This has given rise to different forms of agnosticism and relativism which have led philosophical research to lose its way in the shifting sands of widespread scepticism. Recent times have seen the rise to prominence of various doctrines which tend to devalue even the truths which had been judged certain. A legitimate plurality of positions has yielded to an undifferentiated pluralism, based upon the assumption that all positions are equally valid, which is one of today’s most widespread symptoms of the lack of confidence in truth. Even certain conceptions of life coming from the East betray this lack of confidence, denying truth its exclusive character and assuming that truth reveals itself equally in different doctrines, even if they contradict one another. On this understanding, everything is reduced to opinion; and there is a sense of being adrift. While, on the one hand, philosophical thinking has succeeded in coming closer to the reality of human life and its forms of expression, it has also tended to pursue issues — existential, hermeneutical or linguistic — which ignore the radical question of the truth about personal existence, about being and about God. Hence we see among the men and women of our time, and not just in some philosophers, attitudes of widespread distrust of the human being’s great capacity for knowledge. With a false modesty, people rest content with partial and provisional truths, no longer seeking to ask radical questions about the meaning and ultimate foundation of human, personal and social existence. In short, the hope that philosophy might be able to provide definitive answers to these questions has dwindled.
Encyclical letter from Pontiff John Paul II to the bishops of the Catholic church on the relationship between faith and reason. Faith and reason, teaches John Paul, are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth — in a word, to know himself — so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves.
But no word is more misunderstood in our society than the word love. One of the most useful books we can read is C. S. Lewis’ unpretentious little masterpiece The Four Loves. There, he clearly distinguishes agape, the kind of love Christ taught and showed, from storge (natural affection or liking), eros (sexual desire), and philia (friendship). It is agape that is the greatest thing in the world.
The old word for agape in English was charity. Unfortunately, that word now means to most people simply handouts to beggars or to the United Fund. But the word love won’t do either. It means to most people either sexual love (eros) or a feeling of affection (storge), or a vague love-in-general. Perhaps it is necessary to insist on the Greek word agape (pronounced ah-gah-pay) even at the risk of sounding snobbish or scholarly, so that we do not confuse this most important thing in the world with something else and miss it, for there is enormous misunderstanding about it in our society.
The first and most usual misunderstanding of agape is to confuse it with a feeling. Our feelings are precious, but agape is more precious. Feelings come to us, passively; agape comes from us, actively, by our free choice. We are not responsible for our feelings — we can’t help how we feel — but we are responsible for our agape or lack of it, eternally responsible, for agape comes from us; feelings come from wind, weather, and digestion. “Luv” comes from spring breezes; real love comes from the center of the soul, which Scripture calls the heart (another word we have sentimentalized and reduced to feeling). Liking is a feeling. But love (agape) is more than strong liking. Only a fool would command someone to feel a certain way. God commands us to love, and God is no fool.
Jesus had different feelings toward different people. But he loved them all equally and absolutely. But how can we love someone if we don’t like him? Easy — we do it to ourselves all the time. We don’t always have tender, comfortable feelings about ourselves; sometimes we feel foolish, stupid, asinine, or wicked. But we always love ourselves: we always seek our own good. Indeed, we feel dislike toward ourselves, we berate ourselves, precisely because we love ourselves; because we care about our good, we are impatient with our bad.
We fall in love but we do not fall in agape. We rise in agape.
The concept of desert, which once enjoyed a central place in political and ethical theory, has been relegated to the margins of much of contemporary theory, if not excluded altogether. Recently a renewed interest in the topic has emerged, and several philosophers have argued that the notion merits a more central place in political and ethical theory. Some of these philosophers contend that justice exists to the extent that people receive exactly what they deserve, while others argue that desert should replace such considerations as rights, need, and equality as the basis for distributions. Still others argue that morality involves a fitting match between one’s moral character and a degree of happiness. All of these positions have encountered opposition from egalitarians, libertarians, and those who are skeptical about the coherence of the concept of desert. The first anthology of its kind, What Do We Deserve? is a balanced collection of readings that brings sharply opposing positions and arguments together and stimulates debate over the meaning and significance of desert in current thought. The book begins with eight classical readings on desert (by Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Smith, Kant, Mill, Sidgwick, and Ross), and later turns to contemporary interpretations of the issue. The selections examine the concept itself, analyze its relationship to the ideas of freedom and responsibility, engage in the debate between John Rawls and his critics on the merits of desert, and, finally, study the wider role and significance of desert in political and ethical theory. ~ Product Description
If we are to understand the concept of toleration in terms of everyday life, we must address a key philosophical and political tension: the call for restraint when encountering apparently wrong beliefs and actions versus the good reasons for interfering with the lives of the subjects of these beliefs and actions. This collection contains original contributions to the ongoing debate on the nature of toleration, including its definition, historical development, justification, and limits. In exploring the issues surrounding toleration, the essays address a variety of provocative questions. Is toleration a moral virtue of individuals or rather a pragmatic political compromise? Is it an intrinsically good principle or only a "second best-solution" to the dangers of fanaticism to be superseded one day by the full acceptance of others? Does the value of toleration lie in respect to individuals and their autonomy, or rather in the recognition of the right of minority groups to maintain their communal identity? Throughout, the contributors point to the inherent indeterminacy of the concept and to the difficulty in locating it between intolerant absolutism and skeptical pluralism. Religion, sex, speech, and education are major areas requiring toleration in liberal societies. By applying theoretical analysis, these essays show the differences in the argument for toleration and its scope in each of these realms. ~ Product Description
The world is intolerant of Christian beliefs. You’ve probably heard many of the anti-Christian comebacks and conversation-enders that refute the relevance and validity of Christianity, including: “Who are you to impose your morality on others?” “What right do you have to convert others to your views?” “It doesn’t matter what you believe — as long as you’re sincere.” “You can’t trust the Gospels — they’re unreliable.” These comments don’t have to be conversation stoppers. Paul Copan offers you clear, concise, and thoughtful answers to these critical remarks in this revised and expanded edition of “True for You, But Not for Me.” He shows you how with “patience, practice, prayer, and God’s grace,” you can gently respond in ways that move into more meaningful conversations with those who object to your faith.
