This essay deals with the impact of Hegel's philosophy of religion by examining his positions on religious identity and on the relationship between theology and history. I argue that his criterion for religious identity was socio-historical, and that his philosophical theology was historical rather than normative. These positions help explain some historical peculiarities regarding the effect of his philosophy of religion. Of particular concern is that although Hegel’s own aims were apologetic, his major influence on religious thought (...) was in the development of various historical and critical approaches to religion. (shrink)

Karl Christian Friedrich Krause left an impressive oeuvre consisting of 256 books and articles, covering numerous branches of philosophy, the humanities, and science.[1] His Urbild der Menschheit, his Vorlesungen über das System der Philosophie and his Vorlesungen über die Grundwahrheiten der Wissenschaft are of particular pertinence for philosophers today. [1] See: E. M. Ureña and E. Fuchs, “Einführung in das Gesamtwerk”, in Karl Christian Friedrich Krause. Band 1: Entwurf des Systems der Philosophie, ed. T. Bach and O. Breidbach.

[from the publisher's website] Questions about the existence and attributes of God form the subject matter of natural theology, which seeks to gain knowledge of the divine by relying on reason and experience of the world. Arguments in natural theology rely largely on intuitions and inferences that seem natural to us, occurring spontaneously—at the sight of a beautiful landscape, perhaps, or in wonderment at the complexity of the cosmos—even to a nonphilosopher. In this book, Helen De Cruz and (...) Johan De Smedt examine the cognitive origins of arguments in natural theology. They find that although natural theological arguments can be very sophisticated, they are rooted in everyday intuitions about purpose, causation, agency, and morality. Using evidence and theories from disciplines including the cognitive science of religion, evolutionary ethics, evolutionary aesthetics, and the cognitive science of testimony, they show that these intuitions emerge early in development and are a stable part of human cognition. -/- De Cruz and De Smedt analyze the cognitive underpinnings of five well-known arguments for the existence of God: the argument from design, the cosmological argument, the moral argument, the argument from beauty, and the argument from miracles. Finally, they consider whether the cognitive origins of these natural theological arguments should affect their rationality. (shrink)

Relationship-oriented questions have always been at the crossroads of ethnoreligious identity, religious freedom, religious conversion, religious prejudice, and religious pluralism throughout Muslim-Buddhist co-existence in the sixth century within the Malay Archipelago. Other faiths could be freely practised except for propagation towards Muslim communities with Islam being the religion of the federation. This study aimed to explore Muslim-Buddhist relation types and the issues underpinning the following themes: history, identity, and concerns. Content and thematic analysis as well discourse analysis were utilised (...) as the study method for data collection and evaluation. Resultantly, the Muslim-Buddhist interaction pattern in Malaysia has occurred (culturally and religiously) from the early establishment of both religious communities. This relation, which has shifted in ethnoreligious orientation at every interaction level, opens more avenues and complexities requiring holistic management. (shrink)

Historically, many Christians have understood God’s transcendence to imply God’s properties categorically differ from any created properties. For multiple historical figures, a problem arose for religious language: how can one talk of God at all if none of our predicates apply to God? What are we to make of creeds and Biblical passages that seem to predicate creaturely properties, such as goodness and wisdom, of God? Thomas Aquinas offered a solution: God is to be spoken of only through analogy (the (...) doctrine of analogy). Gavin Hyman argues Aquinas’s doctrine of analogy was neglected prior to the early-modern period and the neglect of analogy produced the conception of a god vulnerable to atheistic arguments. Contra Hyman, in this paper, I show early-modern atheism arose in a theological context in which there was an active debate concerning analogy. Peter Browne (1665–1735) and William King (1650–1729) offered two competing conceptions of analogical predication that were debated through the 19th century, with interlocutors such as the freethinker Anthony Collins (1676–1729), theologian/philosopher George Berkeley (1685–1753), and skeptic David Hume (1711–1776). Lastly, I discuss the 18th century debate over theological analogy as part of the background relevant to understanding Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. (shrink)

I examine mystical experience through the history of European religious thought, its modern state, and different spiritual practices of the Patristic epoch. The survey gives some definitions: mystical experience is situated in the field of spirituality along with practices of its acquisition -- ascetics; and the fruits of it -- theology and doctrine. The second part of the article is devoted to a wide field of Christian texts as a representative example of the same experience of the crystallization (...) of mystical experience in ancient tradition, providing a few general types. Reading of religious texts is related very closely with the spiritual condition of the reader and supposes that he/she changes radically in the process of reading, being involved in some existential-hermeneutic circle. (shrink)

Although Nicholas of Cusa occasionally discussed how the universe must be understood as the unfolding of the absolutely infinite in time, he left open questions about any distinction between natural time and historical time, how either notion of time might depend upon the nature of divine providence, and how his understanding of divine providence relates to other traditional philosophical views. From texts in which Cusanus discussed these questions, this paper will attempt to make explicit how Cusanus understood divine providence. The (...) paper will also discuss how Nicholas of Cusa’s view of the question of providence might shed light on Renaissance philosophy’s contribution in the historical transition in Western philosophy from an overtly theological or eschatological understanding of historical time to a secularized or naturalized philosophy of history. (shrink)

