Brian Leftow continues to argue that the metaphysical concept of constitution cannot be used to explicate the doctrine of the Trinity, as I have attempted to do. He also defends his own, distinctive view of the relation of Jesus to the Father. I maintain that he fails on both counts.

Brian Leftow continues to argue against my use of the constitution relation in explaining the Trinity. I consider his arguments, and have a bit more to say about Leftow's own formulation of trinitarian doctrine.

Recently several authors have developed accounts of the Trinity employing the metaphysical notion of constitution. I expound one such proposal and defend it against objections from Keith Yandell and Brian Leftow. In the process, I propose an improved definition of the constitution relation as applied to the Trinity. I then compare the resulting trinitarian metaphysics with Leftow's own view.

This article expounds and defends a compositional view of the incarnation, in which the eternal divine Son assumes a human body and soul as parts of himself. Objections to the view are answered, and it is argued that it is superior to other metaphysical accounts of the incarnation.

Jonathan Kvanvig has proposed a novel approach to the topics of divine foreknowledge and providence, a view he terms ‘Philosophical Arminianism’. This article expounds and assesses the view; it is maintained that there are at least two major difficulties that have yet to be addressed.

Dale Tuggy argues that his divine-deception argument against Social Trinitarianism remains unscathed, in spite of my recent objections. I maintain that his argument is question-begging and exegetically weak, and does not succeed in refuting Social Trinitarianism.

In his article, ‘Gratuitous evil and divine providence’, Alan Rhoda claims to have produced an uncontroversial theological premise for the evidential argument from evil. I argue that his premise is by no means uncontroversial among theists, and I doubt that any premise can be found that is both uncontroversial and useful for the argument from evil.

Richard Gale, noting the “startling resurgence of theism within philosophy during the past thirty years or so” (p. 2) led by William Alston, Alvin Plantinga and Richard Swinburne, concludes that “there is need for a return visit from Hume's Philo.” But fans of Philo may be disappointed with the present version. To be sure, Gale as Philo possesses both the wit and the critical acumen to make him a worthy successor to the original. What is lacking, however, is the animus and the scornful rejection of biblical religion which so notably motivated both the original Philo and his creator.

This article reviews a number of objections to Social Trinitarianism that have been presented in the recent literature, especially objections alleging that Social Trinitarianism is not truly monotheistic. A number of the objections are found to be successful so far as they go, but they apply only to some versions of Social Trinitarianism and not to all. Objections to Social Trinitarianism as such, on the other hand, are not successful. The article concludes with a proposal for a Social Trinitarian conception of the unity of God.

In his book, Can God Be Free?, William Rowe has argued that if God is unsurpassably good He cannot be free; if He is free, He cannot be unsurpassably good. After following the discussion of this topic through a number of historical figures, Rowe focuses on the recent and contemporary debate. A key claim of Rowe's is that, if there exists an endless series of better and better creatable worlds, then the existence of a morally perfect creator is impossible. I show that this argument is unsound, since a key premise can be proved false from propositions Rowe himself accepts.

David Ciocchi has charged that ‘open’ or free-will theism is religiously inadequate. This is it is because it is unable to affirm the ‘presumption of divine intervention in response to petitionary prayer’ (PDI), a presumption Ciocchi claims is implicit in the religious practice of ordinary Christian believers. I argue that PDI and Ciocchi's other assumptions concerning prayer are too strong, and would upon reflection be rejected by most believers. On the other hand, God as conceived by free-will theism has extensive resources for answering petitionary prayers, including prayers whose fulfilment depends on the free responses of other persons.

Richard Swinburne's tetralogy on Christian doctrine, together with his earlier trilogy on the philosophy of theism, is one of the most important apologetic projects of recent times. This paper focuses on some difficulties with this project that stem from Swinburne's use of confirmation theory. Arguably, the problem of dwindling probabilities, pointed out by Plantinga, has not been solved. The paper is principally focused, however, on the ways in which Swinburne's confirmation theory contributes to his comparative neglect of the personal, existential dimension of Christianity. A solution for these difficulties is suggested but not elaborated.

Thomas Flint has claimed that my argument against Molinism suffers from a ‘seemingly irreparable logical gap’. He also contests a key assumption of that argument, namely that ‘something which has had causal consequences in the past is ipso facto a hard, fixed, settled fact about the past’. In reply, I show that there is no logical gap at all in the argument. And I argue that, even though Molinists have reasons, based on Molinist principles, for rejecting the assumption in question, the assumption is indeed extremely plausible. Thus, the argument creates difficulties for Molinism that are more severe than Flint is willing to admit.

An argument is given showing that, on the assumptions of Molinism, human beings must bring about the truth of the counterfactuals of freedom that govern their actions. But, it is claimed, it is impossible for humans to do this, and so Molinism is involved in a contradiction. The Molinist must maintain, on the contrary, that we can indeed bring about the truth of counterfactuals of freedom about us. This question turns out to depend on whether the counterfactuals of freedom are, or are entailed by, part of the causal history of the world. A further argument is given that these counterfactuals are entailed by events intrinsic to the world's history. If this is so, then we cannot bring about the truth of these counterfactuals; the anti-Molinist argument succeeds, and Molinism is refuted.

The last two decades have seen an unprecedented amount of philosophical work on the topics of divine foreknowledge, middle knowledge, and timelessness in relation to human freedom. Most of this effort has been directed at logical and metaphysical aspects of these topics – the compatibility of foreknowledge with free will, the existence of true counterfactuals of freedom and the possibility of middle knowledge, the conceivability and metaphysical possibility of divine timelessness, and so on. Far less attention, in contrast, has been devoted to the broader theological ramifications of these theories. Yet insofar as they are theological theories, they are properly appreciated and indeed fully understood only when placed in the appropriate theological context.