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April 2024

April 14, 2024

Designing God

Voltaire once wrote that if God did not exist, we would have to invent him....

April 07, 2024

Thomas, Michel, and the Importance of Doubt

Jeanne and I spent Thursday through Saturday of Holy Week in a movie theater. We...

April 02, 2024

The Apocalypse During Apocalyptic Times

It is interesting, perhaps fitting, that the first class in my team-taught "Apocalypse: colloquium after...

March 2024

March 28, 2024

Could You Not Watch With Me One Hour?

HOly WeekSome people can sleep anywhere. One of those people was a student in one...

March 26, 2024

God Finds Us to be Infinitely Interesting

April is going to be Marilynne Robinson month for me. In the team taught interdisciplinary...

March 19, 2024

On Being a Person

In her award-winning trilogy of novels about Thomas Cromwell, the consigliere and fixer for Henry...

March 17, 2024

Saint Patrick? Let Me Introduce you to Saint Bridget!

Today is St. Patrick's Day, not my favorite holiday (as you'll see below). Portions of...

March 05, 2024

Another Birthday Tomorrow–do I have anything new to say?

Tomorrow is my birthday (#68)--the fact that my youngest son finds a way to travel...

March 03, 2024

Faith on Three Wheels

Next week is my birthday week, an annual opportunity for me to consider how old...

February 2024

February 29, 2024

Being a Person of Faith in Challenging Times

This has been a challenging week in class, not because of my students but because...

February 25, 2024

What If I Don’t Want to Take Up My Cross?

Last week I introduced a bunch of honors sophomores to Dietrich Bonhoeffer's distinction between "Cheap...

February 18, 2024

Who Would Jesus Bomb? A President’s Day Reflection

Tomorrow is President's Day, which for all college professors means--as do all Monday holidays in...

February 15, 2024

A Terrible Beauty

The sea pronounces something, over and over, in a hoarse whisper. I cannot quite make...

February 08, 2024

Doing Good for the Sake of Goodness

Last Monday's text in my sophomore Honors seminar, a course that spans literature, history, theology...

February 06, 2024

Who Am I? How to Build a Person

In one of the essays assigned for my honors colloquium on Michel de Montaigne this...

February 04, 2024

Can We Trust Each Other? A Reflection on Human Nature

The other day upon returning from her early morning visit to the gym, the first...

January 2024

January 25, 2024

God Isn’t Angry At Us

A former student who wrote for our campus student newspaper once asked me during an...

January 21, 2024

Is Your Life Going According to Plan?

When I first started this blog a bit over eleven years ago, I told Jeanne...

January 16, 2024

Now It Begins: The First Day of the New Semester

In last few minutes of Franco Zefferelli's Jesus of Nazareth, Zerah pokes his head into the...

January 09, 2024

This I Believe–and that’s not a good thing

A number of years ago, at the end of a presentation to fellow resident scholars...

January 02, 2024

Continuing the Task of Self-Construction in the New Year

My first post of the New Year on this blog often goes in the direction...

December 2023

December 10, 2023

An Outline of “Nice Work If You Can Get It”

I am currently starting the process of finding a literary agent for the teaching memoir...

December 08, 2023

No Perception is Immaculate

I have taught philosophy in Catholic higher education for more that thirty years as a...

November 2023

November 28, 2023

Making Christmas Wild Again

Just when you thought you had heard and read it all . . . "If...

November 26, 2023

The Difference Between Goats and GOATs

The last Sunday before Advent and the beginning of a new liturgical calendar year is...

November 19, 2023

Teach Us to Count Our Days

In an interesting confluence, today's lectionary Psalm--Psalm 90--plays an important role in the final section...

November 12, 2023

The Cost of Doing Evolutionary Business–God and Darwin have a conversation

Regular readers of this blog know that I am currently thinking through an old issue--the...

November 09, 2023

Why Traditional “Solutions” to the Problem of Evil Don’t Work

In the most recent episode of their podcast “The Bible for Normal People,” Pete Enns...

October 2023

October 31, 2023

What Atheists and Theists Can Agree On

If God is both all-good and all-powerful, why is there so much evil in the...

October 24, 2023

My Relationship with the Word of God

My two sabbatical book projects have, without my explicitly planning it, turned out to be...

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