We mustn’t offend people in other religions, right? That’s a standard of behavior many present-day Americans, Europeans, Indians, and others accept. And it’s a standard assumed as obvious in many academic contexts. But is it consistent with Christian values? The two bold apologists in the video below argue that it is not, citing New Testament precedents. We could also ask whether this no-offense standard is… Read More »Jay Smith and David Wood on religious confrontation vs. dialogue
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 takes on the Trinity:
The celebrated Leibniz was requested by a Loefler, who had undertaken to refute the writings of a certain English Antitrinitarian, to give him an affirmative definition of the persons in the Godhead. He sent for answer the following: – “Several persons in an absolute substance numerically the same, signify several, particular, intelligent substances essentially related.” On farther consideration, he abandoned this, and sent a second, which was, – “Several persons, in an absolute substance numerically the same, mean relative, incommunicable modes of subsisting.”
As I said last time, Arius maintains that the Son is created from nothing (ex nihilo), but Athanasius denies this. Much of the discussion depends on what these authors mean by ‘creation’. Before we go any further then, it will be helpful to establish a working definition for ‘creating something from nothing’. This requires some care, because we’re after a definition that both Arius and Athanasius would agree to. But so long as we make the right qualifications, I think that Arius and Athanasius do agree on what it means to create something from nothing.
Just so we have a rough idea of what we’re talking about, let me begin by describing creation in the following way: something is created from nothing if it’s produced without any pre-existing ingredients. Now, that’s a very loose way of putting it, but it makes the basic idea clear enough. We know that things get produced with pre-existing ingredients all the time. Masons build walls with bricks and mortar, cavemen make charcoal with fire and wood, humans procreate with sperm and eggs, and so on. But none of that counts as a creation. Something is created from nothing only when it’s produced without any pre-existing ingredients.
I have tendencies. Put me near a Subway restaurant, where I can smell the fresh bread, and I’ll get hungry, my mouth watering. Force me to watch reality TV shows, and I’ll become fatally bored. I have a tendency to smile in the presence of cute little kids. Doctrines do not have tendencies. They don’t do anything. They have meanings, and they stand in logical… Read More »Don’t think/write like a contemporary theologian – Part 3 – tendencies
The Council of Chalcedon (451 CE) condemned Monophysitism and Nestorianism. The following table helps to classify Monophysitism, Nestorianism, and Chalcedonianism.
Nestorianism: 2 natures, 2 persons
Chalcedonianism: 2 natures, 1 person
Monophysitism: 1 nature, 1 person
0.75x 1x 1.25x 1.5x 2x 0:0000:24:05 podcast 33 – Albrecht vs. Tuggy debate – Was Tertullian a trinitarian? Part 1 Apple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsPlayer EmbedShare Leave a ReviewListen in a New WindowDownloadSoundCloudStitcherSubscribe on AndroidSubscribe via RSSSpotify On March 29, I debated Catholic apologist William Albrecht on whether or not Tertullian was a trinitarian. In this episode, our opening statements, and rebuttals, slightly edited (“cleaned up”) from… Read More »podcast 33 – Albrecht vs. Tuggy debate – Was Tertullian a trinitarian? Part 1
STAGE 2. In this stage, Richard tries to show that perfect charity must be directed at another person. Here’s the quotation:
‘no one is properly said to have charity on the basis of his own private love of himself. And so it is necessary for love to be directed toward another for it to be charity’.
0.75x 1x 1.25x 1.5x 2x 0:0000:26:36 podcast 61 – Dr. Dustin Smith on preexistence in ancient Jewish thought Apple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsPlayer EmbedShare Leave a ReviewListen in a New WindowDownloadSoundCloudStitcherSubscribe on AndroidSubscribe via RSSSpotify If a native English speaker says “you have a frog in your throat,” this means that your voice doesn’t sound normal, but is low, broken, “croaky.” It is a mistake to think… Read More »podcast 61 – Dr. Dustin Smith on preexistence in ancient Jewish thought
0.75x 1x 1.25x 1.5x 2x 0:0000:46:28 podcast 34 – Albrecht vs. Tuggy debate – Was Tertullian a trinitarian? Part 2 Apple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsPlayer EmbedShare Leave a ReviewListen in a New WindowDownloadSoundCloudStitcherSubscribe on AndroidSubscribe via RSSSpotify In this episode, the final half of my debate with Roman Catholic apologist Mr. William Albrecht. The question: was Tertullian a trinitarian? (Part 1 is here.) First, we take turns… Read More »podcast 34 – Albrecht vs. Tuggy debate – Was Tertullian a trinitarian? Part 2
Congratulations to Scott Williams, trinities contributor and newly minted Oxford University PhD in Theology, on his forthcoming paper: ‘Henry of Ghent on Real Relations and the Trinity: The Case for Numerical Sameness Without Identity’, in: Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie Médiévales 79.1 (2012), will be published. Here is his abstract: I argue that there is a hitherto unrecognized connection between Henry of Ghent’s general theory of real relations… Read More »Scott Williams’s new paper: Henry of Ghent on Real Relations and the Trinity
0.75x 1x 1.25x 1.5x 2x 0:0000:55:45 podcast 47 – Dr. Alan Padgett, “Informal Reason and the Idea of a Christian Philosophy” Apple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsPlayer EmbedShare Leave a ReviewListen in a New WindowDownloadSoundCloudStitcherSubscribe on AndroidSubscribe via RSSSpotify In this episode we hear the audio of Dr. Padgett’s talk “Informal Reason and the Idea of a Christian Philosophy” of April 25, 2014 at Claremont McKenna College, at… Read More »podcast 47 – Dr. Alan Padgett, “Informal Reason and the Idea of a Christian Philosophy”
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 articles for $1.99. They’re trying to be the iTunes… Read More »Robin Le Poidevin on metaphysics and the Incarnation @ Philosophy Compass
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 Patriotic War – passed by practically unnoticed. The farming life had treated Georgy and his family… Read More »Dealing with Apparent Contradictions: Part 6 – Restraint, implicit belief, and Stalin
In the last post, I explained that something is ‘created from nothing’ when it’s produced without any pre-existing ingredients. I also explained that by ‘ingredient’ I mean any sort of constituent which satisfies the following two conditions: first, it exists in the product; and second, it bears its own properties, i.e., it has features that other ingredients in the product do not have, and which the product itself does not have. In this post, I will explain what I mean by ‘pre-existing’.