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It is amazing how movies and comics often shed light on philosophical and theological issues. One specific topic regularly addressed in pop culture is known as the "free will debate." Some philosophers and theologians affirm a view called determinism and state that we never have genuine freedom (an ability) to choose between a range of options compatible with human nature. When a person believes that things other than the person causally determine all things about the person,

Question Dear Tim, I’m curious. How would you differentiate your limited libertarian freedom that people are free but choose in line with their nature from historic Compatiblism that holds essentially the same thing? - Tyler Tim's Response Thank you for question, Tyler. You are correct in that I affirm that our natures do determine things about us, and that we are still free.<1> So, if it walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it seems my view

There's a bit of a role reversal in this episode. Tim interviews me about my favorite argument for God's existence: the Ontological Argument. Not only is the argument extremely controversial, but it also has an incredibly rich intellectual history, so it makes for a fascinating episode. Even if you don't find the Ontological Argument convincing (many Christians don't), I think there is value in discussing it. The concept of a maximally great being is a very fruitful theologi

Once people discover that you’re a Christian thinker, they often start coming to you with all of the objections they hear: “The Bible is hopelessly corrupt.” “Jesus never existed.” “Science disproves God.” Your friends will offer you the objections and ask, “How would you respond to this?” And here is what I always say: “I wouldn’t.” I never respond to objections. But wait, aren’t I an apologist? Isn’t it my responsibility to provide an answer to people’s objections? No

Perhaps the most common objection to Molinism is the so called Grounding Objection . Molinism, you may recall, asserts that God's knowledge of the counterfactuals of creaturely freedom (CCFs) is explanatory prior to God's creative decree. A CCF is a counterfactual that has the form: 'If person P were in circumstances C , P would freely execute action A .' (Note that refraining from executing some action A is itself an action). Hence, according to Molinism, before God chos

As we continue commenting on the Big Think video, what became apparent to us is that Mr. Aslan desperately wants the reason why Donald Trump was elected to have nothing to do with Hillary Clinton. But, as we talk about in this episode, his election was much more about how bad of a candidate Hillary Clinton was than anything to do with Trump's merits. In fact, one could even say that Donald Trump's best quality in this recent election was his ability to not be Hillary Clinton

Question: Dear Tim, I will try to be as concise and brief as possible. I am a Christian and my question is concerning free will, determinism, Molinism and of course, with respect to your Argument of Freethinking against Naturalism. The Freethinking Argument Against Naturalism  is formulated as follows:   1- If naturalism is true, the immaterial human soul does not exist. 2- If the soul does not exist, libertarian free will does not exist. 3- If libertarian free will doe

The Marvel Movie franchise is arguably the most epic enterprise in movie history. The series has a number of stand-out characters, however, two stand out more than the others. In fact, their differences stand in such firm relief so as to culminate in a film where they were driven toe-to-toe whilst still harboring a slight underlying sense of respect for one to another. These characters are, of course, Iron Man and Captain America. When an actor takes the stage, the first qu

Abstract:  The outgrowth of the truthmaker theory is due in part to the realist conception of truth that has been endorsed more prominently in recent years. Supplementing this realism is the notion of truthmaking—that truth depends upon the world. As a ‘cheater-catching’ business, the truthmaking enterprise has been celebrated to exclude ontologically groundless metaphysical systems. Some of these ‘purported’ ontologically groundless propositions that truthmaker theory should

We're going to be talking about a video by Big Think that tries to understand why evangelicals voted for Donald Trump for president. The man in the video, Reza Aslan, theorizes about several different reasons he believes that evangelicals acted out of character and voted for a man he did not think they would have voted for. Both Tim and I believe this video completely misses the whole reason Donald Trump was elected. It seems to us that Mr. Aslan is reaching for some explana

Apologetics is not, as it might sound, apologizing for one’s faith. Rather, the word apologetics comes from the Greek word apologia , which means a defense of one’s opinions or beliefs. If theology is the study of what one believes about God, then apologetics is the study of why one believes what they believe about God. If this is what we mean by apologetics, then all Christians are apologists! We all have some reason why we are Christians. The important questions are: wha

Tom Barnes is a pastor, author, and theologian who lives in Nebraska -- a mere twenty miles from my current residence. Tom is brilliant and one of the nicest guys I know. He is also one of the first to encourage me to take my systematic theology seriously. In fact, a decade ago (2008) we spent an entire twelve months together studying theology and the EFCA Statement of Faith. One topic we spent much time discussing was God's sovereignty and human freedom (or lack thereof). T

John Limanto comes back to talk about the problem of divine hiddenness. Divine hiddenness refers to the idea that, if God were to exist, we might expect him to reveal himself more fully to more people. The fact that some people do not feel as though God has been revealed to them might be thought of as an issue to the theist, particularly one who believes that God is all-loving and desires all humanity to know him. John has written about this topic and provides us with some g

I. Preliminaries Once again, I’d like to begin by stating further concessions I can give to clear the periphery of the debate. First, within this dialogue, my arguments shall operate under the presumption of A-theory of time. Second, I concede that if Andrew can successfully argue that correlation is a form causation, that then (MT 2 ) would still be incompatible with Molinism. Besides conceding, I would also like to point out several points of contentions, that if I were to

Why is free will so important to so many people? Why idolize something that God would not be in control of? In fact, this libertarian freedom you always speak of is impossible, no one has it, not even God because He must always act according to His nature! All is determined! Seems to me anyone can see how free will could become an idol. Why would you choose to worship an idol? - Anonymous Your question<1> is absurd if not ultimately self-defeating. For it assumes only t

1. Preliminary Remarks In their forthcoming exchange, Andrew and John will focus their attention on a narrowly framed articulation of the “Grounding Objection” to the Molinist account of Middle Knowledge. The two are conscious that, unless they are cautious to avoid doing so, they risk either clouding the discussion with peripheral matters, or talking past one-another. It is with a view to mitigating these risks that they have agreed to issue a joint statement that clarifies

1. Preliminaries In avoiding unintended off-tracking, it is necessary for me to state the points I concede in Andrew’s essay. First, I concede that there may be some ways in construing (DT) that should not bother Molinists (Andrew’s formulation of <(dt)> does not necessarily entail his conclusion as I will argue later). Second, I concede that in the Frankfurtian example he gives, William is not morally culpable for the voting of Hillary if the chip activates. Although, I wil

By Andrew Harland-Smith 1. Preliminary Remarks This exchange between John and myself concerns a narrowly framed articulation of the grounding objection. Mine is not an argument founded on any universal theory of truth; not truthmaker maximalism, not atomic truthmaker, not even truth-supervenes on being. Rather, mine is a much narrower claim. It is only that a small but significant subset of truths, the Counterfactuals of Creaturely Freedom (‘ CCFs ’), require truthmakers.

1. A Re-Cap of My Argument It will be recalled, that in my first essay, I developed an argument from what I called “The Dependence Thesis” (‘ DT ’) which held: (DT). For any person S and CCF C, if C is true, S has made it true that C As I noted in part 3 of my first essay, if (‘ DT ’) is true, the Counterfactuals of Creaturely Freedom (‘ CCFs ’) do not wont for truthmakers. That is, they are true; and what’s more their truth is grounded in the causal powers of the relev

John Limanto joins the podcast this week! For those of you who do not know, John Limanto is a 17-year-old guy from Indonesia who is one of the deepest thinkers in the Christian apologetics and theology circles. In this episode, we talk about what it's like to be into apologetics and theology at a young age and how that affects one's ministry. John is a really fun and energetic guy who I highly encourage you all to check out. He's written several articles on the FTM website,