Relating as persons: psychology, society, politics
I’ve written about centrism before, here, here, here and here. There are two kinds of centrism: Lagging centrism is a political position comparable to a lagging indicator in economics. This position is characterized by going with the direction of the political winds of the day but lagging behind as if hedging one’s bets or being […]
Marriage is the coupling of two adults; that is, marriage is a relationship of monogamous copulation. That is why marriage is the union of a man and a woman for life. Two men or two women cannot copulate together. More than two adults cannot be monogamous. A marriage begins when it is consummated, which means
Although I’m a centrist, not a conservative, I desire to see the political factions balanced in order to have a balanced politics. But for some time the political left has had excessive influence: they dominate the media (both mass and elite), education, the arts and sciences, professional associations, NGOs, the judicial branch, and in many
Previous posts on political centrism are here, here, and here. This post further develops what centrism is. There are three principles of what centrism is: (1) Centrism seeks balance in all aspects of the state and its relationship with individuals, society, and other states. (2) Centrism is non-ideological because ideologies are imbalanced: what distinguishes one
This post follows on a previous post here. How did we get from natures to nature? In a word, nominalism. The many natures of pre-modern science have been transformed into one nature or Nature, reified if not personified as a thing or force or being. Nominalism is the teaching that universals or qualities or natures
The state of nature was invented by Thomas Hobbes to support his idea of a social contract that was (or would have been) entered into by free individuals. In the natural state people would have been totally free but also lacking in security and other goods of society. So they voluntarily entered into a social
The preamble to the U.S. Constitution reads: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the
Peter Lillback his article “The United ‘Statists’ of America?” in the book Statism: The Shadows of Another Night, edited by Charlie Rodriguez (2015) lists the following warnings given by George Washington in his 1789 address to Congress (with Lillback’s wording appended): 1. “I pretend to no unusual foresight into futurity, and therefore cannot undertake to
I believe there is only one race – the human race. Distinctions between people that use the word “race” are really about something else. I think there are three main ways that people use the word “race” and consequently may act in discriminatory ways toward people they believe are of other races. (1) Racism of
The dissertation When Two Become One: Reconsidering Marriage as a Sacrament in Protestant Theology by Adam Neal is online here. What follows are excerpts from the conclusion, pp. 304-310. This study has set out to provide a coherent presentation for why Christian theology should consider marriage as explicitly sacred, and, in particular, advanced comprehensive argumentation
