Articles

“Views books” offer brief sketches of competing views on a target subject along with some arguments for and against each view. For Three Views on Christianity and Science, the target area is relating Christianity to the sciences. The three views or models on display are supposed to be independence or two-realms, dialogue, and integration. Generally,…

“America needs more private intellectuals.”Francis Joseph Beckwith, Twitter post, June 22, 2021, 10:36 a.m., https://twitter.com/fbeckwith/sta-tus/1407346836223021065. Emphasis added. So tweeted Baylor University philosopher and occasional public intellectual Francis Beckwith. Perhaps Beckwith had in mind a particular public intellectual’s unfortunate essay or social media misadventure. There is little doubt public intellectuals draw fire from all sides. Scholars…

In his essay “Is Theology Poetry?” C. S. Lewis brushed off the then-growing fear that the authority of science threatened to supplant Christianity. He was not convinced and wrote, “The picture so often painted of Christians huddling together on an ever-narrower strip of beach while the incoming tide of ‘Science’ mounts higher and higher corresponds…

The question of how life began strikes at the heart of the intersection of philosophy and science. Every Life is on Fire: How Thermodynamics Explains the Origins of Living Things presents a complete overview of England’s theoretical model of dissipative adaptation and how it relates to the origin of life. Unlike other books written on the…

So many books on creationism!—Books promoting various creationist positions, books critiquing those positions, books by historians on creationists, and books by scholars and pundits explaining what is going on with creationists and how to deal with them. The wisdom writer was correct, “Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the…

The thesis of this monograph is captured nicely by its subtitle: Christian convictions and motivations both energized and obstructed the crusade to end slavery in the United States. Although in its essence the author’s thesis is not novel—the realization that opponents and defenders of bondage both wielded religious arguments is commonplace—Wright offers a provocative analysis…

The renowned American essayist Joseph Epstein once made the following assertion: Reading is experience. A biography of any literary person ought to deal at length and in detail with what he/she read and when, for in some sense, we are what we read. At the same time, we read what we are. We use books…