Category: Philosophy
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A Wide Open Canon
Biblical Particularity, Transcendence, and Diversity The Bible is a particular book for a particular people at a particular time in a particular place. The timeless wisdom latent within its pages, however, also transcends its particularity so that it can stand the test of time, bearing upon various diverse sociocultural contexts wherein it might breathe afresh…
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American Evangelical Politics and the Politics of Jesus
American evangelical politics seems to be a movement about establishing the kingdom of God on earth right here and right now, especially with the current presidential administration. While heavily publicized as a predominantly White movement of various hues and shades across the spectrum from White nationalists to White “fragilists,” there are apparently some nonWhite individuals…
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Service, Humility, and Self-Care
Service is one of those admirable actions that individuals across cultures and people groups take to be of a highest good. It is the greatest way in which to demonstrate love, care, compassion. It is the greatest way in which to honor and elevate another. It is the greatest way in which to establish the…
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How to Interpret the Bible
The Bible is a really hard book to read. Reading the Bible is no small feat. To think otherwise, in fact, is to fail to account for the vast array of literature held therein, which was written over the span of hundreds of years by many authors on various countries and places, translated multitudes of…
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Living “As If”
The Serenity Prayer, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference,” is as simple and yet profound a prayer as any. Learning “to accept the things I cannot change” is much like living “as if.” The…
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Intertextual Dialectics
More about Intertextual Dialectics An Outlined Sketch Unlike intertextuality, which is largely comprised of the comparative study of texts in dialogue with one another, different and various contexts contrasting with and complementing one another, intertextual dialectics is the dialogical study of the manner in which texts of a comparatively given similitude conflict with or contradict…
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How Not to Win Friends and Influence People: The Sociopolitical Power of Jesus
What made Jesus so powerful in his day and age? Was it his miracles? His words and teaching? His presence? His love and forgiveness? His eventual sacrifice? While these are very important to adherents today, in his time, Jesus’ power was found not in any of these, per se, but in his goodness. Plato writes…
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Whence cometh evil?
Long has my mind been plagued with the question of whence cometh evil? I know the freewill argument indicates that it originates in the will of the one exercising said will. I know that some indicate that evil is but an illusion of the mind, which need be eradicated. I know that the devil or…
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The Existence of Evil Presupposes the Existence of God
Thesis statement:The existence of evil presupposes the existence of God. If is-ness is, then is-not-ness is as a corollary of the correlative relation obtaining between contraries. For if this is, then it is not, of course, that which it is not, being positively that which it is, which might be accorded as its is-ness and…
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Power
What is Power? Power, I have often heard, is not a good thing–it’s a necessary evil, even. As the saying goes, “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” On the other hand, some say that “knowledge is power.” If power is evil and knowledge is power, then it must be that knowledge, too, is evil. Intuitively, it seems,…
NathanAnthonyBarstad 