Let’s consider truth. Truth in the abstract. The concept of truth. Why does it matter to us? To be clear, the question is not whether particular things are true or not, or whether we prefer truth to falsity, or even our affinity for truth as opposed to falsehood in ourselves or others. The question is: Why […]
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Modern Philosophy
A review of Modern Philosophy (Penguin 1994) by Roger Scruton. This book is, as subtitled, “an introduction and survey,” but there is also an underlying thesis in Scruton’s arrangement of subjects. By “modern philosophy” he means not merely recent developments in philosophy, but an emphasis on philosophers since Descartes who are “modernists” – committed to […]
Read more...A Severe God?
Some atheists reject the claims of Christianity because the God they read about in the Bible seems harsh. Implicit in such a step, however, is that the Bible must be the word of God. Otherwise, the logical thing to do would be to reject the Bible as being authoritative about God; not to reject God. […]
Read more...The Materialist Epoch
The Pagan and Christian Epochs The predominant worldview in the west before Christianity was paganism, which assumed the existence of something beyond the here-and-now of matter in space and time; gods who must be honored in their prescribed ways and seasons, for orderly human life. We discussed this in The Pagan Epoch. That “something beyond” […]
Read more...Review (Part Six): The Experience of God – Being Consciousness Bliss, by David Bentley Hart
Having explained how we approach the natural only over the interval of the supernatural, Hart turns to the incoherency of materialism. Absolute truth The human longing for truth involves a loyalty to an ultimate ideal, and that ultimate ideal beckons to us from beyond the totality of beings. We would not care at all about […]
Read more...“The river’s just a river”
In the musical version of Les Miserables, Eponine sings “On My Own,” a poignant expression of her disappointment that Marius does not requite her love. Imagining that he is with her, she describes the enchantment of her surroundings: In the rain the pavement shines like silver All the lights are misty in the river In the […]
Read more...Review (Part Five): The Experience of God — Being Consciousness Bliss, by David Bentley Hart
Bliss Mind over matter There is a mystery at the base of all of our ruminations about consciousness, and that sense of mystery resists reduction to material causes. Reality is one, embraced within the totality of being. “[P]erhaps we really should look elsewhere for the source and sustaining principle of that unity.” And Hart does: […]
Read more...Can a Materialist Tell the Truth?
Draw a box. Inside the box, write “all the words in this box are false.” Is the statement true, or false? Now with that conundrum in mind, let’s proceed. We expect someone to tell the truth because we generally expect (unless shown otherwise) that the person shares belief in the ethical or moral principle of […]
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