Richard Oxenberg

Endicott College · Department of Liberal Studies

William Alston has written that religious belief is justifiable because it is based upon epistemic practices similar to those justifying belief in sensory facts. In this paper I argue for a different understanding of religious belief. What is called for in religious belief is not affirmation of factual truth-claims but fidelity to God. The signific...

Religion, especially Western religion, calls upon us to 'believe' on the basis of 'faith.' But in what way can faith serve as a justification for belief? In this essay, I distinguish between 'belief in' and 'belief that' and argue that faith, properly understood, entails the former, not the latter.

In this essay, I argue that Anselm's ontological argument for the existence of God achieves its effect through the verbal equivalent of a magician's "sleight-of-hand." More technically, the argument commits the informal fallacy of equivocation. I provide a brief analysis of the argument's text to demonstrate this.

A brief reflection on the deeper meaning of the Eastern "Law of Karma."

A parable of religion.

In this very brief reflection, I argue against the suggestion that consciousness may be viewed as an emergent property of matter.

A brief reflection on the mind-body problem and its implications for the way we conceive ourselves and live our lives.

I was inspired to write this letter by something my 7-year old said about the meaning of holiness. In it I reflect on this meaning, in language and terms a 7-year-old might understand and appreciate.

Is it reasonable to believe in a God of love in the face of life's many evils? In this essay I consider how the biblical book of Job raises and responds to this question.

This is a brief presentation of elementary logic originally developed for an Applied Ethics course. I offer it here for any who might find it worthwhile or useful.

In this brief article I argue that liberalism is the political form most consistent with theism.

This work is a revised version of my dissertation, originally presented in 2002. It explores questions of God and faith in the context of Martin Heidegger's phenomenological ontology, as developed in Being and Time. One problem with traditional philosophical approaches to the question of God is their tendency to regard God's existence as an objecti...

"Crooked people deceive themselves in order to deceive others; in this way the world comes to ruin." This quote from a medieval Confucianist expresses the ethical danger of self-deception. My paper examines the psychological proclivity for self-deception and argues that it lies behind much social and interpersonal injustice. I review Hitler's Mei...

A brief conversation on the meaning of Christ's salvation with a Christian evangelical.

If a Zen Master kills a kitten, and does not hear its scream, does it make a sound? In this essay, I use the Zen story of Master Nansen's killing of a kitten as an entree into a reflection on the Zen experience of "non-duality." I argue that the story of Nansen and the cat, as presented in the Zen tradition, raises many questions and problems tha...

In December of 2013, my Dad died of advanced Alzheimer's and a condition called Myasthenia Gravis. This is a selection of journal entries I made over the course of the two years leading up to my Dad's death. It is not a philosophical essay, but a personal reflection, in "real time" so to speak, on the nature of the dying process in relation to ques...

In this paper I present, in summary form, some of my central thoughts on spirituality and religion.

This is an expanded version of my original article of the same name, which is currently available on Researchgate. This expanded article appears in the book: Theology Without Walls: The Transreligious Imperative, edited by Jerry Martin and published by Routledge.

In this essay I reflect on the ethical and spiritual ambiguities of Monotheism. The essay proceeds through an examination of Thomas Aquinas’ concept of desire and René Girard’s notion of victimage. It is divided into two parts. In the first I examine Thomas’ ideas of desire and goodness in order to develop some key terms and concepts. In the second...

This is the first chapter of a projected book to be entitled, The Ego and the Spirit. This book will endeavor to examine what lies at the heart of human spiritual aspiration from a psychological, philosophical, and religious perspective. In this first chapter, I discuss the predicament of the human ego, charged with a task that it cannot fulfill:...

In this theological dialogue, two characters, the skeptical Simon and the man of faith, Joseph, engage in a wide-ranging conversation touching on the meaning of morality, God, revelation, the Bible, and the viability of faith in a world full of evils.

What is truth? In this essay I argue that we need to restore our recognition of the importance of philosophical truth in our endeavor to understand our world and our selves. In particular, I note that the physical sciences have no way of examining the axiological dimension of being - i.e., that dimension from which values spring - whereas an abilit...

