This paper explores Thomas Aquinas’ and Richard Swinburne’s doctrines of simplicity in the context of their philosophical theologies. Both say that God is simple. However, Swinburne takes simplicity as a property of the theistic hypothesis, while for Aquinas simplicity is a property of God himself. For Swinburne, simpler theories are ceteris paribus more likely to be true; for Aquinas, simplicity and truth are properties of God which, in a certain way, coincide – because God is metaphysically simple. Notwithstanding their different (...) approaches, some unreckoned parallels between their thoughts are brought to light. (shrink)

Book synopsis: Held every five years under the auspices of the Kant-Gesellschaft, the International Kant Congress is the world’s largest philosophy conference devoted to the work and legacy of a single thinker. The five-volume set Kant and Philosophy in a Cosmopolitan Sense contains the proceedings of the Eleventh International Kant Congress, which took place in Pisa in 2010. The proceedings consist of 25 plenary talks and 341 papers selected by a team of international referees from over 700 submissions. The contributions (...) span 14 sections: Kant’s Concept of Philosophy; Theory of Cognition and Logic; Ontology and Metaphysics; Ethics; Law and Justice; Religion and Theology; Aesthetics; Anthropology and Psychology; Politics and History; Science, Mathematics, and the Philosophy of Nature; Kant and the Leibnizian Tradition; Kant and the Philosophical Tradition; Kant and Schopenhauer; and Kant’s Heritage. Thanks to cooperation from the Schopenhauer Gesellschaft, the 2010 conference was the first in the history of the International Kant Congress to include a session on Kant and Schopenhauer. (shrink)

Nothingness plays an essential role throughout the work of Meister Eckhart. The function of this concept, however, changed during the development of his thought. Despite this change nothingness remains always associated with the theory of analogy which lies at the core of Eckhart's attempt to explain the radical difference between God and creation and the complete dependency of all being on its unitary and transcendent ground.

Why did God create a vast universe? Various answers are discussed and rejected: a) for its beauty; b) to instill a sense of the sublime in his intelligent creatures; c) to demonstrate his glory, d) to provide a home for extraterrestrial species; e) to guarantee that the natural emergence of (intelligent) life, though extremely rare, happens nonetheless somewhere; f) for no reason at all, because the human notion of efficiency does not apply to God’s actions. Instead, the paper suggests that (...) the universe is intended for Space settlements. Several objections to this proposal are considered and deemed unconvincing. (shrink)

Abstract. By the 7th century a new form of Buddhism known as Tantrism had developed through the blend of Mahayana with popular folk belief and magic in northern India. Similar to Hindu Tantrism, which arose about the same time, Buddhist Tantrism differs from Mahayana in its strong emphasis on sacramental action. Also known as Vajrayana, the Diamond Vehicle, Tantrism is an esoteric tradition. Its initiation ceremonies involve entry into a mandala, a mystic circle or symbolic map of the spiritual universe. (...) Also important in Tantrism is the use of mudras, or ritual gestures, and mantras, or sacred syllables, which are repeatedly chanted and used as a focus for meditation. Vajrayana became the dominant form of Buddhism in Tibet and was also transmitted through China to Japan, where it continues to be practiced by the Shingon sect. This is the usual understanding of Tibetan Tantra. With a feeling of great dismay, I regret to say that this is an understanding without any foundation. This is nothing more than an exotic superstition when separated from its metaphysical foundations. What Alfred North Whitehead tells us about Christianity can be transmitted with small changes to Buddhism. Whitehead says: "Christianity would long ago have sunk into a noxious superstition, apart from the Levantine and European intellectual movement, sustained from the very beginning until now. This intellectual movement is the effort of Reason to provide an accurate system of theology. Indeed, in outlying districts where this effort at rationalization died away, the religion has in fact sunk into the decrepitude of failure" (A.N.Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas, The Free Press Paperback Edition 1967, page 162). In this short history in images I will present the Metaphysical Foundations of Tibetan Tantra. That is mainly the philosophy of the Indian philosopher Nagarjuna (2nd century CE) in comparison to the British philosopher Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947). [The end of the abstract] . (shrink)

We offer an account of the metaphysics of persons rooted in Latter-day saint scripture that vindicates the essentiality of origins. We then give theological support for the claim that prospects for the success of God’s soul making project are bound up in God creating particular persons. We observe that these persons would not have existed were it not for the occurrence of a variety of evils (of even the worst kinds), and we conclude that Latter-day saint theology has the (...) resources to endorse a strong soul-making non-identity theodicy. We then introduce two complications for this account rooted in the problem of horrendous evils. First, horrendous evils threaten to undermine our confidence that God is good to each created person within the context of their life. And second, horrendous evils raise concerns about the value of persons whose existence depends on the occurrence of those evils. We may wonder whether those whose existence depends on the occurrence of horrendous evils are valuable enough to motivate God’s allowance of those evils. We show that by attending to important structural features of a post-mortem, pre-eschatological state called the spirit world, Latter-day Saints can ameliorate these concerns about horrendous evils . (shrink)

