Abstract

Two of the most important outcomes of The Contradictory Christ include: (i) identifying Christ as an unproblematically contradictory being as well as (ii) laying the foundations of an investigation of the logical consequences of the existence of Christ, qua contradictory, within a particular 'theory'. In light of the enormous relevance of Beall’s The contradictory Christ for the study of inconsistency, my main concern here is to explore the effect of some methodological choices behind Beall’s proposal -this in order to recognize in more detail the scope of Beall’s contribution. To do so, I will focus on three main questions: 1. What is required for the identification of a contradiction? 2. How can we recognize a true contradiction from either an apparent or a temporal contradiction? 3. If we identify a true contradiction within a theory, where can we actually go from there?

Highlights

  • A central thesis of The contradictory Christ (Beall 2020) is that Christ is an unproblematically contradictory being

  • If we identify a true contradiction within a theory, where can we go from there?

  • When religious claims are interpreted in the above manner they are theoretical claims: claims about what sorts of objects there are and what are their properties and relations, where Christ is treated as a theoretical entity which lives in a very constrained world, and such a world can be explored through the analysis of the relations that allow for correct descriptions, explanations and predictions of what occurs in that world

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Summary

Introduction

A central thesis of The contradictory Christ (Beall 2020) is that Christ is an unproblematically contradictory being. Christ is an entity that can be described in an inconsistent manner, but is an entity that demands to be understood qua contradictory In this sense, in any theory in which Christ exists and is contradictory, there would be some contradictions about him that are necessarily true. The richness of the book lies, at least partially, in providing an exemplar of a theory that contains a legitimate contradictory entity at its very core, and that, despite of being grounded in a contradiction, has remained explanatory successful -and has shaped the majority of dominant worldviews during the last two thousand years In this regard, the novelty of Beall's proposal is that, even if there have been early attempts to identify a (non-formal) domain that legitimately demands to be described and explained through true contradictions, these attempts have systematically failed.

The methodological roots
What is required for the identification of a contradiction?
Concluding remarks
Full Text
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