This is the paper I presented to the Bioethics section of the Evangelical Theological Society, annual meeting. In November last year. Abstract:Op ponents of abortion often agonise over two difficult cases. (a) Cases where the pregnancy originates in rape and (b) cases the pregnancy or threatens the life of the mother. This paper will explore […]
Entries Tagged as 'Events'
Abortion Hard Cases and Self Defence: Presentation
January 14th, 2021 Comments Off on Abortion Hard Cases and Self Defence: Presentation
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The question “Why Be Moral?” and the book of Proverbs.
January 12th, 2021 1 Comment
I gave a brief talk at Orewa Community Church on 10 January 2020. The talk was part of a short series OCC are doing on the book of proverbs. It is available here.
The Psychopath Objection to Divine Command Theory: Presentation
December 15th, 2020 Comments Off on The Psychopath Objection to Divine Command Theory: Presentation
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHhmuqBW6Dw”>dialogue
Last year, I presented a talk entitled “The Psychopath Objection to Divine Command Theory: Another Reply to Erik Wielenberg” to the New Zealand Association of Philosophers conference in Auckland. This was a follow up to interaction I have had with the work of Erik Wielenberg. In 2017 I wrote a critical response to Wielenberg’s book Robust […]
Tags: Divine Command Theory · Erik Wielenberg · Psychopath Objection · Wes Morriston · William Lane Craig
FETICIDE IN CHRISTIAN MORAL THOUGHT Part two : Feticide in Patristic Thought
February 16th, 2019 Comments Off on FETICIDE IN CHRISTIAN MORAL THOUGHT Part two : Feticide in Patristic Thought
I teach NCEA Religious Studies, at level three, one standard is to “Analyse the response of a religious tradition to a contemporary ethical issue”. Officially students have to describe the response a religious tradition has made to a moral issue. Our school like a lot of schools looks at Christian responses to abortion. Because I […]
Tags: Abortion · Christian History · NCEA · Tertullian
God and Moral Grounding Power
October 6th, 2018 1 Comment
A common objection to divine command theories of ethics (DCT) is that they make morality arbitrary. There are several ways this objection can be cashed out. The most common is what is called the ‘Horrendous deeds objection’. The Horrendous deeds objection can be formalised as follows: (1) If the DCT is true, then if God commanded […]
Tags: Divine Command Theory · God and Morality · Jason Thibodeau
Religious Studies Scholarships and the NZAPT
October 2nd, 2018 Comments Off on Religious Studies Scholarships and the NZAPT
Those who follow me on Facebook will know that two years ago I began teaching Philosophy and Theology full time at St Peters College one of New Zealand’s largest Catholic high schools. Only a handful of schools teach Philosophy in New Zealand and while it has official subject recognition one cannot gain any credits for […]
Tags: NCEA · State Education
Matthew Flannagan (MandM) and Jason Thibodeau (Secular Outpost) Debate God and Morality
September 24th, 2018 4 Comments
Yesterday, I had a long and enjoyable public discussion with Jason Thibodeau on the topic of The Euthyphro dilemma. Jason is a writer for the Secular Outpost and teaches philosophy at Cypress college in California. He also is the author of a recent article entitled “God’s Love is Irrelevant to the Euthyphro Problem” published in Sophia […]
Tags: Divine Command Theory · Euthyphro Dilemma · Jason Thibodeau
A common objection to belief in the God of the Bible is that a good, kind, and loving deity would never command the wholesale slaughter of nations. In the tradition of his popular Is God a Moral Monster?, Paul Copan teams up with Matthew Flannagan to tackle some of the most confusing and uncomfortable passages of Scripture. Together they help the Christian and nonbeliever alike understand the biblical, theological, philosophical, and ethical implications of Old Testament warfare passages.
