Positivism and the Burden of Proof

To distinguish scientific from non-scientific questions, positivists used the verifiability principle, on which a question could be considered scientific if and only if it could be verified empirically.

Will Vickery | The UT Austin Texas Trinitas | Fall 2018

Discovering God: Plantinga and the Sensus Divinitatis

Reid argues that there are certain ideas, namely those which our nature leads us to believe, that we must accept as true. Those beliefs can be considered to be basic, the foundations of our further knowledge.

Jeffrey Poomkudy | The Dartmouth Apologia | Spring 2018

Revisiting Biblical Claims on Generational Punishment

When humans sin, they affect other people to whom they are connected. Thus, must Christians sit down and repent for their ancestors’ sins?

Joshua Lee | The Dartmouth Apologia | Fall 2016

Who Do You Say That I Am? – Pseudo-Dionysius on the Divine Names

In brief, the problem of understanding the divine names is the problem of discovering how a superhuman significance could possibly dwell within a language that has developed squarely within the boundary lines of human realities and human concerns.

Nicholas Zahorodny | Swarthmore Peripateo | Fall 2015

On Faith and Docility

The docile spirit is embodied in St. Anselm’s motto, fides quaerens intellectum—faith seeking understanding.

Greg Brown | Swarthmore Peripateo | Fall 2015

Wonder Woman: Is Love Really All We Need?

Wonder Woman has the opportunity to save humanity, but, especially in light of the human cruelty she witnesses in battle, she struggles with the fact that humans freely choose to commit such atrocities to each other.

Hailey Scherer | The Dartmouth Apologia | Fall 2017

The Numinous and the Natural: Christianity and Environmentalism

The Tragedy of the Commons shows us that the destruction of the environment is an issue regarding not only how people relate to one another, but also how we relate to nature.

Jeffrey Poomkudy | The Dartmouth Apologia | Fall 2017

War and Peace in Christian Tradition

What are some wise insights and necessary points of reflection that we, Christian or not, should take heed of when confronted with violence, war and the question of justice?

Erik Johnson | MIT et Spiritus | Fall 2016

Lending and Borrowing: A Christian Perspective

This paper will delve further into what the Bible has to say about lending and borrowing, how its interpretation has changed over time, and how it can work in today’s society.

Roy Walker | Swarthmore Peripateo | Spring 2016

Metaphysics in the Poetry of W. B. Yeats and T. S. Eliot

The question of the purpose of poetry as such is not simply academic or theoretical, but is grounded in understanding how poetry can and ought to relate to contemporary culture.

Nicholas Westberg | The Wheaton Pub | Spring 2016

A Defense of Leibniz’s Cosmological Argument from Contingency

Cosmological arguments attempt to demonstrate the existence of a deity based on the mere existence of the universe.

Luke Dickens | The Dartmouth Apologia | Spring 2016

Christianity, Social Revolutions, and the Way Forward

Marx’s beliefs about Christianity’s relationship to social change is contrary to what Christianity itself teaches about social change.

Josh Alexakos | The Dartmouth Apologia | Spring 2016

God, Good, and Evil

We must look for a foundation that incorporates within itself the moral laws we look for, not deriving itself from them as the societal laws do.

Samuel Cooper | The Hopkins Dialectic | Spring 2016

Faith and Learning

Does Christianity pose a challenge to intellectual inquiry?

Trevor Davis | The Dartmouth Apologia | Fall 2015

From Gut Feelings to Natural Law

While most people believe in some sense of right and wrong, they may not understand why these values are constructed this way.

Christopher Kymn | The Dartmouth Apologia | Fall 2015

You Be the Judge: Shakespeare’s Moral Universe

There is, however, a fundamental difference between the approach of Milton and Dante on the one hand and Shakespeare on the other.

Danielle D’Souza | The Dartmouth Apologia | Spring 2015

Heaven on Earth

Imagine if a four-dimensional or higher being acted in our world as the three-dimensional being acted in Flatland.

