Thank you Peter! I also appreciated the emphasis on extrinsic denomination. 🙂

Hey, I'm on a @histphilosophy.bsky.social reading list!
www.historyofphilosophy.net/arnauld-male...

Looking forward to this event Saturday!
www.facebook.com/MassanuttenR...

Just so you understand, this is as if you prepared for argument in front of a panel that included Cookie Monster, and Cookie Monster asked you a question about cookies, and you had not thought about cookies in advance.

Today my students informed me that Cedric the Sorcerer is my evil twin.

Not having seen the show, I'm not sure what to make of this.

disney.fandom.com/wiki/Cedric_...

...We, the others—we, the enemies—are embraced by the divine persons who love us with the same love with which they love each other and therefore make space for us within their eternal embrace.”
Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace (1996), 129

“When God sets out to embrace the enemy, the result is the cross. On the cross the dancing circle of self-giving and mutually indwelling divine persons opens up for the enemy...the movement stops for a brief moment and a fissure appears so that sinful humanity can join in...

Pope Leo says God rejects prayers of leaders who wage wars Pope Leo said on ‌Sunday that God rejects the prayers of leaders who start wars and have "hands full of blood", in unusually forceful remarks as the Iran war entered its second month.

Reuters: Pope Leo said on ‌Sunday that God rejects the prayers of leaders who start wars and have "hands full of blood", in unusually forceful remarks as the Iran war entered its second month.

www.reuters.com/world/pope-l...

Folks like Wayne Grudem and Doug Wilson insist on the 'eternal subordination' of the Son as part of their effort to defend the 'naturalness' of hierarchy and subordination. Basil would not be amused. /END

Basil insists that such relationships are lamentable human-constructed features of this present age and do not exist by nature, let alone within the divinity.

This connection between Trinitarian theology and the way we think about human social relations persists to this day. /4

Interestingly, too, some of the issues at stake have not changed. In ch. 20 (and elsewhere) Basil criticizes those who subordinate the Son and the Holy Spirit for wanting to important human relationships of hierarchy and domination into God. /3

At a time when church and society are torn apart by partisan polarization, Basil is torn between his desire to remain silent and 'lower the temperature' and his conviction that the issues at stake are so important that silence is not an option. /2

On the Holy Spirit This classic exposition of Trinitarian doctrine eloquently sets forth the distinction yet perpetual communion of the divine Persons. Without explicitly calling the Spirit "God, " St Basil demonstrates...

The final chapter of St Basil the Great's On the Holy Spirit (4th century) is almost too relevant to today. 🧵
www.google.com/books/editio...

Yes, I figured it was learning from my previous requests. Interesting that it figured out it was for a particular kind of assignment.

If you want, I can also show a shorter (~200-word) version suitable for submitting as a discussion post or short-answer assignment.

I regularly put my reading response prompts into ChatGPT to see what it’s spitting out. Usually, it produces something longer than the word limit I give my students & I ask it to compress. Today for the first time it made this suggestion on its own:

“sense cannot descry innumerable worlds revolving round the central fires; and in those worlds...endless forms…What treatment then do those philosophers deserve, who would deprive these noble and delightful scenes of all reality?” (Berkeley, 2nd Dialogue)

Silly philosophers, not believing in aliens

Really think we need to bring back the use of ‘explode’ to mean ‘refute’. It’s one of the best early modern philosophical idioms. E.g., “I find, you are at every turn relapsing into your old exploded conceit” (Berkeley, 2nd Dialogue).

Yes. It's interesting that they always mention one another in the acknowledgments but rarely actually cite one another, and their work is so often just adjacent (but not quite overlapping). But most of the time their views seem to fit together into a pretty coherent whole.

Yes, there's a lot of Marilyn in here too! But Bob's "Must God Create the Best?" is the jumping-off point.

This stuff is obviously closely connected with Parfit's Non-Identity problem! Adams (who got it from Leibniz) was actually the first to raise the issue within analytic philosophy (& this is often acknowledged in footnotes), but he got a lot less traction b/c he raised it in a theological context.

NESFA | A Star Above It and Other Stories A Star Above It and Other Stories is volume 1 of a collection of Chad Oliver's SF; Far From This … Continue reading "A Star Above It and Other Stories"

Also: for my whole career people have been noticing that I can’t have a philosophical conversation w/o citing a SF story, but I think this will be the first time I actually cite a SF story in an academic publication. (“A Star Above It” by Chad Oliver.) /END
www.nesfa.org/book/a-star-...

This is an issue I’ve been thinking about for a long time. The nudge I needed to finally write something up was the RM Adams memorial conference last October. The paper develops a line of thought from his classic “Must God Create the Best?” /4
www.jstor.org/stable/2184329

I argue that maintaining due respect for the undeserved suffering of others requires hope for an afterlife joined in love w/ these others, so we can say together, “we are glad that we exist and we thank God for creating a world containing the evils required for our existence.” /3

It's about the moral/religious attitudes I should take toward past evils (e.g. WWII) necessary for my existence. What does it look like to be grateful to God for my existence while recognizing that I would not exist if God had not permitted others to suffer so horrifically? /2

Submitted a paper after 5PM Thurs & got a conditional accept w/ substantive comments at 8AM Mon! In almost 20 years I don’t think I’ve ever received a desk reject that fast, let alone comments!

“I Should Not Exist” will appear in the Jan 2027 issue of Faith and Philosophy. 🧵

Saving this quote for an appropriate occasion: "This is so obviously ridiculous that I am at a loss for words to answer such nonsense...It would be like using a sword to cut through butter!" (Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit, §41)

This may be the most niche thing I have ever published, but if you care about 18th century Anglican debates about divine attributes (including George Berkeley and Samuel Clarke) and/or you really like people named 'John Clarke', you might find something to interest you!

My paper "Authorship and Significance of a Letter to Bishop Peter Browne (d. 1735) on the Divine Attributes" has been accepted for publication in Anglican and Episcopal History.

Did a class session on Cavendish on the self today. Definitely a keeper.

How unified is the self, really?
Is the self like a country?
How can actions & beliefs be attributed to countries?
Are attributions to us like that?
How can we prevent civil wars in ourselves?

Students were really into it!

A photo of an ice cream machine with a sign reading, "Anything is possible with ice cream." Beneath that is a hand lettered sign reading, "No ice cream".

2026 basically