Philosophy Compass is a unique philosophy journal which only publishes survey articles, pieces which aim to summarize recent work. Its aim, as editor Brian Weatherson explains, is to enable people to keep up with a vast, overspecialized, fast-moving, and only somewhat accessible world of philosophical research.
What’s more exciting – they sell the pdfs of the [...]
Over at the Maverick Philosopher, Bill Vallicella and some others have been on a tear of philosophical theology, specifically on appeal to mysteries in theology, and on incarnation issues.
Here, atheist philosopher Peter Lupu mounts an argument against positive mysteriansism.
Bill asks: Does inconceivability entail impossibility. (No.) And: Whether Jesus exists necessarily? (No.)
In another post, Bill argues [...]
Now, for a quick break in our Richard of St. Victor series, so that I can explain the point of my implausible yarn about a gnome. Tertullian, Irenaeus, and other late-2nd and early 3rd century catholic thinkers subscribed to what we can all the Logos theory. This christological theory has three main elements:
God’s internal Word (logos) [...]
Once upon a time, I met a friendly lawn gnome named Willy. I happened upon him when trimming the bushes along the side of my house – nearly slashed the poor little guy with my electric trimmer. I quickly apologized, and asked him to come inside and have a beer with me. Willy graciously accepted, [...]
Note: this review originally appeared in Religious Studies Review.
FAITH LACKING UNDERSTANDING: THEOLOGY ‘THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY’. By Randal Rauser. Colorado Springs, CO: Paternoster, 2008.
This rausing little book is a work of popular philosophical theology which exhibits uncommon intellectual honesty, courage, humor, clarity, and insight. Each chapter but the first is devoted to a doctrine of [...]
Philosophical theologian Randal Rauser has been blogging as the Tentative Apologist. This year, for Christmas, he says he’s hoping for “a coherent account of the incarnation“. In other words, he wants a way of understanding the incarnation doctrine which is apparently consistent. Will he get it? Word has it that the elves are working overtime [...]
Kudos to the team at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, for
their recent radical re-design, done by Josh D. May. Notable improvements include a nice print-friendly page feature, and the entries sorted by topic. Here are the Philosophy of Religion ones.
their new entry “Incarnation”, by University of Wisconsin Madison PhD David Werther, who teaches in their [...]
Little known fact: overwork causes one’s neck to become invisible!
After an embarrassing amount of time, I’ve finally finished my encyclopedia entry on the Trinity for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (as well as lengthy supplementary documents on the history of Trinity doctrines, Judaic and Islamic objections, and unitarianism).
Since I can’t thank them in the entry, [...]
Respected Catholic philosopher Alfred J. Freddoso corrects some pervasive baloney about persons which theologians are still repeating, these 22 years later! The asterisk marks his footnote – this whole passage is an aside in a very rich paper of his. Out of politeness, I omit the author of the wrongheaded passage, and I’ve added some [...]
10 parts in the series so far… but how many points?
Time to wrap up this long in the tooth series with a summary, and a few extra thoughts along the way. In parts one and two, we laid out simple arguments that Christ is divine, or that he is the one God. Careful examination of [...]
Is Jesus addressed or described as “god” or “God” (Greek: theos) in the New Testament? Yes. But quite a bit less often than you might think. Theologian Murray Harris wrote a whole book about this, pictured above.
I don’t endorse this as a particularly good book – Harris, like many a theologian, mixes linguistic sophistication and [...]
What does it mean to say that this dude is a god (or is divine)?
In this series, we first set out an important argument from Christian theology and apologetics about Jesus. In the second installment, we simplified the argument in two ways, and pointed out that to have valid argument, we need to avoid equivocal [...]
Don’t just say ‘Jesus’, smartypants.
This series is about a guy, Jesus, and a word, “god”. Consider this argument:
1. Jesus is divine.
2. There is only one god.
3. Therefore, Jesus is the one god.
This argument, as it stands, is invalid. But, not to worry
Three famous Revisers: Socinus, Luther, and Hick.
When it comes to apparently contradictory claims in theology, there’s more than one way to Resolve the apparent inconsistency. The more popular way nowadays among Christian philosophers is what I called Rational Reinterpretation. The other way to Resolve? Revision. We’re faced with P, Q, and if P then not-Q. [...]
Maria Rosa Antognazza teaches at King’s College London, where she also directs the Centre for the History of Philosophical Theology. She has written a highly praised forthcoming intellectual biography of the great Leibniz. After the break is my review of her book pictured above. The review is forthcoming in Religious Studies. Bottom line: Leibniz employs [...]
Is that you, Lord? (image credit)
A Letter of Resolution concerning the Doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation is an anonymous tract, published in 1693 as the lead-off tract in this famous collection (the successor to this one). Although it is anonymous, I’m fairly sure that it’s by Anglican minister Stephen Nye (d. 1719), author [...]
Your average theologian’s response to recent Rational Reinterpretations.
Let me take four recent books off my shelf by current theologians. Now I’ll search through them to see if they have any reference at all to some of the more important Rational Reconstructions in the last 25 years or so, namely:
Tom Morris’s (1986, 1989) or Richard Swinburne’s [...]
This brings the total of R’s to 6.
Wish I could say there weren’t more coming!
We’ve looked so far at two ways Christians may respond to apparently contradictory doctrines: Redirection and Restraint. We now move on to a third strategy: Resolution. In brief, the Resolver holds that the apparent contradiction can be banished, made to disappear. [...]
Here: Logic Matters: Philosophy of Religion 3: The Trinity Philosopher/blogger/Analysis editor Peter Smith of Cambridge discusses his reading of this book by Rea and Murray, which I’ve been looking forward to seeing. He’s, um, not terribly sympathetic, and tends towards a harsh and dismissive tone. But, he does (I assume, accurately) summarize their conclusions, and [...]
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