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Multiverse theorists provide controversial, unique but unified accounts of divine creation that result in the Anselmian God creating a best world. On what conditions should theists endorse this or any account of divine creation? One available way is to evaluate how well they resolve some intractable problems in philosophical theology. I argue that multiverse accounts do not resolve these problems to a greater degree than some alternative account of divine creation. I conclude that we should endorse the alternative account over multiverse accounts.

In his landmark book on philosophical theology, Saving God: Religion After Idolatry, Mark Johnston develops a panentheistic metaphysic of the divine that he contends is compatible with ontological naturalism. On his view, God is the universe, but the ‘is’ is the ‘is’ of constitution, not identity. The universe and God are coinciding objects that share properties but have different essential modal properties and, hence, different persistence conditions. In this paper, I address the problem of accounting for what it is about the organization or structure of the universe that makes it sufficient to constitute the Divine Mind. Specifically, I consider what kind of unity the universe exhibits in virtue of which it constitutes the Divine Mind. I consider how Johnston’s hylomorphic account of the unity of composite objects might be applied to provide a solution and offer an alternative that emends the Johnstonian proposal I present by exploiting a variant of a neo-Aristotelian ontology of causal powers that takes properties to be powerful qualities. On the framework I defend, we can understand the universe as a constellation of powers that displays the sort of unity sufficient to truthfully described it as a Divine Mind. The approach I recommend will, however, ultimately lend itself to a pantheistic metaphysic of the divine rather than Johnston’s preferred panentheism.

Henry More (1614–1687), the most influential of the so-called Cambridge Platonists, and arguably the leading philosophically-inclined theologian in late seventeenthcentury England, has come in for renewed attention lately. He was the subject of a detailed intellectual biography in 2003 by Robert Crocker, and in 2012 Jasper Reid published a philosophically penetrating and enlightening study ofMore’s metaphysics (Crocker 2003; Reid 2012). David Leech’s study of More’s idiosyncratic concept of immaterial spirit—and the role that it plays in his philosophy and theology—is as detailed and penetrating as Reid’s study of his metaphysics, but perhaps more farreaching in its ambitions. As the sub-title of this new book suggests,More’s philosophical theology is presented here as leading to the unintended consequence of promoting the incipient atheism of the early modern period. Leech’s study is clearly and helpfully structured in three parts and ten chapters. The first part, “Atheism and Spirit” is concerned with contemporary atheistic attempts to refute the concept of spirit, or immaterial substance, which was seen as “foundational to all religious claims” (p. 19), and with More’s early attempts to take the atheists head-on and establish the truth of the spiritual realm. We see here the beginnings of More’s rejection of what he refers to as holenmerism (he was always ready to coin a neologism), and his dismissal of the “mad jingle”: the scholastic claim that the soul is present in the body tota in toto et tota in qualibet parte (the whole soul is simultaneously in the whole of the body and in every part of the body). Part Two, on finite spirits (i.e., spirits other than God) begins by examining how More deals with the Averroistic concept of the unity and singularity of the human soul. This “Aristotelian Atheism,” so-called because it denied any notion of immortal

In this article, I present a case for a kind of existential theology which would be philosophical and metaphysical, though not broadly Platonic and classical, and biblical though not illogical. What I present will be an attempt to clarify and justify what I call “existential hayatological theism”. In so doing I will draw on insights from what Edmond La B Cherbonnier and Claude Tresmontant designated as “biblical philosophy” and “biblical metaphysics” as well as from the neo-classical philosophies of Charles Hartshorne and Alfred North Whitehead, especially that of Whitehead.

The paper examines three themes from the recent philosophical literature on place: the status of places as "concrete universals"; the narratively mediated agency of places; and the various ways in which human identity proves to be relative to place. I argue that these themes throw into new relief a set of correlative issues in philosophical theology concerning, respectively, God's supra-individuality, God's status as a final cause, and the divine grounding of human identity. On this basis, the paper proposes that knowledge of place is analogous to, and partly constitutive of, knowledge of God.

