The Christian Vanguard

The year is nearing its end, and I reflect. The theme is impenitence. Final Impenitence is the opposite of Final Perseverance. We die without confession or contrition of sins. This causes the soul to be eternally damned. I have many sins which I have confessed, and have tried to correct. The biggest attempts to correction have been my previous relationships with women. I felt as though I matured enough, was willing to explain and admit anything when asked, because I know the women I have hurt must have questions.  I started with Chandler. I dated Chandler some years ago, and it ended terribly. I felt as though she pressured me into the relationship, and I was too much of a coward to tell her 'no'. This lead to a disaster of a relationship, and the only way I had the courage to break it off was to be a total jerk to her, so that she  could break it off. This year, I dated a woman, Meghan, who actually happened to know her. So that motivated me to reach out to Chandler and ...

The following is a study guide I typed out for my philosophy of religion class. The Problem of Evil A. “Evil and Omnipotence” J.L. Mackie (1) Explain the problem of evil. The problem of evil states there is a contradiction within this set of statements: God is omnipotent, God is wholly good, and evil exists. Since God is omnibenevolent, God wishes to abolish evil, and since God is omnipotent, then God could abolish evil. If an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God exists, then evil does not exist. But since evil exists, then an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God does not exist. (2) Explain the problems with the four fallacious solutions Mackie considers. 1. “Good cannot exist without evil” or “Evil is a necessary counterpart to good” The main problem with this response is that it restricts God’s omnipotence, if not outright rejects it. If God and evil are necessary counterparts, then God cannot eliminate evil. This would also make “good” and “evil” similar to being “great” and “small”, but ...

Baker’s constitution view states that personal identity depends on mental property of the First Person Perspective. This is the ability to conceive oneself as oneself, or as a referent to the first person pronoun. This is not to say it is a being with a point of view, as mere animals do, but mere animals cannot conceive of themselves as the subject of such thoughts. Having a point of view is necessary but not alone sufficient for being a person. Having a FPP is sufficient for being a person. Further, human persons are constituted by human bodies. Now constitution is a relation between different primary kinds, which entails that they are not identical. A statue may be constituted by copper, but the statue is not identical to the statue because they have different persistence conditions. For example, a bronze statue may be flattened to make copper wire, and though the copper persists, the statue does not. On the other side of the coin, a statue may be made of marble or cheese, and the ...

James’ response to Clifford suggests that we cannot, just by willing it, come to believe something. Thus it is a mistake to think belief is something largely within our control. We don’t believe something because we have logically come to this or that conclusion, but largely because of our volition, which is to say, our non-intellectual nature influences our convictions. So when we are confronted with and have to decide between two propositions that cannot be decided by the intellect, our passions must decide. Even not deciding, as Clifford may have us do, is a choice of the passions.  There are two epistemic goals which are to avoid error and to believe truth. These are distinct. Just because we disbelieve B, it doesn’t follow that we believe A, for we may instead fall into other kinds of falsehoods. Clifford emphasized avoiding error over and above knowing truth, but a good epistemology will have both.

Clifford asks us to consider a ship owner with a bad boat that needs repairs. This thought that it needs repairs makes the ship owner uncomfortable and so he eventually pushes those beliefs aside and then genuinely believes his ship will be just fine for another voyage. Alas, his ship sinks. Clifford believes that the owner is to be held responsible for the death of voyagers because he had evidence to believe otherwise, and his sincerity should be of no help or defense to him. On the other hand, if the ship does not sink and is safe, this still would not excuse the owner because when an action is done, it is right or it is wrong and no accidental feature of the fruits will alter that. So for Clifford, it is wrong to believe things on insufficient evidence.  Clifford states that no belief is truly insignificant because all beliefs prepare us to receive other beliefs, they make us disposed to confirming our beliefs and indisposed to disconfirming them, and it lays the groundwork...

Pascal’s wager asks us to consider that either God is, or He is not. Provided that reason cannot decide for us which is true, we must wager which is true. To not wager is not optimal. The die is cast, in virtue of being alive and finding ourselves in this situation where we will experience the consequences of our beliefs. If we wager that God exists and thus act on that, and it happens to be that God does indeed exist, then whatever sacrifices we may have made in this life are minimal compared to the infinite glory that we will experience with God. If however, we wager that God exists but God happens to not exist, then we only have a finite amount to lose anyway. Analyzing the possible consequences if we were to wager that God does not exist, we would experience an infinite loss, the loss of an infinite God in our lives, and only a finite amount of worldly gain if it happens to be that God does indeed exist. Finally, if we wager that God does not exist, and it happens to be that God ...

