Conservative Christians keep losing at culture wars. So argues Johnathan Merritt. Merritt thinks he knows why. They are obsessed with arguing about worldview. Consequently, Conservative Christians are failing to persuade people: They focus on ideology while ignoring people: When Christians talk about [x], they often frame it as a clash of worldviews or ideologies…Those who have a more progressive view… use concrete language and share specific stories. They talk about real… people with real struggles who experience real oppression. Narrative framing usually wins in public debates because it touches listeners’ hearts. Whether or not Merritt is right about convincing people is hard to tell. What I would like to quibble…
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Plastic Theseus
The famed puzzle about the Theseus’ ship getting its parts replaced involves an assumption: the ship is made of wood and so are the replacement parts. But what if the parts used to replace the old parts are not wood, but plastic? Perhaps, over time, each wooden part of the ship is replaced with a plastic part. We can even follow the story where it usually goes: the old parts are reassembled in some warehouse somewhere. There lies in the warehouse an old ship with all the old wooden parts while at sea a plastic ship goes about its business bearing the famous name. The question is: does this alter…
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Notes: Material Beings by Peter van Inwagen
“There are no visible objects but men and women and cats and other living organisms… There are no tables or books or rocks or hands or legs.”[1] 10 metaphysical presuppositions: 1. The identity relation is absolute and allows for no relative identity. Absolute identity holds that for any x, x is identical to y iff all that is true of x is true of y. Relative identity is the denial of absolute identity and suggests that identity is sortal relative. 2. Four dimensionalism, the thesis that an object’s parts include its temporal parts (time-slices) is false. 3. Logic is an ideal but the use of non-standard logics in consideration of…
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A Humean Dillema for Analogies and Artifacts
William Paley “I knew Paley’s argument from design, knew about the watch and the watchmaker, and I knew now that these people—these Jesus freaks—were trundling out the same old argument dressed in new clothes. Intricacy requires design, that was what they said. And design requires a designer. That was as far as they could see, that was it, case closed: God exists. And the earth is ten thousand years old, just like the Bible says” (Dave, a character in a T.C Boyle story).[1] William Paley’s analogical argument from design is simultaneously the best known and most derided argument for the existence of God. Ironically, the derision started before Paley wrote…
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Descartes-Minus
The following is a summary of chapter 8 of Metaphysics by Micheal Loux. The question of the chapter is: How does a material object (or concrete particular), if there is such a thing, persist through time? There are two views: Endurantism and Perdurantism Endurantists claim that for a concrete particular to persist through time is for it to exist wholly and completely at different times. The account assumes a presentist account of time where what exists is real if and only if it exists at the present time. An entity overtime persists as numerically identical thing at one time as any other time. According to endurantists, concrete particulars do not have…
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Hasker’s Existential Argument
According to William Hasker, the existential problem of evil occurs when “theism is questioned and/or rejected on the basis of moral protest, indignation, and outrage at the evils of this world.” Hasker claims that if I am glad that I exist, then I cannot (reasonably) protest against God. The simple version of his argument is: (1) I am glad that I exist.(2) If I am glad that I exist, then I am glad that the history of the world is the way it is.(3) If I am glad that the history of the world is what it is, then I cannot reproach God for the general character or the major events of the…
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Sermon: Daniel in the Lion’s Den
Daniel Daniel was in a tight spot. He was huddled in the corner of a pit. Above the pit there was a high wall and across from him was a wooden wall in the pit with a gate in it. and then the door to the outside with a huge boulder preventing any thought of escape. The last face he had seen was the face of the king. He could see the pain in his face, the anguish of one who is regretting his own decision. What had he said? “May your God, whom you serve continually, deliver you!” That was what got him put here in the first place.…
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What’s Love Got To Do With Free Will?
The most common objection to Divine Determinism is that if God determines everything, then human beings are not morally responsible for their actions. In other words, for a human agent to be morally responsible for their actions, they can’t have been determined to carry those actions out. The defender of libertarian free will will often say: “No LFW, no moral responsibility.” This is perhaps the strongest argument against determinism (although there are good responses). However, some argue that there is an additional feature of human life that would not be possible if there is no LFW – love. Love, it is suggested, is only possible if a human being has…
