It's not a bad series, even though it's probably too smart to serve as an introduction. Still, for those willing to understand, it provides an outline and a few references.

The main reference in the series is Christianity and Aquinas. This is both good and bad. Good because most of us in the West watching it would be most familiar with Christianity and Aquinas, if one is to pick a classical theist par excellence in Western religious philosophy, is a fair choice. And it's good also because it provides a direct reference. But it's bad because it thus delimits classical theism to Christianity. Even though in the initial parts of the series all Abrahamic religions get a mention, there is no elucidation at all how classical theism applies to those other religions.

In my view, the power of classical theism lies in reconciliation of all religions, in the insight that all religions (not just Abrahamic ones) are a modified formulation or imperfect apprehension of the same ultimate reality. To describe the same ultimate reality as succinctly and coherently as possible, different theologian-philosophers (as in classical theism doing philosophy and doing theology is the same thing) outline matters and draw distinctions differently. As a result, the different descriptions appear contradictory to each other, but they may still have internal consistency and coherence and they can be useful explanatory guides.

For example, the Bible and Quran stipulate without any chance of dispute that God created the world. Thus God and Creator are the same. The problem for classical theists in Abrahamic tradition is then, How did/does God create and from what? Ex nihilo is the necessary answer.

In other traditions, however, such as (Neo-)Platonism and Vedanta, God is distinct from Creator. God is the Absolute, the One, while Creator is an emanation, a corollary necessary to explain the multiplicity of things and the diversity of existence. The universe looks diverse and multiple to us, human

Alexander wrote:

I'm not sure why that line of thought is inappropriate: the fact that "figures find religion always too restrictive at various points" doesn't stop one from correctly identifying the particular presentation of doctrine against which a particular figure was reacting.

Having read Lawrence, I doubt it's properly identifiable in particular to what he is reacting. He seems to be reacting, yes, or seeking expression, but it's not so easy to put a name on what he is reacting to and what he is seeking expression to. Modernists are like this and postmodernists are even more like this. Good if someone is occasionally able to appreciate the esthetics of it at least.

"In the interests of politeness and not taking away legitimate discussion from Dr. Feser's blog, you may only start threads on articles three months old or more. Any threads on newer articles will be closed."

To me it seems that this rule is too cruel both against this forum and against Dr. Feser's blog. Consider the following points.

- Dr. Feser posts very often. Three months old is almost too old to be remembered, and it certainly has been beaten to death in the blog comments by this time. One month should be more than enough.
- Bickering easily occurs and escalates in combox debates. All this - argumented debates and silly bickering alike - are more appropriate in forum posts than in blog comments. Most of it would be better here than there.
- This forum is not very lively. It has a limited number of active participants due to its specific topic. It would do good to have more participants, so that stuff would show up under most recent posts, instead of emptiness.

I don't think Dr. Feser's blog would lose anything by shortening the term in the quoted rule to one month. This forum would certainly gain relevant activity. And one month would be easier to keep count.

Etzelnik wrote:

seigneur wrote:

In what sense did Luther and Calvin repudiate reason? In all sorts of Christianity, rationality is in a complicated perspective, because Scripture itself repudiates both empiricism and intellectualism, and it emphasises that thing called faith (which has its own pitfalls, if not defined carefully).

Would you care to elaborate? Perhaps in the Christian half of Scripture, but I am not familiar with any fideist necessity from scripture.

Since your question is about Christianity, I meant Scripture as Christians interpret them. Fideism has its pitfalls, but not everybody recognises this, and so fideism is fairly prevalent in Protestantism particularly. Historically, Catholicism is not clean from fideism either.

You might say there's no fideist necessity from Scripture - and I would agree - but the way Christianity in general has played out is not easy to accommodate to this.

Etzelnik wrote:

Why can't faith be conviction born of reason? That's how I always understood "The righteous shall live by his faith".

This is how Hebrews 11 reads, faith is "evidence" (KJV) and "confidence" (NIV). I wish there were less Christians agreeing with the atheist assertion that faith is the direct opposite of evidence and reason. Unfortunately, many Protestants (proper Protestants, e.g. evangelicals, Baptists, not arguable Protestants like Anglicans) easily equate all rational argument and scientific analysis with "men's wisdom" and shun it.

Scott wrote:

I prefer one of Ed's other illustrations: a musician playing a song on an instrument.

Looks like borrowed/modified from Plato's Phaedo.

There's another analogy that I have found handy, similar to Feser's more-quoted one: The hand and the candle. Whenever the hand moves, the candle moves - in this sense they seem perfectly correlated and simultaneous, but the hand is moved by the will of the person who moves the hand, so there's no question about the insurmountable primacy of the hand compared to the candle.

The hand imparts movement to the candle, never the other way round. Similarly, God imparts everything and creation participates in it.