Wyatt Graham

Faith | Books | Culture

If we are not a city of light that shines a light on the darkness, then what are we?

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Just hours away from me in Montreal exists the largest distributor of pornographic content in the world, serving billions of views a year to the world.
 
Added to that, the demand that Mindgeek/Pornhub creates contributes to the burgeoning trafficking industry that exists in our Canadian cities and is supported at times by Christians.

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Every Morally Evil Thing Points to Its (Proximate) Cause, Which Is Us

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In a prior article, I argued that every Christian should be committed to a view of reality in which every good thing points to its Cause, which is God. Here, I want to argue the converse. Every Christian should be committed to a view of reality in which every morally evil thing points to its (proximate) cause, which is us. (We can cause moral evil only because God as prior Cause ensures our creaturely freedom).

The argument here should be a given. For some, it is not because of a particular view of God’s sovereignty that seems to require that God somehow directly causes moral evil. But God is good. Is it good to carry out moral evil, or is it good to require agents to do moral evil? I answer no, as would almost anyone (I hope). I will explain what I mean more fully below, but I believe we should see moral agents as being responsible for their moral evil because they willed to do evil. 

To make this argument, I first need to make some necessary distinctions about what I mean by evil since I am specifically talking about a certain kind of evil, namely, moral evil.  [Read more…] about Every Morally Evil Thing Points to Its (Proximate) Cause, Which Is Us

Should We Cite Mental Health as a Reason to Lift Covid Restrictions?

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Christians have sometimes (not always) overlooked the importance of mental health. Yet due to our current crisis, many of us have begun to register concerns for mental health. 

Here, we are following an emphasis found within traditional Christian teaching.  As Michael Foley notes, Paul employs the lens of the will along psychological lines (e.g., Romans 7). Augustine in particular reflected on Scripture and the nature of the soul and developed a deep understanding of human psychology in his Confessions. 

The emphasis continued through the medieval and post-reformation period. The English Puritans, for example, wrote constantly on the depths of our inner life, motivations, downs, ups, and everything in-between. 

From this retrieval of Christian psychology, a problem has arisen. Some commentators have made the argument that lockdowns are the cause of mental health decline. That is an impossible claim to make because correlation does not imply causation and because 2020 evinces a whole set of possible causes for mental decline.  [Read more…] about Should We Cite Mental Health as a Reason to Lift Covid Restrictions?