At school I was taught to anneal copper. This process entailed heating the copper to an exact temperature before working on it. There were no temperature gauges involved – one could tell what temperature the copper had reached by its color – cherry red. The color of the copper changed as the temperature changed. I remember thinking that God was both an artist and an engineer. He designed copper to include its own temperature gauge and made it beautiful at the same time. To a Christian, or any theist for that matter, the world appears to be designed by someone. It is not usually the whole world that appears designed,…
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Identity and Ideology are not Identical
S is not identical to her beliefs. S may have belief, b, that gives her reasons to perform some action, a. But she performs a and has b – she is neither identical to a nor b. If X is identical to Z, then X cannot exist if Z does not exist. If S did not have b and had not performed a, then S would still exist. Not identical, see? Thus, no one is identical to the political ideologies to which they hold. I am no more identical to my belief that governments should be punish evil behavior and build a strong military, than a lefty is identical to the…
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Language, Mind(s) and Propositions in the Trinity
God speaks. The Bible records the first speech and God makes it. If the chronology of scripture is to be believed, God could speak prior to creation and, therefore, God can speak sans creation. He could use a language in eternity past. This seems clear: he is the first to utter a word (Gen 1); he determines the world and everything in it including all the languages, sentences, and what they mean prior to creation; and God, the Son, is identified as the “Word” that pre-exists creation (John 1). He doesn’t actually have to say anything, but he has to be able to express his thoughts in a language. On…
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Have Faith Like a Limpet
When I was 13 I went to an adventure island off the coast of Scotland. We climbed mountains, fished, and were taught survival techniques. The big challenge of the trip was to be abandoned on a small island for a night with nothing but a pair of billy cans, a lighter, a plastic sheet, and some flares in case of emergency. My friend and I made our bivouac and then went in search of food. Dinner was to be heather tea and limpets. Limpets are large volcano shaped mollusks attached to rocks. To get them off the rock you have to pull them off quick (sometimes by kicking them). If…
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Planned Parthood
My house has parts–walls, foundations, windows, etc–and there are things that are inside my house–children, saucepans, guitars, etc. Being inside my house does not entail being part of my house. But there are boundary cases: Are my curtains or appliances part of the house or merely contained within the house? If they are inside my house and not part of the house itself, then I can take them when I leave the house. If, on the other hand, they are part of the house, then I should not remove them when I leave. Recently, in response to a question I posed about abortion, someone wrote this: When the fetus is…
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Is the Ordo Salutis Intelligible?
The ordo salutis (order of salvation) is supposed to tell us about the logical order of God’s decree to save some people and not other people. There are differing versions of the order and this fact has led to some of the deepest divisions in the church. Some think God determined whom to save before he decreed the means for their salvation. Others think that God’s decree to save some people came after his decree to permit them to sin. The important feature of the order is that it is not supposed to be a temporal order. Supposedly, God logically orders his decrees without temporally ordering them. The trouble is I…
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Beliefs and Choice
I have a whole lot of beliefs rummaging around my mind. I believe, for example, that I am here at this moment writing this blog while listening to some funk artist called Kyle Hollingsworth on Spotify. I believe I grew up in England and was married in Minnesota in 2003 on a day when it was twenty below. I might be mistaken about what I believe, but I am not mistaken that I believe those things. Beliefs don’t float around in the air ready to be caught. Rather, I have beliefs. If there were no people, no minds, there would be no beliefs. Other things, like propositions, are not dependent upon my mind being…
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Why Taxes Aren’t Gifts
An obligation is an action one owes one or more other people. When one fulfills an obligation one does something good but not all good actions are obligations. Some actions are supererogatory, they go above and beyond obligation. I am obliged to pay taxes but I am not obliged to donate money to charity. Both actions are good but the latter is a supererogatory action. The moral status of an action depends on whether the action is an obligation. Failure to perform an obligatory action is wrong. The value of an action does not so depend. An action can be good even if it is not obligatory. It is good…