To what extent can a person be morally responsible for an evil deed if he was practically certain to do it in the first place? I argue that in this question we need to consider the difference between good choices that fulfill the will’s fundamental inclination and freedom, and evil choices that oppose the will’s fundamental inclination and freedom.
Continued here:
Is predictability incompatible with responsibility for sin?
When circumstances make it extremely probably that someone will act in a given way, they generally do so by making him perceive and thus judge that action in a given way. If this perception is erroneous, the action is an action proceeding from ignorance, and to that extent involuntary.
View original here:
The Difference Between Truth and Error
Newman, reflecting on the pervasive presence of evil in the world, “the blind evolution of what turn out to be great powers or truths… the disappointments of life, the defeat of good, the success of evil… the prevalence and intensity of sin, the pervading idolatries, the corruptions, the dreary hopeless irreligion…” (Apologia pro vita sua,
View original post here:
Newman and Chesterton on Original Sin
The instruction of the CDF, Dignitas Personae, takes up the question of what could be done with the frozen embryos that are already in existence. It rejects the use of these embryos for research or for the treatment of disease because this would be contrary to their dignity as persons. It further takes up the
See the original post:
Prenatal Adoption of Frozen Embryos
In the posts Is predictability incompatible with responsibility for sin and The Difference Between Truth and Error, I argued that external causes (genetics, upbringing, circumstances, etc.) that are not the result of a person’s will, and yet make it more likely that that person will commit an objectively evil act, decrease the voluntariness of that
More here:
Are They Few Who Sin?
Shaun Nichols and Joshua Kolbe describe in a paper, Moral Responsibility and Determinism: The Cognitive Science of Folk Intuitions (PDF), several studies aimed at delineating common intuitions regarding the (in)compatibility of moral responsibility and determinism.
Excerpt from:
Instincts Regarding Determinism and Moral Responsibility
In the article “Religious Differences Between Married and Celibate Clergy: Does Celibacy Make a Difference?” in Sociology of Religion (1998), Don Swenson attempts to make an empirical argument against some of the reasons advanced by the Church for clerical celibacy. While the experiment itself is poorly constructed to the point of being ludicrous, the idea
More:
Empirical Comparison of Celibate and Married Clergy
True Tuesday allows students to learn about Hinduism MU The Parthenon “In a nutshell, Hinduism fits into anyone's schedule,” Velury said. “It teaches to be good to your fellow man, which I think every religion teaches. …
See original here:
True Tuesday allows students to learn about Hinduism – MU The Parthenon
Yesterday we suggested that preaching on a Bible narrative should include more than just elements based on the story, but should actually tell the story. Here’s another implication of the pervasive nature of narrative: 2. Don’t just enter the narrative as a means to an end, but see the entering in as a potential location of the “end.” That seems like a risky sentence, but I think it holds firm. Too easily we feel that a story is, at best, an introduction to our pontifications, applications and morals. But a well timed, well placed, well told story will often carry its own weight and do its own work. The listeners will enter into it, they will find themselves in the world of the story, and they will feel the story in their world. As they identify with the characters and feel the rising tension, as they see the tension resolved, as they feel the blessing of “their” character trusting God, or sense the emptiness of a character choosing the pain of sin, and so on, they will be impacted by the story, during the story. God invented narrative, trusts narrative and so gave us loads of it in Scripture, knowing people would hear it and read it, and knowing that there wouldn’t always be the helpful explanation we sometimes feel God “needs” from people like us. God knew what he was doing with the inspiration of narrative, perhaps our seeing story as effective communication in itself might be an act of faith that could bear fruit? I am not anti-explanation or suggesting that storytelling replace preaching. I am suggesting that in our preaching we don’t simply see narratives as illustration, or introductions to the “real stuff.” It’s tempting to move on to the next implication, but perhaps it would be better to let this post linger longer. Number three tomorrow.
Read the original:
Preaching and Story – Part 2
By: Morgan Johnson A panel of four Brown and Providence experts on the Muslim community addressed the causes of negativity toward Islam in America, offering different opinions on how to combat increasing intolerance, in a mostly full MacMillan 115 Tuesday ni…
Go here to see the original:
Islam in America panel highlights acceptance