This work explores questions of God and faith in the context of Martin Heidegger’s phenomenological ontology as developed in Being and Time. Traditional philosophical approaches to the question of God tend to treat God’s existence as an objective datum that might be proven or disproven through logical argumentation. Since Kant such arguments have...

God demands that Abraham sacrifice his son Isaac. Why? Kierkegaard tells us that God requires of Abraham a "teleological suspension of the ethical." In this essay I explore the meanings of the Ethical, God, and Faith in an effort to make sense of this phrase, and, more broadly, of the biblical story itself.

My thesis in this essay is that Darwinian theory, far from supporting a philosophy of metaphysical materialism, actually calls materialism into question. Once this is recognized we see that evolutionary theory, for all its successes (which are considerable), is more limited than is generally supposed in its ability to reveal or explain the ultimate...

Theology Without Walls is a project that seeks to understand the nature of divine reality through an exploration of all the world's religious traditions, without confining itself to any one in particular. In this essay, I discuss why theology has traditionally been done within the boundaries of specific traditions and suggest that, in our time, we...

How does Christ's crucifixion and resurrection help to effect a reconciliation between a human being and God? Traditionally, Christ is said to 'pay the penalty' for human sin, and thus provide 'satisfaction' to God for human trespass. In this article I argue that this juridical interpretation of Christ's atonement is deficient in substantial ways a...

Brief book review of Jerry Martin's, "God: An Autobiography as Told to a Philosopher."

I write as a Jew who has come to see a profound continuity and complementarity between the Jewish and Christian religions, at least as each may be ideally envisioned. This complementarity does not entail the ‘supersession’ of Judaism or the negation of Judaism. It does not in any way require that Jews abandon Judaism. On the contrary, rightly seen,...

What is the relationship of human desire to divine love? Spiritual traditions teach us that human desire achieves its true aim only when elevated into the life of divine love. In this essay, I provide a reading of three sayings from three spiritual traditions - Buddhist, Taoist, and Christian - in order to explore the meaning of this.

What constitutes a true human-to-human relationship? What is the nature of its importance and value for human life? These are the questions I explore in this talk on Aristotle's philosophy of friendship, originally presented as part of Boston University's Core Curriculum lecture series..

We can attend to the logic of Anselm's ontological argument, and amuse ourselves for a few hours unraveling its convoluted word-play, or we can seek to look beyond the flawed logic, to the search for God it expresses. From the perspective of this second approach the Ontological Argument might be seen as more than a mere argument-indeed, as somethin...

In this essay I argue that the ethical and political position known as libertarianism is logically incoherent and, as such, cannot serve as a sound basis for either political theory or public policy. Given that the libertarian position is frequently used to provide the rationale for many of the economic (if not the social) policies of the right, a...

This article examines the flaw in the libertarian conception of the right to property. It argues that libertarians fail to recognize that, in a settled society, the right to amass property must be qualified and limited by the right of all people - including those without property - to have access to sufficient property for a satisfactory life.

Theology Without Walls - or 'trans-religious theology' - is a theological approach dedicated to reflecting upon the nature of divine reality as it may be revealed in any of the world’s religious traditions, without confining itself to any one in particular. In this paper I discuss some of the basic assumptions and implications of the Theology Witho...

In this brief essay I reflect upon the character of Jewish spirituality through a meditation on the themes of tradition, love, and loss as they appear in the Broadway musical Fiddler on the Roof.

In the Pledge of Allegiance we pledge our loyalty, not to the United States as it may exist at any particular moment, but to the flag and what it represents: an ideal United States that maintains "liberty and justice for all." When we say the Pledge we commit ourselves to this ideal, and to the ongoing struggle of bringing our actual nation into al...

Moral violation often takes the form of material harm, which might lead us to suppose that it consists essentially in the harm done. And yet we might suffer the same harm through nature or accident without feeling morally offended. If I lose my property through accident, I suffer harm but no offense. If someone maliciously destroys my property, I a...

Whence comes suffering? If the divine reality is a reality of bliss, and all is derived from this divine reality, how can suffering arise? Does the reality of God contain suffering? Might suffering be understood as a mode of bliss? These are the questions I take up in this essay. I suggest that the various states of suffering may best be understood...

"An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind." This quote, often attributed to Gandhi, suggests the illegitimacy of the retributive urge. On the other hand, many feel a strong intuitive sense that "justice must be served" and that violators of justice must be fittingly punished. In this paper I examine the urge for retributive justice and arg...

