This is an excellent little book. Metaphysics can be opaque and this book takes the veil off some of the mystery without degrading the discipline. If you are married to a philosopher and think that talking about tables and chairs the way your spouse does is insane and irrelevant, then this book is for you. If you are a freshman who just got yourself an introduction to metaphysics but wished it was more introductory then this book is for you. If you are a highly decorated metaphysician but have forgotten how to explain what you do to the uninitiated this book will help. Stephen Mumford’s skill lies in navigating a…
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Why Bill Nye is Wrong
Bill Nye Bill Nye argues that an abortion is analogous to an egg that does not attach to a woman’s uterine wall (here). So… If a fertilized egg is a human, then the woman is responsible for the death of any human that does not attach to a uterine wall. The woman is not responsible for the death of the human. Therefore the fertilized egg is not a human and abortion is justifiable. This is a bad analogy. An abortion is not analogous to an egg that does not attach to a woman’s uterine wall. No one is blaming anyone for miscarriages or for fertilized eggs not attaching to the…
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Virtue Dilemma
How do virtue ethicists know what the virtues are? The problem for virtue ethicists can be stated in a dilemma: Either a virtue is known when an act is carried out by a virtuous person or they are known by some quality in the act not in the agent. If a virtue is known when an act is carried out by a virtuous person then we still don’t know what makes the act virtuous and if we don’t know what makes the act virtuous we don’t know what a virtue is. If, on the other hand, we know virtues by some quality in the act, then it is not virtue…
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Nonfixity of Events
In his recent book, Deeper Exegesis, Peter Leithart suggests that texts are analogous to events. The analogy holds, he says, because events, like texts, change over time. What one text meant in one context is different to what it means when read at a different time. Events are similar, according to Leithart, they are not static, but subject to change over time as new properties are added to them. Although interpretation of text changes over time, I think it is a mistake to suggest texts are like events because they change over time. Events are ontologically slippery, but the view espoused by Leithart may actually negate some pretty basic views Leithart…
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O’Donovan’s Love Dilemma
In The Resurrection and Moral Order Oliver O’Donovan asks us to consider what we mean by love as a rule for life. Do we mean, on the one hand, that love is a summary and includes the rest of moral law? Or, on the other hand, do we mean that love is a priority over all other laws? The latter involves responding to a moral dilemma by doing what is considered the most loving act even while an alternative action might be more justified on other grounds. The former may involve suggesting that a particular course of action is justified by a moral law and, though we might not like the…
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Christian Cultural Criticism And The Way of Death
“This is the end” Jerry Falwell This is my first experience of an American culture war. And it’s a heated one. In a war like this the voice of the cultural critic is an important one and, for the Christian, a calling, a calling to talk frankly about sin and doom. And after the recent murders perhaps we should listen. Such a task is not novel or a side effect of early twentieth century fundamentalism. Calling out a culture on its sin has been the job of Christians since the church began. Apart from the Bible, which has a lot to say about sin, The Didache, written in the first century, had…
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Israel and the Church in Ephesians 2:11-22
Ephesians 2:11-22 shows the relationship between Jewish and Gentile believers in the church. But what does that mean for Israel? Does the creation of the “one new man” mean that Israel, as a nation, has no more part to play in the plan of God in history? In the following I argue in the negative. Gentile believers and Jewish believers are united as one body in the church at this present time–the church age–and that the basis for unity is the abrogation of the Law of Moses through the death of Christ. The unilateral promises made to ethnic Israel need not be taken up into the creation of the church,…
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Sermon: Jonah
MAIN IDEA: God’s sovereign and compassionate grace bends the strongest of wills and melts the most calloused of hearts. Jonah by Nikki Loy The prophet, Jonah, if you can imagine him, sits at his desk weeping the tears of a forgiven sinner. He has been broken by God’s sovereignty over his life and he has been melted by God’s loving kindness. His story is one of complete collapse in the face of his sovereign and merciful God. He has had his hard will broken and his cold heart won. The Lord has upended him, called him from his home to break him, to realign his will and melt his heart.…