Contemporary scholarship interprets Sergej Bulgakov’s sophiology as an engagement of Orthodox theology with the modern world and as being on its way to becoming a political theology. In this paper I undertake a re-evaluation of the kind of engagement sophiology was and was intended to be, and of the kind of world it was destined for. It will be argued that sophiology was not so much a political-theological engagement with the world concentrating on the relation of religion and politics or (...) state and church, but rather an economic-theological engagement in the tradition of oikonomia theology that tried to understand the world in its relation to and as part of divine oikonomia. Furthermore, the world sophiology promotes engagement with is not only the real contemporary world, or the sociological ideal type of modernity, but primarily the world as such, this secular and human world over and against the divine and transcendent world. (shrink)

This article explores and critically assesses the metaxological account of a philosophy of God professed by William Desmond. Postmodern reflection on the philosophy of God has a tendency to focus on the 'signs' of God and urges for a passive acceptance of these signs. Desmond argues, contrary to this tendency, for a mindful togetherness of philosophical activity and religious passivity. After exploring Desmond's thought on this topic, I move to assess his 'metaxological yes' to God as the agapeic origin from (...) an existential point of view. Initially it seems that his 'yes' is somewhat strained as it burdens itself with an excessive task of having faith into something that is beyond determination. I illustrate this insight by referring to Friedrich Nietzsche’s 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra.' Nietzsche's existential 'No' toward transcendence is a consequence of a mindful confrontation with the excesses as play. (shrink)

There are no religious phenomena, only religious interpretations of phenomena. Religion, in other words, is a particular hermeneutic of the phenomenon. But while the religious interpretation of phenomena refers to a particular form of human activity, this activity responds paradoxically to the imposition of a fundamental curb on any possible activity. That curb is encountered to the extent to which the religious hermeneutic imposes itself in the very appearing of a phenomenon, in the event of the appearance itself. Religiosity is (...) a question not of a specific type of experience or an object of experience but, rather, concerns that in the appearing of the phenomenon that displaces the movement of interpretation from... (shrink)

The task of this article is a two-fold approach to Augustine’s theory of knowledge, often called that of ‘divine illumination’, with particular attention to one of its seminal sources, his Soliloquia. The first approach is historical- and text-critical; we consider the text of the Soliloquia, its meaning and significance, the questions to which Augustine was implicitly responding at the time, and especially how this work broaches themes which are revisited and further developed in Augustine’s later works. In the second part, (...) we take the results of the foregoing analysis and apply to them a systematic-theological and philosophical method. First we contextualize Augustine’s theory of illumination, both in relation to his own works and beyond. We then argue for a distinction between two senses of illumination, namely ‘principal’ and ‘gradual’, which helps to account for the different ways in which illumination is applied by Augustine. Finally, we show how Augustine’s insights can be relevant to contemporary philosophy and theology, and how his ideas are implicated in contemporary debates. The upshot is an historical, philosophical, and theological consideration of Augustine’s theory of divine illumination, which aspires to strike a balance between doing justice to the text from an historical perspective and interpreting and applying it in the present day. (shrink)

James Conroy's Betwixt and Between: The Liminal Imagination, Education and Democracy implies three main aims: first, to celebrate aspects of imagination in education and politics; second, to challenge defensive closure in varieties of discourse, especially in the language of economic and monetary management in education and politics; and third, to open up, for reciprocal enrichment, situations and discourses pertaining to consideration of state funding for religiously affiliated schools. Liminality, characteristic of thresholds and borders, calls for interpretation and mediation, as well (...) as appreciation of uncertainties. Liminality of imagination is explored in contexts associated with this third aim, but also in other kinds of context associated with the first two aims. As well as offering critical assessment of the book, this review article indicates some scope for interpretation and development. (shrink)

James Conroy’s Betwixt and Between: The Liminal Imagination, Education and Democracy implies three main aims: first, to celebrate aspects of imagination in education and politics; second, to challenge defensive closure in varieties of discourse, especially in the language of economic and monetary management in education and politics; and third, to open up, for reciprocal enrichment, situations and discourses pertaining to consideration of state funding for religiously affiliated schools. Liminality, characteristic of thresholds and borders, calls for interpretation and mediation, as well (...) as appreciation of uncertainties. Liminality of imagination is explored in contexts associated with this third aim, but also in other kinds of context associated with the first two aims. As well as offering critical assessment of the book, this review article indicates some scope for interpretation and development. (shrink)

James Conroy’s Betwixt and Between: The Liminal Imagination, Education and Democracy implies three main aims: first, to celebrate aspects of imagination in education and politics; second, to challenge defensive closure in varieties of discourse, especially in the language of economic and monetary management in education and politics; and third, to open up, for reciprocal enrichment, situations and discourses pertaining to consideration of state funding for religiously affiliated schools. Liminality, characteristic of thresholds and borders, calls for interpretation and mediation, as well (...) as appreciation of uncertainties. Liminality of imagination is explored in contexts associated with this third aim, but also in other kinds of context associated with the first two aims. As well as offering critical assessment of the book, this review article indicates some scope for interpretation and development. (shrink)

This article investigates difficulties in defining the concept of God by focusing on the question of what it means to understand God as a ‘person.’ This question is explored with respect to the work of Søren Kierkegaard, in dialogue with Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber, and Emmanuel Levinas. Thereby, the following three questions regarding divine ‘personhood’ come into view: First, how can God be a partner of dialogue if he at the same time remains unknown and unthinkable, a limit-concept of understanding? (...) Second, if God is love in person and at the same time a spiritual reality ‘between’ human agents, in what ways are his personal and trans-personal traits related to each other? Third, what exactly is revealed through God’s ‘name’? By way of an inconclusive conclusion, divine personhood is discussed in regard to prayer, where the problems of predication that arise in third-personal speech about God are linked with the second-personal encounter with God. (shrink)