Category: Philosophy
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Dallas Willard Carries a Big Stick
We have all heard the famous quote by President Teddy Roosevelt, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” Roosevelt was talking about his foreign policy when he made that famous quote. If you have ever heard Dallas Willard speak you have experienced the academic version of that saying. He speaks in modest tones, but his…
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Christianity as a Knowledge Tradition
Last week I delivered a paper at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society. This post is an excerpt from a longer series I wrote some time back the content of which pertains, in part, to my recent ETS paper: In the first two installments of this series, I have sought to establish two…
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Welcome to the Humean Race
David Hume (1711-1776) was a real gadfly of a philosopher. As skeptics go, he was one of the champion doubters of all time. Reading his work can be bracing, because he knows more variations on “Oh, really?” and “How do you know that?” than anybody between Montaigne and Foucault (You can use that line to…
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What Did Jesus Believe About Scripture?
As a part of our discipleship, we who seek to follow the Lord Jesus desire to believe what he believed. It would be odd for one to claim, on the one hand, to be devoted to Jesus as Lord, and, on the other hand, to simply set aside as false or irrelevant a view that…
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Counseling with Boethius
During my graduate school years, I was fortunate to have worked on the pastoral staff at three different churches. They were all great experiences with different challenges and expectations. One element that was common to each position, however, was the need to engage at times in some form of pastoral counseling, bringing consolation to those…
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How Did Jesus Act?: Jesus as a Moral Teacher
It has long been recognized that, irrespective of one’s religious views about Jesus of Nazareth, he is one of the world’s leading ethical thinkers and teachers. Indeed, as late as the second world war, most moral thinkers in the West—secular or not—did their best to show that their moral theories yielded results in keeping with…
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How Did Jesus Argue? Jesus & Logic
Today there is widespread indifference to, even downright hostility towards logic and the fundamental laws that govern it. We are sometimes told that logic is a Western construction invented by DWEM’s (Dead White European Males such as Aristotle), that in a postmodern world, story and narrative have replaced a cold-hearted, logical approach to life, and…
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Solitude and Silence as Spiritual Disciplines (Part III)
Read Part I here, and Part II here. One final method for practicing silence and solitude is what I call a ‘solitude retreat’. (3) Once or twice a year, go alone on a solitude retreat from 9 am one day until 5 pm the next day. Go to a retreat center that has as one…
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Solitude and Silence as Spiritual Disciplines (Part II)
Read Part I here, and Part III here. Two regular practices of solitude and silence: First, you must remember that when you go into solitude and silence, your basic goal is to do nothing. Yes, nothing! You are to center yourself in quiet and rest. As you do that, you also focus on centering your…
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Solitude and Silence as Spiritual Disciplines (Part I)
Read Part II here, and Part III here. Throughout his writings and lectures, Dallas Willard has warned that the hardest thing to get North American people to do is nothing. The regular practice of doing nothing is crucial for spiritual growth. It keeps us from having an inflated view of our importance, it surfaces anxiety,…
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Is the Desire to Avoid Hell Egotistical? (Part II)
Read Part I here. Last week, JP Moreland began his discussion on whether or not the desire to avoid hell was egotistical. The following is the second part of his two part discussion. The second part begins with a summarization of the first part: In sum, it could be argued that Scripture can be understood…
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Understanding and Engagement
How does a parent know that their children are being educated? To say that someone is educated necessarily entails assessment but, often in today’s academic institutions much of what turns out to be an attempt at education and assessment turns out to be a mindless comportment to a set of dictated standards. Parents are often…