This is a book on a positive theology according to Ibn Arabi: a Spain Muslim mystics, His theology is a cure for an atheist. You will find from this book that belief in God is not alienation.

In this paper, I explore the traditional religious account of what can make a life meaningful, namely, the view that one's life acquires significance insofar as one fulfils a purpose God has assigned. Call this view ‘purpose theory’. In the literature, there are objections purporting to show that purpose theory entails the logical absurdities that God is not moral, omnipotent, or eternal. I show that there are versions of purpose theory which are not vulnerable to these reductio arguments. However, I (...) then contend that there is a problem facing purpose theory which no version can avoid. I argue that the best reason for holding a God-centred theory of life's meaning logically precludes the possibility of purpose theory being the correct version of it. More specifically, I argue that if a relationship with God is necessary for one's life to acquire meaning, this must be because God would have properties such as atemporality and simplicity, perfections which are incompatible with purposiveness. I conclude that religious thinkers have good reason to develop other theories of the way God could confer meaning on our lives. (shrink)

Among the many ontological questions the philosophy of religion endeavors to address, perhaps the most controversial is the existence of God. Unraveling this complex question has puzzled philosophers for ages and has kept the spark lit in this theological debate to this day. Along with arguments for—and against—God, there are topics which inevitably follow from such a debate, namely the divine attributes of God and divine action. This essay will briefly expand upon arguments for God’s existence evidenced by some of (...) the most notable theories and concepts about His attributes and how He relates to His creations, namely humans. In addition to assertions made by credible philosophers and theologians, the claims in this essay will also be informed by my own understanding of Christian faith and values. (shrink)

Different opinions about the simplicity of God may be connected with different understandings of how abstract terms are used to name the properties which are affirmed of a being. If these terms are taken to signify parts of that being, this being is not a simple one. Thomas Aquinas, who attributes essence, existence and perfections to God, nevertheless thinks that these are not different parts of God. When essence, existence and perfections are attributed to God, they all denominate the same, (...) the Being of the first cause. For Aquinas, this is a consequence of his way of introducing the language about God by basing it upon the philosophical ways leading to God as first cause. Awareness of this connection between Divine attributes and the arguments for God’s existence is crucial for an adequate understanding of Aquinas’ position. (shrink)

This paper makes two main arguments. First, that to understand analogy in St. Thomas Aquinas, one must distinguish two logically distinct concepts he inherited from Aristotle: one a kind of likeness between things, the other a kind of relation between linguistic functions. Second, that analogy (in both of these senses) plays a relatively small role in Aquinas's treatment of divine naming, compared to the realist semantic framework in which questions about divine naming are formulated and resolved, and on which the (...) coherence of the doctrine of divine simplicity—which is what gives rise to the questions of divine naming in the first place—depends. (shrink)

In this paper, I sketch an argument for the view that we cannot know (or have good reasons to believe) that God exists. Some call this view “strong agnosticism” but I prefer the term “skeptheism” in order to clearly distinguish between two distinct epistemic attitudes with respect to the existence of God, namely, agnosticism and skepticism. For the skeptheist, we cannot know (or have good reasons to believe) that God exists, since there can be neither conceptual (a priori) nor empirical (...) (a posteriori) evidence for the existence of God. (shrink)

In philosophy of religion the term of Immanence is mostly applied to GOD in contrast to the divine Transcendence. This relation, as we will see here, it is not far from the truth since one cannot be without the other, however they are not to be put in contrast, but in conjunction. The one-sided insistence on the immanence of God, to the exclusion of His transcendence, leads to Pantheism, just as the one-sided insistence upon His transcendence, to the exclusion of (...) His immanence, leads to Deism. These two can be separated, but the consequences are great for human knowledge and society; it is the two taken together that result in, and are necessary to Theism. But from the least complicated idea that even the name of God is a manifestation of His immanence contrasting with Deus absconditus, whose existence and name cannot be known or thought, theology and religion in general need to regard immanence of God as crucial for the acts of worship. What are the philosophical background for Christian theology to imply the immanence characteristic for God’s existence related to His creation? – This is the main question the present work tries to answer as an overview. (shrink)

In this paper I attempt to discover the object of Aristotle’s God’s νόησις in Metαphysics Λ.9. In Section I, I catalogue existing interpretations and mention the two key concepts of (i) God’s substancehood and (ii) his metaphysical simplicity. In Section II, I explore the first two aporiae of Λ.9 – namely (1) what God’s οὐσία is and (2) what God intelligizes. In Section III, I show how Aristotle solves these aporiae by contending that God’s οὐσία is actually intelligizing, and being (...) determined to do so by himself, and that the object of his νόησις is himself, such that he intelligizes his own οὐσία, and I explain what this means. In Section IV, I present the second pair of aporiae in Λ.9 and show how, by solving these, Aristotle clarifies the position arrived at in Section III. Lastly, in Section V, I present the final aporia and its solution, and conclude that Aristotle’s God is a radically-unified Narcissus-God who intelligizes his own οὐσία. (shrink)

The Glagolitic alphabet was intended as a political and religious tool for the Slavs in the ninth century. This paper argues that despite its quick suppression, Glagolitic – arguably composed by Constantine The Philosopher (a brother of Methodius) from Thessaloniki – could have been a mystical tool. The relevant historical context and hagiographical material are explored to establish the alphabet’s origins. Uspenskij’s distinction regarding the palaeographic and ideographic origins of scripts is then followed. A short survey of the most relevant (...) graphic features of some letters, their arrangement in the alphabet, their names, and their possible origins is accompanied by a more in-depth discussion of some key graphemes and their mystical potential. Tschernochvostoff’s theory of Glagolitic being woven upon three basic Christian symbols is elaborated on and expanded. Finally, the stunning (acrophonic) naming of the letters is shown as coding comprehensible Christian, and arguably mystical, messages in Proto-Slavic. (shrink)

This paper presents Cusanus’ dialogue of 1462, named after and centred on the concept of non-aliud, and exploits its speculative resources for conceiving the relationship between God and the realm of finite entities. Furthermore, it points to the elements of self-constitution of the absolute and of the latter’s grounding relation towards the contingent. Finally, it is argued that Cusanus’ concept of non-aliud offers a valuable contribution to the present debate about an adequate concept of God.

