New Papers (Dale)

Feb 152013
 

paperI’ve just updated my homepage with a paper forthcoming in Faith and Philosophy, called “Hasker’s Quests for a Viable Social Theory.” My sincere thanks to editor Thomas Flint, and to that journal’s anonymous readers for their help.

The paper critically examines the various discussions of William Hasker, a very accomplished Christian philosopher, and former editor of F&P, from whom I have learned much. I think that more than anyone, he’s tried hard to make the “social” approach to the Trinity work – in which you say that the “Persons” of the Trinity really are persons, that is, selves, and then try to figure out how this is not going to be tritheism. In my judgment, Hasker does not succeed in coming up with a philosophically and theologically viable take on the Trinity. But judge for yourself, after you see the arguments.

Along the way I discuss Bill Craig’s (and J.P. Moreland’s?) social theory. This too seems like a dead end to me.

Social theorists’ most serious problem is not that they raise the hackles of many Christian philosophers, but rather that they contradict the New Testament. (e.g. Paul and John.) Maybe in a few days I’ll post a historical supplement to this paper – a part the journal compelled me to cut, which deals with Hasker’s misunderstandings of some patristic material.

I have other forthcoming papers which I’m not at liberty to publicly post yet. In “On Bauckham’s Bargain,” (forthcoming in Theology Today), I critically examine Richard Bauckham’s “christology of divine identity” – which has attracted so many evangelical apologists and theologians. I worked hard to make this paper communicate to non-philosophers, and I really hope it leads to some helpful discussion.

Another forthcoming publication is a slightly revised version of this talk, to be published here. I miss the pictures, but I think it is an important topic for all Christians to think carefully about.

I’m Back (Dale)

Feb 082013
 

scumbag is backWasn’t able to post for awhile there, but I’m glad commenters kept things rolling here.

At the end of the Fall semester I was scrambling to get ready to teach my first study abroad class, in western India. Had a fantastic time, and learned a lot. Focused in particular on theories of religious pluralism, both Indian and “western.”

We hope to do this class again next year, so I’m putting out the word first here. One student was a trinities reader who found out about the course through the internet. It was really great to have him there, and the image here is dedicated to him. :-)

The course would be very roughly from a few days after Christmas 2013 to up till the third week of January, 2014, and is open to any undergraduate; it is a three-credit course, and your college or university may or may not count it for credit in Philosophy or Religious Studies. Here at SUNY Fredonia, and at some other SUNY schools, it counts as an upper level elective for both. Eventually, there should be updated info available here.

Below the fold is the highlight reel. If you look really close, you can see my pasty white face in one of them.

Although I’m busy now writing a book and various articles (and teaching three classes), I’ve got some good post ideas for the coming months, so stay tuned! Continue reading »

Speaking at 2012 Theological Conference in Atlanta, Georgia (Dale)

May 012012
 

I’m heading to Atlanta to give two presentations at the 2012 Theological Conference:

  • Who Should Christians Worship?
  • God and His Son: The Logic of the New Testament

Stay tuned for video links.

Seems it’s going to be hot there…

Update: Had a great time there. Folks who heard me talk may be interested in seeing some highlights from this blog, or misc. books. My thanks to the Buzzards for their organization and hospitality, and to the Gills for filming it all.

follow trinities on Facebook and/or Google+ (Dale)

Nov 272011
 

I’m not a big social media person, and probably never will be. But I realize that this is where a lot of people spend a lot of their time online.

Here’s a quick guide to including this blog in your social media life:

  • Want to see links to new trinities posts on Facebook? Just “Subscribe” to me once you’ve found my profile (don’t send me  a “friend” request unless I know you fairly well).
  • Use Google+? If you add me to one of your “Circles” there, it’ll let me know, and I”ll add you a group I send trinities updates to.
  • Did you think a post here was interesting? Share it with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ etc. Look for the colorful little “Sociable” icons after the phrase “Be Sociable, Share!”
  • Finally, if you use a newsfeed reader, the RSS 2.0 feed link you need is always on the right hand side of the blog, part way down.

back in the saddle (Dale)

Nov 262011
 

Have finally come up for air, in the home stretch of a very busy semester.

Hope ya’ll like the new blog theme… haven’t quite tweaked it to my satisfaction, but I think it is close.

Should be posting in the next few weeks on various themes.

 

trinities turns 5 (Dale)

Jun 192011
 

We had our first post here or 6 / 19 / 06 – over 350 posts ago! Thus, we are 5. Ready for Kindergarden, evidently! ;-)

Many thanks to J.T. Paasch, Scott Williams, and Joseph Jedwab for their excellent posts! And thanks to the many great commenters here; we’ve had some vigorous discussions, and only very rarely have things gotten a bit too “hot.” You folks are awesome.

A few hastily chosen highlights, in no particular order:

As always, comments never close. What have I left out?

What sorts of posts to you find the most useful? What can we do to make trinities better? Shorter posts? More contributers? More frequent posts? More linkage? Fewer or more stupid pictures? :-) More or less historical stuff?

Please sound off in the comments.

 

What if God read your posts? (Dale)

Jul 242010
 

What if? (What if 1+1 were 2?)

