Can the best arguments for a privation theory of evil be parodied, with equal plausibility, as arguments for a privation theory of good? The privation theory of evil claims that evil has no positive existence, and it is but a privation of good. The privation theory of good claims the opposite. I approach this topic as one element in the so-called evil-God Challenge. Stephen Law has argued that the epistemic support for belief in an omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect God (theism) is on a par with the epistemic support for belief in an omniscient, omnipotent, but completely evil-God (maltheism). In fact, he concludes, the arguments for an evil God are symmetrical with, and isomorphic to, those for a good God. The privation theory of evil has often been used to defend theism against the argument from evil. Thus, part of the evil-God Challenge is to evaluate arguments for the privation theory of evil for their vulnerability to maltheist parody. I consider a broad range of arguments for the privation theory of evil, and I argue that most of them are vulnerable to parodic neutralization. Furthermore, I argue that although the thesis of the convertibility of being and goodness is often held to entail the privation theory of evil, or to be entailed by it (or to be equivalent to it), it is independent of the privation theory. I do find that David Oderberg’s recent argument for the privation theory of evil resists any easy maltheist parody, but I argue that it has a defect. I sketch an argument according to which his good-as-fulfillment account is compatible with a perfectly evil god. My tentative conclusion is that the privation theory of evil enjoys little more plausibility than does the privation theory of good.

Astrotheology, the theological engagement with astrobiology and the possibility of extraterrestrial life, has primarily focused on the compatibility of scientific and religious beliefs. However, this article argues that probability and risk assessments play a larger role in the discussion than is commonly recognised, and there is need to learn from the rigour with which natural theological arguments have been evaluated. For instance, the relative urgency and style of astrotheological discourse is affected by ideas of what sort of life is likely to be out there, if any. In this article, I analyse astrotheological risk assessments from the framework of decision theory, using the discussion over Pascal’s Wager as a comparison case. Arguments over the fittingness of creating other life forms are analysed through a comparison with fine-tuning design arguments. I argue that while theological engagement with astrobiology remains important, the justification of probability and risk assessments depends on disputed philosophical and theological assumptions. Examining the compatibility of theological systems and ideas about extraterrestrial life is important. However, fostering doubt about these probabilities is also a service that theology can do for astrobiological debates.

The famous Catholic pilgrimage site at Lourdes, France, until fairly recently displayed hundreds of discarded crutches as testament to miraculous cures. It has, though, never displayed a wooden leg. Hence the Wooden Leg Problem (WLP) for believers in miracles: if God can cure paralysis, why does He seem never to have given an amputee back their lost limb? The WLP is a severe challenge for believers in miracles and must be confronted head-on. Yet there does not appear to be any systematic analysis of the problem, at least as formulated here, in the literature on miracles or philosophy of religion generally. I discuss ten possible solutions to the WLP on behalf of the believer in miracles. Although some are stronger than others, all but the final one seem too weak to solve the problem. It is the final one – the ‘how do you know?’ solution – that I endorse and examine in some depth. This solution, I argue, shows that the WLP does not move the epistemological dial when it comes to belief or disbelief in miracles.

Following Heath White, let ‘divine determinism’ denote the pairing of the following theses: ‘(1) the facts about God’s will entail every other contingent fact, and (2) the facts about God’s will are explanatorily prior to every other fact’. In the article, we develop a theological version of Peter van Inwagen’s so-called Direct Argument and show that, if sound, the Theological Direct Argument leads to the conclusion that divine determinism is incompatible with human moral responsibility. But, the soundness of the argument depends upon two inference rules, one of which, called Rule B, is controversial. So, in the third section of the article, we offer a novel, two-part defence of Rule B. This defence, in the first part, has to do with how truth, in a fairly trivial way, depends on the world. The second part of the defence has to do with the way that the logic of conditionals works. The upshot of this defence is that counter-examples to Rule B are impossible. Even so, should that defence fail, we also consider, in section four, a way of reformulating Rule B that, if successful, circumvents alleged counter-examples to the original statement of Rule B.

