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 Click here to read Part 1 of this essay.

In the above argument as detailed by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, only three of God’s characteristics are highlighted: omnipotence, omniscience, and his moral perfection. This is an overly simplistic view of God. People who make these arguments based on this portrayal of his attributes are attempting to put God in a box and confine him to their strict limitations and their personal ideas of who they think he is or who they think he should be. Based on what the Bible says, God is the exact opposite of a being that can be summed up in three short statements. God is infinite, and therefore he is infinitely complex and multifaceted, and he probably has an infinite number of characteristics. Whenever we think about God, we must try our best to consider all of the different aspects of his character. The index of Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology lists at least 44 different attributes--and that is still just a partial list (1278). For instance, consider God’s justice. The Bible clearly states that the evil in this world is a result of the fall of man, due to man’s free will. Adam and Eve sinned, and through them all mankind has sinned (Geisler 390). In Romans 5:12 we read, “When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned” (Holy Bible 1059). Since God is a just god, man is receiving and will receive his just recourse for sin: “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23) (Holy Bible 1060). As a result of man’s sin, the formerly perfect creation has been indelibly marred. It is no longer the perfect Eden that God first created.

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The problem of evil: it is a topic that has haunted theologians and bolstered the faith of atheists for centuries.

In his introduction to “Nonmoral Nature,” Stephen Jay Gould references this exact problem. For his purposes, he puts a naturalistic spin on it. Gould writes, “If God is benevolent and the Creation displays his ‘power, wisdom, and goodness,’ then why are we surrounded with pain, suffering, and apparently senseless cruelty in the animal world?” (638) Gould then proceeds to defuse “the problem” by arguing that nature is actually “nonmoral.”

As a result, the problem of evil does not apply to nature. In this paper I am going to tackle a grander sense of “the problem of evil.” I will address it primarily as it relates to human pain and suffering in this world.

Plato

Click here to read Part 1.

He then makes a significant transition from this hypothetical example by claiming that it applies to real life. Plato begins to make this transition on page 453 when he writes, “this entire allegory, I said, you may now append, dear Glaucon, to the previous argument.”

Plato is involving a little bit of trickery here by convincing the readers with the allegory and then leaping into his real agenda with how we should view the world and the state, using the allegory as the foundation for it. He is basically using an ancient version of the bait-and-switch scam. He baits us by using a plausible hypothetical allegory and switches by diving into his philosophical agenda without giving logical reasons for the transition.

Plato

Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave” is a pivotal philosophic text for many reasons. One of the primary reasons that it is so monumental is that Plato addresses so many different areas of philosophy in this one piece: epistemology, metaphysics, asceticism, ethics, and more.

Due to the import of “The Allegory,” writers have been analyzing it for well over 2,000 years. Some have interpreted it to have one meaning, others, another.

As we seek to understand exactly what Plato was seeking to accomplish with his allegory and subsequent analysis, we must think about the argument he was trying to make, and whether or not he was successful. As I will point out, the connection between his allegory and his analysis is quite tremulous.

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The following was written as a short assignment in my Advanced Composition course.

Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave” is a pivotal philosophic text for many reasons. One of the primary reasons that it is so monumental is that Plato addresses so many different areas of philosophy in this one piece: epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and more. Despite the fact that this piece has had a massive impact down to our present day, it is by no means free from weaknesses. In this short essay I will discuss the many strengths and some of the serious weakness of “The Cave.”

The following is the final segment of an essay that I wrote for my 4000 level Topics in Philosophy class: "Happiness and Suffering."

Click here to read part 3. 

Since I think that this pursuit and use of spiritual gifts does justice to the philosophers that I have been examining in this paper, specifically Aquinas and Haybron, I will spend the remainder of the paper discussing spiritual gifting and some of its applications to happiness. This will in no way be an exhaustive treatment of spiritual gifts. Instead, it will be a cursory introduction. As I mentioned above, a belief in our own inability to reconcile ourselves to God and an acceptance of Jesus’s blood and his work on the cross in order to reconcile us to God is a prerequisite for an understanding of spiritual gifts. In this way, my view is completely in line with Aquinas’s view.

The following is an essay that I wrote for my 4000 level Topics in Philosophy class: "Happiness and Suffering." I have split it up into several pieces and will be publishing it here on Cranial Collision over the next week or two.

Click here to read part 2. 

Before I address the issues with Haybron’s concept of self-fulfillment, I do want to acknowledge the fact that his move from Aristotle’s broad nature-fulfillment to a narrower self-fulfillment was a wise one. Haybron spends the entirety of chapter 8 in his book The Pursuit of Unhappiness developing this transition, but I think there are a few critical points which he makes that can illuminate the transition for us in a few short sentences. On page 157 he writes, “. . .what counts toward my well-being must not depend on what any other individual, or group or class of individuals—actual or hypothetical—is like.” Later on 168 he adds, “The perfectionist’s fundamental mistake lies in not recognizing that well-being is what we might call a success value: it concerns the success of an organism in achieving its goals.” By perfection, Haybron is of course referring to Aristotle’s nature-fulfillment: becoming the perfect example of the human race.