This discussion note aims to call into question the first part of Gloria Frost’s article, Aquinas and Scotus on the Source of Contingency, devoted to Aquinas’s thought on the source of contingency in creation. I shall discuss three controversial claims that represent the key points of Frost’s interpretation of Aquinas’s account on contingency: with re spect to existence, every creature exists contingently on the grounds that no creature is necessarily willed by God; with respect to cause-and-effect relationship, only those effects (...) that derive from a voluntary cause are contingently caused; God’s will, as a voluntary cause, is a contingently operating cause and thus cannot immediately produce a necessary effect. According to my analysis, Frost’s misinterpretation of Aquinas’s position on contingency in creation derives from the erroneous assumption that, for Aquinas, the freedom of a cause implies the contingency of such a cause and of all the effects following from it. I shall prove that Frost’s misunderstanding consists in neglecting that Aquinas does not endorse this co-implication between freedom and contingency: in fact, if the freedom of a cause indicates that it can refrain from producing its effect, the contingency of a cause means its mutability and fallibility, namely that it can be prevented in producing its effect. (shrink)

Paul Draper argues that given theism we should not expect the amount of pain and suffering we observe in the world. And since the prevalence of such evils is not surprising from a non-theistic perspective, we should reject the theistic hypothesis. But not all surprising observations are necessarily a demerit when it comes to the assessment of a given theoretical perspective. I propose that on Christian theism the prevalence of evil is a surprising feature that contributes to the overall aesthetic (...) merit of the theistic hypothesis. This element of surprise in the world, when considered as a divine drama, sets the stage for an even more surprising dramatic upswing where the work of God solves the central narrative riddle of human history, namely evil and how it can be conquered. (shrink)

Nietzsche’s name has become almost synonymous with militant atheism. Born into a pious Christian family, this son of a Lutheran pastor declared himself the Antichrist. But could this have been yet another of his masks of hardness? Nietzsche rarely revealed his innermost self in the published writings, and this can be gleaned mainly from his private letters and the accounts of friends. These sources bring to light the philosopher’s inner struggle with his own, deeply religious nature.Losing his father at a (...) young age was a calamity from which Nietzsche never recovered, and I argue that his famous thought-image “God is dead” was a transfiguration of the painful memory of this loss. In this essay, I trace Nietzsche’s tortuous path from an ardent devotee of God to a vociferous critic of Christianity, a path that was punctuated with veiled longings for a loving deity. Deep in his heart, he remained faithful to Christian ideals. Rather like Cordelia, the only truly loving daughter of King Lear, Nietzsche refused to utter words of intense affection and reverence, as these had been blatantly devalued and corrupted. Instead, he adopted a mask of a wrongdoer and a blasphemer who took not the punishment but the guilt.Nietzsche’s attitude to religion is discussed from the perspective of his life, his personality, and his mental condition. The discussion draws on psychoanalytical concepts of Freud, Erikson, Winnicott and Kohut. This is not an exclusive reading, but complementary to other studies in this field. (shrink)

Aquinas claims that ‘He Who Is’ is the most proper of the names we have for God. But this attempt to ‘describe’ God with a philosophical concept like ‘being’ can seem dangerously close to creating a false conception based on our limited understanding – an idol. A dominant criticism of Aquinas’ use of this term is that any attempt to use ‘being’ to describe God will inevitably make him merely some object in our ontology alongside other beings, unacceptably mitigating (...) God's radical transcendence and otherness. I will argue that Aquinas has a very creative response to this charge: ‘being’ stands in a unique relationship as the only concept that can ensure we do not draw God under some particular creaturely limit and thus use divine names to create an ‘idol’. In other words, ‘being’ is a special paradigm concept/term which ensures that we preserve humility in our attempts to name God. -/- . (shrink)

God refers to a supernatural or divine being who is the universe's creator and ruler and is often seen as the ultimate source of moral and spiritual authority. Different cultures and religions have different beliefs and ideas about God. Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, described various names and attributes of God, symbolized as "ੴ” (Ik Onkar) in his compositions. This article attempts to describe the concept of God as outlined in Guru Nanak’s hymns. It is pointed out that (...) Guru Nanak's hymns emphasize God's transcendental nature, which is described as formless, eternal, omnipresent and beyond human comprehension. However, he focuses on a personal and accessible relationship with the Divine, where individuals can connect with God through devotion, meditation, and leading a virtuous life. An important spiritual aspect of Guru Nanak’s concept of God is his description of the realization of God, often referred to as "union with the Divine" or "spiritual realization." By promoting the principles of equality, compassion, and service to humanity through his concept of an all-loving, compassionate God, Guru Nanak asserts that by following these values, individuals can experience a closer connection with God and ultimately achieve spiritual enlightenment. (shrink)

Things Fall Apart, No Longer at Ease, Arrow of God and A Man of the People, the first four novels by Chinua Achebe, the contemporary Nigerian novelist, are among the most outstanding works of African postcolonial literature. As a matter of fact, each of these four novels focuses on a different colonial or postcolonial phase of history in Nigeria and through them Achebe intends to provide an authentic record of the negative and positive impacts of ‘hybridity’ on different aspects of (...) the life of native subjects. Briefly stated, Achebe is largely successful in taking advantages of variable discursive tools he structures based on the potentials of the hybrid, Igbo-English he adopts. Thus, it might be deduced that reading these four novels in line with each other, and as chains or sequels of Tetralogy, might result in providing a more vivid picture of the Nigerian (African) subjects and the identity crises emerging in them as a result of colonization. To provide an account of the matter, the present study seeks to focus on one of the discursive strategies Achebe relies on in those four novels: Igbo Naming Cosmology and Name-symbolization. (shrink)

We are living at the dawn of the first truly scientific picture of the universe-as-a-whole, yet people are still dragging along prescientific ideas about God that cannot be true and are even meaningless in the universe we now know we live in. This makes it impossible to have a coherent big picture of the modern world that includes God. But we don't have to accept an impossible God or else no God. We can have a real God if we redefine (...) God in light of knowledge no one ever had before. The key question is, “Could anything actually exist in the scientific universe that is worthy of the name, God?” My answer is yes: God is an “emergent phenomenon,” as real as the global economy or the government or the worldwide web, which are all emergent phenomena. But God arose from something deeper: the complex interactions of all humanity's aspirations. An emerging God has enormous implications. (shrink)

