Philosophy

Published in BASILEIA, Itarsi, October 2010 In modern times, the world has experienced what has been melancholically termed “the crisis of faith”. In his book, The Recovery of Faith (1956) ,[1] former President of India S. Radhakrishnan (1888-1975), lists seven reasons behind this faith-crisis: scientific discoveries that disprove popular religious views, studies in comparative religions that discourage any claim to uniqueness by a particular religion, advancement of technology and depersonalization of the human, popularity of logical empiricism and resultant depreciation of philosophy and metaphysics, disappointment with religion that fails in true life despite the many external rituals, religious schisms that hamper world-unity, and growth of irreligiosity. Sadly, in the post-modern era, as the grip of faith loosened, it kicked back against any faith in reason as well. Truth was relativized and pluralized as the absolutes vanished into thin air. The confusion of plurality and the eng...

Required Reading: John 1, 14,15,16; 2Corinthians 5:11-21; Romans 8; James 4; Galatians 5:11; 6:12-15 The doctrine of reconcilation teaches us that the world is at enmity with God and so Christ came to reconcile the world to God. He did that through His atoning sacrifice by the Eternal Spirit. Now, He appoints His servants as ambassadors in the hostile world and has given them the ministry of reconciliation. It is a ministry of reconciliation on God's terms; not a ministry at the mercy of the world in the world's terms. We are not called to make peace with the world at the expense of the Cross; we are here to declare the Goodnews that peace has been made by Christ on the Cross. The Cross will be a stumbling block to many, because they would like that the offence of the Cross didn't exist, so that peace would be natural. But, that is the same as being worldly and thus in enmity with God. The Cross is where the world is crucified to the Christian and the Christian to the world...

COURAGE ( andreia ) is one of the virtues extolled by Plato in his writings; the others are reverence or piety ( eusebeia ,  to hosion ), wisdom ( sophia ), temperance or sound-mindedness ( sophrosune ), and justice ( dikaiosune ). In both Laches and Protagoras , Plato investigates the meaning of courage. While in Protagoras , he concludes that courage is the knowledge of what is good and evil in the future, in Laches he expresses doubt over this conclusion. Certainly, courage must not be separated from wisdom. It would be foolish for someone who didn’t know how to swim to jump into a current trying to show courage there. One also doesn’t put his hand in fire claiming that he or she doesn’t fear anything. Courage must be combined with wisdom, specifically the knowledge of what must inspire fear and what must not – in other words, the knowledge of good and evil of the future. But, knowledge of good and evil cannot be divided into past, present, and future. The definition of good is ...