Philosophy and Faith

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Philosophy and Faith - NYTimes.com

At this point, the class perks up again as I lay out versions of the famous arguments for the existence of God, and my students begin to think that they're about to get what their parents have paid for at a great Catholic university: some rigorous intellectual support for their faith. 

Soon enough, however, things again fall apart, since our best efforts to construct arguments along the traditional lines face successive difficulties.  The students realize that I'm not going to be able to give them a convincing proof, and I let them in on the dirty secret: philosophers have never been able to find arguments that settle the question of God's existence or any  of the other "big questions" we've been discussing for 2500 years.

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This page contains a single entry by webmaster published on August 2, 2010 7:45 AM.

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