: Much of the appeal of religious pluralism for those who take religious truth claims seriously arises from the sense that confessionalist alternatives to pluralism that affirm the truth of one particular religion are unacceptable. Pluralists try to foster this sense by portraying confessionalist views as implausible for one who is fully informed about the facts of religious diversity. However, when pluralists attempt to rule out confessionalism, they tend to characterize it in ways that overlook the possibility of what I (...) call humble confessionalism. When humble forms of confessionalism are considered, representations of pluralism as the only viable option become less persuasive. (shrink)

In this paper, we try to show that the existing Spanish secular model should be defined in terms of collaboration. Religious freedom is interpreted by Spanish judges in a Catholic framework, as an implementation of the Second Vatican Council's Declarations and Constitutions. In this sense, the Catholic Church has managed to impose its authority through privileged agreements with the Spanish State. _Keywords:_ religious freedom, secularism, Spain, religious law.

In this article, we explore the worldview of the pilgrim and how it relates to the drama of human existence. The worldview of the pilgrim is the starting point in our explorations of the postmodern conundrum and interrelated subjects such as epistemology, ethics, religious symbolism, hospitality and practical life strategies from a narrative and confessional perspective. These elaborations will serve the ultimate goal of this article, which is to contribute to the philosophy of education (including educators and educationists) and consequently (...) to equip individuals with skills and substantial knowledge that would allow them to understand, define and pursue their own life goals as well as to participate with integrity in their community as full-fledged, responsible citizens. (shrink)

According to cognitive science of religion (CSR) people naturally veer toward beliefs that are quite divergent from Anselmian monotheism or Christian theism. Some authors have taken this view as a starting point for a debunking argument against religion, while others have tried to vindicate Christian theism by appeal to the noetic effects of sin or the Fall. In this paper, we ask what theologians can learn from CSR about the nature of the divine, by looking at the CSR literature and (...) what it identifies as commonalities across religions. We use a pluralist, non-confessional approach to outline properties of the divine. We connect our approach to Hick’s religious pluralism, Ramakrishna’s realization of God through multiple spiritual paths, and Gellman’s inexhaustible plenitude. (shrink)

Carl Schmitt’s critical insights into ‘economic-technical thinking’ and the dominant role that a ‘magical technicity’ is said to assume in the social horizon of his times offers an opportunity to reframe contemporary debates on political and economic theology, exposing a theological core behind technocratic administration. Starting from this premise, the article engages with recent inquiries into so-called ‘debt economy’, assessing the affective function that ‘deferment’ and ‘confession’ perform as dominant operators in the social imaginary of neoliberal governance.

The analysis of the sceneries of the main events reported by Augustine in his Confessiones (the garden, the city, the villa and the church) allows to label this work as a theatrical piece, being such sceneries the ideal settings for its aloud reading by small groups of devotees.