This paper cuts across three nineteenth-century Russian thinkers—Pyotr Chaadaev, Mikhail Bakunin and Nikolai Fedorov—to reconstruct a speculative trajectory that seeks to think an ungrounding and delegitimation of the (Christian-modern) world and its logics of violence, domination, and exclusion. In Chaadaev, Russia becomes a territory of nothingness—an absolute exception from history, tradition, and memory, without attachment or relation to world history. Ultimately, Chaadaev affirms this atopic void in its immanence, as capable of creating immanently from itself a common future. (...) Bakunin is antagonistic to political theology as an apparatus of transcendence spanning across nature and history, cannibalism and patriotism, abstraction and religious transcendence. Against these amalgams, and against Schmitt’s naturalist reading of Bakunin, we detect in him the idea of socialism or anarchism as what has never taken place in nature or history, and the image of an unnatural humanity affirmed as the common task linking an absolute futurity with a revolutionary nowness. Against the violence of nature and history in which the present is sacrificed, and death is justified, for future life, Fedorov (the founder of Russian Cosmism) seeks to think the apocalyptic common task of immanent resurrection—and the void as the cosmic void, the expanse of the universe to be inhabited in-common. For him, thought must proceed from death and the ashes (of history and the earth) as what we have in common. The resulting trajectory is ambivalent, caught between an ungrounding of modernity and world-history, and providential or theodical modes of its justification. (shrink)

The main subject of Cusanus’ investigations was the name of God. He claimed to have achieved the best possible one, Not-Other. Since Cusanus stressed that these two words do not mean the corresponding affirmative word, i.e. the same, they represent the failure of the double negation law and there￾fore belong to non-classical, and above all, intuitionist logic. Some of his books implicitly applied intuitionist reasoning and the corresponding organization of a theory which is governed by intuitionist logic. A comparison of (...) two of Cusanus’ short writings shows that throughout his life he substantially improved his use of this kind of logic and ultimately was able to reason consistently within such a logic and recognize some of its basic laws. One important idea developed by him was that of a proposition composed of a triple repetition of “not-other” expressing “the Tri-unity of concordance” i.e. the “best name for the Trinity”. I complete his application of intuitionist logic to theological subjects by charac￾terizing the inner relationships within the Trinity in such a way that there are no longer contradictions in the notion. Generally speaking, the notion of the Trin￾ity implies a translation from intuitionist to classical logic, to which Cusanus closely approximated. Moreover, I show that the main aspects of Christian rev￾elation, including Christ’s teachings, are represented both by this translation and by some doubly negated propositions of intuitionist logic. Hence, intuition￾ist logic was introduced into the history of Western theological thinking with Christian revelation, as only Cusanus partly recognized. Appendix 1 summa￾rizes a detailed analysis of Cusanus’ second short writing. Appendix 2 shows that the Athanasian creed regarding the Christian Trinity is a consistent se￾quence of intuitionist propositions provided that some verbal emendations are added, showing that ancient trinitarian thinking was also close to intuitionist reasoning. (shrink)

The ‘Warsaw School of History of Ideas’ is the name given to a ‘revisionist think tank’ which was led by the historian Bronisław Baczko from 1956 to 1968 in Communist Poland. This group reunited scholars like Leszek Kołakowski or Krzysztof Pomian around questions related to political believes, theological conceptions or utopian thought. Expelled from the University, B. Baczko left Poland and seek shelter in Geneva where he became a Professor of history of Ideas and historiography. In his new (...) home, he developed an original vision on Enlightenment and the French Revolution. (shrink)

Mystical Theology and Platonism in the Time of Cusanus engages with the history of mystical theology and Neoplatonic philosophy through the lens of the 15th century philosopher and theologian, Nicholas of Cusa. The volume comprises nineteen essays that break down the barriers between medieval and Renaissance studies, reinterpreting Cusanus’ place in the history of thought by exploring the archive that informed his thinking, while also interrogating his works by exploring them from the standpoint of their later (...) reception by modern philosophers and theologians. The volume also offers tribute to the career of Donald F. Duclow, a leading scholar in the field of Cusanus studies in particular and of the history of mystical theology and Neoplatonic philosophy more generally. (shrink)

Does globalization serve the same function as hellenization did in the 1st century? Is globalization a threat to religion? Is there a theological ground for understanding the leveling of barriers? How does Pentecost relate to Babel and the present phenomena of globalization? These are some questions explored in this paper.

Purpose of the article is to study the Western worldview as a framework of beliefs in probable supernatural encroachment into the objective reality. Methodology underpins the idea that every cultural-historical community envisions the reality principles according to the beliefs inherent to it which accounts for the formation of the unique “universes of meanings”. The space of history acquires the Non-Euclidean properties that determine the specific cultural attitudes as well as part and parcel mythology of the corresponding communities. Novelty consists (...) in the approach to the miracle as a psychological need in a religious authority, expressed through the religious and non-religious (scientific) worldviews, which are interconnected by invariant thinking patterns deeply inside. It has been proven that the full-fledged existence of the religion is impossible without a miraculous constituent. It has been illustrated that the development of society causes a transformation of beliefs in gods and in miracles they do. The theological origins of the scientific beliefs stating the importance and regularity of the natural processes have been outlined. Conclusions: religion suggests emotional involvement and reasoning which is realized by means of a miracle. The modern science reproduces the theological concept of the permanence of God and His will at own level. Through the history of humankind not only the nature of miracle (whereof the common tendency belongs to the daily reality expansion) underwent changes but also its suggested subject (wherein abstraction is in trend). (shrink)

