Theology

Christian Audio continues their generosity to the Christian reading public by providing this months free audiobook, The Confessions of Saint Augustine. There are no strings attached. The Confessions are considered to be the first Western autobiography written (around 397-398 A.D.) and has been very influential throughout church history. Augustine tells the story [...]

While reading Ronald H. Nash’s The Gospel and the Greeks, I came across the following quote of A. H. Arrstrong which came from his An Introduction to Ancient Philosophy. These comments, according to Nash, illustrate Plato’s relevance for Christian thought. I found them worthy of consideration. Everyone who believes in an objective and unchanging [...]

Rachel Motte has a post at Scriptorium called “The Candidate and the President: Rachel Motte Reports from Saddleback.” The following two parapraghs from her post provide a concise summary of the impressions made by the two participants: Mr. Obama has talked at length in previous forums about his ability to bring people together. In reality [...]

John Mark Reynolds has a three-part discussion on what evangelicals want in regard to the coming election. In Part 1, he lays out some major issues of concern to most evangelicals. In Part 2, he presents a letter, in its entirety, from an Obama supporter who is also evangelical. In Part 3, [...]

I was unable to watch the civil forum which took place at Saddleback church on Saturday evening, so I recorded it and watched last evening. It was one of the most enjoyable political debates/discussions I have ever viewed. I feel like I know both men better now. It was clear that both [...]

William F. Vallicella, the Maverick Philosopher, provided an exercise for his readers in which the goal is to explain why the syllogism is invalid. There are formal rules of logic which must be followed to arrive at a valid conclusion. Inversely, there are also formal fallacies which, when committed, lead to an invalid conclusion. [...]

First of all, Al Mohler (here) examines the question of whether marital infidelity and sexual immorality should have any bearing on America’s judgment of the fitness of political candidates for public office. Mohler comes down on the side of unfitness: The American people are incredibly forgiving, but John Edwards violated a basic sense of public [...]

Solzhenitsyn, one of the most important men of the 20th century died a few days ago on August 3, 2008. Robert Kraynak, of First Things, has written a piece in his honor, Solzhenitsyn and the Battle for the Human Soul. Solzhenitsyn was a Russian writer and historian who helped bring down the totalitarian [...]

Ben Witherington has a pretty funny post, Britain is Repossessing America — I’m John Cleese and I Approve this Message. (Who knows if John Cleese has anything to do with it?) The premise of the post is that because America has demonstrated its incompetence by not nominating any competent candidates for U.S. president, [...]

Frank Turk has written a guest post on Between Two Worlds concerning the “dying” Christian bookstore. The Christian bookstore closest to our home has recently closed, at least anecdotally confirming the observation that these bookstores are in trouble. As I read Turk’s expanation of why this is happening, I found myself in agreement [...]

I’ve been a resident of central Florida for over eight years now. I get tons of junk email (most of which I don’t even read, but a recent one caught my interest. I share a small portion of it that rings true to my ears. You Know You’re A Floridian If… Socks are [...]

In my previous post, I briefly introduced a number of assisted reproductive technologies currently in use. Given tise dazzling array of techniques and procedures available to the couple experiencing difficulty bearing children, what moral and ethical implications are present for the Christian couple? [Note: The intended audience of these two posts are Christians [...]

The inability to bear children has caused great pain to many married couples which wish to raise a family. The suffering of these couples must not be underestimated. Fortunately, modern medicine has devised a number of assisted reproductive technologies(ART) in order to help the plight of the infertile. Are these reproductive technologies [...]

In my last post, I provided some reasons for preferring substance dualism over physicalism. Today, I give a couple of more reasons and then conclude by commenting on some objections to substance dualism. In addition to the split-brain thought experiment, there is another observation in favor of dualism. I have the property of being [...]

In my previous posts, I have shown that mental properties and physical properties are not identical. This would at least establish that property dualism is true. However, there is good reason to go further and also believe that substance dualism is true. It is not just that the physical brain has two [...]

Michael Novak, at the First Things blog, has a post called Atheism and Evil. There are two points, in particular, he raises that are worth repeating. The first is that atheists are sometimes blind to the fact that an atheistic worldview does nothing to make evil more bearable or bring comfort to the [...]

Amy, of Stand to Reason, has an interesting post, New Atheists: Old Arguments…Old Attitude?, in which she points out that the tactics of the New Atheists are not so new after all. She quotes a 1797 work of William Wilberforce describing the atheists of his day: In our own days, when it is but too [...]

This CNN iReport video of today’s total solar eclipse was shot by a gentleman in Siberia. This video confirms the scriptural passage which states that the heavens declare the glory of God. Total solar eclipses are rare and wonderful occurrences which don’t just happen on every planet. Gonzalez and Richards, in their [...]

Frederica Mathewes-Green has written a post at First Things called When Mother Comes Home. She compares the materialists of the world to the children in the Dr. Seuss childhood storybook, The Cat in the Hat. The kids have watched the cat in the hat, along with thing 1 and thing 2 make a [...]

Intentionality is defined as the “ofness” or “aboutness” of sensations, beliefs, and thoughts. Intentionality is a feature which is true of mental states, but not of physical states. Beliefs are about something, thoughts are of something, and sensations are of things. Neurons and electrical impulses are not about or of anything. [...]