Collin’s argument goes as follows. The Existence of the fine-tuning in question is not improbable given theism. The existence of the fine-tuning is very improbable under the atheistic single-universe hypothesis. So the fine-tuning provides strong evidence to favor the theists design hypothesis over the atheistic single-universe hypothesis. Underlying this argument is the Prime Principle of Confirmation, which states that whenever we consider two competing hypotheses, an observation counts as evidence in favor of the hypothesis under consideration if the observation has the higher probability. So Collins thinks fine tuning is evidence of there being a God rather than there not being a God. Fine tuning is the idea that the basic structure of the universe such as the fundamental laws of nature, distribution of matter, the initial conditions of the big bang, etc. is balanced on a razors edge for life to occur. The atheistic single universe hypothesis states that there is only one universe...

I wrote the following for my medical ethics class. Nothing in here is original. There were footnotes, but they don't transfer over in a copy-paste.  In this paper, I will argue that abortion is morally impermissible. I will begin with narrowing down questions that need to be answered in the debate. From there, I will examine what it is that I am, then explore why I have moral status, and argue that I am numerically identical to the fetus. Throughout all this, I will be contrasting it with the personhood view, which I take to be the strongest opposing view.  Suppose one day you are washing dishes, and your child comes up behind you and asks, “Mommy, can I kill this?” It would be foolish to answer without turning around and seeing what “this” refers to. If it is a worm on a fishing hook, it’s probably permissible to say, “Sure. Go do it outside.” However, if you saw your child was holding a knife to a puppy’s throat, you probably would not respond the same way. This sho...

The following is a paper I wrote for my medical ethics class. The topic is lying. I had about 20 footnotes, but a simple copy-paste action won't carry those over, so, I'm not claiming to be original here or anything.  In this paper I will argue that lying to a patient is wrong because lying simpliciter is always wrong. This will be distinguished from other acts, such as reservation and deceit, in which the patient does not receive the truth but may be permissible. Cases will be considered which it may seem beneficial to lie to the patient and to lie for the patient. I will be drawing from St. Thomas Aquinas and other philosophers that interact with the Thomist tradition.  I begin with the assumption that man is a rational animal. That man is a kind of animal is not controversial, for the whole field of medical science deals with the reality of that animality, and how to treat it. That man is also rational also seems to be uncontroversial as shown by the medical fields...

What it means to be eternal and what it means to be timeless are two different questions. For God to be eternal means that He always existed and always will exist. God has no beginning and no end. To be timeless, on the other hand, means that God is outside time or doesn’t exist within time, has no temporal location and temporal terms don’t apply to God. Some reasons to embrace a timeless God is it emphasizes God’s transcendence over creation, it reconciles divine foreknowledge with human freedom, and it remains consistent with other attributes of God, such as His immutability, or unchanging nature. Davis has three arguments against God being timeless. It is not compatible with God as creator. For God created the world at some time T, then either at T God creates the world which would make God temporal, or God creates the world and the world firsts exists at T which would mean there is a need for a notion of a-temporal causation, which he doesn’t think there is. Davis thinks...

The three components of Perfect Being Theology are great making properties, compossible properties, and uniqueness. A great making property is any property that endows its bearer with some measure of values and greatness, or metaphysical stature, regardless of extrinsic circumstances, that it to say, it has intrinsic goodness. Compossible properties are collections of properties if it is possible that they all be had by the same individual at the same time or all together. There are no properties which are inconsistent with one another. Uniqueness means that God is the being such that no greater can be conceived, following St. Anselm.   Why think there is intrinsic goodness? I f all goodness is external goodness, then nothing would be good since they don’t terminate in some intrinsic goodness. So, if P is good for some other thing P1, but P1 isn’t worth pursuing unless it is itself good, which is denied when we deny intrinsic goodness or good for something else, P2, whic...

