Philosophy

Social justice. That sounds great! After all, who would not want justice in the society in which they live? In fact, the Bible has so much to say about justice. Consider a few examples in Scripture beginning with the Old Testament. Proverbs 18:5 -- It is not right to acquit the guilty or deny justice to the innocent. Proverbs 21:15 -- When justice is done, it is a joy to the righteous but terror to evildoers. Amos 5:24 -- But let justice roll down like waters, and righteo

Church, we’ve got a problem: Critical Theory (sometimes referred to as Critical Race Theory). This worldview is a growing problem finding its way into the Church. Too many professing Christians today are, willingly or unwillingly, buying into this idea known to have Marxist origins. It’s an attempt to explain and confront power structures in the world that it claims are oppressing others. As Christians we certainly are against oppression but we ought to seek a Biblical unders

Today’s anti-racism crusaders have a lot more in common with Malcolm X than Martin Luther King, Jr. They have become so zealous in opposing racism that they see racism in everything—even breakfast cereal . Instead of condemning actual racism, the charge of racism is now used to compel allegiance and silence dissent. No one wants to be perceived as a “racist,” so spineless individuals and businesses bend over backward and issue self-flagellating apologies at the mere utterance

PSYCHONIX: Mind Over Matter, by Mike Burnette, is a blend of interesting, well-developed characters, and exciting, intriguing action. It is a many layered novel, with unexpected twists and turns. If you like science fiction, espionage, psychology, war stories, philosophy, and many other topics, you will find plenty to attract and keep your attention. Readers with philosophical leanings will be drawn into the musings of the characters who wonder about the nature of reality. An

Question: Dear Dr. Stratton,  In your interview with Jorge Gil on Cross Examined's Hope One , you attempted to answer "all the problems of evil" by appealing to love. In fact, you said that "the best kind of love requires libertarian free will."  Surely this is false, for I can think of a counter-example that clearly shows this to be false.  After all, the members of the Trinity are the epitome of perfect love and they do not have libertarian free will. They cannot do otherw

In Plato’s Meno , Socrates and Meno discuss the nature of knowledge. Meno asks the master of dialectic about the difference between knowledge and true belief. Meno wonders if there is a real difference, and assuming there is, why knowledge is better. Socrates responds by comparing true belief to one of Daedalus’ statues.  The statues are beautiful, Socrates says, but more valuable if tethered. Similarly, a true belief is good; but it falls short of knowledge. Knowledge has gr

“I write for a specific sort of person. You value reason, science, and independent thinking. You question beliefs propped up by ‘faith’ without sufficient evidence. Maybe you would like your life to have a deeper purpose, but you cannot believe something based on a mere wish. Whether you are a student, an academic, or just a curious person, you want one thing: the . If you can relate, this book is for you” (Rasmussen).  In what promises to be one of the great Christian Apolog

A couple of years ago I had the pleasure of meeting a French Calvinistic philosopher named, Guillaume Bignon ( Click here to read his amazing transition from atheism to Christianity). While I am thrilled that this brilliant scholar is no longer an atheist, I was shocked to discover that he left one form of exhaustive determinism for another. That is to say that Bignon left the view that physics, chemistry, and quantum mechanics causally determine all things about humanity, t

When debating the FreeThinking Argument with naturalists (those who presuppose nature is all that exists), they often accuse me of being a "presuppositionalist" (a.k.a., "a presupper")! This means that they incorrectly believe that I am assuming naturalism is false to conclude the supernatural exists. If this were the case, I would be committing a textbook example of begging the question -- a logical fallacy! I was glad to hear that some "presuppositional apologists" have c

Drs. Leighton Flowers, Braxton Hunter, and Tim Stratton (Team USA) come together to refute the French Calvinistic philosopher, Guillaume Bignon's most recent broadcast on the Revealed Apologetic broadcast hosted by Eli Ayala, in which Bignon brings arguments against Flowers, Hunter, and Stratton's libertarian perspectives ( click here ). Bignon affirms "Theistic Determinism," the audacious belief that God causally determines all things, including all your choices, desires, t