In the traditional sense, a work of art creates an illustration of the outside world, or of a certain text or doctrine. Sometimes it is considered that such an illustration is not literal, but is an interpretation of what is visible, or an interpretation of a certain literary or ideological message. It can also be assumed that a work of art creates its own visual world, a separate story or a separate philosophical statement. The Parc de La Villette represents the (...) last of these possibilities: it is a philosophical statement that develops the premises derived from poststructuralist philosophies and the philosophy of deconstruction. The uniqueness of its being status, however, is that it does so not only at the level of the theoretical assumptions, but also through its functioning as an active philosophical work. This means that a park is a happening philosophy. Its activity, however, does not refer only to the present tense, but is also an attempt to penetrate the future, all otherness and impossibility. This kind of activity assumes that the work, in a sense, does not yet fully exist, but is also still produced in the processes of its interpretation. The theoretical foundations of the park included texts by Bernard Tschumi, in which he questioned traditional ways of creating a work of architecture, postulating in return the use of a long series of negations, which were comparable to the crisis of metaphysics characteristic of contemporary philosophy. It is therefore no coincidence that the publication containing Tschumi’s theoretical text on Parc de La Villette was accompanied by an essay by Jacques Derrida developing some of the architect’s concepts. The next step in integrating philosophy into the process of park design was a series of discussions between Peter Eisenman and Derrida, who completely moved the creation of the park into the world of thoughts, without accentuating the need for their realization in the material reality. The main topic of these discussions was the problem of the chôra, which was taken up by later commentators and used to interpret the park as a work in which the philosophy of the beginning is manifested relating to issues of politics, morality and religion. The park was therefore interpreted as a space of invention within the scope of creating new rules of functioning of the community and democracy. Thinking about the political future may, however, exceed the horizon of ordinary expectations. Although philosophical thought is always connected with contemporary problems and metaphysics sometimes intertwines with current politics, yet at the same time the customs of philosophy also include crossing horizons and thinking about absolute otherness and impossibility. Initially, the chôra, différance, Absolute Otherness (tout autre) and the Impossibile were concepts of pure philosophy of atheistic character, but with the further development of the discussion, more and more theological motifs began to emerge. One of the reasons for this phenomenon was the fact that radical negations of all being, which were contemplated in contemporary philosophy (by Heidegger and Derrida, among others), had previously been manifested in negative and apophatic theologies (by Master Eckhart, among others). Also the category of the “Other”, taken from Emmanuel Levinas, was clearly connected with the thought about God. A further reason for connecting the chôra with the theological thought was the interest in the philosophy of deconstruction expressed by some theologians. Caputo in particular managed to persuade Derrida to participate in discussions on the current status of religion. In the late period of Derrida’s writing, further statements on religious topics appeared. All these reasons led to posing a question about the identity of the chôra and God. Although there were no satisfactory conclusions on this issue, the discussion was also important to create an interpretation of the park as a place of worship. The chôra, representing, according to Plato, the preoriginal emptiness is the place of every beginning, but it turns out that it is not neutral to the being created in it. The chôra deposits itself in every being as an irremovable beginning that interferes with its stability. The chôra, therefore, forces us into a palintropical movement, but it also turns out to be a pure compulsion, an erring necessity and a fundamental force from which, in the human perception, motifs useful to the individual and to the community are extracted. All definitions of this force, including its anthropomorphisation, are formulated in such a way that they allow for building private and collective morality upon them. Such definitions are changed depending on variable political situations. It is difficult to determine whether in the processes of changes in the formulation of “God’s names” any essential value is retained, which is not subject to change. The current definitions of the chôra (God?), which can be found, for example, in the philosophy of Caputo, stress that she is a combination of various and contradictory forces. This characteristic inherits much of Plato’s concept, reminds us of Master Eckhart’s views on Gottheit and, at the same time, is not unfamiliar to Tschumi, whose essays were an apologia of contradictions. The current concept of chôra, transferred into the sphere of politics, is the praise of social diversity and the protection of the difference from the forces of order. In the Parc de La Villette, the future community and democracy were elevated as a system of safe existence of individuals in all their singularity. The park is a temple of a future community in which individual beings have nothing in common. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to clarify Spinoza’s views on some of the most fundamental issues of his metaphysics: the nature of God’s attributes, the nature of existence and eternity, and the relation between essence and existence in God. While there is an extensive literature on each of these topics, it seems that the following question was hardly raised so far: What is, for Spinoza, the relation between God’s existence and the divine attributes? Given Spinoza’s claims that there are (...) intimate connections between God’s essence and his existence – “God’s essence and his existence are one and the same”(E1p20) – and between God’s essence and the attributes – “By attribute I understand what the intellect perceives of substance, as constituting its essence” (E1d4), we would naturally expect that by transitivity, there is a significant relation between God’s existence and the attributes. Yet, as far as I know, there is little, if any, attempt in the existing literature to explicate such a relation, and it is one of my aims of this study to both raise the question and answer it. Eventually, I will argue that for Spinoza God is nothing but existence, and that the divine attributes are just fundamental kinds of existence, or, what is the same, as I will later argue, the intellect’s most fundamental and adequate conceptions of existence. In the first part of the paper I provide some background for Spinoza’s brief discussion in the TTP of God’s name and essence by studying the claims of Maimonides in the Guide of the Perplexed that God’s true essence is necessary existence, and that this essence is denoted by the ineffable Hebrew name of God, the Tetragrammaton (YHVH). In the second part of the paper I point out similar claims Spinoza presents in the TTP, and show how they respond to and echo Maimonides’ discussion in the Guide. In the third part, I examine Spinoza’s apparently conflicting claims in the Ethics about the relationship between God’s essence and existence. In some places Spinoza claims that God’s essence and existence are strictly identical (E1p10: “God’s essence his existence are one and the same”), but in other passages he makes the apparently much more modest claim that God’s essence involves existence (E1d1, E1p7d and E1p11d), which may lead one to believe that there is more to God’s essence than mere existence. I show that Spinoza’s understanding of the relation denoted by the Latin ‘involvit’ is consistent with the strict identification of essence and existence in God, and that Spinoza identifies God’s essence with self-necessitated existence, or eternity. Indeed, Spinoza’s understanding of eternity [aeternitas] as self-necessitated existence (E1d8) is one of the very few Spinozistic concepts that has no trace in Descartes. In this part I will also solve the long-standing problem of the sense in which the infinite modes can be called ‘eternal.’ In the fourth part I turn to the relation between the divine attributes and God’s existence and argue that, for Spinoza, the attributes are self-sufficient and adequate conceptions of existence. Finally, I will attempt to explain what brought Spinoza to deify existence. -/- Part I: “In that Day shall God be One, and his Name One”- Maimonides on God’s Name and Essence. -/- 1.1 Before we delve into the texts, let me suggest a few distinctions between various views on the issue of the relation between essence and existence in God. The view I suspect both Maimonides and Spinoza subscribe to can be termed the divine essence-existence Identity Thesis. -/- Identity Thesis (IT): God’s essence is existence and nothing but existence. We should distinguish the Identity Thesis from the much more common view according to which God’s essence contains existence, or (which I take to be roughly the same) that existence is one of the properties or perfections which constitute God’s essence. The latter view allows for the possibility (though it does not demand) that there is more to God’s essence than bare existence (e.g., God’s essence may include omniscience, omnipotence, etc.). I will term this view the divine essence-existence Containment Thesis. (shrink)

