According to a classical teaching, God is not really related to creatures even by virtue of creating them. Some have objected that this teaching makes unintelligible the claim that God causally accounts for the universe, since God would be the same whether the universe existed or not. I defend the classical teaching, showing how the doctrine is implied by a popular cosmological argument, showing that the objection to it would also rule out libertarian agent causality, and showing that the objection rests on an account of causality and sufficient reason that we have good reason to reject.

It is often argued that the eternalist solution to the freedom/foreknowledge dilemma fails. If God's knowledge of your choices is eternally fixed, your choices are necessary and cannot be free. Anselm of Canterbury proposes an eternalist view which entails that all of time is equally real and truly present to God. God's knowledge of your choices entails only a ‘consequent’ necessity which does not conflict with libertarian freedom. I argue this by showing that if consequent necessity does conflict with libertarian freedom then God's knowledge in the present would conflict with the freedom of a present choice. Absurd.

Several theists have adopted a position known as ‘sceptical theism’, according to which God is justified in allowing suffering, but the justification is often beyond human comprehension. A problem for sceptical theism is that if there are unknown justifications for suffering, then we cannot know whether it is right for a human being to relieve suffering. After examining several proposed solutions to this problem, I conclude that one who is committed to a revealed religion has a simpler and more effective solution. In particular, according to traditional Judaism, God has permitted us, indeed commanded us, to relieve suffering, so we know that it is right for us to do so. I further show how God's command, according to Judaism, that we save lives provides an answer to an analogous argument put forward by David Hume. Thus, revealed theistic religions can sometimes solve problems more effectively than theism alone.

In this paper, I consider what difference knowledge of outcomes – both past and future – might make to the rationality of praying for them on a traditional theistic model. More specifically, I address four questions: (1)‘Could it be rational to pray for outcomes one knows will obtain?’; (2)‘Could it be rational to pray for outcomes one knows will not obtain?’; (3)‘Could it be rational to pray for outcomes one knows have obtained?’; (4)‘Could it be rational to pray for outcomes one knows have not obtained?’. I argue that, on certain common theistic assumptions, the answer to all of these questions is yes.

This paper proposes an analytical taxonomy of ‘mystery’ based upon what makes a mystery mysterious. I begin by distinguishing mysteries that depend on what we do not know (e.g. detective fiction) from mysteries that depend on what we do know (e.g. religious mysteries). Then I distinguish three possible grounds for the latter type. The third and most provocative ground offers a mathematical analogy for how rational reflection can be appropriate to mystery without compromising its intrinsically mysterious character. I conclude with reflections on the metaphysical presuppositions that this understanding of mystery requires.