Hey, everyone. A couple days ago, I decided to start reading The Existence of God. Chapter 1 was pretty easy to comprehend and keep all the concepts straight in my mind, but once I got to chapter 2 where there are sections on both scientific and personal explanations, keeping track of all the definitions started to get really difficult, and I felt like I was highlighting multiple things on every page. If you've gone through the book, could you please offer some advice on how to get through it without feeling overwhelmed, yet being able to retain all the very specific, intricate definitions that Swinburne stipulates for the various types of explanations? Additionally, I'm in the section on personal explanations where he mentions Davidson's account of personal explanations in terms of scientific explanations, and I'm not seeing how his argument goes through for a non-reductionist/broadly dualist view of personal explanation that involves intention. From what I understand, he's saying that Davidson is including intentions themselves as reducible to combinations of brain states and their connections to the rest of one's body, correct? If so, it seems that Swinburne then says that intention is not reducible to brain states and their connections to one's body by this analogy: there are properties like redness that are immediately perceivable, but one does not need to know anything about the perceived object with the property of redness reflecting a particular wavelength that corresponds to the color red. So analogous to the case above, one does not need to know about a one's particular brain state and its connections to know what one's own intention is. Is this just how a typical argument for, at the least, property dualism is made?

Our weekly Saturday Q&A this week will host our very own Michael Jones of Inspiring Philosophy. If you want to have your questions answered, you don't want to miss this call!

I know that these forums are usually for announcements, discussions of research findings, and even just input on a specific topic. Still, I was also thinking, because we have SO MANY content creators in here, including Apollos, IP, Than, and of course Tim. I wanted to ask some questions about those who have experience doing live calls (specifically from platforms like TikTok, and YouTube). 1. How do you know when you are ready? This is something I think about all the time when wanting to start going live on TikTok and other platforms: I have the means and the access; I just don't know if I am ready for "the smoke". I talk in Discord chatrooms all the time about complex topics and feel confident with most people whom I encounter there, but how do I know when I am ready for live? 2. How should you react when you don't know something (and an important clarifier), and the guest is trying to make you feel not qualified for knowing something? Not knowing something and just admitting it, and just ending that portion of the conversation, is one thing, because that's just humility. It's a complete other thing when you have "influence," and you are live, and a guest is making you look as if you are "cooked," "baked," or not qualified just for knowledge gapping you. This isn't a problem for me, because I know this is just untrue, but for an audience that has been primed to be very reactionary to this type of content, it might be a different story. How should I respond when that accusation is made? That's basically it lol. Any feedback or thoughts from anyone will be much appreciated!

I haven't done a whole deep dive into this text that I stumbled upon when reading my Bible this morning, but it seems to mirror this "two powers in heaven" idea that we see during the 2nd Temple period, or at least it seems to be something similar. Please let me know if anyone knows about this reference, or if anyone else has commented on it before: In 1 Kings 19:9-14, Elijah is in the wilderness, after running away from Queen Jezebel, after she ordered the death of Elijah. Elijah makes his way to a cave after the angel of Yahweh gives him food and water. The text then says: "Then the word of the LORD came to him, saying, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He answered, “I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts, for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.” (1 Ki 19:9–10, NRSVue) Notice here how, when Elijah is describing the situation, very explicitly to "the word of the Lord", Elijah says "...for the Israelites have forsaken YOUR covenant, thrown down YOUR altars, and killed YOUR prophets with the sword." So, we can see here that one "subject" asks Elijah a question, and Elijah responds to that subject, attributing the covenant, altars, and prophets to that same subject. The text, however, doesn't stop there: Then (very importantly) the word of the Lord tells Elijah to "...go out and stand on the mountain before the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by." We could derive a similar 2 Powers motif from this part alone, but I think there is even stronger support if we continue. Then Elijah hears and sees a great wind, an earthquake, and a great fire, but the text says that the Lord was not in any of them. The Lord was, however, in the "...sound of sheer silence." Now, interestingly, the exchange between Elijah and the LORD is the exact same exchange that we see between the word of the LORD and Elijah: What are you doing here, Elijah?” He answered, “I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts, for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword."

The most common reply to arguments for a high Christology is an appeal to divine delegation, or agency. A Christian might say something like, "Jesus calmed the storm in Mark, who but God can do that?" The dissenter replies, "That's because Jesus was given divinely authorized power, just as Moses was when he split the Red Sea. You wouldn't call Moses God, would you?" At first glance, the symmetry seems accurate. But look beneath the surface, and a serious problem emerges. What the dissenter is really doing is anchoring their interpretive framework to adjacent Jewish agency texts, passages featuring mediatorial figures such as prophets, angels, and messengers, or even inanimate objects like the ark of the covenant. The goal is to draw a parallel between Jesus and figures who mediated the presence of YHWH without ever being YHWH. The trouble is that no such parallel actually works in totality. Now you might be thinking, "But doesn't Jesus carry out divine prerogatives, just as those other figures did?" Yes, He does, but that's a distraction from the real point of contention. The real issue is what I'll call the overextension problem. The overextension problem: Agency-only models use Jewish agency parallels to explain more than those parallels can bear. They can account for how an authorized agent represents YHWH, but they cannot, on their own, explain why Christ personally occupies the YHWH-only subject-position. That subject-position turns on something I'll call identity-emphasis. Identity-emphasis: the way a text signals which figure is being made the focal bearer of divine significance in a given passage. How do we know this is the crux? Simple: in every proposed parallel, whatever mediates YHWH's presence and authority never retains an identity of its own, it functions purely as a channel for YHWH's speech and action. So here's the logic of the agency-only model: YHWH commands → the human agent obeys and signifies the act → YHWH completes it. Take Moses at the sea. He stretches out his hand, but it is YHWH who drives the waters back: