Philosopher Graham Priest is notorious for his claim that there are true contradictions. I have to confess that when I first heard this years ago, I thought the people telling me were pulling my leg. But, they were not. Priest is deadly serious, and has developed paraconsistent logics – logical systems which allow some true [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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, [...]
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 [...]
Impossibly beautiful. Literally. (image credit)
Check it out: a whole site and blog devoted to art featuring impossible objects!
I can’t help but think that the picture above had a trinitarian inspiration: according to the babelfish, it means “You must in such a way live”. (German speaking readers – feel free to correct the translation.) I read [...]
“This clears it all up, right?”
Anselm: “Um, no. I must bestow upon it the analytic frown of uncomprehension.”
(image credit)
I used to think I had a great objection to Anselm’s famous ontological argument. (Bear with me – this has something to do with social trinitarianism.) The argument, at least many forms of it, basically goes like [...]
Last time, we saw the set-up from Leftow. He’s aiming at orthodoxy, which to him means theorizing in the tradition of the great medieval Latin-speaking theologians. He’s spent a good amount of ink defending the consistency of supposing that a person might travel back to the past, so that she, as it were, acts together [...]
How many times have you seen one of these offered as an explanation or illustration of the doctrine of the Trinity?
There’s a really neat article about these here, complete with some links to real medieval examples. Basically, this sort of Shield of Faith (Latin: scutum fidei) diagram seems to have originated in the [...]
Identity is a unique and interesting relation. To understand what modalism is, and in some cases to follow what philosophers who discuss the Trinity are getting so excited about, one needs to be clear about the concept of identity. What follows is a quick primer…
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