74. Faith and Reason -The Regensburg Address of Pope Benedict XVI, Part 3

This is the third and final part of a series on Pope Benedict’s Regensburg Address on “Faith and Reason”. If you wish, you can start at post 72 if you have not read it yet, and then proceed post 73, but that is not necessary. You can also read this as a standalone. Benedict gave […]

73. The Regensburg Address of Pope Benedict XVI, Part 2

In the above photo, Pope Benedict prepares to give his Regensburg Address, which resulted in a firestorm of controversy throughout the world. Please read post 72 to get the essential background of this address. In that post, I discussed Pope Benedict’s idea that it was the relationship between Greek philosophy and Christian revelation that built […]

72. The Regensburg Address of Pope Benedict XVI, Part 1

On Tuesday, September 12, 2006, Pope Benedict XVI gave an address to representatives of science from Bavaria at the University of Regensburg, Germany entitled Faith, Reason and the University Memories and Reflections. His 4,000-word address dealt with the very theme of this blog – the relationship between faith and reason, particularly from the perspective of […]

65. Euthyphro’s Dilemma and the Relationship Between God and Goodness

What is the relationship between God and justice? Is something just because God wills it, or does God will it because it is just? This is the essence of what has been termed Euthyphro’s dilemma. I introduced this in my previous post 64 in the context of Socrates questioning a young, arrogant man, named Euthyphro, […]

43. Parmenides the Priest-Physician Discovers Mystical Healing Powers of Life

Did Parmenides receive his deep philosophical insights because he was a priest? If this were true, it would disappoint many moderns who like to view the Presocratics as those who spearheaded the triumph of reason over religion. While it is correct to say that Presocratics like Xenophanes did accomplish much in discounting narrow superstitious beliefs, […]

39. Justin Martyr Reveals the Profound Truth of Logos Spermatikos

Well, we have finally come to the end of this miniseries on Logos that started in post 32 with Heraclitus and will end with the life of Justin Martyr in this post. The operative question we’re asking in this post is why Justin Martyr is so important in exploring the relationship between reason and revelation, […]

38. St. John Declares that Jesus Christ is the Eternal Logos – Creator of the Universe

When John called Jesus “the Logos” in chapter 1 of his Gospel, did he have the Greek philosophical term in mind, or was he simply using the Greek generic term for “word” as he uses in other places in his New Testament writings? This is the operative question. Scholars debate just how much the Greek […]

37. Philo’s Breakthrough with Logos – from Greek Abstraction to Living Being

In this post, I will discuss how Philo of Alexandria put Hebrew flesh and bone on the Greek abstract concept of logos. This made the idea of the logos so significant that, I would argue, it was the only word John could have used in chapter 1 of his Gospel. (Please see the previous post […]

36. Philo of Alexandria -a Jewish Perspective of Logos

Let’s continue our journey from Heraclitus’ idea of Logos to St. John’s application of the Logos to the Son of God. In post 35, I discussed how the Stoics took Heraclitus’ idea of the logos and expanded it to include the idea of eternal recurrence – the continual destruction and rebirth of the entire universe.1 […]

35. Logos: from Heraclitus to the Stoics

What unifies a universe made up of individual and diverse things? As I previously stated, the main philosophical problem to be solved – throughout history but especially in ancient Greek philosophy – is that of universals also known as the problem of the one and the many.1 (Please read the preceding posts if you haven’t […]