Publications


Some of these peer reviewed publications I here make available, usually in a prepublication typescript format, and double asterisks indicate that something is aimed specifically at a more general audience.

** Understanding the Free Will Controversy: Thinking through a Philosophical Quagmire (Eugene: Cascade Books, 2022). What is free will and do humans in fact have it? While these questions may appear simple, they have in fact tied some of our greatest minds in knots over the centuries. So in this little book I have sought to clarify for an audience of educated non-specialists some of the issues that often arise in philosophical disputes over the existence and the nature of human free will. Beyond that, I have proposed a particular solution to these puzzles.

**"In Defense of the Loving Parent Analogy," Chapter 6 in James Arcadi, Oliver Crisp, and Jordan Wessling (eds.), Love: human and Divine: Contemporary Essays in Systematic and Philosophical Theology (London and New York: T & T Clark, 2020).
Prepublication typescript format

**"The Fatal Flaw in Free Will Theodicies of Hell" in Kevin Miller (ed.), Hellrazed? (Kimberley, British Columbia: Kevin Miller XI Productions, Inc., 2017). This is a shortend version of my keynote address at the Baptist Association of Philosophy Teachers Conference in the Fall of 2016.  For a more complete account of free will, as I understand it, see the full address, which is entitled "Free Will Theodicies  of Hell," under the heading  of  "Other Writings and Reflections" over on the left. Prepublication typescript format.

**"Heaven and Hell in Christian Thought" in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, substantially revised and updated 2017. Available here.

**Forword to Robin Parry's annotated edition of Thomas Allin, Universalism Asserted (here retitled as Christ Triumphant), Cascade Books, 2015. Prepublication typescript format.

**The Inescapable Love of God, Second Edition, Cascade Books, 2014. Now available here where Wipf and Stock, the parent company of Cascade Books, provides additional information about the book along with some endorsements. For information on how the second addition differs from the first, see the preface to the second edition.

"The Topography of Divine Love: A Response to Jeff Jordan," Faith and Philosophy, July, 2013. (Prepublication typescript format)

**"The Just Mercy of God: Universal Salvation in George MacDonald (1824-1905)" in Gregory MacDonald (ed.), All Shall Be Well (Eugene: Cascade Books, 2011). (Prepublication typescript format)

"Grace, Character Formation, and Predestination unto Glory" in Joel Buenting (ed.), The Problem of Hell: A Philosophical Anthology (Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2010), Chapter 1. (Prepublication typescript format)

"God, Freedom, and Human Agency," Faith and Philosophy 26 (2009), pp. 378-397. (Uncorrected page proofs)

"Why Christians Should Not Be Determinists: Reflections on the Origin of Human Sin," Faith and Philosophy 25 (2008), pp. 378-397. (Prepublication typescript format)

The entry on Universalism in Jerry Walls (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Eschatology (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). (Uncorrected page proofs)

**"Universal Reconciliation and the Inclusive Nature of Election" in Chad Owen Brand, Perspectives on Election: Five Views (Nashville: Broadman and Holman Publishers, 2006), pp. 206-261. (Prepublication typescript format)

Note: All five contributors to this volume also responded to each of the other four. But our responses were severely edited and condensed--not by Chad Brand, whose introduction was also condensed, but by someone at the publishing company. On one occasion in my own case, for example, an inference that I validly drew from a deleted paragraph appears as if it were drawn from nowhere at all. Such an unfortunate consequence could have been avoided had the publisher asked the contributors to reduce their own responses or, at the very least, have permitted them to check the final result before publication.

"Misery and Freedom: Reply to Walls," Religious Studies 40 (2005), pp. 217-224. (Prepublication typescript format)

**"No Hell" and Reply to Walls" in Michael L. Perterson and Raymond J. VanArragon, Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Religion (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2004), pp. 278-287 & 288-289.

**Four chapters in Robin Parry and Christopher Partridge  (eds.), Universal Salvation? The Contemporary Debate (Carlisle, UK: Paternoster Press and Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2004).

