And with that... we've completed the survey of Christian Philosophical Theology. It's really unfortunate that the Oxford Handbook folks reserved only three chapters for an exploration of philosophical theology in any other religions. Not only that, but how did Hinduism not get a chapter?! Color me SUPER unimpressed. This chapter is nowhere near as in-depth … Continue reading OHPT: Thoughts on Jewish Theological Philosophy (Chapter 24)
Warning: this is going to be a short post. After 500 pages of Christian theology (and hit-or-miss philosophy), I kind of hit my limit with "absurd theological beliefs that have perfectly satisfactory metaphorical or symbolic explanations but instead of talking about what richness lies therein we are going to twist ourselves in logical knots trying … Continue reading OHPT: Thoughts on The Eucharist (Chapter 23)
Finally! We've come to the topic I have been eager for and a topic I feel VERY passionately about: the rationality of believing in hell. Spoiler alert: I don't think a belief in hell is rational if we are holding to the existence of a Good God, a perfectly knowing, powerful, loving God. But I'll … Continue reading OHPT: Thoughts on Heaven and Hell (Chapter 22)
A short chapter! Praise be. On a topic that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me (and the author kind of agrees) so this was a fun little breeze. Also, I drop a "WTF" regarding Catholic theology so... fun times and let's dive in. "The Resurrection of the Body" was written by Dr. … Continue reading OHPT: Thoughts on The Resurrection of the Body (Chapter 21)
I've been thinking a lot about the remarkable resistance of a number of Christians to the reality of science. Evangelicals have been shown to be three times more likely to flout CDC guidelines on COVID preparedness. Evangelicals don't want evolution taught in schools. Evangelicals want to ban abortion but don't want to do any of … Continue reading Religion can save individuals. Only science can save the world.
My brain is so tired. This semester is kicking my booty a little, work is busy, Chris's life is busy and stressful, we have to do a lot of shuffling and reshuffling and moving to make way for our apartment building to do a big (overdue) plumbing retrofit... so I don't have much to share … Continue reading OHPT: Thoughts on the Incarnation (Chapter 20)
It's an odd and rather endearing quality of humans that as soon as someone passes, if they were good at something, anything really, then we suddenly view them through rose-colored glasses and believe, even for a moment, that they were transcendent. They become other-worldly, almost god-like in our eyes. I kind of love this about … Continue reading I’ve been thinking about Supreme Court justices
A few weeks ago, one of my favorite philosophy tweet follows, Nigel Warburton (@philosophybites), British philosopher and host of the fantastic podcast, Philosophy Bites, tweeted a question (a tweet I can no longer find because I am tech-inept) that was something to the effect of: If you were to teach an ethics class that was … Continue reading An ethics course that actually helps people *be* more ethical
Chapter 19 tackles one of the biggest questions in Christian theology, for the trained theologian and the layperson: how is it that Christ's death on the Cross atoned for humanity's sins? For that matter, what does "atone" mean? This chapter was written by Oliver D. Crisp. Dr. Crisp is Professor of Analytic Theology at the … Continue reading OHPT: Thoughts on Original Sin and Atonement (Chapter 19)
At first I was a little disappointed opening this chapter, because I realized we were entering a new section, leaving behind my beloved Problem of Evil. But Section IV, Topics in Christian Philosophical Theology (is that not what we've been doing this whole time?! Je suis confus) started off with an oldie but a goodie: … Continue reading OHPT: Thoughts on The Trinity (Chapter 18)
