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Can one viably deny foreknowledge as it is classically defined, and still claim to hold to the doctrine of omniscience? In this paper I seek to explore the plausibility of such a claim, as it is made by the Open Theists. A common theme of the critique leveled against Open Theism by proponents of more traditional theism revolves around the fact that Open Theism it denies foreknowledge and therefore must necessarily hold to a less than omniscient God. I deal with this critique in two separate parts. First, I look at the difficulties that have arisen out of the definition and use of the terms foreknowledge and omniscience. I propose several ways we can use these terms that will help us to better tackle the question of whether or not Open Theism is an acceptable Evangelical option. Second, I look at the specific critique of the openness denial of Exhaustive Divine Foreknowledge. Building off the understanding we came to in part one, I suggest that in reality what Open Theists deny is a technical term, and this is not as damning as some traditional opponents would like to think it is. I then look at several problems with the traditional critique, and conclude that the critique as it has been given thus far, lacks plausibility and that Open Theism is likely an acceptable Evangelical option. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This dissertation considers the theological suitability of Charles S. Peirce’s philosophy of signs (semeiotic) for use in theories respecting the great Christian tradition. As a case-study, this dissertation examines panentheism as a problem for a Christian approach to natural theology utilizing semeiotic, as proposed by Alister McGrath. Leading interpreters of Peirce’s philosophy of religion, Michael Raposa and Robert Corrington, hold that Peirce’s semeiotic entails a panentheist ontology. If that is the case, then a fully developed use of semeiotic by McGrath may inad-vertently risk the coherence of his theory. The present study takes a systematic theology approach combined with an empirical method inspired by Peirce’s distinct form of pragmatism. Chapter one introduces the problematic, the methodology, and the plan for the work of this dissertation. Chapter two defines three characteristic discrepancies that any authentic form of panentheism will have vis-à-vis a traditional Christian theology of the Creator-creature relation. Chapter three explores the relationship of Peirce’s thought to panentheist ontology as defined in chapter two. It finds that Peirce’s semeiotic is not inherently panentheist but that some of its aspects understandably lend themselves to panentheist perspectives in the thought of some interpreters of Peirce. Chapter four tests for the persistence of this relation of Peirce’s semeiotic to panentheism by constructing a robustly semeiotic form of McGrath’s theory (via Raposa’s theosemiotic), identifying Robert Neville as an exemplar of such a Christian theosemiotic, and sampling Neville’s work for evidence of panentheism. This dissertation concludes that Neville’s prior ontological commitments, rather than semeiotic, are the primary factors in his positive relation to panentheism. Therefore, semeiotic appears to be susceptible to panentheist perspectives held by interpreters, but semeiotic itself does not seem to entail panentheism. Consequently, there is reason to expect that a robust semeiotic theory applied to the task of Christian natural theology will not stumble over panentheism as long as it holds to a traditional Christian ontology. This result bears positive implications for the use of semeiotic in theological endeavors in many other forms of cultural engagement beyond the religion and science dialogue that situates McGrath’s proposal.

The cooperation between natural science, philosophy, and theology in an analysis of the causal structure and co-dependency of entities in the universe seems to be both legitimate and expected. It turns out, however, that in practice it oftentimes raises some tensions, questions and difficulties, leading to the development of alternative and in a sense competitive models of causality and of God’s action in the world. What is more, (1) the attitude of natural sciences since modernity, concentrated on gaining knowledge about natural phenomena to predict and control them, without trying to determine the nature of their ultimate causes, (2) Humean criticism and rejection of the concept of causality as such, and (3) concentration of analytic philosophers on the description of what accompanies phenomena classified as causal, leaving aside the question of the metaphysical status of causes and effects – they all seem to make impossible an interaction and mutual reference of contemporary science, philosophy, and theology in their reflection on the topic of causation. The main goal of this article is to defend the thesis about the possible and actual influence of scientific analysis of cause and effect relationships on the philosophical and theological reflection on causation, not only in the Middle Ages and Modernity, but also in contemporary thought. The presentation of the latest positions in the debate on divine action in the natural world will be followed by an argument in favor of the relevance of the model developed by philosophers and theologians representing the Thomistic school.

This dissertation offers a re-interpretation of Novalis' Fichte Studien. I argue that several recent scholarly readings of this text unnecessarily exclude "organicism," or a panentheistic notion of the Absolute, in favor of "nonclosure," or the endless, because impossibly completed search for knowledge of the Absolute. My reading instead shows that, in his earliest philosophical text, Novalis makes the case for a Kantian discursive consciousness that can know itself, on Jacobian grounds, to be the byproduct (or accident) of a self-conditioning being or organism, and even more specifically a byproduct of God's panentheistic organism, at the same time that Novalis does not allow the possibility of discursive immediacy with that absolute standpoint; the epistemic consequence is that, while empirical science can proceed in the good faith that it makes valid reference to being, nonetheless it can never know its description of being to be final or complete. I call this position "organic nonclosure," and argue that Novalis holds it consistently throughout his very brief philosophical career. The keys to understanding Novalis' reconciliation of organicism and nonclosure are contextual and textual. Contextually, Novalis appreciates the inadvertent organicism in Jacobi's metacritique of Kant and also applies Jacobi's organicist metacritique to Fichte as well, with the result that Novalis' position in the Fichte Studien bears much resemblance to Herder's panentheistic ontology and modest epistemology. Textually, Novalis engages in a polysemy in the fragments of his Fichte Studien that performs the dependence of the sphere of empirical consciousness on a higher, intellectually intuitive being (a being that could only be a divinely creative intellection), and, simultaneously, the impossibility of presenting that identity in discursive terms. In other words, for Novalis, human knowledge of the existence of the organicist Absolute is enabled by, but also limited to, the merely contingent, empirical, and private experience of the dependence of the human subjective standpoint on an objectivity simply given to it.