Not only do Jesus’s moral values make sense when applied to socioeconomic issues, but there is reason to believe they were intended to do so as part of a political call to solidarity with the poor.
Parables as a Guide to Jesus the Philosopher, Part 12: Personal or Political?
People from opposing ends of the political spectrum claim Jesus as their own. But is Jesus’s moral philosophy broad in scope, such that it includes a political morality, or narrower, consisting only of private virtues?
Parables as a Guide to Jesus the Philosopher, Part 10: More Mammon
Jesus’s continued critique of the imperial economic system identifies what immoral uses of money look like.
Parables as a Guide to Jesus the Philosopher, Part 9: Mammon
Jesus’s critique of the imperial economic system presents an idea of how money can be used morally.
Parables as a Guide to Jesus the Philosopher, Part 7: Possessiveness
In this part we continue from where we left off with Jesus’s statements on justice, analyzing his approach to anxiety.
“Augustine: A Guide for the Perplexed” Prologue: A Life Confessed
With this post, PEL introduces a new feature: Extended excerpts from recent and forthcoming books on philosophy and related topics.
Imagine a hypothetical argument between two philosophers—a self-described empiricist and a faithful Augustinian. Let’s grant that they have the same basic conception of how to reason. They start with premises that they deem to be true and important, and they attempt, when drawing implications, to rely as firmly as possible on the truth of the foundational premises. Having them begin with different premises, we can expect that they will end in different places. The empiricist tells you that to be an empiricist you must begin with the premise that all knowledge is based on the senses. The Augustinian tells you that nothing else, like, say, the sensed world, is all that real when compared to God. How will you choose between these paths?
Parables as a Guide to Jesus the Philosopher, Part 4: Imprudence?
In contrast to Jesus’s teachings on the virtue of prudence, there are also his parables that feature strong aspects of imprudence. Whereas prudence is an intellectual virtue that involves reasoning out one’s conscience, what Jesus urges in his imagery of imprudence is that we also act from sensitivity to our emotions.
Parables as a Guide to Jesus the Philosopher, Part 3: Shocking Images
According to the Parable of the Dishonest Manager, in the Gospel of Luke, the Kingdom of God is like a man who makes dishonest use of his boss’s money
Parables as a Guide to Jesus the Philosopher, Part 2: Prudence
Part 1 of this series ended with my arguments that because Jesus was not a systematic philosopher, it would be helpful to elaborate his moral teachings in the framework of an ethical system, and that virtue ethics is the system best suited to this purpose, as many Christians have traditionally thought. Taking up this approach, in Parts 2 to 4 Continue Reading …
Parables as a Guide to Jesus the Philosopher, Part 1: Introduction
To say that Jesus was a philosopher is not to say that he was a philosopher and nothing else; he was also a religious preacher and healer. But philosophical argument is implicit in much of his teaching, especially when he is in dialogue. Moreover, his parables, as stimuli to deeper thought, are philosophical devices also.