In contemporary philosophy of religion, the two most standard approaches to predicates of God are analogy and univocation. While analogy lacks precision and is best used in liturgical and sacred texts, univocal predicates are problematic because they seem to lead to ontological monism of sameness between God and creatures, which cannot be allowed within metaphysics of Absolute Being. In this article, I examine and contrast G. Frege’s approach to univocal predications and L. Wittgenstein’s notion of language-games, which allows us to (...) move away from univocation as a case of strong identity toward univocation as the extra-linguistic context of human activities. Indeed, that human context can be shared with ‘Goodness,’ ‘Wisdom,’ ‘Simplicity,’ ‘Love’ and many other predicates we attribute to God. I argue that our language of univocal predicates must reflect not the abstract concepts but that same context of divine and human activities in which names of God achieve univocal context. Key words: analogy, univocal predicates, G. Frege, L. Wittgenstein, contextual principle, language-games . (shrink)

This paper reveals the concept of ma'rifa developed by Ibn al-'Arabi (d.1260), , especially in his magnum opus, Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam, the late work considered to the synthesis of his doctrine of metaphysics represented through the wisdom of each prophet; their uniqueness of divinely inspired and their epitome of spiritual perception, concerning the knowledge of God. It shows the transformative role of the prophet’s messages involving in the deeper creative process of divine-human dialogue, calling and response, that is repeatedly mentioned in (...) the Qur’an. Ibn ‘Arabi emphasized the importance of perceiving the direct relationship between all of creation and the divine Names and Attributes (al-asmā’ wa-l-sifāt al-ilāhiyyah), between creation as outward manifestation and as inward spiritual awareness (rūh). Everything that exists and is experienced in reality is the manifestation (tajallī) of different divine Names. (shrink)

Based on a question posed by global philosophy of religion project regarding the absence of literal attribution of omnibenevolence to God in the Qur’ān, this paper aims to examine how to understand perfect goodness in Islam. I will first discuss the concept of perfect goodness and suggest that perfect goodness is not an independent attribute on its own and it is predicated on other moral attributes of God without which the concept of perfect goodness could hardly be understood. I will (...) examine perfect goodness by a specific emphasis on the attribute of justice as one of the conditions to be satisfied by a perfectly morally good being. In so doing, I will appeal to the distinctions made among great-making properties by Daniel Hill, and Al-Ghazālī’s definition of justice by applying them to God’s moral attributes. I will argue that justice has a crucial role in maximality-optimality balance between great-making properties and it seems quite difficult, if not impossible, to conceive of goodness without justice. Having said that, I will claim that the conceptual frame I suggest sheds light on why omnibenevolence is not literally attributed to God in the Qur’ān. Then, I will briefly show how the divine attributes mentioned in the Qur’ān and the discussions about divine names and attributes in the Islamic tradition supports the understanding of perfect goodness I defend. Consequently, I will try to show that far from indicating that the Islamic concept of God doesn’t involve perfect goodness, the Qur’ān establishes the proper meaning of perfect goodness by focusing on its constitutive attributes, and thus provides us with a sound conception of it. (shrink)

In this article, I explore the possibility of what I call “non-doxastic theistic prayer”, namely prayer that proceeds without full belief in God – or in the kind of God who could be the recipient of such prayer. After developing a working definition of prayer, I proceed to discuss a few prominent forms of prayer and explore the ways in which such prayer might legitimately be performed non-doxastically. I conclude by examining the possibility that some forms of what I call (...) “prayerful pretense” may be more epistemically and morally virtuous than their fully doxastic counterparts. (shrink)

Part of the Elements Philosophy of Religion series, this short book focuses on the spiritual dimensions of life’s meaning as they have been discussed in the recent English and mainly analytic philosophical literature. The overarching philosophical question that this literature has addressed is about the extent to which, and respects in which, spiritual realities such as God or a soul would confer meaning on our lives. There have been four broad answers to the question, namely: God or a soul is (...) necessary for meaning in our lives; they are not necessary for it; one or both would enhance the meaning in our lives; and they would detract from it. These views have been largely advanced in chronological order through the history of Western philosophy, with the view that life would be meaningless without God and a soul having been most prominent in the medieval period, the rejection of this claim having arisen in the modern era, and then sophisticated positions about enhancement or reduction having appeared in earnest only in the past 20 years. This book addresses all four positions, paying particular attention to the more recent views. Beyond familiarizing readers with these positions, it presents prima facie objections to them, points out gaps in research agendas, and suggests argumentative strategies that merit development. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the Hasidic view, namely, that human flaws do not function as a barrier between a fallen humanity and a perfect deity, since the whole of creation stems from a divine act of self-contraction. Thus, we need not be discouraged by our own shortcomings, nor by those of our loved ones. Rather, seeing our flaws in the face of another should remind us that imperfection is an aspect of the God who created us. Such a positive approach (...) to human fallibility arouses forgiveness, mutual acceptance, and a hope for repair, and, therefore, has much to recommend itself. In the first part of the paper, I argue that the notion of a perfect God derives from the Greeks rather than the Hebrew Bible. A review of classical philosophies and the idea of God’s imperfection is followed by a consideration of several Jewish attempts to resolve the dichotomy between Divine perfection and an imperfect creation. I focus on Lurianic Kabbalah, Hans Jonas, and on the Hasidic concept of "Ayin " or “nothingness” as the very source of redemption. This Hasidic idea, which was further expanded upon by the Baal Shem Tov’s students, appears in a tale recounted by his great-grandson R. Nachman of Bratslav called “The Hanging Lamp.” I focus on the tale, which illustrates the idea that knowledge of human imperfection is itself a means of perfection and redemption. (shrink)

That “God is dead” is the first thing that would recall to mind the moment one invokes or mentions the name of Nietzsche, as if that’s the only thing people knew of him, that his name has become almost synonymous with atheism. The author defends Nietzsche by arguing that although he is against Christianity, Nietzsche is not totally against God, and a life-giving God is reconcilable into Nietzsche’s thought. -/- Keywords: Nietzsche and Religion, Philosophy and Faith, Filipino Religiousity.

