Virtuous Faith

In his recent paper titled "Faith and Epistemology" (see here or here),  Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa gives a refreshing look at faith and it's common occurrence in everyday reasoning. The paper is open access, so please give it your perusal.

Radical Skepticism

Radical skepticism is a particularly vulgar form of certainty. It is dogmatism without content.

The Value of the Question

Is the question of God’s existence more important than the answers given?

That Which Seems True and the Phenomenology of Belief

In his defense of religious exclusivism, Alvin Plantinga gives a somewhat tangential mention of a phenomenology that attends belief (citation at end). In this post, I am not interested in speaking to Plantinga’s defense of exclusivism, but I do want to consider this phenomenology of belief he mentions. To whit, it seems to me that if we believe something, part of why we believe that something is because it strikes us as true. That is, it seems true to us. This phenomenon of seeming true (or, false, for that matter) is not wholly within our control. Why does that matter? Well, for me, I have struggled to find ways to clarify my understanding of not only the experience of belief, but also the humility that it seems should attend belief. Something Plantinga says in that defense has helped me understand these better.

A Reductio for Eliminative Materialism

Can arguments for eliminative materialism be made without employing some aspects of so-called “folk psychology” and does it matter if they cannot? These are questions I want to explore. 

Christian Epistemic Humility

Christian epistemic humility is easy to come by...

Grace, Faith, and Merit

In my last post "Obstacles to Grace?" I quickly stated, " It might seem that 'having faith' is something 'done' by the believer.  I think not, but for the sake of space I will save that for the next post."  I would like to revisit that thought in this post; however, as I have been pondering that statement I have come to the conclusion that the issue at hand concerns Christian faith and merit. Is a Christian's faith in Christ worthy of merit?  Another way to say the same thing...Is grace faith-dependent in such a way that faith may be considered a work (i.e. something done that deserves recompense) through which grace is earned?

To the Epistemic Humility Challenged Christian

The last few posts have been focused on atheism and and the naturalistic worldview from which atheism is derived.  In the interest of fairness and epistemic humility I would like to "turn the tables" (so to speak) and focus on the worldview I function within: Christianity.

Worldviews, Primary Assumptions, and Certainty

In the last post ("Atheism: Worldview or Objective Point of View") I promised 1) to show why I believe that all people have a worldview, and 2) to show why I believe that all worldviews are based on primary assumptions that are not ultimately subject to evidence or reason.