HU Philosophical Theology

Friedrich Nietzsche, a well-known atheist philosopher, wrote a lot about religion in general and Christianity in particular. Some of his criticisms are well worth grappling with. One has to do with the following sentiment that some of you may be familiar with:              He’s so heavenly minded he’s of no earthly good Put as a warning it goes like this:             Do not be so heavenly minded that you are of no earthly good The worry is that some Christians tend to (a) dwell upon heaven so much that they neglect all sorts of issues and needs right in front of them, or (b) see all of the problems in this life as minuscule compared to the problem of eternal life that they ignore various matters of earthly or temporal justice (e.g. poverty) and only offer the gospel.  I think SK would think that the worry is a legitimate one, but that the solution ...

Perhaps we can see what SK is up to by considering what he says about commanded love and what I think it the best account of the nature of love in general.  Nature of Love: Pulling together insights from Scripture, Augustine, Aquinas, and SK, contemporary philosopher (and mathematician!) Alexander Pruss argues that the following is the most accurate account of the nature of love in general: Love involves appreciation, benevolence, and striving for union. Briefly, appreciation is grasping the value of the object of one's love. Benevolence is willing THE good for the object of one's love. Striving for union is seeking unity with the object of one's in various ways that are appropriate to the type of love.  I think the above is an acocunt of love that is both consistent with God's Word and helps illimunate it in various ways.  In erotic love and friendship what gets appreciated, the good that one wills for the beloved, and the union one seeks with the belov...

One of you asked why we do not hear sermons about proper self-love. It is a good question. I am not sure I have heard many sermons about neighbor love either. At least, I do not recall many, and I certainly do not recall any that come close to what SK is saying (by the way, if you do not agree with SK about whatever, bring it up; while I think this book is excellent, I do not think it is God’s Holy Word).  If the main points of  Works of Love  are fundamentally correct, then a good sermon on proper self-love should sound very similar to a good sermon on proper neighbor love. The command to love your neighbor as yourself is, according to SK, a command to love everyone in the same way. It is a command to love irrespective of differences in persons. It is a command to love in such a way that the real distinctions between us are not given any weight. The command to love does not depend on the one who is loved. It depends on the command. The command either makes us all eq...

My wife has been sharing with me some of the stuff folks are posting are social media about the Ford/Kavanaugh hearings. I have read a decent number of op-eds from both sides of the issue (from both pro-Ford and Pro-Kavanaugh persons). I do not pretend to have more details than any of you. If you know of relevant details please post them in the comments section. I am trying to think hard about how I am supposed to love in such cases. I think SK's philosophical commentary on the Bible can give us some guidance here. It is not at all surprising, but it is contrary to my impulses and I bet it is contrary to yours. I am to love Ford as though I am her. I am to love her as myself. My wife told me about a meme or whatever that asks us to imagine Ford as our mother or grandmother or daughter. Amen! In fact, we should go further; I should imagine Ford as myself. When I do that, I want to weep with her. I am to love Kavanaugh as though I am him. I am to love him as myself. I do not know...

Our fear of being deceived causes us to be deceived in many ways, more than we would be deceived if we were not fearful of being deceived. There is a deep irony here, an irony that is tragic. We fear something and to protect ourselves from it, we open ourselves up to being ripped apart by something much more dangerous and diabolical. Perhaps certain phobias have this feature. Here’s a poorly-worded example that I have often thought about: In order to protect myself from getting hurt by others I have decided to be cautious in all my relationships; cautious in who I open up to; cautious in who gets to know me; cautious in who I love and who I allow to love me.   Sadly, I think this is a common way of being. I know that I have experienced it. But note that the person who says this will typically say the following:  “Others should know that they can safely open up to me, they can reveal themselves to me. I will not hurt them as I have been hurt; I will not betr...

Dear Students, I really enjoyed our look at the atonement through the eyes of philosophers (I’ve enjoyed everything we’ve looked at thus far in our course as well  J ). In this post, I am just rambling a bit.  As you could tell in class, I do not have my own theory worked out in any detail. I still tend to think that all of the models I am familiar with say something important and that it may be a big mistake to rule out any of them completely. But I am inclined to think that emphasis matters as does starting point. For example, if I emphasize Christ as a moral role-model to the exclusion of Christ as a sacrificial lamb, I am not only going to miss something important about Christ’s atoning work, I am going to miss something important about the nature of God, the nature of sin, justice, goodness, love, etc.  One of the things that struck me about the Strabbing piece came right at the end of it. She wrote: “By appealing to the expressive function of punishment...