This article-testimony can be seen as an example of a maybe new discipline that could be called "scientific metaphysics" made of thoughts experiments, definitions, some proofs, some explanations, some conjectures. Of course, to be called science, the discipline needs some possibility of "verification" too. We will see if it can be considered. -/- We start from a thought experiment: -/- Can the universe defined as U_Def be aware conscious of itself as whole? -/- This question is a variant of the (...) more familiar: -/- Can the universe be aware conscious? -/- We can distinguish two main approaches in human history in the attempts at answering this second question: 1) the approach by the bottom with a weak version of consciousness: it includes "panpsychic" like theories. 2) the approach by the head with a strong version of consciousness: it includes "holistic" theories. Spinoza's "Pantheism", for example, can be considered as one of them, even if some interpretations of Spinoza's metaphysics are not satisfied with the equation "god = universe". -/- The purpose developed in this article belongs to the second kind of approach. After a definition of the universe \emph{U}$_{\textit{Def}} $ in 7 points and the introduction of 3 premisses, one of them being devoted to our definition of "strong consciousness", we suggest an answer to the initial question and we draw the most important among numerous consequences: - semantical jump by META-abstraction and introduction of the holistic semantics; - extension of the natural language to a supra-natural language; - highlighting of a higher-order solipsism; - etc. -/- We devote some attention to the notion of "model" in its logical and philosophical acceptation and we introduce the notion of evolutional self-modelization. (shrink)

Knowing someone personally centrally involves engaging in various patterns of affective response. Inasmuch as humans can know God personally, this basic insight about the relationship between personal knowledge and affective response also applies to God: knowing God involves responding to him, and to the world, in various affectively toned ways. In light of this insight, I explore how one particular practice might contribute to human knowledge of God: namely, engaging with sacred music – in particular, sacred music in the Western, (...) classical tradition. In investigating this topic, I tackle an issue at the interface between the philosophy of religion and aesthetics: sacred music’s capacity to arouse religious emotions. I use as a springboard Peter Kivy’s view that ‘music alone’ can only arouse emotions about itself. This view, I argue, has a counterintuitive consequence: the music in sacred works would play no part in arousing emotions with religious objects. In contrast, I develop an account of how music combines with religious factors to arouse religious emotions. I then draw out two consequences for how music can facilitate understanding between religious and non-religious outlooks. The upshot of all this, I suggest, is that by expanding the listener’s religious-emotional landscape, sacred music can enrich her knowledge of God – and that this is possible whether or not the listener subscribes propositionally to God’s reality or to any other religious doctrines. (shrink)

Could Christians and Muslims be referring to the same God? Consider Gareth Evans’s causal theory of reference, on which a name refers to the dominant source of information in the name’s “dossier”. I argue that information about experiences, in which God is simply the object of acquaintance, can dominate the dossier. Thus, this "demonstrative" use of names offers a promising alternative avenue by which users of the divine names can refer to the same referent despite having different conceptions (...) of God. (shrink)

James Sterba has constructed a powerful argument for there being a conflict between the presence of evil in the world and the existence of God. I contend that Sterba’s argument depends on a crucial assumption, namely, that God has an obligation to act according to the principle of meticulous providence. I suggest that two of his analogies confirm his dependence on this requirement. Of course, his argument does not rest on either of these analogies, but they are illustrative of the (...) role that meticulous providence plays in his argument. I then investigate the ethical principles Sterba invokes in his use of meticulous providence and suggest that not only do we often not predicate goodness of human persons based on these principles of obligation, but that these principles are much too stringent to function to determine moral obligations and moral goodness. From there, I contend that to think that God has a similar obligation regarding meticulous providence in order to be good encounters several serious problems, especially with respect to the soul-building Sterba wants to preserve. I conclude by considering Sterba’s reply in terms of a limited application of meticulous providence. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationships between perception, representation and appetition in Leibniz's later metaphysics, and defends four theses. First, for Leibniz perceptions are not the carriers of content, but they are identical to representational content. Second, Leibniz's appetitions are the carriers of content and he should be taken at his word when he declares, "Thought consists in conatus". Third, while it is true that for Leibniz representational content is determined by a species of mapping or function from representation to what (...) is represented, this is not the only component that determines representational content for Leibniz. The correspondence in terms of which Leibniz characterizes representation includes an ontological component, namely a lineage or trace from representation to represented object via God's creation, and appetitions constitute this trace. Finally, Leibniz's account of how ideas represent and how perceptions represent are distinct, and derivation plays a key role in how ideas represent. (shrink)

If this can be seen as a long way from the beginning of the ancient history, where humans have envisioned different new things and then invented them to make their life’s working smoother and easier, then it can be found that they have attributed their discoveries to various aspects and names of Gods and tried to signify their belief in the form of portraying the God’s powers through the nature of their discovery. Rather, in much modern times, when humans (...) have developed the natural insights and prorated those in the form of a much more logically biased discovery, then, the atheists have started to dominate the scientific arena for their foreplay in the work of their discoveries. However, as time passes by, five special types of research communities have gathered to allocate their discovered data’s in the respective norms as such, i) Atheists to whom, there is in essence no God and nothing in this universe can be attributed to them. ii) Believer of only one God as a whole, where the principle of religious biasing is effluent and supreme in their regards of the physical laws associated with the life and stimuli, iii) Believer of multiple God’s as a whole which poses no such scientific evaluation but can be thought of as a conjugate mechanism for the creator of the universe, iv) A divine supreme, where there is exactly no God, but the whole universe is a manifestation of the nature, where nature indirectly focuses the presence of God’s or the supreme creator that maintains symmetry and working of the universe, v) The not-so-sure about mechanism of the God’s presence, where the researcher sometimes tends to belief in God when something magical happens and attribute all to their divine grace, or in times of failures where they accused them for not being philosophically intrinsic as to their own needs, and in times with the believe that, ‘we won’t believe what we can’t see!’, either in the middle of the good or bad moments or in general in a casual and carefree mode. But, this should be kept in mind, that, the Eastern mysticism has always signifies God’s action in terms of every scientific actions with a proper mythological essence which when accompanied by knowledge produces something so scientific in the ancient of the days, that modern day researchers also have had no options left than to attribute affirmation to the fantastic achievements in the ‘so’ ancient times discovery with a strict modern effluence. Therefore, to model this paper, I have gathered data’s and ideas from researchers of various fields mostly (PhDs) in their respective discipline, so as to emulate their minds in the norms of God and its associated beliefs. (shrink)