The theological misappropriation of Christianity as a civilizing force occurs when individuals convert to Christianity due to deception that ignores the faith-based aspect of Christianity. The history of Western education in India illustrates the hidden curriculum that Christian missionaries employed to disrupt the Indian educational system. This unnerving pedagogy points to the need for a postcolonial theoretical framework that relates the inescapable hybridity of religion and culture where Orientalism has the potential to occur. To press the ongoing urgency of (...) this discussion, I convey how the history of British India connects to my lived-reality as an American Hindu. Overall, I point to hybridity as a lived paradox of ambiguous conflict that embraces interfaith relations. I offer implications for Christian missionaries today to foster authentic interfaith connections without engaging in colonizing ideologies. (shrink)

It feels like the world is ending. In the midst of apocalyptic times it’s tempting to cling on tightly to what we still have. But what if our desire to save the world is part of the problem? -/- Theology for the End of the World suggests that in responding to the deeply entwined systems of capitalism, racism and patriarchy we should stop trying to unearth a ‘good version’ of Christianity which stands opposed to these forms of violence and (...) seek instead to reckon with the role that Christianity has played in making the world we now inhabit. How has Christianity shaped the histories of marriage and the family? How did Christianity invent race and give birth to capitalism? Grappling with the ambivalent inheritance of Christianity, a tradition passed down by enslaved people and enslavers; by violent husbands, resourceful wives and courageous sex workers; by rich people and the dispossessed, the book suggests Christians should give up on trying to redeem the world – a social order founded on violence and exploitation – and seek instead to end it. (shrink)

Grappling with the marginalization of the marginal in Western thinking, this paper sets up a dialogue between Emmanuel Levinas’s philosophy and Johann Baptist Metz’s political theology in order to learn from their thoughts on the suffering of victims. For both Levinas and Metz, the idea of theodicy as an explanation of suffering is linked to the ontological conception of time and history, and therefore useless and unjustifiable by nature. The essential question of this research is how to give (...) meaning to the concrete suffering of humanity in order to redeem history from the concept of an evolutionary progress which limits the possibility of hearing the cries of the victims of history. This article will show how Levinas’s and Metz´s rejection of traditional theodicy is closely related to the concepts of memory and history and, therefore, the paper will demonstrate how traditional theodicy becomes for both thinkers an ethical theodicy. Consequently, the ethical account of theodicy replaces the attempt to negotiate the goodness and power of God with the pain of human beings. From this perspective, ethics is shaped by a response to the cry of victims which summons the subject to understand freedom as limited and subordinated to ethical responsibility. In responding to suffering, philosophy and theology can meet beyond idealism and dogmatism. (shrink)

Friedrich Hayek’s defense of neoliberal free market capitalism hinges on the distinction between economies and catallaxies. The former are orders instituted via planning, whereas the latter are spontaneous competitive orders resulting from human action without human design. I argue that this distinction is based on an incomplete semantic history of “economy.” By looking at the meaning of “oikonomia” in medieval providential theology as explained by Giorgio Agamben and Joseph Vogl, I argue how Hayek’s science of catallactics is itself (...) a secularization of providential theology. This exposes Hayek to three criticisms: he unjustifiably neglects the possibility of tendencies toward spontaneous disorder in free markets, he condemns the “losers” of neoliberal competition to being providential waste on the road to general prosperity, and he imposes on people the duty to consent to a neoliberal order that hinders them from cultivating their inoperativity. (shrink)

The Orthodox Churches are part of the ecumenical movement with the inner wish to clarify the theological elements which keep the whole Christianity divided. For this goal, every Church is represented somehow in discussions by her theologians who are training to carry a theological dispute at this level. The Romanian Orthodox Church was indirectly represented in the World Council of Church by professor Ion Bria (1929-2002), who had worked officially at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva for more than 20 years. (...) This theological research has the aim to speak to us about Bria’s personality and ecumenical activity. In order to accomplish this goal, I will expand my research in three chapters. In the first one, I will present his biographical life. Until this moment he remains the most important Romanian theologian involved in the ecumenical dialogue. The second chapter deals with the history of the modern ecumenical movement and also with Bria’s perspective on the dialogue between Orthodoxy and ecumenism, which are for him two correlative elements. Bria comes to confront the anti-ecumenical part within the Orthodox Church who does not accept the Christian dialogue being afraid of heresy. Bria explain how through dialogue, the line between Orthodoxy and the other Christians can be overrun. In the third chapter I explain the missionary concept ‘liturgy after the Liturgy’, both historically and theologically. Being aware that there are some uncertainties around this concept I decided to clarify it in a proper way. Bria is known as the promoter of this concept, so I will search to find out who is the originator of this expression as such. In the same chapter I will analyze the ecclesiological elements from Bria’s writings. The ecumenical dialogue is interpreted of being an ecclesiological problem par excellence so I will outline Bria’s position regarding the teaching of the Church. In conclusion I will present in a synthetic way the results of this study. (shrink)

Hume was a cognitive scientist of religion avant la lettre. His Natural History of Religion (1757 [2007]) locates the origins of religion in human nature. This paper explores similarities between some of his ideas and the cognitive science of religion, the multidisciplinary study of the psychological origins of religious beliefs. It also considers Hume’s distinction between two questions about religion: its foundation in reason (the domain of natural theology and philosophy of religion) and its origin in human nature (...) (the domain of cognitive science of religion). (shrink)

The history of the science of the stars (astronomy and astrology) in fourteenth-century Byzantium is significantly intertwined with the implications of theological and philosophical controversies. A less-explored astronomical text authored by the fourteenth-century Byzantine scholar Theorodos Meliteniotes (ca. 1320–1393 CE) provides new historical factors toward a historiography of the differences between scientific and theological discourses, their development in the transition to early modern times, and the different historical developments of science in the worlds of the Eastern and Western Churches.

