Philosophy

Recently, on Eli Ayala's Revealed Apologetics website, author Joshua Pillows published a blog article entitled TAG summarized & Explained: An Absolute Proof of God .  I found Pillow's article to be a clear and well-written account of the t ranscendental a rgument for God (TAG). Because of his clarity, it also provides reason as to why most Calvinists and a large percentage of those who practice Reformed theology cannot logically appeal to the TAG as an apologetic (lest one sh

Paul Manata is known to be an aggressive but intellectual defender of exhaustive divine determinism (EDD) on social media. He is also more than willing to attack a fellow Christian's character in the process. He has recently taken issue with my arguments against EDD and my arguments for libertarian freedom. He took to social media in an attempt to debunk my arguments while also throwing a few personal insults. While Manata’s behavior is not becoming of one who considers himse

Most of us know someone who is a known liar. I have known several people over the years who could not be trusted. It seems as if some folks always lie. They even seek to deceive when there seems to be no need to do so.  The worst kinds of liars, however, are those who are generally reliable and seem to be honest the majority of the time, but who will also, on seemingly random occasions, tell a tall tale in an attempt to deceive. These kinds of liars are much worse than those

An Explanation and Defense of the Free-Thinking Argument by Timothy A. Stratton 1,* and J.P.Moreland  2 1 Trinity College of the Bible and Theological Seminary 2 Talbot School of Theology, Biola University Academic Editors: Brian Huffling and Hans Zollner Religions 2022 ,  13 (10), 988;  https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13100988 Received: 31 August 2022 / Revised: 30 September 2022 / Accepted: 13 October 2022 / Published: 19 October 2022 (This article belongs to the Special Issue

Although Richard Dawkins has advanced atheism – arguably more than anyone else – his arguments against the existence of God are simply horrible. In fact, Dawkins seems to be quite proud of what he refers to as the “central argument” of his book, The God Delusion. <1> His central argument, however, is the epitome of an unsound argument. That is to say, his conclusion “Therefore, God probably does not exist,” does not logically follow from his premises.  Dawkins's central argu

Question Tim, I’m sure you know that Wayne Grudem is no fan of William Lane Craig’s teaching on Molinism. In his popular theology textbook, Grudem mentions middle knowledge dozens of times and in Chapter 16, he gets down to business and presents four reasons why (he thinks) the Molinist position is not tenable. I’m going to copy and paste a rather sizable amount of text from Grudem’s book (Chapter 16) below, but I’m only doing this much in case you need some context. What I’m

When writing Human Freedom, Divine Knowledge, and Mere Molinism , my goals were threefold. First and foremost, I had to convince my supervisor and doctoral committee (theologians at a Reformed University) that Molinism was compatible with Reformed theology. That is to say, I wanted to pass and earn a PhD in theology and so I did exactly what they asked of me. Second, I desired to provide a resource on Molinism that would be understandable to the layman who takes theology seri

Recently, my boss at Trinity Theological Seminary, Dr. Braxton Hunter, made a guest appearance on Cameron Bertuzzi’s Capturing Christianity YouTube channel. Hunter offered what he takes to be the greatest argument against Calvinism. Hunter provided an impressive case – basically off the cuff – as to why the Calvinistic view of exhaustive divine determinism (EDD) cannot make sense of God’s inspired Word. The gist of Hunter’s case was an appeal to The Book of Romans to exhibi

The Plea for an Apology "That particular argument I find deeply offensive. It is grossly unbiblical! It is not derived from any kind of biblical thought whatsoever. It is a philosophical trap that should not suggest itself to any biblically literate Christian. So yes, Dr. Stratton, I call upon you to recognize the foolishness of that argument… to lay it aside, and… publicly say, 'I am sorry, I never should have developed an argument like that!'" - Dr. James White Dr. Stratton

Question Hey Tim, I hope you are doing well. At the church I pastor, we are going through Ken Keathley’s " Salvation and Sovereignty" book with our leaders. Some lean toward the Reformed view of providence. A question was raised last night that I’m needing help with. I thought you may be able to lend a hand. Here it is: If God is certain about what will happen then how are there other possibilities? (In the sense that only that will happen) So, take the incident with Mose

