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Did we learn the concept of God and infer his existence from some other more basic belief, or did we have the concept of God or a belief in his existence 'already in the mind'? Such is the issue of nativism: whether there is something in the mind prior to experience. Some theologians and philosophers espouse strongly nativist views. For example, Gordon Clark argues for a form of concept nativism. He argues that human beings have “innate ideas and a priori categories” the purpose of which are for “receiving a verbal revelation, of approaching God in prayer, and of conversing with other men about God and spiritual realities.” Clark makes two arguments for his view. First, he argues that it is not possible to arrive at a concept of God from sense experience: "Since man was created in the image of God, he has an innate idea of God…it is not possible for a blank mind to abstract the concept of God from sensory experience nor to lift sensory language by its bootstraps to a s...

Over at Law and Liberty,   John McGinnis favorably quotes legal scholar Harold Berman. Berman apparently told The Fulton County Daily Report (although, I can't for the life of me find the quotation in its original context): A child says, ‘It’s my toy.’ That’s property law. A child says, ‘You promised me.’ That’s contract law. A child says, ‘He hit me first.’ That’s criminal law. A child says, ‘Daddy said I could.’ That’s constitutional law. McGinnis finds strong support for Berman's claims in the developemt in of his own daughter: "As my daughter turns two this week, nothing has been more remarkable to this law professor than her already intense relation with rules, vindicating Berman." McGininis proceeds to tell us how his daughter does not appear to have acquired knowledge of the law, but that "the law has categories that appear to map on to inborn modules of our nature." Such observations lead McGinnis to conclude that "having a child ma...

"Why Latin? Why Logic? Why only 'great' books?"  Such are the questions levied at the classicist. They are good questions, but the best answers are not found in pragmatics, a list of the benefits of a classical education. Instead, the reason anyone ultimately prefers a classical approach to education is that she holds to a classical worldview. I say 'ultimately' because pragmatic answers don't count for nothing. One cannot help using them in class to garner support for Latin verb endings. "Throughout history, the best authors were great Latinists" I said the other day. I had in mind one student whose mother had told me that she would like to be a writer. Motivating a student to say 'amō, amās, amat..." thirty times a day is one thing, but adopting a clear reason for committing oneself to the classical project is quite another. To do that, one needs to off one's modern viewpoint and lean into the worldview of a classicist. One ...

I have a whole lot of beliefs rummaging around my mind. I believe, for example, that I am here at this moment writing this blog while listening to some funk artist called Kyle Hollingsworth on Spotify. I believe I grew up in England and was married in Minnesota in 2003 on a day when it was twenty below. I might be mistaken about what I believe, but I am not mistaken  that  I believe those things.  Beliefs don't float around in the air ready to be caught. Rather, I  have  beliefs. If there were no people, no minds, there would be no beliefs. Other things, like propositions, are not dependent upon my mind being there. I might never have been born and so my belief that the earth orbits the sun would not have existed. But the proposition--that the earth orbits the sun--would still be there. At least, it would still be true that the earth orbits the sun (if the earth does orbit the sun and some people aren't so sure). One of my beliefs is in the follo...

It is tempting to say the following: S can answer a question correctly only if S knows the answer to the question.  However, we should resist the temptation. Consider the following: When I was about 11years old I was sitting in a classroom, my gaze fixed firmly on the cricket pitch outside and paying no attention to what my teacher was saying. Then I heard my name. "Ben, can you tell us where the ship sprung a leak?" my teacher asked. Now everyone's gaze was fixed on me. "Hull" I said without a pause. "Yes, well done Ben" my teacher replied and carried on talking. Now the backstory: When the teacher asked me where the ship had sprung a leak, I had interpreted him to mean where on the ship a had hole appeared . Well, where else but the hull of the ship ? So that's what I said. But the teacher was asking me a quite different question: in what location had the ship sunk? The answer was: the port city of Hull in northern Englan...

