John O’Callaghan on the Harris-Craig Debate

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 1:29 pm By Francis J. Beckwith

(HT: Thomas Hibbs and Ronny Fritz). My friend, John O’Callaghan, an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, offers in the Notre Dame Magazine a thoughtful analysis of the question posed to the participants in the Craig-Harris debate: “Is Good From God?” Writes O’Callaghan: On April 7, a sold-out audience in Notre Dame’s Leighton Concert Hall watched this year’s edition of “The God Debate.”Before a packed house, “New Atheist” Sam Harris and philosopher of religion William Lane Craig... Read more

William Lane Craig v. Sam Harris – Is the Foundation of Morality Natural or Supernatural?

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 1:29 pm By Francis J. Beckwith

Here’s a video of the entire debate that took place on April 7, 2011 at the University of Notre Dame Read more

Faith, Reason, and the Christian University: What John Paul II Can Teach Christian Academics

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 1:29 pm By Francis J. Beckwith

That’s the title of an article I published in Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture 12.3 (Summer 2009). Here’s how it begins (notes omitted): Baylor University, the world’s largest Baptist university, is a remarkable place with many fine Christian men and women on its faculty and in its student body. It boasts a rich tradition of academic excellence, and it is a privilege for me to be able to make a contribution to that tradition, however modest my... Read more

Dowd, Dylan, and China

Last updated on: August 2, 2020 at 12:49 pm By Francis J. Beckwith

This morning, Maureen Dowd expresses her disappointment that prior to his performances in China, Dylan allowed the government censors to approve his set list. This meant, according to Dowd, no protest songs from the Voice of Her Generation against the oppressive Chinese government. Too bad Dowd does not know Dylan. If she were even remotely conversant with his body of work, she would have seen that the set lists he chose to play in his first several Chinese shows did... Read more

Atheists Don’t Have No Songs

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 1:29 pm By Francis J. Beckwith

(HT: Bill Dembski at Uncommon Descent) Read more

St. Thomas Aquinas and the Inadequacy of Intelligent Design

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 1:29 pm By Francis J. Beckwith

My friends Edward Feser and Jay Wesley Richards, both fellow Catholics, are engaged in an online dispute about whether contemporary Intelligent Design theory (ID) runs counter to classical Thomistic understandings of nature and final causality. On this matter, I am with Ed. For I believe that ID, as defended by Michael Behe and William A. Dembski, is a view that in the long run serves to undermine rather than advance the cause of Christian theism. Of course, I see why... Read more

The Doctor Meets the Bioethicist

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 1:29 pm By Francis J. Beckwith

(HT: Wesley Smith) Read more

Alvin Plantinga: What is a Properly Basic Belief?

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 1:29 pm By Francis J. Beckwith

Intelligent Design, Thomas Aquinas, and the Ubiquity of Final Causes: Why I Reject ID

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 1:29 pm By Francis J. Beckwith

Last year, on May 22, 2010, the BioLogos Foundation published a paper of mine on its website, “Intelligent Design, Thomas Aquinas, and the Ubiquity of Final Causes.” It is excerpted and adapted from my article, “How to Be An Anti-Intelligent Design Advocate,” University of St. Thomas Journal of Law and Public Policy 4.1 (2010): 35-65. This BioLogos paper should be read in conjunction with the four blog posts I published in 2010 on “Science & the Sacred,” the BioLogos Blog: Intelligent Design and Me,... Read more

Come, Let Us Reason

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 1:29 pm By Francis J. Beckwith

That is the title of my latest entry on The Catholic Thing. Here’s how it begins: The God of Christian theism is the Source of Reason. St. John calls the Second Person of the Trinity, the Logos, a Greek term from which we get the word “logic.” Within the greatest commandment is the instruction to “love the Lord your God with all your. . .mind” (Matt 22:37-JB). St. Peter commands believers to “always have your answer ready for people who ask... Read more