Thomas Talbott | Willamette University (original) (raw)
Papers by Thomas Talbott
Faith and Philosophy, 1995
Oxford University Press eBooks, Sep 2, 2009
Faith and Philosophy, 1995
Oxford University Press eBooks, Sep 2, 2009
Faith and Philosophy, 2013
Jeff Jordan has recently challenged the idea, widely accepted among theistic philosophers, that "... more Jeff Jordan has recently challenged the idea, widely accepted among theistic philosophers, that "God's love must be maximally extended and equally intense." By way of a response, I suggest a way to sidestep Jordan's argument entirely and then try to show that his own argument is multiply flawed. I thus conclude that his challenge is unsuccessful.
Religion & Spirituality, The Inescapable Love of God, Nov 17, 2014
Arguing about religion, 2009
Born and raised in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, the Victorian visionary and prolific writer, George M... more Born and raised in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, the Victorian visionary and prolific writer, George MacDonald, achieved enormous popularity in his own day both as an imaginative storyteller and as an authentic prophetic voice. ―Between 1851 and 1897, ‖ notes Frederick Buechner in the forward to Rolland Hein‘s biography, ―he wrote over fifty books—novels, plays, essays, sermons, poems, fairy tales, not to mention two fantasies for adults (Phantastes, 1858, and Lilith, 1895) that elude the usual categories. ‖ 1 His friendship with Lewis Carroll (the penname for Charles Dodgson) was very close, and he also made friends with such luminaries as Henry Longfellow, Walt Whitman, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Mark Twain, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. At the height of his popularity in 1872, Macdonald traveled to the United States for a remarkably successful lecture tour in which he addressed huge audiences and ―people flocked to him as prophet, seer, saint, all in one. ‖ 2 But in no way did MacDonald seek po...
Christians have traditionally believed that, because they are saved by grace, they can take no cr... more Christians have traditionally believed that, because they are saved by grace, they can take no credit for their own salvation or even for a virtuous character (where such exists). All credit of this kind goes to God. And understood properly, this doctrine of salvation by grace has three important virtues, among others: It can undermine pride and self-righteous feelings of superiority in the Christian believer; it can encourage the believer to acknowledge his or her solidarity as a sinner with the entire human race, including the most monstrous and deranged criminals; and it can provide the believer with the greatest possible assurance that all will be well in the end. But once one postulates a final and irrevocable division within the human race between the company of the redeemed in heaven, on the one hand, and the hopelessly lost and eternally damned, on the other, an obvious question arises: Given that we all start out equally as sinners, just what accounts for this final divisio...
Love, Divine and Human, 2020
Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 1988
Does having the power to do something require having a reason to exercise that power? Does it req... more Does having the power to do something require having a reason to exercise that power? Does it require the psychological possibility that one would want to exercise that power? Suppose that a man truly loves his wife and thus finds himself in the following situation: Not only does he have no reason to murder her; he has every reason not .to do so. Does it follow, as some libertarians would insist, that it is therefore not within his power to murder her? In this paper, I should like to present an incompatibilist con ception ot free agency trom which no such consequence follows; one that implies a clear distinction between having the power to do something and having reasons to exercise that power; one that would enable us plausibly to say, contrary to what Peter van Inwagen has recently argued, that most of us are genuinely free most of the time. I shall divide the discussion into three sections. In section I, I shall concede to the compatibilists that having the power to do something in no way entails the psychological possibility that one would want to exercise that power; in section II, I shall examine (and criticize) Peter van Inwagen's claim* that no consistent incompatibilist can make such a concession to compatibilism, and I shall try to show how the incompatibilist, no less than the compatibilist, can do justice to our paradigms of free action; and finally, in section III, I shall argue that, even if we were to grant an important part of the standard compatibilist analysis of power, we would still have good reasons for thinking that free will and determinism are incompatible. But first a preliminary matter. In this paper, I shall speak of what is psychologically possible and psychologically impossible for an agent to do on a given occasion, and I need to give some explanation of what I mean by such descriptions. Let us call, among other things, the beliefs, desires, wants, and attitudes of a person "states of that person," and let us call the predicates which ascribe such states "PC-predicates." Like Strawson's P
Oxford Handbooks Online, 2007
Religious Studies, 1993
According to a long theological tradition that stretches back at least as far as St Augustine, Go... more According to a long theological tradition that stretches back at least as far as St Augustine, God's justice and mercy are distinct, and in many ways quite different, character traits. In his great epic poem, Paradise Lost, for example, John Milton goes so far as to suggest a conflict, perhaps even a contradiction, in the very being of God; he thus describes Christ's offer of himself as an atonement this way:No sooner did thy dear and only SonPerceive thee purpos'd not to doom frail ManSo strictly, but much more to pity inclin'd,Hee to appease thy wrath, and end the strifeOf Mercy and Justice in thy face discern'dRegardless of the Bliss wherein hee satSecond to thee, offer'd himself to dieFor man's offence.
