Category: Christian Doctrine
-
Presentism and Bodily Resurrection
Are presentism and bodily resurrection logically compatible? Edward Buckner wonders about this. He got me wondering about it. So let me take a stab at sorting it out. The Resurrection of the Body I will assume the traditional doctrine of the resurrection according to which (i) resurrection is resurrection of the (human) body, and (ii)…
-
Meditation on the Third Commandment
A 1941 article by C. S. Lewis. (HT: Victor Reppert) The Third Commandment in the ordering preferred by Protestants of Lewis' stripe is the one about taking the Lord's name in vain: Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. Lewis meditates on the difficulties that must beset attempts to…
-
Miracles and Resurrection
Thomas Beale writes, Quoting from your quote of Ian Hutchison: …Miracles are, by definition, abnormal and non-reproducible, so they cannot be proved by science’s methods. Today’s widespread materialist view that events contrary to the laws of science just can’t happen is a metaphysical doctrine, not a scientific fact. What’s more, the doctrine that the laws…
-
Incarnation, Resurrection, and Rational Acceptability
A while back I was talking with my young theological friend Steven about Christianity. I had remarked that its essence lies in the Incarnation. Without disagreeing with me, he offered the bodily resurrection of Christ as the essential pivot on which Christian belief and practice turns. This raises a number of questions. One is this:…
-
Kant on Suicide
Is suicide ever morally permissible? Cutting against the Enlightenment grain, Kant delivers a resoundingly negative verdict. Suicide is always and everywhere morally wrong. This entry is part of an effort to understand his position. Unfortunately, Kant's treatment is exceedingly murky and one of his arguments is hard to square with what he says elsewhere. In his Lectures…
-
“Lead Us Not into Temptation”
I have said some rather unkind things about Pope Francis, but when he called for a modification of the traditional English rendering of the Greek, I felt some sympathy for him. For it has long struck me as very strange that we should ask God not to lead us into temptation. For what the request…
-
God, Pronouns, and Anthropomorphism
I was delighted to hear from an old student of mine from 35 years ago. He writes, In your writings, you often refer to God in pronouns bearing gender. Does such language result in God’s anthropomorphism? I would reformulate the question as follows: In your writings, whenever you refer to God using a third-person pronoun,…
-
Is Sin a Fact? A Passage from Chesterton Examined
A correspondent asked me my opinion of the following passage from G. K. Chesterton: Modern masters of science are much impressed with the need of beginning all inquiry with a fact. The ancient masters of religion were quite equally impressed with that necessity. They began with the fact of sin — a fact as practical as potatoes.…
-
More on Christian Anti-Natalism
I wrote in Christian Anti-Natalism?: Without denying that there are anti-natalist tendencies in Christianity that surface in some of its exponents, the late Kierkegaard for example, it cannot be maintained that orthodox Christianity, on balance, is anti-natalist. Ask yourself: what is the central and characteristic Christian idea? It is the Incarnation, the idea that God…
-
Private Judgment?
Yesterday I commented critically on the Roman Catholic teaching on indulgences. One who refuses to accept, or questions, a teaching of the Church on faith or morals may be accused of reliance upon private judgment and failure to submit to the Magisterium or teaching authority of the Church. Two quick observations on this accusation. First,…
-
Christian Anti-Natalism?
From Karl White, esteemed cybernaut: I found this topic from an online group interesting: "I tried sharing and discussing my antinatalist beliefs with a Christian Anarchism group I'm a part of. My antinatalism comes directly and exclusively from my Christian faith, and I believe that any Christian who does not become an antinatalist after Bible…
-
A Philosopher’s Prayer
We are grateful for this quotidian bread, Lord, but it is not for it that we pray. Grant us the panem supersubstantialis, the bread supersubstantial, that nourishes the mind and heart. It is for this bread that we must beg, unable as we are to secure it by our own powers. The daily bread that…
-
Grace
Is it possible to take grace seriously these days? Well, I just arose from a good session on the black mat. For a few moments I touched upon interior silence and experienced its bliss. This is nothing I conjured up from my own resources. But if I say I was granted this blissful silence by…
-
The Ultimate Paradox of Divine Creation
God freely creates beings that are both (i) wholly dependent on God's creative activity at every moment for their existence, and yet (ii) beings in their own own right, not merely intentional objects of the divine mind. The extreme case of this is God's free creation of finite minds, finite subjects, finite unities of consciousness…