Some friends of mine are running an exciting new project on free will among Latin American scholars, called LATAM. I was in Colombia for a conference a few years ago and I’m really excited to go back as part of this new project. I’m traveling to Colombia for a few days at the end of the summer to teach two days in the first of their three yearly seminars. The time that I’m there will be spent at the Villa de Leyva, about 50 miles northeast of Bogota.
Here’s the description of what my two days of the seminar will focus on, as well as the readings I’ve tentatively decided on.
These two days will explore some of the ways that free will plays in contemporary philosophy of religion. The first day will lay out the range of debates in philosophy of religion where free will comes up. It will also address the question, “Why is libertarianism so much more frequent among philosophers of religion than among philosophers in general?” The second day will focus specifically on the relationship between various views of free will and the problem(s) of evil. The additional readings for this day extend that line of inquiry to a particular version of the problem of evil that focuses on the Christian doctrine of hell.
Day 1: Free Will in Philosophical Theology
Required
- Manuel Vargas, “The Runeberg Problem: Theism, Libertarianism, and Motivated Reasoning”
- Derk Pereboom, “Libertarianism and Theological Determinism”
- Kevin Timpe, “Free Will”
Recommended
- Lynn Rudder Baker, “Why Christians Should not be Libertarians: An Augustinian Challenge”
- Timothy Pawl and Kevin Timpe, “Incompatibilism, Sin, and Free Will in Heaven”
Day 2: Free Will and the Problem of Evil
Required
- Daniel Johnson, “Calvinism and the Problem of Evil: A Map of the Territory”Erik Wielenberg, “Plantingian Theism and the Free-Will Defense”
- Jason Turner, “Compatibilism and the Free Will Defense”
Recommended
- Laura Ekstrom, “The Cost of Freedom”Daniel Speak, “Free Will and the Problem of Evil”
- Michael Almeida, “Compatibilism and the Free Will Defense”
- Eleonore Stump, “Dante’s Hell, Aquinas’s Moral Theory, and the Love of God”
- Matthew Hart, “Calvinism and the Problem of Hell”
