The translation of Schleiermacher's key phrase ‘das schlechthinnige Abhängigkeitsgefühl’ is a matter of some contention. It has been suggested that the traditional translation (‘feeling of absolute dependence’) is in fact inaccurate and that it should be replaced with the accurate ‘absolute feeling of dependence’. This change would have serious implications for our understanding of Schleiermacher's theology. This essay examines the case for and against a change of translation. It concedes that the change is demanded if one strictly adheres to the rules of grammar but that there are several reasons for putting those rules to one side and holding firm to the traditional translation.

In his book, Can God Be Free?, William Rowe has argued that if God is unsurpassably good He cannot be free; if He is free, He cannot be unsurpassably good. After following the discussion of this topic through a number of historical figures, Rowe focuses on the recent and contemporary debate. A key claim of Rowe's is that, if there exists an endless series of better and better creatable worlds, then the existence of a morally perfect creator is impossible. I show that this argument is unsound, since a key premise can be proved false from propositions Rowe himself accepts.

This paper evaluates Brian Zamulinski's argument from considerations of relative likelihood for preferring a ‘religion-as-fiction’ hypothesis to metaphysical realism. The paper finds that the argument fails to consider numerous variant hypotheses, and that the ‘religion-as-fiction’ hypothesis is poorly formulated. It is concluded that an argument from likelihood about the status of religious belief will not, in the way Zamulinski constructs it, give support to a hypothesis unless supplemented by an estimate of its probability. Moreover, once probability is taken into account, the ‘religion-as-fiction’ hypothesis looks very weak.

In Finite and Infinite Goods, Robert Adams defends his metaphysical account that good is resemblance to God via an ‘open-question’ intuition. It is, however, unclear what this intuition amounts to. I give two possible readings: one based on the semantic framework Adams employs, and another based on Adams's account of humankind's epistemological limitations. I argue that neither of these readings achieves Adams's advertised aim.

Arguments by W. T. Stace and C. J. Insole show that metaphorical descriptions of God presuppose literal descriptions of God. This poses a problem for the metaphor of darkness which has often been used, for instance by Pseudo-Dionysius, in the context of negative theology and apophatic mysticism. Three strategies of dealing with the problem are discussed in this article. The negative, apophatic approach can be seen either as subverting itself, or as being restricted to certain properties, or as resting on a self-excluding principle. Whereas the first two strategies have their difficulties, self-exclusion is linguistically founded and adequate to the purposes of negative theology.

This paper draws attention to the way free choice participates in the occurrence of what is usually called natural evil. While earthquakes are natural phenomena, they injure only those who have chosen to live in places where they occur. But if God could not foresee these choices, then God could not foresee much about the amount and distribution of natural evil. Combining a libertarian notion of freedom with a denial of middle knowledge allows God to be much less implicated in the occurrence of natural evil. This gives some of the familiar theistic replies to the problem, such as Hick's soul-making theodicy, enhanced plausibility.

Michael Scott attacks my use of likelihood in assessing two explanations for human religion. He assumes that I rely on likelihood alone. He is attacking a straw man. We have no alternative but to rely on likelihood when the probabilities of two competing hypotheses are identical, as I charitably assumed with respect to the hypotheses I discussed. His other criticisms likewise miss the mark.

The issue between my view and Hasker's concerns a certain principle that he takes to be true, but I hold to be false. The principle in question asserts that failing to do better than one did is a defect only if doing the best one can is possible for one to do. I claim that this principle is false because if an all-knowing, all-powerful being were confronted with an unending series of increasingly better creatable worlds and deliberately chose to create the least good world, that being would thereby show itself to be something less than a supremely perfect world-creator. In fact, I argue that if a supremely perfect world-creator were to exist and create a world, it would have to be a world than which there is no better creatable world.