This paper explores Polo's proposal of an anthropological access to God's existence in addition to the traditional metaphysical Five Ways. More specifically, it focuses on the role of intellectual habits, in particular the habit of wisdom and the habit of personal intellect, in acquiring knowledge of God as the creator of the person. Habitual knowledge, according to Polo, is possible because the agent intellect illuminates intelligible contents, may that be the phantasm, to operations of the intellectual faculty or any (...) other actualization and perfection of the intellect. Through that illumination, the agent intellect communicates freedom to human nature, rendering the former open to unrestricted growth. The anthropological path to God depends on the habit of wisdom by which we come to know ourselves, not just in our nature and faculties but in the source of what makes our nature capable of unrestricted growth and freedom, namely, our personal act of being. It is when we know our personal act of being that we also glance at the Creator of our freedom, not just as a cause of it, but as the kind of Co-existence that brings us into co-existence. (shrink)

Abstract: In this paper, I respond to James Sterba’s recent book ‘Is a Good God Logically Possible?’ I show that Sterba concludes that God is not logically possible by ignoring three important issues: (a) the different functions of leeway indeterminism (and the political freedom presupposed by it) and autonomy (the two are very different things, even though both go under the name of freedom), (b) the differences in the conditions of agency in God and in creatures, (there is non-parity in (...) how each must apply the single moral law), and (c) the non-parity between our knowledge and God’s. I provide a brief summary of Sterba’s arguments, and I develop the following points: 1. Sterba’s argument against a Free-Will Defense hinges on his conflation of political freedom and autonomy; 2. Sterba’s crucial premise for his argument against soul-making theodicies (namely, that the “Pauline Principle” should be applied univocally across God and creatures) is false; 3. Sterba’s arguments against skeptical theism depend on his assumption that our knowledge is comparable to that of God. In each case, Sterba either does not recognize non-parity between God and creatures or does not recognize the difference between the profane (e.g., political matters) and the sacred, (e.g., spiritual matters having to do with the inner nature of the soul’s development). (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that the Incarnation of the Son of God, understood in a traditionally orthodox way, is incompatible with an atemporalist concept of God. First, I explain what I mean by atemporalism, namely the idea that God exists outside time. I also show the main corollaries of that doctrine, most notably that all of God’s life occurs eternally simultaneously. Second, based on New Testament teaching and widely accepted creeds, I spell out philosophically what I mean by the (...) Incarnation. In short, I take it to be the doctrine that the Second Person of the Trinity at some point in time took on a human body as part of a fully human nature. I then proceed to my central argument, which derives a contradiction from the definitions of the Incarnation and of atemporalism, respectively. In the last section, I shall treat some possible objections to my argument and show that they do not solve the problem satisfactorily. (shrink)

The theory of proper names proposed by J.S. Mill in A system of logic (1843), and discussed in S. Kripke’s Naming and necessity (1980), is shown to be predated by A. Rosmini’s Nuovo saggio sull’origine delle idee (1830) and T. Reid’s Essays on the intellectual powers of man (1785). For philological reasons, Rosmini probably did not obtain his view of proper names from Reid. For philosophical reasons, it is unlikely that he got it from Hobbes, Locke, Smith, or (...) Stewart. Although not explicitly indicated by Rosmini himself, he may have been influenced by St. Thomas, who in Summa theologica discusses suppositum and natura in relation to the equivocal functions of the terms ”God” and ”sun” as common and proper names. As previously observed, forerunners of the idea can be found in Antiquity, in Plato’s Theaetetus and Aristotle’s Metaphysics. From a historical point of view, the fully developed ”Millian” opinion that connotation is not a fundamental aspect of proper names, and that their referents are not fixed by description, could more accurately be termed the Reid-Rosmini-Mill theory. (shrink)

In The Divine Fractal, Studtmann (2021) introduced a novel conception of God, what he calls the symmetry conception, and showed that such a conception not only can be formalized within extensional non-well-founded set theory but also entails the Thomistic view that God is identical to her essence. In this paper, I show that Studtmann’s symmetry conception of God can be integrated into a recent approach to quantum gravity, namely causal set theory. The theory that results has two significant consequences. First, (...) God is the necessarily existing set of spacetime events. Second, the square root of the probability that a spacetime event randomly chosen from N spacetime events is uncaused is given by the following formula: ((Harmonic [N])/N)^(1/2). I conclude the paper by briefly discussing a connection between this formula and the cosmological constant. (shrink)

The category of metaphysical evil introduced by Leibniz appears to cast a sinister shadow over the goodness of creation. It seems to imply that creatures, simply in virtue of not being gods, are to some degree intrinsically and inescapably evil. After briefly unpacking this difficulty and outlining a recent attempt to deal with it, this paper returns to the texts to propose a novel and multilayered understanding of Leibniz’s category of metaphysical evil by reading it against the backdrop of the (...) traditional typologies of evil with which he was unquestionably familiar. It comes to the conclusion that metaphysical evil plays two key roles for Leibniz. First, it captures what Aquinas and especially Suarez meant by ‘natural evil’. Contrary to the common assumption that it is Leibniz’s category of physical evil that holds the place of natural evil, the paper shows that Leibniz’s physical evil corresponds to Augustine’s category of evil of punishment for sin whereas natural evil – intended as a kind of evil which is not related to moral responsibility -- is subsumed under metaphysical evil. Secondly, the category of metaphysical evil covers also the notion of original creaturely imperfection. In classifying creaturely limitation as a kind of evil Leibniz breaks from the Augustinian-Thomist-Scholastic tradition and its distinction between negatio and privatio. On the other hand, notwithstanding this important break, Leibniz’s notion of metaphysical evil is intended to account for something which is firmly within the broadly Augustinian-Scholastic tradition, namely the ascription to all creatures of a limitation that stems from their being created ex nihilo. Finally, the paper returns a verdict of non-guilty to the charge that Leibniz’s metaphysical evil implies that creatures qua creatures are to some extent necessarily intrinsically evil. More generally, in typical Leibnizian fashion, the notion of metaphysical evil will appear to be a complex mix of indebtedness to tradition and bending of received doctrines into something significantly different. (shrink)

The story of Miss Mary Mitchell Slessor is not a story of a clairvoyant legend who existed in an abstract world but a historical reality that worked around the then Old Calabar estuary and died on the 15th of January, 1915 at Ikot Oku Use, near Ikot Obong in the present day Akwa Ibom State and was buried at “Udi Mbakara” (Whiteman’s grave) in Calabar, Cross River State. Mary was one of those early missionaries that went to villages in the (...) then Old Calabar where few missionaries dared to go in order to bring hope and light to the people that were in darkness. Through her evangelistic efforts, schools and hospitals were erected on her initiative, babies and twins saved from death, barbaric rites and customs stopped because of her undaunted love and passion for God and the people. After a centenary of death, one can easily conclude that what immortalizes a person is not what he does for himself but what he does for others. Mary Slessor’s name, work and care for twins can never be forgotten even in another century to come. The tripartite purpose of this paper is to first examine the stepping out of Mary Slessor from her comfort zone to Calabar (her initial struggle), her passion for the people of Old Calabar and her relational method of evangelism that endeared her to the heart of the people. (shrink)

