Book Review: Socrates Meets Kant by Peter Kreeft

What if Socrates and Kant could be brought to life to engage in a dialogue about key philosophical questions?  Peter Kreeft creatively resurrects the two noble philosophers and transcribes for us their fascinating discussion in his book Socrates Meets Kant. 

In full iconic style, Kreeft, creates a book where the Father of Philosophy, Socrates, meets his most influential modern child, Immanuel Kant.  Naturally using the Socratic Method, Socrates gives an insightful cross-examination of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. 

Even more intriguing is Kreeft’s way of giving Socrates an understanding of modern life enabling the conversation to be relevant for today’s readers.  In contrast, the portrayal of Kant stays strictly within the confines of his own time period. Thus when Socrates analogously refers to a computer, Kant has no idea what he is talking about.  This helps add to the humorous nature of the book. 

It is truly a creative idea to bring Socrates to life because students of philosophy and the academy at large thrive on the Socratic Method.  Learning about Kant through a fictional dialogue with Socrates is quite ingenious.   Kreeft sets the dialogue in the realm of the afterlife where the two meet for the first time.  

To Read the Entirety of this Review Click Here. 

The Ethical Valuation of Truth

A resounding question reverberates off the halls of logic regarding the nature of truth. People often ask how anyone can have the right to declare something true and thereby declare other things false by default. However, this question is fraught with problems brought on by the errant application of ethics to the nature of truth.

When anyone puts forth a proposition of truth that which is contrary to that proposition is logically false. There is no possible way to avoid the reality of the dichotomy of true versus false. Even the person who levies the charge that “it is wrong to present that another’s view as false” is advocating a truth claim, which means, if true, this person is also wrong. It is a self-defeating statement and thus defies rationality.

(to read the rest of the essay please click here to go to Helium.com.

Note (I am not directing this to atheism, but the essay came about from questions I have heard regarding truth outside of this blog).

Atheism: A History

“Atheist” was once a term levied against Christians for it was used to mean one who didn’t ascribe to the Roman gods or the religion of the Roman emperor. Thus Christians who held to belief in one God versus the polytheism of the Romans were accused of being atheists. It is ironic in light of how atheists and Christians are on opposite spectrums in worldview thinking today. Atheism as a philosophy of the non-existence of God came about much later in history. Purportedly it began as a worldview foundation assault to weaken the Church in Western civilization during the transition from the Middle Ages to the Modern Era. The world was fighting the Church organization through politics, military attacks, and internally through the Reformation. However, atheism began to take shape in response to the oppressive nature of the Church of that era. Just the same, it was still not a total disregard for belief in God for its proponents only sought to change the nature of the Church’s involvement in society verses eradicating it all together. In time though atheism began to take shape in elite philosophical circles and a worldview began to develop that separated itself entirely from Christianity. Many philosophers, writers, and artist began to depict a world without God, without absolutes, without God based morality. Atheism was birthed.

To be Continued.

Goodness Derives From God

I would like to address the matter of humanities knowledge of good and evil from the Christian worldview. At this point, I am going to deal with the topic in a foundational philosophical manner that would be agreed upon by all theists. While theism is broader than Christianity, Christianity has the foundational adherence to the position I am herein presenting. Therefore I am not delving into Scripture nor Christian doctrine to address this topic at this point. In future posts, I will develop it out and provide a more detailed response as prompted by questions this post will undoubtedly produce.

As far as I have deduced, my audience accepts that there are good actions and behaviors as well as bad ones and that humans for the most part know the difference between the two. Further, I think all cultures no matter how remote have a system of right and wrong even if their standard of moral judgment is different than the next culture. So where does that idea come from? How did we gain a moral construct of right and wrong? Is it mere social conditioning? Is it merely instinctual impulses of survival? Is something wrong because society says it’s wrong? Can one culture condemn the actions of another as wrong? If so, by what standard?

Theists maintain that we have knowledge of the difference between good and evil (even if we disagree sometimes on specifics) because there is a standard of good outside of nature because a good God exists. When we break from that standard we have the conscious to know something doesn’t line up with the way we are created to live. We know when something is foreign to goodness.

From what has been presented to me thus far, atheists maintain that because they know right from wrong without believing in or fearing God that is proof that moral knowledge is not something related to knowing God. However, Christians maintain that we have a moral compass even if we are not brought up in Christianity or in religion. A person in the most remote village of Africa with no contact to the outside world would have a moral compass even if some of his actions were barbaric to the civilized world. His village would still have a system of right and wrong because they are humans living in reality. Thus, atheists will have just as much knowledge of the existence of good and evil and the desire to be moral people as anyone else.

Atheists, from my rudimentary observations, maintain that Christians believe morality is connected to a system of punishment and rewards of a demanding judgmental invisible God. They believe, therefore, that Christianity is a manmade system of controlling people into an outdated conservative system of morality by manipulation and the promulgation of the fear of hell.

