PhD passed

PhD passed

Update: January 23, 2009: My revisions list was waiting for me in my email as I arrived back to the Vancouver area today. I reason I have a few months of work and therefore blogging will be lighter than usual. I am going to lose another academic work year and need to work on the revisions as much as possible. I will post some of my findings. Si, Ruth and family, thanks for hosting me! Thanks as well to Mr. X and LX for putting me up for a couple of days! 

Additional

The subject of fatalism came up in my PhD viva/defence. Here are some comments I have from an older article. I do not hold to fatalism. Edinburgh: 1995 I find a rare Jazz Fusion unofficial CD, featuring an artist I was looking for at a flea market. I explain this to the seller and he states. ‘It was fate’ with a strong Scottish accent. ‘Pardon’ I said, ‘It was fate’, he stated. I thought he had said ‘It was fiit’. 

Compatibilism/soft determinism

P.S. Greenspan writes that compatibilism holds to free will and determinism being compatible. Greenspan (1998: 1). Louis P. Pojman, defines compatibilism as the concept that an act can be entirely determined and yet be free in the sense that it was done voluntarily and without compulsion. Pojman (1996: 596). J.S. Feinberg explains that compatibilism does not allow for coercion or force, but holds that God, or some outside force, can simultaneously determine with the use of persuasion, that an action will or will not take place. Feinberg (1986: 24). 

Feinberg writes that certain nonconstraining conditions could strongly influence actions, in conjunction with human free will performing these actions. Feinberg (1994: 60). With this viewpoint, there will be no contradiction in stating that God would create human beings who were significantly free, unconstrained, and yet committed actions that God willed. Feinberg (2001: 637). 

W.T. Stace (1952)(1976) explains that moral responsibility is consistent with determinism in the context of soft determinism and requires it. Stace (1952)(1976: 29). If human actions are uncaused then reward or punishment would be unjustified. Stace (1952)(1976: 29). Stace reasons that there must be at least some human cause within human actions to make them morally responsible acts. Stace (1952)(1976: 30).

Fatalism compared with hard determinism

Simon Blackburn comments that this is the doctrine that human action has no influence on events. Blackburn (1996: 137). Blackburn gives the opinion that fatalism is wrongly confused with determinism, which by itself carries no implications that human actions have no effect. Blackburn (1996: 137).

Tomis Kapitan notes that determinism is usually understood as meaning that whatever occurs is determined by antecedent (preceding cause) conditions. Kapitan (1999: 281). Pojman states that hard determinism holds that every event is caused and no one is responsible for actions, whereas soft determinism holds that rational creatures can be held responsible for determined actions as long as they are done voluntarily and without force or coercion. Pojman (1996: 586). Fatalism should not be equated with compatibilism/soft determinism, but if fatalism states that no human actions can influence or cause events, and hard determinism holds that human beings do not cause actions or are morally responsible, there is clearly a similarity in definitions. 

D.G. Bloesch explains that fate is not chance, but instead is cosmic determinism that has no meaning or purpose. Bloesch (1996: 407). He writes that fate/fatalism would differ from a Christian idea of divine providence and its implied use of determinism, in that fatalism is impersonal and irrational, whereas providence is personal and rational. Bloesch (1996: 407). 

Thiessen comments that fatalism is not determinism because fatalism holds that all events are caused by fate, and not natural causes, and nothing can change these events. Determinism in contrast, holds that all events occur by necessity. Thiessen (1956: 186). Compatibilism and soft determinism does hold that what God determines must happen by necessity, but reasons that rational beings with a significant use of free will are not coerced or forced to commit acts, which must occur by necessity. 

A person can hold to hard determinism and believe that God determined all events without the significant use of free will of rational creatures, and a fatalist can also believe that events are determined without the use of significant free will of rational creatures, and yet this is caused without any meaning, and without the understanding that God or any rational entity is behind these events. 

BLACKBURN, SIMON (1996) ‘Fatalism’, in Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, p. 137. Oxford, Oxford University Press. 

BLOESCH, D. (1996) ‘Fate, Fatalism’, in Walter A. Elwell (ed.), Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, Grand Rapids, Baker Books. 

FEINBERG. JOHN S. (1986) Predestination and Free Will, David Basinger and Randall Basinger (eds.), Downers Grove, Illinois, InterVarsity Press. 

FEINBERG, JOHN S. (1994) The Many Faces of Evil, Grand Rapids, Zondervan Publishing House. 

FEINBERG, JOHN S. (2001) No One Like Him, John S. Feinberg (gen.ed.), Wheaton, Illinois, Crossway Books. 

