Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Religion

  • Easter Morning Thoughts on 1 Corinthians 15:14

    Biblia Vulgata: Si autem Christus non resurrexit, inanis est ergo praedicatio nostra, inanis est et fides vestra. King James: And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Orthodox Christianity stands and falls with a contingent historical fact, the fact of the resurrection of Christ from the…

  • Saturday Night at the Oldies: Religious Themes

    Norman Greenbaum, Spirit in the Sky.Johnny Cash, Personal Jesus.Clapton and Winwood, Presence of the Lord.George Harrison, My Sweet Lord.George Harrison, All Things Must Pass.  

  • Is Everything in the Bible Literally True?

    Of course not.  If everything in the Bible is literally true, then every sentence in oratio obliqua in the Bible is literally true.  Now the sentence 'There is no God'  occurs in the oblique context, "The fool hath said in his heart, 'There is no God.'"  (Psalm 14:1)  So if everything  in the Bible is…

  • What if God was One of Us?

    What if God was one of usJust a slob like one of usJust a stranger on the busTrying to make his way home?  

  • The God of Philosophy and the God of Religion

    Steven Nemes by e-mail:   In posts of months past you claimed there was no distinction between the God of the philosophers and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; they're the same thing, if God can be called a thing at all; you asked for an argument that they were [not the same], if…

  • The Wages of Appeasement

    I am right now listening to Michael Medved interview Bruce S. Thornton, a colleague of Victor Davis Hanson, and author of The Wages of Appeasement.   Here is a Front Page interview with Thornton.  Excerpt: MT: Could you talk a bit about one of the recurring themes among the three historical examples you write about in…

  • One Root of Leftist Intolerance of Religion

    Religions make a totalitarian claim, and the Left, being totalitarian, cannot abide competitors.

  • Philosophy, Religion, Mysticism, and Wisdom

    Dennis E. Bradford sent me three comments via e-mail on my recent Butchvarov post.  I omit the first and the third which are more technical in nature, and which I may address in later posts.    Bradford writes, Second, and this separates me from Butch, Larry [Blackman], and you, I reject your assumption concerning the narrowness of philosophy.  You mention…

  • Dale Tuggy Avoids D. Z. Phillips

    In the fourth of a series posts on the evolution of his views on the Trinity, Dale Tuggy reports on his time at the Claremont Graduate School.  About D. Z. Phillips, he says the following: D.Z. Phillips I avoided. I’d read real epistemology (Chisholm, Plantinga, etc.) and was always unimpressed with the later-Wittgenstein approach, especially…

  • The Christian ‘Anatta Doctrine’ of Lorenzo Scupoli

    Buddhism and Christianity both enjoin self-denial. But Buddhism is more radical in that it connects self-denial with denial of the very existence of the self, whereas Christianity in its orthodox versions   presupposes the existence of the self: Christian self-purification falls short of self-elimination. Nevertheless, there are points of comparison between the 'No Self' doctrine of…

  • Does God Exist Because He Ought to Exist?

    Steven, Peter, et al.:  This paper has been languishing  on my hard drive for some time.  Comments appreciated.  Abstract.  Modal ontological arguments for the existence of God require a possibility premise to the effect that a maximally perfect being is possible. Admitting the possibility of such a being may appear to be a minimal concession, but…

  • Keith Parsons Update

    Apparently, Keith Parsons' decision to abandon the philosophy of religion has garnered a lot of attention.  Here is my commentary from last September. Update 1/13:  My man Peter Lupu leaves a comment at  Secular Outpost.  And Ed Feser rips into Parsons here, once again substantiating  my playful reading of his name as an acronym: Filosophical…

  • A Vision of Hell

    The spiritually immature have spiritually immature conceptions of man and God, heaven and hell. If you think of man as just a physical being, then, if you think of God at all, you will most likely think of him as a physical being, as a sort of Man Writ Large, or Big Guy in the…

  • Josiah Royce and the Religious Paradox

    There are tough questions about the possibility and the actuality of divine revelation. An examination of some ideas of the neglected philosopher Josiah Royce (1855-1916) from the Golden Age of American philosophy will help us clarify some of the issues and problems. One such problem is this: How can one know in a given case…

  • Nagel on Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion

    I have in my hand a copy of Thomas Nagel, The Last Word (Oxford University Press, 1997). The last essay in The Last Word is entitled, "Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion." One hopes that Nagel does not consider it the last word on the topic given its fragmentary nature and occasional perversity. But…