In § 37 of his "Elements of First Practical Philosophy", Baumgarten provides important qualifications to the controversial notion of ‘objective morality’, which had long been at the centre of the dispute between realists like Wolff and his adversaries. The chapter shall examine how he construes his view of morality in §§ 36-38 with a specific focus on the central § 37. I shall analyse that section, first considering how Baumgarten understands the key notion of ‘objective morality’ and how he argues (...) for it, focusing both on its relational character and its connection with God’s will. Then I will examine the last, and arguably most surprising of the implications that he draws per negativum from the main claim, namely that affirming objective morality does not amount to rule out what Baumgarten calls ‘subjective morality’. Finally, I will briefly consider how Baumgarten’s distinctive way to take side in the Wolffian camp in that dispute reflects, through the close dialogue with the "Elements" in Kant’s private notes and lectures, on the development of Kant’s own views in practical philosophy. (shrink)

Atheists have tacitly conceded the field to theists in the area of philosophical cosmology, specifically, in the enterprise of explaining why the universe exists. The theistic hypothesis is that the reason the universe exists lies in God’s creative choice, but atheists have not proposed any reason why the universe exists. I argue that quantum cosmology proposes such an atheistic reason, namely, that the universe exists because it has an unconditional probability of existing based on a functional law of nature. This (...) law of nature (“the wave function of the universe”) is inconsistent with theism and implies that God does not exist. I criticize the claims of Alston, Craig, Deltete and Guy, Oppy and Plantinga that theism is consistent with quantum cosmology. (shrink)

This treatise explores key themes in Bahá’í theology such as the absolute transcendence of God, the Essence of God, the names and attributes of God, the apophatic theology of the Bahá’í Faith, God’s unknowability, the revelation of God, emanation and manifestation, and the Manifestation of God. -/- The original-language treatise translated and annotated here was first published as “Mabáníy-i-‘Aqá’id-i- Ulúhíyyat va Tawḥíd: part 1,” in Muṭáli‘iy-i-Ma‘árif-i-Bahá’í 1 (1973–74). It was later republished as part of a collection of Dávúdí’s essays (...) on the Essence of God and His Manifestation, titled Ulúhíyyat va Maẓharíyyat (60–133). The translation of Dávúdí’s treatise is in the body of the text; the translator’s annotation appears in the in-text citation and footnotes. (shrink)

Divine simplicity is central to Thomas Aquinas’s philosophy of God. Most important for Aquinas is his view that God’s existence (esse) is identical to God’s essence; for everything other than God, there is a distinction between existence and essence. However, recent developments in analytic philosophy about the nature of existence threaten to undermine what Aquinas thought regarding divine simplicity. In the first chapter of this dissertation, I trace Aquinas’s thinking on divine simplicity through the various texts he wrote regarding the (...) matter. I establish that it is crucial for Aquinas that God is identical to his existence. But, is it even coherent to talk about “a thing’s existence?” In Chapter Two I summarize the arguments of C.J.F. Williams that existence is not a real property that individuals have and that predicating the word “exists” after the name of an individual produces linguistic gibberish. After considering, and rejecting, in Chapter Three attempts by some philosophers to refute Williams’s arguments, I turn, in Chapter Four, to a more detailed account of what Aquinas means by esse, the Latin word often rendered in English as “existence.” The conclusion that I come to is that Aquinas does not mean by esse what contemporary philosophers have usually meant by “existence.” Rather, he understands esse to be the act by which anything can be anything at all, instead of there being nothing whatsoever. In the final chapter, I turn to implications of this for Aquinas’s views of divine simplicity, showing that rather than being incoherent, Aquinas’s thinking on esse points toward the unfathomable mystery that is God. (shrink)

Martin Heidegger has retrospectively characterized his philosophy as “phenomenology of the invisible”. This paradoxical formula suggests that the aim of his thinking was to examine the origin of the phenomena. Furthermore, Heidegger has also stated that his philosophy is ultimately motivated by a theological interest, namely the question of God’s absence. Following the guiding thread of those remarks, this essay analyzes the essential traits of Heidegger’s thought by interpreting them as an attempt to develop a phenomenology of the invisible. Heidegger’s (...) attitude towards physics and metaphysics, his theory of truth, his reading of Aristotle, his concept of Dasein, his understanding of nothingness are all situated within the problematic context of the relation between the invisible and the revealed. Heidegger’s thought is thereby posited at the point of intersection of phenomenology, ontology, and theology. (shrink)

This paper suggests a general interpretative strategy for reading Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason namely, as an attempt to find a middle ground between what Kant considers two forms of excess: the appeal to a transcendent conception of God and the denial of any claim that presupposes God’s existence. To make my case, I use the example of two contemporary thinkers (Wolterstorff and Rorty) and trace their dispute to the antinomic character of “religious reason.” Putting things this way (...) underscores the originality of Kant’s view: the wake-up call of an antinomy serves us to motivate Kant’s solution to the problem raised by dogmatic religious claims, as well as to capture what is the distinctive ethical function he reserved for religion in the critical system, i.e., the support of the non-individualistic virtues involved in shared undertakings and common pursuits. Throughout the discussion, I show the importance that radical evil had in Kant’s “constructing” the idea of God. (shrink)

Perhaps nowhere better than, "On the Names of God," can readers discern Laclau's appreciation of theology, specifically, negative theology, and the radical potencies of political theology. // It is Laclau's close attention to Eckhart and Dionysius in this essay that reveals a core theological strategy to be learned by populist reasons or social logics and applied in politics or democracies to come. // This mode of algorithmically informed negative political theology is not mathematically inert. It aspires to relate a (...) fraction or ratio to a series ... It strains to reduce the decided determinateness of such seriality ever condemned to the naive metaphysics of bad infinity. // It is worth considering that it is the specific 'number' of Dionysius in differential identification with an ineffable god (and, as such, a singular becoming between theology and numbers) that is floating in at least two dimensions [of signification] (be it political Demand on the horizontal dimension or theological Desire on [a] floating dimension) that cannot but *perform the link that relinks* names of god with any political life, populist reason, social justice, or radical democracy straining toward peace. (shrink)