I can understand why it may look like this is a fair description of Christianity. If the only Christians I had ever met were the ones I encountered this summer at the beach holding signs listing sins God was going to judge people for and shouting about hell into a crowd of teenagers--I would run the other way too and declare it a barbaric brainless religion. I cannot say strongly enough that people like that are not representing true Christianity and are decidedly giving Jesus a bad name by their shameful actions. My husband, a pastor, spoke with these people when we came across them and asked that they cease antagonizing the crowd of angry youth. We emphatically urged the crowd to disperse, to no avail. They were having too much fun heckling the beach preachers. I don’t blame the young people for their responses. My husband and I were greatly disturbed by this misrepresentation of the heart of God towards people.

I would asks that people look past the extremist and religious nut cases to the real nature of truth and examine the truth claims themselves despite some of the misleading representations often depicted in the media and sometimes observed in real life. Please don’t let the attitude and actions of some keep you away from really examining the truth claims of the Christian worldview.

To touch briefly on a more specific Christian view of morality: it isn’t about adhering to rules out of fear of divine retribution or hope of divine rewards. For some, granted, it is thus. However, for many others it is simply this: that man is separated from God because of our sinful nature and consequently fails to live up to even his own standard of right and wrong perfectly. However, because Jesus paid the price of sin in our place we are freed from the bondage of sin and empowered by Christ to love and know God and love and live with our fellow humans the way we were created to do so.

What God asks from man, is not blind obedience, but a real tangible relationship that starts with accepting the free gift of salvation from sin and death offered through Jesus. Thus we become reconciled back to God, ensconced in His love, and we begin life anew learning from God how to be all he created us to be. The work Jesus did on the cross is not simply to redeem mankind, but to redeem all of creation back to its full glory.

I Don't Believe in the Existence of Atheists

I don't believe atheists exist. I am seeing many books hit the best seller by prominent atheists such as Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris denouncing all people of faith no matter the faith. Although they tend to target Christianity above the rest, they also lump Christianity in with all other faiths as equally invalid. The truth they claim is that there is no God, no spirituality, and no reason for existence. They debunk all people of faith and purport that humanity would have less violence and hate if people left faith behind and moved into the new era of atheism. They imagine a world with no belief in God as the ideal world for humanity.

These atheists try to circumvent the logical fallacy of atheism. For one to prove a negative, one must be omniscient. Thus, atheists can never know there is no God for they cannot know all things without being gods themselves. So at best, they are agnostics – people who don't know if God exists or not. Therefore, they cannot base a philosophy on his non-existence for they cannot prove their supporting foundation of their belief system. Notwithstanding, they continue to base their philosophy on this unstable foundation in which they must employ faith in order to believe there is no God. So now the atheists who are decrying faith are in fact using faith themselves to support their hypothesis, yet they continue to believe themselves to be more scientific and intellectual than people of faith.

I say that I do not believe in atheist, because if a person claiming to be an atheist truly examines his worldview he must logically conclude that it cannot exist in reality. Atheism simply does not line up with reality. Atheism is self-defeating and thus cannot exist as a viable philosophy. [Thus it is really the philsophical construct of atheism that I don't think anyone can fully align theirselves with, rather than that the person who espouses atheism doesn't exist. They most certainly do exist. And their worldview is important in the market place of ideas, which is why I'm hoping to promote inerchange between worldviews by pointing out some logical fallacies.]

Moreover, if there is no God, there is no way to judge wars and violence as injustice. Atheist cannot justify their blaming people of faith, for if there was no god there would be no grounds to blame anyone for any supposed injustice. Atheists borrow from the worldview of faith in order to substantiate their own anti-faith worldview. Without the former, they would not have a leg to stand on to support the latter. Justice does not and cannot exist apart from God. There is no framework for it to be founded upon in atheism.

The atheist looks at the turmoil in the Middle East and sees one religious group fighting the other for religious reasons and concludes that a world without belief in any religion would bring about peace. This seems to be a logical conclusion, but it is in error. In part, they have the right idea for religion devoid of knowing God can cause problems on an individual and international scale. However, it is not evidence against God's existence, but against man trying to find security in rules and tradition without surrendering themselves to God and having a real relationship with the living God.

This distinction may seem like mere semantics and word play, but it makes all the difference in the world. The Answer to the world's problems is not found in religion nor in atheism, but in knowing the One True God. The hope for humanity will not be found in irradiating belief in God, but in cultivating belief in the God who is known through Jesus Christ. This cannot be accomplished by force, or manipulation, thus no wars or violence are encouraged by Jesus. Jesus lived love and those who are truly known by Him are to be examples of His love to the world.

Atheism replaces one's desire for a spiritual life with a gaping void of nothingness, whereas Jesus fills the void that was designed to be filled by Him like nothing or no one can. Only living the life you were made for can satisfy.

Relevant Magazine published this for me on their on-line magazine last year. You can follow the link to that article below.

Resurging Disbelief: Relevant Magazine