Philosophy – Analogical Thoughts

John Frame Is Not a “Theistic Mutualist”

17 April 2025 / Philosophy, Theology / 21 Comments

In his influential book, All That Is in God (Reformation Heritage Books, 2017), James Dolezal draws a sharp distinction between “classical Christian theism” and what he calls “theistic mutualism.” Dr. Dolezal criticizes a number of evangelical theologians, including some who identify with the Reformed tradition, for embracing theistic mutualism. One of his targets is John Frame. But is Dolezal right to categorize Frame as a theistic mutualist? I will argue here that this is a mistake. Dr. Frame, it turns out, is neither a “classical Christian theist” nor a “theistic mutualist” as Dolezal defines those terms.¹

What is Theistic Mutualism?

In chapter 1 of his book, Dolezal defines and distinguishes two “distinctly different models” of Christian theism. The older of these two models is “classical Christian theism”:

It is marked by a strong commitment to the doctrines of divine aseity, immutability, impassibility, simplicity, eternity, and the substantial unity of the divine persons. The underlying and inviolable conviction is that God does not derive any aspect of His being from outside Himself and is not in any way caused to be. (p. 1)

Note the implication of the second sentence: presumably the other model will be such that God does derive some “aspect of His being from outside Himself” and is subject to external causation. In other words, the other model will be characterized by a denial of divine aseity.

The second model is “the newer approach of theistic mutualism” (p. 1). In a footnote, Dolezal clarifies what he means by ‘mutualism’:

“Mutualism,” as I am using the term, denotes a symbiotic relationship in which both parties derive something from each other. In such a relation, it is requisite that each party be capable of being ontologically moved or acted upon and thus determined by the other. This does not necessarily require parity between the parties involved. Accordingly, a mutualistic relation could obtain even if only one of the parties involved were the architect and ultimate regulator of the relation. (p. 1, fn. 1)

Dolezal further explains that according to theistic mutualists, “God is involved in a genuine give-and-take relationship with His creatures” (p. 2). Although some theistic mutualists identify with the Calvinist tradition, “many of them share with open and process theists the theistic mutualist belief that God’s being is such that He is capable of being moved by His creatures” (p. 3). This second model holds to “the newer ideal of a mutually interactive, give-and-take relationship with God” (p. 5). Theistic mutualists undermine divine perfection, Dolezal contends, because “God has been reconceived as deriving some aspects of His being in correlation with the world” (p. 6). While the “modern Calvinist theologians” who have embraced theistic mutualism explicitly reject open theism and process theism, they have arguably “already embraced a rudimentary form of process theism to the extent that they allow some measure of ontological becoming and dependency in God” (p. 7).

What’s very clear is that theistic mutualism, as Dolezal describes it, is characterized by a denial of God’s absolute independence. For the theistic mutualist, God is dependent on his creation, specifically in the sense that God is ‘moved’ by his creatures; that is to say, the creatures cause God to change.

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For Frame’s own response to Dolezal, see here. ↩

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Michael Preciado on Richard Muller’s Compatibilism

15 April 2025 / Philosophy, Theology / 10 Comments

Richard Muller is a brilliant historical theologian, although I’ve had cause to take issue with some of his claims about traditional Reformed views of human free will; specifically, that his remarks about ‘determinism’ and ‘compatibilism’ are based on idiosyncratic understandings of those terms, rather than the standard definitions in the contemporary philosophical literature on free will, all of which leads to a lot of unnecessary confusion. I learned recently (HT: Ron DiGiacomo) that my concerns are echoed, but developed in much more detail, in this 2024 article by Michael Preciado in the Journal of Reformed Theology.

From the article abstract:

The present essay addresses Richard Muller’s most recent comments regarding the Reformed Orthodox in comparison with contemporary compatibilism. Muller’s work is undeniably excellent. However, it suffers from a considerable weakness. That weakness is his lack of interaction with contemporary compatibilism. This causes him to misunderstand its nature and falsely claim that the Reformed Orthodox cannot be labeled as compatibilists. I argue that a more serious analysis of contemporary compatibilism shows that the Reformed Orthodox are correctly labeled as compatibilists. I do so by examining Muller’s main claims as to why the Reformed Orthodox were not compatibilists. In this examination, I argue that he has misunderstood the thesis of compatibilism and confused it with other metaphysical doctrines.

