It is tempting to say the following: S can answer a question correctly only if S knows the answer to the question. However, we should resist the temptation. Consider the following: When I was about 11years old I was sitting in a classroom, my gaze fixed firmly on the cricket pitch outside and paying no attention to what my teacher was saying. Then I heard my name. “Ben, can you tell us where the ship sprung a leak?” my teacher asked. Now everyone’s gaze was fixed on me. “Hull” I said without a pause. “Yes, well done Ben” my teacher replied and carried on talking. Now the backstory: When the…
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No Concept, No Belief
You couldn’t believe in something unless you knew something about it. If I said to you that a meroganon lives at the end of my street you might say I am nuts, but you would first want to know something about a meroganon. You couldn’t know if I am nuts unless you knew something about a meroganon. I could describe one to you by listing some of its basic features. After some time you would have in your mind the concept of a meroganon and you could then be justified in thinking that I have lost my mind. Consider the person (there may be more than one) who has not…
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Make America Trust Again
This election season has produced a lack of trust. This is especially true in the media. In a recent article in WaPo a journalist complained to Alberto Ibargüen, president of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, “that we no longer have trusted sources in our 21st century, social-media environment.” Ibargüen’s repose is telling: “How can there be,” he asked, “until we figure out … how to decide what a trusted source is?” What I want to suggest is that we need to re-build an atmosphere of trust. There are two virtues involved in doing so. The first is perhaps quite trivial in principle but we seem to be…
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Are You A Bouncy Physicalist? Take the Test and Find Out!
If you think reality is exhaustively physical, then you will probably be either a pessimist or an optimist about naturalistic scientific discovery. You will either conclude that it is highly likely that “folk psychology,” the belief that there are irreducibly mental, non-physical entities of some sort, will be shown to be false, or you will think that though it is possible that folk psychology will be proven false, it is unlikely. The latter position entails the belief that one should continue the naturalistic research program with a physicalist assumption even though you probably won’t be able to prove it. If you’re are an optimist, a bouncy physicalist, you will think…
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C. Stephen Evans: Natural Signs and Knowledge of God
According to C. Stephen Evans, natural knowledge of God is “knowledge that does not presuppose any special religious authority or revelation.” A natural sign is “something that directs our attention to some reality or fact and makes knowledge of that fact possible.” Therefore, theistic natural signs are natural signs of God that are the means by which a person becomes aware of God. Theistic Natural Signs (TNS) produce possible de re awareness of God and contain a built in resistible propensity to form a relevant judgment (36). Evans asks: Why do some people accept and some people reject the arguments that proffer signs of the reality of God? His answer contains two…
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Review: The Evidence for God by Paul Moser
Unsatisfied with natural theology and fideism, Paul Moser attempts to introduce a new kind of evidence for God, an evidence, “appropriate for the reality of a God worthy of worship” (20). Such evidence is personified in human agents as they are transformed by God. His argument is as follows: (1) Necessarily, if a human person is offered and receives the transformative gift, then this is the result of the authoritative power of the divine X of thoroughgoing forgiveness, fellowship in perfect love, worthiness of worship, and triumphant hope (namely, God).(2) I have been offered, and have willingly received, the transformative gift.(3) Therefore, God exits. (200) Revelation of the divine, according…
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O’Donovan’s Love Dilemma (pt.2)
Oliver O’Donovan suggests that another way to think about the priority or the inclusiveness of love is to think about the object of love (for the first way, see here). Who or what is it that one should love, given the immigration situation, for example? Should we supremely love those who cannot defend themselves and, having no power, find themselves at the mercy of an impersonal immigration system? Or should our loves be focused on either ideals of law or those for whom our decisions will most affect? What we love or, more precisely, what we are supposed to love entails a presupposed order of loves. Self, nation, future generation, ideals, oppressed…
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A Hermeneutical Chicken and Egg
While the truth of the scripture is guaranteed by its author, not all truths are found in scripture. I might know that Jesus is God because the Bible tells me, but I am pretty sure the Bible tells me nothing about algebra or the chemical composition of water. This is an important fact because a hermeneutic is developed partly prior to reading the Bible. A hermeneutic is a method of interpretation. We all develop a hermeneutic based on our intellectual faculties, background information, and skills. And we do so whether we are conscious of it or not. A good hermeneutic will enable us to get the right interpretation of the…