International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 1993
Faith and Philosophy, 2001
In "Three Versions of Universalism," Michael Murray asks what purpose our earthly life might serv... more In "Three Versions of Universalism," Michael Murray asks what purpose our earthly life might serve if universalism is true; and in this brief response, I suggest a possible answer. In an article that recently appeared in this journal, 1 Michael Murray puts to universalists in general, and to me in particular, a question that deserves an answer. Behind the question he raises lies the supposed empirical fact that millions of people die in unbelief and in an unrepentant state; so if they too will be perfected in the end, as I and other universalists believe, then their perfection must be completed in a post-mortem life of some kind. This leads Murray to ask: Given that "the earthly life appears to yield poor soteriological results," just what purpose does it "serve in the outworking of God's plan for his human creation?" 2 Murray goes on to comment: "Obviously, the post-mortem state in which most turn to God is vastly better suited [given the universalist's view] for the conversion of the unregenerate. But if so, why not create us all ab initio, in this latter state?" 3 Why not, in other words, just skip the earthly life, with all of the separation, trials, and tribulations it includes, and simply bring everyone to perfection, quickly and painlessly, in a post-mortem existence of some kind? The question is important because it seems to express a widespread worry among the opponents of universalism. Even as opponents of Augustinian predestination sometimes worry that our earthly life would have no intelligible purpose if the eternal destiny of the elect should be secure from the beginning, so Murray worries that our earthly life would have no intelligible
Faith and Philosophy, 1988
In my paper, I defend a view that many would regard as self-evidently false: the view that God's ... more In my paper, I defend a view that many would regard as self-evidently false: the view that God's freedom, his power to act, is in no way limited by his essential properties. I divide the paper into five sections. In section i, I call attention to a special class of non-contingent propositions and try to identify an important feature of these propositions; in section ii, I provide some initial reasons. based in part upon the unique features of these special propositions, for thinking that God does have the power to perform actions which his essential properties entail he will never perform; in section iii, I call into question the assumption that a person has the power to do something only if it is logically possible that he will exercise that power; and, finally, in sections iv and v, I try to specify a sense in which divine freedom and the kind of human freedom required by the Free will Defense are in fact the same kind of freedom.
GLORY Christians have traditionally held that, because they are saved by grace, they can take no ... more GLORY Christians have traditionally held that, because they are saved by grace, they can take no credit for their own salvation or even for a virtuous character (where such exists). All credit of this kind goes to God. As St. Paul himself put it in his letter to the Ephesians: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this [the faith] is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast.” 1 Indeed, as I interpret him, Paul taught that God’s grace is utterly irresistible in this sense: However free its recipients might be to resist it in certain contexts, or even to resist it for a substantial period of time, they are not free to resist it forever. For the end, at least, is foreordained. In Paul’s own words, “For those God foreknew [that is, loved from the beginning] he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son.” 2 But if some end, such as a person’s eventually being conformed to the likeness of God’s Son, is pre...
Religious Studies, 2001
I argue that the idea of a freely embraced eternal destiny in hell is deeply incoherent and impli... more I argue that the idea of a freely embraced eternal destiny in hell is deeply incoherent and implies, quite apart from its incoherence, that we are free both to sin with impunity and to defeat…
Faith and Philosophy, 2009
I argue that, contrary to the opinion of Wes Morriston, William Rowe, and others, a supremely per... more I argue that, contrary to the opinion of Wes Morriston, William Rowe, and others, a supremely perfect God, if one should exist, would be the freest of all beings and would represent the clearest example of what it means to act freely. I suggest further that, if we regard human freedom as a reflection of God's ideal freedom, we can avoid some of the pitfalls in both the standard libertarian and the standard compatibilist accounts of freewill.
Religious studies, 1992
In two recent papers, 1 one a critique of two papers of mine, 2 William Lane Craig has sought to ... more In two recent papers, 1 one a critique of two papers of mine, 2 William Lane Craig has sought to put the Free Will Defence in the service of the traditional doctrine of hell; he has sought to establish, in other words, that the following proposition, which I shall call the ...