This book shows how Darwinian biology supports an Aristotelian view of ethics as rooted in human nature. Defending a conception of "Darwinian natural right" based on the claim that the good is the desirable, the author argues that there are at least twenty natural desires that are universal to all human societies because they are based in human biology. The satisfaction of these natural desires constitutes a universal standard for judging social practice as either fulfilling or frustrating human nature, although prudence is required in judging what is best for particular circumstances. The author studies the familial bonding of parents and children and the conjugal bonding of men and women as illustrating social behavior that conforms to Darwinian natural right. He also studies slavery and psychopathy as illustrating social behavior that contradicts Darwinian natural right. He argues as well that the natural moral sense does not require religious belief, although such belief can sometimes reinforce the dictates of nature.
My presentation today has its origins in some conversations that George Write [Professor of Political Science, University of Wisconsin–Superior] and I have had about the potential role of faith-based perspectives in philosophical theorizing and in academic research programs generally. Our conversations began as a discussion about the emergence of what is regarded as distinctively Christian philosophy within the philosophical mainstream in the late 20th century. While those outside of philosophy are often surprised, shocked (horrified?) to hear of such developments, it is truly old news for those in philosophy.
It is only pity or mercy that makes life possible. We do not like to hear it, but human beings at their best are pitiable creatures that “walk in a vain show” (Psalm 39:6). Only God’s mercies keep us from being consumed because of our sins (Lamentations 3:22). But as a father pities his children, so the Lord pities us. He knows what we are made of and remembers that we are dust. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor does he reward us in proportion to our wrongdoings (Psalm 103:10-14). That is the wonderful, healing nature of The Kingdom Among Us.
Today we sometimes speak of people who cannot forgive themselves. Usually, however, the problem is much deeper. More often than not, these are people who refuse to live on the basis of pity. Their problem is not that they are hard on themselves, but that they are proud. And if they are hard on themselves, it is because they are proud. They do not want to accept that they can only live on the basis of pity from others, that the good that comes to them is rarely “deserved.” If they would only do that, it would transform their lives. They would easily stop punishing themselves for what they have done.
This is why it is not psychologically possible for us really to know God’s pity for us and at the same time be hardhearted toward others (or ourselves). So we are “forgiving of others in the same manner as God forgives us.” And if you’ve been squirming as you read this, there’s a good reason. I have used the word pity through much of this discussion of “forgive us our sins,” rather than the word mercy or the even more dignified compassion. This is because only pity reaches to the heart of our condition. The word pity makes us wince, as mercy does not. Our current language has robbed mercy of its deep, traditional meaning, which is practically the same as pity. To pity someone now is to feel sorry for them, and that is regarded as demeaning, whereas to have mercy now is thought to be slightly noble – just “give ’em a break.” Today even many Christians read and say “forgive us our trespasses” as “give me a break.” In the typically late-twentieth-century manner, this saves the ego and its egotism. “I am not a sinner, I just need a break!” But no, I need more than a break. I need pity because of who I am. If my pride is untouched when I pray for forgiveness, I have not prayed for forgiveness. I don’t even understand it.
This request is not just for evasion of pain and of things we don’t like, though it frankly is that. It expresses the understanding that we can’t stand up under very much pressure, and that it is not a good thing for us to suffer. It is a vote of “no confidence” in our own abilities. As the series of requests begins with the glorification of God, it ends with acknowledgment of the feebleness of human beings. God expects us to pray that we will escape trials, and we should do it. The bad things that happen to us are always challenges to our faith, and we may not be able to stand up under them. They are dangerous. To know this, one has only to watch how quickly people begin to attack God when bad things start to happen to them. The excessive confidence people have in the strength of their own faith – usually it is when they are not suffering, of course – simply makes the danger worse.
Once again, we are asking for pity, this time in the form of protection from circumstances. We are asking a Father who is both able and willing to extend such pity to not led bad things happen to us. The last request in the Lord’s Prayer is the revelation of a God who loves spare his children and who will always do it upon request unless he has something better in mind. People who do not ask God to spare them from trials and evils usually do not recognize his hand when they are spared. They then live under the illusion that their lives are governed by chance, luck, accident, the whims of others, and their own cleverness. And because they do not ask, do not constantly invite God in, that may well be, to some significant extent, no illusion. If one is content with such an outlook, God will probably leave one with it. But we will never know our life to be one in The Kingdom Among Us. To that kingdom Jesus’ words about prayer are an ever open door.
Gathering 49 readings on a variety of topics — science and pseudoscience; rationality, objectivity, and values in science; laws of nature; models of explanation, among others — this anthology introduces students to the often challenging problems examined by major thinkers in the field. Combine this with thoughtful and thorough apparatus, and Philosophy of Science: The Central Issues is the most flexible and comprehensive collection ever created for undergraduate courses. ~ Product Description