The confessional work of the Church has been from the very beginning a foundation and basis for the Divine Truth. Starting from this real necessity, the Apologetic Theology claims some important research directions, grounded on the Holy Scripture and the Holy Tradition. Given this historical and doctrinal context, we can highlight the next support coordinates of the Christian Apologetics background: “the truth of God’s existence, the reality of the supernatural world and man’s immortality. All of this are, as we can (...) say, the Christian specific starting from the first ages. The truths about the divine origin of Christianism are to be found here, on the dignity of this revealed doctrine, on the divine-human character of his Founder, on the importance and necessity of Christian Church for the religious and morale life of human kind”. . Apologetics and (or) Fundamental Theology The reason why the Church must justify her teaching in the context of her missionary activity does not rise up from inner necessity. It does more from external misconceptions. In this context we can define the main concern of apologetics as a theological discipline. On the other hand, one can discover almost the same meaning in Fundamental Theology. However, as a difference between them, Fundamental Theology is interested in the direction and bears informative message, since “it aims at basic religious principles systematic presentation, both external and internal, as well as their justification before the scientific-theological conscience of believers. Thereafter, Christianity can be considered the only true religion”. On the other hand, one can claim that the name of “Apologetics” rises up from the necessity that the Christian arguments must be scientifically enforced and illustrated externally. Therefore, the mission of Christian Apologetics is to reject the anti-Christian objections through the power of the theological arguments in dialogue with philosophy, culture or science. In fact, even the object of Apologetics is "the scientific ground of Christian truths" with the purpose to "offer the Truth, reject error, and eradicate lies." In order to achieve its goal, Christian Apologetics offers us a positive method, which consists in "a logical and direct development of a certain thesis, in clarifying a certain truth, by revealing its content and the outcomes deriving from it". Therefore, we have a very dynamic field through which this discipline comes and supports the active life of the Church. Moreover, the method of the Apologetics as a theological subject is based on a conceptual struggle, very active starting with the very first centuries of the Early Church. Due to its energetic character, Fundamental Theology won its most important place among Christian doctrines. “Through struggle, Fundamental Theology imposed itself as a theological subject and became individualised. Through struggle and only through struggle, Fundamental Theology must exist and strengthen the positions of Christianity”. In its theologically mission, Christian Apologetics identifies and also prevents the alteration of the doctrinal truth. In this concern, it has the responsibility to enforce of believers’ moral conscience in their spiritual process of development. As a subject, one can say that the mission of Apologetics is “rational, objective and represents a very important basis for the Christian truths of faith”. Therefore, one can notice that the most important aspect of our subject is to enforce the Christian faith and experience through proper knowledge of the fundamental principles of the doctrine. This is the reason why we also mention Apologetics together with Fundamental Theology. However, we must highlight a few important details regarding the sensible difference between both of the denominations. Therefore, historically speaking, “they both arise from those who personally share Christian faith and act within the believing community and in its service. They both aim to respond to objections raised by critics and to offer a trustworthy account of main beliefs about matters as the existence of a personal God, the divine self-revelation in Jesus Christ, and the nature of faith”. On the other hand, we can identify almost three important differences between Apologetics and Fundamental Theology. “First, a Christian apologist can simply address a question: does the existence of horrendous evil in our world rule out the existence of almighty and all-loving God? or has science caused faith in God to be demoted in the past? … Second, good Apologetics has typically a sharply defined audience: Apologetics can seek, for example, to alert non-believers to the weakness of the case currently being against God and religion. But Fundamental Theology addresses to a wider range of readers … Third, polemics (in the good sense of this word and not as mindless ranting) belong to the exercise of Apologetics … The tone of fundamental theologians, even when rebutting objections to Christian faith, is or should be more expository and less polemically inclined to illustrate defects in opposing positions”. Moreover, we must mention that Apologetics can be considered as a particular subject. Although, it is similar in terms of content with Dogmatic and Philosophy through its method, our subject has its own research direction. Therefore, if Dogmatic is defined by an expositive and imperative character, Apologetics is demonstrative and constraining. In other words, dogmatic rationality, which has a subsidiary role, in Apologetics becomes primordial. In this case, “the faith truths become truths also for the rationality and moreover, the eternal truths of the Divine Reason become constraining for the human reason, too. Truths of natural religion, which are in fact the object of the Philosophy of Religion, are conditioned in Apologetics by the Absolute Truth completed in the Christian faith”. In all its theological and external interaction perspectives, Apologetics holds the main role to “expose, defend and justify with rational meanings the general truths of religion”. It is necessary to clear up one aspect: as subject, Apologetics is different from Apology. On the one hand, one can speak about the general research background and, on the other hand, one can describe a singular part of theological approach. Therefore, these two “theological sisters” are different depending on the type of approach. However, Apology is older than Apologetics. Among the first Christian apologists, we mention: Saint Justin the Martyr and Philosopher, Tatian, Athenagoras or Tertullien. In its current meaning, Apologetics is of a western theological origin, having its beginning in Middle Ages. Even so, its blooming age is the 18th century, when the Western Catholic Church replied to the materialist and atheistic philosophy. In the Eastern Church this type of confession had a more profound theological overview, in a theonomic perspective. “In the light of the Holy Scripture, the eastern theological thinking always shows priority to the divine Revelation in spite of the philosophical human systems and places the Creator - Logos at the basis of all creation, in the light of biblical thoughts”. -/- II. “Rational-spiritual Apologetics” Reverend Professor Dumitru Popescu, one of the most important Romanian theologians, develops the concept of “Rational-spiritual Apologetics”. In his theological approach, he illustrates the fact that one of the most essential part of the Church’s confessional work are the relations between rational arguments and spiritual purpose of the Christian life. In this case, we can identify two possibilities of argumentation: rational and spiritual, each of them in connection with the knowledge of God. This is in fact, the Orthodox specificity of the Apologetics, as theological subject, in contrast with the principles of western scholastic. Therefore, the most important argument, which Dumitru Popescu brings up in the support of his thesis, belongs to Saint Maximus the Confessor’s theology: “The Scripture provide a double knowledge of the divine things. One is relative and consists in its rationality and meanings, without the direct feeling of God. Through it we are guided in this life. The other one is in a true sense true and consists in leaving experience of divine grace, outside rationality and meanings, having the complete experience of God. Through it we will receive in the future life the deification”. On the other hand, we can understand that the purpose of human rationality is not to replace the spiritual perspective, since human mind does not own the divine mystery. In this case, rationality can be useful in discovering and demonstrating the existence of God from natural realities to a point where we must assume a spiritual understanding. Consequently, in the context of human deification, the orthodox theology cannot conceive the gnoseological process in rational terms. Therefore, Rev. Dumitru Popescu carries out a dual argumentation: 1. since God is not a solitary power, but descends and interacts with man providentially (through His divine grace and energies); 2. because the created world doesn’t have an independent rationality through which man can receive the possibility to reach God. Therefore, Father Professor Dumitru Popescu concludes that “the deification process is here, on the earth, a foretaste of immortality, which springs from the personal meeting of man with God”. One of the most recent Romanian Apologetics academically approach is the book of professor Adrian Lemeni: “Truth and Demonstration”. Except his very complex analysis on the interaction between theology and science, Professor Lemeni goes further and perfects Dumitru Popescu’s theological view, on the “Rational-spiritual” character of Orthodox Apologetics. Therefore, he offers a very important example, starting from Saint Gregory Palamas’ theological view. In his work “the authority of Patristic gnoseology” is illustrated, which is offered by the “Eternal Truth, God’s Word, incarnated in the Person of Jesus Christ”. “The authority of patristic gnoseology” – notes down Adrian Lemeni – “is expressed along the process for searching the truth of knowledge illustrated by deeds and life. In his debate with Varlaam from Calabria, Saint Gregory Palamas insists on the power of persuasion which arises from the Church’s Tradition, biblical and patristic fundamentally. In an ultra-confident argument, based on the autonomic logical power, we believe that one word has power over another. But Saint Gregory Palamas shows that the truth is based and validated through spiritual and ecclesiastical experience. Truth is validated by the words and deeds of the Holy Fathers, in direct connection with apostolic Tradition. Any argument can be fought against by another argument. Nevertheless, the apologetic concession based on the deeds of the saints is unbookable. This is the thesis which Saint Gregory Palamas develops in complete harmony with the patristic gnoseological Tradition”. Therefore, we can consider that the position of the subject of Apologetics (of Fundamental Theology) is one of interactions. It has connections with all domains external to Theology. In this case, we can consider it sets up a dialogue or debate with philosophy, culture or science. Starting from the historical argument, this interaction between theology and other sciences has existed from the very first Christian century. Therefore, we have an apologetic literary genre starting with the first patristic writings. Including the Early Church, we can identify three important stages in terms of historical apologetics development: 1. The Christian apologists struggle age with Judaism and paganism; 2. From the issue of Islam to the Middle Eve; 3. From the period of the Renaissance of Western sciences to the present day. (shrink)

Academic study of religion, embracing what at the University of Dhaka is called World Religions and Culture, is a relatively new eld of scholarship in the world. It is only beginning to emerge in Bangladesh and other South asian countries. as distinguished om the theological study of reli‐ gion, which favours one’s own faith tradition, academic study of religion uses the same descriptive, analytic and critical academic criteria and methods to study any form of religious life, including one’s own. In (...) this paper, there has been an e ort to discuss the basic di erences between these two sorts of study. The paper then explores the brief history of academic study of religion in the modern world and how it came into being at Dhaka University (DU) as the Department of World Religions & Culture (WRC) under the faculty of arts. Finally, the crucial role of late Professor Dr. Joseph T. O’Connell (1940–2012) in forming the Department and its a liated Centre for Inter‐religious & Intercultural Dialogue (CIID) as an academic place for the study, teaching and doing research on the di erent religious issues for the promotion of multi‐religious and multi‐ cultural peace and harmony in Bangladesh is discussed. The paper has been written on the bases of the o cial documents of Dhaka University as for the existence of WRC and CIID, academic activities and works of faculty members of WRC, especially of Professor Dr. Joseph T. O’Connell, along with other primary and secondary literary sources relevant to the academic study of religion. (shrink)

The present paper tries to answer the question Is religious education compatible with the purposes of liberal education? This work argues that it is possible, and desirable, that democratic states built on liberal ideals include religious education in all schools since increasing the number of options among which the future citizen may choose the conception of the good with which he or she wishes to live is a condition for autonomy as one of its educational purposes. However, the proposal is (...) not based on religious confessional education, which by itself does not satisfy the liberal educational goals, but is redefined from the common principles compatible both religious confessions and non-religious views of morality and citizenship. (shrink)

The main theory at the core of this monograph is that the person is an entity ontologically new, since she is able to perform an act of self-transcendence, which is meant as her critical distancing from her own “self”, understood as subject of social recognition (Anerkennung), in order to open to the encounter with the world (Weltoffenheit). This allows us to consider a person in a new way, different both from confessional interpretations that see her only as a center of (...) the spirit and from reductivistic views. Schelling examines the act of self-transcendence through the concept of ecstasy, whereas Scheler associates it with the phenomenological reduction. The act of self-transcendence, that Schelling sees as originated by the “hunger of being”, is at the roots of the formation process of a person (Bildung): the person takes her shape by exiting from her own self-referential dimension and encountering otherness. If considered from this viewpoint, Plato’s “epimeleia heautou” exceeds an intimistic perspective: the “care” is no more a solipsistic self-care, but rather becomes the care through which the person transcends her own self to open to the relationships with otherness. It turns, therefore, into a care for world-openness (care for Weltoffenheit). The transformation of the individual and of society so becomes the double-faced aspect of the same process. The development of this set of problems occurs through a dialogue with Schelling’s and Scheler’s positions, but it is also supported by a historical-philosophical investigation, that for instance provides evidence of the influences of Schelling’s Berlin period on Scheler’s last theories and on the philosophical anthropology of the 20th century. Schelling was the first to conceive the concept of “eccentricity” in an anthropological sense, since until then the term had been confined to Kepler’s astronomy. Consequently, the planets’ elliptic (eccentric) movement heightens to an emblematic metaphor of human nature and freedom. The monograph also examines a possible convergence between Plato’s epimeleia heautou and Scheler’s phenomenological reduction. The book ends with a chapter on the topic of Vorbild. The exemplary testimony, that is Vorbild, becomes witnessing evidence immune from any pedagogical-moralistic intent: in fact, if it should relapse into the rhetoric of the “wish to give a good example”, it would immediately conform to the opposite logic of the model. A model is universal in so far as it makes everyone more like the others, nullifying the diversity, whereas exemplariness is universal in so far as it makes everyone more unique and motivates each one to follow her own characteristic path of existential trans-formation. Exemplarity doesn’t convey any contents, but rather encourages a kind of solidaristic involvement. Yet there are also negative exemplarities (Gegenbild) that place obstacles in the formation and block the existence of the personal center. (shrink)

