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"You can take the boy out of the farm, but you can't get the farm out of the boy." Wayne Gustave Johnson explores this proverb as he recounts memories of his early years on an Iowa farm rented by his immigrant Swedish parents. Nourished by these gentle parents, a little church, eight years of country school, and four older siblings, Johnson established the values that shaped his life. The labor-intensive farming of the 1930s grounded him in the dignity of labor and the sense of fulfillment which comes through cooperation with nature. A little church of fundamentalist leanings nurtured his love of choral music and gave him respect for the support provided by religious faith. While his eight years of country schooling would not quite classify as prep school experience, they did provide a basic grasp of the three Rs. Sex education--of sorts--is inevitable on an Iowa farm where the romancing of farm animals is open to view. The transfer of these observed activities to human experience was natural, but required some fine-tuning. At thirteen, the death of his father prompted the author to eventually pursue the big questions through the study of religion and philosophy.
This book explains why moral systems necessarily develop and why they take the various forms that they do. Johnson argues that moral systems are best understood as attempts both to seek out ways of living a fulfilling human life and also to find ways of relating to others who also seek a fulfilling life. Philosophers generally agree that the moral pathway is also the fulfilling pathway. However, the moral pathways advocated and the kind of fulfillments envisioned depend upon beliefs about human nature as well as beliefs about the ultimate nature of things--a worldview. Aristotle, Epicurus, Saint Augustine, and Friedrich Nietzsche, for instance, had radically varying views about what constitutes a fulfilling life. Johnson argues that the moral quest involves properly arbitrating among the often competing wants, needs, and desires pursued by human beings. Not all such wants, needs, and desires can be fulfilled; some must necessarily go unfulfilled. This implies that a vast number of human choices are moral choices. For instance, who eats and who does not? Johnson gives no moral advice. His aim is to show the reader the nature of the moral choices they necessarily make.
Luther's critics have consistently charged him as an irrationalist and pessimist concerning reason's capabilities, and even by his followers as a fideist who sees little or no relationship between faith and reason. In this book, David Andersen offers a fresh and timely re-evaluation of Luther and his understanding of the relationship between faith and reason based upon a thorough engagement with Luther's mature writings. Dr. Andersen persuasively argues that, far from being either an irrationalist or a fideist, Luther stands within an empiricist tradition and that his pronouncements on fallen human reason can be understood only from that philosophical perspective. Based upon recent research ...
A collection of essays from the Basic Issues Forum, focusing on intercultural, interdisciplinary responses to the issue The Existence of God proposed by the Basic Issues Forum of Washington and Jefferson College. Essays include such topics as Is Existence' a Desirable Attribute of a Real God? by Robert F. Streetman, Jungian Archetypes and the Transcendent Image by Nancy Tenfelde Clasby, The Universe as Controlled Accident' by Conrad Hyers, and The Ethics of Unbelief: Philosophy, Responsibility, and the Ratio Anselmi' by G. Scott Davis.
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