Some recent considerations of religion and psychiatry have drawn a distinction between pathological and spiritual/mystical experiences of mental phenomena typically regarded as within the realm of psychiatry (e.g. depression, hearing voices, seeing visions/hallucinations). Such a distinction has clinical implications, particularly in relation to whether some religious people who suffer from depression, hear voices, or see visions should be biomedically treated. Approaching this question from a theological and philosophical perspective, I draw a distinction between (what I call) ‘spiritual health’ (SH) and (...) ‘potentially transformative’ (PT) theologies, arguing that a PT model is therapeutically and philosophically more sound than a SH one. I then apply this to the clinical debate in critical dialogue with Dein and Durà-Vilà’s 2009 article, ‘The Dark Night of the Soul: spiritual distress and psychiatric implications’. My primary focus is on depression, though the discussion is also relevant to debates about psychosis and schizophrenia. (shrink)

How is Jewish-Christian theological dialogue possible today? Assuming that the possibility of dialogue is not something to be envisioned by any individual thinker a priori, I offer here a study of two examples of successful Jewish-Christian theological dialogue: George Lindbeck's dialogue with Jewish sources and Michael Wyschogrod's dialogue with Christian sources. To garner some general lessons from these examples, I try to reconstruct the general conditions of dialogue which they appear to share. Discovering that the two dialogues (...) may share identifiable conditions of problem-solving, I label these "pragmatic" conditions, after Charles Peirce's definition of pragmatism as the claim that the purpose of rational inquiry is to solve the problems that stimulate it. I conclude that these are the conditions that may underlie theological dialogue among the specific group of Jewish and Christian theologians to which I believe Lindbeck and Wyschogrod belong. These conditions may underlie dialogues typical of other groups, too, but there is no way to know this a priori. (shrink)

The problem of global warming and its implications on the continuous existence of the world are alarming. Hence, the phenomenon has attracted a lot of responses from different people including scholars, journalists and religious leaders. While researches on possible solutions to the menace of global warming continue, the contribution of this paper is that a combination of traditional African attitude to nature and Christian theology of environment can be used as a model for the control of global warming. (...) Important elements in the two traditions include the idea of relationship between God, human and nature and the eschatological views of the two traditions. The paper concludes that the combination of these views will help to check human attitude to nature and unbridled craze for material wealth which are the major causes of global warming. (shrink)

The article begins with an inquiry on St. Thomas Aquinas' theological framework of God in the Summa Theologica, as seen through the lenses of Pseudo Dionysius and Proclus Lycaeus, in the Light of Plato's dialectical exploration of the One in the Parmenides. We proceed to the similarities and differences between St. Thomas Aquinas’ theology and Plato’s philosophy in terms of the means through which the soul ascends towards the highest vision. Ideas of thinkers such as Democritus, Aristotle, Iamblichus, Thomas (...) Taylor, Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger supported or provided counter arguments regarding these matters. The essay raises a significant question pertaining to the relationship between Plato’s thought with that of St. Thomas Aquinas’. (shrink)

Cognitive science of religion (CSR) raises a number of issues that are of interest to theologians and philosophers of religion. The latter have focused primarily on the epistemological implications of CSR, that is, whether science shows religious belief to be irrational or unjustified. Another broad question is whether CSR is compatible with theism and Christian theology. Theological doctrines, such as Calvin’s views about sensus divinitatis and the noetic effects of sin, play an important part in these conversations. Less (...) attention has been directed to how CSR can function as a source for theological and philosophical inquiry. So far, CSR has been invoked in discussions on the natural knowledge of God, classical theism and divine hiddenness. This article provides an overview of the recent philosophical and theological engagements with CSR. (shrink)

Revelation is the supernal proclamation of Divine Reality and divine truths, which is the supernatural initiative that permeates into the peculiar knowledge, for it is fashioned of supernatural truths, as the result of sovereign plan and purpose of its initiator, to humanity. Nowhere does the crisis of theology find a more critical center than in the controversy over the reality and nature of divine disclosure, because of the position of revelation as the postulate of the Christian realistic world-view. (...) Therefore, our attention will be centered in this paper on the basic conception of revelation, especially its means, content, and nature, in Christian Theology. (shrink)

Scholars have devoted considerable attention to the discovery by Justin D’Arms and Daniel Jacobson of a distinction between the fittingness of an emotion and the propriety of the same. Meanwhile, Christian theology has long been attentive to the relevance of Christian theology to the emotions. Although it seems that never so far have the twain discussions met, they should meet. A fitting emotion accurately construes a situation. Christian theology tells us something about the importance—or (...) the lack thereof—of emotional fit for the emotions involved in love. It is a desideratum for the emotions that they are fitting. But other desiderata for the emotional life sometimes overrule the desideratum of fit. Moreover, emotions sometimes have an effect on their own fittingness. As Kierkegaard shows, love construes its object as better than he presently is, but it also makes the object better. We should cultivate a disposition to loving emotions that are occasionally unfitting yet help to bring about better fit. I explain these things and consider how someone might go about cultivating loving emotions which are sometimes unfitting yet also restorative of fit. (shrink)

Failing -- Ontology and desire in Dionysius the Areopagite -- Apophatic theology and its vicissitudes -- The death drive: from Freud to Žižek -- The gift and violence -- Divine violence as trauma -- Mystical theology and the four discourses -- Theology as failure.

For among most contemporaries, the concept of Eros seems to have nothing to do with Christianity. Sifting through the psychoanalysis of sexual fantasy, theologically it says nothing. Our study gives reasons showing that for theologians since the dawn of the Christian era, Eros-love plays a fundamental role.. The connotations of this concept, however, are different from those of today, when its sensory meaning is more restricted to sexuality. Greek theologians of the first centuries after Christ, taught the concept of (...) Plato enshrined as a unifying enthusiasm, the attraction of inferior to superior states, as “hungry and thirsty” for something continuously higher, developing, and enriching the connotation. The work of Dionysius Areopagite, the Idea of Good, leads us step by step up the ascent of the erotically chaste, and is identified with the One-God, who is the very source of love. Consequently, Eros-love originates from God, Eros- love being not only an ascending but firstly a descending love, which calls for a reciprocal communion. (shrink)

In this paper, the attributes of Jesus as the second person of Trinity in Christianity and Muhammadan Reality in Islamic Theosophy were compared. The term ''Muhammadan Reality'' in Islamic Theosophy refers to transcendental and divine being of Muhammad rather than his human and historic existence. According to this research, both Jesus and Muhammadan Realities have divine attributes. They are lights of God, the Word or the Pen of God, the creators of the word, omniscience, omnipotent, omnibenevolent as well as the (...) intermediaries between God and humans. In this study, it is demonstrated that what happened to Jesus in Christianity, it has also happened to Muhammad in Islamic theosophy with some differences. The influence of Greek philosophy, especially Platonic, in ascribing these attributes to Jesus in Christianity and Muhammad in Islamic theosophy is undeniable. There is a strong temptation among the scholars of both religions, Islam and Christianity, to extend Jesus and Muhammad to the level of divinity and godhead. (shrink)

Hortense Spillers asserts the imperative for black writers to reconfigure the languages they inherit. One way of doing so is to craft counter-myths against dominative mythologies. Spillers casts myth as an integration of form and concept which overdetermines the significance of what it is used to talk about. One crucial effect of America’s racialising mythos has been to deny black women the ability to determine that significance. She then describes how this mythos is crafted through a double wounding that creates (...) at least two ‘interstices’—first between home and market, then between blackness and humanity—which are covered up by mythological terms. Finally, Spillers shows how counter-mythologies can be crafted by speaking from within these interstices to reconfigure the conditions of possibility governing meaningful speech, taking the 19th- century African-American preaching tradition as her example. The article concludes by reflecting on what it might mean to practice Christian theology as counter-mythology in light of Spillers’ work through a reading of Edwidge Danticat’s The Dew Breaker. (shrink)

Science and technology are undergoing rapid development and progress. It is due to the increasing number of modern inventions. Among the technological discoveries that are very important are in the medical field. With modern medical equipment, the suffering of a patient can be reduced. But in reality, there are still some patients who have severe suffering. Patients who experience prolonged illness invites empathy from the family. To relieve his suffering, the family who could not bear to see his condition asked (...) the doctor to take actions that could shorten the patient's life, this kind of action in the medical world is known as euthanasia. This study aims to find out how the study of active euthanasia in the view of Christian law. This study is a literature review using an ethical-theological approach by studying books and scientific works related to the discussed problem. (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)

This contribution discusses Leibniz’s views on key Christian doctrines which were surrounded, in the early modern period, by particularly lively debates. The first section delves into his defence of the Trinity and the Incarnation against the charge of contradiction, and his exploration of metaphysical models capacious enough to accommodate these mysteries. The second section focuses on the resurrection and the Eucharist with special regard to their connections with Leibniz’s metaphysics of bodies. The third section investigates Leibniz’s position on predestination, (...) grace, salvation, and damnation. It comes to the conclusion that salvation, for Leibniz, does not ultimately depend on believing a set of true doctrines, but on a practical attitude: the love of God above all things. Leibniz’s theology is thus fundamentally a theology of love which is ultimately practical, and tries to be both universalist and Christian. (shrink)

Both Christianity and Judaism have their basis in the Torah, the five central books of the Hebrew Bible that culminate in the revelation at Sinai. This very commonality, potentiality a source of mutual respect and concord, has played itself out, in the two thousand years since the advent of Christianity, in a disastrous rivalry of interpretation. Christians have interpreted their own religion in such a manner as to disallow the separate legitimacy of Judaism. Jews, in response, have often adopted an (...) insularity of focus at odds with the universality of God as Judaism itself understands it. I believe this rivalry has had a distorting effect upon both religions. The purpose of my essay is to search out some theological positions that both traditions might be able to accept, and that might permit each to adopt an affirmative, and informed, acceptance of the other. (shrink)

Our focus in this chapter will be the role the pride has played, both historically and contemporarily, in Christian theology and philosophical theology. We begin by delineating a number of different types of pride, since some types are positive (e.g., when a parent tells a daughter “I’m proud of you for being brave”), and others are negative (e.g., “Pride goes before a fall”) or even vicious. We then explore the role that the negative emotion and vice play (...) in the history of Christianity, with particular attention to a number of influential figures. We conclude by exploring how pride connects with a number of other central issues in Christian theology. (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.

“Beilis affair” (1911–1913) is one of the most resonate events in Kyiv of the early 20 th century. It was a subject of a huge number of investigations. However, a special analysis of the role that the members of Kyiv Theological Academy community played in this affair has not been made yet. Facts and data available require further reflections and deeper interpretations. For this, both a time span and a thematic content should be expanded. Thus, the author tries to reveal (...) the specifics of the discourse wherein the members of the community were predisposed to interpret both “Beilis affair” and “Jewish question” as a whole. The materials published in “Kyiv Theological Academy Studies” journal throughout all years of its existence in pre-revolutionary Russia (1860–1917) constitute the main source of information. In the study, the author tries to widen another researcher’s idea that “Beilis affair” became a unique case of the dialogue between Christians and Jews. The article shows that the foundations for this dialogue had been created in the previous years by many Kyiv Theological Academy community members, such as Andrii Khoinatskyi, Fedir Ornatskyi, Vasyl Pevnytskyi, Afanasii Bulhakov, Dmytro Bohdashevskyi, Olexandr Voronov, Mykola Stelletskyi, Viktor Ivanytskyi, Hryhorii Malevanskyi, Akym Olesnytskyi, and others. This experience as well as perfect knowledge of the European and world context, which the members of Kyiv Theological Academy intellectual community such as Olexandr Hlaholiev and Pavlo Tykhomyrov had, enabled them to make a real impact on the establishment of the dialogue between Christians and Jews in particular in the “Beilis affair”. (shrink)

Cognitive science of religion is sometimes portrayed as having no bearing on the theological doctrines of particular religious traditions, such as Christianity. In this paper, I argue that the naturalistic account of the etiology of religious beliefs offered by the cognitive science of religion undermines the important Christian doctrine of the grace of faith, which teaches that the special gift of divine grace is a necessary precondition for coming to faith. This has some far-reaching ramifications for Christian (...) class='Hi'>theology. -/- . (shrink)

The objective of this work is to investigate the philosophical anthropology that underpins the anthropology of the Early Christians. It is curious to know why Christian anthropology is intellectually and practically inclined towards the philosophical anthropology of the Platonic tradition rather than the theological-philosophical tradition of the biblical Hebrew people in the Old Testament. Today the emphasis on Christian anthropology is that the human person is an integration of body and soul. Contrary to this position, the writer maintains (...) that the Christian anthropology, especially during the period of the early Christians (here understood as the period within the first five centuries C.E.), fundamentally conceives the human person as a composite of soul and body, which is a conscious employment of Platonic anthropology. This article observes that, as regards the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, there is a dichotomy between theological coherency and the actual Christian practice on the Christian conception of the human person. Hence, this work argues that the Platonic influence on the philosophical anthropology of the Early Christian was a deliberate act to give a more rational foundation to the theological problematic on the resurrection of the dead and on the resurrected body. It explains why Aquinas’s theological cum philosophical thinking, though overwhelmingly an Aristotelian ground, could not “Aristotelize” his philosophical anthropology. (shrink)

As robots increasingly find their way into the various spheres of human life, the question of religious robots becomes relevant. This article examines from a Catholic-Christian theological perspective whether robots can be used for religious purposes, and it asks how this may be done and what issues are important to consider. In addition, the study contributes to research on the theological engagement with robotics. It is argued that the use of religious robotics dif- fers significantly depending on the specific (...) religion. From a Christian perspective, the use of religious robotics is fundamentally plausible, especially since a wide variety of entities are used as religious media or representations of the divine. However, the use of religious robotics will ultimately be decided by different concepts (e.g. human, life), religious doctrines and culturally transmitted and subjective attitudes. This article places particular focus on the design of reli- gious robotics. It becomes clear that the reasons for accepting religious technology do not lie in the technology itself but in phenomenological preferences and various time- and culture-de- pendent ideas and concepts. It is likely that as robotics rapidly advances and our relationship with it develops, the use of religious robots also will change. Puzio, Anna: Robot Theology: On Theological Engagement with Robotics and Religious Robots. In: Puzio, Anna/Kunkel, Nicole/Klinge, Hendrik (Hg.): Alexa, wie hältst du es mit der Religion? Theologische Zugänge zu Technik und Künstlicher Intelligenz (Theologie und KI 1). Darmstadt: wbg 2023, S. 95–113. DOI: 10.53186/1030373. (shrink)

Dubilet’s contribution turns to Marx’s “On the Jewish Question” in order to diagnose the collusive interplay between mediation and sovereignty as modes of transcendence that, together, prevent real immanence from irrupting. It does so by recovering the logic of “the general secular contradiction”—the division between the state and civil society that materializes and secularizes the structure of diremption originally articulated in theological form, as the opposition between heaven and earth. In this analysis, the logic of Christianity is shown to be (...) imbricated with the political form of secular modernity itself. Moreover, this account reveals that the modern secular state does not inaugurate the political theology of immanence; rather it constitutes a mechanism of transcendent mediation. The exception that mediates across the two realms renders transcendence livable, but it also reproduces the dirempted life, establishing it as the unsurpassable horizon and foreclosing all operations of dissolution or abolition that could collapse the structure of civil society and the state that governs “the order of the world.” Although immediate transcendence (sovereignty) may be positioned, as it is in the Schmittian paradigm, as radically distinct from its mediational counterpart, in relation to real immanence the two operate as a collusive ensemble. (shrink)

There is an ongoing challenge in defining African theology because of two important reasons: the quest for a definitive African theology is a fairly recent pursuit and the vastness and diversity of the African continent. Given this, this article presents the complexity of defining African theology and its methodological approaches through a background sketch of the development of African theology. Regardless of many definitions of African theology and its purposes, the article acknowledges African Christian (...) theology as theology that should be derived from the interplay between Scripture, Christian tradition and African cosmology. In deriving theology from the aforementioned aspects, African theology should also seek to develop contextual African theologies with global relevance. In this way, African theology can claim its space in the universal church. Although we are conscious of the values and challenges associated with the task of doing African theology, we argue for its necessity. We further argue that if the centrality of Scripture is maintained in the African theological endeavour, it will cause African theologies to have some shared reference point with other Christian theologies and hence engaging globally, while contributing unique African perspectives to global theological discourse. (shrink)

The open secret of analytic philosophy of religion since its 20th century revival has been that it is for the most part a revival of philosophical theology, and particularly Christian philosophical theology. More recently, Christian analytic philosophers and theologians sympathetic to them have transformed this open secret into a research program by explicitly thematizing the use of analytic philosophical tools for the particular work of Christian theology. Dubbing this work as “analytic theology” (AT) (...) Oliver Crisp and Michael Rea have succeeded in inaugurating AT as a distinct subregion in the philosophy of religion. Besides prompting a spate of first-rate philosophical work theorizing a variety of Christian theological commitments, the advent of AT has also prompted a good deal of meta-theological reflection: Is AT more conducive for certain conceptions of Christian theology than others? Among the various kinds of theology produced by AT, liberation theology is notably absent. In this paper, I offer a diagnosis of why that might be, outline an argument for analytic engagement with liberation theology, and sketch what such an engagement might consist in. (shrink)

The Cognitive Science of Religion represents a contemporary attempt at a naturalistic explanation of religion. There is debate as to whether its account of how religious beliefs arise is reconcilable with the religious account, which holds that religious beliefs are caused by God. In my paper, I argue that these two accounts cannot be reconciled when it comes to the specific question of how Christian religious beliefs arise if one accepts an important theological doctrine of the supernaturality of (...) class='Hi'>Christian belief. This doctrine implies that there can be no natural explanation for how Christian beliefs arise because they are a gift of divine grace. This leads to a conundrum for Christian theists: they can either reject the CSR account of how their religious beliefs arise, or they can reject the supernaturality of Christian belief. I argue that the latter is preferable. I then draw on the work of the theologian Denis Edwards to illustrate how one can drop this doctrine without abandoning some other fundamental tenets of Christian theology. (shrink)

The author of the monograph is a Candidate of Culturology, Associate Professor of Tyumen State University. The monograph tests approaches to the understanding of the essence of Hobbes’s and Locke’s ideas about miracles that are more flexible than a formational-evolutionist approach. The monograph presents the main characteristics of these ideas as Christian philosophical ones, shows their general Christian direction and the historiographic perspective of studying these ideas primarily in line with Christian philosophy. The monograph is intended for (...) experts in the history of philosophy, the history of ideas, theology, religious studies, historical anthropology, as well as for those interested in the problems of historical-philosophical knowledge. Автор монографии – кандидат культурологии, доцент Тюменского государственного университета. В монографии апробируются более гибкие подходы к пониманию сущности идей Гоббса и Локка о чудесах по сравнению с формационно-эволюционистским подходом. Представлены основные характеристики идей Гоббса и Локка о чудесах как христианских философских идей. Показана общехристианская направленность идей Гоббса и Локка о чудесах и историографическая перспективность изучения этих идей в первую очередь как христианских философских идей. Монография рассчитана на специалистов в области истории философии, истории идей, теологии, религиоведения, исторической антропологии, а также на всех, кто интересуется проблемами историко-философского знания. (shrink)

Pope Benedict XVI argued that it is "necessary and reasonable to raise the question of God through the use of reason" and to understand "theology, as inquiry into the rationality of faith." (Ratzinger 2006) The idea that faith per se can be reconciled with rationality per se presents a delicate analytical task for philosophy of religion, to consistently ground a belief system which is regarded by nonbelievers as inherently ungrounded and inconsistent, without negating any grounding postulates internal to the (...) dogma. Focussing on Abrahamic theism, with special emphasis on Christianity, I interpret the Biblical narrative as a symbolic representation of a universal normative structure grounded in social ontology and the value-commitments intrinsic to agency. (shrink)

The tradition of negative theology has very deep roots which go back to the Late Greek Antiquity and the Early Christian period. Although Dionysius is usually regarded as “the Father” of negative theology, yet he has not initiated a revolution in the religious philosophy, but rather brought together various elements of thinking regarding the knowledge of God and built a system which is a synthesis of Platonic, neo-Platonic and Christian ideas. The aim of this article is (...) to illustrate the views of some more modern theologians on the nature, types and levels of apophaticism in the Greek Patristic tradition, trying to establish the role that negation can play in facilitating man’s attaining to the knowledge of God. (shrink)

Contemporary Nigerian society is in its doldrums as regards the culture of violence and distrust among peoples from various ethnic groups that make-up this nation. To an extent, religio-political reasons are fueling this culture of violence and distrust. The thrust of this paper is that: Christian military chaplains are stakeholders as promoters of peace and mutual co-existence in Nigeria with regard to controlling the culture of violence and disunity. The core of this thesis remains Jesus’ convictions concerning non-resistance to (...) the evil one as documented in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5: 38-42, and His life as the Peace-Builder. Therefore, contemporary Nigerian context calls for Christian military chaplains to be more conscious that being messengers of peace and promoters of peaceful coexistence in our country, they have ethical responsibility to build bridges to harmony. Since Christ (God) is love, the chaplains should rediscover the poetics of testimony as a principle for building and reconstructing paths that lead to mutual co-existence in view of encouraging the reign of justice, unity, and peace in Nigeria. (shrink)

Sarah Coakley’s God, Sexuality, and the Self constitutes a major intervention in the debate over the role of religion in the modern world. Coakley criticizes Christians who reject modernity altogether, arguing that Christian thought should remain in conversation with secular sources. At the same time, she claims that only theology can solve difficulties of widespread concern - for instance, concerning gender and sexuality. Where this suggests that theology is still superior, I argue that the strict distinction Coakley (...) draws between theology and the secular is at odds with the momentum of her approach. On Coakley’s own terms, theology cannot claim superiority over the secular because the boundary between them is necessarily blurry. (shrink)

This paper is a careful examination of the various approaches that Alvin Plantinga has taken towards natural theology over the course of his academic career (from *God and Other Minds* to *Warranted Christian Belief*). In his earliest works, Plantinga has a very clear and strict conception of the project of natural theology, and he argues very clearly (and correctly) that that project fails. In his middle works, Plantinga has a tolerably clear and slightly less strict conception of (...) the project of natural theology, and he argues—in my view unsuccessfully—that this project succeeds. In his later works, Plantinga has a much less clear and less strict conception of the project of natural theology, and it is much harder to determine whether there is any merit in the claims that he makes for natural theology as thus conceived. (shrink)

In this essay Derrida reflects, for the first time at length, on secularization as a historical process. Whereas his earlier writings on religion focus on Jewish and Christian authors who blur the boundaries of religious belonging, this essay directly questions the categories of religion and secularization. Against this background, Derrida revisits the work of Kant, Voltaire, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, and he reflects on his own engagement with messianism, negative theology, and the khôra.

Research for this study was served by the hypothesis that the Christian’s lifestyle and witness in a postmodern world will depend on the definition and practice of worship and spirituality. The Old Testament reveals a spirituality that has ‘Yahweh’ involved in all aspects of life. Awareness and experience of the presence of God is linked to obedience to God. New Testament spirituality implies imitation of Christ and an effort to obey Christ's twofold command: to love God and neighbor as (...) self. Christian exhortation (contemplation/meditation) and adoration never take place in isolation from the world because God is active in the world. Adoration leads to action in the world which, in turn, leads to adoration of God. All work done and all life lived for God's sake is, in essence, worship. Being a Christian implies living a life of sacrifice, making a gift of your life to God. As the Christian strives with the Spirit's guidance and empowerment to love God with his/her heart, soul, mind, body - and his/her neighbor as him/her self, in a moment by moment way; as he/she worships God with adoration and action; then he/she is living a true Biblical Christian life and experiencing and practicing true Biblical worship and spirituality. For the postmodernist, religious relativism is incompatible with the objective truth claims of Christianity and the words ‘Christian’ and ‘Church’ mean either empty tradition or abusive totalizing metannarrative. To maintain its identity and practice effective and relevant ministry, the Church should reflect an internal unity in desire, in life, in purpose, and in love. The Church must be the incarnate and engaged love and glory of God to a world that judges Christian truth claims by the lifestyle and witness of Christians. A praxis-orientated apologetic of an incarnational engaged worship and spirituality will demonstrate Christians truth claims. This gives Christianity integrity, credibility, and intelligibility to postmodernists that seek an experiential spirituality in the postmodern era of deconstruction. Evangelism is founded in who God is and what God has done for humanity through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christian’s demonstrate the Gospel as they love their God and their neighbor with devotion and conduct. They proclaim God’s love with plausibility when they reveal God’s love in action as a visual aid for Gods truth. As Christian worship and spirituality produce the actions that give voice to the nature and will of God, Jesus Christ will ‘rise again’ in the postmodern world through an incarnational and engaged Christian faith. Point summary: i. Authentic Biblical Christian worship is a lifestyle that takes place in an interdependent rhythm of both adoration (joyful praise of God) and action (obedient service to God). ii. Holistic spirituality is the lived moment by moment experience of Christian belief in both general and specialized forms (the Christian faith), and the reaction that the Christian’s belief system arouses in religious consciousness and practice moment by moment (the Christian faith). iii. Biblical worship and spirituality is thus conformity of heart and life with the confession and character of Jesus Christ. It is living life in the coram Deo (the presence of God) in obedience to His will out of gratitude for salvation. iv. Worship, spirituality, and the Christian faith become equivalent terms for each other and as defined in i-iii above reflect an incarnational engaged approach to evangelism. v. Worship and spirituality as a praxis-orientated apologetic presented as an incarnational engaged approach (that tells God’s story and your story) in a postmodern world, will be a more effective method of evangelism than rational apologetics and program/method based evangelism. -/- . (shrink)

The great American philosopher, Charles Peirce, calls his pragmatism a continuation of Jesus' teaching, "Ye may know them by their fruit," and labels his cosmology a doctrine of "Christian Love." Nonetheless, I have found Peirce's understanding of Christianity to be surprisingly unpragmatic. Peirce's pragmatism itself displays an unpragmatic side and the tension between his pragmatic and unpragmatic tendencies reappears in his philosophic theology. I am not certain what a consistently pragmatic Christian theology would look like, but (...) I know pragmatism is the rule rather than the exception in rabbinic Judaism, that is the classical, post-Biblical Judaism of the Talmud. In this paper, therefore, I evaluate Peirce's pragmatism and his Christian theology from the perspective of the rabbis. (shrink)

Many recent writers have developed a rich system of theological concepts inspired by computers. This is digital theology. Digital theology shares many elements of its eschatology with Christian post-millenarianism. It promises a utopian perfection via technological progress. Modifying Christian soteriology, digital theology makes reference to four types of immortality. I look critically at each type. The first involves transferring our minds from our natural bodies to superior computerized bodies. The second and third types involve bringing (...) into being a previously living person, or person who has never existed, within an artificial digital environment. The fourth involves promotion of our lives into some higher level computational reality. (shrink)

The Pastoral Constitution, Gaudium et Spes, is a key document for fundamental theology. In it, for the first time, the Church openly discusses the anthropological question as a specific theme. It explains what Christian anthropology is and in what way the mystery of Christ sheds light on the mystery of man. From the point of view of fundamental theology, the document shows how theological reason is closely related to anthropological meaning. It takes note of the potential mediatory (...) role of anthropology in a dialogue between faith and reason in the modern world. (shrink)

We respond to Swinburne’s reply to our critique of his argument for the Resurrection by defending the relevance of our counterexamples to his claim that God does not permit grand deception. We reaffirm and clarify our charge that Swinburne ignores two crucial items of Negative Natural Theology (NNT)—that God has an exceptionally weak tendency to raise the dead and that even people with exemplary public records sometimes sin. We show, accordingly, that our total evidence makes it highly probable that (...) Jesus was not sinless, incarnate, or resurrected and that God has permitted massive deception regarding these defining Christian dogmas. (shrink)

