Keith DeRose discusses Leibniz and the Problem of Evil. After distancing himself from Leibniz's requirement that God wouldn't create a world that isn't the best of all possible worlds, Keith indicates agreement with Leibniz on one matter. He thinks the best theistic response to the problem of evil will have to involve something like the aesthetic analogy that a whole picture can be improved because part of it is, in itself, less good than it could have been.

Aquinas says something like this, but his view of divine providence, while not agreed by all scholars to amount to theological determinism, does involve a strong enough view of providence that God in creating had an awareness of the entire plan of the history of creation, including what every free being would do. Leibniz, as a theological determinist of some sort, very much needs to say something like this. Keith mentions that Marilyn Adams also says something similar, but as far as I can tell her response to the problem of evil is intended to be fully consistent with compatibilism about free will and determinism. On the other hand, Keith is a libertarian. What I'm not clear on is why a libertarian should think the best response to the problem of evil would require saying something along these lines. Any thoughts?

Since there's still little going on here, I thought I'd direct readers to another post in my series based on my introductory philosophy course lecture notes. This time it's on foreknowledge and freedom. Again, I don't expect it to include anything newsworthy for many readers of this blog, since we've discussed all these issues here in much more depth in the past, but I've tried to summarize the main moves in the discussion at a level someone in an introductory course could understand, and some may want to take a look at that or offer feedback. Newer readers less familiar with our discussions on this topic or with the literature on the issue may find it informative as well. I did try to include the most current work on the subject.

There hasn't been a lot of activity here, so I thought I'd direct readers to my latest post on my own blog. I've been posting the class notes for an introductory philosophy course that I teach, and I do a little philosophy of religion in the class, majoring on the arguments for and against the existence of God but with a little bit on philosophical theology at the end. My latest post is on the "Does God know what time it is?" problem for atemporal views on God. I've tried to package it in a way first-time philosophy students can understand the issues, and there's probably nothing there that most readers of this blog will not have seen before (we've discussed these issues at length), but it's been pretty quiet here lately, so I thought I'd give people something to read even if I don't think it's on a level that justifies cross-posting it here.

Daniel A. Dombrowski

Rethinking the Ontological Argument: a Neoclassical Theistic Response
Daniel A. Dombrowski, Rethinking the Ontological Argument: a Neoclassical Theistic Response, Cambridge University Press, 2006, 180pp., $70.00 (hbk), ISBN 0521863694.

Reviewed by Sandra Visser, Valparaiso University

(link)

He's neo-classical in the sense of process theism. It looks like an attempt to update Hartshorne.

Thanks to Johnny-D for the heads-up.

Richard Kirk of The American Spectator has a scathing review of Richard Dawkins's latest book, The God Delusion.

It is common to invoke the idea--I do it myself--that theism entails that basic human cognitive faculties are not radically unreliable. However, it does not seem to me that theism entails that basic human cognitive faculties are completely accurate, even if used responsibly. Descartes does address this question, but not quite enough I think. The Scholastics also addressed the question Whence error? but it's hard for me to hook up their thoughts to my contemporary epistemology.

One sort of response I'd like to bracket are appeals to the Fall (at least not in any literalistic kind of way). Partly I just don't want to open that can of worms, but also, I'm interested in the issue whether there is any *other* account of allowable error. A bit more set up below the fold.

Viterbo University
La Crosse, Wisconsin
April 13-14, 2007

2007 Theme: Justice

Of the classical virtues, justice is the most the basic for human flourishing and the most elusive to define and to realize in society. The 2007 conference is the first in a series of four conferences on the cardinal virtues. We invite papers examining the meaning, history, and practical implications of the idea of justice as a virtue. We encourage submissions from a variety of disciplinary perspectives.

The Christian Classics Ethereal Library has a new look and some new features. Check it out.

McGrath has put together a number of pretty good reference works in theology. What I like about the ones I have--which is most of them--is that they are short and accessible, making them great references for laymen (this is, of course, also their greatest weakness).

The Christian Theology Reader
Edited by: ALISTER E. McGRATH (University of Oxford )

Collecting more than 360 readings from 2,000 years of Christian history, the third edition of the bestselling Christian Theology Reader is the most comprehensive book of its kind. With numerous new readings, including an increased representation of Catholicism, orthodoxy, and women writers, this user-friendly volume spans the entire Christian tradition, including important sources from patristic, medieval, reformation, and modern periods.

Blackwell Link (Amazon doesn't list it yet)

Suppose you reliably acquire the true belief that there is a pair of blue socks across the room from you. However, a color scientist happens along and informs you that these are some of her “trick” socks, in that although they look blue and normal, they’re actually very weird and really green. You are somewhat aware of similar such strange objects, so you know of the existence of such objects. Yet, you continue to believe that the socks are blue, in spite of being told by experts that they are really green. Is your belief that you've seen blue socks epistemically blameworthy? You might now be wondering why this relevant to Prosblogion readers? Because Bryan Frances wonders if the lesson carries over to the belief that God exists?

That is, assuming for the sake of argument that one can know that God exists through some kind of quasi-perceptual spiritual experiences of Him, does the presence of alternative, expertly endorsed explanations of that experience render that theistic belief blameworthy--even though the explanations are ultimately misleading?

I think it's safe to grant that if all of the experts on "quasi-perceptual spiritual experiences" told us our beliefs weren't veridical we'd be blameworthy for persisting in the belief. The disanalogy in the socks/theism case is that all of the color scientists one has access to tell you the same story, but no such uniform experts are available in the case of spiritual experiences.

Link

Here are some highlights:

*He seems to share with Plantinga (esp. the recent Faith and Philosophy article and some of the correspondence with PvI) the view that it's just bloody obvious that the concepts of the mental and physical are exclusive. Me: Pro: Can anything upon which both Plantinga and Swinburne agree methodologically be wrong?! Con: a posteriori physicalists will be entirely unmoved.

*He says that Physicalists are just too enamored with the apparent success of science. That sounds about right to me. I find the Success of Science argument very unpersuasive. I think its advocates don't pay enough attention to the reference classes in the induction.

*Explicitly endorses souls for animals. I spend a lot of time arguing for this and freaking people out that its the traditional view.

*Makes predictions like: "Scientists will discover that when the brain is in this state it gives rise to the thought that ‘today is Friday’, and when it is in that state it gives rise to the thought that ‘Russia is a big country’."

*Does philosophical Judo: " it is the very success of science in explaining physical events , which makes it immensely unlikely that it will be able to take the final step to explain the very different kind of events which are mental events. Souls and their mental lives of thought and sensation are so different from waves and particles that you cannot have an integrated theory which explains their interaction."