By “posts”, of course, we mean “posts or comments on posts”.

Read it, live it. Patton is very insightful there.

I speak as one sinner to others.

There’s something about human nature… if we’re convinced that we’re right about some important subject-matter, we start to think we’re entitled to pour scorn and contempt on those without this supposed insight. (This happens especially in matters of politics and religion.) But, we are not so entitled. The fact remains that God loves those people, and expects us to. And we would not like to be treated that way.

What way? Just take notice when others start to get heated up over your comments. It could be that you’ve touched a nerve, i.e. raised a devastating criticism. It could be that they’re spoiled, immature, and over-sensitive. Or, it could be that you’re rude. Judge yourself, lest you be called to account for your words. Usually, we know and take pleasure in online bomb-throwing/groin-kicking/eye-poking. Other times, we’re just operating with less stringent standards, like we’d used with friends via email, or face to face. But whether the damage is intentional or not, it’s damage, and the behavior is thus too rough.

Goofus and Gallant, Grok and Sophie (Dale)

Jun 102008
 

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Saith Grok: “Love thy neighbor, and buyest thou all thine goods at WalMart.”

Is Allah God? Are Christians and Muslims talking about (numerically) the same God? We’ve previously linked and joined in with discussions with Jeremy Pierce and with Kevin Corcoran.

To further the discussion, I present a tale to explain why I think it doesn’t matter whether or not “God” (used by Christians) and “Allah” (used by Muslims) refer to the same being.

A kind and generous woman named Sophie decides to sponsor two children through World Vision. She offers to give to children from “wherever the need is greatest”, and weeks later, a letter reveals that she is the new sponsor of two brothers from some third-world country she’s never heard of. Their names are Goofus and Gallant, Continue reading »

Linkage: Bloggers Anonymous, and six ways to avoid it (Dale)

Jun 042008
 

This one goes out to our friend Bill, a.k.a. the Maverick Philosopher, a.k.a. blogger on sabbatical.

It’s going to be long month! :-) “Just one little post, one little post!”

Seriously, I completely understand Bill’spain. Blogging can prevent one from following up on and developing ideas all the way through – as in all the way through to publication. I would like to find a way to have blogging feed and encourage my more serious writing. How might that actually work though? This is what I’ve determined so far. Continue reading »

Housekeeping: Can you digg it? (Dale)

May 272008
 

Can U digg it?

Can you digg it, baby?

I noticed that a few readers were linking some of our posts on Reddit. I thought it’d make it easier to link us on social bookmarking sites, so I installed and activated the Sociable plugin for WordPress – the result is that little string of icons at the end of each individual post page.

Readers – if you don’t see the icon for your favorite social networking site, leave a comment here – I can probably activate it. And thanks for the links!

Congratulations to Joseph (Dale)

May 142008
 

I’ll be the worm in the duncecap. JT and Scott can fight over who is which jellybean.


Congratulations to trinities contributor Joseph Jedwab, who is in the process of finishing his PhD at Oxford, under Richard Swinburne. It’s been a good spring for Joseph. First, he lands a prestigious post-doc at Notre Dame’s Center for Philosophy of Religion. Then, he lands a job at Kutztown University in Pennsylvania, where he’ll start in the Spring of 2009. Way to go, Joseph!

I only hope we can get him to post more often after his PhD and big move are wrapped up.

Scribefire plugin for Firefox (Dale)

May 022008
 

bloggingposter1.jpg

No, that’s not a pic of me in high school, though it’s not far off!

Quick note to my fellow bloggers: I use this, and highly recommend it. Here’s their real homepage.

It’s free, and the new 2.1 is much improved. It makes a lot of little things easier. You have to use Firefox, but you were doing that already, right? Works in the new Firefox version 3 as well.

I compose in it, then post it to this blog as a draft, then quickly preview it in WordPress’s own editor before posting.

Only one word of caution – if you’re not careful with its distinction between Notes and Posts, you can accidentally delete an already published Post from the blog, thinking you’re just axing a (saved on your own computer) Note.

update (5/27): There’s a bug in either Scribefire 2.2.5 or in WordPress 2.5 – I can’t post pics from Scribefire, at least in Windows. >:-( Have to use the first “Add Media” icon in the (new) WordPress post editor.

Update: Survey of Trinitarian Belief (Dale)

Feb 052008
 


Who’s next? Anyone? Anyone? (sound of crickets chirping)

So far, the Survey of Trinitarian Belief (background) has been a failure. We simply have not been able to get enough people to take it.

We chose as a target population seminarians, hoping that enough theology profs would want to participate with their classes in the survey (profs get to see the aggregate results for their classes, which makes a neat discussion starter). This hope was in vain. After maybe 2000 emails, and sending letters to literally every seminary in the US and Canada, exactly 9 profs registered courses, but most of them didn’t follow through, as we got only 20 seminarian respondents, from all their classes combined. This is disappointing – we hoped the profs would be curious enough to follow through. Not so.

So while we’ve had 200 respondents so far (as of 1/11/08), only 20 of those have been from our target population.