The focus of this article is the global and European experience of the reception, assimilation, and social application of the Bible, reproduced in the works of a number of prominent Kyiv Theological Academy (KTA) representatives from the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The analysis specifically covers the works of professors Stefan Solskyi, Kharysym Orda, Nikolai Drozdov, Afanasii Bulgakov, Mykola Makkaveiskyi, Vasylii Pevnytskyi, Arsenii Tsarevskyi, Volodymyr Rybinskyi, Dmytro Bohdashevskyi, and Aleksandr Glagolev. The author uses the metaphor of (...) the Biblical world to describe the historically developed spiritual and cultural component of the European world, for which the Bible played the role of a normative and symbolic core. Affiliation with the Biblical world — as a way of broad social application of the Bible and assimilation of the norms and public behaviors sanctioned by this text — was and still is a stable symbolic marker as well as a cultural and ideological factor of integration with European civilization. The historical panorama of the reception of Biblical knowledge and the inculturation of Biblical morality by Christianized nations, reproduced in the writings of Kyiv academics, is presented as a field of centuries-old intercultural contacts and active inter-confessional interaction, and as an important ideological and moral factor of the socio-political integration and development of civil society. The issues addressed by Biblical studies in Europe and the rest of the world and considerations and solutions prompted by these issues proved to be fruitful for both the academic research and public practices in which academics of the Kyiv Theological Academy were engaged. The past and modern foreign experience related to the inculturation of the Bible was interpreted by the Kyiv researchers in the local context, more specifically, in the modernization attempts of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Therefore, the reflection of European and worldwide experience, though not fully implemented, was productive and was a potential factor that could have contributed to the European modernization of Kyiv cultural and religious life of the time and its integration into the global Biblical World. (shrink)

The article focuses on prosecutor's fallacy and interrogator's fallacy, the two kinds of reasoning in inferring a suspect's guilt. The prosecutor's fallacy is a combination of two conditional probabilities that lead to unfortunate commission of error in the process due to the inclination of the prosecutor in the establishment of strong evidence that will indict the defendant. It provides a comprehensive discussion of Gerd Gigerenzer's discourse on a criminal case in Germany explaining the perils of prosecutor's fallacy in his application (...) of probability to practical problems. It also discusses the interrogator's fallacy which was introduced by Robert A. J. Matthews as the error on the assumption that confessional evidence can never reduce the probability of guilt. (shrink)

Every year, the member Churches of the World Council of Churches (WCC) are called to actively participate in the meetings organized in the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. From my perspective, these moments are an extraordinary opportunity to share in the richness of the Orthodox tradition, which means an act of confession and authentic witness. In the first part, I will present critically the canonical synthesis of the Orthodox, the concept of “Ecumenical Eucharist” and of Lima Liturgy, followed by (...) the recommendations of the Special Commission for Orthodox participation in the WCC regarding confessional and interconfessional common prayer. Then, this article will make a historical presentation of the week of prayer. It is very important to know how this initiative started and how it was accepted at the beginning and over the years. At least in Romania, where we have an Orthodox majority, this week has become a controversial issue produced by those who are against ecumenical dialogue. A special attention is for the actual practice approved by the Romanian Patriarchate. Finally, the article will present the statements of the new Orthodox documents and it will end with some conclusions about this moment of common Christian witness. (shrink)

For most interpreters of the philosopher from Rotterdam, his political doctrine is solely a consequence of his religious and moral doctrines, and so an image of Bayle as a political philosopher is not usually presented. To my mind, however, only by analyzing his political doctrine can the extent of his religious proposal be understood. In this article, I intend to show that both the Baylean criticism of popular sovereignty and his rejection of the right of resistance are analyses that are (...) indissociable from the Baylean doctrine of tolerance. The protection of individual freedom of conscience and the defense of a multi-confessional state model, tolerant regarding religious minorities, can only be articulated as historical reality if they rest on the political doctrine of indivisible sovereignty and on the strictest separation between political obedience and religious membership. (shrink)

Every year, the member Churches of theWorld Council of Churches (WCC) are called to actively participate in the meetings organized in theWeek of Prayer for Christian Unity. From my perspective, these moments are an extraordinary opportunity to share in the richness of the Orthodox tradition, which means an act of confession and authentic witness. In the first part, I will present critically the canonical synthesis of the Orthodox, the concept of “Ecumenical Eucharist” and of Lima Liturgy, followed by the recommendations (...) of the Special Commission for Orthodox participation in the WCC regarding confessional and interconfessional common prayer. Then, this article will make a historical presentation of the week of prayer. It is very important to know how this initiative started and how it was accepted at the beginning and over the years. At least in Romania, where we have an Orthodox majority, this week has become a controversial issue produced by those who are against ecumenical dialogue. A special attention is for the actual practice approved by the Romanian Patriarchate. Finally, the article will present the statements of the new Orthodox documents and it will end with some conclusions about this moment of common Christian witness. (shrink)