Philosophy of science is a fascinating and complex field. The job requires one to philosophize about well-established scientific observations, patterns, theorems, theories, models, laws of nature, and more. A good philosopher of science will also philosophize about the standards of science and the standards of communicating science. And a brave philosopher of science will even attempt to hold scientists to these standards when they stray. Recently I’ve been reviewing the tra

Objection: Dear Tim, What exactly is a soul and by what exact mechanism does it make libertarian free will possible where it is otherwise impossible? If one person has a soul and another person doesn’t, how does the soul lead to better or more informed decisions in the first person? If their brains are otherwise working exactly the same, I don’t see the difference. - Andy Tims' Response: Thanks for the question, Andy. Allow me to break this down in a step by step manner:

Are you under a stay-at-home order? Consider thinking about the problem of evil (PoE). Here is a brief exercise. Suppose someone says the following to you: “God would never permit COVID-19. So, since there is COVID-19, there is no God.” How would you respond? Notice that this is an example of the PoE. But there are many versions of the PoE. So, your first step is to determine whether your interlocutor is expressing the emotional PoE or the intellectual PoE. If the former, t

Question: Dear Tim, Why does one have to ‘freely’ infer ? Do computers require free will to make accurate calculations? Evidently not – they seem to get by just fine! Imagine giving two computers sentience. They argue between them over a particular course of action and which option is the best. What’s wrong with describing what they have as ‘knowledge’? - Andy Tim's Response: Thanks for your question, Andy. Please allow me to break it down in a step-by-step manner. You said:

Most people agree that we should love one another. But what does it mean to love others? Love can’t mean what our culture says it means.  It can’t be untethered from a transcendent moral standard (i.e. God’s word and natural law) and left to be defined subjectively by our feelings, to be molded and fashioned into whatever shape current societal trends bend it. The average person in the US today is a Popular Secularist and has accepted the Popular Secularist definition of lo

Suppose you awoke tomorrow and the coronavirus pandemic had come to an end and all suffering had ceased. Not only are you no longer experiencing any suffering of any kind, but neither is anyone else. All suffering resulting from moral or natural evil — including COVID-19 – was nothing but a memory. Is there any reason to think that it would stay that way? To answer this question, take a short quiz: Question #1: Would you take this “suffering-free world” for granted? Would yo

The problem of evil is one of the most common arguments used by non-believers, atheists, agnostics, and seekers when trying to develop an intellectual argument against God. Trying to reconcile the cognitive dissonance of acknowledging evil while accepting the reality of an all-powerful (Omnipotent), all-knowing (Omniscient), and always present (Omnipresent) supreme being is seemingly untenable. Alvin Plantinga is considered by many one of the most influential Christian philos

Question Dear Dr. Stratton, You've noted that there are some questions that have kept you up at night for long periods of time. The question that has caused me to lose a tremendous amount of sleep is regarding Peter's freedom to deny or not to deny Jesus three times after Jesus told him that he would deny him three times. So, did Peter possess the libertarian freedom not to reject Jesus three times before the rooster crowed? - Randy Tim's Response This is a great question,

For such a bright guy, Richard Dawkins—famed evolutionary biologist and outspoken atheist—sure makes a lot of controversial statements on Twitter . He's recently done it again, causing a firestorm because of a series of tweets on eugenics : In case you never learned about eugenics in school, here’s dictionary.com’s definition : “the study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population, especially by such means as discou

I met Tim Stratton when he reached out to me after reading my book Reason and Proper Function: A Response to Alvin Plantinga . He enthusiastically let me know that the argument I presented in that book supports a version of libertarian freedom that he endorses. At first, I wondered “what did I write to support libertarian freedom?” Then I questioned, “What does Tim mean by libertarian freedom?” So I asked him: “Do you mean libertarian freedom as contra-causal freedom?” Tim sa