Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Soteriology

  • Accept No Ersatz Soteriology!

    The eschaton will not be immanentized.

  • Nietzsche, Salvation, and the Question of the Value of Life

    Substack latest.

  • Would it be Heaven for a Mother Whose Child is in Hell?

    Vito Caiati raises an interesting theological question. This week, I again read your post of 08/24/2019 On the Specificity of Traditional Catholic Claims, in which you question the certainty assumed by the Catholic doctrine of the [moral] immutability of the soul, and hence its fate, after death.  My interest in your thoughts on this matter arises…

  • Postscript to Minimal Metaphysics for Meditation: Reply to Dr. Caiati

    Vito Caiati writes,  . . . while I see the wisdom in your assertion “no one is likely to take up, and stick with, serious meditation, meditation as part of a spiritual quest, unless he is the recipient of grace, a certain free granting ab extra,” I am troubled about the soteriological implications of such…

  • The Intellectual Chutzpah of David Bentley Hart

    Here (HT: Karl White): Let me, however, add one more observa­tion that will seem insufferably pompous or a little insane: to wit, that the argument I make in my book—that Chris­tianity can be a coherent system of belief if and only if it is understood as involving universal salvation—is irrefutable. Any Christian whom it fails…

  • Soteriology for Brutes?

    Vito Caiati writes, I have gone back and read your post “Are the Souls of Brute Animals Subsistent? Considerations Anent the Unity of Consciousness” many times since it first appeared in December of 2009.  In conclusion to the post, you write:   Thomas wants to say that men, but no brutes, have subsistent souls. This…

  • The Divine Job Description

    What jobs would a being have to perform to qualify as God?  I proffer an answer at Maverick Philosopher: Strictly Philosophical.

  • Salvation and the Value of Life

     Patrick Toner comments: . . . as I'm reading your post on Nietzsche, you make a mistaken claim about salvation's implications: namely, that "If we need salvation from our predicament in this life, then human life, taken on its own terms, and without appeals to hinterworlds, is of negative value."   Professor Toner's criticism offers…

  • Nietzsche, Salvation, and the Question of the Value of Life

    Giles Fraser in his provocative Redeeming Nietzsche: On the Piety of Unbelief (Routledge 2002) maintains that "Nietzsche is obsessed with the question of human salvation" and that his work is "primarily soteriology." (p. 2)  I don't disagree with this assessment, but there is a tension in Nietzsche that ought to be pointed out, one that Fraser, from…

  • The Horror of Death and its Cure

    There is dying, there is being dead, and there is the momentary transition from the one to the other.   While we rightly fear the suffering and indignity of dying, especially if the process is drawn out over weeks or months, it is the anticipation of the moment of death that some of us find horrifying.…

  • Easter Thoughts on 1 Corinthians 15:14: Christianity and Buddhism

    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…

  • The Divine Job Description

    For Spencer who, though he no longer believes that the Mormon God concept is instantiated, yet believes that as a concept it remains a worthy contender in the arena of God concepts. What jobs would a being have to perform to qualify as God? I count four sorts of job, ontological, epistemological, axiological, and soteriological,…

  • Moksha: Soteriological Riddles

    Over lunch Friday the topic of moksha (release or liberation from samsara; enlightenment) came up in the context of Advaita Vedanta.  Moksha is attained when the identity of Atman and Brahman is realized.  My interlocutor wanted to know how such realization is possible.  If I realize my identity with the Absolute, then I cease to exist as something…

  • Monasticism and the Monks of Mount Athos

    Back in April, 60 Minutes had a segment on the monks of Mt. Athos.  It was surprisingly sympathetic for such a left-leaning program. What one expects and usually gets from libs and lefties and the lamestream media is religion-bashing — unless of course the religion is Islam, the religion of peace – but the segment in question…

  • 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…