Abstract

This volume, included in the recently established Library of Philosophy and Religion, devotes its primary attention to recent discussion within analytic philosophy concerning the challenge which determinism offers to the concept of freedom and, thereby, to Christian theism. Although the author does not argue that determinism has been established, he does conclude that it is an empirical proposal and may well represent the situation. He is prepared to fall back upon a libertarianism if necessary, but considers determinism at face value in order to confront the most serious opposition to his proposed compatibilism. There may be a sufficient condition for all acts, which would be, thereby, a determinism. Young’s problem is to establish a compatibilism so that even if a sufficient condition for all acts does hold, man is still free and responsible, and a Christian theism could be preserved. He proceeds to analyze four types of sufficient condition: 1) some laws of logic are sufficient for all outcomes; 2) antecedent causal conditions account for all outcomes; 3) God’s infallible knowledge and His eternal nature are the sufficient conditions for whatever happens; 4) an omnipotent deity is the sufficient condition of all outcomes. Young then attempts to establish that a doctrine of freedom and responsibility is compatible with each of these conditions and, thereby, Christian theism is, to that extent, secured. He offers a very careful analysis of each alternative, considering the strongest claims of recent analysts, and still finds a doctrine of responsible freedom viable, analysed in terms of ability and power to act. In the course of his analysis he gives more attention than the skeptic usually offers to the content of the skeptic’s world, and what would be involved in its analysis of freedom, action, responsibility, and evil. The skeptic’s world offers more theoretical problems than the skeptic’s neglect of his own positive position and his confining of analysis to a critical role has usually acknowledged. Although one might not have expected it to arise in such quarters, it is now well established that analytic philosophy offers a well developed and complex elaboration of natural theology and philosophy of religion, and in the revival of natural theology in analytic circles this book deserves careful attention.—H.A.D.