In the article the main trends of modern philosophical theology are considered in the perspective of methodological tasks. Based on the diversity of the post-secular philosophical situation, the place of theology oft en turns out to be not only in the series of theological disciplines, but also acquires features of interdisciplinarity. Theological studies aimed at solving the problems of humanity, history, and time, combine hermeneutics and philosophical anthropology, philosophy of language and psychological methods, oft en becoming an (...) experimental space for applying of humanitarian approaches. In the paper the ideas of theologians and philosophers of the Bultmann and post-Bultman periods are compared. (shrink)

Scholastics were a group of Christian theologians mainly active in Europe during the 12th to 17th centuries. One of the notable teachings in scholastic literature is the theory of just price, which can be considered one of the most frequent theories in the history of economic ideas. This study tries to reassess the theory of just price in the economic thought of scholastic thinkers by referring to classical scholastic texts, through which it examines the general experiences of scholastic (...) class='Hi'>theology in confrontation with economic phenomena. For this purpose, the theory of just price is examined from the roots of its formation in scholastic practical wisdom to its most superficial form as an economic institution. Through this investigation, the question of how theology can play a role in its practical field, up to the most superficial economic institutions can be answered. The results of this study show that scholastic thinkers in the theoretical field of practical theology had significant achievements in promoting theology through their writings and teachings in schools. In its practical field, they tried to implement theology in the human foundations of society by building various divine institutions such as a just price. In this regard, the theory of dual human happiness in scholastic theology has significantly impacted the formation of economic issues as part of scholastic practical wisdom. Despite these achievements, their thought is wanting from two aspects: (1) systematic lack of understanding of modern phenomena such as capitalism and (2) no effort to implement their teachings in the social and economic construction of society. -/- . (shrink)

An analysis of the issues of the Journal of the History of Philosophy shows that the journal has effectively recorded the changing image of Hobbes over the course of the 20th century, shifting from a strictly political perspective and a marked focus on the internal coherence of Hobbesian thought (with particular reference to the moral/political nexus and the examination of the “naturalistic fallacy”), to an increasing emphasis on the theme of theology and civil religion. Three examples are examined (...) in this article: the theme of moral obligation as the foundation of political obligation as discussed in the 1970s issues of the Journal of the History of Philosophy, the centrality of the contract and the concept of authorisation brought into focus in the 1980s, and the theme of Hobbes’ religious sincerity or atheism at the centre of discussion in the 1990s. (shrink)

The commentary is a detailed analysis of one of the shortest writings (25 verses) and, according to an already classic definition, "The Most Neglected Book in the New Testament” (cf. D. J. Rowston). Thus, it covers an existing gap in the specialized theological literature and is among the newer concerns of biblical scholars, attentive to the enhancement of the corpus of the Catholic Epistles. The interest in such an inspired text lies primarily in the approximately ten new topics it uniquely (...) addresses in the New Testament literature, and also in the issues it exposes, regarding those who have always disturbed the peace of Christian communities: agitators, impostor pseudo-prophets, schismatic heretics, ultimately sectarians. The volume is divided into three essential parts, as announced in the subtitle of the writing: an Isagogical part that reaches the main points related to the authorship, the authority, the structure and the dating of the writing, a more consistent part materialized in a very elaborate Commentary of the text itself. said (verse by verse, we could even say word for word), preceded each time by an adequate Translation of the basic Greek text (also highlighted at the beginning of each section, in bilingual columns) and also a final part which highlights the main Theological Themes of the Letter (Triadology, Eschatology, Angelology, Soteriology, etc.). Through the methods of analysis used, the commentary is a very useful tool for biblical scholars and historians, an informed guide for priests and believers interested in reading and the history of the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament, the reflection on these texts, and their profound theological meaning. (shrink)

In Wollstonecraft’s early writings, she articulates the foundational theological and philosophical principles that would underpin her work throughout her career. One difference between her early and later work lies in the way that the values to which she refers are combined. Whereas Wollstonecraft at first appeals to the separate ideals of independence, equality, and virtue, from the 1790s onwards she integrates these into a characteristic republican framework that was in common use amongst dissenting theorists at the time. The set of (...) values on which Wollstonecraft draws, and the version of the republican framework that she develops, closely resemble those of Richard Price with whose work she was familiar. Examining the structural similarities between their respective models, I argue, gives us an insight into the systematic manner of aspects of Wollstonecraft’s own thought. It also allows us to see how Wollstonecraft goes beyond the republicanism of Price and others as she develops her own feminist solutions to the problems of structural domination. (shrink)