Peter Chen | Claremont Ekklesia | Spring 2015

Freedom Redefined: A Christian Perspective on the Meaning of Freedom

While it is paradoxical that something so rigid-sounding as “law” results in freedom, Christianity asserts this bold claim.

Marissa Le Coz | The Dartmouth Apologia | Fall 2014

The Art of Reconciliation

When faced with the daunting task of comforting a friend who was contemplating suicide, I felt utterly helpless in trying to prevent her actions, while she felt utterly hopeless in trying to control her emotions.

Jess Tong | The Dartmouth Apologia | Spring 2014

A Defense of the Argument from Motion

When I was first introduced to St. Thomas Aquinas’ Five Ways, I was unimpressed. I was a junior attending Catholic high school, and, at the time, I did not believe in God.

Greg Brown | Swarthmore Peripateo | Spring 2014

Subsidiarity, Solidarity, and Social Teaching: A Catholic Perspective on Political Economy

In a statement echoed by President Obama, Francis laments the condition of a socioeconomic order in which “it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points.”

Nicholas Zahorodny | Swarthmore Peripateo | Spring 2014

Faith and Reason

Truth, the great 13th century philosopher Thomas Aquinas insisted, can only ever be one.

Christopher Hauser | The Dartmouth Apologia | Fall 2012

Salvific Suffering and the Dark Night of the Soul

We have begun to “anaesthetize our existence,” writes biblical scholar Luke Timothy Johnson. Our public discourse often assumes that the most difficult lives are simply not worth living.

Robert Smith | The Dartmouth Apologia | Spring 2013

A Response to Ronald Sider’s Just Politics

Sider attempts to develop a biblical political philosophy. This is best done, Sider argues, not by proof texting from the Bible on every political issue but instead by developing a biblical view of both persons and the world as a whole and applying this view to politics.

Hayden Kvamme | The Dartmouth Apologia | Spring 2013

The Divine Attributes: Why an Imperfect God Just Won’t Do

Yoram Hazony’s version of apophaticism restricts theists to a kind of fideism, wherein our rational concept “God,” a human construct, is radically divorced from the subject of our faith, the non-conceptual, personal God. The result is confused, even contradictory.

Chris Hauser | The Dartmouth Apologia | Spring 2013

A Lament for Skepticism

It seems to be a common assumption that religious believers are somehow irrational for holding the beliefs that they do. The claim, simply put, is that there just isn’t enough (or any) convincing evidence for the truth of many Christian beliefs, such as the belief in God, especially in light of the discoveries of modern science.

Enoch Kuo | Princeton Revisions | Summer 2013

Aquinas on Everyday Emotions

As we understand ourselves and see extreme emotions in the light of many everyday impulses, we need to cultivate emotions that align with our intellect, reason, and that most fundamental desire, the desire that God implemented within us for Himself.

David Nolan | The Williams Telos | The Williams Telos, Fall 2012, Issue 8

Euthyphro’s Dilemma and the Goodness of God

One of the most persistent issues in the philosophy of religion has been the origin of our concept of “moral good.”

Brendan Woods | The Dartmouth Apologia | Winter 2011,Volume 5 Issue 1

Recovering the Metaphysical Character of Truth

Since materialism, scientism, and relativism are popular positions in the academy today, many may not find Descartes’ legacy in these areas troubling. There exists, however, another, crucial error produced by Descartes’ philosophy that is obviously problematic, namely the artificiality of knowledge.

Chris Hauser | The Dartmouth Apologia | Spring 2012, Volume 6, Issue 2

Historicity & Holy War: Putting the Crusades in Context

When analyzing any historical event, and particularly one so fraught with misinterpretation and exaggeration, it is crucial to look at both its context and its causes. The Crusades did not spontaneously appear from a historical vacuum.

Blake Neff | The Dartmouth Apologia | Volume 6, Issue 1, Fall 2011

December 2018