Faith and Philosophy, 1995
Oxford University Press eBooks, Sep 2, 2009
Faith and Philosophy, 1995
Oxford University Press eBooks, Sep 2, 2009
Faith and Philosophy, 2013
Jeff Jordan has recently challenged the idea, widely accepted among theistic philosophers, that "... more Jeff Jordan has recently challenged the idea, widely accepted among theistic philosophers, that "God's love must be maximally extended and equally intense." By way of a response, I suggest a way to sidestep Jordan's argument entirely and then try to show that his own argument is multiply flawed. I thus conclude that his challenge is unsuccessful.
Religion & Spirituality, The Inescapable Love of God, Nov 17, 2014
Arguing about religion, 2009
Born and raised in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, the Victorian visionary and prolific writer, George M... more Born and raised in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, the Victorian visionary and prolific writer, George MacDonald, achieved enormous popularity in his own day both as an imaginative storyteller and as an authentic prophetic voice. ―Between 1851 and 1897, ‖ notes Frederick Buechner in the forward to Rolland Hein‘s biography, ―he wrote over fifty books—novels, plays, essays, sermons, poems, fairy tales, not to mention two fantasies for adults (Phantastes, 1858, and Lilith, 1895) that elude the usual categories. ‖ 1 His friendship with Lewis Carroll (the penname for Charles Dodgson) was very close, and he also made friends with such luminaries as Henry Longfellow, Walt Whitman, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Mark Twain, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. At the height of his popularity in 1872, Macdonald traveled to the United States for a remarkably successful lecture tour in which he addressed huge audiences and ―people flocked to him as prophet, seer, saint, all in one. ‖ 2 But in no way did MacDonald seek po...
Christians have traditionally believed that, because they are saved by grace, they can take no cr... more Christians have traditionally believed that, because they are saved by grace, they can take no credit for their own salvation or even for a virtuous character (where such exists). All credit of this kind goes to God. And understood properly, this doctrine of salvation by grace has three important virtues, among others: It can undermine pride and self-righteous feelings of superiority in the Christian believer; it can encourage the believer to acknowledge his or her solidarity as a sinner with the entire human race, including the most monstrous and deranged criminals; and it can provide the believer with the greatest possible assurance that all will be well in the end. But once one postulates a final and irrevocable division within the human race between the company of the redeemed in heaven, on the one hand, and the hopelessly lost and eternally damned, on the other, an obvious question arises: Given that we all start out equally as sinners, just what accounts for this final divisio...
Love, Divine and Human, 2020
Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 1988
Does having the power to do something require having a reason to exercise that power? Does it req... more Does having the power to do something require having a reason to exercise that power? Does it require the psychological possibility that one would want to exercise that power? Suppose that a man truly loves his wife and thus finds himself in the following situation: Not only does he have no reason to murder her; he has every reason not .to do so. Does it follow, as some libertarians would insist, that it is therefore not within his power to murder her? In this paper, I should like to present an incompatibilist con ception ot free agency trom which no such consequence follows; one that implies a clear distinction between having the power to do something and having reasons to exercise that power; one that would enable us plausibly to say, contrary to what Peter van Inwagen has recently argued, that most of us are genuinely free most of the time. I shall divide the discussion into three sections. In section I, I shall concede to the compatibilists that having the power to do something in no way entails the psychological possibility that one would want to exercise that power; in section II, I shall examine (and criticize) Peter van Inwagen's claim* that no consistent incompatibilist can make such a concession to compatibilism, and I shall try to show how the incompatibilist, no less than the compatibilist, can do justice to our paradigms of free action; and finally, in section III, I shall argue that, even if we were to grant an important part of the standard compatibilist analysis of power, we would still have good reasons for thinking that free will and determinism are incompatible. But first a preliminary matter. In this paper, I shall speak of what is psychologically possible and psychologically impossible for an agent to do on a given occasion, and I need to give some explanation of what I mean by such descriptions. Let us call, among other things, the beliefs, desires, wants, and attitudes of a person "states of that person," and let us call the predicates which ascribe such states "PC-predicates." Like Strawson's P
Oxford Handbooks Online, 2007
Religious Studies, 1993
According to a long theological tradition that stretches back at least as far as St Augustine, Go... more According to a long theological tradition that stretches back at least as far as St Augustine, God's justice and mercy are distinct, and in many ways quite different, character traits. In his great epic poem, Paradise Lost, for example, John Milton goes so far as to suggest a conflict, perhaps even a contradiction, in the very being of God; he thus describes Christ's offer of himself as an atonement this way:No sooner did thy dear and only SonPerceive thee purpos'd not to doom frail ManSo strictly, but much more to pity inclin'd,Hee to appease thy wrath, and end the strifeOf Mercy and Justice in thy face discern'dRegardless of the Bliss wherein hee satSecond to thee, offer'd himself to dieFor man's offence.
