THE PROBLEM OF PAIN REVISITED: HOW GOD DECIDES WHAT IS GOOD

Dateline:  August 3, 2009 - Recently John Beversluis updated his critical book entitled C.S. Lewis and the Search for Rational Religion and atheist John Loftus has written a review of the updated work. Victor Reppert, whose book C.S. Lewis’ Dangerous Idea was in response to Beversluis’ original work, has not yet written a formal response to the updated work, but he has written several posts addressing some of the major points, in particular... Read more

THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF JESUS CHRIST: THE PHARISEES ACCUSE HIM OF FALSE WITNESS

When Jesus proclaimed that He was the Light of the World, the Pharisees accused him of not only making claims about himself, but making false claims about himself, that is, bearing false witness, or breaking the ninth commandment. This sets up a discussion of epistemology – how do we know? What is truth and how can we know what the truth is? To witness is to testify, or present a testament, derived from the solemnity of swearing upon the testicles. ... Read more

The Self as an Hegelian Synthesis of the Aristotelian and Platonic Forms

Ryle’s Solution to the Cartestian Problem Gilbert Ryle in The Concept of Mind and Dilemmas, attempts to solve the mind-brain problem as follows.  Descartes, Ryle says, made a category mistake of placing the concept of mind in the same logical type as the brain.  Instead, mind is a category of what bodies do, not a substance. We admit Ryle’s aristotelian ideas that the soul is the form of the body.  These ideas fit into the platonic... Read more

The Concept of Being Has Been Incredibly Hard to Define

In today’s philosophical climate, it seems to be the norm to write off the problems caused by the term “Being” as linguistic: “Being is not a noun. it is the present participle of the verb ‘to be’.” However, Tillich speaks of “the Ground of Being”; Sartre has written a book entitled, “Being and Nothingness”; and Heidegger has written one called “Being and Time”. Here’s a short history of the term which shows how difficult... Read more