Contingent

Here is another text by William Lane Craig that deals with the issues of Divine Foreknowledge, human freedom, and future contingents. This is a very academic text and expects the reader to have a background knowledge in the philosophies at hand. However, it is a good text to read for the issues. Craig covers some of the major philosophers who have tackled the problems of Divine foreknowledge and future contingents. The philosophers covered are, Aristotle, Augustine, Boethius, Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, William Ockham, Luis de Molina, and Francisco Suarez. Craig covers what each philosopher taught, the works which each philosopher wrote regarding the issue at hand, and gives criticisms and agreements regarding each of the views espoused. The bibliography is very thorough containing mainly primary works, but including secondary texts as well. The only downfall in which I was able to detect was Craig's description of some of the things espoused by Aquinas. For instance, Craig declares that, "In De veritate Aquinas explains that what is necessary can be known even when it will happen in the future, as is the case with an astronomer's knowledge of a coming eclipse, but a contingent cannot be known as future because it can be impeded before it is brought into being." (page 101-102) This is simply not true, Aquinas does not espouse such a thing in De Veritate (On Truth) nor any of his other works for that matter. While I am not an expert on Aquinas in this area, I have done enough research to know that Aquinas would not suggest such a thing. Nonetheless, overall Craig gives a somewhat fair assessment of Aquinas, but there are a few things on which he just seems to miss the boat. However, all the chapters are very informative and helpful with excellent references to help the reader move into further study and research.

I haven't read this book, but what's the deal with the price? Crtical legal studies won't be reaches the masses (or even the bourgeois readership) if it prices books like they're sacred relics.

The other customer review posted complains about the price of this edition--IT'S THE LIBRARY BINDING EDITION!!! There is a paperback edition (at $24.95 when available), and even a hardback edition that is less expensive. This reviewer did something similar with another book--s/he is giving reviews to books s/he has not even read (s/he admits it in the review of this book!) and gives them 1 star, and since these are academic titles they do not receive many reviews to begin with (both of these had no other reviews at all) and therefore the rating that any one who looks them up sees is only one star. It's very irresponsible.

This is a seminal work in the field, and if you're interested in the emerging field of critical legal studies and how textual analysis and postmodernist critical theory have intersected with studies in jurisprudence, then try and get a used copy of the paperback edition. It's an interesting and informative work.