Fate And Free Will

In Fate and Free Will, Heath White explores and defends a traditional view of God's relationship to creation that has in recent years fallen out of favor. White argues that theological determinism—the idea that God is directly responsible for every detail of history and existence—is relevant to concepts such as human responsibility, freedom, and justice; the meaning of life; and theodicy. Defending theological determinism from the perspective of traditional orthodox Christianity, White clarifies this view, positions it within scripture, and argues positively for it through considerations about divine attributes and via the idea of an ex nihilo creation. White addresses objections to theological determinism by presenting nuanced and insightful counterarguments. He asserts that theological determinism does not undermine practices of criminal punishment, destroy human responsibility, render life meaningless, or hinder freedom. While the book does not attempt to answer every dilemma concerning evil or hell, it effectively grapples with them. To make his case for theological determinism, White relies on theories of free will, moral responsibility, and a meaningful life. He uses clear commonsense language and vivid illustrations to bring to light the conditions of meaning and purpose in our lives and the metaphysics of God's relationship to the world. This original book will appeal to the philosophical community as well as students and scholars of theology.

'Our Fate' collects John Martin Fischer's previously published articles on the relationship between God's foreknowledge and human freedom. The book includes a substantial new introductory essay that puts all of the chapters into a cohesive framework, and presents a bold new account of God's foreknowledge of free actions in a causally indeterministic world.

Presents David Foster Wallace critiques philosopher Richard Taylor's work implying that humans have no control over the future and includes essays linking Wallace's critique with his later works of fiction.

From the New York Times bestselling author of The End of Faith, a thought-provoking, "brilliant and witty" (Oliver Sacks) look at the notion of free will—and the implications that it is an illusion. A belief in free will touches nearly everything that human beings value. It is difficult to think about law, politics, religion, public policy, intimate relationships, morality—as well as feelings of remorse or personal achievement—without first imagining that every person is the true source of his or her thoughts and actions. And yet the facts tell us that free will is an illusion. In this enlightening book, Sam Harris argues that this truth about the human mind does not undermine morality or diminish the importance of social and political freedom, but it can and should change the way we think about some of the most important questions in life.

This volume offers a collection of papers about the notions of fate, providence, and free will, as developed and debated in philosophy and religion in the early Imperial age (ca. 31 BCE-250 CE).

"The first critical edition of W. H. Auden's poetry collection The Shield of Achilles, which won the 1956 National Book Award in Poetry, this book will include the complete text of Auden's award-winning volume The Shield of Achilles, accompanied critical commentary by Alan Jacobs: a preface to provide historical and publishing context; a longer introduction to orient the reader to the poems themselves; and detailed notes on words or passages in need of clarification for contemporary readers. Jacobs, who has edited two previous critical editions of Auden's poetry, argues that this was the most important single collection of poems Auden published, and also the most coherent of his collections. The two poetic sequences, "Bucolics" and "Horae Canonicae," bookend a remarkable set of lyrics, with "The Shield of Achilles" itself at the heart. One of Auden's last long poems, it refers to moment in The Iliad in which Thetis, mother of Achilles, asks Hephaestus to forge a shield for her son. Auden re-imagines how the shield of Achilles would look in the modern age, when the rules of war and the role of the hero have been rewritten. While the volume was widely praised, it is now out of print (although the title poem is included in larger collections of Auden's poetry). A critical edition allows readers to better understand and appreciate one of Auden's most important later poetic works, written in what Jacobs describes as "a poetic idiom that differs quite significantly from what anyone else at the time was doing. . . . it is, in a vital sense, public poetry and it can be enjoyed, understood, and profited from. This edition is meant to make that enjoyment, understanding, and profit easier of access.""--

From the bestselling author of The Passenger and the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Road comes a "profoundly disturbing and gorgeously rendered" novel (The Washington Post) that returns to the Texas-Mexico border, setting of the famed Border Trilogy. The time is our own, when rustlers have given way to drug-runners and small towns have become free-fire zones. One day, a good old boy named Llewellyn Moss finds a pickup truck surrounded by a bodyguard of dead men. A load of heroin and two million dollars in cash are still in the back. When Moss takes the money, he sets off a chain reaction of catastrophic violence that not even the law—in the person of aging, disillusioned Sheriff Bell—can contain. As Moss tries to evade his pursuers—in particular a mysterious mastermind who flips coins for human lives—McCarthy simultaneously strips down the American crime novel and broadens its concerns to encompass themes as ancient as the Bible and as bloodily contemporary as this morning’s headlines. No Country for Old Men is a triumph. Look for Cormac McCarthy's latest bestselling novels, The Passenger and Stella Maris.

The Mastery of Destiny embodies New Thought writer James Allen's teachings that our thoughts can be used to increase our capabilities and to create our lives as we desire them to be. Allen's ideas and ideals and those of others in the New Thought Movement have seen a resurgence with the release of the bestselling book and film "The Secret" and the popularity of the Jerry and Esther Hicks Abraham Teachings.