The following is an essay that I wrote for my 4000 level Topics in Philosophy class: "Happiness and Suffering." I have split it up into several pieces and will be publishing it here on Cranial Collision over the next week or two.

Click here to read part 1.
 
Aquinas goes on to set up a distinction between “imperfect happiness” and “perfect happiness.” He says that imperfect happiness is the kind achievable in this world, and that perfect happiness is the kind that is only achievable by being with God and knowing him in the afterlife (81). “Aquinas argues” that “perfect happiness, or ultimate felicity, cannot consist in moral actions,” because “actions cannot be properly attributed to God, whereas happiness can,” among other reasons (80-81). Only “knowledge of that which is above the human intellect can perfect it directly, not through participation in something higher, and here then must lie man’s ultimate felicity” (81).

The following is an essay that I wrote for my 4000 level Topics in Philosophy class: "Happiness and Suffering." I have split it up into several pieces and will be publishing it here on Cranial Collision over the next week or two.

The Pursuit of Imperfect Happiness

Throughout the course of his book titled The Pursuit of Unhappiness, Daniel M. Haybron makes numerous distinctions and delineations between different aspects of happiness, and he attempts to define the relationships between these aspects in clear, distinct ways. On the whole, Haybron does an excellent job of explaining and supporting the arguments in his book, especially in relation to his emotional state theory of happiness and psychic affirmation.

         "The human mind, being created, has an understandable uneasiness about the Uncreated.  We do not find it comfortable to allow for the presence of One who is wholly outside of the circle of our familiar knowledge. We tend to be disquieted by the thought of One who does not account to us for His being, who is responsible to no one, who is self-existent, self-dependent and self-sufficient."

1. "For after all the foundation of eloquence, as of everything else, is wisdom." -Cicero

2. “The human mind has the capacity to rationalize to itself any and all human actions.” -Michael C. Brannigan

3. ‎"Nature has herself appointed that nothing great is to be accomplished quickly, and has ordained that difficulty should precede every work of excellence..." -Quintillian

4. ‎"For human well-being mostly depends not on what people have but, among other things, on what they do with what they've got." -Daniel M. Haybron

5. "For many of us, the majority opinion constitutes the litmus test of whether something is morally right or wrong. This is logically absurd." -Michael C. Brannigan

Social Media: it's everywhere today. With over 750 million people on Facebook, Google Plus on the rise, and Twitter a force to be reckoned with, it's hard to escape it.

I wrote the following to clarify a recent status update I posted about social media, and to clarify my philosophical position on social media in general:

I found out that my philosophy proffessor, George Wrisley, Ph.D., has a philosophy blog. Being a blogger myself, I was pretty excited! He's written some very interesting essays, so I encourage you to check his site out.

I decided to respond in length to one of the posts that I've read so far (entitled "A Difficult Dilemma: Deny that Humanity is Fallen, or Deny Evolution?"), and I thought I'd republish my comment here for you all to read:

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The following is a post that I wrote a week ago for my Rhetorical Theory class. It wasn't intended to fully address the question of "Does language create reality?" but it does touch on that topic:

"I think that Gorgias was right on when he said that "the effect of speech upon the condition of the soul is comparable to the power of drugs over the nature of bodies. For just as different drugs dispel different secretions from the body, and some bring an end to disease and others to life, so also in the case of speeches, some distress, others delight, some cause fear, others make the hearers bold, and some drug and bewitch the soul with a kind of evil persuasion." I don't think this was exceedingly dramatic, but I do think that most of the time, language is just a communicator of a greater reality. IE, I don't think it is reasonable to believe that language creates reality.

Let me use an example to clarify:

The following is a short assignment that I wrote for my "Rhetorical Theory" class:

"I agree with Isocrates' claim that education does not directly result in moral improvement.

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A week or so ago I read this post by Silouan that is full of quotations from the ancients about how bad the youth of their day were. It's funny, because much of the same language that those ancients used is being used by the parents and elders of today.

"What do you want to be remembered for?

For being a Packer fan?  A state-championship winning athlete?  

A great Dad and a loving husband?

After you've asked yourself that, also consider what you do with your life that will truly have a lasting impact; Something of significance that doesn't fade, tarnish, or decay.  

We know that the Green Bay Packers have not and will not exist forever, 

so what do you dedicate your passion to that really matters?"

I find these little fish bumper stickers a very fitting representation of the essence of Darwinism.

What's the difference between the first sticker and the second? The second has legs, yes, but the primary difference is the spot that Jesus occupied is now replaced by Darwin. 

The question "What makes us human?" is so fundamental. In this short essay response to Frankenstein that I wrote for my Brit Lit II survey, I examine whether or not the "creature" is a human being. To do so, we have to think about what exactly the criteria for humanity is. Read on for short exploration of the topic:

Despite his hideous appearance, Viktor Frankenstein's creation isn't actually a monster, it is really a human being. We can see his human qualities shine through primarily in his complex emotions and his reasoning.