TheoLogica: An International Journal for Philosophy of Religion and Philosophical Theology

Holy Triune Love

2024-02-26T17:35:17+00:00

In this paper, I formulate an alternative to the classical doctrine of divine simplicity. Simply stated, God’s nature is best understood as Holy Triune Love (HTL), and all attributes are best understood as aspects of HTL. This reformulation will allow us to affirm much of the content of classical simplicity without the actus-purus doctrine. This paper will proceed as follows. First, I will define CS and sketch its rationale in God's metaphysical ultimacy. Second, I will defend two critical objections from the incarnation and divine knowledge I take to be decisive against CS. Third, I will sketch HTL in relation to the trinitarian processions and the attributes, showing how HTL best satisfies the doctrinal motivations for CS. Fourth, I will show how HTL responds to the challenges I’ve raised against CS. I will then conclude by answering five potential objections.

The Love Argument for the Trinity

2023-09-24T17:23:20+00:00

The central focus of this article is to provide a new “Love Argument” for the necessary truth of the Latin' model' of the doctrine of the Trinity—termed “Latin Trinitarianism”—from an a priori standpoint. This new argument, called the Agápēic Argument, will be formulated in light of the metaphysical notions of a “trope,” introduced by D. C. Williams, and “multiple location,” posited by Antony Eagle, and the ethical concept of agápē, proposed by Alexander Pruss. Doing this will provide a specific argument that provides strong grounds for affirming the necessary truth of the Trinity, without, however, being subject to the primary objections that have been often raised against the existing versions of the argument.

Image as Agency

2025-05-04T07:38:36+00:00

This essay argues for a dual-aspect, substantival and functional, model of the image of God following the relation of image to agency and to Christ as the exemplar human agent developed in two parts from exegesis to metaphysics. In part 1, I define agency and trace the functional aspect of the relation of image to agency through the arc of Scripture from the creation narrative to its fulfillment in Christ and Christian regeneration. In part 2, I define image metaphysically and highlight an inference of identity Jesus makes between himself and the Father founded upon their agencies; Jesus’ identity includes the image of God grounded in the divine person of the Son. I argue that Jesus’ inference extends the concept of image as agency to include an ontological entailment such that the agent is identical with an immaterial “person.” The model provides reason to think that agency is the fundamental operator of God’s image throughout Scripture and that divine and human “persons” are immaterial substances, powerful and responsible agents.

Aquinas' Counterfactual Incarnations

2022-10-03T06:24:57+00:00

This paper is an examination of Aquinas’ account of the various ways in which the Incarnation might have occurred. Aquinas maintains that the Son of God became incarnate by assuming a specific body/soul union. Although he maintains that it was fitting for God to have become incarnate in this manner, he contends (i) that any one of the three divine persons could have become incarnate in this manner, (ii) that any plurality of these Persons could have assumed the same body/soul union, (iii) that any plurality of these Persons could have assumed distinct body/soul unions, and (iv) that any of the divine persons could have assumed a plurality of body/soul unions. Given the increasingly bizarre nature of these scenarios, it is worth asking, first, whether Aquinas is rationally entitled to these modal judgments, and second, why he is advancing them so early in his Discourse on the Incarnation in the Summa theologiae. In this paper I contend, first, that these counterfactual scenarios are possible if his actual account is possible; and second, that these scenarios they shed light (i) on the manner in which the Son of God did become incarnate, (ii) on the nature and scope of God’s freedom, love and power, and (iii) on Aquinas’ relationship with Rahner’s Rule, viz., the thesis that the economic Trinity is identical with the immanent Trinity.

The Anastatic Theory of Atonement

2024-05-24T09:03:47+00:00

I propose and defend a model of the atonement, called “anastatic” because of the central role played by Christ’s resurrection. According to this model, union with Christ is achieved by means of expanding the divine act of resurrection to incorporate sinners, thereby granting them access to a new life free from sin. I provide a biblical defense and a Thomistic explication of the model, and close by considering how it might relate to other atonement models within a broader theory of the atonement.

An Atonement Problem for Contradictory Christology

2023-07-17T08:38:22+00:00

Recently, Jc Beall has advanced a model of the incarnation according to which one can reconcile the apparently incompatible attributes attributed to Christ by taking them as true contradictions. In this paper, I argue that Contradictory Christology proves incompatible with a central class of atonement theories. I begin by expositing Beall’s model in contrast to two models operating upon the assumption of classical logic. Next, I demonstrate the incompatibility between Beall’s theory and theories of the atonement on which Christ’s suffering was a necessary condition of salvation. Finally, provide a brief survey of three prominent atonement theories, highlighting their endorsement of this principle.