In the realm of the humanities, Paul Ricoeur (1913–2005) is widely viewed as one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. He published an impressive and comprehensive oeuvre that made an impact on almost all areas of the humanities. By combining the resources and insights of phenomenology and hermeneutics, he developed new perspectives on the text, on metaphor, on narrative, and on personal identity that pervaded theology, history, linguistics, psychoanalysis, ethics,(philosophical) anthropology, cognitive sciences, and so on. (...) In light of his centennial in 2013, the question arises whether his theories have a future and can be extended to capture new phenomena studied in the humanities: What is the impact and meaning of the oeuvre of Paul Ricoeur for the humanities? In particular, one may develop this question as follows: Which of Ricoeur’s major contributions can be expected to remain relevant for the humanities? In what way can we relate Ricoeur’s oeuvre to ideas and methods of other philosophers and scientists? Does Ricoeur’s paradigm of the text still provide a relevant framework for thinking about the basic questions that concern the humanities today? If so, how can we bring Ricoeur’s perspective in a fruitful tension or dialogue with other, competing paradigms? (shrink)

Amid the many figures who number among the Thomists writing during the early 20th century period of revival in scholastic thought in the Roman Catholic Church in the wake of the encyclical letter Aeterni Patris (1879) of Leo XIII, there is numbered the French convert, Jacques Maritain (1882–1973). Over the course of his long lifetime, Maritain authored works covering a host of philosophical and theological topics: epistemology, the philosophy of the sciences and natural philosophy, aesthetics, moral philosophy, political philosophy, metaphysics, (...) the philosophy of history, etc. The details concerning Maritain’s youth and conversion have been ably told by others and can be consulted by the interested reader. Detailed bibliographies of his works are available for those interested in engaging the full breadth of his writing. In this article, I will focus on the particular shape of Maritain’s Thomism and his place in the overall hermeneutics of the Thomistic tradition, in particular the debt that he owes to John Poinsot (1589–1644), to whom he refers as “John of St. Thomas,” in accord with the standard appellations within the Thomistic tradition in which he wrote. Following a general account of Maritain’s “style” of Thomism, I will provide a specific catalogue of some central themes in his thought that bear the clear impress of his engagement with the thought of John of St. Thomas. Without claiming to be exhaustive, this article intends to provide the reader with a sufficient appraisal of the main lines of influence exercised upon Maritain’s thought by the Baroque Commentator, without whose philosophical and theological works Maritain’s own labors would be unthinkable. (shrink)

Göbeklitepe is regarded as one of the oldest temples of the humanity according to archaeologs. In this work, by going back twelve thousand years, we will attempt both to provide information about this structure and to make interpretations by highlighting the theological and philosophical associations of this structure. In our study, we will examine Göbeklitepe not from the perspective of archaeology and history of art but from that of philosophy of religion and religious symbolism. In our research, we benefit (...) from the data of archeology and historical geography. The basic aim of this search is archaeological data that is obtained in the region and to evaluate these datas based on the historical geography and the history of religions. When it is, we have interpreted according to language of religion and religious symbolism. As a result, contrary to popular belief, we saw important reasons Göbeklitepe area that is sacred structures, the people of the Stone Age is not primitive and faith is as old as humanity. We have reached the conclusion that must be rethought the development of human civilization on the Göebeklitepe Temples. Our main objective is to connect Göbeklitepe with philosophical and theological literature and to propose a method and subject as to how to accomplish this. Thus, our study is just an attempt at interpretation. (shrink)

Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464) was active during the Renaissance, developing adventurous ideas even while serving as a churchman. The religious issues with which he engaged – spiritual, apocalyptic and institutional – were to play out in the Reformation. These essays reflect the interests of Cusanus but also those of Gerald Christianson, who has studied church history, the Renaissance and the Reformation. The book places Nicholas into his times but also looks at his later reception. The first part addresses institutional (...) issues, including Schism, conciliarism, indulgences and the possibility of dialogue with Muslims. The second treats theological and philosophical themes, including nominalism, time, faith, religious metaphor, and prediction of the end times. (shrink)

Alvin Plantinga has played a pivotal role in bringing theological questions and ideas into the broad philosophical, predominantly non-theistic community. His “Advice to Christian Philosophers” (1983) was the turning point in the history of philosophical theology. In his “Advice” Plantinga talks about how best to be a Christian in philosophy. He suggests that Christian intellectuals should become more autonomous from the rest of philosophical world, display more unity, and express greater Christian self-confidence. These advices, however, are addressed not (...) to just any intellectual of a Christian affiliation. He addresses them to those 1) who have graduated from a conservative Christian college, 2) who have obtained a PhD in philosophy, and 3) who continue their career as professional philosophers. That means that the person should be well acquainted with the traditional Christian doctrine and practice, should be well versed in the contemporary analytic philosophy, and should be an acknowledged member of the established philosophical community. It would be a mistake to apply Plantinga’s “Advice” to a person who does not meet all of the three requirements. The present day situation in Russia is such that there is a dramatic shortfall of those intellectuals who satisfy all of the three Plantinga’s requirements. It is still premature for Russian Christian philosophers to become autonomous from the rest of the philosophical community, to establish Christian philosophical clusters, and to display Christian self-confidence in the face of the non-theistic majority. Philosophical theology in Russia is currently in its “pre-Plantingan” phase. In order to improve this situation I suggest reversing Plantinga’s advices into their opposites. Russian Christian philosophers ought to learn how to operate within the broad philosophical community. They should familiarize themselves with the contemporary analytic philosophy and its methods, and they should become acknowledged members of the established professional circles. Then, and only then, philosophical theology in Russia can enter its post-Plantingan era. (shrink)

Book Reviews Mehmet Karabela, Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review/Revue canadienne de philosophie, FirstView Article.

