Logan Paul Gage

Logan Paul Gage is Professor of Philosophy and Director of Catholic Studies at Franciscan University of Steubenville. He holds a B.A. in philosophy, history, and American studies from Whitworth College, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in philosophy from Baylor University. His scholarly research focuses primarily on epistemology, natural theology, and the thought of John Henry Newman.

Archives

New Michael Chaberek Book Is a Debate-Changer on Thomistic Evolution

Logan Gage
May 30, 2018
On this episode of ID the Future, philosopher Logan Gage speaks with Sarah Chaffee about the new book Aquinas and Evolution by Fr. Michael Chaberek. Philosophers in the tradition of Thomas Aquinas — Thomistic evolutionists — have pressured Intelligent Design theorists, saying that it gets Aquinas wrong, in fact it even gets God wrong. Dr. Gage says Fr. Chaberek’s book counters that pressure and shows how “Thomistic” evolution contradicts Aquinas. Please consider donating to support the IDTF Podcast. …

Phillip Johnson and William Provine on Focus on the Family

Logan Paul Gage
July 28, 2009
Recently Focus on the Family aired part one of a two-part series on evolution. Reaching back into the archives, they played selections from a 1994 debate between intelligent design advocate Phillip Johnson (U.C. Berkeley) and Darwin-defender William Provine (Cornell). One thing in particular struck me: ID advocates are often accused of wanting to push ID into the public high school classroom. Yet even in this early debate, Phillip Johnson clearly notes that ID advocates would be happy just to see Darwinism taught fairly with both its strengths and weaknesses made clear. And, more importantly, ID advocates would like to see the academy open up to discussion of intelligent design — not primarily the high school classroom.You can listen to part one and part two of Dr. …

Need Summer Reading? Try These Books

Logan Paul Gage
June 20, 2009
Before you head to the beach this summer, don’t forget to grab a few good books. Over at ID the Future, I’ve attempted to aid you by interviewing a number of authors with new books out this month. You can listen to these authors discuss their books and judge for yourself what is most interesting: First, I interviewed J. Budziszewski on his latest book on natural law theory, The Line Through the Heart: Natural Law as Fact, Theory, and Sign of Contradiction. Second, see my interview with Benjamin Wiker on his new biography The Darwin Myth: The Life and Lies of Charles Darwin. Third, check out this interview with John Mark Reynolds on his new introduction to classical and Christian thought, When Athens Met Jerusalem: An Introduction to Classical and Christian Thought. …

Intelligent Design and the Artist’s Soul (Part 3)

Logan Paul Gage
June 6, 2009
Editor’s Note: This is crossposted at Professor Scot McKnight’s Beliefnet blog, Jesus Creed. The first post in this series is found here, and the second here. The Origin of Beauty Benjamin Wiker and Jonathan Witt’s masterful book A Meaningful World: How the Arts and Sciences Reveal the Genius of Nature gives the following illustration of how modern scientific reductionists treat nature and the arts: Imagine hearing the following account of one of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s symphonies: ‘We have been able to prove that this particular symphony is actually reducible to a series of notes that happen to be played both at the same time in chords and one after another, creating a string of disturbances in the air caused by different frequencies. We …

Intelligent Design and the Artist’s Soul (Part 2)

Logan Paul Gage
June 5, 2009
Editor’s Note: This is crossposted at Professor Scot McKnight’s Beliefnet blog, Jesus Creed. The first post in this series is found here. Intelligent Design and the Deity In the predominant narrative, Charles Darwin was a humble scientist who proposed a strictly scientific theory. Upon publication of The Origin of Species in 1859, religious folks like Bishop Wilberforce voiced theological objections to it; and thus began the most salient episode in the ‘war between science and religion.’ Many Christians adopt a similar narrative, but suggest this was all a misunderstanding; Darwin’s theory simply has nothing to do with religious or philosophical questions. If I may be so bold, I’d like to suggest that both narratives are wrong. (For a …

When Athens Met Jerusalem With John Mark Reynolds

Logan Gage
June 5, 2009
On this episode of ID the Future Logan Gage interviews CSC Fellow John Mark Reynolds, author of the new book, When Athens Met Jerusalem: An Introduction to Classical and Christian Thought. Listen in as Dr. Reynolds explains the role that classical and Christian thought played in the development of modern science and examines some of the design thinking of ancient philosophers. …

