The larger project of which this volume forms part is an attempt to craft a coherent doctrine of divine eternity and God’s relationship to time. Central to this project is the integration of the concerns of theology with the concept of time in relativity theory. Unfortunately, theologians and philosophers of religion do not in general understand Einstein’s theories, whereas physicists and philosophers of science, under the influence of verificationism, have largely focused philosophical reflection on spatiotemporal concepts given by physics. There is thus a paucity of integrative literature dealing with God and relativity theory. The collapse of positivism and the rejuvenation of metaphysics have led to a renewed scrutiny of the metaphysical foundations of relativity theory and the concept(s) time found therein. This volume provides an accessible and philosophically informed examination of the concept of time in relativity, the ultimate aim being the achievement of a tenable theological synthesis. ~ Product Description
Admittedly, it is not so attractive when the apparent modesty disguises a self-denigration that is almost tantamount to self-hatred, as is sometimes evident in current forms of “multiculturalism.” Among Christians committed to ecumenism there is a type that is aptly described as an ecumaniac. An ecumaniac is defined as someone who loves every church but his own. So it is that multiculturalists are forever discovering superiorities in other cultures, oblivious to the fact that, in the larger human story, Western culture is singular in its eagerness to praise and learn from other cultures. One is never more distinctively Western than when criticizing what is distinctively Western. The same holds for being American. In our multiculturalism we display our superiority by demonstrating our ability to see through what others — mistakenly, we say — admire in our culture. So maybe this new and self-denigrating way of telling the American story is not so modest after all.
This vital study offers a new interpretation of Hume’s famous “Of Miracles,” which notoriously argues against the possibility of miracles. By situating Hume’s popular argument in the context of the eighteenth-century debate on miracles, Earman shows Hume’s argument to be largely unoriginal and chiefly without merit where it is original. Yet Earman constructively conceives how progress can be made on the issues that Hume’s essay so provocatively posed about the ability of eyewitness testimony to establish the credibility of marvelous and miraculous events.
Americans have at times “theologized” their history, seeing this experiment as an instrument — maybe even the instrument — of God’s unfolding purposes. That way of thinking has been out of fashion for some time now. When it was in vogue, it was sometimes attended by a doctrine of American “exceptionalism” so exaggerated that American purposes were depicted in angelic hues, untouched by the ambiguities, corruptions, and lust for power associated with mere mortals… The caution is always in order. Those who think of themselves as angels may end up by giving themselves license to do things that are, in fact, quite beastly.
One reason American history is no longer told in terms of redemptive purpose is that we no longer think of history itself as having a purpose. History is a matter of this happening and then that happening and then the other thing happening, and who is to say what it all means? As the man said, “History is just one damn thing after another.” The very idea that history should have a meaning strikes many of our contemporaries as highly improbable, maybe even nonsensical. If there is no purpose, there is no meaning. There is, although perhaps only on the surface, something attractively modest about this way of thinking. Especially when it is contrasted with the pride, presumption, and delusions of divinely ordained power that sometimes attended talk about “Christian America.”
The myth of a covenant, we are told, is simply no longer believable. From Thomas Hobbes in the seventeenth century through John Rawls in the twentieth, it was replaced by the myth of the social contract. I expect people counted the myth of the social contract more believable because it was a myth of their own creation. It was a fiction pure and simple, but it had the attraction of being our fiction. According to this story, human beings emerged from a “state of nature” in order to constitute society. Or, in the case of John Rawls, they are behind a pre-social “veil of ignorance” making deals with one another according to their calculated self-interest and thus bringing “society,” with its key idea of justice, into being. No matter how sophisticated, or at least complicated, theories of social contract may be, they are as thoroughly made up as nursery tales. In fact, there are not and never have been human beings apart from societies. The individual person does not emerge from isolation into society but from society. Some societies are called primitive and some are called advanced, but society is the constant in the human story. The “state of nature” and “veil of ignorance” are fables; nobody has ever encountered, nor can we even plausibly hypothesize, persons apart from society.
As a disciple, the Christian philosopher is enthralled with Jesus, he trusts Him, and wants everthing in his life to enhance Jesus’ reputation among the nations. The Christian is here primarly to serve a Name, not to make a name and the disciple recognizes that in Jesus all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge reside.
Christian belief is produced by a cognitive process (the “internal instigation of the Holy Spirit” [in Aquinas’ words] or the “internal testimony of the Holy Spirit” [in Calvin’s words] functioning properly in an appropriate epistemic environment according to a design plan successfully aimed at truth.
The October 2000 issue of Forbes ASAP is a remarkable, voluminous anthology pondering the question: “What is true?” An impressive crowd of cognoscenti discuss the status of truth in the digital age in each of their respective specialties: business, culture, faith, science, history, and people. A tone of jaded skepticism pervades, except, of course, in the science column, where scientism perseveres. On culture, Pico Lyer’s [sic], “Do You Copy?” and, Ian Frazier’s, “Th-Th-That’s Not All Folks,” both commend the facsimile over the original, the fabrication over the real. In contrast, Stephen Jay Gould’s, “Only Human,” offers a wistful tribute to the authentic artifact en route to a biological definition of the human essence. Richard Dawkins’, “Hall of Mirrors,” is a stirring apologetic for science being the oracle of truth. For faith, Reynolds Price discloses a gentle and wisehearted Christian confession written to his godson. And, Michael Korda offers an amusing, if derisive, look at the Bible from the perspective of a publisher. This special issue features fine, fascinating writing across the board and is highly recommended. Finally, Zogby’s, What is “True”? Poll includes several notes of interest.
The anti-correspondence, representationalist theories which now fill up the recent philosophical past are far from coming together in an adequate account of the mind-world relation or lack thereof. It is not as if there were now available some solid insight grounding an alternative to the type of accessible correspondence described above. In fact there is no generally acceptable alternative to correspondence. There is a series of successively discredited theories from Locke to Hume, to Kant to Hegel (or Fichte) to positivism and phenomenalism in their various forms; and then “language” (the “new way of words”) is substituted for the way of “ideas” or “experience,” and the old battles fought over gain. This time about how words tie to the world, and the outcome being a lingo-centric predicament instead of an ego-centric predicament. One cannot easily suppose that there is a philosophically credible alternative to the correspondence theory of truth. We do not have “something better” on hand.