Red Letter Philosophy

Introducing Mysterium Tremendum.  "Not all who wander are lost", wrote Bilbo Baggins.  We have been wandering, but we are not lost - not entirely.  Seventeen months after our last episode, we return: slower, deeper, darker.

Where is God?  How is the distance between God and man to be measured?  In this episode we conclude a series of episodes on Divine Hiddenness.  However, this is not your mother's academic discussion.  God, evil, life, pinball, drinks, and a wee bit of reverie await you, dear listener.  Come and enjoy the show.

When we experience evil, or silence from heaven, can any answers, any consolation, be found in philosophy?  In this episode we consider this question in the light of D. Z. Phillips.

When we experience evil, or silence from heaven, can any answers, any consolation, be found in philosophy?  In this episode we consider this question in the light of C. S. Lewis.

The world can seem a silent and indifferent place in the face of suffering and confusion.  Where is God?  Why should God, as some tell us, be in a whisper?  Why should God dwell in secret places?  In this episode we take up The hiddenness of God, the Deus absconditus. 

As we continue recovering from being under the weather, we bring you one of our Easter favorites.  On this holiday episode of Red Letter Philosophy we ask the question, what's so good about Good Friday?  We also discuss the frame or boundary that is Holy Week.  In the words of Peter Kreeft, "it takes boundaries to make anything interesting.  If a picture didn't have a frame, it would trail off int...

This St. Patrick's Day finds us under the weather.  Rather than miss the day, we offer/bring one of our St Patrick's Day favorites.  Is St. Patrick's Day a celebration of the Irish; Irish history, Irish storytelling, Ireland herself, or is St. Patrick's Day a celebration of a saint and of the one who molded the saint?  We couldn't decide.  So, on this episode we offer you both one of Ireland's fin...

In this episode we contemplate the problems of silence and unbelief through the eyes of Jean Paul Sartre and Frederick Nietzsche.  Do these two great atheist philosophers agree, fundamentally, with the great Christian philosophers?  Take up and listen.

Every once in a while Valentine's Day and Ash Wednesday fall on the same day; this episode is for such days.  Love and death are visitors from another world, doors in the wall of the world.  Join us as we contemplate love and death.

After a three month hiatus, Red Letter Philosophy returns.  The boys pick up their discussion of the problem of silence and the problem of unbelief.  In particular, they look at an intriguing argument from famed author, Andrew Klavan.

Halloween, All Saints Day, All Souls Day: a trinity of holy and deathly days.  In an increasingly secular age, these days become excuses to indulge the appetites: hedonism & ghoulishness.  However, these days are days of profundity and depth when seen in the correct light.  Join us as we contemplate mystery, death, and spirit in this episode of Red Letter Philosophy.  

Do we live on a silent planet?  Are we merely insignificant specs of dust adrift in an indifferent cosmos?  Or do we have reason to think otherwise?  We're on the road and searching for answers; join us, will you?

Do you struggle with belief?  Are you disturbed by the apparent silence (or indifference) of the universe?  If so, then this is the episode for you.  Join us for a discussion of belief, silence, and much more in this first episode of season six.

The Grand Canyon is a place where the veil between this world and the next world grows thin; a place where we learn to take life, but not ourselves, seriously.  In this episode, we look again at the death and spookiness that surrounds the canyon.

In this episode, we continue our contemplation of a mystery.  We began, two episodes ago, with G. K. Chesterton and his comment about seeing in "the light of the supernatural".  In the last episode we continued our musings with Peter Kreeft and his comments about the sea within. Now, we come to Thomas Howard and his comments about perception & reality. 

The Summer of the supernatural continues.  In this episode we revisit and refresh a pervious episode, The Sea Within.  Perhaps the supernatural isn't so far from the natural; perhaps what we call natural is supernatural from a certain point of view.

Approximately five years ago we posted our first episode.  The episode was, and is, titled, Life Is A Pigsty.  In this episode, we reexamine, and elaborate upon, that first episode.  Morrissey, Chesterton, & the messiness of life, on this episode of Red Letter Philosophy.

In this episode of Red Letter Philosophy, we bid farewell to season five.  We've  been on a metaphysical journey through Ancient, Medieval, Modern, and contemporary philosophy.  What conclusions can be drawn from our journey?  Will we make it back home?  "Tune in" and find out.

Is it, as Freud said, that we are projecting our fathers onto the face of God, or is it that we project our inner knowledge God onto the face of our fathers?  Do our desires and expectations come from a higher place?   In this episode of Red Letter Philosophy, we explore the relationship between fatherhood and reality.  Take up and listen.

Is it that nothing means anything or that everything means everything?   Two myths, two ways of understanding life and the world; the culmination of Augustine, Pascal, and our season: on this week's Red Letter Philosophy.  Take up and listen.

St. Augustine's wrote that "Amor meus, Pondus meum"; My love is my gravity.  Perhaps our search for what truth and reality is not only an intellectual search?  Perhaps the heart can have reasons of which reason knows nothing?  In this episode we take up these questions.

The essence of Motherhood: a metaphysical question.  Motherhood is surely many things, but if it is anything, it is also surely a kind of life, a life of prayer.  A mother is one who raises her mind and heart to God on behalf of her family, and that is something worth noting and celebrating.

Hume, contrary to popular belief, never intended to destroy belief in God.  He only meant to destroy a certain conception of belief, and belief in God.  In this episode we contemplate Hume's criticism of, and argument for, belief in God.

The English philosopher and mathematician, W. K. Clifford, famously wrote that, "It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence."  Clifford's approach to belief has come to dominate the way many intellectuals approach matters of belief, especially belief in God.  In this episode we argue that Clifford neglected his Hume.  Hume's approach to belief an...

In honor of Holy Week, this week's episode is devoted to the mystery of faith.  In keeping with this season, we contemplate this mystery with a Modern philosopher, Blaise Pascal.  Enjoy.