The most oft-discussed objection against theism is the problem of evil, and it runs basically as follows: If an all-good, all-knowing, all-powerful God exists, then he obviously wouldn’t allow an evil unless he had a sufficiently good reason for doing so. Cite numerous examples of apparently gratuitous evils (i.e., evils for which there does not… Read More »

There’s an interesting post over at Bill Vallicella’s blog on whether belief in God is in the same rational boat as belief that there is a tiny china teapot orbiting the sun, an angry unicorn on the dark side of the moon, or the flying spaghetti monster. Bill says no, and I agree. He notes… Read More »

I received the following reply to an earlier blog post concerning whether it was possible for someone to rationally believe in the miraculous. Dear Alan, I am a Czech grad student in philosophy who wants to write a dissertation concerning contemporary analytical philosophy of religion, mainly the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I… Read More »

Here’s another recent review of Dawkins’ The God Delusion. This one from The New York Review of Books, January 11, 2007 edition. It’s written by H. Allen Orr, a biologist, religious agnostic, and noted critic of the Intelligent Design movement. All in all, Orr’s review strikes me as a balanced one. He’s got no particular… Read More »

Roughly stated, presentism is the view that the only time at which anything exists is now. Past events are no more; future events are not yet. If it doesn’t exist now then it doesn’t exist, period. One common objection to presentism is known as the triviality objection. According to this objection, presentism is either (a)… Read More »

I just came across a review by Alvin Plantinga, a distinguished Christian philosopher, of Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion. It’s a fun read, and Plantinga does a good job of skewering Dawkins’ woefully overrated “Who designed the Designer?” objection against theism. Here’s Plantinga’s summary prior to his examination of the particulars of Dawkins’ main argument:… Read More »

In his Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy article entitled “Foreknowledge and Free Will,” Norman Swartz defends the view that divine foreknowledge is compatible with human free will and contends that arguments for incompatibilism inevitably commit a certain modal fallacy. I think he’s wrong on both counts, but I want to focus here just on the second… Read More »

I’m just about finished listening to an audio CD lecture series entitled “The Historical Jesus” by Bart Ehrman. It’s an interesting series by a scholar who, I gather, represents more-or-less a mainstream position in biblical scholarship. In other words, Ehrman is neither an out-and-out debunker of orthodox Christianity nor an out-and-out advocate and apologist. Rather,… Read More »

This is quite an entertaining dialogue (HT: Victor Reppert). It makes a good point about the concept of tolerance, namely, that to be tolerant of something is not to accept it, but to graciously put up with it while rejecting it. Another important issue that comes up near the end is that of discrimination. What,… Read More »

A reader of this blog, Patrick, submitted a comment to my previous post, but because of some technical glitches I was experiencing with the Blogger software, I think I deleted the post his comment was attached to. Anyway, his comment is worth a response. Interesting, Alan. You say, “Let us suppose that the time is… Read More »