In this article, I discuss the inadequacy of the solution to the problem of evil in a God-created world proposed by the African perfect God theists, Kwame Gyekye and Ebunoluwa Oduwole, and highlight the success of the limited God framework of Kwasi Wiredu, J.A.I. Bewaji, and the Chimakonams in accounting for the evil in the world. However, implicit in the limitation thesis is the claim that God did his best at the time he created the world, such that the evil in it cannot be further reduced to allow for a better world. I argue that the limited God view offers a good reason to believe that a limited God can reduce the evil in the world and make it better, once the deity is conceived as a sufficiently powerful, knowledgeable, and good being with the capacity for continuous improvement within the bounds of limitation.

This paper argues that interactions with artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots, such as ChatGPT, can mediate genuine mystical experiences. Building off the framework of mystical experiences developed by William James, I argue that interactions with AI chatbots can mediate mystical experiences in a structurally comparable way to how guided meditation can produce mystical experiences. I conclude by raising various concerns about the implementation of AI technologies in our religious lives, including their use as mediators for mystical experiences.

The received view is that Kant denies all moral luck. But I show how Kant affirms constitutive moral luck in passages concerning radical evil from Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. First, I explicate Kant’s claims about radical evil. It is a morally evil disposition that all human beings have necessarily, at least for the first part of their lives, and for which they are blameworthy. Second, since these properties about radical evil appear to contradict Kant’s even more famous claims about imputation, ‘ought implies can’, and free will, I unpack Henry Allison’s proof of radical evil and show how it is consistent with interpretations of Kant’s broader views about morality. Third, I define and illustrate the category of constitutive moral luck and argue that Kant embraces the existence of constitutive moral luck given Allison-style interpretations of radical evil. This provides a reason for philosophers to reject the received view, and it creates an occasion for Kantians and Kant scholars to check their reasons if they deny moral luck.

This article develops the problem of divine domination. Classical theism describes God as essentially all-powerful, sovereign, personal, omnipresent, and a se. If such a being exists, then he dominates humans in virtue of his essential properties. Since dominative relationships are unjust, the divine-human relationship is unjust. I reject solutions to this problem that appeal to humanity’s childlikeness or divine goodness, justice, or greatness. I conclude by gesturing towards what a solution to the problem might require.

Theists believe in a transcendent personal creator that is maximally perfect and intervenes in the creation. Deists believe in a transcendent personal creator that is maximally perfect and does not intervene in the creation. One alleged problem for deism is that its God cannot be maximally perfect. A God that intentionally and knowingly creates a world replete with suffering and anguish yet fails to intervene to ameliorate it is not morally perfect. Thus, theism is better off than deism. I argue that the God of theism is in just as much trouble vis-à-vis omnibenevolence as the God of deism. More specifically, theistic responses to why God answers some but not all petitionary prayers either (i) show theism’s God is less than morally perfect in the same way deism’s God is alleged to be, or (ii) are likewise open to deists.

This article is part of Religious Studies’ new initiative to publish a series of interviews with distinguished philosophers of religion. Each interview explores the personal and academic background of the interviewee and discusses their core philosophical views. The aim is to inspire students and scholars and to provide an overview of some of the most important works developed by contemporary philosophers of religion. In this interview, Kirk Lougheed interviews John Leslie, covering such topics as working in advertising after finishing his BA at Oxford, returning to graduate school, and developing and defending Axiarchism throughout his philosophical career.

Objections to the orthodox doctrine of an eternal hell often rely on arguments that it cannot be a person’s own fault that she ends up in hell. The article summarizes and addresses three significant arguments which aim to show that it could not be any individual’s fault that they end up in hell. I respond to these objections by showing that those who affirm a classical picture of sin have Moorean reasons to reject these objections. That classical perspective holds that all (serious) sin involves choosing eternal destiny apart from God and that no sin could possibly be caused by God. Consequently, it is necessary for ending up in hell that someone commit a serious sin, and it is sufficient for ending up damned that one persists forever in sin. Since the objections conflict with Moorean commitments central to the classical perspective, those who hold to such a classical perspective on sin would have good reason to reject all these arguments, which involve assumptions that would entail that such a perspective is false.

