Free Will in Philosophical Theology, by Kevin Timpe

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-248
Author(s):  
Josef Quitterer ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Philosophical Theology

Erasmus versus Luther: A Contemporary Analysis of the Debate on Free Will

2020 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-335
Author(s):  
Aku Visala ◽  
Olli-Pekka Vainio
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
Philosophical Theology ◽  
Contemporary Debate ◽  
Will And Grace ◽  
To Come

SummaryIn this article, we will use contemporary analytic tools to make sense of the main arguments in the classic debate on free will between Erasmus of Rotterdam and the Reformer Martin Luther. Instead of offering another exegesis of these texts, we put forward an analysis that links this historical debate with contemporary discussions on free will and grace in philosophical theology. We argue that the debate was ultimately about how three theological core claims are related to one another: the Anti-Pelagian Constraint (humans are incapable of willing any good, in order to come to faith), the Responsibility Principle (humans are morally responsible in the eyes of God) and human free will. Erasmus attacks Luther by arguing that the Responsibility Principle cannot be maintained without free will, while Luther responds by arguing that Erasmus must reject free will, because it is in conflict with the Anti-Pelagian Constraint. Luther is then left with the dilemma of justifying the Responsibility Principle without free will – a task, which in our estimation, fails. In the concluding section of the article, we point out some continuities and discontinuities between the contemporary debate and that of Luther and Erasmus.

Prayers for the past

2005 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 305-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
KEVIN TIMPE
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
The State ◽  
Philosophical Theology ◽  
States Of Affairs ◽  
The Past ◽  
State Of Affairs

All three of the world's major monotheistic religions traditionally affirm that petitionary prayers can be causally efficacious in bringing about certain states of affairs. Most of these prayers are offered before the state of affairs that they are aimed at helping bring about. In the present paper, I explore the possibility of whether petitionary prayers for the past can also be causally efficacious. Assuming an incompatibilist account of free will, I examine four views in philosophical theology (simple foreknowledge, eternalism, Molinism, and openism) and argue that the first three have the resources to account for the efficacy of past-directed prayers, while the latter does not. I further suggest that on those views which affirm the possible efficacy of past-directed petitionary prayers, such prayers can be ‘impetratory’ even if the agent already knows that the desired state of affairs has obtained.

Does God have Beliefs?

1986 ◽  
Vol 22 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 287-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
William P. Alston
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Philosophical Theology ◽  
Voluntary Action ◽  
Divine Foreknowledge ◽  
Justified Belief ◽  
Divine Omniscience ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Fourth Component ◽  
Classic Argument

Beliefs are freely attributed to God nowadays in Anglo–American philosophical theology. This practice undoubtedly reflects the twentieth–century popularity of the view that knowledge consists of true justified belief (perhaps with some needed fourth component). (After all no one supposes that God has beliefs in addition to, or instead of knowledge.) The connection is frequently made explicit. If knowledge is true justified belief then whatever God knows He believes. It would seem that much recent talk of divine beliefs stems from Nelson Pike's widely discussed article, ‘Divine Omniscience and Voluntary Action’. In this essay Pike develops a version of the classic argument for the incompatibility of divine foreknowledge and free will in terms of divine forebelief. He introduces this shift by premising that ‘A knows X’ entails ‘A believes X’. As a result of all this, philosophers have increasingly been using the concept of belief in defining ‘omniscience’.

Divine Omniscience, Immutability, Aseity and Human Free Will

1991 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 285-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert F. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Philosophical Theology ◽  
Strict Sense ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Internal Factors ◽  
Classical Theism ◽  
Divine Omniscience ◽  
External Influences

If classical Western theism is correct that God's timeless omniscience is compatible with human free will, then it is incoherent to hold that this God can in any strict sense be immutable and a se as well as omniscient. That is my thesis. ‘Classical theism’ shall refer here to the tradition of philosophical theology centring on such mainstream authors as Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas. ‘Divine omniscience’ shall mean that the eternal God knows all events as a timeless observer of them. ‘Human free will’ shall mean that human beings are, at least sometimes, self-determining agents who make choices not decisively caused to be what they are by external or internal factors other than the free willing itself – choices that these agents have the capacity and the freedom to make differently than they do. Except where stipulated otherwise, ‘divine immutability’ shall ‘mean that God is neither subject to, nor capable of, change in being, knowing, or willing, since God is immune to external influences, and without internal needs, of the sorts that might give rise to such change. Finally, ‘aseity’ shall be used to underline the divine immunity to external influences, since a being that is wholly a se or self-caused (is ‘pure act’ in the Thomistic sense), cannot be open to such influences, cannot be made to be what or how it is by anything other than itself.

Free Will in Philosophical Theology

2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 495-498
Author(s):  
Adam Omelianchuk ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Philosophical Theology

scholarly journals Philosophical Theology and Indian Versions of Theodicy

2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-199
Author(s):  
Vladimir K. Shokhin
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Philosophical Theology ◽  
Advaita Vedānta ◽  
Advaita Vedanta ◽  
Philosophical Framework ◽  
Thick Layers

Comparative philosophical studies can seek to fit some Eastern patterns of thought into the general philosophical framework, or, on the contrary, to improve understanding of Western ones through the view “from abroad”. I try to hit both marks by means of establishing, firstly, the parallels between Indian versions of theodicy and the Hellenic and Christian ones, then by defining to which of five types of Western theodicy the Advaita-Vedānta and Nyāya versions belong and, thirdly, by considering the meaning of the fact that some varieties of Western theodicy, like the explanation of evil by free will and Divine dispensation aiming at the improvement of man, have Indian counterparts while others lack them. Some considerations concerning the remainders of primordial monotheisms (“an argument from theodicy”) under the thick layers of other religious world-outlooks are also offered to the reader at the end of the article. 

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