I recently found out that a paper that I submitted for an upcoming conference at Baylor called, “The World and Christian Imagination,” has been accepted. In case anyone is interested, I have copied my abstract below and would appreciate any recommendations as to books/articles that are a “must” given what I have stated in my [...]

My lecture last Tuesday (an intro to philosophy summer course) included a discussion on Anselm’s ontological argument. During the course of the lecture, some excellent objections were raised, which caused me to further reflect on Anselm’s argument. The following is an edited summary of exchanges that I had with a few friends in regard to [...]

In the last section of his essay, Schindler returns to the original problem posed by fundamental theology, viz., by affirming the “genuine gratuity of revelation,” we are admitting a discontinuity with human reason; whereas, going the other way and upholding reason’s integrity and its natural desire for the ultimate, we must admit continuity between human [...]

Before finishing out the Schindler series, I thought I’d add a little dash of humor : )
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Because he had only one major publication.
And it was in Hebrew.
And it had no cited references.
And it wasn’t published in a refereed journal or even submitted for peer review.
And some even doubt he wrote it himself.
The scientific community has [...]

Continuing with the second section of Schindler’s essay, we turn to further explore the dramatic aspect of truth, i.e., what does drama have to do with this conception of truth? A good drama always exhibits a “dramatic reversal,” containing moments of both surprise and resolution. Likewise, a good plot is said to “unfold” and is [...]

In the second section of his essay, “Surprised by Truth: The Drama of Fundamental Theology”[1] Schindler begins to map out Balthasar’s dramatic notion of truth by considering two governing principles: (1) the mother’s smile and (2) the identity of freedom and form in the Gestalt. [Gestalt in German literally means “shape” or “form.” However, I [...]

Having summarized Schindler’s introduction, we now proceed to the first section of his essay. Here Schindler briefly runs through certain crucial epistemologies in order to show how they tend toward immanence. The heart of the matter begins with Plato and the Meno paradox—i.e., that according to Socrates, learning is impossible, as nothing essentially new can [...]

As Schindler explains, both theology and philosophy are logoi, i.e., rational discourses about God, and are thus human activities. However, what distinguishes the two is that theology has (or should have) its ultimate foundation “not in reason’s own exigencies” but in revelation—that which transcends human reason. Schindler then presses us to consider whether admitting that [...]

In jazz, something like square-circles are quite acceptable and even beautiful. Often square-circles are the typical example used to illustrate a contradiction, something to avoid at all costs philosophically speaking. However, in jazz we find chords and scales that are the musical equivalents of square-circles. For example, a C major-minor chord consists of the notes [...]

Below is a summary with added comments here and there of a lecture given by Dr. Peter Enns of Westminster Theological seminary on Chronicles and intrabiblical interpretation.
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When we look at the Bible itself, we see evidence of intrabiblical interpretation. The book of Chronicles is an excellent example of intrabiblical interpretation. Though our (Protestant) canonical order [...]

As we have observed in previous posts, Heidegger thinks that it is a mistake to understand nihilism as a simply negative consequence of the Enlightenment, as nihilism (or the seeds of nihilism) came much earlier in the Western philosophical tradition. In his essay, “The Word of Nietzsche,” Heidegger interprets Nietzsche as saying that nihilism is [...]

Recently, I have been discussing with a few friends the topic of the divine ideas, the relation of the divine ideas to creation and to our minds and so on. An analogy that came to mind after several conversations on this topic is the following. Perhaps the divine ideas are like jazz “lead sheets,” and [...]

In preparing for my lecture this week on Plato (for an introduction to philosophy course), I was reviewing the famous allegory of the cave from the seventh chapter of the Republic, and was struck by Plato’s emphasis on the explanatory power of narrativity over strict definition. Though there are numerous aspects upon which one could [...]

By Stiv Fleishman

Thales: Drowning
Parmenides: It wasn’t anything at all
Ockham: Cut while shaving
Russell: Cut while being shaved by one who did not shave himself
Descartes: Stopped thinking
Spinoza: Substance abuse
Leibniz: Monadnucleosis
Darwin: Natural causes
Hume: Unnatural causes
Kant: Transcendental causes (although it was his own idea)
Paley: By design
Heidegger: By Dasein
Meinong: Climbing accident
Neurath: Boating accident
G.E. Moore: By his own hand, obviously
Sheffer: Stroke
Sartre: [...]

Commenting on John 5:36, “but the testimony that I have is greater than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the father has sent me,” Ridderbos says the following in regard to the self-legitimation of Jesus’ [...]

In the second part of his essay, Heidegger addresses the question, “What task is reserved for thinking at the end of philosophy?” The thinking that he has in mind is neither science nor metaphysics, but is something new. “This thinking in question here necessarily falls short of the greatness of the philosophers. It is less [...]

Well, I finally made it out to a Starbucks, and am checking my email for the first time in three days. Unpacking is going fairly well execpt for the fact that this is the first time in my life that my body is actually sore from moving (ugh). On the bright side, I now have [...]

We are full-force in process of moving to our first new home (!), so it is likely that I won’t be blogging for a couple of days. Also, we found out today that our DSL connection at the new place will not be connected until Thursday (#@!_^#&!), so I will not have email access ready-at-hand. [...]

Commenting on John 5:24, “Truly, truly I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life,” Ridderbos writes the following:
“for the one who hears his word and believes God who sent him eternal life has [...]

Human beings always have access to being because we all live in the world. But how is that world understood? Plato articulates the world in the way that it shows itself to the Greek mindset just as Aquinas did in a way understandable to medievals. Instead of emphasizing these as “mere” subjective interpretations of Being, [...]