The link between human nature and human flourishing is undeniable. "A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit" (Matt. 7:18). The ontology of the human person will, therefore, ground the nature of human flourishing and thereby sanctification. Spiritual formation is the area of Christian theology that studies sanctification, the Spirit-guided process whereby disciples of Jesus are formed into the image of Jesus (Rom. 8:28-29; 2 Cor. 3:18; 2 Peter 3:18). Until the (...) nineteenth century, there was an overwhelming consensus among Christian thinkers that some form of mind-body (or soul-body) dualism is true of human beings. Recently, that consensus has eroded, and with it the availability of a shared body of knowledge about spiritual formation. Some Christian physicalists argue that dualism is incompatible with central elements of spiritual formation. Neuroscientist Warren Brown and psychologist Brad Strawn offer the only substantive account of spiritual formation from the view of Christian physicalism and its accompanying objections to dualism. It is on their arguments that this chapter focuses. We argue that Brown and Strawn fail to support their incompatibility thesis. Additionally, we argue that Christian physicalism stands in tension with important philosophical and theological foundations of Christian spiritual formation. In doing so we offer a specific form of dualism, the bodily soul view, and explain how this view illuminates the importance of embodiment, our neurological and social development, and hence the important physical aspects of Christian spiritual formation. (shrink)

In this essay I explore the Christian and Humanitarian foundation of BOSCO-Uganda, an international community centered around dignified globalization of Northern Uganda. BOSCO, recipient of the Breaking Borders Award in Technology from Google and Global Voices in 2010, provides off-grid solar, computing, and associated training in over 50 sites scattered across half a dozen districts in the North. Formally an arm of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Gulu, BOSCO unites Christian and secular efforts harmoniously. The main burden of (...) this essay is to present a dialectic overview of an account of Christianity and a theology of collaboration that explains its success in achieving that harmony. (shrink)

Consulting early and medieval Christian thinkers, I theologically analyze the question of how we are to construe and live well with the sociable robot under the ancient theological concept of “glory”—the manifestation of God’s nature and life outside of himself. First, the oft-noted Western wariness toward robots may in part be rooted in protecting a certain idea of the “person” as a relational subject capable of self-gift. Historically, this understanding of the person derived from Christian belief in God (...) the Trinity, an eternally relational and self-giving God who has created all other things. According to this trinitarian anthropology, the “glory” of God is the manifestation of his life outside of himself, especially in human relationships of self-possessed empathic self-giving. Second, the material world can be drawn into this glorification of God by the invention of technologies, including robots. For Christianity, the personal transcends the material, and matter cannot simply be recombined to make a person. Nonetheless, the material world is a lesser glory that echoes fragmentarily the primal self-gift by which God exists. Human persons can marshal these material powers to serve the personal by the invention of technology, which extends the possibilities of human self-giving and, therefore, of God’s “glory.” Third, this Christian account of creation and technology shapes medieval Christian writings on humanoid robots. These “automata” uniquely draw together nature’s deep powers, but they lack true personal interiority and so cannot give themselves. Instead, they are instruments by which humans’ own relational personhood can be developed or degraded. At best, a robotic image of personhood can serve as an “icon,” directing us back to the relationality by which humans echo God. At worst, robots serve as “idols” when they become substitutes for human companions, drawing their users into a utilitarian frame that excludes self-gift by simply mirroring back to the user his or her own aims. I illustrate these outcomes by two medieval legends. In one, robots function iconically as social facilitators; in the other, as ambiguous romantic partners. And fourth, looking to an actual renaissance-era “praying” robot, I will propose that the non-subjective robot might yet “glorify God” within the religious community by representing the prayers of particular humans—thus iconically standing for rather than idolatrously standing in for the relational subject. (shrink)

Black theology is a contemporary mode of theology that critically engages with specific theological motifs in order to affirm the humanity of blacks and emancipate them from white racism. At present, much black theological discourse occurs in Christian contexts, and thus, Hindu religious traditions are bereft of the socially transformative insights that such discourse produces. However, in this paper, I demonstrate that black theological motifs are present within Hindu theological frameworks as well. Specifically, I construct a distinctively (...) Hindu black theology by drawing upon certain theological motifs present within the theological framework of the Caitanya Vaiṣṇava Vedānta tradition. After constructing this black theology, I demonstrate its socio-theological implications and explain how it can fulfil the black theological aim of liberating blacks from white racism. (shrink)

Though scholars of Chinese Theology have expanded the inter-religious dialogue between Christian theology and traditional Chinese philosophy and culture from Neo-Confucianism to other fields such as Taoism, the dialogue with Chinese Buddhism, especially Chan Buddhism, has not been carried out yet. This article mainly reflects on the starting point of Leung In-sing’s Chinese Theology through the perspective of Dharma as Nonduality in Chan. Firstly, it briefly outlines the background and basic ideas of Chinese Theology formulated (...) by Leung In- sing, focusing on discussing the two fundamental theological categories: “Relationship” and “Rapport.” Then, it annotates and analyzes Huineng’s“Dharma as Nonduality.”Finally, from the perspective of Huineng, it rethinks the starting point of Chinese Theology itself and proposes further research questions. (shrink)