Category: Christian Doctrine
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Physicalist Christology?
Notes on Merricks. Substack latest.
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On Reconciling Creatio Ex Nihilo with Ex Nihilo Nihil Fit
Top o' the Stack. This entry examines Richard C. Potter's solution to the problem of reconciling creatio ex nihilo with ex nihilo nihil fit in his valuable article, "How To Create a Physical Universe Ex Nihilo," Faith and Philosophy, vol. 3, no. 1, (January 1986), pp. 16-26. (Potter appears to have dropped out of sight, philosophically speaking. PhilPapers shows only three articles by him,…
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Christianity and Intelligibility: A Response to Flood
Anthony Flood writes, Beneath a post on his blog, Bill Vallicella commented on a matter of common interest. I stress that Bill wrote a comment, not a paper for a peer-reviewed journal, and that’s all I’m doing here. I offer the following only as a further, not a last word. Last Sunday, in responding to one Joe Odegaard,…
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The Sun Also Rises: On Solar and Christian Belief
A reader sends us to an article that begins like this: The need for a return to God is clearly evident in today’s deranged and dysfunctional world. It is a need, exceeding all others, that must be fulfilled in order to keep enemies of God from interfering with human life. And then a little later…
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Richard Dawkins on Christianity and Islam
Here (HT: Catacomb Joe): Famed atheist and self-styled intellectual Richard Dawkins shared in a recent interview that he was “horrified” to find that Oxford Street in London had lit up its public signs and displays to celebrate the Muslim fasting period called Ramadan, just days before Easter Sunday. “I have to choose my words carefully: If I…
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The Christian ‘Anatta Doctrine’ of Lorenzo Scupoli
Buddhism and Christianity both enjoin what I will call moral self-denial. But Buddhism is more radical in that it connects moral self-denial with metaphysical self-denial. Thus Buddhism denies the very existence of the self, whereas Christianity in its orthodox versions presupposes the existence of the self: Christian self-purification falls short of eliminativism about the self.…
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Crucifixion as Incarnation in extremis
In an earlier thread, Vito Caiati states: Thus, while Christ’s physical suffering is comparable to ours, his emotional suffering is not: He is in a unique and privileged existential position, one that derives from his absolute knowledge of all things, which permits him to die [in horrific] pain but without the terrors of the unknown…
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An Overlooked Argument for the Resurrection
Michael J. Kruger In my jargon, the argument is rationally acceptable, but not rationally compelling (rationally coercive, philosophically dispositive). There is no getting around the fact that, in the end, you must decide what you will believe and how you will live. In the end: after due doxastic diligence has been exercised and all the…
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Rod Dreher on the Ben Op and the Bon Op
One of the few free ones. Excerpt: “The Benedict Option is not available to us; it is either the Boniface Option or destruction,” he writes. “You cannot run and hide from Trashworld. Our only option is to despise it and to fight back.” Leaving aside this inaccurate caricature of the Ben Op, what does Isker…
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The Christian View of Death and Immortality
Substack latest.
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Body, Soul, and Self Revisited
On 4 December of last year, a Substack entry of mine entitled Care of Body and Soul occasioned a comment by Tony Flood to which I replied on 10 December in Body, Soul, Self. Today, 25 June 2023 Tony responds to my response in a piece entitled Man's "True Self": A Reply to Critics. Now…
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“This is My Body”: Literal or Metaphorical?
The question is moot, according to to Anthony G. Flood. The question of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist cannot arise for one who understands scripture. “This do in remembrance of Me,” Jesus commanded His disciples at His last Passover, two days before the official Passover preparation that was concurrent with His passion. (He probably elected to…
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Platonism and Christianity: Josef Pieper on Phaedrus 246c
At the center of the confrontation between Platonism and Christianity on the question of the survival of death lies the tension: immortality of the soul or resurrection of the body? More fully: immortality of the disembodied soul or resurrection of the en-souled body? Connected with this is the question of whether and to what extent…
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Tongue and Pen
Top o' the Stack. Christ has harsh words for those who misuse the power of speech at Matthew 12:36: "But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment." But what about every idle word that bloggers blog and Substackers stack? Must…