A theological fallacy in the Intelligent Design argument

Stephen Myer, and much of the intelligent design movement, generally approach their arguments for God by pointing to signs of teleology, such as “biological information” or genetic “coding” or complex organic systems; they then argue that the standard Neo-Darwinian model of random mutation with natural selection cannot account for the origin and rich diversity of those phenomenon; they then posit that this phenomena must come from an intelligent designer, often appealing to our intuition and experience, namely with regard to artifacts (computers, machines, a clock, etc. etc.).

Origen on Stars as Rational beings

The following is an argument that Origen (who is my favorite Church Father by far, and among my favorite theologians) has for why stars ought to be considered living, rational beings, this is not an argument that I agree with, nevertheless, it is interesting, mainly because it’s based on an observation which many of us moderns would consider as evidence that stars are not conscious selves: they follow to mathematical regularities. Panpsychism is gaining popularity in philosophy at the moment, so who knows, perhaps Origen might be vindicated, either way, I don’t think I’ll be wondering what bundles of burning gasses spheres of plasma think any time soon, and I believe better grounds for consciousness, agency, and ipseity can be posited than those assumed by Origen or argued for by Panpsychists.

Why the 2-Source hypothesis, why Q

This post is a continuation of a previous post on Casey’s synoptic approach, but now presenting what persuades me that the two-source hypothesis is the best one, much of what I’m saying is found in Kloppenborg’s helpful volume Q: the Earliest Gospel.

Yoram Hazony, The Hebrew bible on Truth and Being

Yoram Hazony, in his Philosophy of the Hebrew Scriptures, includes a study on “truth and being” in the Hebrew bible, essentially a study on the metaphysical assumptions of the Hebrew bible. He writes first about the concept of truth emet (אמת) and falsity sheker , (שקר) in the Hebrew bible. He argues (using careful exegesis and textual analysis) that these terms do not refer merely to language, but rather “truth and falsity are simply qualities of objects or persons, which parallel the English usage of terms such as reliable, steadfast,” (199), and when applied to language “True words are always those that are spoken about true things, whereas false words are always those that are spoken about false things.”

Maurice Casey’s synoptic approach

Maurice Casay’s Jesus of Nazareth: An Independent historian’s account of his life and teaching, is a work on the historical Jesus that I find solid and helpful, his work on the Aramaic origins of Mark and the Aramaic origins of Q have been especially interesting for me, and hopefully will be taken on more by gospel scholars and historians of Christian origins. In this post I will be taking some quotes from the section “Historically Reliable sources,” whose synoptic approach I find largely reasonable, and after that I will point out what I find helpful in Casey’s approach, and what I disagree with.

Plutarch on supernatural accounts

In the history of the historiographical study of the bible, there has always been the question of how to approach supernatural phenomena. Some, following Bultmann’s demythologizing method, move to essentially rid historical reconstruction of anything magical or miraculous, others, for example an NT Wright, or other apologetic minded historians, tend to defend the historicity of supernatural events and give a theological grounding. Others take a more middle road, for example Maurice Casey, who was an atheist and a new testament scholar, allowed for things like healings and the like, if the historical evidence was strong enough, noting that one could give a naturalistic account of such events (psycho-somatic or the like) if one so pleases, yet others take a more agnostic approach, such as Dale Alison, who allows for supernatural events, if the historical evidence is strong enough, noting that the world is much stranger than any dogmatic naturalistic or theological system can make sense of.

Against Universalism and Infernalism

The following is an argument against both Universalism (in the soteriological sense) and Eternal conscious torment.

Apologetics and Theology in Pannenberg’s Introduction to Systematic Theology

Wolfhart Pannenberg’s systematic theology begins with a slim volume, an introduction; which, in my mind situates how theology needs to be done today. One important aspect of the volume is its focus on the necessity to demonstrate the truth of the Christian claims in order to do any theology whatsoever, he writes:

A Defense of Annihilationism

This post will presuppose a familiarity with my argument presented in my article God as Love, in creation, available here. It will assume a Shellingian concept of God as dialectical and dynamic, and a notion of Love developed by Alain Badiou on others in which one determines herself through the other.

ἐν αὐτῷ γὰρ ζῶμεν καὶ κινούμεθα καὶ ἐσμέν,

Acts 17:28:

ἐν αὐτῷ γὰρ ζῶμεν καὶ κινούμεθα καὶ ἐσμέν,

This is, in my view, one of the richest passages touching on theological metaphysics in scripture. The commentary notes below will largely focus on the historical background, and the possible stoic origins of the phrase, and how it might have been understood/wielded in a form compatible with Jewish/Christian thought. My own thoughts are that this passage ought to be a corner stone of theological metaphysics, and that more recent theologians who have focused on consciousness and life as a window for natural theology—such as David Bentley Harts neo-platonism, Michel Henry’s Life philosophy, and Steven Nemes’s phenomenological theology—are on the right track.:

Here are some commentary notes on the passage: