EPS Blog

I wish we could have made this issue about 500 pages long. The kind of deep and meaningful exchange of ideas that broke out in the forum covering Timothy O’Connor's work could have easily been replicated in responses to the articles by our other featured authors, R. Scott Smith, Mark Nowacki, Travis Dumsday, Greg Bock, and Bruce Reichenbach—not to mention the provocative review essays appearing in our notes section. Too many good arguments, far too little space!

I was especially impressed by two things while reading through the typeset pages for this issue. First, the boldness of some of the articles. Represented here are scholars taking on questions in areas where others fear to tread. In his response to O’Connor's, Thomas Senor called this boldness “authorial bravery” and remarked that the fact that “he is able to defend these positions so ably is a testament to O’Connor's significant philosophical chops.” O’Connor is not alone in his scholarly courage and chopfulness (chophood, choppiness?—help me here) as you will see as you dig in to the articles.

The second thing that I thought was especially impressive was the breadth of topics taken on. Issues ranging from svabhava to Peeping Thomists, from necessitarianism to zygotes and everything in between were addressed with great skill and depth of knowledge. In some ways this is a fulfillment of the vision for the journal. The EPS did not set out just to deal just with traditional issues in philosophy of religion or apologetics, but rather with philosophy in general as it touches on those things which religious (primarily Christian) thinkers care about. I hope this little word encourages you to ramp up your “authorial bravery” and put your chopfulness on display in a first-rank submission to Philosophia Christi in the new year