Category: Athens and Jerusalem
-
Robert Oakes Weighs in on the God of the Philosophers
I got a phone call from philosopher of religion Robert Oakes yesterday. In the course of a lengthy chat, I mentioned my recent post on Pascal and Buber and asked him what he thought of it. Today I received the following from him by e-mail: Very good to talk with you. Short comment on that El…
-
Still More on the God of the Philosophers Versus the God of Abraham, et al.
Ken e-mails and I respond in blue: I turn on my computer and check out the Maverick Philosopher and suddenly half of my day is shot. First I have to look up the word 'pellucidity' and then I am stuck trying to figure out why your claim about the phrases 'God-P' and 'God-R' does not…
-
Is Atheism Intellectually Respectable? On Romans 1:18-20
Joe Carter over at First Things argues that "We have to abandon the politically correct notion that atheism is intellectually respectable." My own view is that theism and atheism are both intellectually respectable. Carter makes his case by invoking St. Paul: In Romans, St. Paul is clear that atheism is a case of vincible ignorance: “For his…
-
Edith Stein on Cognitio Fidei: Is Faith a Kind of Knowledge?
One finds the phrase cognitio fidei in Thomas Aquinas and in such Thomist writers as Josef Pieper. It translates as 'knowledge of faith.' The genitive is to be interpreted subjectively, not objectively: faith is not the object of knowledge; faith is a form or type of knowledge. But how can faith be a type of knowledge? One…
-
The Infirmity of Reason Versus the Certitude of Faith
Reason is infirm in that it cannot establish anything definitively. It cannot even prove that doubting is the way to truth, "that it is certain that we ought to be in doubt." (Pyrrho entry, Bayle's Dictionary, tr. Popkin, p. 205) But, pace Pierre Bayle, the merely subjective certitude of faith is no solution either! Recoiling…
-
Athens and Jerusalem at Loggerheads Over the One Thing Needful
The following is highly relevant to our Trinitarian/Christological discussions: For Leo Strauss, ". . . Western civilization consists of two elements, or has two roots, which are in radical disagreement with each other." ("Progress or Return?" in The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism, p. 245) These two elements are the Bible and Greek philosophy, Jerusalem…
-
Augustine and the Child at the Seashore: Trinitarian Metatheory
I was told this story as a child by a nun. One day St. Augustine was walking along the seashore, thinking about the Trinity. He came upon a child who had dug a hole in the sand and was busy filling it with buckets of seawater. Augustine: "What are you doing?" Child: "I am trying to…
-
A Philosopher’s Notes on Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3
This post continues my commentary on the Book of Ecclesiastes, the first installment of which is here. But a brief review is in order. The central theme of the book, you will recall, is the vanity and futility of all human endeavor including such pursuit of wisdom and understanding as the Preacher himself undertakes in…
-
A Philosopher’s Notes on Ecclesiastes, Chapters 1-2
Herewith, a first installment of some chapter-by-chapter observations on the magnificent Old Testament Book of Ecclesiastes, with an attempt to lay bare some of the philosophical issues lurking below the surface of the text. 1. Chapter 1 sounds the central theme of the Book: Omnia vanitas, "All is vanity." What is the scope of 'all'?…
-
Is There Any Excuse for Unbelief? Romans 1: 18-20
Rather than quote the whole of the Pauline passage at Romans 1: 18-20, I'll summarize it. Men are godless and wicked and suppress the truth. What may be known about God is plain to them because God has made it plain to them. Human beings have no excuse for their unbelief. "For since the creation…
-
Kant on Abraham and Isaac
What I said about Abraham and Isaac yesterday is so close to Kant's view of the matter that I could be accused of repackaging Kant's ideas without attribution. When I wrote the post, though, I had forgotten the Kant passage. So let me reproduce it now. It is from The Conflict of the Faculties (1798), the…