MACRUE!… Gesundheit
Man, this is getting to be a long series.
This installment is a book review I’ve written of philosophical theologian James Anderson’s Paradox in Christian Theology: An Analysis of Its Presence, Character, and Epistemic Status. It is forthcoming in the philosophy journal Faith & Philosophy, and is posted by the kind permission of its [...]
Roll up, folks.
We now move one the fourth R - what I call Mysterian Resistance (or Mysterianism). The Resistor is resisting the pressure to resolve the apparent contradiction, i.e. changing one of the apparently contradictory beliefs. Unlike the Redirector, the Resister doesn’t ignore the apparent inconsistency. And unlike the Resolver, he doesn’t think there’s a [...]
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 [...]
Yes, this is the real thing. Really.
And it can be yours for a mere $50.
Last time we highlighted one problem with Resolution through Rational Reinterpretation - often, only a metaphysician could love the new-fangled (but precise and seemingly consistent) version of the Doctrine in question. A second concern is that many believers think this “new [...]
Moses Stuart (1780-1852), professor at Andover Theological Seminary,
and NOT a fan of Rational Reconstruction (image credit)
What, if anything, is wrong with with the strategy of Resolution through Rational Reinterpretation? And why are most theologians so cold towards this strategy, while most Christian philosophers love it? Consider this quote by Moses Stuart on one of Leibniz’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. [...]
Good old, mass-murdering, cheese-burger-scarfing Uncle Joe. (image credit)
A story about implicit faith…
Once upon a time, there was a virtuous and patriotic Russian peasant named Georgy. Georgy lived a simple life among simple people, in a village so far out in the boondocks of the USSR that World War II - what Russians call the Great [...]
Who are you calling dumb? (image credit)
We’re exploring the response of Restraint - when confronted with an apparently contradictory doctrine, might it not be a good idea for the believer to simply admit that she doesn’t know what it means? Last time we looked at the idea of “implicit faith”. What, if anything, is wrong [...]
The smell of this will get you off the trail…
Last time we briefly distinguished four ways Christians respond to apparent contradictions in theology. Here, we look at what I call Redirection. When confronted with an apparently contradictory doctrine X, the Redirector changes the subject. She says something to direct your attention away from X, or [...]
This chart has been brought to you by the letter “R” and the number “4″.
In this series I’ll describe 4 basic ways Christian thinkers respond to apparent contradictions in theology. I don’t claim these are complete. Maybe ya’ll can help me clarify and add to this scheme.
I’ve been working for a while on what I [...]
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 [...]
“God” in Arabic. (image credit)
A continuing theme in the Christian blogosphere, which we discussed before (God = Allah?) - now Calvin College philosopher Kevin Corcoran, on his blog Holy Skin and Bone, asks:
Is the God of Christians the God of Muslims Too?
Corcoran answers a firm “yes”, and sort of scolds evangelicals who say “no”. He [...]
Don’t you dare do what dastardly Donald does.
Our friend Alan Rhoda, the mighty Alanyzer, has some interesting thoughts on what he calls the “Theologian’s Fallacy”, or “Trumping”.
I see his point, though I don’t like the names
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 [...]
3 dodecahedron-shaped statues?
The human idea factory (I think he’ll take that as a compliment ) has again returned to the Trinity:
Alexander Pruss’s Blog: Another analogy for the Trinity?
He imagines a scenario in which three different statues are simultaneously made of the same quantity of material. This scenario, he holds, is logically impossible. Nonetheless, he [...]
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 [...]
Some famous hippie theology… or maybe ethics. All right, maybe just music and wallowing in chummy feelings.
Alex @ Alexander Pruss’s Blog urges that even non-social trinitarians can make a priori arguments for their trinitarian theology based on the concept of perfection.
I don’t think these sorts of arguments work, as I explain in a comment [...]
Remember Moreland’s and Craig’s Cerberus analogy for the Trinity? (background here, whole series here) Daniel Howard-Snyder objected, come on, that’s clearly three dogs with overlapping bodies, not one dog with three centers of consciousness or with three minds. And they don’t want to say that the Trinity is three overlapping gods, so ditch the analogy [...]
I Can’t Stop Loving You - actually, it’s worse than that - I can’t not love you!
Alexander Pruss is an excellent philosophy of religion dude at Baylor. His second PhD dissertation was on possible worlds. Don’t ask me to explain what his first one was on! He’s got about a million original ideas [...]
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 [...]
