Theodicy, Supreme Providence, and Semiclassical Theism

Theism and Dialetheism

The divine attributes of omniscience and omnipotence have faced objections to their very consistency. Such objections rely on reasoning parallel to the semantic paradoxes such as the Liar or the set-theoretic paradoxes like Russell’s paradox. With the advent of paraconsistent logics, dialetheism— the view that some contradictions are true — became a major player in the search for a solution to ...

Theodicy and Animals

It is widely acknowledged among those philosophers and theologians who have given the matter much thought that the fact of animal suffering challenges Theism in a distinctive way. Standard attempts to reconcile human suffering with a perfectly powerful and benevolent deity don’t seem to apply easily to the case of animals. Animals can hardly be said to deserve their suffering or be morally impr...

Theism and Physical Cosmology1

Theism & Mathematical Realism

Historically, most mathematicians have believed that mathematical truths such as "2+5=7" exist independently of human minds, being universally and eternally true. Mathematicians believe they are discovering properties of, say, prime numbers, rather than merely inventing them. This view of mathematics dates back to Pythagoras (500 BC) and Plato (400 BC). It is often called “Platonism”. In order ...

Theism, Platonism, and the Metaphysics of Mathematics

1 The Dilemma of the Theistic Platonist Theists generally hold that God is the creator of all there is distinct from himself. Traditionally, the scope of God's creative activity has extended across two disjoint realms: the physical, whose chief exemplars are ordinary middle-size objects, and the mental or spiritual, encompassing such things as angels and souls. Now, many theists are also platon...