The question as to whether video games cause violence was a hot topic recently. I don't know whether it does or it doesn't, but I think some conservatives like myself may have reason to suspect it does. Conservatives, like myself, say that pornography is part of the cause for sex trafficking and sexual violence. I won't go into detail for that argument, but I do refer you to the book The Social Costs of Pornography . And what is pornography? They are images for the purpose of stimulating our sexual arousal. While we do not engage in the acts of the images, since those times are past and perhaps in far away locations, they engage our fantasies. So, there is some connection between that and sexual violence. Now, consider violent video games. What do they do? They are also images that engage our fantasies. And they engage them into acts of violence. I killed this person. I ran over that person. I decapitated her. I shot their dog. Etc. They engage the fantasy. And so, likewise...

I have been reflecting on my many regrets lately. The biggest of which is my consumption of carbs. I should have had my sandwich lettuce wrapped instead of on buns. I should have let my girlfriend have my chicken nuggets, instead of consuming them all by myself them like a fatty. So, I go home, and I have remorse. "Why am I like this? Why wasn't I able to control myself?" Plato considers it, and so does Aristotle to some extent. Of course, I was able to control myself. It wasn't like I was sitting down, watching myself on a TV screen, and seeing someone else control my body as if I were being possessed. No one possessed me. If I go to a dinner, and I let myself go, I say I lost control. In a literal sense, I did not lose control, but something did come over me, and that was my appetites (both in Aristotlean sense and in the common sense). My emotions came over me, and I decided to follow that. What we mean by losing control is that we let our reason lose control....

In doing research on the KJV onlyists, I came across an argument against baptism that I want to address. It goes as follows. Those who believe that baptism is necessary for salvation will usually cite 1 Peter 3:21. But that actually disproves the necessity of baptism. When you look at 2 Corinthians 7:1, you see that "filth of the flesh" refers to sin. And since 1 Peter says baptism doesn't do away with the filth of the flesh, it therefore doesn't do away with sin. So baptism doesn't save. Understand that in dealing with the KJV onlyists, you may have to look at other translations. I'm no expert in languages, but I do trust that the translators did a good enough job for me to understand what is given to me without any expertise in any ancient language. However, just as I am skeptical of Jehovah's Witnesses using a translation that is unique to them, and various other cults doing the same, skepticism can be warranted in dealing with KJVO and looking and...

It has been advised to me, by a few people, that a part of the healing process for a breakup is to get into a rebound relationship. A rebound relationship is a relationship that you enter into that isn't too serious, if at all. When I showed my friends a photo of my ex's new boyfriend to see whether they thought he had a punchable face (unanimous agreement: he does), they suggested that he may just be a rebound, and so maybe I should get in on that rebound plan too. It's bad advice, I think. Like, horrid advice, even if somewhat amusing. It suggests using another person. And we shouldn't use people so selfishly.  But I wonder if I'm already doing that. Not long after my ex broke up with me, I was curious to see if she was active on Catholic Match. She was. That she put herself in a search mode so soon after our relationship hurt to see. Was I so insignificant? Was I so replaceable? So expendable? Did she even mean it when she said she loved me? I may never get ...

One argument that critics of the King James Only-ist movement give goes something like this: If you believe that the King James Version Bible is the only perfect inspired word of God, then you're going to have difficulty pointing to a particular Bible, because there are different versions of the KJV. The KJVO have a response, which goes something like this: Granting for the sake of argument that this is a difficulty, then you have the same difficulty because you can't point to a particular Bible that you think is a perfect word of God. And that's tantamount to just not believing the Bible is not really from God. You can see examples of that argument here and here . So because a critic can't point to an authorized version like they can, critics have no business raising the problem.  There are two possible responses. The first is that it isn't equivalent. Because the critic isn't making the same claim as the KJVO, they don't suffer the same problem. KJVO c...

Why do lingering feelings of guilt, shame, doubt still haunt us after we have confessed our sins which we think are the cause for such feelings? St. Thomas Aquinas may have some insight into the issue here when he says, "...passion is properly to be found where there is corporeal transmutation." Which is just basically to say that when you have a certain emotion, there is a corresponding bodily change. When you feel fear, your heart races, you begin to sweat. When you see the woman you are infatuated with, you have a slight pain in your stomach. When you see your wife walk over to the bed to fulfill marital duties, you also have an appropriate physical response.  And is well known, there is a difference between your passions and your intellect, or your will, in this case. When our intellect craves for something, we don't "feel" it like we feel our emotions. If I feel hungry, I have a bodily reaction to it, and is very immediate. When I feel sad, I have an ...