The Revd Dr David Efird passed away at the beginning of 2020. He was 45. David was a much-loved teacher and a leading figure in philosophy of religion in the UK. He was also the co-editor of this journal between 2016 and 2018.

This article defends a broadly Thomist understanding of the doctrine of divine simplicity from the objection that such a position inevitably leads to a modal collapse. To do so, it draws upon Barbara Vetter's recent dispositionalist account of modality, in which irreducibly modal multi-track powers are the truthmakers of modal claims. Conceiving of God's power on the analogy of these dispositional properties enables us to hold that the divine life is itself the truthmaker of modal truths, without requiring a real distinction between what is necessary and contingent in God that would compromise divine simplicity.

Centred on figures like Herbert McCabe, David Burrell, and Brian Davies the loose tradition known as grammatical thomism is undervalued within analytic philosophy of religion. This is particularly unfortunate, since a grammatical thomist approach offers the prospect of both a reorientation towards a more apophatic conception of God, consonant with the theology and practice of many religious traditions, and of moving beyond certain debates in the philosophy of religion. In this article, a grammatical thomist approach to the word ‘God’ is laid out: the conditions for introducing the word constrain its grammar, such that it cannot be understood as designating anything within our world. Accordingly inferential moves which we might otherwise find tempting are blocked. The result is an apophatic theology grounded in linguistic considerations. Objections against linguistic approaches to philosophy and theology, owing to Williamson and Murphy respectively, are considered and counter-arguments presented. The potential for therapeutic approaches to both the problem of evil and questions around theology and politics is then flagged.

Which form of belief-less religion should the agnostic prefer: non-doxasticism which substitutes belief with some weaker cognitive attitude, or fictionalism which standardly treats religious life as a game of make-believe? I argue for non-doxasticism due to its ability to handle the problems associated with fictionalism. However, in an argument for exclusive availability I go further, denying even that the agnostic has a choice: if she has a religious pro-attitude only non-doxasticism is rationally available to her. I also address and reject a recent argument by Finlay Malcolm to the effect that non-doxasticism cannot be properly distinguished from fictionalism.

This article describes a new type of religious commitment that is activated only if the associated religious propositions are true. The notion of a conditional intention provides the mechanism for understanding how it works, and the justification for forming such an intention in the religious case comes from an awareness of human immaturity combined with a more fundamental and unconditional commitment to truth, goodness, and beauty. The article's argument promises to contribute widely and to supersede certain older arguments, including Pascal's Wager.

In this article, I consider the question of whether or not any action we perform matters forever. I distinguish two senses of mattering, which I call ‘relative’ and ‘non-relative’ mattering; and I argue that the answers one should give to the questions of whether or not anything we do matters forever in these senses depend on one's world-view. I thus consider the questions from an atheistic naturalistic world-view and from two variants of the theistic world-view. Finally, I argue that on any plausible variants of these world-views, we either are already in or will end up in a state where nothing we do matters forever in the non-relative sense. And I consider whether or not it matters now that this is where we are or will end up. I conclude that on atheistic naturalism and on one variant of theism, it doesn't non-relatively matter now and on another variant of theism it does non-relatively matter now. I conclude that, on both variants of theism, it relatively and non-relatively matters at the time it obtains.

The existence of evil is often held to pose philosophical problems only for theists. I argue that the existence of evil gives rise to a philosophical problem which confronts theist and atheist alike. The problem is constituted by the following claims: (1) Successful human beings (i.e. those meeting their basic prudential interests) are committed to a good-enough world; (2) the actual world is not a good-enough world (i.e. sufficient evil exists). It follows that human beings must either (3a) maintain a state of epistemic ignorance regarding the nature of the actual world or (3b) abandon their basic prudential interests. Theists resolve this problem by rejecting (2), only to confront the problem of evil as it is traditionally understood. Successful atheists also reject (2), but without adequate grounds for doing so.

Theistic modal realism argues for an extension of Lewis's modal realism capable of accommodating a theistic God. By affording elegant solutions to many atheistic challenges, the view is of great theoretical utility for the theist. However, it has been objected that within a Lewisian framework God cannot be causally efficacious on pain of collapsing intuitively distinct modal notions. In this article I explain why these worries are ill-founded and show how God's existence and causal power over the pluriverse can be consistently understood. If successful, the proposal offers a congenial theistic way to adopt modal realism and address the atheological problems.

The doctrine of the atonement is the distinctive doctrine of Christianity. Over the course of many centuries of reflection, highly diverse interpretations of the doctrine have been proposed. In the context of this history of interpretation, Eleonore Stump considers the doctrine afresh with philosophical care in her book Atonement. This article is an overview of the book.

Eleonore Stump's Atonement locates the problem to be solved by Christ's passion and death in human proneness to sin, and in human guilt and shame. In addition to offering a way to fix what is broken in a person's psyche, Stump's understanding of satisfaction allows her to show how Christ's passion and death restore relationship between humans and God and between humans and what they have wrecked by sin. I argue that her story should be extended to show how the Atonement can restore the damaged relationships humans have with the rest of creation – not just with fellow humans.

In her impressive Atonement, Eleonore Stump claims that her novel Marian theory of the atonement meets a desideratum for a successful theory that Aquinas's theory does not, namely, showing that Christ's passion and death are essential to the solution to the problem of human sin. Here I suggest reasons to side with Aquinas, who says that Christ's suffering and death are not necessary, but merely a fitting way of solving the problem. If the fittingness of Christ's passion and death is a good enough justification for it, we lose a motivation for adopting the Marian theory over the Thomistic one.

Eleonore Stump's Atonement marks a significant advance in atonement theory, especially in its nuanced approach to ethical and relational complexities, but tends to treat sin as social only insofar as one individual's sin can harm or shame another. I argue that that social sin requires social redemption and that exemplarism would provide a solution. Christ's pursuit of love and justice, in the midst of oppression, temptation, and struggle, offers a distinctive model of virtue, towards collective restoration of the world. While we cannot redeem ourselves, in calling us to effect justice and union with one another, God may also call us closer to Godself.

In this article, I respond to articles by Faith Pawl, Anne Jeffrey, and Kathryn Pogin that raise issues related to my book Atonement. The topics covered include the suffering of beasts, the necessity of Christ's atonement, the relationship of my interpretation of the doctrine of the atonement and that of Thomas Aquinas, and social and communal guilt and shame.