemporary literature there have been advocates of nominalist dispositionalism. Here I argue that such a combination is likely to be workable only given the truth of theism (or some form of metaphysical nonnaturalism akin to theism). For those already inclined to favor nominalism and dispositionalism, a novel cosmological argument for theism results. Correspondingly, for nominalists already opposed to theism, it provides new reason to oppose dispositionalism, while for dispositionalists opposed to theism it provides new reason to reject nominalism.

In a recent article J. Daryl Charles argues that a neurobiological account of morality is significantly limited. Although there is something right about this claim, it’s unclear what Charles thinks neuroscience tells us about our ability to make moral judgments and to be held blameworthy as moral agents. Regarding the true case of the stepfather (“Smith”) who became a pedophile, I argue, against Charles, that it reveals the crucial role that the prefrontal cortex plays in the regulation of moral behavior. I offer additional evidence that brain damage can encroach on our moral capacities, and I argue that it’s unreasonable to hold Smith responsible since he temporarily lacked the ability to comply with the moral obligation to avoid fulfilling his desires.

This essay-response attempts to underscore the priority of broader moral-philosophical questions over specific “difficult” scenarios in which human behavior has been “determined” by genetic predilection or changes in brain structure. That is to say, a society must be capable of making basic moral distinctions—between good and evil, justice and injustice, acceptable and unacceptable behavior—before it can even begin to adjudicate the more “difficult” cases—cases such as those wherein brain structure has been chemically or surgically altered. In the end, at issue is whether human beings—all human beings, only some human beings, or no human being—can be held personally morally responsible for any actions. Notwithstanding the complexity of human behavior, in theological and moral-philosophical terms the matter is governed by our convictions about what it means to be truly “human” and how we understand the implications of being fashioned in the imago Dei.

This paper introduces, explains, and defends a theory of truth and truthmakers comprising the following four claims: (1) Truth is God’s knowledge. (2) A proposition p is true if and only if what it represents as “being the case” is a constituent k of God’s knowledge. Otherwise, it is either fictionally false or purely false. (3) Constituents of God’s knowledge are the truthmakers for true propositions. Thus, for every p, p is true if and only if some k makes p true. (4) The set T of all true propositions is included in God’s knowledge.

The emphasis of many of Rawls’s interpreters has been upon the conceptual incompatibilities that would distinguish the overlapping consensus from the doctrinal commitments of religious believers. But an issue that the interpreters have not emphasized is to what extent the consensus would allow the faithful to abide by the dispositional injunctions of their religious traditions when they perhaps could accept the consensus’s conceptual requirements. This article highlights the consensus’s “dispositional incompatibility” problem: that the dispositional traits of the consensus would impact the traits of its religious participants in ways that would undermine their flourishing and capacity for lifestyle integration.

Pro-theism is the view that God’s existence would be good in that God’s existence increases the value of a world. Anti-theism is the view that God’s existence would decrease the value of a world. We develop and defend the morally good agent argument for pro-theism. The basic idea is that morally good agents tend to add value to states of affairs, and God, moral agent par excellence is no exception. Thus, we argue that the existence of God would be, on balance, a good thing and therefore something that one can rationally desire to be true.

I shall argue for two theses, one negative and one positive. The first is that NIODA (Non-Interventionist Objective Divine Action) accounts of the possibility of special divine acts uniformly fail. The second is that conceiving of special divine acts as requiring divine intervention is in no way antithetical to science.

I argue that the many disparate meanings of truth in John’s Gospel ought to be con­sidered “prolegomena” for any Christian truth theory. That is to say, insofar as any theory of truth in Christian philosophy fails to accommodate the multifaceted character of truth evidenced in John, it fails as a theory. After demonstrating some of the most important meanings of truth in John, I argue that the “correspondence” theory advocated by many contemporary Christian analytic philosophers is a reductionism when considered in light of these prolegomena. Finally, I defend a more adequate alternative from Anselm’s De Veritate.

Myron Penner’s work shows some ways continental philosophy could strengthen apologetics. In particular, continental philosophy can serve what Francis Schaeffer called “the final apologetic” by exposing idols that keep us from living lives of “costly, observable love.” Yet continental philosophy can also imperil apologetics and theology. The worst danger stems from what I call the “idolatry of linguistic license,” a type of idolatry where linguistic criticism denies God a place in the normative community of speakers. Although the idolatry of linguistic license mars some recent critiques of apologetics inspired by continental philosophy, apologetics would still profit from measured use of continental philosophy.

In Paul Moser’s view, philosophical arguments of natural theology are irrelevant as evidence for God’s existence. I argue that embracing Moser’s view would bring about the end to the project and practice of Christian apologetics as we know it. I draw out implications from Moser’s work on religious epistemology for the project of Christian apologetics. I sketch what Christian apologetics would look like if one were to embrace Moser’s call to eliminate arguments as evidence for God existence. The result of embracing Moser-style (Moserian) apologetics is apologetics without argument. I argue that Moserian apologetics should be rejected.

Jerry Walls has recently argued that no Christian theist should be a compatibilist because, on compatibilism, it is “all but impossible to maintain . . . the perfect goodness of God.” More specifically, he contends (1) that Christian compatibilism involves God in manipulation that undermines human moral responsibility, (2) that such manipulation makes God morally culpable for evil human actions, (3) that Christian compatibilism exacerbates the problem of evil in a way that Christian libertarianism does not, and (4) that Christian compatibilism entails universalism. In this paper, we argue that Walls is mistaken on all counts.

Public presuppositions suffice in arguments for Christianity, without needing controversial presuppositions such as the authority of the Bible. Necessary and sufficient presuppositions can be derived from rudimentary common sense, which is shared by Christianity and virtually all other worldviews. These claims are defended against three problematic ideas in contemporary Christian apologetics concerning circular reasoning, starting points, and neutral rationality. Public presuppositions are discussed in the contexts of both evidential and presuppositional apologetics.

In this brief note I argue that one’s position regarding the metaphysics of time constrains one’s conception of divine eternality. Specifically, temporalism entails commitment to the dynamic theory of time, and atemporalism entails commitment to the static theory of time.

Trenton Merricks argues that the Incarnation gives us strong reasons to embrace physicalism. I argue that these reasons are not so strong, and that there are important questions remaining about both the coherence and the orthodoxy of physicalist Christology.