Courses

Since philosophy's roots in ancient Greece, philosophers have traditionally utilized critical analysis and the tools of reason and logic in pursuing answers to philosophical questions. However, the analytic focus of contemporary philosophy has been shaped most significantly by the philosophical tradition launched by Bertrand Russell, G.E. Moor, and Gottlob Frege at the dawn of the twentieth century.

Explores the foundations of religious belief and faith, particularly the issue of the rationality of religion. The role of methodology is examined, including the value of deductive, inductive, and abductive reasoning; also the question whether the method applicable to religious belief is unique to it. The work of recent philosophical theologians and their critics is examined and evaluated.

This course examines the triumph of secular naturalism in academic/educated culture, and proposes rational grounds for advancing historic Christian theism. Trinitarian faith is viewed here as having the structure of theories that postulate the existence of unobservable objects. These theories adopt a unique method of defining the entities or beings postulated to exist; this method is shown to be compatible with historic theism. Moreover, the Resurrection of Jesus is identified as the central tenet for which evidence additional to that found Holy Scripture is needed in our secular context. The Shroud of Turin and contemporary visions of Jesus are shown to offer such evidence. While no objection is registered to allowing science to explore any features of the Universe, Christian theism is presented as supplementing such scientific knowledge.

This course examines the character of Philosophy as an academic discipline, with particular attention to the kinds of claims that are central to its inquiry, such as Logic, Metaphysics, Epistemology, Ethics, and Aesthetics. The feasibility of the claim that Philosophy is an objective discipline, and that its contributions are as significant as the factual matters handled in any social or natural science, are examined. Various subfields within Philosophy are given special attention, including Ethics, Logic, Epistemology, and Metaphysics.