Chapter 1: Towards a Better Unerstanding of Universalism, pp. 3-14. (Prepublication typescript format)
Chapter 2: Christ Victorious, pp. 15-31.
Chapter 3: A Pauline Interpretation of Divine Judgement (British spelling), pp. 32-52.
Chapter 12: Reply to my Critics, pp. 247-273.

"Freedom, Damnation, and the Power to Sin with Impunity, Religious Studies 37 (2001), pp. 417-434. (Typescript copy)

"Universalism and the Supposed Oddity of our Earthly Life: Reply to Michael Murry," Faith and Philosophy 18 (2001), pp. 102-109. (Prepublication typescript format)

"Universalism and the Greater Good: Reply to Gordon Knight," Faith and Philosophy 16 (1999), pp. 102-105. (Typescript copy)

**Four entries in Jeffrey D. Shultz and John G. Wells, Jr. (eds.), The C. S. Lewis Reader's Encyclopedia (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1998).

Book entry on The Problem of Pain.
Book entry on A Grief Observed. (Typescript copy)
Subject entry on pain
Subject entry on free will

**"The Love of God and the Heresy of Exclusivism," Christian Scholar's Review XXVII (1997), pp. 99-112. (Prepublication typescript format)

"Three Pictures of God in Western Theology," Faith and Philosophy 12 (1995), pp. 79-94.

"Punishment, Forgiveness, and Divine Justice, Religious Studies 29 (1993), pp. 151-156. (Prepublication typescript format)

"Theological Fatalism and Modal Confusion," International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 33 (1993), pp. 65-88.

"Craig on the Possibility of Eternal Damnation," Religious Studies 28 (1992), pp. 495-510. (Prepublication typescript format)

Note: For Craig's rejoinder to this paper, click here. It seems to me, however, that this rejoinder is seriously flawed in that Craig treats epistemic possibilities, which are relative to a context or to the limits of one's knowledge, as if they were absolute or independent of context; that is, he treats them as if they were just as absolute as logical possibilities. But that is clearly not the case. The same proposition might be epistemically possible for one person and nonetheless epistemically impossible for another,  such as St. Paul, given the Christian assumption that he acquired special knowledge on the road to Damascus.

**"Destruction and Redemption: Reply to Larry Lacy," Christian Scholar's Review XXII (1992), pp. 77-82.

**"The New Testament and Universal Reconciliation," Christian Scholar's Review XXI (1992), pp. 376-394.

"Providence, Freedom, and Human Destiny," Religious Studies XXVI (1990), pp. 227-245.

**"What Jesus Did for Us," The Reformed Journal, March, 1990.

"The Doctrine of Everlasting Punishment," Faith and Philosophy 7 (1990), pp. 19-42. Reprinted in Kevin Timpe (ed.), Arguing About Religion (New York: Routledge, 2009), pp. 482-499.

"On Free Agency and the Concept of Power," Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 69 (1988), pp.241-254.

"On the Divine Nature and the Nature of Divine Freedom," Faith and Philosophy 5 (1988), pp. 3-24.

**"C.S. Lewis and the Problem of Evil," Christian Scholar's Review XVII (1987), pp. 36-51.

**"Of Pedagogy and Revelation," The Reformed Journal, September, 1986.

"On Divine Foreknowledge and Bringing About the Past," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research XLVI (1986), pp. 455-469. (Click here for a PDF copy of the original article.)

**"Vessels of Wrath and the Unpardonable Sin," The Reformed Journal, September, 1983. (Click here)

**"God's Unconditional Mercy: Reply to John Piper," The Reformed Journal, June, 1983. (Click here)

**"On Predestination, Reprobation, and the Love of God," The Reformed Journal, February, 1983. (Click here; for a more recent comment on this article and the subsequent debate with Piper, click here)

"Quinn on Divine Commands and Moral Requirements," International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 1982.

"Indeterminism and Chance Occurrences," The Personalist 60 (1979), pp. 253-261.