As has recently been highlighted, despite the prevalence of methodological “confessional tales” in ethnography generally, the challenges of undertaking ethnographic research specifically in institutional sports settings remain underexplored. Drawing on data from a 3-year ethnographic study of competitive swimming in the United Kingdom (UK), here we explore some of the practical challenges of balancing different elements of the researcher’s role when undertaking ethnographic “insider” research in familiar settings. In particular, we consider the difficulties of balancing the role of a doctoral (...) researcher and the chosen research role of a volunteer coach with a competitive swimming program. Employing the anthropological concept of liminality, we also analyze the lived challenges of leaving a highly familiar field and entering a state of liminality, where the researcher was caught on the threshold betwixt and between a return to full-time employment in the former “known” role of coach, and a move forward to embrace a new “unknown” role as a full-time member of academic staff. (shrink)

This paper is a philosophical discussion about the link between utopianism and responsibility. It argues that our time demands a strong practice of political responsibility in both organizations and society based on what has been called ‘real utopianism’. It takes as a starting point Hans Jonas’ critique of utopianism. Keeping in mind the horrors of the Second World War this Jewish thinker disconnected the principle of responsibility from the idea of utopianism, and connected it to a ‘heuristics of fear’ – (...) we should be careful with ‘wild’ new technologies, but also with new utopian perspectives. In a second step Jonas’ predecessors and utopian thinkers Martin Buber, Ernst Bloch and Ernest Callenbach are revisited. They show that a fully conceptualized idea of utopianism includes at least three dimensions of responsibility: subsistence, justice and spirituality. I then argue that if one digs deeper into the work of Jonas, it seems that the concept of responsibility in fact implies the courage to overcome a heuristics of fear. This paper therefore argues that there is no need to radically disjunct responsibility from utopianism and that the concept of responsibility actually opens a path to ‘real utopianism’. Such a concept of responsibility can best be supported by a confessionally neutral but nonetheless spiritual eco-humanist worldview that develops a new attitude towards nature, in which (eco)asceticism, morality and spirituality become intertwined. (shrink)

From a religious point of view, pluralism refers both to the pluralism of religions; a type of reality present throughout the world, and to the pluralism of the possibilities of religious engagement in solving the problems that people’s lives raise. Pluralism is closely linked to current democratic systems and regimes that place particular emphasis on freedom and equality, integrating diversity and differences of all types. The process of globalization is dual in its nature, and it can be both potentially good (...) for humankind and a possible disaster. It is precisely this double chance that its dialectic lies in. Over time, Christians have often had difficulty accepting this dualism. But the surrounding reality and present life must be viewed from an eschatological point of view; only in this way can provincialism and confessionalism be abolished, as well as the “modern myths” of a globalized society that measures everything in individual terms. The eschatological vision is the optimistic response given by Christians to today’s world that lacks both trust and optimism. (shrink)

This essay examines Descartes’s impact on medical faculties in the German Reformed context, focusing on the case of the Marburg physician Johann Jakob Waldschmidt (1644–89). It first surveys the wider backdrop of Descartes-reception in German universities, and highlights its generally conciliatory character. Waldschmidt appears as a counterpoint to this tendency. The essay then situates Waldschmidt’s work in the context of confessional politics at the University of Marburg, and specifically of the heightened controversy in Hesse around the teaching of Descartes in (...) the last years of Waldschmidt’s life. The second half of the essay details Waldschmidt’s ambitious program to reform medicine along Cartesian lines, in physiology, pathology, and therapy, and evaluates its merits and limits. (shrink)

First, I will discuss several reasons as to why there is still almost a reluctance to reading Kant’s philosophy in the context of the scholastic tradition. The focus will be on (i) the label “revolutionary” often attached to Kant’s thought thereby suggesting a radical break with the past, especially with regard to philosophers often perceived as conservative, and (ii) the issue of confessional ramifications (not unrelated to the first point) will also be touched upon, albeit briefly. Then, two examples will (...) be investigated with regard to which a recourse to this context provides important clues to the philosophical points at issue. These are Kant’s claims that on the one hand, existence is not a real predicate, and on the other, that appearances are nothing but representations. (shrink)

The present religious constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany is the product of protracted historical conflicts and political settlements that began in the sixteenth century. The mediation of these conflicts and settlements and the piecemeal establishment of the constitution was the achievement of imperial public law and diplomacy. Germany’s religious constitution—a secular and relativistic juridical framework protecting a plurality of confessional religions—pre-dated liberalism and democracy, and owes nothing to normative philosophical constructions of individual freedoms and rights, or social justice (...) and moral community. Rather, it was the product of a political compromise between warring confessional blocs, and of the institutions of public law that were the instruments and effects of this compromise. (shrink)

Quando la biblioteca diventa un confessionale. Nel 1585, Giordano Bruno ritorna a Parigi dopo il soggiorno londinese, e comincia a frequentare l’abbazia di Saint Victor, famosa per la sua ” libraria “, immortalata da Rabelais. Il bibliotecario, Guillaume Cotin, trasforma lo “scriptorium” in un confessionale, dove il filosofo dà libero sfogo ai suoi ricordi e al suo impetuoso carattere. -/- When the library becomes a confessional. In 1585, Giordano Bruno, returns to Paris after his stay in London, and begins to (...) attend the abbey of Saint Victor, famous for his library, immortalized by Rabelais. The librarian, Guillaume Cotin, transforms the scriptorium into a confessional, where the philosopher gives free rein to his memories and his impetuous character. (shrink)

