[Part 3: Continuation of my comments upon reading Barth’s “The Epistle to the Romans”, Oxford University paperback, 1968] As a passing matter, I noted a hint of modal logic in a passage beginning around the middle of page 324 with: “Thus, before every moment in time, God foreordains… Here is it that we encounter the … [Read more…]
Many Christians throughout history have insisted on seeing imputable guilt behind all the sins for which we are responsible. This seems wrong to me. You can be responsible for a situation, say the self-destructively rebellious state of a teenager, though you might well be free of guilt in a criminal or moral sense. Being responsible, … [Read more…]
[Part 2: Continuation of my comments upon reading Barth’s “The Epistle to the Romans”, Oxford University paperback, 1968] Around page 290, we see Barth trying to turn towards hope. Unfortunately, he has left himself in the position of most modern existentialists: all that we know to be real is nothingness and we have to look … [Read more…]
Starting at the bottom of page 280 [“The Epistle to the Romans”, Oxford University Press paperback, 1968], we read: What is human and worldly and historical and ‘natural’ is shown to be what it veritably is in its relation to God the Creator — only a transparent thing, only an image, only a sign, only … [Read more…]
Even an armchair historian can tell you that a good general prepares for his retreat as soon as he sees the need for it. He tries to arrange an orderly retreat to minimize casualties and loss of equipment and other materiel. He knows not to try to hold ground which is indefensible, being well aware … [Read more…]
As-if is a strange and wonderful language that we all speak inside our normal language — whether English or French or Japanese. Even an Enlightenment rationalist like Adam Smith spoke of the Invisible Hand when he found himself not able to speak directly about what might now be called a self-organizing system. This is not … [Read more…]
I’ve been reading Karl Barth’s Epistle to the Romans, a book surprisingly oft-read decades ago. [For the scholars out there, I’m using the paperback edition published by Oxford University Press in 1968.] Barth’s writing and thinking style is still more discursive than mine, and he is probably still more intense than I am at my … [Read more…]
I’ve argued that the human mind is shaped by its immediate environments, including social relationships starting with that between infant and mother. From there, we expand out into larger sections of those immediate environments and may begin to interact with other environments. In this expansion into other environments, we’re like other opportunistic animals — bears … [Read more…]
Einstein gave a great gift to rational thinkers, Christian and non-Christian. He gave us a universe, that is, a coherent definition of a universe. And the definition is proving to be quite a bit different from the traditional metaphysical definitions. In fact, the simplest way to think of Einsteinian Universes as a class is to … [Read more…]
So, what is man? He’s intentional in his moral nature. He’s born to acquire certain moral behaviors towards mother and father and brethren but mostly towards his mother because of the special bond. He’ll recognize her very smell and her body is changing in certain ways to adapt itself to the care of a baby … [Read more…]