GREENSPAN, P.S. (1998) Free Will and Genetic Determinism: Locating the Problem (s), Maryland, University of Maryland. http://www.philosophy.umd.edu/Faculty/PGreenspan/Res/gen2.html 

KAPITAN, TOMIS (1996) ‘Free Will Problem’, in Robert Audi (ed.), The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. 

POJMAN, LOUIS P. (1996) Philosophy: The Quest for Truth, New York, Wadsworth Publishing Company. 

STACE, W.T. (1952)(1976) Religion and the Modern Mind, in John R. Burr and Milton Goldinger (eds), Philosophy and Contemporary Issues, London, Collier Macmillan Publishers. 

THIESSEN, HENRY C. (1956) Introductory Lectures in Systematic Theology, Grand Rapids, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. 

Update: January 20, 2009

I visited this church today with Mr. X and LX. Original foundations are 1300-1400 years old. The University of Wales, Lampeter Greetings from a public library in Manchester. Please note I do not have any books here from my library and so do not expect my usual Wales inspired citation fest. I was just eating at one of my favourite restaurants, Cafe Rouge, which is an English attempt at French food. It has very good food in my opinion, but offers small portions. 

In some ways, by God's grace I am intellectual, but not all that cultured by European standards, perhaps. I asked the restaurant manager/server for more water for my tea pot and she asked puzzled, 'With the same tea bag?' I explained to her that took place in Canadian restaurants. She insisted on giving me a new pot of tea on the house. My viva examiners and the chairperson stated seemed to be very fine persons, and noted I did very well on my viva. They were impressed. They agreed with my comment at the end that I was able to answer all their questions. In fact the examiners respected me and seemed to like it when I set them straight concerning some of their assumptions concerning my sovereignty theodicy and compatiblism.;) 

The examiners indicated that my viva defence basically answered the objections they had with the thesis and therefore I should have no difficulty with the revisions. There was in their opinion, a disconnect with how I presented my work in person and how it was presented in the thesis. I reason that their objections could have all been answered within the thesis, but it would be impossible for either myself, or my advisers Mark and Rob to anticipate all of the potential objections. The examiners reasoned that without the viva I did not sufficiently defend my worldview and assumptions. I very much disagree having dealt with atheism in the thesis (and on my blogs). I dealt with atheistic objections concerning the three theodicy and included an atheistic praxis in the Afterword. 

The examiners wanted me to have examined other approaches to the nature of God. Well, this could have been done easily within the text and will be done in the revisions. To take this type of objection too far is to basically require a different thesis and this is always a danger. I was reviewing writers and their assumptions primarily! I was not directed to write a Reformed apologetic. My advisor Rob agreed with me that if after these revisions we brought in two more reviewers, they would have another set of revisions. I admit that my reviewers and every advisor I have had is in some way academically ahead of me, but I state humbly, but with confidence that my Biblically and Reformed based sovereignty theodicy still remains seriously unchallenged after development for ten years and challenges from academics, friends, and on-line bloggers. 

I am not trying to be egotistical, but I remain even more convinced of this after the viva. Well, the external examiner is an Anglican systematic theologian, that stated he was non-Reformed when I asked him. The internal examiner is a systematic theologian and is Roman Catholic. Predictably they both had difficulties intellectual accepting my Reformed views. I will write more on this later, but I am running out of time on this computer. 

I am RUSHED. Please leave comments, but I do not wish to attempt to force or coerce you...;) I reason much of their revisions are based on a misunderstanding of my work and the fact that we are coming from different traditions, and the fact that I was simply following the advice to the letter of my very qualified advisers within the British system, Mark and then Rob. Thank you very much Mark Cartlege and Rob Warner for your fine professional assistance. Mark, thanks as well to you and your family for hosting me for a drink/meal on more than one occasion. Mark is a fine empirical theologian and scholar. Rob, thanks for taking over for Mark when he left and the additions you provided were important in the development of the work. Rob is the department head and also a fine empirical theologian and scholar and gave me excellent advice.

Neither of these men would agree with some of the things I state on this blog, but the same can be stated for my regular readers and commenters and so what is new?;) Thank you to Dr. William Kay for helping me with my MPhil thesis which passed without revisions. Dr. Kay has two PhDs and is a fine academic. Please comment if you wish and keep posted. This post is not finished. Russ:) Thanks Simon for taking me to this match! Even though you support Arsenal! January 14, 2009 Manchester 

United 1 Wigan Athletic 0

 

Thanks Jeff! Very good. There is no message here, just a Luthor group.