In Search of Moral Knowledge

In Search of Moral Knowledge PDF

Author: R. Scott Smith

Publisher: InterVarsity Press

Published: 2014-05-02

Total Pages: 366

ISBN-13: 0830880216

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For most of the church's history, people have seen Christian ethics as normative and universally applicable. Recently, however, this view has been lost, thanks to naturalism and relativism. R. Scott Smith argues that Christians need to overcome Kant's fact-value dichotomy and recover the possibility of genuine moral and theological knowledge.

Fact, Value, and God

Fact, Value, and God PDF

Author: Arthur Frank Holmes

Publisher: Eerdmans Publishing Company

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 183

ISBN-13: 9780802843128

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Reacting to contemporary thinkers who celebrate a liberation from absolute truth, Arthur Holmes explores historical ways of grounding moral values objectively in the nature of reality and reconnecting to objective and universal moral norms.

God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will

God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will PDF

Author: Laura W. Ekstrom

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2021-02-23

Total Pages: 253

ISBN-13: 0197556434

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For many of us, the question of whether or not God exists is one of the most perplexing and profound questions of our lives, and numerous philosophers and theologians have debated it for centuries. Laura Ekstrom here takes a new look at the issue of God's existence by examining it against the reality of human suffering, bringing to the fore contentious presuppositions concerning agency and value at the core of the matter. When we survey the world, we observe an enormous amount of pain, including virtually unspeakable kinds of maltreatment and agony, many instances of which seem patently unfair, unearned, and pointless. This book argues that, in light of these observations, it is reasonable to conclude that God does not exist. The book unravels the extent and power of arguments from evil. Ekstrom provides a close investigation of a largely overlooked claim at the heart of major free-will-based responses to such arguments, namely that free will is worth it: sufficiently valuable to serve as the good that provides a God-justifying reason for permitting evil in the world. Through fresh examinations of traditional theodicies, Ekstrom develops an alternative line called divine intimacy theodicy, and makes an extended case for rejecting skeptical theism. The book takes up an argument from evil concerning a traditional doctrine of hell, which reveals a number of compelling issues concerning fault, agency, and blameworthiness. In response to recent work contending that the problem of evil is toothless because God is indifferent to human beings, Ekstrom defends the essential perfect moral goodness of God. She further tackles the question of whether or not it is possible to live a religious life as an agnostic or as an atheist. Through rigorous reflection, with deep respect for religious thought and experience, and with sensitivity to the range and kinds of suffering so many endure, Ekstrom firmly advances discussion of the problem of evil and paves the way for further scholarship in the philosophy of religion.

Facts and Values

Facts and Values PDF

Author: M.C. Doeser

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 9400944543

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The answer to philosophical questions will often depend on the position one takes regarding the fact-value problem. It is, therefore, not surprising that, in the tradition of western philosophy, the past 200 years or so record an animated discussion of it. In the present collection the debate is continued by representatives of various "schools" in contemporary western thought. A number of philosophers from non-western cultures, too, enter into it. The contributions do not all reflect on the same theme, nor do they use the same approach. Essays written by philosophers sympathetic to the analytical tradition are followed by reflections on the part of those inspired by phe nomenology. A third group of contributions is by non-western thinkers, who are more likely to approach the problem in terms of culture. Their engage ment with the issue clearly shows, among other things, that it is almost exclusively in the western tradition that the fact-value distinction is often understood as an outright dichotomy. The occasion for the publication of this collection is Dr. Cornelis Anthonie van Peursen's retirement as Professor of Philosophy. This year he leaves the Free University, Amsterdam; until 1982 he was professor at the University of Leyden as well. In the Netherlands and beyond he has become known for his concern with constructive comparison of diverging philosophical trends and the cross-cultural fertilization of thought. Characteristic of his career are his efforts to render the results of academic philosophizing understand able to a broader audience.

The Best Argument against God

The Best Argument against God PDF

Author: G. Oppy

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2013-07-23

Total Pages: 152

ISBN-13: 1137354143

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.... compares two theories—Naturalism and Theism—on a wide range of relevant data. It concludes that Naturalism should be preferred to Theism on that data. The central idea behind the argument is that, while Naturalism is simpler than Theism, there is no relevant data that Naturalism fails to explain at least as well as Theism does.