In this critical paper, I will outline some remarks in connection with one of the most well-known concepts of Orthodox mission developed in the ecumenical framework. More precisely, this concept is summarized by the expression liturgy after the Liturgy. The structure of the present study and its aims are as follow. Because I already nominated the Orthodox theologian Ion Bria, I will shortly present his biography. I think that very often we write/read theology without connecting the author with his (...) ideas. The second part of the paper will be focused on the historicalcontext of the modern ecumenical movement, context in which our theologian developed his ideas and promoted this concept of liturgy after the Liturgy. Secondly, I will explain how this concept came into existence. The most important aim in this section is to establish the author or authors of this concept. It is to be understood that the paternity of the idea is not clear, as such, I will go back to the sources in order to clarify this misunderstanding. The last but not least part of this study will be concerning the principal theological ideas of this typology of mission. In view of the historical elements I will outline some reflections in connection with this concept which can be used for our problems within the Churches. It is my inner belief that if we understand the idea of this expression of the liturgy after the Liturgy our missionary/pastoral activity will have a better application. (shrink)

I review evidence from published and unpublished sources on Ricardo’s theological ideas. The main focuses of interest are the existence of a natural morality independent of religious confessions, morality as the essence of religion, useless of theological speculation, justification of toleration for everybody, including atheists, and the miscarriage of any attempt at a philosophical theodicy. The paper explores also the connection between Ricardo’s interest for theodicy and his views on the scope and method of political economy and suggests that his (...) opinion that political economy should be a secular and value-free science close to mathematics depends precisely on theological reasons. (shrink)

In this paper, the author spells out St. Bonaventure's magisterial teaching on the possibility of an eternal world, found in his 'Commentaria in II Sententiarum', d. 1, p. 1, a. 1, q. 2. The entirety of this 'quaestio' is treated at length in order to delineate its structure and indicate its reliance on both theological and philosophical premises. Hence, the twofold dependency of St. Bonaventure's position on Scripture and on arguments against an actual infinity is made clear. The author concludes (...) with a Thomistic response to the Seraphic Doctor's position, based solely on the Angelic Doctor's late treatise 'De aeternitate mundi', in which St. Thomas endeavors to place the eternal world question on purely philosophical grounds and also doubts the plausibility of arguments against the possiblity of an actual infinity. (shrink)

Until recently, psychologists have conceptualised and studied trust in God (TIG) largely in isolation from contemporary work in theology, philosophy, history, and biblical studies that has examined the topic with increasing clarity. In this article, we first review the primary ways that psychologists have conceptualised and measured TIG. Then, we draw on conceptualizations of TIG outside the psychology of religion to provide a conceptual map for how TIG might be related to theorised predictors and outcomes. Finally, we provide (...) a research agenda for future empirical work in this area, as well as practical applications for counsellors and religious leaders. (shrink)

Gottlob Frege (1848-1925) has been called ‘the undisputed father of analytic philosophy’ and ‘the most important logician since Aristotle.’ Even if his impact on philosophy were to extend no further than his decisive influence on leading early twentieth-century thinkers of the stature of Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Rudolf Carnap, that alone would assure him a notable place in the history of modern philosophy. Nevertheless, there are other areas of Frege’s intellectual activity that have largely escaped the attention of (...) his commentators. One of these is his seldom-noticed attempt late in life to write about political theology. In this reconstruction of Frege’s view, based on a context-sensitive close reading of his fragmentary writing on theology, I document Frege’s commitment to a highly politicized conception of theology’s public role. This conception is infused with the ideology of Germany’s Far-Right völkisch (pan-German ethnic-nationalist) movement and steeped in the political strife of early Weimar-era Germany. Frege’s interest in theology was evidently rooted not so much in conventionally spiritual concerns as in the decidedly innerweltlich desire to help turn the tide in German politics in favor of the ultranationalist Far Right. His theology was, accordingly, a political theology of völkisch, antisemitic, and anti-socialist nationalism. (shrink)

Peter Harrison explains the disappearance of symbolic meanings of animals from seventeenth-century works in natural history through what he calls the “literalist mentality of the reformers.” By contrast, the present article argues in favor of a different understanding of the connection between hermeneutics and Protestant natural history. Martin Luther, Philipp Melanchthon, Johannes Brenz, Johannes Oecolampadius, and Jean Calvin continued to assign moral meanings to natural particulars, and moral interpretations can still be found in the writings of Protestant naturalists (...) such as Conrad Gesner, Caspar Heldelinus, Jeremias Wilde, Thomas Penny, and Thomas Moffett. If there are differences between Protestant and Catholic interpretations of animals, then these differences derive from the reformer’s greater insistence on providing textual support for assigning symbolic meanings, their resulting greater reluctance in assigning prophetic meanings to animals, and their elimination of spiritual interpretations of animals that are in tension with central tenets of Protestant theology. These differences in hermeneutics and theology may explain some of the divergences between the symbolic interpretations of animals proposed by Protestant natural historians and their Catholic colleague, Ulisse Aldrovandi. (shrink)

