Image - Jeremiah's Philosophical Argument with Jehovah
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Jeremiah's Philosophical Argument with Jehovah

Monday Night Philosophy analyzes the biblical roots of philosophical inquiry. Accepting your divinely ordained lot in life, as Job did (but ironically Lot did not), is often lauded in the Bible. A few dared negotiate with Jehovah (Abraham, Lot and Moses), and quite a few even tried to outsmart omniscience. But Jeremiah makes it clear he has a problem with the whole prophetic game, even as he was fulfilling his role as the messenger of dire and accurate prophecies. One element of his argument with Jehovah involves his passionate complaints about the uselessness of delivering precise but unpatriotic predictions. Even more fundamentally, Jeremiah's hope for a future where organized religion disappears, along with its crucial concepts of sin and punishment, expresses his emotional frustration with the ineffectiveness of Jehovah's ancient plan for instilling virtue. A god and his prophet might disagree on tactics, but it is something else to disagree about goals. Come hear why that is exactly the kind of fundamental disagreement that can lead to philosophical insights.

MLF Organizer
George Hammond
Notes

MLF: Humanities

Banner image by Tom Strecker on Unsplash

March 11, 2019

The Commonwealth Club
110 The Embarcadero
Toni Rembe Rock Auditorium
San Francisco, 94105
United States

Speakers
Image - Hammond

George Hammond

Author, The Gospel According to Andrew and Conversations with Socrates