Philosophy « deviantmonk

Philosophy

Individual Substance of a Rational Nature

A month and a half ago I was inspired by my brother’s foray into the burgeoning world of auto-tune theology (which, no doubt, is suffering from an over-population problem) and decided I would make my own attempt. However, as the market for auto-tune theology is surely quite crowded, I went a slightly different, albeit related, route.

Listen to the auto-tune track here. Continue reading →

Church Fathers / Paraphrase / Philosophy / Theology — 2 Comments
30
Nov 10

Mystery

This installment of my church fathers’ paraphrases comes from St. Hilary of Poitiers.

Hilary was born to pagan parents sometime around AD 310, but early in his life his study of the scriptures led to his conversion. He was well beloved and respected and in 353 was elected to the bishopric of Poitiers.

Hilary’s life spanned the Arian controversy, and he inserted himself significantly into the disputation. He had disagreements with the bishop of Arles, Saturninus, and attempted to have him excommunicated for his Arianism. However, Saturninus convened the council of Beziers in 356 to both justify his position and deal with Hilary’s meddling. As the majority of the council members were themselves Arians, and as the emperor Constantius was disposed to be in favor of protecting Arianism, Hilary was pronounced against and exiled to Phrygia in 356. He was allowed to return to his bishopric a few years later. Continue reading →

Philosophy — No Comments
29
Oct 10

The Limit of Naturalism

David B. Hart argues that naturalism is incapable of accounting for the reality of that which is, and thus ipso facto eliminates itself as an exhaustive approach to reality:

The one thing that a naturalist view of reality cannot encompass is being itself, the very existence of nature; nature, by definition, is what already exists, and no investigation of its innate causes can penetrate the mystery of its ontological contingency. Thus naturalism is always surrounded and permeated and exceeded by that which is, quite literally, “super naturam”; and naturalism can be held as a philosophy only to the degree that one fails or scrupulously refuses to notice this surd of the supernatural, this ever deeper mystery behind and beyond all the lesser mysteries of natural order.

Read the rest of it here.

Philosophy — No Comments
20
Oct 10

Ought

Yesterday I happened to read an article on NYTimes.com entitled Morals Without God? In it De Waal seeks to demonstrate that the building blocks of morality are older than humanity, and that we do not need God to explain how we got where we are today. Continue reading →