This is a week when I’ve been thinking about old friends who are, as it happens, ex-friends. Maybe it’s a special category of friendship. I’ve devoted a recent column to David, who was a valued philosophical colleague. Together we shared … Continue reading → The post Where Are the Ex-Friends Now? appeared first on Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column.| Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column
A Good Look at an Old Evil | The title of this column plays off my first book, A Good Look at Evil. There I revisited some of the main...| Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column
Divinity must live within herself: Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow; Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued Elations when the forest blooms; gusty Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights| Vox Populi
God’s Purpose for Evil is the Revealing of His Great Glory Where the Free Will defense frames God as dependent on the free will choices of man, the Greater-Good and Greater-Glory theodicies present him as sovereignly decreeing evil for the express purpose of accomplishing a specific good. As Welty explains, the Greater-Good theodicy reveals, “That […] The post Answering the Problem of Evil – Part 3, All For the Glory of God appeared first on Voice of Reason.| Voice of Reason
God’s Goodness and Glory are Limited Under Free Will To address the charges that God cannot be both omnipotent and wholly good if he permits evil to exist, some theologians present the defense that God created beings that have complete free agency to choose what actions they will take. For these beings to truly worship […] The post Answering the Problem of Evil – Part 2, Isn’t It All About Free Will? appeared first on Voice of Reason.| Voice of Reason
Introduction The issue over the existence of evil is a perpetual concern for the Christian church. Christians are routinely challenged by secularists, philosophers, and anti-theists with the “problem of evil,” which asks if God is truly omnibenevolent and omnipotent, how can evil exist in his world? J. L. Mackie alleges, “There seems to be some […] The post Answering the Problem of Evil – Part 1, The Accusation appeared first on Voice of Reason.| Voice of Reason
The other day I scanned the internet for news of ex-friends who’d stayed significant in my memory. “We quarreled,” as French philosopher Sartre said about one former friend, the philosopher Merleau-Ponty, “a quarrel does not matter. It’s just one more … Continue reading → The post Ave Atque Vale (Hail and Farewell) appeared first on Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column.| Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column
Doran Spielman’s When the Stones Speak: The Remarkable Discovery of the City of David Is the Bible a history book? Did the stories in it (or some of the more literal-sounding ones) really happen? Or are we modern people obliged … Continue reading → The post When the Stones Speak appeared first on Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column.| Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column
The Fork in the Road | A realization visited me the other day. It had to do with lost friendships. I’d always pictured these...| Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column
In Liaisons Dangereuses, the eighteenth-century epistolary novel of cynicism by Choderlos de Laclos, the plot turns around two aristocrats who co-conspire to seduce their unsuspecting victims. Their purpose is not so much to gratify sexual desire as to enjoy the … Continue reading → The post Women Enemies and Women Friends appeared first on Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column.| Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column
The Story | “The crucial thing is the story.” That is what I claim in A Good Look at Evil, my book which holds that the person who...| Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column
The other night I had a dream in which I met a woman whom I used to regard as a friend. But she’d become an ex-friend – in the following fashion. An ill-wisher who’d known me from my earliest days … Continue reading → The post In Quest of Lost Friendship appeared first on Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column.| Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column
Reincarnation: Anne Frank and Me | Some years back I read a book with the title, And the Wolves Howled: Fragments of Two Lifetimes...| Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column
Readers of this column may recall that I had a near-death experience fairly recently. Not the good kind, where you meet all the dear ones who’ve gone before you up the golden stairway. Rather, the kind where you get to … Continue reading → The post Death and the Doctors appeared first on Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column.| Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column
The Puzzle of Hannah Arendt | The career of Hannah Arendt is surely one of the oddest on record. Doubt has been cast on claims for which...| Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column
What Is Truth? | The question, famously put to Jesus by Pontius Pilate, was prompted by Jesus’ self-report that he had come to bear witness...| Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column
A Writer's Conscience | I just finished reading – actually skimming – what I’m tempted to name as the worst book in the history of the...| Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column