Author: Roland

  • By grace through faith

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    Have you noticed that theological discussions about grace almost always tend to include questions about conversion? What I mean is that they often center around the process by which someone moves from hostility towards God to desiring him. In particular, the Christian understands this as coming to faith in God and his gospel. In Protestant… →

  • Because God said so

    In a recent discussion with some friends, the question of why murder was wrong came up (actually, it was why Aquinas would say murder was wrong, but the discussion equally applies to the more general discussion to be had here). The answer “because God said so” quickly came up and, being a natural law theorist… →

  • The metaphysics of gender

    I recently listened to this talk by John Finley titled The Metaphysics of Gender: A Thomistic Approach. Below are my notes of this. I skip the introductory remarks and follow the four-section division of the talk. Note that by “gender” here we do not mean the psychological or social construct introduced by modern feminists. Rather, by… →

  • Common goods

    I had originally intended to tie up the thoughts begun in previous posts on natural and moral goodness, substantial activities, basic goods, and virtual existence, but it has since occurred to me that this would be too ambitious for a single blog post. So, I’ll attempt to approach the topic in installments as I find the time. Those… →

  • Contrastive probabilistic explanation

    I want to propose something I’m not totally convinced is correct, but that I think is worth considering. In general we have the question about contrastive indeterministic explanation: an antecedent A can give rise to two different consequences B and C, it actually gives rise to B, and we want to know why it gave… →

  • Uninstantiatables in Aristotelian Mathematics

    Any successful Aristotelian foundations of mathematics needs to account for mathematical objects that are uninstantiated and even uninstantiatable. Examples include (1) positive whole (or “natural”) numbers larger than the number of objects in reality, (2) negative numbers, and (3) infinities. Uninstantiated natural numbers As the Aristotelian sees things, we abstract quantity and structure from reality,… →

  • Smith’s epistemological argument for hylomorphism

    The following quote comes from Wolfgang Smith’s The Quantum Enigma: As Aristotle pointed out long ago, the act of knowing consists in a certain union of the intellect with its object. But how can the intellect be joined to the external thing? Such a union, clearly, can only be conceived in terms of a third… →

  • How Aristotle starts the Nicomachean Ethics

    In the opening passage of the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle seeks to pick out the specific subject of his study for the remainder of the book. His discussion is often misunderstood, but a good understanding of it will serve us well in understanding the study of ethics. We will consider the passage bit by bit with… →

  • How can a loving God send people to hell?

    I was recently asked to contribute a piece for a local Christian magazine called Scope Magazine, on the topic of how a loving God could send people to hell. Below is the unedited version I sent them. The official (and slightly edited) version can be read online here. Perhaps one of the most uncomfortable Christian doctrines… →

  • From morality to nature and back again

    Below is a talk I recently gave at a local apologetics meet-up. The goal was to introduce and partially defend natural law theory to a group of fellow-Protestants who, as far as I was aware, had not engaged extensively with natural law theory before. The talk was recorded in various parts, with video coming in the second part.… →