A Thinking Reed

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal

Keith Ward

  • God as Ultimate Mind: Keith Ward’s “Christian Idea of God”

    Keith Ward’s recent book The Christian Idea of God is a slim but ambitious volume. It aims to turn on its head the common belief we know the material world is real while ethereal objects like God and the soul are at best speculative inferences. Ward points out that we’re actually more certain of the Read more

  • Kenosis and pleroma

    I mentioned in a previous post that I’d been reading the volume The Work of Love—a collection of essays edited by John Polkinghorne that explore the idea of divine “kenosis” or self-limitation. Keith Ward, in his essay “Cosmos and Kenosis,” provides what I think is a helpful nuance to the concept of kenosis. He notes Read more

  • “Theistic ethics” or Christian ethics?

    I said in my previous post that some Christians might be worried by the fact that Ward’s Morality, Autonomy, and God doesn’t appeal to the Bible or specifically Christian revelation. Shouldn’t Christian ethics be informed by convictions specific to Christianity? In his book Behaving in Public, Christian ethicist Nigel Biggar takes a position that is Read more

  • (How) does morality need God?

    “Does ethics need God?” is an old question, and the answers we get are often simplistic. On the one hand, Christians (and other religious believers) sometimes identify ethics with “God’s will” conceived as a sheer command, and they imply (or sometimes outright assert) that only believers in God can be moral. On the other hand, Read more

  • “Deep time” and religious belief

    Keith Ward reviews what sounds like a pretty interesting book on “deep time” and the possible future evolution of religious beliefs. The acceptance of deep time — of the fact that the universe has existed for billions of years and that it will continue to exist for billions of years — could, if inwardly digested, Read more

  • Keith Ward on creation and the (social) Trinity

    Keith Ward’s Religion and Creation (RC) is part of his multi-volume “comparative theology.” Its goal is to develop a contemporary Christian theology in genuine conversation with both modern science and other religious traditions. The focus of RC is the doctrine of God. Ward argues that recent representative figures from four major religious traditions (Judaism, Christianity, Read more

  • “Physical” vs. “spiritual” resurrection?

    Liberal Christian icon Marcus Borg recently joined the blogosphere, and one of his first posts was an attempt to clarify his views on the resurrection of Jesus. Borg has been accused of denying the independent reality of the resurrection, reducing it to a subjective experience the disciples had after the crucifixion. But Borg maintains that Read more

  • Modern science, classical theism (3)

    One of the impulses motivating “revisionist” views of the divine nature (process theology, et al.) is not only that they can seem more consonant with modern science, but that they provide a more intimate and relational view of God. Many theologians have argued, in fact, that seeing God in responsive, relational terms such as those Read more

  • Idealism in twenty minutes

    Keith Ward gives a concise overview and defense of metaphysical idealism: This lecture is essentially a summary of the argument from his 2010 book More Than Matter. The basic claim is that mind or consciousness is a fundamental component or aspect of reality, and it can’t be reduced to or explained exhaustively in material terms. Read more

  • Re-post: Evolution, the Fall, and Original Sin

    I don’t usually do this, but it seems relevant in light of the previous post. I originally wrote this back in 2006: I enjoyed Keith Ward’s Pascal’s Fire so much (despite disagreement in places) that when I saw his Religion and Human Nature at a used bookseller for five bucks I snatched it up. RHN Read more