From the conclusion:

In my view, Muller’s project can be divided into two parts. The first part is his exegetical conclusions concerning the Reformed Orthodox. The second part is his philosophical interpretation of those exegetical conclusions. This essay has argued that he has failed in the second part of his project. Muller has claimed that standard usage of key terms such as ‘compatibilism’ and ‘determinism’ do not accurately describe the Reformed Orthodox. I have demonstrated that Muller’s usage of these terms is not standard. It also argued that there are widely used senses of these terms that do accurately describe the Reformed Orthodox. I think this means that the second part of Muller’s project needs to be abandoned.

The article is open-access (for now!) and I highly recommend it. In my humble estimation, it’s a slam-dunk.

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Symposium on Jc Beall’s Divine Contradiction

29 November 2024 / Philosophy, Theology

Religious Studies 60:4 (December 2024) features a symposium on Jc Beall’s 2023 book Divine Contradiction, which defends the provocative thesis that the Christian doctrine of the Trinity is a true contradiction (i.e., contradictory but nonetheless true). Some readers will recall my previous interactions with Dr. Beall regarding his earlier book The Contradictory Christ. The symposium opens with Beall’s synopsis of Divine Contradiction, includes a contribution by your humble blogger, and closes with Beall’s replies to his critics. It appears that all the articles are open-access for now.

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Evaluating the Thought of Cornelius Van Til

27 November 2024 / Apologetics, Philosophy, Theology

A cordial conversation with Keith Mathison and Kevin DeYoung about the theology and apologetics of Cornelius Van Til, prompted by the publication of Keith’s book Toward a Reformed Apologetics:

Even with an hour and 20 minutes, we barely scratched the surface of the issues raised in Keith’s book, but I think it was a helpful exchange nonetheless, and I hope it can serve as a model for ongoing discussions between Van Til’s advocates and his critics. Kevin did a fine job as both moderator and mediator!

Go here for the podcast version.

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Plantinga on Christian Boldness and Confidence

26 May 2024 / Ethics, Philosophy

Alvin Plantinga, “A Christian Life Partly Lived,” in Philosophers Who Believe, ed. Kelly James Clark (InterVarsity Press, 1993):

Our first responsibility [as Christian philosophers] is to the Lord and to the Christian community, not first of all to the philosophical community at large — although of course that is also a very serious responsibility, and a serious responsibility in part because of its connection with the first responsibility. In some cases this orientation may require a certain courage, or Christian boldness or confidence.²¹

²¹ Of course, I don’t mean to hold up myself as a model here: quite the contrary. A few years back I several times found myself thinking about a certain person, and feeling obliged to call him and speak with him about Christianity; this was a person for whom I had a lot of respect but who, I thought, had nothing but disdain for Christianity. I felt obliged to call this person, but always did my best to put the thought out of my mind, being impeded by fear and embarrassment: what would I say? “Hello, have you found Jesus?” And wouldn’t this person think I was completely out of my mind, not to mention really weird? Then later I heard that during this very time the person in question was in the process of becoming a Christian. I had been invited to take part in something of real importance and refused the invitation out of cowardice and stupidity.

(HT: Greg Welty)

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A Four-Case Defense of the Authorial Model of Divine Providence

26 October 2023 / Philosophy, Theology

I’m pleased to report that my paper “A Four-Case Defense of the Authorial Model of Divine Providence” has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Analytic Theology.

Abstract: Some advocates of the doctrine of meticulous (“risk-free”) divine providence, in response to the charge that such a strong view of divine providence makes God the “author of evil,” have appealed to an authorial model according to which the relationship of God to his creation is analogous to that of a human author and his or her literary creation. This response appears vulnerable to the objection that there is a critical disanalogy between the two kinds of authorship: in the case of divine authorship, unlike that of human authorship, the story is intentionally actualized, and thus the divine author is morally culpable for the evils written into that story. Call this the “actuality objection.” In this paper, I develop a four-case defense of the authorial model that aims to neutralize the actuality objection. I also respond to five objections to the authorial model and my defense of it.

A preprint version is available here.

Update (10/25/24): The published version is now available here.

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An Epistemological Argument Against Naturalism

19 October 2023 / Apologetics, Philosophy / 4 Comments

Consider the following epistemological argument against Naturalism (as defined below):

If Naturalism is true, then all factual knowledge (i.e., knowledge of facts) is acquired empirically.
Knowledge of necessary facts cannot be acquired empirically.
We have some knowledge of necessary facts.
Therefore, Naturalism is not true.

