I’ve often said that modern culture is essentially materialistic, in the philosophical sense that material (physical) things are deemed to be all there is. And yet, materialists routinely invoke language of the transcendental to explain what’s going on around them, including the word “transcendent” itself. It’s confusing. It has the effect of masking the absence of […]
Read more...Category: Metaphysics
Thoughtland
A review of Flatland, by Edwin A. Abbott I’m an amateur painter, and one of the things I learned early on is that it’s a real challenge trying to render in only two dimensions what we see in three. If it’s this difficult for me to create something worthwhile in two frozen space dimensions, how […]
Read more...It’s the Moon, Stupid
The natural world has a goal-directedness to it. There is an element of purpose. This is what is meant by the word “teleological,” a word used by philosophers for centuries to describe the apparent purposefulness of material things. Getting to a full understanding of teleology takes some ramping up in the form of understanding Aristotle’s final causes, […]
Read more...The Form of the Forms
For many Christians, the existence of God is self-evident, reconfirmed in a thousand ways, and so there’s a tendency not to spend too much time on the introductory course, the “why I know there’s a God 101” course. It’s good to do so, however. Let’s consider now the purpose and design we instinctively impute to […]
Read more...Atheist Passivity
Ultimate Reality When we hear the assertion “God does not exist,” we know this is intended to be equivalent to saying “there is no God.” But “God does not exist” is an interesting formulation of the thought. It is incoherent, read literally, because it seems to be saying that there is a God, but then that the God just […]
Read more...Agnosticism, and Not Knowing
Why exactly do we say that we’re “agnostic,” when we could instead say “I don’t know,” or “I don’t care,” or “I am undecided?” Surely those are fitting, sometimes? Gnosis It could be that there is an element retained from the idea of a “gnostic,” that a self-described agnostic doesn’t want to be entirely rid […]
Read more...Review (Part Two): The Experience of God — Being, Consciousness, Bliss, by David Bentley Hart
In part one, we considered Hart’s explanation of what it is meant by “God,” in order to avoid the distraction of puerile attacks on straw-man stand-ins for the real God. In this post, we consider Hart’s discussion of the philosophical backdrop against which his argument will be received. This will help us to avoid prejudices that we […]
Read more...Review: The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins is certainly incendiary, and it’s not just because he makes free use of acerbic anti-Christian language. It’s also because he would advocate prior restraint on free speech (chapter 1); considers religious teaching to children to be child abuse (chapter 9); and lays violence at the feet of religion while excusing the bridle-high materialist […]
Read more...Faith, Reason, and the Ascension
We celebrate the Ascension 40 days after Easter. It was the day Christ ascended into the heavens, following His resurrection. In doing so He gave us a literal and figurative image of the bridge from this physical reality, to a Beyond whence He came, and to which we go. This image is helpful to understanding […]
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