In this paper I critically examine Brian Leftow's attempt to construct a theistic semantics for counterpossibles, one that can be used to make sense of the fact that propositions, which exist necessarily, nevertheless depend on God as their cause. I argue that the impressive theoretical framework erected by Leftow cannot guarantee an asymmetrical dependence of propositions on God, and ultimately leads to a semantic collapse in which every counterpossible comes out false. I end by defending an alternative account of God and propositions – what I call ‘theistic existentialism’. It is shown how this account underwrites a semantics for counterpossibles that conveniently avoids the problems attending Leftow's theory.

Richard Brian Davis offers several criticisms of a semantics I once proposed for subjunctive conditionals with impossible antecedents. I reply to these.

According to an important set of medieval arguments, it is impossible to make a distinction between creation and conservation on the assumption of a beginningless universe. The argument is that, on such an assumption, either God is never causally sufficient for the existence of the universe, or, if He is at one time causally sufficient for the existence of the universe, He is at all times causally sufficient for the universe, and occasionalism is true. I defend the claim that these arguments are successful. Since Christian theology requires a distinction between creation and conservation, arguments in favour of the possible eternity of the world fail.

Kevin Corcoran offers an account of how one can be a physicalist about human persons, deny temporal gaps in the existence of persons, and hold that there is an afterlife. I argue that Corcoran's account both violates the necessity of metaphysical identity and implausibly makes an individual's existence dependent on factors wholly extrinsic to the individual. Corcoran's defence is considered, as well as Stephen Davis's suggestions on how an account like Corcoran's can defend itself against these concerns. It is shown, however, that the difficulties remain in full force and, therefore, that Corcoran's account fails to reconcile physicalism, no gappy existence, and an afterlife.

Joseph Baltimore argues that the account of postmortem survival I offered five years ago fails, based on the plausible assertion that identity is a relation that each thing necessarily stands in to itself. I believe that Baltimore is mistaken when he claims that the account I offer violates the necessity of identity, and also mistaken when he asserts that the account I offer cannot satisfy Noonan's ‘only x and y principle’.

If Purgatory involves just an immaterial soul undergoing a transformation between our death and resurrection, then, as Aquinas recognized, it won't be us in Purgatory. Drawing upon Parfit's ideas about identity not being what matters to us, we explore whether the soul's experience of Purgatory could still be beneficial to it as well as the deceased human who didn't experience the purging yet would possess the purged soul upon resurrection. We also investigate an alternative non-Thomistic hylomorphic account of Purgatory in which humans would survive during the period between death and resurrection in a bodiless form with a soul as their only proper part.

In this essay I describe seven central characteristics of Philip Quinn's approach to the epistemic challenge of religious diversity as they surface in his responses to other contemporary approaches. In the process an assessment is given of Quinn's contribution, and continued relevance, to the contemporary discussions about this topic. The first three sections describe Quinn's confrontations with Alvin Plantinga, William Alston, and John Hick. The next section presents critical comments on Quinn's unique notion of thinning.

William Dembski claims that the fine-tuning supports the inference that the universe was designed. His ‘design inference’ is based on the identification of two features of the fine-tuning. Dembski claims that it is a ‘specified’ event of small (a priori) probability. Specification, in this context, is the ability to describe an event without using any knowledge of the actual event itself. I argue that we currently do not have the ability to describe accurately the fine-tuning of the universe without using any knowledge of the fine-tuning itself. If we cannot generate a specification, then the fine-tuning is not a specified event, so the ‘design inference’ is not justified.