Announcing
Read philosophy with me.
A brainy Christian reading group in philosophy of religion and theology—close reading, hard questions, serious but friendly discussion. Let’s go!
What’s included…
- Weekly reading assignments
- My in-depth Q&As
- Subscriber-only essays
- Prayers
- A growing PDF library, including drafts of God Exists
- See the seminar plan
How it works…
No grades. Read at your own pace, but I aim for about 10–20 pages per week. Level: advanced undergraduate to graduate. More about how it works.
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Nine Theses on Wikipedia: A Special Feature
I submit these nine theses to Wikipedia’s community and to the world. I do this, as Martin Luther said when he posted his famous 95 theses, “Out of love for the truth and the desire to elucidate it.”
My Blog
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Timaeus 37c–38e: What is Plato’s view on the nature and origin of time?
Again, to help us decide about procedure going forward, I wanted to give you an idea of a significantly shorter answer, now about a longer passage. Obviously, I cannot go into as much detail. Plato’s basic notion is that time, as such, as it occurs in the universe, is an image of the eternity of
2 comments on Timaeus 37c–38e: What is Plato’s view on the nature and origin of time?3 minutes -
Call for volunteers
In my quest to make the seminar as interesting and useful for participants—and on the theory that one learns philosophy best by doing—I want to experiment by asking you to volunteer to write answers yourselves! But first, I would like to gauge how much support there is for this idea generally speaking. Tomorrow, we will
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Timaeus 31a–b: Why did Plato think the universe was unique?
Just to help us decide about procedure going forward, I wanted to give you an idea of what an answer would be like if it were significantly shorter. As extremely “modern” as the idea of a multiverse might seem, it is ancient. The hypothesis that “reality as we know it” might be plural in number,
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Timaeus 30a–d: What is Plato’s argument that the universe is “a living being”?
And what are we to make of this, especially of the very idea of the universe as a living being? Can we take this argument seriously, or should we simply dismiss it as bizarre, ancient nonsense?—One of the more fascinating aspects of philosophy is that, with charitable study and proper comprehension, what sounds at first
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STP update: March 10, 2026
Wrapping up? I really don’t want to spend too much longer on the Timaeus, even though I have not discussed anything past 30d yet. We’ve already gone over the most important parts. I do want to address the uniqueness of the universe, the argument for the cosmos as a living being with a world soul,
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Timaeus 29d–30b: What work does the assumption of the Demiurge’s goodness do for Plato?
I will address this more briefly. In fact, in the previous answer, we quoted several relevant bits (which see). The assumption of the goodness of the Demiurge is used to argue that the Demiurge must have used an eternal model, one with Being, for the universe, rather than a created one. But we have already
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Timaeus 29d–30b: Why does Plato seem to assume that the Demiurge is “good”?
Here is Plato simply, by all appearances, taking it for granted. Why? This is interesting to me because in my book in progress, I spend no fewer than four chapters characterizing, establishing, and defending the goodness of “the creative mind of natural theology.” I suppose the first thing to do is to establish that it
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For Christian Graces
Grant Thy servants, O God, to be set on fire with Thy Spirit, strengthened by Thy power, illuminated by Thy splendour, filled with Thy grace, and to go forward by Thine aid. Give them, O Lord, a right faith, perfect love, true humility. Grant, O Lord, that there may be in us simple affection, brave
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For Stewardship
O Lord God Almighty, who hast built Thy Church upon the foundation of the Apostles, under Christ the head corner-stone, and to this end didst endue Thy holy apostle St. Barnabas with the singular gift of the Holy Ghost; leave me not destitute, I humbly beseech Thee, of Thy manifold gifts and talents, nor yet
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Timaeus 29b–d: Why does Plato say that statements about a rational “model” must be “stable and reliable”?
As we explained, Plato thinks the divine craftsman (demiourgos) must have followed a model in crafting the universe. He says, further, that a model may be rational and eternal (a Being), on the one hand, or else irrational and created (something Becoming). He has determined that the model of the universe must be of the
6 minutes
Support the Knowledge Standards Foundation:
/larrysanger- An open reply to Jimmy Wales. He's wrong: Grokipedia won't necessarily be biased; and, obviously, the Trump article is badly biased. First of a series of replies to Jimmy's remarks in this Reason exposé: https://reason.com/video/2026/02/23/can-you-trust-wikipedia/
- I invited my X peeps to ask me questions and then "like" the various questions, and I would upload the answers in video form. Here it is! Christian identity – 1:10 "Call no man teacher" – 9:25 Role of government – 15:45 Authority & resistance – 19:15 Wikipedia labor – 24:20 Net value of Wikipedia […]
- Made for beginners, family, friends, study group members. Most of this stuff is obvious after you use LLMs long enough. If you have more good ideas, put them in comments!