Beyond Dordt and ‘De Auxiliis’ explores post-Reformation inter-confessional theological exchange on soteriological topics including predestination, grace, and free choice. These doctrines remained controversial within confessional traditions after the Reformation, as Dominicans and Jesuits and later Calvinists and Arminians argued about these critical issues in the Augustinian theological heritage. Some of those involved in condemning Arminianism at the Synod of Dordt (1618-1619) were inspired by Dominican followers of Thomas Aquinas in Spain who had recently opposed the vigorous defense of free choice (...) by Jesuit Molinists in the Congregatio de auxiliis (1598-1607). This volume, appearing on the 400th anniversary of the closing of the Synod of Dordt, brings together a group of scholars working in fields that only rarely speak to one another to address these theological debates that cross geographical and confessional boundaries. (shrink)

Il deismo unisce all’attestazione di una “religione naturale” e alla difesa della tolleranza religiosa la critica all’autorità ecclesiastica e il rifiuto di ogni rivelazione divina, secondo un orientamento metodologico di chiara matrice lockiana. Tutti aspetti rinvenibili in questo libro in cui sono tradotti per la prima volta in italiano due pamphlet di Anthony Collins, seguiti in Appendice dalle lettere che John Locke gli scrisse a testimonianza della profonda amicizia tra i due. Il primo, Difesa degli attributi divini, tratta il problema (...) del male proponendo un’etica deista contrapposta alle soluzioni oscure e contraddittorie degli uomini di Chiesa. Il secondo, Il perfetto inganno del clericalismo, colpisce la tradizione in genere, ricostruendo la presunta contraffazione di una clausola dei Trentanove Articoli di religione – le basi dottrinali della confessione anglicana. Si delinea la possibilità di ricostruire sulla base della ragione una teologia laica e una vera religione. (shrink)

Joseph T. O’Connell drew attention to the relative scarcity of academic work on religion in South Asia, and o ered as a plausible explanation for this state of a airs the tension between secular and religio‐political communal interests. This paper explores the potential role of phi‐ losophy as an established academic discipline within this situation, in the context of India. It argues that objective study, including evaluation, of the truth claims of various religious traditions is an important aspect of academic (...) as opposed to confessional engagement with religion, and that philosophy in India is especially well suited to undertake such re ection and to provide corresponding education. Unlike Western countries, philosophy and religion were never clearly separated in India and did not evolve in tension with one another. The history of Indian philosophy therefore includes and is included within the history of its ‘religions’, in a way that makes philosophical examination of the truth claims of Indian religions internal to those religions themselves. By tracing this history, the discipline of philosophy can help to unsettle the idea of religion as a matter of xed dogma. It can also continue the procedure of interpreting and evaluating metaphysical and epistemological theses that has been an intrinsic component of Indian religious thought for most of its history. (shrink)

This essay in the form of theses presents a new, post–secular type of religiosity that emerged in Russia in the aftermath of the collapse of Soviet dogmatic atheism. Poor faith is faith without any temples, dogma or rites, as integrally standing before God as God Himself is integral and undivided. According to the results of the largest sociological survey in Russia almost 60,000 respondents in 2012, one in four people fall into the category of ‘poor religion’— a simple belief in (...) God without any affiliation to a belief system or denomination. This proportion, 25 %, comes second only to Orthodox Christian believers (41 %) and exceeds Muslims (6.5 %). The poor faith manifested itself as an indivisible sense of God, outside historical, national and confessional traditions. Thus minimal religion became the next stage of apophaticism after it had crossed the line of atheism and reclaimed its religious content. Paradoxically, this "faith as such," "faith in general" was prepared by the atheist denial of all faiths, of all positive distinctions among historical religions. In 95 theses, this essay introduces major aspects of this new a–theology in comparison with Protestantism and other trans–religious teaching: the ethics and theology of singularity, creativity and resurrection; interaction with science and the views on theodicy; the dynamics and stages of poor faith; its similarity and distinction from spirituality; its place among post–secular trends, including "poor messianism." -/- "faith as such," "faith in general" was prepared by the atheist denial of all faiths. (shrink)

This paper attempts to exhibit the young Heidegger’s academic and personal thinking path which stems from the two university dissertations (1913 and 1915 respectively) and ends up leading to his first lecture at the University of Freiburg on the determination of philosophy (1919). It is purported in the first place to render an account of the personal circumstances that convinced Heidegger of modifying his own early purposes of becoming a priest, then a theologian and finally a confessional Catholic philosopher by (...) means of an examination of the philosophical themes which motivate his early work (Neokantianism, medieval speculative grammar and Husserlian phenomenology). In the second place, an attempt is made in order to consider Heidegger’s first Freiburg lecture in which the young philosopher intends the enterprise of undermining the primacy of the theoretical and in which he launches a series of remarkable objections (of hermeneutical nature) against Husserlian phenomenology. (shrink)