Given the significance of Nicholas of Cusa’s ecclesiastical career, it is no surprise that a good deal of academic attention on Nicholas has focused on his role in the history of the church. Nevertheless, it would also be fair to say that a good deal of the attention that is focused on the life and thought of Nicholas of Cusa is the legacy of prior generations of scholars who saw in his theoretical work an opportunity to define the most (...) salient features of transformations in the habits of thinking leading from the Middle Ages into the epoch of modernity. Thus, although contemporary scholars have not been able to achieve any clear consensus on the question of whether Nicholas belongs to the Middle Ages or to modernity, the field of Cusanus studies has become much more attentive to the possibility that the uniqueness and significance of Nicholas’s vision is a function of his ability to synthesize and redeploy a variety of strands in the Catholic intellectual tradition—strands that are as apt to involve practical matters of canon law and church reform as they are to hinge on a unique and richly developed mystical theology. Given the flourishing of the attention devoted to Nicholas in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the choices about which texts to include in this article were difficult ones. The rationale for this article’s predominant focus on scholarship of the late 20th and early 21st centuries is that, insofar as the recent studies listed here enter into the debates that have been shaped by their predecessors, the sources mentioned here will point readers to the prior work in the field not acknowledged here. (shrink)

Calvin was a man of the Church so his political doctrine stems from his ecclesiology, in response to both the Papal doctrine on the delegate power of the magistrates, and the Lutheran subordination of the Church to the civil authorities. He was not concerned with discussing the best possible regime, but rather with preparing a theological justification of civil power that would make it depend exclusively on God, not on the people. I will hold that Calvin states the people’s function (...) is merely instrumental: they accept the authority chosen by God, but do not institute it. The only really relevant element is that both political vocation and the transmission of power that is indispensable to it, derive uniquely and exclusively from God. The discrepancies apparent in different authors’ interpretations can be clarified by recovering the context of his argumentation. This is the objective of this article. (shrink)

hroughout medieval Christianity, religious works of art emerged to illustrate the teachings of the Bible for the largely illiterate population. What, then, is the significance of the psychoactive mushrooms hiding in plain sight in the artwork and icons of many European and Middle-Eastern churches? Does Christianity have a psychedelic history? -/- Providing stunning visual evidence from their anthropological journey throughout Europe and the Middle East, including visits to Roslyn Chapel and Chartres Cathedral, authors Julie and Jerry Brown document the (...) role of visionary plants in Christianity. They retrace the pioneering research of R. Gordon Wasson, the famous “sacred mushroom seeker,” on psychedelics in ancient Greece and India, and among the present-day reindeer herders of Siberia and the Mazatecs of Mexico. Challenging Wasson’s legacy, the authors reveal his secret relationship with the Vatican that led to Wasson’s refusal to pursue his hallucinogen theory into the hallowed halls of Christianity. -/- Examining the Bible and the Gnostic Gospels, the authors provide scriptural support to show that sacred mushrooms were the inspiration for Jesus’ revelation of the Kingdom of Heaven and that he was initiated into these mystical practices in Egypt during the Missing Years. They contend that the Trees of Knowledge and of Immortality in Eden were sacred mushrooms. -/- Uncovering the role played by visionary plants in the origins of Judeo-Christianity, the authors invite us to rethink what we know about the life of Jesus and to consider a controversial theory that challenges us to explore these sacred pathways to the divine. (shrink)

As formulated by atheist Jeffery Jay Lowder, the Evidential Argument from the History of Science, or AHS, is premised on the observation that over the course of modern history, naturalistic explanations have progressively overtaken supernaturalistic explanations. That history, says Lowder, constitutes evidence that metaphysical naturalism is true (hence that theism is false). But it’s possible that the historical pattern as described is not actually the result of any genuine explanatory virtues of naturalistic over supernaturalistic explanations. If there (...) are good reasons to suspect that naturalistic explanations fail to accurately or adequately explain the world around us, then we would not have sufficient grounds to follow Lowder’s argument to its conclusion. Here I will present three reasons to suspect that naturalistic explanations fail to accurately or adequately explain the world around us: (1) an alternative reading of the history of science according to pessimistic induction; (2) the arbitrary epistemic requirements of methodological naturalism; and (3) the ongoing resistance of certain phenomena (the origins of the universe and of life on earth) to any naturalistic explanations that are coherent and relatively simple. (shrink)

What is salvific community for Ignatius of Loyola? It is communion with Christ, a dynamic for which Ignatius used the expression ‹societies Jesu›. This wording has a revealing intertextuality. ‹Societas› is the Vulgate’s rendering of Pauline and Johannine koinōnia: «sharing in (Christ)». The NT overtones of the Ignatian experience of communion can be explored regarding a theology of relationship (person), of action (history) and of the Church (representation). Being a person is understood as being friend and servant, (...) class='Hi'>history as the salvific kairos of Christ’s activity, and the Church as the communion representing him—each time a typically Christian conception deciding always for that option that cannot be generalised through abstraction. (shrink)

