Eleonore Stump

So this is right up her alley.

She also did her doctoral work under Eleanor Stump.

which is really cool.

Our stump's a bit of a giant.

That's fascinating.

Yeah, I actually, uh, heard a, a lecture a while, a while back, um, about the work of someone called Eleanor Stump.

I don't know if you've come across her philosopher.

I don't think so.

Someday, someday you'll appreciate.

I had the thought before of my favorite Catholic philosopher, Eleanor Stump, has this giant book on suffering.

I can't remember the name of it.

I think it's called Into Darkness or something like that.

And the paper quotes theologian Oliver Crisp here, who provides just the perfect metaphor for this.

He says the analytic philosopher operates exactly like an auto mechanic.

Okay.

So the mechanic hears a disturbing rattle in the engine.

Yet all of them concede in writing that their flawless logical proofs do not actually persuade people.

They admit you can present a perfectly sound logical argument for a worldview and the person reading it will just shrug.

It doesn't even convince their fellow philosophers.

Because logic, while it is necessary, is insufficient for real human transformation.

I think, for example, of people like Richard Swinburne at Oxford University, Daniel Hill at Liverpool, Dean Zimmerman and Brian Leftow at Rutgers, Alvin Plantinga and Peter Van Inwagen, now retired from Notre Dame.

Eleanor Stump at St. Louis.

Alex Proust at Baylor.

I could go on and on.

See, the great heart of the soul is to be integrated so that what I want, what I desire, what I work towards, what my appetites and habits are in service of, what I communicate together is all one, is all united, so that I'm not divided against myself.

Um, Eleanor Stump talks about this in her book Wandering in Darkness.

She notes there's a philosopher, Harry Frankfurt, that has done a lot of work on the importance of what we will sometimes talk about as wholeheartedness.

And his explanation of what does it mean to be wholehearted.

So there's a kind of a wholeness to my being.

My soul is whole.

"Bless the Lord, O my soul and all that is within me." And part of the point that Eleanor Stump, uh, writes about, and this is why the law of the Lord and the idea here is that there is such a thing as a moral reality to life.

There is a kind of person that I'm called to be, and of course, that's to be marked by love and joy and peace and patience and gentleness and kindness and goodness.

Um, what is a book that's impacted your spiritual life besides the Bible that you would recommend?

There is a book called Wandering in Darkness by Eleanor Stump that is my number one favorite book besides the Bible.

Um, it's an amazing, amazing book.

Um, it's a...

Made all people to dwell there so that we would seek God and perhaps touch him and meet him.

On speaking of God's nature and existence of theologians and philosophers like Aquinas and Anselm, Eleanor Stump writes this, In order for God to be always and everywhere present, it also needs to be the case that God is always and everywhere in a position to share everything.

I love this.

Stump gives words to our attempts to describe the experience of God's presence.

"'For day and night your hand was heavy on me.

"'My strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.' Eleanor Stump writes about this in her book, Wandering in Darkness.

This is why it's impossible for a human being to experience harmony or integration or unity of purpose around sin.

Because at some level, my conscience knows it's wrong.