The tradition of classical theism (CT) from Augustine to Aquinas developed a philosophical theology which posited for God a knowledge of the world that Aristotle's first unmoved mover arguably lacked. Yet this timelessly eternal God was still viewed as essentially simple and immutable. In addition, it was considered to be without either contingent attributes or any intrinsic relations to something other than itself. It cannot suffer and eternally knows that it cannot. Is it not then logically impossible for such an unchangeable and impassible deity to achieve an identity with a creaturely condition so that it could be said that God is some one that suffered, died, and sufferingly knew the evils of our world? Must a classical theist not acknowledge that acceptance of the reality of such an ontological empathy requires a leap of faith contra rationeml Must CT not adopt the stance of one of its staunchest proponents, Kierkegaard's Johannes Climacus, and concede that for it the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation constitutes an 'Absolute Paradox' genuinely believed only if its intrinsic absurdity and rational offensiveness are humbly acknowledged?1 Negative responses to these questions are best developed in a logical framework historically associated with CT and one intrinsically capable of explicating the amphibolous character of much theological discourse. Some aspects of this logic, an Aristotelian syllogistic not relying on a twoname theory of the proposition, will be sketched in Section I.2 The task of clarifying, modifying, and defending some of the basic theses of CT by means of this logic can then be undertaken in Section 2. Finally, in Section 3, it can be argued that one widely accepted way of stating the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation is amphibolous. In this respect the 'Absolute Paradox' bears similarities to some of the basic claims of CT itself and to Russell's antinomy. It is true that some of Aquinas' s own formulations of the doctrine of the Incarnation conflict with CT's conclusions about the

Alvin Plantinga tells the story about Bertrand Russell who was once asked how he would reply "if, after dying, he were brought into the presence of God and asked why he had not been a believer. Russell's reply: 'I'd say "Not enough evidence, God! Not enough evidence! ''1 To an extent, Plantinga the theist would agree with Russell on this point. Plantinga would go on to argue, however, that since theistic belief is not, in the first place, a function of evidence which provides it with a foundation - at least in the way that Russell understands it - Russell's complaint does not bear directly on the issue. For Plantinga, religious belief does possess foundations, but such foundations are not the kind which would be attributed to it by evidentialists or classical foundationalists. One of the major aspects of the case that Plantinga develops in support of his view is a strident critique of natural theology. His own Reformed epistemology acquires much of its distinctiveness in relation to such a critique. This is particularly the case with regard to its major tenet that belief in God is a basic belief. The prominent Roman Catholic T/.ibingen theologian Walter Kasper, however, has argued at length in favour of an understanding of natural theology which is substantially different from that rejected by Plantinga. 2 What is more, natural theology, in Kasper's rendering of it, seems to me on many points to support the basicality of belief in God so prized by Plantinga. A study of Plantinga with a view to Kasper on natural theology, then, raises questions about the adequacy of Plantinga's portrayal of natural theology. It also thereby raises a derivative question about the distinctiveness of the "Reformed" character of his epistemology, given the closeness of Reformed epistemology's ties to a rejection of natural theology as so portrayed. An analysis of Plantinga with

Traditional faith theory has much to contribute to current discussions of religious belief in philosophical theology. The following reflections are based on Thomas Aquinas' "Tract on Faith" studied with the help of recent epistemic logic, the logic of knowing and believing.1 I follow Aquinas in focusing on assent to tenets, and assume that to be, in some sense, one of many aspects of religious faith (I will use "faith" and "having faith that ...," to mean holding for propositions on faith).2 Religious beliefs are those a person accepts as homo religiosus, as might be, for example, "God exists" or "God became flesh."

