The Dogmas and Failure of Rational Atheism

I was recently re-reading sections of what I think is one of the best and yet most under-appreciated Catholic books written in recent decades, Faith and Certitude by Father Thomas Dubay. Fr. Dubay's book is, as the title suggests, especially concerned with skepticism and unbelief, and is an excellent examination of the intellectual premises and varied attitudes held by atheists. In a chapter titled, "Clarifying Our Concepts," Fr. Dubay writes: "Everyone is dogmatic. The statement may startle,... Read More

The Existential Classic Behind Woody Allen’s “Irrational Man”

Irrational Man, the 45th film from the prolific Woody Allen, starts Joaquin Phoenix as Abe Lucas, a philosophy professor in a small town undergoing an “existential crisis.” You suffer from despair,” Emma Stone (who plays one of his students) tells him – and it appears she’s right. The professor has a drinking problem, suffers from “dizziness and anxiety,” and is tormented by a quest to commit a “meaningful act.” Early reviews suggest that Irrational Man will go the way... Read More

8 More Keys to the Catholic Environmental Vision

This post will articulate the final eight of fourteen principles that I think underlie the Catholic environmental vision. Part one ended on the thought that the first six principles imply a positive and optimistic attitude toward the natural world, the creator, and the human race. Principle seven, however, is not positive, since Catholicism holds that at the very beginning, something happened which damaged the way man relates to creation. Original sin has disrupted the harmony that ought... Read More

Can Catholics and Atheists Agree on the Environment?

Tomorrow (June 18), Pope Francis will release his long-awaited teaching document on the environment and human ecology. With that in mind, I wrote this article to articulate some principles that underlie the Catholic environmental vision, with the hope that atheists can better understand it and perhaps find common ground. I don’t know if these principles have been set out systematically, but in my research, I have uncovered fourteen. My selection of them is my own, as is the order... Read More

I’m a Muslim But Here’s Why I Admire the Catholic Church

First, allow me to start this short article with what might be deemed a startling confession: I am not a Catholic, nor am I even a Christian. In fact, I am a secular Muslim and an avid reader of philosophy and history with an unswerving commitment to the unmitigated truth no matter where it is even, nay especially, if it runs counter to commonly held beliefs. I have spent the last few years researching the history of Christianity, especially the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages, and... Read More

Why Science Hasn’t Disproved Free Will: A Review of Alfred Mele’s “Free”

In his Philosophical Investigations, Ludwig Wittgenstein complained that “in psychology there are experimental methods and conceptual confusion.” What he meant is that academic psychologists too often interpret empirical evidence in light of unexamined and dubious metaphysical assumptions. What is presented as good science is really just bad philosophy. The recent spate of neuroscientific and psychological literature claiming to show that free will is an illusion provides a case in... Read More

Galileo was Right—But So Were His Critics

Ever since the seventeenth century, the celebrated “Galileo affair” has been one of the featured items on the list of dark moments in the history of Catholicism. That the Church mistreated the Italian astronomer—or at least misjudged his claims concerning the structure of the solar system—seems clear. Pope John Paul II, for example, apologized for the Church’s condemnation of Galileo in 1992. No one now disputes the fact that the earth revolves around the sun rather than the... Read More

Five Questions for Supporters of Gender Transitioning

In light of the Vanity Fair cover story about Bruce Jenner’s decision to undergo a "gender transition" and current desire to be called Caitlyn Jenner, I thought it would be appropriate to look at five important questions those who support gender-transitioning need to answer. 1. What determines reality: facts or feelings? My wife used to work at a psychiatric hospital where it was standard procedure to not feed into a patient’s delusions. If a patient, for example, said he was a cat,... Read More

How to Prove that Transcendentalism is True

Editor's Note: This is a follow-up piece to Dr. Peter Kreeft's article from earlier in the week titled "Why Reality Includes More (Not Less) Than You Probably Think". Be sure to read that one first.   Merely refuting reductionism does not yet give us any positive evidence for transcendentalism, however, just as merely refuting atheism does not give you positive evidence for theism.  We might well be stuck in agnosticism, unable to prove either of the two contradictory propositions,... Read More

Why Reality Includes More (Not Less) Than You May Think

The most usual position among philosophers in the Western world today, in fact the most usual position among academics generally, is some kind of reductionism.  By “reductionism” I mean simply the belief that the world-view, or implicit metaphysics, of most people, or ordinary people, especially people of previous eras and cultures, errs by believing too much; that Hamlet’s Shakespeare was exactly wrong when he said to Horatio that “there are more things in heaven and earth than... Read More

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