Professor, Philosophy and Religious Studies
Sartre and other existentialists assert that existence precedes essence—that we first exist, and only then determine who we are. To them, true freedom means creating our own identity without any other …
Continue Reading about Existentialism and the Rejection of Creatureliness →
My friend has a new favorite movie: Snow White. He’s seen it seven times—once for each dwarf. Now he’s conflicted… should he go again? He finally decided: yes, he’ll see it an eighth time, this time …
Continue Reading about Why did he do that? Free will, laws, and chaos →
This question isn’t primarily about what caused me to want what I want. That’s a question of self-examination—backward-facing, aimed at the soundness of our reasoning. Instead, when we ask “Am I …
Our men’s group is reading Albert Camus’s The Stranger. In it, Meursault is condemned to die for murder. He receives the death penalty, but in truth, so have we all. He cannot appeal it. Neither can …
Part 1 Christian philosophers often admire Plato, finding insights in his writings that seem compatible with Christian thought. Some go so far as to say he prepared pagans for the Gospel and that he …
Continue Reading about Christian Philosophy: Against Plato →
David Hume and the Naturalistic Origins of Religion David Hume (1711–1776), in his Natural History of Religion (1757), presented a theory about the origins of religious belief that has since become …
Continue Reading about The Degradation of Original Monotheism: From Polytheism to Naturalism →