In The Existence of God, the second book in his trilogy on issues in philosophical theology, Richard Swinburne presents a sequence of inductive arguments for God's existence.1 In this paper I try to refute one interesting but hitherto overlooked member of this sequence, viz., "The Argument From Consciousness."2 Here is the plan I follow. Section I is a brief characterization of the general program Swinburne adopts in The Existence of God: I describe therein his overarching goal, define what he calls "C" and "P" inductive arguments, give a roughand-ready account of his terminology, and cite certain of his presuppositions. Section II contains an explicit version of the argument from consciousness, and a rough summary of the attack I bring against it. In HI I begin this attack: I search for but fail to find a needed sub-argument for a premise in the argument presented in II. But instead of ending this section with a rejection of Swinburne's argument, I postpone a decision about the truth or falsity of the premise he apparently doesn't support. In IV I sketch a theory of events, and then use that theory to develop with tolerable precision what Swinburne calls the "Mind-Brain Identity Theory." In V I consider and ultimately reject Swinburne's arguments against this theory. But then I assume, for the sake of argument, that Swinburne's attack on the Mind-Brain Identity Theory succeeds. I proceed to show, in VI, that his argument from consciousness fails even under this assumption. In VII, the final section, I briefly summarize my refutation, and then offer a few suggestions for building a stronger version of Swinburne's argument.

The above title leads quite naturally to two sets of questions: (1) What is philosophy of theology? Is it the same as philosophy of religion? Is it the same as philosophical theology? Philosophy of theology is not the same as either philosophy of religion or philosophical theology. Rather, philosophy of theology is a branch of philosophy of science in general, just as philosophy of physics, philosophy of biology or philosophy of psychology. (2) If philosophy of theology is a branch of philosophy of science in general, then how can Karl Popper's work in the philosophy of science prove fruitful for the development of a philosophy of theology? Does not Popper maintain that scientific assertions must be falsifiable by experience? How can one maintain, within a Popperian perspective, that philosophy of theology is a branch of philosophy of science in general? The view that Popper's use of falsifiability as a criterion for demarcating the realm of science excludes theology from among the sciences rests on a common but mistaken reading of Popper. Rather Popper's criterion of demarcation merely excludes theology from among the empirical sciences. This exclusion, far from being alarming to the theologians view their discipline, accords well with it. In Theology and the Philosophy of Science,1 Wolfhart Pannenberg provides us with one approach to philosophy of theology (although he does not use that term). In that work, Pannenberg shows an uncommon familiarity with a broad range of traditions in the philosophy of science. (He does, however, misinterpret Popper in the all too common manner.) Pannenberg develops his philosophy of theology in terms of the hermeneutical tradition of philosophy of science as developed through philosophers such as Jurgen Habermas and Hans Georg Gadamer. In the present paper I want to argue that one can also develop a philosophy of theology (to my mind, a more fruitful philosophy of theology than that developed by Pannenberg) from the general approach to philosophy of science which is found in Popper's works. The present paper is divided into three parts. Part 1 will attempt to clear up the misinterpretation of Popper's general philosophy of science which, while it is not exactly rare among philosophers, is notoriously common among theologians. Part 2 will lay out the task of philosophy of theology, distinguishing it from philosophy

In his 1998 postscript to ‘The Possibility of Resurrection’ Peter van Inwagen argues that the scenario he describes by which God might resurrect a human organism, even though probably not true (cf. van Inwagen in, The possibility of resurrection and other essays in Christian apologetics, Westview Press, Boulder, 1998b, p. 51), is still conceivable and, consequently, ‘serves to establish a possibility’ (van Inwagen in, The possibility of resurrection and other essays in Christian apologetics, Westview Press, Boulder, 1998b, p. 51), namely, the metaphysical possibility of the resurrection of material beings. Van Inwagen, however, has also argued in favour of ‘modal scepticism’ [van Inwagen in, God, knowledge and mystery: essays in philosophical theology, Cornell University Press, Ithaca 1995b, pp. 11–12; van Inwagen in, Philos Stud 92:67–84 (69), 1998a]. That is, he thinks that we should limit all our claims about what is possible to ‘ordinary propositions about everyday matters’ (van Inwagen in, Philos Stud 92:67–84 (76), 1998a). In this paper I argue that van Inwagen’s modal argument as found in ‘The Possibility of Resurrection’ (van Inwagen in, The possibility of resurrection and other essays in Christian apologetics, Westview Press, Boulder, 1998b) is inconsistent with his modal scepticism as found in ‘Modal Epistemology’ (van Inwagen in, Philos Stud 92:67–84, 1998a). In consequence, I argue that, given his modal scepticism, the task van Inwagen set himself in ‘The Possibility of Resurrection’ (to establish the possibility of the Resurrection) has not been achieved.