podcast 148 – Dr. Daniel McKaughan on faith – Part 2
If faith is not simply believing that some doctrine is true, what is it?
If faith is not simply believing that some doctrine is true, what is it?
Bill Vallicella, the famous Maverick Philosopher, just dropped me a line asking whether, when Thomas Aquinas and Baruch Spinoza use the term ‘Deus’, they are referring to the same being. This is a difficult and interesting question. Bill uses the Latin name ‘Deus’, alluding to the fact that both men wrote in Latin. Latin was the choice of the ‘scholastic’ theologians of the 13th century,… Read More »God and Deus
Four vivid, moving, memorable depictions of Love.
A post on some previous post commentary – no one can navel-gaze like a philosopher! 🙂 Here’s a pictorial recap, and some additional thoughts on the comments here, in response to Scott and JT. The point of all this: we’re exploring why people who call themselves “social trinitarians” don’t like what they call “Latin” theories, and specifically the claim that those “Latin” theories can’t do justice to the loving relationships between the persons of the Trinity.Read More »on interpersonal love and stick figures (Dale)
Dr. Winfried Corduan is emeritus Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Taylor University, and has been a blogger since before it was cool. His scholarship is thorough, multi-disciplinary, insightful, and informed by his own travel and conversations. He’s well known among students of apologetics for his informed engagement with members of other religions.
A postscript to our Richard series: I was reading the interesting and dense The Mysteries of Christianity, by 19th c. German Catholic theologian Joseph Scheeben, on Richard of St. Victor, and he says the following in a footnote: Scotus states decisively that Richard of St. Victor adduces rationes necessariae for the Trinity, but not evidenter necessariae, because the principles from which he argues are not… Read More »Scotus on Richard of St. Victor?
Many thanks to my fellow bloggers Bill Vallicella and Aiden Kimel for their thoughtful posts on the discussion/debate between Bill and me on whether God is to be thought of as a unique and perfect being, or not a being, but rather “Being itself” or “Existence.” I was simply not able to keep up, due to travel and other immediate demands. For those following the… Read More »Dialogue with the Maverick Philosopher: God is a being, not Being itself – part 3
In thinking about the Trinity, 380 and 381 are perhaps the most important dates to remember.
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. She doesn’t change the subject (as the Redirector),… Read More »Dealing with Apparent Contradictions: Part 7 – Resolution by Rational Reinterpretation
The “extra Calvinisticum” and the coherence of Chalcedonian christology.
Over at Faith and Theology a theologian lists what he views as the ten most important latter-day books on the Trinity. An interesting thing about this list is that it shows the radical divide between philosophers (philosophy of religion specialists, philosophical theologians) like me, and (theologically trained) theologians. None of these books has been big topic of discussion among the former, and I’ve read pretty… Read More »Linkage: 10 Important books?
A would-be teacher on trinitarian topics is merely an incoherent tritheist.
As promised, I now hope to run (walk, crawl?) through the gamut of theories of the Trinity propounded by recent analytic philosophers. My aim is to bring these articles to a wider audience, so I’ll try to write clearly, and focus on the what I think is important about the piece. I’ll try to omit needless details, and summarize or skip arguments that would throw… Read More »Transition, Theories
What, precisely, is “modalism,” and what, if anything, is wrong with it? I find the theological and historical literature to be depressingly unclear about this. Why? Partly it’s the sparseness and obscurity of the original sources. Partly it’s the habit of simply repeating the same lore over and over, couched in the same (sometimes unhelpful) terms, starring the same (not too well drawn) heroes and… Read More »What is Modalism?
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: Read More »MMM unleashed @ trinities
A simple being containing multiple distinct “persons” – D’oh!
Theologian Lewis Ayres is the author of this worthy book. In it, he hammers the point that the Latin vs. Social trinitarian categories aren’t helpful in understanding post-Constantinople trinitarian theology. I think he’s right about that, though I persist in using the terminology because it is helpful for 20th and 21st century theories. Ayres’s book is a wonderful piece of patristic scholarship, but it is also an extended polemic against social trinitarians. Basically, he thinks that what he aptly calls the pro-Nicene tradition has gotten short shrift in recent theological work on the Trinity, and he very helpfully presents the core of that tradition and bats down a great many mis-readings of it. Obviously, he’s sympathetic to this sort of trinity theory, to put it mildly. This will definitely come up when I discuss social theories.
Here I just wanted to pass on a striking quote, which to me spotlights a central problem that many people have with the mainstream classic Latin or Pro-Nicene tradition.Read More »Quotes: Lewis Ayres on Pro-Nicene 3rd-4th century trinitarianism
A presentation by Dr. Harriet Baber at the 2014 SCP meeting at Niagara University.
William Lane Craig is a respected and extremely prolific Christian philosopher. I’d give you his c.v., but it might bring the internet to a standstill. He’s sometimes a bit pugnacious in print, but is very amiable in person. And he’s extremely sharp. His trinitarian co-theorizer, J.P. Moreland, is also influential and inhumanly prolific, and is one of the clearest, best organized writers around. He’s been called a “scrappy” arguer, which is apt, and he’s also a swell guy (I took classes from him at Biola in the early 90s, and I’m grateful for how he influenced me). A Willardite, he also writes books about Christian spirituality, such as this good one. Both Craig and Moreland are well known for their many forays into the popular area, in the form of books on apologetics, public debates and such.
Nice doggie… nice doggie… What’s Cerberus here got to do with the Trinity? Keep reading.
Read More »Moreland’s and Craig’s “Trinity Monotheism” – Part 1
Kudos to the team at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, for
Missing in #2 are references to, if not summaries of, Tom Senor’s work, particularly his criticisms of the Stump/Leftow property-borrowing approach, and of the hoary qua-move. Maybe a couple of references to Hick would be appropriate as well, e.g. his criticism of two-minds theories. Positively, maybe a reference to van Inwagen on relative identity. But on the whole, I thought it was well done – congrats to David. And I hope we see more philosophical theology in the IEP.
One quick reflection:Read More »“Incarnation” @ the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Dale)
A blogger mocks the UCA as “the Unitarian Confusion Alliance.” But on what basis?
The eastern emperor and the western emperor agreed: there needed to be a new ecumenical council to somehow solve the theological disagreements festering from the controversy over Arius in 324-5.