International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 1993
Faith and Philosophy, 2001
In "Three Versions of Universalism," Michael Murray asks what purpose our earthly life might serv... more In "Three Versions of Universalism," Michael Murray asks what purpose our earthly life might serve if universalism is true; and in this brief response, I suggest a possible answer. In an article that recently appeared in this journal, 1 Michael Murray puts to universalists in general, and to me in particular, a question that deserves an answer. Behind the question he raises lies the supposed empirical fact that millions of people die in unbelief and in an unrepentant state; so if they too will be perfected in the end, as I and other universalists believe, then their perfection must be completed in a post-mortem life of some kind. This leads Murray to ask: Given that "the earthly life appears to yield poor soteriological results," just what purpose does it "serve in the outworking of God's plan for his human creation?" 2 Murray goes on to comment: "Obviously, the post-mortem state in which most turn to God is vastly better suited [given the universalist's view] for the conversion of the unregenerate. But if so, why not create us all ab initio, in this latter state?" 3 Why not, in other words, just skip the earthly life, with all of the separation, trials, and tribulations it includes, and simply bring everyone to perfection, quickly and painlessly, in a post-mortem existence of some kind? The question is important because it seems to express a widespread worry among the opponents of universalism. Even as opponents of Augustinian predestination sometimes worry that our earthly life would have no intelligible purpose if the eternal destiny of the elect should be secure from the beginning, so Murray worries that our earthly life would have no intelligible
Faith and Philosophy, 1988
In my paper, I defend a view that many would regard as self-evidently false: the view that God's ... more In my paper, I defend a view that many would regard as self-evidently false: the view that God's freedom, his power to act, is in no way limited by his essential properties. I divide the paper into five sections. In section i, I call attention to a special class of non-contingent propositions and try to identify an important feature of these propositions; in section ii, I provide some initial reasons. based in part upon the unique features of these special propositions, for thinking that God does have the power to perform actions which his essential properties entail he will never perform; in section iii, I call into question the assumption that a person has the power to do something only if it is logically possible that he will exercise that power; and, finally, in sections iv and v, I try to specify a sense in which divine freedom and the kind of human freedom required by the Free will Defense are in fact the same kind of freedom.
GLORY Christians have traditionally held that, because they are saved by grace, they can take no ... more GLORY Christians have traditionally held that, because they are saved by grace, they can take no credit for their own salvation or even for a virtuous character (where such exists). All credit of this kind goes to God. As St. Paul himself put it in his letter to the Ephesians: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this [the faith] is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast.” 1 Indeed, as I interpret him, Paul taught that God’s grace is utterly irresistible in this sense: However free its recipients might be to resist it in certain contexts, or even to resist it for a substantial period of time, they are not free to resist it forever. For the end, at least, is foreordained. In Paul’s own words, “For those God foreknew [that is, loved from the beginning] he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son.” 2 But if some end, such as a person’s eventually being conformed to the likeness of God’s Son, is pre...
Religious Studies, 2001
I argue that the idea of a freely embraced eternal destiny in hell is deeply incoherent and impli... more I argue that the idea of a freely embraced eternal destiny in hell is deeply incoherent and implies, quite apart from its incoherence, that we are free both to sin with impunity and to defeat…
Faith and Philosophy, 2009
I argue that, contrary to the opinion of Wes Morriston, William Rowe, and others, a supremely per... more I argue that, contrary to the opinion of Wes Morriston, William Rowe, and others, a supremely perfect God, if one should exist, would be the freest of all beings and would represent the clearest example of what it means to act freely. I suggest further that, if we regard human freedom as a reflection of God's ideal freedom, we can avoid some of the pitfalls in both the standard libertarian and the standard compatibilist accounts of freewill.
Religious studies, 1992
In two recent papers, 1 one a critique of two papers of mine, 2 William Lane Craig has sought to ... more In two recent papers, 1 one a critique of two papers of mine, 2 William Lane Craig has sought to put the Free Will Defence in the service of the traditional doctrine of hell; he has sought to establish, in other words, that the following proposition, which I shall call the ...