HU Philosophical Theology

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...

As I mentioned in class the other day, there are a bunch of problems that can be categorized as being related to the problem of the one and the many. The basic issue is that when oneness is prioritized, manyness gets cut out and when manyness is prioritized oneness gets cut out. Or put differently, when unity is most fundamental, diversity gets eliminated and when diversity is most fundamental, unity gets eliminated.  Let’s consider some examples:  Ethics : Making individuals more fundamental than communities results in communities being sacrificed for the sake of the individual. My interests, desires, hopes, etc take precedence over those of the community. If the individual is most fundamental, then it is permissible for the individual to prioritize her interests over those of the community. Making the community more fundamental than the individual results in individuals being sacrificed for the sake of the community. The community’s interest, desires, hopes, etc tak...

Davis writes the following: "[T]he biblical concept of the wrath of God—an embarrassment to theology in the last century or more—is in my view an essential part of the Bible’s message. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the wrath of God is  our only hope  as human beings. (The grace of God is also our only hope, but that is another story.)  Question 1 : What reasons can you think of for why he would say this? Question 2 : What do you think?

Suppose you had been born in Saudi Arabia. If you had been you would have been a Muslim. Suppose you had been born in India. If you had been you would have been a Hindu. Suppose you had been born... If you had been, you would have been... Considerations like these can quite easily give rise to the thought that your current religious beliefs (e.g. that God exists, that Jesus is his son and is the savior of the world, ...) are in some sense arbitrary. You are not justified in thinking that the religious beliefs that you actually have are true and thus that every belief that is incompatible with them is false. After all, you only believe what you do because of a kind of accident of birth. This gives rise to the following principle:  If  S 's religious or philosophical beliefs are such that if  S  had been born elsewhere and elsewhen, she wouldn't have held them, then those beliefs are produced by unreliable belief-producing mechanisms and hence have no war...

Here is my presentation of the objection: The objection here claims that we have an epistemic duty to treat like cases alike: if the evidence I have for p is the same (or similar) to the evidence that you have for ~p, then we should suspend belief with respect to p and ~p. Response 1:   The evidence will, in many or most cases, not be relevantly similarly. The phenomenology (the way the evidence is experienced by the subject) will be different, and thus the internal evidence will be different. Different rankings of evidence will be likely resulting in different overall assessment of the evidence.  Reply:  But those who deny (1) and (2) may have the same phenomenology and whatnot so that there really is relevant similarity—all the way down to how the evidence feels and is assessed. Think of two different detectives with the exact same evidence, same experience on the job, same level of intelligence, etc. and yet they each arrive at a different conclusion. I...

Dear Students, I hope to post here at least once a week for the remainder of the course. Most of the posts will be further thoughts on the readings or topics we are investigating, and some will include info that will help you master the material. I will do my best to alert you to the latter kinds of posts. Please feel free to comment on anything I write up, and you are welcome to post something of your own if you feel so inclined. Here's the syllabus for our course: Instructor Information :           Dr. David E. Alexander Phone:  359-4305  Email:  dalexander@huntington.edu Office Location: LB 223 Office Hours: Email me for a specific time, or I will be on campus all day MWF (roughly 9-5).  Please feel free to stop by my office anytime I am in it.   Course Description:                  This is a s...