In sum, it looks like we’ll never get usable results without an injection of $, to provide some necessary motivation. Problem is, we have no funding whatever. Hopefully, I’ll be putting in a proposal or two for funding some time this spring.

In sum, the Survey site is still open, through at least Spring of 2008. (Simplified URL: http://trinities.org/survey) If you’re a seminary prof and want to join in, please contact me and I’ll send you step-by-step directions. If anyone has funding suggestions, please contact me. Everyone is welcome to take it, as we’re interested in more than seminary students, ultimately.

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the more the merrier

Nov 082007
 

Ring around the ro… WATCH OUT DUDE!

Trinities is going group.

I realized that some of the frequent commenters are so good, and have so much to say, that sometimes I’d rather “ride” than “drive”. Some of their “comments” are as long and substantial as my posts! So I’ve invited a few to join in as contributors, as often as their other duties allow.

The first of these, Scott Williams, will shortly be doing a series on the medieval theologian/philosopher Henry of Ghent & other recent work on medieval theories. Scott is a PhD student, who is on the Theology Faculty at Oxford University, though he’s presently a visiting student at Notre Dame, which recently acquired his supervisor Richard Cross.

It isn’t that I’m out of ideas for postings – that’ll never happen! It’s just, I can only post so much so fast, and I think we can all learn a lot from guys like Scott. So, welcome aboard, Scott!

MMM unleashed @ trinities

Nov 072007
 

augustinespec1.jpg

Blame a lot of MMM on this guy – the Hip’ster.

I feel some need to explain and justify what is going on here, as I have divided loyalties.

On the one hand, the stated purpose of the blog is to make recent research on trinitarian theories available to the wider public, in relatively brief, understandable, jargon free form.

On the other hand, this blog’s most faithful readers and commenters are specialists in medieval philosophy & theology, or in recent analytic philosophy of religion, and they can really get into dialogging in the way that PhDs (and to-be-PhDs) in these fields do – which is to say - highly abstract, jargon filled, argument-heavy discourse, that only a scholar can love. Being a scholar, of course, I love it, and have no desire to stem their exploration of historic trinitarian theories. They are all, in various ways, doing cutting edge work, and I learn a lot by listening in, and by joining in. And I know that other philosophy profs appreciate these discussions as well.

My solution? Have it both ways. :-) I just want to try to build a bridge for non-academic readers, to help them, maybe, be able to get something out of this recent Medieval Metaphysical Mayhem (MMM). So I’m going to try to give some relevant background information.

Here goes: Continue reading »

Back Soon

Sep 272007
 


OK… maybe a few more.

Ah, back to teaching. Adios to the sabbatical, and to the summer. Been swamped with teaching and writing, but there will be a lot of posts eventually coming out of what I’ve been doing…

My thanks to the many excellent commenters who’ve kept the discussion alive. I’ll post something relevant to their discussion soon, and then hopefully make a last post or two on Swinburne.

Sadly, because of mounting responsibilities, I’m going to have to forego recovering more past comments, as promised below. I apologize for this, and I’m resolved to back up more often.

Housekeeping: Sorry – deleted comments

Aug 292007
 

 

As a penance, I’ve chosen a not very clean bucket.

I apologize for accidentally deleting your recent comments! A few misguided clicks in this blogging tool, and I accidentally deleted the third and fourth Swinburne posts (now mostly restored below), comments and all. I was able to recover most of the content of my posts, but I can’t see any way to recover the dozen or so comments. Rest assured that it won’t happen again, and know that I greatly appreciate and enjoy your feedback, both when I join in, and when I just sit back and “listen”.

UPDATE: 9/1 – Took the bucket off – whew. Restored most posts – will restore more comments later, esp. the more substantial ones.

UPDATE 10/10 – Sorry – just no time, given my other commitments.

Housekeeping: Backup! Always.

Jul 262007
 

 

 

It nearly came to this.

Been away from blogging for several days. Among other stresses: a software error caused a file of mine to be overwritten with random data. The result? Three weeks of hard, grueling writing down the drain. Yes, I know about file recovery programs – didn’t work, as the file was actually over-written, not merely deleted. Yes, I usually back up often. Learned a hard lesson about that. And I normally use programs which auto-save every couple of minutes, but I hadn’t been lately. Learned a hard lesson about that too. Kind of under the gun to finish that writing now.

Survey of Trinitarian Belief Extended through Fall 2007 semester

Apr 242007
 

Survey participation so far has been minimal. While all are welcome to take the Survey, we’re currently trying to focus on one population, with the aim of getting a statistically valid sample: students in seminaries, or studying Christian theology at the graduate (in the UK “postgraduate”) level.

We are as yet far from having enough data. The Survey will thus continue through Summer 2007 and the Fall.

We need seminary and university professors to join in! Only by enough professors asking their whole classes to take the survey, can we get a decently random sample of students. If you’re a professor in a seminary, or teaching Christian theology at the graduate level, please email us using the form on the Help page above, and we’ll send you instructions on participating. What’s in it for you? You get to see the Survey data from your classes (individually AND all together), as well as the data from all respondents so far, in an easy to read graphical form. This is a great item for class discussion, or for simply stimulating your own thinking about the Trinity.

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