*This article was originally published at Bare Bones Blog of Philosophy : https://barebonesblogofphilosophy.wordpress.com/2021/12/06/defining-philosophy-a-conceptual-analysis-in-progress/ For the first post on this blog, I will reflect on the nature of philosophy by providing a working definition of ‘philosophy.’ This is a difficult job. It is easier to evaluate other definitions than to construct one. Yet, I will start with some brief assessments as an underpinning for my o

Question Hey Dr. Tim, I've been thinking about Molinism for several years (coming from a Calvinist perspective). If I understand it correctly God exercises providential control through middle knowledge of what free creatures would do in any set of circumstances. My question is that given that a huge number of circumstances depend on other choices of free creatures, isn't God severely restricted in what circumstances he can arrange? Given the massive providential control the

It seems some of my comments have been the source of much confusion. Sometimes, something can be so clear in one's head, yet one fails to communicate exactly what is in one's head. I seem to be guilty of this regarding some of my claims about compatibilism. Although many have let me know that they grasp what I have attempted to communicate and argue regarding compatibilism, there are still far too many people -- especially advocates of exhaustive divine determinism (EDD) --

I recently responded to James White's video discussing William Lane Craig. Not only did White summarize his discussion with Craig, he also brought up me, myself, and I. So, I decided to "go live" on YouTube and discuss White's comments -- specifically his claim that he had a "fatal objection" to Molinism. To watch my video response to Dr. White CLICK HERE . To read a shorter response CLICK HERE . After watching my response video, Dr. White asked me the following question on

Question Hey Dr. Stratton, As you know, James White and William Lane Craig had a discussion on Justin Brierly's Unbelievable show on Monday (11-29-21). Although this conversation has not yet been made public (it's being released on 12-3-21), Dr. White made a video summarizing the debate. White made many claims in this video. The one that really got my attention is when he stated that he has a "fatal blow" against Molinism that no Molinist has ever thought about. Here is the

The majority of my time seems to be spent arguing against deterministic world views and for the proposition that humans possess libertarian freedom. I then seek to demonstrate how human freedom in a libertarian sense is evidence pointing to the existence of God. In fact, I contend that the biblical view of God is the best explanation of this seemingly supernatural phenomena! Often, however, after I have made a case concluding, "Therefore, humans possess libertarian freedom,"

Objection: Here's an objection to Molinism that was shared on the Mere Molinism Facebook group : "By the way, Molinism is probably self-contradictory if we define a "possible world" as a "maximally consistent set of propositions," so we need to be clear what we mean by "possible worlds" when discussing Molinism. Here's why: 1. Let's call the set of possible worlds P. A subset of those is the set of feasible worlds. It's a tenet of Molinism that the set of feasible worlds coul

It is far too common to see many former church-goers today identify as an "ex-vangelical" or proclaim that they have "deconstructed" from the Christian faith. These are folks who were raised in the Church, but are now leaving the Church. This is a concern.  There are several factors contributing to this movement. <1 > > I believe, however, that one of the primary reasons as to why so many have come to reject Christianity today is because many theologians, pastors, Sunday scho

Introduction Philip Swenson has recently offered an argument against Molinism. Although he opposes determinism and is a fellow libertarian freedom-fighter, he does not believe that God possesses middle knowledge. Thus, he believes that Molinism is false.  I have argued, however, that Swenson's view is extremely similar to "Mere Molinism." The Mere Molinist merely affirms both (i) humans possess libertarian freedom, and (ii) God possesses “what would happen if knowledge (with

Philip Swenson was recently interviewed by Jordan Hampton on the Analytic Christian YouTube channel. Although Swenson's goal was to argue against Molinism, I must admit that the two of us have much in common. Swenson, for example, is a fellow libertarian freedom fighter. On this vital issue we both agree and stand side by side in our fight against the tyranny of EDD (exhaustive divine determinism). Swenson (a professor of philosophy at the College of William & Mary) wrote hi