You couldn't believe in something unless you knew something about it. If I said to you that a meroganon lives at the end of my street you might say I am nuts, but you would first want to know something about a meroganon. You couldn't know if I am nuts unless you knew something about a meroganon. I could describe one to you by listing some of its basic features. After some time you would have in your mind the concept of a meroganon and you could then be justified in thinking that I have lost my mind. Consider the person (there may be more than one) who has not read this blog. That person does not even know the name, 'meroganon'. The person does not have a concept of a meroganon and so does not believe in a meroganon. I don't know much science. There are probably many entities that some people have concepts for and that I do not. I couldn't have a positive belief about the existence of any of these entities unless I had a concept of them. It follows that to ...

This election season has produced a lack of trust. This is especially true in the media. In a recent article in WaPo a journalist complained to Alberto Ibargüen, president of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, "that we no longer have trusted sources in our 21st century, social-media environment." Ibargüen's repose is telling: “How can there be,” he asked, “until we figure out … how to decide what a trusted source is?" What I want to suggest is that we need to re-build an atmosphere of trust. There are two virtues involved in doing so. The first is perhaps quite trivial in principle but we seem to be in an era when it is difficult to practice - telling the truth. I will leave aside the discussion of what we mean by truth and I will assume you think there is such a thing and that you desire, on the most part, to tell the truth. Instead I will focus on the second virtue - trust. This simple virtue entails the following: Give some level of credence to...

If you think reality is exhaustively physical, then you will probably be either a pessimist or an optimist about naturalistic scientific discovery. You will either conclude that it is highly likely that "folk psychology," the belief that there are irreducibly mental, non-physical entities of some sort, will be shown to be false, or you will think that though it is possible that folk psychology will be proven false, it is unlikely. The latter position entails the belief that one should continue the naturalistic research program with a physicalist assumption even though you probably won't be able to prove it. If you're are an optimist, a bouncy physicalist, you will think it is only a matter of time. You will believe that we are on the brink of discovering some physical explanation for pesky mental properties, qualia and other ontological nuisances. So, if you are a physicalist, which type are you? To find out, consider the following argument: (1) Either nat...

According to C. Stephen Evans, natural knowledge of God is "knowledge that does not presuppose any special religious authority or revelation." A natural sign is "something that directs our attention to some reality or fact and makes knowledge of that fact possible." Therefore,  theistic natural signs  are natural signs of God that are the means by which a person becomes aware of God. Theistic Natural Signs (TNS) produce possible de re awareness of God and contain a built in resistible propensity to form a relevant judgment (36). Evans asks: Why do some people accept and some people reject the arguments that proffer signs of the reality of God? His answer contains two theses. Thesis 1: Natural knowledge of God is both “widely accessible” and “easily resisted.” If God exists he would make knowledge of his existence widely accessible (God is egalitarian) and easily resisted (God is non-coercive): “God would make knowledge of himself widely available for those...

Unsatisfied with natural theology and fideism, Paul Moser attempts to introduce a new kind of evidence for God, an evidence, “appropriate for the reality of a God worthy of worship” (20). Such evidence is personified in human agents as they are transformed by God. His argument is as follows: (1) Necessarily, if a human person is offered and receives the transformative gift, then this is the result of the authoritative power of the divine X of thoroughgoing forgiveness, fellowship in perfect love, worthiness of worship, and triumphant hope (namely, God). (2) I have been offered, and have willingly received, the transformative gift. (3) Therefore, God exits. (200) Revelation of the divine, according to Moser, would be appropriate to the kind of being God is. Consequentially, God would reveal himself “in human hearts rather than just to expand human reflection or information” (26). Moser calls this kind of theology, “kardiatheology,” a theology of the heart. Moser's questio...

Oliver O'Donovan suggests that another way to think about the priority or the inclusiveness of love is to think about the object of love (for the first way, see here ). Who or what is it that one should love, given the immigration situation, for example? Should we supremely love those who cannot defend themselves and, having no power, find themselves at the mercy of an impersonal immigration system? Or should our loves be focused on either ideals of law or those for whom our decisions will most affect? What we love or, more precisely, what we are  supposed  to love entails a presupposed order of loves. Self, nation, future generation, ideals, oppressed people all compete for our love. And how do we decide which one  ought  to be loved the most? And when we do choose, for whatever reason, we make the object of love the ultimate object, universalizing a particular and, at the same time, raising it up as the object of supreme love. To see this consider the unin...