The insights behind the argument aren’t original to me, but the formulation is mine. Before I defend the three premises, let me clarify the key terms used in the argument.

Naturalism refers to the ontological thesis that only natural things exist, that is, things that exist spatiotemporally and can be described according to our best physical theories. On this definition, Naturalism is roughly equivalent to physicalism, the view that the fundamental ‘stuff’ of reality is physical and whatever exists can be accounted for (in principle) in terms of physical reality (physical particles, physical forces, etc.).¹

Factual knowledge refers to knowledge of facts about the world; specifically, facts about an external world that exists independently of our minds. Factual knowledge is distinct from (1) analytical knowledge (i.e., knowledge of logical or conceptual truths, such as that a triangle is a polygon) and (2) knowledge of internal mental states (e.g., that I am currently experiencing pain). A simple example of factual knowledge would be that there are, at this present moment, more than two turtles in Turtle Pond.

Empirically means by way of sense experience or observation, that is, by means of our sensory organs (the standard five senses or any others we might have that operate on a similar basis).

Necessary facts are facts about what must be the case, as opposed to what merely is the case or could be the case. To know a necessary fact is to know not merely that something actually is the case, but also that it could not possibly have failed to be the case. Knowledge of necessary facts is a species of factual knowledge (as defined above).

Now, back to the argument. I think it’s fairly clear that the argument is logically valid: the conclusion follows from the three premises. If premises 2 and 3 are true, it follows that some factual knowledge is not acquired empirically, in which case — by modus tollens from premise 1 — Naturalism is not true.

So why think that the premises are true? Consider each in turn.

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The physicalism could be reductive or non-reductive; I don’t think it makes a difference to the argument. Some self-professed naturalists hold to a more liberal ontology, e.g., allowing for sets or abstract mathematical objects. Whether those more liberal versions of naturalism are vulnerable to this argument is an open question that I won’t address here. ↩

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The Best Defenders and Defenses of Atheism?

13 October 2023 / Apologetics, Philosophy

Who are the best defenders of atheism? Where can one find the strongest defenses of atheism?

I get asked those questions from time to time, and they’re good questions, so I’m going to offer my own answers (for what they’re worth) in this post.

First, however, a few observations and caveats. For the last couple of decades, Christian apologists have tended to focus on the so-called New Atheists, most notably the “Four Horsemen” of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett. There’s good sense in that. Among proponents of atheism, those writers receive the most attention from the public and media, whether or not they deserve it. They’re the loudest, most entertaining, most provocative, and most influential voices for the atheist cause in the public square. They’ve had a significant impact in promoting anti-religious skepticism and turning people away from Christianity. I continue to hear stories of ‘ex-Christians’ who say that reading The God Delusion or God Is Not Great shook their faith “to the core” and eventually destroyed it. I’m always taken aback by such reports, because I’ve read those books too, and there’s precious little in the way of serious and substantive argument in them. (Dennett is the most intellectually serious of the Four Horsemen, but he doesn’t so much argue for atheism as just take it for granted.)

But here’s the thing: the New Atheists are hardly the best and the brightest of contemporary atheists (despite Dennett’s unironic attempt to self-advertise as “the brights”). Their criticisms of religious beliefs do need to be refuted, of course, but as I’ve said before, that’s low-hanging fruit. The most sophisticated and formidable arguments in defense of atheism, and specifically for naturalism, come from academic philosophers, particularly those who specialize in philosophy of religion. They’re trained in logic and critical thinking. They’ve studied the scholarly literature. They’re well-versed in the arguments for and against the existence of God, both classical and contemporary. They actually know what they’re talking about.

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Did Cornelius Van Til Coin the Term “Transcendental Argument”?

4 September 2023 / Philosophy / 7 Comments

A transcendental argument, simply defined, is an argument purporting to demonstrate that some X (such as a particular concept, belief, or state of affairs) is a necessary precondition of some undeniable feature of human cognition (e.g., that we have orderly experiences or make judgments). At least, that is the conventional understanding of the term today. But who was the first to use the term in that sense?

Surprisingly, it might have been Cornelius Van Til.

I’m currently working on a monograph on Van Til’s transcendental argument for God (more precisely, for Christian theism). Preparatory research has required me to review everything Van Til says, explicitly or implicitly, about transcendental argumentation across his corpus, and to take a deep dive into the contemporary literature on transcendental arguments. In the process, I discovered something quite interesting.

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