Augustine′s conversion to Christianity in A.D. 386 is a pivotal moment not only in his own life, but in Christian and world history, for the theology of Augustine set the course of theological and cultural development in the western Christian church. But to what exactly was Augustine converted? Scholars have long debated whether he really converted to Christianity in 386, whether he was a Platonist, and, if he adhered to both Platonism and Christianity, which dominated his thought. The (...) debate of the last thirteen decades spans an immense body of literature in multiple languages. In this literature, four major views on Augustine′s conversion may be discerned. The first view is associated with Gaston Boissier and Adolph von Harnack, and was famously championed by Prosper Alfaric: that Augustine in 386 converted to neo-Platonism but not to Christianity. Second, there is the view recently promoted by Catherine Conybeare: that Augustine in 386 converted to Christianity and rejected neo-Platonism. Third, there is the view that he converted to Christianity and was also a neo-Platonist; the most famous adherents of this view are Robert J. O′Connell and Pierre Courcelle. Finally, there is the view recently promoted by Carol Harrison: that Augustine committed to Christianity in 386, yet did not utterly reject neo-Platonism; rather, he aimed to develop a Christian faith that was informed by neo-Platonic insight. In this article, I first explain and distinguish these four general views, and then I explain why I prefer the fourth view. -/- More Info: This is the pre-peer reviewed version of Boone, Mark, "The Role of Platonism in Augustine's 386 Conversion to Christianity," Religion Compass 9.5 (May 2015), 151-61. This article has been published in final form at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/rec3.12149/abstract. (shrink)

For a research project I engaged in from 2004-2007, I gathered and analysed statements made by representatives of Islamist terrorist movements on the Internet and compared key themes of their ideology (such as "democracy", "capitalism", "globalization", "colonialism" and "underdevelopment") to the writings and ideology of authors in various traditions of Christian "political theology". In this paper, it is being established that there are clear similarities in the socio-political analysis advanced by Christian political and liberation theologians and representatives of Islamist (...) terrorist movements and radical Islam, respectively. The paper also offers a short history and extended discussion of the concept of "political theology" and elaborates on radical Islam's understanding of theology and politics. Primary and secondary literature on Christian and Islamic political and liberation theologies and radical Islam are being reviewed (including the most recent writings on "political theology" emanating from, mainly leftist, theory circles in Europe and the US). In an attempt to expand the term "political theology" to cover the socio-political analysis, arguments, and ideology of radical Islam, anti-liberalism is revealed as the single most important factor underlying all political theology. The argument is made that being anti-liberal means being (at least potentially) anti-democratic as well. A discussion of future lines of academic inquiry opens up the possibility of a common definition or framework covering all forms of political and liberation theologies and asks whether comparative political theology may be the ultimate political theory. (shrink)

The word Despot is derived from the Greek word Despotes, meaning father of the family, or master of slaves. After that, this meaning changed from the meaning of the family to the style of absolute monarchy, in which the power of the king is like the authority of the father in the family. The authority of the father is moral, and respect for him is a duty in his family, but transferring this power to politics and considering the ruler as (...) a father and the citizens as children is unjustified, and then it is called political authority, not parental authority. The origin of term despot goes back to Aristotle, who compared it to tyranny and said that they are two types of governments that treat citizens as slaves. The term tyrant of Aristotle takes the following dimensions: 1.Father of the family. 2.Master of slaves. 3.The king of the barbarians who ruled the citizens like slaves. Aristotle's idea of the despot dominated most of the European philosophers Machiavelli, Montesquieu, Hegel and Marx. This research deals with: First: the history of despotism. Second: Models of despotism. Third: Despotism in theological and philosophical thought. Fourth: The forms of despotism in the contemporary Arab cultural . The results of the research show that despotism in Arab culture has forms, including: 1.The dead have control over the living, the heritage power. 2.The authority of the father, the policeman, the employee, and the teacher. 3.The authority of sadness and fear. 4.The power of poverty or low income level. 5.The power of political parties and their control of the citizens, curbing freedoms, discrimination on the basis of gender, color, and religion. (shrink)

The doctrine of the Trinity is central to mainstream Christianity. But insofar as it posits “three persons” (Father, Son and Holy Spirit), who are “one God,” it appears as inconsistent as the claim that 1+1+1=1. -/- Much of the literature on “The Logical Problem of the Trinity,” as this has been called, attacks or defends Trinitarianism with little regard to the fourth century theological controversies and the late Hellenistic and early Medieval philosophical background in which it took shape. I argue (...) that this methodol- ogy, which I call “the Puzzle Approach,” produces obviously invalid arguments, and it is unclear how to repair it without collapsing into my preferred method- ology, “the Historical Approach,” which sees history as essential to the debate. I also discuss “mysterianism,” arguing that, successful or not, it has a different goal from the other approaches. I further argue that any solution from the His- torical Approach satisfies the concerns of the Puzzle Approach and mysterianism anyway. -/- I then examine the solution to the Logical Problem of the Trinity found in St. Gregory of Nyssa’s writings, both due to his place in the history of the doctrine, and his clarity in explicating what I call “the metaphysics of synergy.” I recast his solution in standard predicate logic and provide a formal proof of its consistency. I end by considering the possibilities for attacking the broader philosophical context of his defense and conclude that the prospects for doing so are dim. In any case, if there should turn out to be any problem with the doctrine of the Trinity at all, it will not be one of mere logical inconsistency in saying that “These Three are One.”. (shrink)