Philosophy & Theology

Essays and book reviews on historical and contemporary philosophical and theological topics. Philosophy has historically been the main path for pagan ideas to enter theology. This is because people want to be scientific, that is to have accredited knowledge, and they confused metaphysics with science.

The opposition of philosophy and theology

in contemporary thought.

The attitude of the modern academy toward a Christian philosophy can be illustrated by the account of Thomas Reid’s philosophy by Norman Daniels in his book Thomas Reid’s ‘Inquiry’. As soon as Reid brought the action of God into his philosophical account, by saying that reliability of man’s knowledge of the world is accounted for by God’s having made both to work together, Daniels accuses Reid of departing from philosophy for dogmatism. Similarly Alvin Plantinga’s presidential address to the American Philosophical Association, on “How to be an Antirealist” were met with a curled lip by philosophers of my acquaintance. Such philosophy will admit the field of philosophy of religion, and of inquiry into the existence and nature of God, but only when God is the subject of inquiry, not the explanation for the validity of the inquiry itself. Among Christians there have been different but equally flawed responses. One early form was the double-truth idea, that some things are true in philosophy (seen as science), while different things were true in theology, and these might well contradict. The approach returned in twentieth century in the distinction between the Bible as religiously true, but not scientifically or historically factual. Another response is to split the mind of man. Dooyeweerd considered man himself to be stretched across the supratemporal and the cosmic, and his reason only worked in the cosmic, while his religious self only knew intuitively. Van Tillians apply this division to knowledge, but without the theosophical explanation, but simply denouncing as rationalists those who do not accept it.

Books

Time and Worldmaking: John Frame and the Reformational Philosophies - Epub - Kindle Format (kpf) - PDF

Philosophical essays and reviews

Essays  Reviews

Theological essays and reviews

Essays  - An Overview of Millennial Systems, with a review of The Man of Sin: Uncovering the Truth about the Antichrist, by Kim Riddlebarger Reviews  - Fake Theology: Radical Two-Kingdom Theory, a prehistory and a review, Saved to be Warriors: Exposing the Errors of Radical Two-Kingdom Theology, by Bret McAtee  - No Dispensationalism Before Darby, review of Dispensationalism Before Darby: Seventeenth-Century and Eighteenth-Century English Apocalypticism, by William C. Watson,  - Roman Catholic Logos Speculation: A New Scholastic Synthesis? An examination of the proposals of Mark A. Painter  - A Comparison of Baptist and Reformed Views of the Covenants, Review of Pascal Denault, The Distinctiveness of Baptist Covenant Theology: A Comparison Between Seventeenth-Century Particular Baptist and Paedobaptist Federalism  - Hübner on the Types of Contemporary Reformed Theology, Review of “The Diversity of Contemporary Reformed Theology: A New Encyclopedic Introduction with a Case Study”, by Jamin Andreas Hübner