Is God Evil?
I found this “Motivational Poster” today:
Of course, as a believer in God who also places a high emphasis on rationality, I see this as somewhat of a challenge. There are many out there on both sides, who would have us believe that thinking and believing don’t go together. The underlying assumption is that Christians are blithering idiots who refuse to see truths or facts right in front of their faces. Unfortunately there are far too many Christians about whom that accusation is true. We have dropped the ball in many ways when it comes to dealing with rational arguments against our cause. We don’t do a good job of giving the reason for the hope that we have, and this causes us to lose credibility. (more…)
Essentialism (aka the idiocy of Nominalism)
Essentialism is the philosophy that states that essential characteristics of a thing can be separated from its accidents. What is an accident? It’s not just when you have a car wreck. In metaphysics, an accident is a characteristic of an entity that is not essential to its nature.
For example: I have two trees. They both have roots. They both have a main trunk. they both have branches. They both have leaves of some sort. The one on the left however is generally triangular in shape. It’s leaves stay green all year long and are very thin, hard and sharp. You can guess it is some sort of evergreen tree - pine for example. On the right is a tree that is generally broccoli shaped and has broad flat leaves that are not sharp and change colors and fall off in the fall. It is a deciduous tree - a maple for example.
It should be obvious what the essential characteristics of these trees are, and what the accidents are. The essential characteristic - the things that make them trees - are the trunk, the roots, the branches, the fact that they have some leaves of some sort. If any of these were missing in either case, we would not have a tree. We would have something untreeish. If there was a green shortish stalk that didn’t have any branches, but instead had petals, we would have a flower not a tree. But the accidents - the things that are incidental and not germane to the principal - can change without changing the essence of treeness. A tree can have a triangular shape or a broccoli shape. Or it can have other odd shapes. It can be tall or short. It can be a conifer or deciduous. It can have needles or broad, flat leaves. But in any case, it has roots, a trunk and leaves of some kind. (more…)
The Truth War
I’m adding one more series to my plate here on this site. As you know I’ve taken a nose dive into the Cedarville conspiracy issue. I’ll give a brief history if for a wrap up. Cedarville has been in the midst of some philosophical controversy over the past 5-6 years, and as a result some Bible professors have been let go, for what has been cited as “violations of the faculty handbook”. These professors are some of the more “Conservative” professors at Cedarville. They stand for conservative hermeneutics. Because these conservative professors have been let go, and because certain other “Liberal” professors have not been let go, there has arisen a group of students, as personified in the Facebook group “Students who want the truth about the faculty exodus away from Cedarville,” who have jumped to the conclusion that Cedarville is intentionally trying to oust its conservative faculty to replace them with liberal faculty so that they can move away from such things as “Conservative Hermeneutics… Biblical Truth… Scriptural Authority… Her Baptist Roots…” Now there are a plethora of issues that surround this. I’ve tackled the logical error that is the assumption of what is going on – the conspiracy theory that has arisen. But now I’m going to get into some other areas of this.
3 Examples of Nominalism
I guess I can’t always talk about Calvinism, seeing as how it’s not the only thing I think about. Today I’m thinking about Nominalism.
Nominalism:
the doctrine that general or abstract words do not stand for objectively existing entities and that universals are no more than names assigned to them1
In short this is in contrast to a metaphysical epistemology which says that reality is bound to form and our knowledge of anything is an internalization of its form. In short, nominalism says ‘It is what I call it’ while metaphysics says, ‘I call it what it is’. Anyone who has traveled or lived overseas should be able to identify with the metaphysical position. When you get in your car in London and drive through the chunnel and come out on the other side to find you’re driving a voiture, are you suddenly no longer in a car? Of course not! The concept of car is tied to its form and matter, not the word assigned to refer to it. The same is true if you were to drive west instead of south and upon crossing the mountains you find you’re driving a cerbyd. Again, what you’re driving hasn’t changed, because the word has no bearing on it’s metaphysical reality.
You might ask if this is the same thing, because ultimately if we call it what it is, then it is what we call it, right? Not necessarily, because according to my Thomist friend, nominalists assert that it is the naming of the thing that creates its essence. Thus by saying something is something, you make it that way.
But let’s get out of the abstract. Let’s get to the concrete. My friend decries nominalism as one of the worst things to plague philosophy and Christianity. I don’t know enough about it to know whether that is true, but I do know three cases in which I have seen nominalism at work and in each case it is dreadfully wrong.
Monergy or Synergy?
Just so you know it may be some time before I get to the Limited Atonement post because I want to be careful with this one. Limited Atonement is the one doctrine of the five points that I am least sure of. Don’t think that means that I deny it. I believe in Limited Atonement, but I have the problem of not understanding it quite as well as I do the others. So I’m going to take some time to research it a little deeper than I’ve researched the others. I’m going to look at this one from both sides, so who knows we may all be surprised by the results.
This is probably the best time of any to mention that I am not writing this blog, and these posts on Calvinism, as a categorical systematic eisegetical defense of my unwavering belief in hardcore 5-point Calvinism. I believe in 5-point Calvinism, but I do not do so without trying to consider and reconcile the objections raised by skeptics. I also do not care if I disagree with any Calvinists on the particulars (most of it is equivocation anyway). I don’t even care if I disagree with Calvin himself. I care only that I represent soteriology accurately as it is in the Bible. I only care that I agree with Christ and his apostles.
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