On November 19, 2017, the eighth annual Analytic Theology Lecture was delivered in Boston, Massachusetts by N.T. Wright before the American Academy of Religion. His lecture, titled “The Meanings of History: Event and Interpretation in the Bible and Theology,” is printed here for the first time.

This paper is a study of the essential property of human existence - transcendence, whose characteristics can be derived from Karl Stern’s works. By criticizing the model of contemporary psychology for its mechanistic character, Stern tries to prove that it is psychoanalysis that enables us to found a humanistic base for understanding human transcendence towards God. In this way, Stern passes over the fact that the humanistic sense of transcendence was established in Victor Frankl’s philosophy of existence. Stern blemishes the (...) basic meanings of Freud’s psychoanalysis, which, as such, is not suitable for Stern’s procedure of humanization. (shrink)

Jeffrey Stout claims that John Rawls's idea of public reason (IPR) has contributed to a Christian backlash against liberalism. This essay argues that those whom Stout calls “antiliberal traditionalists” have misunderstood Rawls in important ways, and goes on to consider Stout's own critiques of the IPR. While Rawls's idea is often interpreted as a blanket prohibition on religious reasoning outside church and home, the essay will show that the very viability of the IPR depends upon a rich culture of deliberation (...) in which all forms of reasoning can be put forth for consideration. This clarification addresses the perception that the IPR imposes an “asymmetrical burden” upon believers. In fact, the essay suggests that there are good reasons why believers, qua believers, might endorse the IPR. (shrink)

Given the current organ shortage, a prevalent alternative to the altruism-based policy is a market-based solution: pay people for their organs. Receiving much popular and scholarly attention, a salient normative argument against neoliberal pressures is the preservation of human dignity. This article examines how advocates of both the altruistic status quo and market challengers reason and weigh the central normative concept of dignity, meant as inherent worth and/or rank. Key rhetorical strategies, including motivations and broader social visions, of the two (...) positions are analyzed and evaluated, and the separation of morally normative understandings of dignity from market encroachment is defended. (shrink)

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2008.