At The Bayview Review you are going to find all sorts of arguments for particular conclusions; reasons to think that some view of the world is wrong. But isn’t this whole endeavor misguided? After all, don’t we now live in a postmodern society that no longer values arguments and specifically rejects the idea that we can get beyond our interpretation of, or language about, the world around us? In short, no this is not a misguided project because we do not, in fact, live in a postmodern society.
Archive for the ‘Philosophy’ Category
The Myth of Postmodernity
Posted in Philosophy on April 5, 2012|
Of Course It Matters Whether God Exists
Posted in Philosophy on March 24, 2012|
Recently Gary Gutting, Professor of Philosophy at Notre Dame, posted an interesting article, “Does it Matter Whether God Exists?” on the New York Times philosophy blog The Stone. In it he considers the merits of John Gray’s argument that belief in God does not really matter when it comes to religion. Yes, you read that right. According to Gray, when it comes to religion, belief in God is ancillary to how one lives as a result of that religion. After considering various objections to this claim, Gutting goes on to, seemingly, endorse it because religious people are incapable of knowing whether the God we serve is benevolent or malevolent. In what follows I hope to show that both Gutting and Gray are wrong, primarily because they do not take seriously the actual Christian worldview.
Queer Ecclesiology and Plastic People
Posted in Culture, Philosophy, Politics & Law on February 27, 2012|
By Scott Masson,
Dept. of English, Tyndale University College
Fellow, Ezra Institute for Contemporary Christianity
My Christian life began in the midst of two controversies in the Anglican evangelical world of St. John’s College, Durham: one surrounding the recent ordination of women as priests, the other the call to give homosexual relationships a similar sanction.
Practical Relativists
Posted in Philosophy on January 22, 2012|
One can no longer be an intellectually sophisticated relativist. The view is now widely accepted as a complete failure. Its problems are too numerous and its benefits too few. That I can make such a statement and not feel compelled to list out those problems is as sure a sign of its demise as any. Furthermore, the denial of relativism isn’t simply what one must do to be a consistent Christian (though it is at least that). Open any standard textbook in Critical Reasoning or Ethics, regardless of whether the author is a Chrisitan, and you’ll find in the opening chapters a denunciation of relativism. You’ll be hard pressed to find more than a (comparatively speaking) handful of relativists in philosophy departments today. Given the utter failure of relativism, why should one bother thinking about it at all? There are two reasons it’s worth mentioning again. (more…)
Why I Believe in Inerrancy
Posted in Philosophy, Theology on January 6, 2012|
The doctrine of inerrancy was once one of the key ideas that defined evangelicalism from various other theological camps. That is, to be an evangelical you had to accept that the Bible is inerrant. Today, however, this is no longer the case. There are a growing number of Christians that no longer feel the need to believe that the Bible is inerrant, even though these Christians still consider themselves to be evangelicals. Why is the doctrine of inerrancy losing favor?
An Argument Against Same-Sex Marriage
Posted in Philosophy, Politics & Law on December 18, 2011|
Introduction
There is no doubt that today’s society is much more accepting of homosexuality than in the recent past and, unfortunately, this is becoming increasingly true in the evangelical community as well. The moral acceptability of homosexuality has naturally led to increased demands from the gay-rights community to legalize same-sex marriage. While Canada settled the issue regarding its legality in 2005, the United States has yet to reach any type of consensus. What is worrisome about this debate is that it is becoming increasingly common for supporters of same-sex marriage to not only argue against traditional conceptions of marriage but to also go further and equate opposition to same-sex marriage with bigotry, racism, and various other social evils.
Why Diversity is Overrated
Posted in Culture, Philosophy on December 11, 2011|
The American Philosophical Association regularly sponsors various types of gatherings to promote diversity within the discipline. A majority of the discipline is male and so the profession as a whole ought to go about trying to increase the amount of gender diversity in its ranks (the same could be said about increasing racial diversity). The underlying assumption behind such activities is that diversity itself is a good that ought to be pursued for its own sake. But is it really? (more…)
An Anti-Abortionist’s Defense
Posted in Philosophy on December 1, 2011|
In a recent post at The Stone, Gary Gutting notes that Mississippi voters recently rejected an attempt by anti-abortion advocates to modify the state Constitution to specifically recognize personhood as beginning at fertilization.
Of course, the stakes were quite high for the pro-choice cause, which is why so many of them fought against the amendment. If the fertilized egg is a person then the embryo and fetus that develops from that egg is also a person and so abortion at any stage of development kills a human person. If the Mississippi amendment had passed then killing a fetus, or destroying a fertilized egg, would be no different from killing a three year old or adult.
The Pursuit of Truth
Posted in Education, Philosophy on November 23, 2011|
At the beginning of every academic year I tell my students that their number one priority (after God) while attending university is their studies. While students at all universities will face the temptation to ignore their courses so they can spend more time with their friends, students at Christian universities also face a particularly unique temptation. At schools like Tyndale University College many students find themselves tempted to spend too much time on various ministry opportunities and not enough time on their coursework. These are the students that get upset with me when they realize “number one priority” means that their ministry activities should take a backseat to their academic studies.
On Being Fully Pro-Life
Posted in Culture, Philosophy, Politics & Law on November 12, 2011| 1 Comment »
A few weeks ago several students at Tyndale University College decided to start a Pro-Life Group to “represent the cause of life both on and off the Tyndale campus, to witness to the dignity of all human life from conception until natural death, and to address the injustices of abortion and active euthanasia in Canada…” In talking about this group with other people at Tyndale I was frequently asked if this group was just anti-abortion or if it was “fully pro-life.” (more…)
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