philosophy

S1 E9 Benjamin Sommer on God’s Bodies

January 26, 2019 Dale God, Jewish Bible, philosophy 1 Comment

Sommer, The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel

Could a human being literally shake hands with God? If so, then God must have at least one hand – and one would think, not only a hand, but a complete humanoid body. While sophisticates have long scorned the idea that God could in any sense have a body, as Dr. Benjamin Sommer points out in his The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel, the authors of the Jewish Bible (what Christians call the “Old Testament”) all seem to assume that God has a body. After all, God walks in a garden (Genesis 3:8) and is literally seen by Moses and the elders of Israel (Exodus 24:9-11).

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But in this book Dr. Sommer argues that some ancient Jews, like other Near Eastern peoples, believed that their god (the LORD) had multiple bodies and also multiple personae. Others, though, disagreed; thus Dr. Summer says we can discern an ancient argument behind the texts as they have come down to us.

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As Jewish theology evolved, which side “won” in this dispute, and what did this discussion have to do with concerns about the sin of idolatry? Moreover, what would these ancient authors have thought was involved in God having a body? Would this make God a limited and vulnerable being? Would one in principle be able to starve, imprison, or physically harm such a being?

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Bonus audio: Comparing Maimonides’s view on God’s “body” with Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Holodeck.

S1 E8 Graham Oppy on Atheism and Agnosticism

December 23, 2018 Dale atheism, Buddhism, Christianity, God, Miracles, philosophy, Religious Experience Comments Off on S1 E8 Graham Oppy on Atheism and Agnosticism

Are you a theist, an atheist, an agnostic, or an innocent?

Tibetan prayer flags

S1 E6 Donald Lopez on A Jesuit’s Quest for the Soul of Tibet

November 10, 2018 Dale Buddhism, Christianity, God, philosophy, Religious Diversity Comments Off on S1 E6 Donald Lopez on A Jesuit’s Quest for the Soul of Tibet

Dispelling the Darkness book coverIn 1712 Italian Jesuit priest Ippolito Desideri set off an dangerous mission to Tibet, his goal to win souls to Roman Catholic Christianity. But his plan was not to merely preach the gospel, or to combine preaching and charitable works. He would learn Tibetan, familiarize himself with Tibetan paganism, and seek to persuade them to convert through a series of rational arguments, put forth in a learned treatise in the style of Tibetan Buddhism.


What happened when he got there? In this episode Dr. Donald S. Lopez Jr. discuss his recent book, co-authored with Dr. Thupten Jinpa, Dispelling the Darkness: A Jesuit’s Quest for the Soul of Tibet. In this book they not only tell Desideri’s major-motion-picture-worthy story, but they also translate some of his writings. Dr. Lopez discusses both the stories and some of the central ideas of Desideri’s works. Boldly, Desideri tries to refute the central Buddhist doctrines of rebirth and of emptiness.


S1 E5 – Andrei Buckareff on Alternative Concepts of God

August 28, 2018 Dale atheism, Buddhism, Christianity, God, Hinduism, Judaism, naturalism, panentheism, pantheism, philosophy Comments Off on S1 E5 – Andrei Buckareff on Alternative Concepts of God

Dr. Andrei Buckareff and some of his co-authors are convinced that in recent times philosophers of religion have been too traditional, focusing too much of their attention on an understanding of God as a perfect creator of the cosmos who is distinct from that cosmos, someone who created it out of nothing.

To remedy this many of them propose that God just is the cosmos (pantheism) or that God is like a soul and the cosmos is God’s body (panentheism).

As it’s philosophy, though, intellectual diversity is on display; other authors criticize such views, or explore alternatives within or outside of traditional theistic theologies.

In this wide-ranging interview, we hear about this ongoing research project, some of these alternative concepts of God (i.e. the unique, ultimate reality), and what motivates such explorations.