I’ve posted several items on this theme — most recently, yesterday.   The important German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002) is best known for his 1960 work Wahrheit und Methode (English: Truth and Method).  He is considered one of the most important exponents of the modern European “continental” tradition in philosophy.   Here are some passages from the “Introduction” to that book:   Speaking about the “investigations” that Wahrheit und Methode will discuss, Gadamer says that They are concerned to seek... Read more

    Continuing with my manuscript on Islam for Latter-day Saints:   As we saw in the last chapter, one of the major themes of the Qur’an is the Day of Judgment, when the Lord will come with his angels.[1] On that day, which will be announced by a trumpet, there will be a new heaven and a new earth. In terms that are similar to those of the Bible, the Qur’an says that great earthquakes will accompany that terrible... Read more

    I receive a fair amount of hate mail.  This afternoon, for example, the following treatise (quoted in its entirety, except for a family-blog-unfriendly pejorative) arrived at my inbox:   you and your cult acolytes love the word ‘scientism’.  that’s cult-speak… [obscene epithet deleted].   Now, I recognize this fellow’s characteristic style and his, um, reasoning; he’s been sending me similar messages for a number of years now.  He’ll write to me several times a week, occasionally even more than once per... Read more

    Another extract from a manuscript on which I’m actively working:   Muhammad may be the last of the prophets, in Muslim belief, but he was certainly not the first. Thus, fragments of God’s truth remain scattered about the world, owing to the earlier ministries of divinely-sent messengers. Judaism and Christianity are included in this view. Because, although they are encrusted with heresies and innovations, Judaism and Christianity are essentially divine, adher­ents of the two faiths are given a... Read more

    I launched this blog very nearly six years ago, on 8 February 2012.   That year was fated to be a very fateful and extraordinarily unpleasant one for me — including not merely my being suddenly purged from the Maxwell Institute but the unexpected death of my beloved half-brother, my only sibling — and I’m very glad that it’s over.  But such things were still ahead of me when I posted this first (blissfully ignorant) blog entry:   For... Read more

    A few more lines from my manuscript on Islam for Latter-day Saints:   Yet the Qur’an does not bring any new truths. It does not claim to do so. It is merely a restoration of those truths that had been revealed from the beginning. It carries forward what was written in the books of Abraham and Moses, confirming the earlier scriptures and particularly the Torah and the gospel.[1] “Nothing is said to you,” Muhammad is told, “that has... Read more

    Arguments have raged for well over a century and a half about the implications of the theory of evolution for theistic belief, and they will, no doubt, continue to rage for the foreseeable future.  One thing that simply cannot be said, however, is that theism as such is impossible to reconcile with belief in evolution.  This is empirically demonstrable: There are and have always been ardent theists who are committed evolutionists.   The prominent French philosopher, geologist, paleontologist,... Read more

    I’ve been aware that this announcement was coming, but have held off from commenting on it until it was made public:   “Middle Eastern Texts Initiative moving to Brill”   I conceived and founded the Islamic Translation Series, which eventually became the more comprehensive Middle Eastern Texts Initiative (METI), in the early 1990s.   Already in graduate school, I had begun to think about the need for such a project, modeled (for classical Islamic civilization) on Harvard University’s famous Loeb Classical... Read more