Opaque Theism and Divine Testimony

2024-09-17T09:34:11+00:00

A much-discussed objection to skeptical theism is that skeptical theism implies that divine testimony cannot provide us with knowledge. Here I argue that it is not skeptical theism that raises doubts about the trustworthiness of divine testimony; rather, the vast amount of inscrutable evil in our world together with God’s track record of deception is the source of the trouble. I draw on that insight to develop further my divine deception argument (Wielenberg 2014). The argument I will defend goes roughly like this: There is a lot of inscrutable evil in the world and the Christian God has a track record of being deceptive about future events. Therefore, divine testimony regarding future events is not a source of knowledge that such events will occur.

Sola Scriptura and the Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism

2024-02-28T20:24:20+00:00

Inspired by Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (EAAN), we develop an argument—the “Scriptural Argument Against Dogmatic Protestantism” (SAADP)—that Protestants who accept the doctrine of sola scriptura cannot reasonably hold that Catholic and Eastern churches are in doctrinal error. If sola scriptura is true and Catholic and Eastern Churches have fallen into error, it is improbable that any Protestant can reliably form true beliefs about controversial points of Christian doctrine, including sola scriptura or suggestions that Catholic and Eastern Christians are in error. We evaluate potential responses to SADDP, considering how SAADP should affect ecumenical doctrinal debates.

Epistemic Egoism and the Protestant Uses of Tradition

2024-06-17T21:11:58+00:00

Although ecumenical dialogue has highlighted many commonalities between Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox, many issues still remain contentious. One often recurring suspicion is that the Protestant idea of sola scriptura inevitably leads to an individualistic religiosity, neglecting the importance of the divinely guided Christian tradition and Christian church teaching for understanding the Bible. In this article, I relate this critique to the idea of “epistemic egoism”, as defined by Linda Zagzebski, and develop an alternative Protestant social epistemology based on tradition as the “democracy of the dead”, error-corrected by sola scriptura. I test this Protestant theological epistemology against two recent criticisms: (1) the “Conciliar Argument Against Protestantism” (CAAP), arguing that Protestantism fails to provide consistent criteria for valuing conciliar authority as a guide to biblical interpretation, and (2) the “Scriptural Argument Against Dogmatic Protestantism”, arguing that sola scriptura, when understood in light of theological disagreement, ultimately becomes self-refuting in the absence of properly guiding theological authority. I argue, however, that sola scriptura is compatible with assigning an important epistemic role to both tradition and community, and that Protestant principles of theological reasoning can be defended further using recent theories in social epistemology.

A Christian Account of the Rationality of Morality

2025-02-18T14:25:04+00:00

This article provides a novel solution to the problem of the rationality of morality, which I characterize as the apparent conflict between reasons to respect other persons while pursuing personal well-being. The central concern is that reason may not resolve conflicts between these moral demands. My solution draws on Christian concepts of the Trinity and theosis (the process of becoming like God). Morality’s rationality arises from theosis because theosis requires becoming like the Trinity. We cannot resemble the Trinity alone. Instead, theosis requires both individual perfection and forming a loving union with others, a union that recognizes their worth. Together, the individual and social aspects of theosis justify the rationality of morality, as individual perfection and social union are part of a single, integrated process. The Trinity and theosis form a new framework for living a rational and moral life.

Moral Autonomy and Unconditional Submission to God:

2025-08-02T08:01:46+00:00

A number of prominent commentators construe the concept of worship in such a way that it commits the worshipper to unconditional submission to God. One might think, however, that construing worship in this way implies that the worshipper’s moral autonomy will be undermined. In this paper I respond to and reject a recent argument by Frederick Choo that attempts to show that it’s false that unconditional submission to God undermines the worshipper’s moral autonomy.

Who Knows!

2025-02-08T11:26:54+00:00

According to the Evil-God challenge, there is an epistemic symmetry between the hypothesis of a Good God and the reverse hypothesis of an Evil God. Hence, belief in a Good God is no more reasonable than belief in an Evil God. Several persuasive responses have been offered to this challenge, but in this paper I focus on one that, to my mind, is underdeveloped in the literature; namely that the Evil God hypothesis casts serious doubt on the reliability of our cognitive faculties, while no comparable thing can be said of the Good God hypothesis, in any case not to the same degree of plausibility. Assuming an apparently innocuous rationality principle, this breaks the supposed symmetry between the two hypotheses and gives the theist reason enough to justifiably prefer the latter.