The pedagogical work of the Church, in all his aspects, is inseparable related to the divine Word of God. Therefore, we can truly say that the Christian pedagogy is a perennial reality, nourished and defended by the confessional spirit of Orthodox Tradition. The exemplification of this apologetic work is realized first of all through the scriptural arguments of confession. On the other hand, without fathers and teachers we cannot reach the correct level of understanding. Therefore, in our study we will (...) underline the pedagogical figure of the spiritual father, meaning the role and importance of Avva. Not eventually, the concept of pedagogia perennis (in Latin) can be justified through the liturgical dimension of the Church’s life. Here we can discover the mystical and ascetical character of the confession of faith, in an apologetic overview, like St. Paul says: “It is a body and a Spirit … a Lord, a faith, a Baptism, one God and Father of all, Wich is over all and through all in all” (Ef. 4, 4-6). (shrink)

In Russia, on the eve of the Revolution, the religious phenomenon was analyzed by scholars in specific works and in public discussions in its various aspects: historical, political, social, institutional. Of particular interest is the attempt to bring it back to an original expression of emotional consciousness, which marks a continuity with the Sentimentalism of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This cultural current attempted to grasp a more certain truth in the immediacy of sentiment than in demonstrative reason, (...) and, levering on the ‘redi in te ipsum’, claimed a full moral responsibility for the individual, and at the same time attributed to the truth an immediate evidence, enlightening the the interiority of the individual. Individual consciousness, namely the seat of the truth that reveals itself in the immediacy of moral and religious sentiment, was moreover opposed to any external authority, and considered as giving rise to the ecclesial community itself. Accordingly, such an idea of an inner Church, fueling sectarianism, determined the hostility of the confessional Churches. However, Sentimentalism, while primarily concerning the psychology of interiority, did not go so far as to deal with the relationship of rational mediation with the immediacy of sentiment: namely to consider the emergence of distinctions (art and religion, moral truth and divine truth) that no longer belonged to the sentimental area but to conceptualization. This was in fact an issue discussed in the early twentieth century by a part of Russian intelligentsia, seeing in the individual emotional interiority not the light of a transcendent truth, but the creative freedom of establishing values. Since values are nothing but culture, namely products of reason, Russian intelligentsia got entangled in an ambiguity similar to the one characterizing Sentimentalism, in the attempt to identify in emotional consciousness the processes of formulation of logical-representative structures. (shrink)

Foucault’s later writings continue his analyses of subject-formation but now with a view to foregrounding an active subject capable of self-transformation via ascetical and other self-imposed disciplinary practices. In my essay, I engage Foucault’s studies of ancient Greco-Roman and Christian technologies of the self with a two-fold purpose in view. First, I bring to the fore additional continuities either downplayed or overlooked by Foucault’s analysis between Greco-Roman transformative practices including self-writing, correspondence, and the hupomnemata and Christian ascetical and epistolary practices. (...) Second, I add exegetical support to recent arguments denying Foucault’s advocacy for the death of the subject per se. In fact, my analyses show that Foucault’s ethico-aesthetic turn and its corresponding concern with self-transformation and self-(re)constitution via ascetical practices assumes a subject with rational and volitional capacities. Without these capacities, the art of living Foucault describes is not possible. (shrink)

Daco-Roman Christianity – Particularities and theological perspectives The emergence of the historical-theological heritage of Daco-Roman Christianity is mostly related to the North- Danubian territories, namely the ancient imperial province of Scythia Minor (or Lesser Scythia). Identified with present Dobruja, on the left or western side of the Pontus Euxinus, this space of cultural-religious interference has become over time “of a great ecumenical interest.” The historical journey favoured a rapid development of the Christian element, and the region knew from early ages (...) a thorough church organization, reinforced by Diocletian and Licinius’ fierce persecutions. It is also known the fact that “the Daco-Roman Christians, the ancestors of the Romanians from nowadays, setting up the first Orthodox Metropolitan of the Romanian Church around the year 500, have unquestionably bestowed upon it their ecumenical evangelical and patristic attitude; by spreading and flourishing the Body of Christ in a province, it got integrated into the great ecumenical area of the undivided Church in the first millennium.”62 The theological work of the Daco-Roman saints and fathers on the territory of the Roman Empire thus, generated an “ecumenical environment and background”, enriched by influences, ideas, and confessional intercessions. In this respect, we should mention “the correspondence between Saint Basil (Letters 155, 164 and 165) and the illustrious governor of Scythia, Iunius Soranus as well as with Bishop Bretanion of Tomis concerning the sending of Saint Sava’s remains from Gothia to Cappadocia”63, as well as other relations, interactions and influences. There are, therefore, several great Daco-Roman theologians, who succeeded in becoming famous even in the Eternal City. Their activity and writings which remained as a testimony in the Church treasury were taken into account by the highest church authorities of those times, their written theological, missionary and apologetical importance being recognized up to the present days. Starting from this point, we could speak about a true theological heritage preserved over the centuries, playing a huge essential role in building up a genuine spiritual and cultural tradition of the Romanian people. (shrink)

