James Alexander Burrows

Free Will in Heaven Without Choosing

The tradition has been trying to keep two claims in the same room: the redeemed are free, and they cannot sin. On the usual picture of freedom — you are free only where you could have done otherwise — those two claims look like they should evict each other. Its defenders propose...

The Gnomic Will, Derived

Maximus the Confessor distinguished the natural will, which belongs to a nature, from gnome, the deliberative willing of a person whose good is not secure. The Church received the distinction in 681. It has been defended since. It has not been derived. An eliminative chain of 137...

Evil Without a Ground in God

Böhme placed a wrath beside love in the eternal nature. Schelling placed a ground in God distinct from God’s existence, and made the possibility of evil depend on it. Berdyaev placed an uncreated freedom before being and before God as Trinity, so that God would not answer for evi...

Necessary Existence Without Modal Axioms

The modern arguments for a necessary being pay in advance. Pruss and Rasmussen pay with the modal system S5 and a causal principle. Leibniz and his heirs pay with a principle of sufficient reason. Leftow pays with a theory of modality grounded in God. Their critics pay too: Oppy...

Necessary Existence Without Modal Axioms

The modern arguments for a necessary being pay in advance. Pruss and Rasmussen pay with the modal system S5 and a causal principle. Leibniz and his heirs pay with a principle of sufficient reason. Leftow pays with a theory of modality grounded in God. Their critics pay too: Oppy...

Evil Without a Ground in God

Böhme placed a wrath beside love in the eternal nature. Schelling placed a ground in God distinct from God’s existence, and made the possibility of evil depend on it. Berdyaev placed an uncreated freedom before being and before God as Trinity, so that God would not answer for evi...