Blog Archive

  • Aristotle and the egoist worry (part 1)

    Aristotle famously held that happiness is the ultimate goal of human life, or — to use language more in keeping with Aristotle — that happiness is the chief good and last end of human life: Let us resume our inquiry and state… what is the highest of all goods achievable by action. Verbally there is very general agreement; for both the general run of men and people of superior refinement say that it is happiness. (NE I.4, 1095a14–19) Happiness, then, is something final and self-sufficient, and is the end of action. (NE I.7, 1097b20) Happiness… is the best, noblest, and most pleasant thing in the world……

  • Notes on the Genesis Prologue and Leviticus

    I don’t have a track record for writing blog posts particularly frequently, but even if we take this into account my output over the past few months has been less than usual. The reason for this is that I’ve been working on bigger projects, two of which I’d like to share here. I lead a weekly Bible study, wherein we do our best to unpack what the Bible has to say and develop a biblically-informed worldview. Since the beginning of last year, we have gone through a number of different studies, but for two of them I ended up writing extensive…

  • Natural law vs the moral argument

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    Up until recently, I had thought that natural law theory was compatible with moral arguments formulated as follows: If God does not exist, then objective moral values and duties do not exist. Objective moral values and duties do exist. Therefore, God exists. Moral arguments of this kind have been made popular by defenders such as CS Lewis and William Lane Craig, and this specific formulation comes from the latter. In a post from a few years ago I explained my position on the compatibility of this with natural law theory as follows: I think technically we can still use [the…

  • Self-perfective immanent activity

    At the beginning of his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle distinguishes two ways an activity can be related to the end for which that activity is done: either the activity is distinct from its end, or they are the same. We call those activities that are distinct from their ends transient and those that are the same immanent. Now, because an activity can be done for a variety of reasons, it’s possible that sometimes it is transient and other times that it is immanent. For example, a paradigmatic example of transient activity is the building of an object, like a chair or house. In the paradigmatic…

  • Review of The Dictionary of Christianity and Science

    Disclaimer: I was given a free copy of this book so that I could do this review. The question about the proper relationship between science and religion has a long history in Western thought, going back to at least as far as the fifth century with St. Augustine. Over the centuries Christians have approached this question in a number of different ways and from various different angles, with new approaches being developed all the time. This overabundance of ideas can make it difficult for the layperson, the apologist, or the theologian to know where to start when it comes to answering…

  • A simple matter made complex

    Alice: I just bought a shelf from Ikea. Bob: Strictly speaking, you bought the matter of a shelf from Ikea. Alice: Well, that’s the thing that matters, isn’t it? 😛 Bob: Not really, since it’s the form that makes the matter a shelf. Alice: That’s a different matter entirely, I was just — Bob: Not so, it would be the same matter, just with a different form. Alice: I was trying to say that there’s no disagreement of any substance here. Bob: Agreed. For there to be a disagreement regarding substance, one of us would need to think the shelf had…

  • A web of links

    I’ve been working on a number of larger projects over the past few months, and so haven’t had the opportunity to post anything in a while. I hope to be finishing up with some of these in the next few weeks. In the meantime, I’ve collected a number of interesting links (mostly videos) for your viewing pleasure. Robert Kuhn over at Closer To Truth has recently interviewed Eleonore Stump on a number of interesting questions: What are persons? Do they have souls? Do heaven and hell really exist? And what is God’s eternity? Be sure to also check out earlier questions to…

  • Fear of the Lord

    Throughout Scripture — both Old and New testaments — God’s people are told to fear him, which at first glance seems to be an odd response to a God full of grace and love. Perhaps the most puzzling statement comes when the people of Israel first meet God at the mountain in Exodus 20. Notice what Moses says to the people in response to their fear: Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off…

  • Dialogue on God’s interaction with the universe

    Bob: How can an immaterial God interact with a material universe? Alice: The question itself needs to be questioned before we can answer it. Bob: How so? It seems like a fairly straightforward question. Alice: Well, consider the word “interact.” God does not interact with anything. To interact requires action going in both directions, and since God is pure actuality this is impossible. Rather God acts on and through creatures without them acting on him. Bob: Ok, so we’ll change the question to how an immaterial God can act on or through a material creature. Alice: It’s better but still…

  • Patience

    A while ago my church was doing a series on the fruit of the Spirit, listed in Galatians 5:22-23. I did the sermon on patience, and below are the notes for this. The audio can be found at my church’s website. In addition to reading the list of the fruit in Galatians, we also read James 5:7-11, upon which the sermon is based. My broader approach to patience is based off Aquinas’s discussion in ST II-II Q136. Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient…

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