The Christian Vanguard

I've always been uncomfortable with Divine Command Theory as a moral theory. Reading David Oderberg's Moral Theory  has really helped me understand why. The way I used to express my concern was that DCT never really told us anything about how we should live. It just kind of says that what is right or wrong for us is whatever God tells us, and so we ought to obey. Why God commands a thing may be a separate issue (maybe it is rooted in his divine nature and so flows necessarily from that, or maybe we're complete voluntarists). And what use is just saying "God says it" when we ask ourselves what the right course of action is, when God may not have addressed the issue?  Oderberg recognizes that ethics are a body of knowledge and like any other kind of science should be available to everyone by some kind of method that is repeatable and produces repeatable results. DCT, could produce real knowledge, but it couldn't be accessible to others if God has not comman...

There is the view that ones gender is whatever you feel. I've heard this view in my schools philosophy club, and you can see it in the popular media here . But the criteria that gender is whatever you feel is too vague. Of course, those LGBT advocates want to say that if you feel like a boy or if you feel like a girl then that is your gender (or any other sort of gender according to these people, since according to them it's like infinite). But what kind of feeling is the feeling of "boy" or "girl"? We know there are feelings like anger, happiness, pain, anxiety, and boredom. But they don't say "My gender is boredom because I feel bored." (Well, I have heard one of their advocates say that being a rock is a gender, so maybe I shouldn't put this pass them, but I think a more serious advocate would say that's not possible) No, the type of feeling one has as being a boy or girl is a different kind of feeling as being angry. But the defin...

How is the "Our Father" prayer meant to be recited? Many of my protestant friends do not believe that when Jesus taught us how to pray this prayer, he didn't mean it word for word, but that he kind of gave us an outline. I have not heard any exegesis for this view. That is not to say that I have not heard and sound exegetical arguments for this view, but that there is no such argument put forth at all, and I have asked.  So, on the face of it, it just seems like we should pray it exactly as Jesus told us to. But history shows that this is how we are meant to pray this. The Didache is one of the oldest teachings of the Church in print, and probably predates even some books of the Bible (a fact which probably lead some to believe that it was inspired and belonged in the Canon). It's kind of like the first catechist book. This is what is says,  Neither pray ye as the hypocrites, but as the Lord commanded in His Gospel, so pray ye: "Our Father, who art in hea...

No. As St. Thomas Aquinas argued ,  In cases of need all things are common property, so that there would seem to be no sin in taking another's property, for need has made it common. ...whatever certain people have in superabundance is due, by natural law , to the purpose of succoring the poor. ...if the need be so manifest and urgent, that it is evident that the present need must be remedied by whatever means be at hand (for instance when a person is in some imminent danger, and there is no other possible remedy), then it is lawful for a man to succor his own need by means of another's property, by taking it either openly or secretly: nor is this properly speaking theft or robbery. I've written about this before, in my post about why I am not a libertarian, but I've been meaning to go back and edit that post. But anyways, imagine that I have labored to gain property rights over all the water in the world. Say that a man, and certainly all men but one will do, ne...

I asked a single buddy of mine why he doesn't look for a woman who is like him, someone who undergoes dialysis. His response was an obvious one, that he didn't want to risk children who would have kidney failure like him and his hypothetical wife. It's something I've written briefly about before when discussing PGD. So, consider the case with most people. A couple gets together and has a baby. This baby is normal and healthy. Easy peasy. Not much to see here. Now, another couple, they have a baby and the baby is born deaf. Not the parents fault. Nobodies fault. Just happens sometimes. But let us ask, if the parents could go back in time so that their baby would never be born, would they do it? It seems wrong for them to say yes. Their love for their child is the same independent of whether he turns out to be deaf. Now, consider a deaf couple. The husband and wife are both deaf, and genetics makes it certain that their child will also be deaf. Is there a problem here?...

I recall a pretty bad rejection experience. 

Here is my Amazon review for this short book.