Philosophy

JESUS made a distinction between what belonged to Caesar and what belonged to God (Matt.22:21). He also spoke of His Kingdom as "not of this world" (Jn. 18:36). The New Testament clearly marks off the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of man as two separate realms. Of course, even in the kingdom of man, political authority ultimately comes from God (Rom.13:1,2). But, that doesn't certainly make politics "Christian". For instance, Nebuchadnezzar's authority came from God (Dan.2:37), but that didn't make his kingdom a Christian kingdom or his way of doing politics "Christian". Similarly, Cyrus was called the "anointed" of God (Isa.45:1), but that didn't make the Medo-Persian empire Christian. It is always a threat to both politics and religion to fuse both of them together: not only do the people suffer, but they lose their freedom of religion as well. It doesn't matter which religion it may be, the loss of liberty is certain and ...

In Epistemics of Divine Reality , I have argued how the empirical approach to knowledge would attempt to jettison metaphysics. In the early 1920s, a group in Vienna called the Vienna Circle tried to annunciate the death of philosophy by founding a school of philosophy called logical positivism . The group was composed of mainly mathematicians, physicists, sociologists and economists, but no professional philosophers. So, their utter dislike of metaphysics can be understood. But, it is interesting that one attempts to overthrow philosophy by constructing a school of philosophy. But, that contradiction in terms is natural to any form of empiricism that seeks to avoid the rational. The Law of Verification that they proposed was what dealt a death-blow to the theory itself. It was itself unverifiable (of course, because the philosophy was not empirical itself). The two World Wars did reveal, if not anything else, this one thing that philosophy was not dead. Nazism might have some evoluti...

Excerpt from the book,  Explorations of Faith , 2009 ( Read/Download Full Book ) FAITH in God is of ultimate kind and is, therefore, both unique and absolute. Since it is not concerned with contingent things of this world it is also not like the belief in the contingent things of the world. Further, belief in God is foundational to our common-sense assumptions about this world as both moral and rational. Anyone who denies God must also deny the existence of absolute morals and absolute truth, for both lose their foundation if their foundation is found within this world itself. It would be like trying to place a ball on that ball itself. Without an unchangeable transcendent ground, there can be no absolute point of reference (as in outer space where all bodies hang in positions relative to each other). The unchanging nature and character of God is the foundation of true morality [1] and His veracity is the foundation of all reasonability and truth. Therefore, divine existence is the su...

In an age when "belief" is looked skeptically down, one wonders why people still continue to believe in God. At the same time, there are those who wonder why people aren't able to believe in God. Following may be some reasons why people believe in God: 1. Simplicity.  There is a law in both philosophy and science called Occam's Razor that says that the simplest explanation must be preferred to a more complicated one. Belief in God is simple, therefore, people believe in God. 2. Rationality.  Belief in God answers several questions that may not be, otherwise, answerable. It solves the question of creation and destiny of the universe, the question of justice, morality, and truth, the problem of evil, the question of life after death, and the problem of man's purpose in life. 3. Practicability . Belief in God is practical and useful. It helps one to face life in a positive manner. At the same time, the believer's experience of God's answer to his prayers, of ...

PROBLEM: The so-called paradox of the stone asks: "Could God (Who is omnipotent) create a stone so heavy that He could not lift it?" If so, then He cannot be omnipotent; if not, then He is not omnipotent. ANSWER: The comparative "heavier" doesn't apply to infinity; therefore, the question is contradictory and, consequently, meaningless. 1. Infinity is that which is without a beginning, a middle, and an end. Therefore, internal comparisons don't apply to it. 2. Only a greater infinite can supercede an infinite; but, "a greater infinite" is a meaningless category, since infinite is the maximal superlative. Domenic Marbaniang, July 2010

I am convinced that we can trust the Bible: trust it as the true revelation of God. The pluralism of “revelations” calls for the exercise of the law of non-contradiction. The modern relativistic, pluralistic mood looks at the Bible as another “truth”. But the fact is that there can never be an absolute infrastructure for relative truth. They always differ in their infrastructure though the superstructure might appear to be the same. The trustworthiness of the Bible is a very important issue, since it addresses issues of ultimate concern: Theology, Cosmology, and Teleology (purpose, salvation). And it supercedingly differs from other “revelatory” sources. Either the Bible is true or false; it is either trustworthy or non-trustworthy. How do we know if we can trust the Bible, then? The Philosophical Test of Internal Consistency. In depth study shows that the Bible is never self-contradictory or self-defeating. As a matter of fact, though the books of the Bible were written over a time ...