Question: How do you turn a democracy into a tyranny? Answer (as those familiar with Plato's Republic will know): Do nothing. It will become a tyranny all by itself. My essay argues that for democracy to function it must inculcate in its citizens something of the moral and intellectual virtues of Plato’s Philosopher-Kings, who identify their own...

In this brief paper I reflect upon the Bible's portrayal of God as pointing beyond itself toward a notion of divinity many religions can embrace, but one only imperfectly expressed in the biblical portrait. I argue that a fuller recognition of the *fallibility* of the biblical portrait can lead us to a deeper and more satisfying appreciation of the...

Whence comes the evil will? My paper examines Kant’s notion of radical evil and Kierkegaard’s analysis of sin in order to uncover the existential-ontological dynamic of the evil will. Ultimately, I argue, the evil will arises in response to the anxiety inherent in freedom itself. I conclude with an examination of Kierkegaard’s ‘formula of faith’ as...

In the tenth book of the Republic, Plato famously writes: "There is an ancient quarrel between poetry and philosophy." In this essay, I reflect upon this "quarrel" through an analysis of a passage from Dante's Inferno. I conclude by suggesting that, when employed well, poetry and philosophy complement each other in helping us reflect upon the deep...

Sut Jhally begins his essay “Advertising at the Edge of the Apocalypse” with the following provocative claim: “Advertising is the most powerful and sustained system of propaganda in human history and its cumulative effects, unless quickly checked, will be responsible for destroying the world as we know it.” Jhally argues that the advertising indust...

The Book of Job is often read as the Bible's response to theodicy's 'problem of evil.' As a resolution to the logical difficulties of this problem, however, it is singularly unsatisfying. Job's ethical protest against God is never addressed at the level of the ethical. But suggested in Job's final encounter with God is the possibility of a spiritua...

“Whoever does not love abides in death,” writes John in his first epistle (1Jn 3:10). This statement presents us with a paradox. Death, so we suppose, is precisely that in which one cannot 'abide.' Our first thought is to interpret this as metaphor. John is saying that a life devoid of love is a life somehow like death. But, having never died, how...

The purpose of my paper is to show the derivation of what is sometimes called the ‘new liberalism’ (or ‘progressive liberalism’) from the basic principles of classical liberalism, through a reading of John Locke’s treatment of the right to property in his Second Treatise of Government. Locke’s work sharply distinguishes between the natural right to...

Both Christianity and Judaism have their basis in the Torah, the five central books of the Hebrew Bible that culminate in the revelation at Sinai. This very commonality, potentiality a source of mutual respect and concord, has played itself out, in the two thousand years since the advent of Christianity, in a disastrous rivalry of interpretation. C...

What was Heidegger thinking? Heidegger's own writings suggest that the most fruitful approach to understanding them will be one that seeks to uncover the arché, or roots, of the central concern that motivates them. That they reflect such a central concern is testified to by Heidegger himself. As late as 1966, in an essay entitled "The End of Philos...

In this brief article I reflect on our culture's moral ambiguity, as reflected in the popularity of such shows as The Sopranos, and argue for the need for a morally attuned philosophical education to address it.

In this paper I provide a comparative analysis of Augustine's and Paul Tillich's doctrines of Original Sin. I argue that Augustine's doctrine is deeply flawed in ways corrected for by Tillich.

I employ William Carlos Williams' poem, "The Red Wheelbarrow" to provide a non-technical introduction to Heidegger's Being and Time.

By what authority does morality make its demands? In this essay I argue that we find that authority within ourselves, immanent to - not necessarily the character - but the fact of our own self-concern.

Can we find a phenomenological basis for the ethical 'ought'? This essay addresses this question through a reflection on Husserl's fifth Meditation. In the fifth Meditation Husserl endeavors to show the manner in which I constitute the other through an associative pairing of the other with my own subjectivity. I argue here that this same associat...

The paradox of 'the One and the Many' might, more generally, be understood as the paradox of relationship. In order for there to be relationship there must be at least two parties in relation. The relation must, at once, hold the parties apart (otherwise they would collapse into unity) while holding them together (otherwise relationship itself woul...