Hostname: page-component-89b8bd64d-z2ts4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-08T22:25:18.270Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘Block’ing evil’s defeat

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 November 2024

Ben Page Open the ORCID record for Ben Page [Opens in a new window]
Ben Page*
Affiliation:
Divinity Faculty, Eton College, Windsor, UK
*
Email: benpage@me.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

There is this view propounded by some theorists which claims that some conceptions of the nature of time are incompatible with the Christian position on the defeat of evil. The aim of this article is twofold. First, to clarify exactly which thesis about time’s nature is taken to be problematic for the defeat of evil. And second, to show that scriptural support for understanding the defeat of evil as requiring that evil not be in the range of the existential quantifier, something implicitly contended by those who put forward this problem, is weak and that these passages can be read in plausible ways which are affirmable by those who endorse the ‘problematic’ thesis.

Keywords

timelessnessevilexistencetimeeternalism

Information

Type
Original Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 61 , Special Issue 2: Featuring articles on Engaging Philosophically with Afro-Brazilian Religions , June 2025 , pp. 380 - 394
Check for updates
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Adams, MM (1999) Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Barrett, CK (1971) A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, 2nd Edn. London: A. & C. Black.Google Scholar
Benovsky, J (2009) Eternalist theories of persistence through time: where the differences really lie. Axiomathes 19, 51–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brogaard, B (2000) Presentist four-dimensionalism. The Monist 83, 341–356.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cameron, R (2016) On characterizing the presentism/eternalism and actualism/possibilism debates. Analytic Philosophy 57, 110–140.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Copan, P and Craig, WL (2004) Creation Out of Nothing. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.Google Scholar
Correia, F and Rosenkranz, S (2011) As Time Goes By. Paderborn: Mentis.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Correia, F and Rosenkranz, S (2012) Eternal facts in an ageing universe. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 90, 307–320.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Correia, F and Rosenkranz, S (2018) Nothing To Come. Cham: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Correia, F and Rosenkranz, S (2020) Temporal existence and temporal location. Philosophical Studies 177, 1999–2011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craig, WL (2001a) Response to Paul Helm: William Lane Craig. In Ganssle, GE (ed), God and Time. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, pp. 63–68.Google Scholar
Craig, WL (2001b) Time and Eternity. Wheaton, IL: Crossway.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craig, WL (2008) Time, eternity, and eschatology. In Walls, JL (ed), The Oxford Handbook of Eschatology. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 596–613.Google Scholar
Craig, WL (2014) Anti-platonism. In Gould, PM (ed), Beyond the Control of God. New York: Bloomsbury, pp. 113–126.Google Scholar
Craig, WL (2017) God and Abstract Objects. Cham: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deasy, D (2017) What is presentism? Noûs 51, 378–397.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deasy, D (2019) Characterising theories of time and modality. Analytic Philosophy 60, 283–305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fitzmyer, JA (2008) First Corinthians: The Anchor Yale Bible. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hazony, Y (2019) Is God ‘perfect being’? In Hazony, Y and Johnson, D (eds), The Question of God’s Perfection. Leiden: Brill, pp. 9–26.Google Scholar
Heiser, MS (2015a) The Unseen Realm. Bellingham WA: Lexham Press.Google Scholar
Heiser, MS (2015b) Supernatural. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.Google Scholar
Heiser, MS (2017) The Bible Unfiltered. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.Google Scholar
Hollingsworth, A (2024) Eschatology, the elimination of evil, and the ontology of time. TheoLogica 8, 166–184.Google Scholar
Kripke, S (1976) Is there a problem about substitutional quantification? In Evans, G and McDowell, J (eds), Truth and Meaning: Essays in Semantics. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 325–419.Google Scholar
Lebens, S and Goldschmidt, T (2017) The promise of a new past. Philosophy Compass 17, 1–25.Google Scholar
Lebens, S and Goldschmidt, T (2020) Hyper-past evils: a reply to Bogdan V. Faul. Open Theology 6, 374–377.Google Scholar
Leftow, B (2005a) No best world: moral luck. Religious Studies 41, 165–181.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leftow, B (2005b) No best world: creaturely freedom. Religious Studies 41, 269–285.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leftow, B (2018) Presentism, atemporality, and time’s way. Faith and Philosophy 35, 173–194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leithart, P (2018) Revelation 12–22. London: Bloomsbury T & T Clark.Google Scholar
Le Poidevin, R (2016) Once for all’: the tense of the atonement. European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 8, 178–194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Magalhães, E (2011) Presentism, persistence and composition. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 92, 509–523.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Middleton, JR (2022) A new earth perspective. In Wittmer, ME (ed), Four Views on Heaven. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, pp. 65–94.Google Scholar
Mounce, RH (1997) The Book of Revelation. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.Google Scholar
Mullins, RT (2014) Four-dimensionalism, evil, and Christian belief. Philosophia Christi 16, 117–137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mullins, RT (2021) Personal identity over time and life after death. In Byerly, R (ed), Death, Immortality, and Eternal Life. New York: Routledge, pp. 99–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mullins, RT (2025) From Divine Timemaker to Divine Watchmaker. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Murphy, MC (2017) God’s Own Ethics. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murphy, MC (2021) Divine Holiness and Divine Action. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Page, B (2020) If anyone is in Christ – new creation! Religious Studies 56, 525–541.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Page, B (2021) Inagurated hyperspace. TheoLogica 5, 5–27.Google Scholar
Page, B (2023) Presentism, timelessness, and evil. TheoLogica 7, 111–137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peckham, JC (2021) Divine Attributes. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.Google Scholar
Qureshi-Hurst, E (2022) God, Salvation, and the Problem of Spacetime. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rubio, D (2020) In defence of no best world. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 98, 811–825.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stump, E (2022) The Image of God. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tallant, J (2019) Presentism remains. Erkenntnis 84, 409–435.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tallant, J and Ingram, D (2021) The rotten core of presentism. Synthese 199, 3969–3991.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Willard-Kyle, C (forthcoming) Divine Forgetting and Perfect Being Theology. Faith and Philosophy.Google Scholar
Williamson, T (2013) Modal Logic as Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar