Some serious enemies of Christianity in times of the Roman Empire

[...] it is remarkable that among the emperors it was not the willful tyrants of the Nero type or the fanatical reactionaries of the Julian type that were a serious danger to Christianity but the righteous Stoics of the type of Marcus Aurelius. The reason for this is that Courage and Wisdom: The Stoics n the Stoic has a social and personal courage which is a real alternative to Christian courage.

Stoic courage is not an invention of the Stoic philosophers. They gave it classical expression in rational terms; but its roots go back to mythological stories, legends of heroic deeds, words of early wisdom, poetry and tragedy, and to centuries of philosophy preceding the rise of Stoicism. One event especially gave the Stoics' courage lasting power the death of Socrates. That became for the whole ancient world both a fact and a symbol. It showed the human situation in the face of fate and death. It showed a courage which could affirm life because it could affirm death. And it brought a profound change in the traditional meaning of courage. In Socrates the heroic courage of the past was made rational and universal. A democratic idea of courage was created as against the aristocratic idea of it. Soldierly fortitude was transcended by the courage of wisdom. In this form it gave "philosophical consolation" to many people in all sections of the ancient world throughout a period of catastrophes and transformations.

Paul Tillich

The Courage to Be

1. Being and Courage

Courage and Wisdom: The Stoics

Excerpt from: http://www.archive.org/stream/courageofbe011129mbp/courageofbe011129mbp_djvu.txt

A preliminary statement of the Free Will Defense; Alvin Plantinga

A world containing creatures who are significantly free (and freely to perform more good than vile actions) is more valuable, all else being equal, than a world containing no free creatures at all. Now God can create free creatures, but He can’t cause or determine them to do only what is right. For if He does so, then they aren’t significantly free after all; they do not do what is right freely. To create creatures capable of moral good, therefore, He must create creatures capable of moral evil; and at the same time prevent them from doing so. As it turned out, sadly enough, some of the free creatures God created went wrong in the exercise of their freedom; this is the source of moral evil. The fact that free creatures sometimes go wrong, however, counts neither against God’s omnipotence nor against His goodness; for He could have forestalled the occurrence of moral evil only by removing the possibility of moral good.

The Analytical Theist, an Alvin Plantinga Reader
edited by James F. Sennett
page 27
Eerdmans, 1998

What is existence?

Someone might think that Christian theology has a fairly straightforward answer to the question "What is existence?": to exist is to be created by God or to be God. Now it is certainly true that everything other than God has been created. But this answer will still not do. Why? Because it is circular. Suppose we want to know what it means to say "X exists," and we answer, "X is created by God." If we now ask what this statement means, we will answer, "For God to give x existence." Thus "X exists" will amount to "X is given existence by God," and we have made no progress. We want to know exactly what God does when he creates something. To answer this, we need a theory of existence.

Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview
J.P. Moreland & William Lane Craig
InterVarsity Press, 2003
Page 189

The ontological argument restated by Alvin Plantinga

(29) There is a possible world in which maximal greatness is instantiated.

[…]

(30) Necessarily, a being is maximally great only if it has maximal excellence in every world

and

(31) Necessarily, a being has maximal excellence in every world only if it has omniscience, omnipotence, and moral perfection in every world.

[…]

But if (29) is true, then there is a possible world W such that if it had been actual, then there would have existed a being that was omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect; this being, furthermore, would have had these qualities in every possible world. So it follows that if W had been actual, it would have been impossible that there be no such being. That is, if W had been actual, it would have been impossible that there be no such being. That is, if W had been actual,

(33) There is no omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect being

would have been an impossible proposition. But if a proposition is impossible in at least one possible world, then it is impossible in every possible world; what is impossible does not vary from world to world. Accordingly (33) is impossible in the actual world, i.e., impossible simpliciter. But if it is impossible that there be not such being, then there actually exists a being that is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect; this being, furthermore, has these qualities essentially and exists in every possible world.

What shall we say of this argument? It is certainly valid; given its premise, the conclusion follows. The only question of interest, it seems to me, is whether its main premise — that maximal greatness is possibly instantiated — is true. I think it is true; hence I think this version of the ontological argument is sound.

But here we must be careful; we must ask whether this argument is a successful piece of natural theology, whether it proves the existence of God. And the answer must be, I think, that it does not. An argument for God’s existence may be sound, after all, without in any useful sense proving God’s existence.* Since I believe in God, I think the following argument is sound:

Either God exists or 7 + 5 = 14
It is false that 7 + 5 = 14
Therefore God exists.

But obviously this isn’t a proof; no one who didn’t already accept the conclusion, would accept the first premise. The ontological argument we’ve been examining isn’t just like this one, of course, but it must be conceded that not everyone who understands and reflects on its central premise — that the existence of a maximally great being is possible — will accept it. Still, it is evident, I think, that there is nothing contrary to reason or irrational in accepting this premise.** What I claim for this argument, therefore, is that it establishes, not the truth of theism, but its rational acceptability. And hence it accomplishes at least one of the aims of the tradition of natural theology.
___________

* See George Mavrodes, Belief in God (New York: Macmillan Co.,, 1970), pp 22ff.
** For more on this see Plantinga, The Nature of Necessity, chapter 10, sec. 8.

The Analytical Theist, an Alvin Plantinga Reader

edited by James F. Sennett

pages 70-71

Eerdmans, 1998

Jesus and Philosophy: On the Questions We Ask; Paul K. Moser

Paper.

Conocí los textos de este autor a través de un amigo, a quien Moser asesora en su tesis doctoral.

En este documento el autor da su punto de vista respecto a la actitud que los filósofos cristianos deberían tomar cuando tengan que decidir hacia qué áreas enfocar su trabajo.

La filosofía no es por defecto amiga de Cristo, ni Cristo lo es de la filosofía, aunque Cristo toca temas que directa o indirectamente impactan en la filosofía, y ésta puede abordar los temas de los que él habla.

Así, la filosofía puede dedicarse a cuestionar y estudiar a Cristo sin comprometerse con él o a obedecerlo y ser aplicada como una herramienta ministerial para la edificación de la Iglesia, todo depende de la actitud del filósofo.

Porque donde esté vuestra investigación, allí estará también vuestro corazón.

Alan

Para ver el documento de Paul Moser haz clic aquí.

Para visitar su página web haz clic aquí.

El fuego y la filosofía

Para estudiarla en toda su pureza, los filósofos hacen sufrir a la realidad casi las mismas transformaciones que el fuego o el mortero hacen sufrir a los cuerpos; en esos cristales o en esas cenizas nada parece subsistir de un ser o un hecho tales como los conocimos. [...] Mucho me costaría vivir en un mundo sin libros, pero la realidad no está en ellos, puesto que no cabe entera.

Memorias de Adriano
ANIMULA VAGULA BLANDULA
Marguerite Yourcenar