Reviews

By Adam Lloyd Johnson, Ph.D.

Enoch begins his book Taking Morality Seriously by stating that he believes there must be some normative moral truths that are irreducibly normative, truths that are perfectly objective, universal, absolute, and that are independent of us, our desires, and our wills. These truths are not an expression of our practical attitudes but are truths we discover rather than create or construct. This realist view was in the minority when he first argued for it in 2003, but by 2011 some were saying it was now the majority view. He admits his robust realism has heavy ontological commitments, but he is willing to defend such commitments.

By Adam Lloyd Johnson, Ph.D.

In his book Moral Realism: An Introduction, Russ Shafer-Landau argues for, unsurprisingly, moral realism. On the first page he explains that the project of this book is to explain how the moral law could be something not of our own making, something whose truth did not depend on the commitments of those who are bound by its dictates. He argues that moral judgements enjoy a special sort of objectivity, that when they are true, they are so independently of what any human being, anywhere, in any circumstance, may think of them.

In part one of this book, Shafer-Landau provides a helpful catalogue of metaethical positions.

By Adam Lloyd Johnson, Ph.D.

Professor Stephen M. Barr has written an accessible yet scientifically in-depth book that shows how science, over the last one hundred years, has made several discoveries which strengthen the arguments for the existence of God. His book Modern Physics and Ancient Faith was published by the University of Notre Dame press in 2003. All citations below are taken from his book.

Barr explained that over the last few centuries there has been a brooding conflict between religion and materialism. He defined materialism as the philosophical view that nothing exists except matter (p.

By Adam Lloyd Johnson, Ph.D.

Edward T. Welch earned an M.Div. degree at Biblical Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. in counseling psychology (neuropsychology) from the University of Utah. He serves as the director of counseling and as an academic dean at the Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation (CCEF) and professor of practical theology at Westminster Theological Seminary. His work has led to several of his own books, contributions to many others, and numerous articles for both theological and secular journals.

By Adam Lloyd Johnson, Ph.D.

In his seminal work After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntyre argues that our Western society has lost the conceptual context for and foundation within which moral language makes sense. In the premodern world moral judgments were understood as governed by impersonal standards justified by a shared conception of human good. That context was lost in the Enlightenment when Aristotelian Scholasticism and Christian theology were discarded and, with them, the idea of teleology. After teleology was discarded, several conceptual systems attempted to provide a new account of morality which would maintain the status, authority, and justification of moral rules.

By Adam Lloyd Johnson, Ph.D.

It seems to me that Plantinga’s argument in this book is correct but uninteresting. If I understand him right, his argument is that if Christianity is true, then it has warrant. This seems to be only helpful in interacting with those who claim that even if Christianity were true, people still wouldn’t be justified in believing it. I don’t imagine that many people claim such a thing, but I could be wrong. Maybe it’s the case that there are, or have been, some very influential thinkers who have made this argument, possibly even Marx and Freud.