Category: Philosophy
Essay Prizes, the Problem of Evil, and Philosophy of Religion: An Interview with Michael Rea
Notre Dame’s Center for the Philosophy of Religion has just announced a unique opportunity for an academic community: they are offering 10 $3000 prizes to people who publish essays in non-academic publications that expound upon the philosophical work that’s been...
Thomas Says: Scandal, It’s So Special
This is the third in my intermittent series on Aquinas on the topic of scandal, which is covered in question 43 of the second part of the second part of his Summa Theologiae. In the first two posts I covered...
Thomas Says: So Scandalous It’s a Sin
In the first post in this series on Aquinas’s account of scandal, we saw that Aquinas defines scandal as “something less rightly said or done that occasions spiritual downfall” and that he distinguishes between active and passive scandal. In this...
Thomas Says: So Scandalous!
Because you can never have too much Aquinas, I’ve decided to reboot my blogging here with another series on the thought of the Angelic Doctor. The first topic in the series was Thomas’s thoughts on killing. For no particular reason,...
Postmodernism Can’t Be.
Theologian John Caputo, quoted at my friend Christopher Benson’s blog, with a rather unsatisfying explanation of “postmodernism.” “Postmodernism thus is not relativism or scepticism, as its uncomprehending critics almost daily charge, but minutely close attention to detail, a sense for...
Knowledge Spackle
So, we had a hole in the wall. I don’t mean the tiny urban apartment we shared in the first year of marriage, but a literal gap in the plaster. We had to call maintenance to patch it up. (I...
Natural Law at Christianity Today
My conclusion: But influence goes both ways, and evangelicals may have something to offer the natural law thinkers as well. Specifically, the evangelical emphasis on the brokenness of our rational faculties because of sin may serve as a reminder that...
Christianity and Hellenism, Part 3 of 3: On Human Nature
One of the theological areas most likely to raise questions about the relationship between historical Christian teaching and Greek (especially Platonic) thought is that of human nature. Especially with regard to two related subjects: the relationship between body and soul,...
The Philosophical Muddles of Postmodernism
At the urging of a friend, I sat down and read Phillip Kenneson’s essay on the nature of truth in Christian Apologetics in the Postmodern World. I almost wish I hadn’t. Count me among the not impressed. The essay is...