While apophatic theology has been quickly dismissed by the vast majority of analytic philosophers, Samuel Lebens is among the few who has tried to show that such a theological position is tenable by appealing to two main philosophical moves. The first move is that many of our claims about God are false (or nonsensical). The second move is that such false (or nonsensical) claims about God are illuminating and/or therapeutic. This article presents Lebens’s account of apophatic theology, and defends it from the main criticisms. However, it also shows that, contrary to what has been suggested by Lebens himself, the disjunction which appears in the first move has to be understood as exclusive, that is, either many of our claims about God are false or many of our claims about God are nonsense. Tertium non datur. Moreover, this article argues that, in both cases, Lebens’s account of apophatic theology stumbles upon some important issues. For, if many of our claims about God are taken to be false or nonsensical, Lebens fails to explain how such claims can be illuminating and/or therapeutic.

Within the space of monotheistic options, trinitarian monotheism holds a puzzling place. It asserts that God is a single being who is, somehow, also three distinct persons. This form of monotheism has regularly been charged with being either inconsistent, unintelligible, or undermotivated – and possibly all three. While recent explorations of trinitarian monotheism have tended to rely on work in metaphysics, this paper turns to the philosophy of mind, showing that functionalist theories of mind prove to be surprisingly hospitable to trinitarian monotheism. This paper will address only the inconsistency and unintelligibility objections, showing that if role-functionalism (or something near enough) is both consistent and conceivable, then it is both consistent and conceivable that: God is a single being who is exactly three distinct persons because there is one primary divine person who interacts with exactly one system-sharing re-realisation of his own person-type.

After outlining sceptical theism (ST) and the fine-tuning argument (FTA), I demonstrate how arguments for the former undercut the latter. I then consider and reject three recent proposals for ameliorating the conflict: positive ST, considerations about normative superiors, and appeal to theistic metaethics. I contend, however, that Kirk Durston’s complexity argument for ST does not undercut the FTA but in fact supports it. In defending that thesis, I respond to Climenhaga’s contention that ST undermines all warrant for theistic belief, the FTA included.

This article critically evaluates Jeffrey Koperski’s decretalism, which presents the laws of nature as divine decrees functioning as constraints rather than dynamic forces. Building on his work, we explore whether his model successfully avoids the implications of occasionalism, as he claims. By analysing his latest publications, we first reconstruct Koperski’s argument and then present three key objections. These include (1) issues related to scientific realism, (2) the principle of simplicity, and (3) the reduction of Koperski’s model to occasionalism. We argue that despite his attempts to distinguish his framework, Koperski’s model ultimately collapses into occasionalism due to the continuous divine sustenance required for natural processes. By engaging with recent developments in metaphysical and scientific debates, this article highlights the limitations of Koperski’s decretalism.

This article is part of Religious Studies’ new initiative to publish a series of interviews with distinguished philosophers of religion. Each interview explores the personal and academic background of the interviewee and discusses their core philosophical views. The aim is to inspire students and scholars and to provide an overview of some of the most important works developed by contemporary philosophers of religion. In this interview, Tyler Dalton McNabb interviews Keith Ward, covering such topics as his upbringing, his first years of teaching, his view on natural theology, and his view on special revelation in the world religions.

This article reinterprets John Milton’s Paradise Lost as a contribution to contemporary analytic philosophy of religion. Milton offers a novel free-will defence, similar to Alvin Plantinga’s, grounded in original philosophical accounts of God, creation, freedom, and meta-ethics. Milton’s monist God creates worlds and creatures ex deo out of God-self. God – and everything else – is animated matter: one substance both material and spiritual. Milton rejects materialism, dualism, and idealism. Only animist monism delivers the libertarian freedom that Milton’s free-will defence demands. God has agent-causal libertarian freedom. God’s reasons don’t necessitate God’s choices. God freely chooses which worlds to create, which commands to issue, which hierarchies to institute. God radically transcends creatures – especially in relation to God’s meta-ethical power. Milton’s implicit meta-ethic, rejecting both voluntarism and intellectualism, resembles Robert Adams’s theist meta-ethic, where God’s nature determines excellence and God’s actual commands determine obligation. God also plays another meta-ethical role – instituting hierarchies where some creatures command others. Satan’s fall is epistemic and meta-ethical. He refuses to recognise God’s meta-ethical transcendence – to believe that God is God. Belief in God always requires a leap of faith beyond evidence and argument – because even perfect creatures cannot comprehend God’s transcendence. Creaturely epistemic freedom means there is no explanation why some angels fall while others stand.