The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy and Other Essays

The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy and Other Essays PDF

Author: Hilary Putnam

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2004-03-30

Total Pages: 205

ISBN-13: 0674013808

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If philosophy has any business in the world, it is the clarification of our thinking and the clearing away of ideas that cloud the mind. In this book, one of the world's preeminent philosophers takes issue with an idea that has found an all-too-prominent place in popular culture and philosophical thought: the idea that while factual claims can be rationally established or refuted, claims about value are wholly subjective, not capable of being rationally argued for or against. Although it is on occasion important and useful to distinguish between factual claims and value judgments, the distinction becomes, Hilary Putnam argues, positively harmful when identified with a dichotomy between the objective and the purely "subjective." Putnam explores the arguments that led so much of the analytic philosophy of language, metaphysics, and epistemology to become openly hostile to the idea that talk of value and human flourishing can be right or wrong, rational or irrational; and by which, following philosophy, social sciences such as economics have fallen victim to the bankrupt metaphysics of Logical Positivism. Tracing the problem back to Hume's conception of a "matter of fact" as well as to Kant's distinction between "analytic" and "synthetic" judgments, Putnam identifies a path forward in the work of Amartya Sen. Lively, concise, and wise, his book prepares the way for a renewed mutual fruition of philosophy and the social sciences.

No More Faking Fine

No More Faking Fine PDF

Author: Esther Fleece Allen

Publisher: Zondervan

Published: 2017-01-10

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 0310344778

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Scripture reveals a God who meets us where we are, not where we pretend to be. No More Faking Fine is your invitation to get honest with God through the life-giving language of lament. If you've ever been given empty clichés during challenging times, you know how painful it is to be misunderstood by well-meaning people. When life hurts, we often feel pressure--from others and ourselves--to keep it together, suck it up, or pray it away. But Scripture reveals a God who lovingly invites us to give honest voice to our emotions when life hits hard. For most of her life, Esther Fleece Allen believed she could bypass the painful emotions of her broken past by shutting them down altogether. She was known as an achiever and an overcomer on the fast track to success. But in silencing her pain, she robbed herself of the opportunity to be healed. Maybe you've done the same. Esther's journey into healing began when she discovered that God has given us a real-world way to deal with raw emotions and an alternative to the coping mechanisms that end up causing more pain. It's called lament--the gut-level, honest prayer that God never ignores, never silences, and never wastes. No More Faking Fine is your permission to lament, taking you on a journey down the unexpected pathway to true intimacy with God. Drawing from careful biblical study and hard-won insight, Esther reveals how to use God's own language to come closer to him as he leads us through our pain to the light on the other side, teaching you that: We are robbing ourselves of a divine mystery and a divine intimacy when we pretend to have it all together God does not expect us to be perfect; instead, he meets us where we are There is hope beyond your heartache, disappointment, and grief Like Esther, you'll soon find that when one person stops faking fine, it gives everyone else permission to do the same.

Fictions of Fact and Value

Fictions of Fact and Value PDF

Author: Michael LeMahieu

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2013-10-02

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 0199890412

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Fictions of Fact and Value argues that the philosophy of logical positivism, considered the antithesis of literary postmodernism, exerts a determining influence on the development of American fiction in the three decades following 1945, in what amounts to a constitutive encounter between literature and philosophy at mid-century: after the end of modernism, as it was traditionally conceived, but prior to the rise of postmodernism, as it came to be known. Two particular postwar literary preoccupations derive from logical positivist philosophy: the fact/value problem and the correlative distinction between sense and nonsense. Even as postwar writers responded to logical positivism as a threat to the imagination, their works often manifest its influence, specifically with regard to "emotive" or "meaningless" terms. Far from a straightforward history of ideas, Fictions of Fact and Value charts a genealogy that is often erased in the very texts where it registers and disowned by the very authors that it includes. LeMahieu complicates a predominant narrative of intellectual history in which a liberating postmodernism triumphs over a reactionary positivism by historicizing the literary response to positivism in works by John Barth, Saul Bellow, Don DeLillo, Iris Murdoch, Flannery O'Connor, Thomas Pynchon, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. As LeMahieu compelling demonstrates, the centrality of the fact/value problem to both positivism and postmodernism demands a rethinking of postwar literary history. A trenchantly argued study that unearths an important part of postwar literary history, Fictions of Fact and Value will interest anyone concerned with postmodernism, modernist studies, analytic philosophy, or the history of ideas.

God and Morality

God and Morality PDF

Author: Anne Jeffrey

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2019-05-09

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781108469449

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This Element has two aims. The first is to discuss arguments philosophers have made about the difference God's existence might make to questions of general interest in metaethics. The second is to argue that it is a mistake to think we can get very far in answering these questions by assuming a thin conception of God, and to suggest that exploring the implications of thick theisms for metaethics would be more fruitful.

Reasonable Faith

Reasonable Faith PDF

Author: William Lane Craig

Publisher: Crossway

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 418

ISBN-13: 1433501155

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This updated edition by one of the world's leading apologists presents a systematic, positive case for Christianity that reflects the latest work in the contemporary hard sciences and humanities. Brilliant and accessible.