One of the joys of inhabiting an explicitly interdisciplinary space is that one is constantly challenged and stimulated by ideas, critiques, and voices that collectively defy easy conceptual or disciplinary categorization. I consider myself extremely fortunate to exist in such a space, addressing theological questions by drawing upon scholarship not only from specific faith traditions,…

As reflected in the two parts of her book, Sarah Lane Ritchie’s project is twofold. She first critiques the “standard divine action model,” which she grounds in the Divine Action Project (p. 7). According to such models: God doesn’t intervene, and so doesn’t go against natural processes or the laws of nature. Rather, God acts…

There are two kinds of facts: normative and non-normative. Facts about how things should be, what is or is not properly functioning, what is right or wrong, what is healthy or not, and what is good or bad are normative. Facts about how things are or how they could be or statistically tend to be…

Neo-Aristotelianism is indeed resurgent in contemporary philosophy. The renaissance has been underway for at least fifty years, beginning with a new focus on classical metaphysical themes by Roderick Chisholm, David M. Armstrong, Alvin Plantinga, and Robert M. Adams. In the 1960’s and 70’s, these anglophone philosophers began digging themselves out of the rubble of logical…

My overall aim in this brief response to Paul Gould’s lead essay is to draw the reader’s attention to an area of contemporary moral philosophy—Neo-Aristotelian metaethics—that is ripe for rediscovery in the wake of the ongoing resurgence of Neo-Aristotelianism in metaphysics and philosophy of science. Sketching A Metaphysical Picture Let me begin with a thumbnail…

I am grateful to Professor Gould for his invitation to respond to his introductory remarks for this symposium. Professor Gould is especially interested in a framework for philosophical thought and a particular comprehension of nature, that, as he says, held sway for millenia. He refers to this as the “Neo-Aristotelian picture,” according to which “the…

Our conception of nature and the natural shapes our way of perceiving, thinking, and living. Let me explain. On the dominant way of conceiving the world and our place in it today, gifted to us by the Enlightenment thinker David Hume among others, the universe is like a clock—a mechanism—and is wholly composed of bits…

The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that The Princess Bride (1987) is a cinematic masterpiece, and a virtually limitless source of helpful quotations, from scene after scene. About two-thirds through the film, Inigo and Fezzik take the (mostly) dead Man in Black to Miracle Max asking for, well, a miracle: the resuscitation…

While the stated topic of the book is divine action, the subtitle does a lot of work: Contemporary Science & Thomas Aquinas. Dodds believes that modern views of causality are impoverished, and that Aristotelian-Thomist metaphysics provides the remedy. While this is doubtful in my opinion, the mapping of medieval concepts to contemporary science should be…

Remarking on the natural human propensities toward both pride and ease, Francis Bacon observed “A man will become attached to one particular science and field of investigation either because he thinks he was its author and inventor or because he has worked hard on it and become habituated to it.” This strikes most of us…

A Review of Gerard M. Verschuuren, Aquinas and Modern Science: A New Synthesis of Faith & Reason The goal of this ambitious book is twofold: first, to introduce Thomas Aquinas’s philosophy; second, to interpret the modern sciences in light of that philosophy. The intended audience is primarily scientists who are philosophical greenhorns and students. Despite the…

A modern maxim has long since taken up residence in most theology departments across the world today: we no longer live in a time where the old, substantival metaphysics remain convincing. If historical-theological accounts of the nineteenth century have taught us anything, it was that each passing theologian sought to outdo the one who had…