Thursday, April 30, 2020

Hannah Arendt & Religious Critique with Ronald A. Kuipers, Andrew Tebbutt & Héctor Acero Ferrer


Here at ICS, we're starting a summer online learning initiative, which means we have a number of exciting new courses in the works for the next few months. So we wanted to give you a sneak peek at these courses with the folks involved in making them happen.

This week, we invited Héctor Acero Ferrer to chat with Dr. Ronald A. Kuipers and Dr. Andrew Tebbutt about their newly redesigned course Evil, Resistance, and Judgment: Hannah Arendt and Religious Critique and what Arendt's thought has to say to us today. This 6-week course will take place two days a week, two hours a day from May 12 to June 18, and is available to be taken for credit or audit from anywhere in the world.

If you'd like to find out more about the course or to register, you can visit the course page on our website or send our Registrar an email at academic-registrar@icscanada.edu!

- List of Arendt "must reads" from this episode -
Critical Faith is sponsored by the Centre for Philosophy, Religion, and Social Ethics (CPRSE) at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto. For more, visit www.icscanada.edu.

Friday, April 24, 2020

Ref Phil 101 with Bob Sweetman: Things and Their Hows


We're nearing the end of our miniseries on Reformational philosophy with Bob Sweetman and Gideon Strauss, and this week we take a turn to a fundamental philosophical topic: ontology.

In this episode, Bob explains what ontology is, how Reformational philosophy's complex-and-integral approach compares to some of its theoretical contemporaries, and provides examples of how this ontology frames human responsibility.

Stick with us for the final episode in this series coming in the next couple weeks!

Critical Faith is sponsored by the Centre for Philosophy, Religion, and Social Ethics (CPRSE) at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto. For more, visit www.icscanada.edu.

Friday, April 10, 2020

Quarantine Special with Mark and Danielle


Have you been wondering how Mark and Danielle can possibly have been keeping themselves busy during these weeks of quarantine? Looking for some new ideas for ways to keep yourself busy?

A couple weeks ago, as Toronto entered the first stages of enforcing social distancing, Mark and Danielle tried their hands at recording a Critical Faith episode remotely for the first time. This is the result!

Having begun exploring these new technological possibilities, we're planning to return for the final episodes of our intro series on Reformational philosophy in the next week or so, and we have some programming plans in the pipeline for over the summer. But for now, just enjoy hearing how we're coping.

Links to sources of Isolation Entertainment mentioned in this episode:
  • Instagram live music sessions with Gareth Inkster (@garethinkster)
  • Instagram live morning and evening prayers with Saint Luke's Common (@saintlukescommon): 6:30am on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday; 7:30pm on Wednesday.
  • NYTimes crosswords through the Seattle Times
  • Codenames board game available online through codenames.plus
Critical Faith is sponsored by the Centre for Philosophy, Religion, and Social Ethics (CPRSE) at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto. For more, visit www.icscanada.edu.

Friday, April 03, 2020

Ref Phil 101 with Bob Sweetman: Ground Motives and Spiritual Movements


We managed to get a couple more episodes of our miniseries on Reformational philosophy with Bob Sweetman and Gideon Strauss recorded a few weeks before the pandemic hit. So this week, we present you with episode three!

Last time, Bob explained the significance of Kuyper's idea of "sphere sovereignty" to how Herman Dooyeweerd then went on to develop it into a critique of power dynamics. This week, Bob and Gideon discuss Dooyeweerd's idea of "ground motives" and Reformational philosophy co-founder Dirk Vollenhoven's approach to historiography as tools for recognizing how societies change, collide, and flow through history.

We'll continue this series in the coming weeks, so stay with us to find out more about what makes Reformational philosophy tick...

Critical Faith is sponsored by the Centre for Philosophy, Religion, and Social Ethics (CPRSE) at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto. For more, visit www.icscanada.edu.