Browsing by Subject "God"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Hume and Edwards on 'Why is there Something Rather than Nothing?'
    (1984-12) Burke, Michael B.
    Suppose that five minutes ago, to our astonishment, a healthy, full-grown duck suddenly popped into existence on the table in front of us. Suppose further that there was no first moment at which the duck existed but rather a last moment, T, at which it had yet to exist. Then for each moment t at which the duck has existed, there is an explanation of why the duck existed at t: there was a moment t’ earlier than t but later than T such that the duck existed at t’, and it was only to be expected that a healthy duck would survive the brief time from t’ to t. But do these explanations, taken collectively, explain why the duck, instead of never having existed at all, has existed at all moments later than T? Presumably not. But if not, this seems to discredit the style of explanation offered by David Hume and Paul Edwards for the infinite regress they hypothesize of causes and effects.
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    Just Scratching the Surface: The Exploration of Countertransference of a Christian Art Therapy Intern Through Reflective Visual Journaling
    (2018) Swihart, Jessie; Misluk, Eileen
    This phenomenological art-based study explored the lived experience of a Christian art therapy intern's countertransferential experience using reflective visual journaling. The emerging art therapist participated in a 7-week reflective visual journaling process at a metropolitan hospital in the final semester of her advanced internship.
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    Koininia
    (2020) Strong, Sarah; Setser, Meredith
    To be alive is to be in relationship. To be human is to seek connection. Through our senses we connect to one another, to the world around us and to the spirit of life itself. Our human experience is an opportunity for sacred relationship. I have found this relationship through the experience and transformation of plant life. A plants life cycle exemplifies the life~death~rebirth process that is our human experience. With intention, I harvest and transform plant fibers, molding them into handmade paper forms. Papermaking is a true alchemical transformation of natural materials utilizing earth, air, fire, and water. Being enveloped in nature provides me an opportunity for powerful reflection, grounding, and inspiration. Communicating and collaborating with the earth I am reminded to breathe more slowly and deeply. I watch the leaves moving with the wind. I see the birds flocking, moving together in unison. I come upon a plethora of examples of the harmony and tension we navigate in our human lives. Koininia bears witness to the natural world as a gateway to sacred relationship.
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    Navigating through "a nightmare of meaninglessness without end": a semi-structural reading of Kurt Vonnegut's The Sirens of Titan
    (2009-06-23T13:54:49Z) Cook, Joshua; Marvin, Thomas F.; Rudy, John; Eller, Jonathan R., 1952-
    In Vonnegut's second novel, the author sets up distinct character-based binaries that represent methods of looking for meaning in the universe. This paper attempts to show that outward-focused searches for purpose, i.e. those that are directed toward a "higher power," bring only division and harm into the world. As the novel's characters operate within their assigned binaries, most of them are able to abandon their nocuous philosophies in favor of an inward-focused search for meaning, which allows them to embrace a radically humbled humanistic perspective that places equal importance upon all creatures.
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    On Perfect Goodness
    (Springer Verlag, 2010-04) Keller, J. Gregory
    God is typically conceived as perfectly good and necessarily so, in two senses: in terms of always performing the best possible act and in terms of having maximal moral worth. Yet any being that freely performs the best act she can must be accorded greater moral worth for any such action than a being that does so necessarily. I conclude that any being that performs the best possible act of necessity cannot also have maximal moral worth, making the concept of God’s perfect goodness incoherent.