Presented at the Seventh World Conference on Metaphysics at the Pontifical University of Salamanca, Spain, Oct 24-27, 2018 ABSTRACT: By a political theodicy is meant an attempt to harness our theological resources to ameliorate the evil we do and suffer… Read More ›
Philosophy of Religion
THE TRUTH ABOUT JESHUA OF NAZARETH
People think that Moses and Jesus and Mohammed must have been incredibly charismatic. I don’t know about Moses or Mohammed. Never met them. But I can tell you that Jeshua of Nazareth was anything but. He was dour, in just… Read More ›
CHARLIE HEBDO VS THE PROPHET
Rightly or wrongly we can decide when we’re more at our leisure; but in the meantime, John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice can be taken as pretty much the canon on distributive justice, at least in our relatively affluent Western… Read More ›
AN ANALYSIS OF MIRACLES IN THREE AWKWARD PHILOSOPHICAL MOMENTS
I. What is a Law of the Land? Thomas Hobbes thought that in a state of nature there’s “no government at all, except the government of small families, the concord whereof dependeth on natural lust,” I’m not sure the concord… Read More ›
SOME UNSOLICITED THEOLOGY FROM A SELF-CONFESSED ATHEIST
A being that wants for nothing wants nothing. That’s why it makes no sense to talk about the self-sufficiency of God. If there was nothing He felt was wanting He wouldn’t have bothered creating anything. But apparently He did. In… Read More ›
CHARLES DARWIN AND DAVID LEWIS
I’m not sure we needed Charles Darwin to alert us to this tautology: Things that persist over time do and things that don’t don’t. I’m not sure this explains anything, but yes, a Monarch butterfly keeps its markings over the… Read More ›
TWO ODDITIES ABOUT SUFFERING AND DEATH
I’m pretty left-brain dominant. And if you find this exhausting, imagine what it’s like for me. So for some respite, for the both of us, here’s one of my rare right-brain moments. Oddity One: I found out the other day… Read More ›
CAUSE FOR CANONIZATION – PIUS XII AND THE CURA
Let’s start with a little Hohfeldian housekeeping. Arguably there’s no such thing as a duty to defend oneself from injury. But no one, save the most bone-headed pacifist, would deny one has a right to defend himself, to defend himself… Read More ›
THE TRUE HISTORY OF THE WORLD
Once upon a time – or outside of it, if we’re to have it Boethius’ way – having nothing else to do, God decided to conjure in His mind all the worlds He could bring into being were He so… Read More ›
A COMPLETE COURSE IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION IN ELEVEN MINUTES
There are as many Islams as there are Moslems. There are as many Christianities as there are Christians. And there are twice as many Judaisms as there are Jews. This is because for any one of us it’s invariably “On… Read More ›