Daco-Roman Christianity – Particularities and theological perspectives The emergence of the historical-theological heritage of Daco-Roman Christianity is mostly related to the North- Danubian territories, namely the ancient imperial province of Scythia Minor (or Lesser Scythia). Identified with present Dobruja, on the left or western side of the Pontus Euxinus, this space of cultural-religious interference has become over time “of a great ecumenical interest.” The historical journey favoured a rapid development of the Christian element, and the region knew from early ages (...) a thorough church organization, reinforced by Diocletian and Licinius’ fierce persecutions. It is also known the fact that “the Daco-Roman Christians, the ancestors of the Romanians from nowadays, setting up the first Orthodox Metropolitan of the Romanian Church around the year 500, have unquestionably bestowed upon it their ecumenical evangelical and patristic attitude; by spreading and flourishing the Body of Christ in a province, it got integrated into the great ecumenical area of the undivided Church in the first millennium.”62 The theological work of the Daco-Roman saints and fathers on the territory of the Roman Empire thus, generated an “ecumenical environment and background”, enriched by influences, ideas, and confessional intercessions. In this respect, we should mention “the correspondence between Saint Basil (Letters 155, 164 and 165) and the illustrious governor of Scythia, Iunius Soranus as well as with Bishop Bretanion of Tomis concerning the sending of Saint Sava’s remains from Gothia to Cappadocia”63, as well as other relations, interactions and influences. There are, therefore, several great Daco-Roman theologians, who succeeded in becoming famous even in the Eternal City. Their activity and writings which remained as a testimony in the Church treasury were taken into account by the highest church authorities of those times, their written theological, missionary and apologetical importance being recognized up to the present days. Starting from this point, we could speak about a true theological heritage preserved over the centuries, playing a huge essential role in building up a genuine spiritual and cultural tradition of the Romanian people. (shrink)

John Herbinius (1633–1679) was a well-known Lutheran theologian and writer. Living for a long time on the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, he wrote a description of the religious caves of Kyiv, which was published in 1675 in Jena. Plenty of popular cults of Ruthenian spiritual life of the first half of the seventeenth century are reflected in the book. It is important to underline that Herbinius did not criticize the glorification and imitation of saints. He briefly mentioned their post-mortem (...) waiting role in the place of salvation and omitted the Orthodox prayers to them. The great Orthodox mistake for Herbinius was glorifying human and not Christ’s merits as a cause of sanctity and miracle. This very important theological difference was, however, the only one distinction that Herbinius saw between the Orthodox and Protestant traditions of the veneration of saints. The veneration of relics was not criticized by John Herbinius either. On the contrary, relics of Christ’s followers can and must be worshiped, through them God performs miracles, the Protestant author believed. However, Herbinius did not share the Orthodox idea of miraculous unperishability of the saints’ remains in the Cave Monastery. Those remains, as he wrote, are particularly damaged and particularly preserved because of the existing ventilation system in the caves; the saints’ heads are oozing the oil as a result of absorbing of the special air as well. Trying to provide these arguments, Herbinius aimed to deny the core of the Orthodox belief that Kyiv relics preserved undamageed because of great merits and dignities possessed by the Cave fathers in the eyes of God. Obviously, the very idea of merits, earned by the monks due to their ascetic efforts, could have not been accepted by the Protestant author. It strongly contradicted with his confessional views and was unambiguously treated by him as idolatry. (shrink)

Michiel Wielema: The March of the Libertines. Spinozists and the Dutch Reformed Church (1660–1750). ReLiC: Studies in Dutch Religious History. Hilversum: Uitgeverij Verloren, 2004; pp. 221. The Dutch Republic of the seventeenth century is famous for having cultivated an extraordinary climate of toleration and religious pluralism — the Union of Utrecht supported religious freedom, or “freedom of conscience”, and expressly forbade reli- gious inquisition. However, despite membership in the state sponsored Calvinist Dutch Reformed Church not being compulsory, the freedom to (...) gather and worship, or “to air anti-Christian or atheistic opinions” was little tolerated “within” the organized structure of the church, which functioned more as “an exclusive organisation for those willing to submit freely to certain confessional canons and to the disciplinary author- ity of the church’s governing bodies” (10): the consistories, classes, and synods. Those not prepared to submit to Reformed doctrine were free to leave the church without fear of any legal or political repercussions. However, for those not prepared to leave for reasons of personal belief, matters turned out to be quite different. Because the Reformed Church enjoyed full State protection, matters of doctrinal conflict could well evolve into political affairs. And, contrary to the Union of Utrecht, religious inquisition was in some cases actually applied with political approval for “heretics” within the Reformed Church. The main focus of The March of the Libertines is an investigation of this obvious tension. (shrink)

In the Self's Place: The Approach of Saint Augustine presents Jean-Luc Marion's rethinking of the modern notion of the self by way of an original reading of Saint Augustine through the lens of a phenomenology of givenness. Here he tests the hermeneutic validity of concepts forged in his previous works. His goal is to show that the Confessiones are inscribed within the confessio, that love is an underlying epistemic condition of truth, and that God's call and our response to (...) God are both gifts. Ultimately, Marion points us toward a conception of the self that is at once postmodern and very Augustinian. (shrink)

Noel Carroll, a central figure in analytic (Anglo-American) philosophy of art, and spouse of renowned dance scholar Sally Banes (who co-authored several of these essays), offers us something remarkable in his new book—namely, a collection of thirty years of his theoretical essays and dance reviews. Carroll wrote some of the pieces while he was a graduate student at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and there have been some dramatic changes since then in both the art world and Carroll’s philosophical views. (...) Thus, he modestly characterizes the book as “an archeological artifact” of a “somewhat confessional” variety (p. 267). Inspired by Carroll, I too will adopt an archeological stance, with a promise that the reader’s patience will be repaid with something surprising at the end of the dig. (shrink)