Hello Evolution, Nice to Meet You

Logan Paul Gage
June 2, 2009
I believe it was Philip Johnson who once said that if you replaced the word “evolution” in biology textbooks with the word “design,” almost nothing of substance would change. I think he was right. We wonder at nature, not because we are so ignorant, as some people think, but rather because it is so amazing. As Benjamin Wiker and Jonathan Witt explained in A Meaningful World, nature displays true genius. And it is this plain fact that drives design-deniers to deify, or at least personify, Evolution. Take as just one example this extremely fascinating article, “To Be a Baby,” (a play on Thomas Nagel’s question of what it is like to “be a bat”) from Seed Magazine. The article is an interview with Berkeley psychologist Alison …

The Line Through the Heart: Natural Law and J. Budziszewski

Logan Gage
June 1, 2009
On this episode of ID the Future Logan Gage interviews CSC fellow J. Budziszewski on his new book, The Line Through the Heart: Natural Law as Fact, Theory, and Sign of Contradiction. What is Natural Law? Listen in as Dr. Budziszewski explains how humans as rational creatures differ from animals driven by instinct, and the evidence for “a deep structure to the human moral intellect” or design in Natural Law. …

Intelligent Design and the Artist’s Soul (Part 1)

Logan Paul Gage
May 29, 2009
Editor’s Note: This is crossposted at Professor Scot McKnight’s Beliefnet blog, Jesus Creed. In his article “Five Streams of the Emerging Church,” Scot McKnight identifies with Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger’s description of emerging Christians. One of the nine hallmarks of such Christians, according to the authors, is that they “create as created beings.” And it is this theme I would like to explore with reference to Darwinian evolution and intelligent design (ID) in a series of three posts. First, we will consider how to consider ID. Second, we’ll assess conceptions of God in this debate. And third, we will reflect upon aesthetics and Darwinian theory. What to make of intelligent design? Years ago, before I had heard of Neil …

Alister McGrath on Augustine and Darwinism

Logan Paul Gage
May 19, 2009
Scientist and theologian Alister McGrath has a new essay over at Christianity Today, “Augustine’s Origin of Species.” Knowing how Augustine has often been co-opted by Darwinians as a proto-Darwinist, I came to this article rather skeptical. But I was delightfully surprised. McGrath notes that Augustine’s dominant image of the natural world’s relation to God is that of a “dormant seed.” As McGrath explains: God creates seeds, which will grow and develop at the right time. Using more technical language, Augustine asks his readers to think of the created order as containing divinely embedded causalities that emerge or evolve at a later stage. Yet Augustine has no time for any notion of random or arbitrary changes within creation. The …

Jerry Coyne vs. NCSE, AAAS, & NAS

Logan Paul Gage
April 30, 2009
In a recent blog post titled “Truckling to the Faithful: A Spoonful of Jesus Helps Darwin Go Down,” University of Chicago biologist Jerry Coyne firmly and publicly rejects the attempts by Darwin-lobbying organizations like the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) to convince the American public that Darwinism and Christian faith are compatible. In case these organizations really want to know my opinion, I’m on Jerry’s side. Except that I’m only mostly on his side. You see Jerry is spot on when he writes But any injection of teleology into evolutionary biology violates precisely the great advance of Darwin’s theory: to explain the appearance of design by a purely materialistic process — no deity required. In a letter to his mentor …

Benjamin Wiker on the Problem of Evil

Logan Paul Gage
April 28, 2009
This week Inside Catholic republished an absolutely brilliant essay by Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Benjamin Wiker on the problem of evil. This essay is one of the most thoughtful replies to the problem of evil — that the existence of evil evidences against God’s existence — I’ve seen packed into a short essay. It is a must read. Wiker describes how, in a feat of fuzzy thinking, evolution typically plays into dialogue on the problem of evil. Evolutionary answers to the problem, he argues, are more likely to do away with evil than explain it. And among the many important questions Wiker poses is whether we really want all evil purged from the earth. Take a look to see his surprising answer. …

