I’ve read that essay several times and think it does a very nice job of summing up many great points like the free will defense, why free will is important, and how we can know God - i.e. what level we can be said to communicate with and understand him and his actions.
I actually find myself in most philosophical agreement with Mr. Talbott, out of the few Christian philosophers who are also universalists.
Do you have any specific questions or observations yourself you’d like to talk about?
Yes.
Is he talking about libertarian free will?
In more than one place (like when talking about a possible world without cancer) he suggests that the free will choices of individual agents might be entirely different under entirely different circumstances.
That makes sense to me, but it also sounds kinda compatibilistic.
Is Prof. Talbott (in your view) a libertarian or a compatibilist?
Also, in regards to some of the contingent facts that God seems to have arbitrarily chosen to be true for our world (like the sun rising in the east instead of the west), is what Leibniz said here at all helpful (from a compatibilist POV)?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_sufficient_reason
I’ve tried to understand what he meant, and how it might apply to God (and some of the things I’ve thought of), but I still don’t quite get it.
Do you?