David Basinger has defended his position on the epistemology of religious diversity against a critique I wrote of it in this journal. Basinger endorses the principle that in the face of pervasive epistemic peer conflict a person has a prima facie duty to try to adjudicate the conflict. He defends this position against my claim that religious belief can be non-culpably “rock bottom” and thus escape “Basinger’s Rule.” Here I show why Basinger’s defense against my critique is not satisfactory, and (...) I argue against accepting Basinger’s Rule. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to show that the various layers of meaning in Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling are embedded in a hidden, new Christian communication. I trace the traditional Christian understanding of the “sacrifice of Isaac,” in which Isaac is the prefiguration of Jesus, and then argue that Kierkegaard departed from this traditional teaching to make Abraham the Christ-figure of the story. To Kierkegaard, Abraham is the true sacrifice of the story.

The purpose of this paper is to show that the various layers of meaning in Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling are embedded in a hidden, new Christian communication. I trace the traditional Christian understanding of the “sacrifice of Isaac,” in which Isaac is the prefiguration of Jesus, and then argue that Kierkegaard departed from this traditional teaching to make Abraham the Christ-figure of the story. To Kierkegaard, Abraham is the true sacrifice of the story.