Category: Christian Doctrine
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“Europe is the Faith and the Faith is Europe”
This infamous phrase of Hillaire Belloc is here explained by James V. Schall. Excerpt: Modern science itself has medieval Christian origins. Without the notion of a real world, itself not God, worth investigating together with the notion of real secondary causes, no science would be possible. Those societies that embraced a voluntarist origin of things…
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My Relation to Catholicism
This from a graduate student in philosophy who describes himself as a theologically conservative Protestant who is toying with the idea of 'swimming the Tiber': In a recent post you say this: ""Study everything, join nothing" means that one ought to beware of institutions and organizations with their tendency toward self-corruption and the corruption of their…
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Five Attitudes Toward the Christian Dogmas
Original Sin, Trinity, and Incarnation are three Christian dogmas. There are others as well. Here is an off-the-cuff taxonomy of possible attitudes towards such dogmas. 1. They are just nonsense to be ignored or even a sign of deep mental dysfunction. When I first started blogging about the Trinity, John Jay Ray commented (6 January…
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Notes on Mortality and Christian Doctrine
1. Let's start with the word 'mortal' and remind ourselves of some obvious points. 'Mortal' is from the Latin mors, mortis meaning death. That which is mortal is either subject to death, or conducive to death, or in some way expressive of death. Thus when we say of a human being that he is mortal…
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Kant on Peccatum Originale Originans and Peccatum Originale Originatum
1. An important distinction for understanding the doctrine of original sin is that between originating original sin (peccatum originale originans) and originated original sin (peccatum originale originatum). This post will explain the distinction and then consider Immanuel Kant's reasons for rejecting originated original sin. It is important to realize that Kant does accept something like original…
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What’s Wrong with Pelagianism?
You will be forgiven (by me, anyway) for finding the doctrine of Original Sin (OS) in its Augustinian form absurd. For it seems to entail a logical contradiction. The originality of OS seems to conflict with its sinfulnness. To start with the sinfulness part. If my having done (or having failed to do) X is…
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The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil
Mr Vallicella, I want to give you a heads up on the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil". The phrase is probably an idiom that means something like 'universal wisdom' or 'all knowledge'. A better translation may be 'The Tree of the Knowledge of Everything From A to Z'. There is, in…
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Fall of Man or Rise of Man? The Aporetics of Genesis 2 and 3
At Genesis 2,17 the Lord forbids Adam from eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, on pain of death. In the next chapter, however, Eve is tempted by the serpent, succumbs, eats of the tree, and persuades Adam to eat of it too. As punishment for their disobedience, Adam and Eve are banished…
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Two Opposite Mistakes Concerning Original Sin
One mistake is to think that the doctrine of Original Sin is empirically verifiable. I have seen this thought attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr. (If someone can supply a reference for me with exact bibliographical data, I would be much obliged.) I could easily be mistaken, but I believe I have encountered the thought in Kierkegaard as well. (Anyone…
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Original Sin and Eastern Orthodoxy
There was another point I wanted to make re: John Farrell's Forbes piece, Can Theology Evolve? Farrell writes, "The Eastern Orthodox Churches, for example, do not accept the doctrine of Original Sin . . . ." I think this claim needs some nuancing. (Here is my first Farrell post.) First of all, Eastern Orthodoxy certainly…
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Modern Genetics and the Fall: Science and Religion in Collision?
John Farrell, a long-time friend of Maverick Philosopher, has an article in Forbes Magazine entitled Can Theology Evolve? Early in his piece Farrell quotes biologist Jerry Coyne: I’ve always maintained that this piece of the Old Testament, which is easily falsified by modern genetics (modern humans descended from a group of no fewer than 10,000…
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Can What Is Impossible to Achieve be an Ideal for Us?
In The Stoic Ideal, I stated that the Stoic ideal is "is for us impossible, and so no ideal at all." The ideal of the Stoic sage is the attainment of a state of god-like impassibility by means of a retreat into the inner citadel of the self, a retreat of such a nature that…
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The Stoic Ideal
The Stoic sage would be as impassible as God is impassible. But here's something to think about: Jesus on the cross died in agony like a man, even though, if he was God, he could have realized the Stoic ideal. What is the lesson? Perhaps that to be impassible is for us impossible, and so…
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On Temptation and the Perfection of Jesus
Joshua Orsak e-mails: Your recent posts on temptation got me thinking (again) about a problem I've wrestled with a long time. I'm a Christian minister and I've long thought about a tension between Jesus Christ's focus on intentions and sin in the internal life of man and the Christian conviction summed up in Hebrews 4:15…
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Pee Cee Christians
Do some Christians have a death wish? Campus Crusade for Christ has changed its name, dropping 'crusade' and 'Christ.' And then they have the chutzpah to say they are not bowing to political correctness. There is nothing wrong with unintentionally causing offense to people who take offense inappropriately. If 'crusade' and 'Christ' are offensive to…