How Not to Defend Free Will

Logan Paul Gage
April 27, 2009
Friday in Washington, D.C. The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) hosted an event titled “Genes, Neuroscience, and Free Will.” The panel, which discussed whether new findings in neuroscience and genetics have destroyed our notion of free will, consisted of James Q. Wilson (Pepperdine), David Brooks (New York Times), Charles Murray (AEI), Sally Satel (AEI), and moderator Christina Hoff Sommers (AEI). I won’t bother to record the differing views of the panelists, for their differences were very few and very far between. Essentially, they all argued that we have an innate sense of free will and that findings in genetics and neuroscience have not undermined it because: (1) sure, genes determine behavior, but not 100%; often the environment contributes to our behavior …

Save the Privileged Planet!

Logan Paul Gage
April 22, 2009
Today is Earth Day. And it is worth pondering once again how marvelous Earth really is. Yet I find my mind today asking why anyone should care for Earth. From the materialist perspective, we are not really “supposed” to be here. And, we’re the late-comers to the party! So it always amazes me that many materialists are such avid environmentalists. But maybe this should not be surprising; after all, if one is a materialist, the earth is all there is, so we better keep it going! This response, however pragmatic, doesn’t satisfy me, though. For why should we keep anything going? For if the materialist is saying that the Earth is of intrinsic value, we can (indeed we must!) ask, where does the value come from? Further, why is pragmatism itself of any value? If …

The End of Morality

Logan Paul Gage
April 9, 2009
Recently, David Brooks published a column titled “The End of Philosophy” in The New York Times (April 7, 2009). Brooks, long one of the most thoughtful writers in public life, addresses an ages-old tension over whether reason controls our moral intuitions and passions, or whether moral intuition/feeling is king and reason is only rationalization. In the latter view, Brooks says, moral thinking is more like aesthetics. As we look around the world, we are constantly evaluating what we see. Seeing and evaluating are not two separate processes. They are linked and basically simultaneous….Most of us make snap moral judgments about what feels fair or not, or what feels good or not. We start doing this when we are babies…. So the question naturally arises, …

New Administration Displays Old, Naïve Understanding of Science

Logan Paul Gage
March 12, 2009
In a stunningly biased headline this week, The Washington Post said “Obama Aims to Shield Science from Politics.” Well that is certainly one interpretation of the Administration’s announcement that it will fund new embryo-destructive research! Of course, this is nothing new. It has been an anti-Bush mantra of the hard Left for some years now that there is “A Republican War on Science,” to borrow Chris Mooney’s delightfully fatuous phrase. In the debate over how to teach evolution in public schools, we often hear Darwinists cry, “Science is not democratic.” To which I’ve heard John West sagely reply a thousand times, “But public policy is!” The recent headlines, and the Administration’s own rhetoric, regarding …

Making Hash of Evolutionary Psychology

Logan Paul Gage
March 3, 2009
Stuart Derbyshire, senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Birmingham, has an absolutely scathing review (at Spiked) of the latest nonsense emanating from evolutionary psychologists. As Derbyshire has it in the first line: Sex and War: How Biology Explains Warfare and Terrorism and Offers a Path to a Safer World is an unbearably stupid book. The authors, Malcolm Potts and Thomas Hayden, ‘explain’ war and violence by treating human beings as machines programmed by evolution to grab resources, form in-groups and pass on their genes. Women, according to the authors, are naturally more passive because they must invest more effort into rearing offspring, and men are naturally more aggressive because they can produce lots of offspring by being dominant. It is a …

Ayala Plays Both Sides

Logan Paul Gage
November 4, 2008
Many readers of Scientific American Magazine have recently written me about the new article, “The Christian Man’s Evolution: How Darwinism and Faith Can Coexist.” Most have pointed out how fatuous Ayala’s view of God comes across. As author Sally Lehrman writes, seeming to think this very clever, Ayala (and “science-savvy Christian theologians”) “present a God that is continuously engaged in the creative process through undirected natural selection.” (bolding added)This line, of course, prompted much talk of square circles and Christian atheists, as well it should. Writes one reader, “You mean: ‘a God who is continuously engaged’ by being completely unengaged?” But apart from the clear contradiction in this …