Defeating the Problem of Evil with Evil

2023-12-23T13:52:54+00:00

I argue that the creation and freely chosen salvation and everlasting bliss of even just one person is a greater good than any finite amount of evil and suffering. Since it is extremely likely (if not certain) that, out of all possible individuals that could exist, some (or at least one) would only be freely saved through the contemplation and experience of evil and suffering, then God would be justified in creating a world with evil and suffering to allow for the salvation of such individuals, so long as no one else freely lost their salvation who otherwise would not have lost it because of the evil and suffering. Thus, the problem of evil dissipates, as a world with evil and suffering, even seemingly gratuitous evil and suffering, would be entirely expected given theism.

Evil, Hiddenness, and Nonbelief in Abū al-Barakāt al-Baghdādī’s Commentary on Ecclesiastes:

2025-02-16T11:09:39+00:00

The problem of evil has consistently challenged theistic belief. This challenge appears in both contemporary and medieval philosophical sources, including those written by Jewish and Muslim philosophers and theologians. Treatments of the problem vary across historical contexts. This study examines a significant, yet understudied, engagement with this problem by Abū al-Barakāt al-Baghdādī (a 12th-century Jewish philosopher who converted to Islam) in his commentary on Ecclesiastes, proposing to contribute to research on both intellectual history, within the realms of Islamic and Jewish philosophy and theology, and philosophy of religion. First, I reconstruct the problem of evil as presented in Abū al-Barakāt’s Judeo-Arabic commentary on Ecclesiastes (extant in manuscript form), highlighting the surrounding philosophical and theological trends that shaped its overall perspective. Second, reflecting a deeper philosophical dimension of the reconstructed problem of evil, I analyze it through the lens of contemporary philosophy of religion, particularly the evidential argument from evil and relevant aspects of the problem of divine hiddenness. I argue that Abū al-Barakāt’s formulation, distinct from customary articulations of the problem in his intellectual milieu, anticipates atheistic challenges posed by the evidential argument and divine hiddenness. Finally, I propose that potential complementary responses to these challenges can be developed by analyzing (1) Abū al-Barakāt’s conception of taqlīd (conformism) in light of Alvin Plantinga’s concept of the basicality of belief, and (2) his use of the Islamic doctrine of al-Qaḍāʾ wa al-Qadar (divine Decree and Predestination), which allows for a skeptical response.

Timelessness à la Leftow

2023-12-21T07:23:32+00:00

Brian Leftow has argued in significant detail for a timeless conception of God. However, his work has been interacted with less than one might expect, especially given that some have contended that divine timelessness should be put to death and buried. Further, the work that has critically interacted with Leftow does a very poor job at discrediting it, or so I will contend. As we shall see, the main reason for this is either because what is central to Leftow’s view is not affected by the objection, or because Leftow provides another way of getting his theory off the ground. Why, then, do so many objections miss the mark? I suspect it’s because many struggle to understand Leftow’s view and what is central to it. As such, one of the main goals of this paper will be to make Leftow’s account more accessible and to elucidate the main elements of the theory, whilst also providing responses to the main objections raised against his view. The overall result of this, I hope, will be a more fruitful examination of Leftow’s view in the future.

Transhumanism vs. Theistic Ethics

2025-03-10T16:52:33+00:00

I argue that there are three limits to the transhumanist project of moral enhancement. They are “technological ignorance,” “technological passivity” and “technological easiness.” I argue that they make it unlikely that the enhancement in question will be achieved. I also argue that there are no similar limits in the context of theistic Christian ethics, although it may seem otherwise at first sight. Following Aquinas, I show that there is no “theological ignorance,” “theological passivity” or “theological easiness” that may hinder moral progress via the Christian faith. In conclusion, Christian theistic ethics is more beneficial to us than transhumanist views of moral enhancement.

An Essentialist View of Biological Sex Remains Alive and Well

2024-11-24T20:04:31+00:00

In response to a recent article by Myron Penner, April Cordero, and Amanda Nichols in this journal, this essay offers a critical analysis. Their article makes a case against gender essentialism rooted in biology, drawing from the biology of sex determination. While commending their thorough exposition of the science of sex determination, we argue that most of their anthropological conclusions are unfounded. After reviewing their article, we present several criticisms that undermine their case. In particular, we take issue with the authors’ methodological commitments and demonstrate that the evidence they present from the science of human sex determination does not convincingly support rejecting an essentialist view of biological sex. Furthermore, we argue that human sexuality solidifies into a binary and fixed state following sex determination during gestation. Contrary to the original essay, our analysis concludes that the science of sex determination leaves wide open the possibility that some biology-based form of gender essentialism is true.