{"id":6185,"date":"2016-09-26T07:47:41","date_gmt":"2016-09-26T07:47:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2016\/09\/26\/the-swinburne-dust-up-at-the-society-for-christian-philosophers\/"},"modified":"2016-09-26T07:47:41","modified_gmt":"2016-09-26T07:47:41","slug":"the-swinburne-dust-up-at-the-society-for-christian-philosophers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2016\/09\/26\/the-swinburne-dust-up-at-the-society-for-christian-philosophers\/","title":{"rendered":"The Swinburne Dust Up at the Society for Christian Philosophers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Political correctness strikes again!  <\/span><\/p>\n

Apparently, Richard Swinburne, perhaps the most distinguished of contemporary philosophers of religion, had the chutzpah to defend a traditional Christian view of homosexuality at a meeting of the Society of Christian<\/em> Philosophers.  This provoked the outrage of certain cultural Marxists.<\/span><\/p>\n

If only a 'trigger warning' had been issued prior to Swinburne's address!  Then the whole controversy might have been avoided.  The girly girls and pajama boys could have padded off to their sandbox to play with their dolls until the start of the next session.<\/span><\/p>\n

You might want to begin with Did Swinburne Get Swindled?<\/a> at the conservative group weblog, Rightly Considered<\/a>, which after a slow start is now righteously on a roll.<\/span><\/p>\n

Update<\/em> (9\/27).  Further commentary:<\/span><\/p>\n

Rod Dreher, Shut Up, Bigot!<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Edward Feser, Michael Rea Owes Richard Swinburne an Apology<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Update<\/em> (9\/28).  Yet more commentary:<\/span><\/p>\n

Rod Dreher, "F-K You, A-holes," Argues Yale Philosopher<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Required reading for a sense of the depth of the rot in contemporary academe.  Here is the conclusion of Dreher's article:<\/span><\/p>\n

The fact that a Yale philosophy professor not only holds such vicious opinions towards another professor who apparently only stated a historically standard Christian philosophical view of homosexuality, but who also did not hesitate to publicly denounce that professor in the most vulgar possible terms, is a striking sign of the revolutionary times. To give you a sense of the ideas that are considered so vile as to be unutterable, even in a Christian philosophers\u2019 conference, I searched in Swinburne\u2019s 2007 book Revelation<\/em><\/a> to see what his view on homosexuality is. To my knowledge, there has been no transcript provided of his SCP talk, but numerous online comments by philosophers who were there said that there was nothing in it that Swinburne had not already said in Revelation <\/em>(which was published by Oxford University Press, not known for being a purveyor of National Socialist tracts) It\u2019s possible to search on Amazon and find the relevant pages in the Swinburne book. It starts on p. 304. As best I can tell, here is his argument:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \n
    \n

    Children need two parents. The inability to beget children is a \u201cdisability.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n

  2. \n
    \n

    Homosexuality, by this definition, is a disability.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n

  3. \n
    \n

    Disabilities need to be prevented and cured.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n

  4. \n
    \n

    What causes homosexuality? We don\u2019t know, but it\u2019s likely some combination of genetics and environment.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n

  5. \n
    \n

    We can change the environmental conditions by discouraging people from homosexual acts, and embracing a homosexual identity.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n

  6. \n
    \n

    There is always a possibility that the disability called homosexuality might be cured, so therapy should be considered. But as of now, we have no reason to think that it will be successful, except in a slight number of cases.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n

  7. \n
    \n

    In any case, homosexuals should be encouraged to be chaste, just as heterosexuals should be encouraged to be chaste in the face of their own disordered sexual impulses.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n

  8. \n
    \n

    We must show love and compassion to homosexuals (and others with disordered impulses), but real love and compassion implies wanting not what they want, but what is best for them.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n

  9. \n
    \n

    Therefore, to love gays (and everybody else) is to desire that all who live outside the bounds of normative heterosexual marriage live in chastity.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    This is a very common Christian argument from Scripture and the natural law. For a more detailed version of this argument, see the Catechism of the Catholic Church\u2019s teachings on the meaning of sex and sexuality.<\/a> The Catholic Church teaches that all sexual acts and all sexual desire outside of heterosexual marriage (including masturbation,  and use of pornography) are disordered, because they disrupt the purpose of sex (= the unity of the couple, open to the possibility of the conception of new life). This is why the Church condemns contraception as a deformation of the right use of sex. The Catechism calls homosexuality \u201cintrinsically disordered\u201d because it is a state of sexual desire that can in no way be rightly ordered.<\/span><\/p>\n

    One can easily see why contemporary philosophers would object to this, and theyshould<\/em> object to it, philosophically, if it violates their principles. But the idea that what Swinburne said is some sort of crazy right-wing blast from the bowels of Hitleriana, not fit to be stated in philosophical company, is insane.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

    But I don\u2019t think Stanley and his academic confreres are insane, not in the least. I think they are radical progressive ideologues. I think they deliberately want to demonize any philosophers who hold to the traditional Christian teaching on the meaning of sexuality, particularly homosexuality. One of the most prominent contemporary philosophers is Princeton\u2019s Peter Singer, who has advocated bestiality (under certain conditions) and the extermination of handicapped newborns. Singer is welcome within contemporary philosophical circles \u2026 but Richard Swinburne is now to be anathematized?<\/span><\/p>\n

    Anybody with eyes can see what\u2019s going on here. There is a cleansing underway. The fact that the Society of Christian Philosophers is allowing itself to be bullied by these people is deeply depressing. Christian philosophers ought to be defending Swinburne\u2019s right to state his opinion, even if they disagree with that opinion.<\/span><\/p>\n

    (I should add here that one of the handful of reasons I would even consider voting for Trump is the certain knowledge that a Hillary Clinton administration would only further the cultural hegemony of cutthroat revolutionaries like Stanley and his fellow travelers.)<\/span><\/p>\n

    \nRelated articles<\/legend>\n
    \n
    \"\"<\/a>Elizabeth Anscombe, "Contraception and Chastity"<\/a><\/div>\n
    \"\"<\/a>What About Infertile Heterosexual Couples?<\/a><\/div>\n
    \"\"<\/a>The Potentiality Argument Against Abortion and Feinberg's Logical Point About Potentiality<\/a><\/div>\n
    \"\"<\/a>Death Penalty, Abortion, and Certainty<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/fieldset>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Political correctness strikes again!   Apparently, Richard Swinburne, perhaps the most distinguished of contemporary philosophers of religion, had the chutzpah to defend a traditional Christian view of homosexuality at a meeting of the Society of Christian Philosophers.  This provoked the outrage of certain cultural Marxists. If only a 'trigger warning' had been issued prior to … Continue reading “The Swinburne Dust Up at the Society for Christian Philosophers”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58,163],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-doctrine","category-leftism-and-political-correctness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6185\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}