Tschumi believes that the quality of architecture depends on the theoretical factor it contains. Such a view led to the creation of architecture that would achieve visibility and comprehensibility only after its interpretation. On his way to creating such an architecture he took on a purely philosophical reflection on the basic building block of architecture, which is space. In 1975, he wrote an essay entitled Questions of Space, in which he included several dozen questions about the nature of space. The (...) questions he formulated could be regarded as analogous to the situation in the philosophy of the time, in which the interest in questioning the most obvious forms of understanding the world and intellectual categories increased. The research on space is an area common to many fields of natural sciences, humanities and artistic creation, but it also deals with other problems, such as issues of experience. The concept of space-time continuum proposed by Hermann Minkowski drew attention to the identity of time and space with the events taking place. Probably regardless of the postulates of physicists commenting on Einstein’s discoveries, also in philosophy it increased the importance of the concept of the event which became dominant in Heidegger’s latest work Contributions of Philosophy. Of the event. Furthermore, Tschumi’s reflections on space entered into relation with the problem of experience, which aroused the interest of a group of French philosophers trying to assimilate Georges Bataille’s concept of “inner experience”. Both Tschumi and Derrida referred to Bataille because his views could be used not only to modify the concept of the subject, but also to change the understanding of what constitutes the area of architecture. The discussion on experience has led to the recognition that the subject is not sovereign, but actually a form of what is on their outside. Such insights make it possible to treat the area of the Parc de La Villette as existing mainly when it is organised by its users. The decisive features of the Park are its assumptions, according to which it is a variety of active void that leads to agreeing new social relations with it. The park does not force to participate in already existing moral or political communities, but tries to move into an unknown future in which the scope of free functioning of individuals will be increased. Doubts about the principles of functioning of the individual self and its discovery as a whole composed of non-coherent parts, as well as its dependence on its own depth full of disordered forces, influenced the understanding of architecture as a set of contradictions whose source is a fundamental void anticipating the empty phenomenal space. The use of this phenomenal void in architecture, as well as the rejection of the whole and unity, had a specific political purpose and drew its inspiration from political analyses. In the Parc de La Villette, metaphysics and politics were brought closer together because the philosophy of void was used to create new conditions for community action. It can be argued that the source of this philosophy was the perception of errors in existing societies dependent on the shortcomings of traditional metaphysics. Spacing (espacement) was one of the key terms in Derrida’s philosophy, which was also combined with the concepts of différance and chôra. The study of the nature of space, especially its transition from the level of pure possibility to the level of sensual phenomenon, also contributes to understanding how well designed space can have an impact on its audience. This explanation is based on Tschumi’s assumption that the space of the Parc de La Villette contradicts the integrating approaches and instead exposes contradictions, but it does so in a way that combines incompatible properties into a single piece of architecture. The specificity of such integration is similar to the invention of a musical phrase, which is an ideological message: moral and political. Such a thesis may raise doubts, however, if both the clearly adopted assumptions and those deduced from the work allow for their ↪Quart Nr 2(52)/2019 logically ordered presentation then to a limited extent it may be assumed that the work has achieved a connection between a specific philosophy of space and its practical application. Derrida combined the problem of spatiality with the problem of transcendental imagination in Kant’s philosophy, who in the first version of Critique of Pure Reason assumed that pure imagination precedes the appearance of time and space, even in their transcendental forms. The imagination in such a situation can be described as a factor activating time and space, which indicates what function is played by movement in this activity. This leads us to recognize that the ultra originary source of pure forms of sensual intuition is movement, which in early Greek philosophy was identified with void and its lack of resistance to phenomena occurring in it. Derrida’s philosophy in search of a certain super-transcendental source of time and space pointed to différance which, like void or the chôra, does not have material features or even any other form of being. Différance is the primary cause of the disruption of motionlessness and the introduction of activity into motionless time and space, thus its activity can be described as spacing (espacement). Derrida’s discoveries in this respect are not entirely original, because Hegel already pointed out when examining the present that it is primarily a differential relation (differente Beziehung), which, being seemingly neutral, influences the present with supernatural force and makes it unidentifiable with itself. Differente Beziehung must similarly influence the originary space, negating its initial character by multiplying its divisions and expanding its boundaries. Différance acts by revealing contradictions wherever there is apparent undifferentiation. Tschumi, composing the Parc de La Villette as a variety of void and a set of incompatible layers, followed the rules of différance or the chôra: he made void visible together with its saturation with contradictions. If space can be considered to be the result of the activity of difference, such activity has a certain regularity, which influences the behaviour of its observers. Differences or contradictions fall into a certain rhythm, which can be considered a manifestation of transcendent order. The problem is that what can be considered the source of such order, namely the logos or God, is partly disorder and error. According to descriptions contained in Timaeus, the world is a combination of forces that drive to order with forces of erroneous necessity that resounds in every order and forces it to return to disorder. Derrida denied the possibility of understanding différance as a theological value, even if it were a negative or apophatic theology, but no categorical denial could be perfect. The assumption that différance or the chôra are not endowed with any substance properties cannot deny their activity, and thus a certain force. Already since Democritus, philosophy has multiplied the names of such a force and the contradictory variety of its manifestations, never forgetting also the necessity for reason to withdraw from the possibility of giving its correct characteristics. Such a withdrawal may be interpreted as an expression of respect and, in certain situations, as a cult of the force that precedes reasonableness. The Parc de La Villette, which is an artistic divagation about the contradictions and forces behind them, can be considered as a place of their sublimation, and therefore as a variation of the temple of what differs from order and disorder. (shrink)

Two central accounts of human cognition emerge over the course of the Middle Ages: the theory of divine illumination and an Aristotelian theory centered on abstraction from sense data. Typically, these two accounts are seen as competing views of the origins of human knowledge; theories of divine illumination focus on God’s direct intervention in our epistemic lives, whereas Aristotelian theories generally claim that our knowledge derives primarily (or even entirely) from sense perception. In this paper, I address an early attempt (...) to reconcile these two accounts—namely, Robert Grosseteste’s commentary on Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics—and I argue that Grosseteste’s efforts to bring Aristotle’s account of human cognition into harmony with a theory of divine illumination proves both philosophically interesting and largely successful. Grosseteste’s claim that God does not directly illumine our intellects in this life opens his theory to the worry that Grosseteste leaves the divine out of his theory of divine illumination in the CPA. Steven Marrone, for example, holds that Grosseteste’s Aristotelian focus in this work causes him to abandon the theory of divine illumination he advocated in the earlier De veritate in favor of a modified theory of “human” illumination. I argue in contrast that Grosseteste does give God a role in human knowledge in the CPA—a role that allows human beings to remain largely responsible for the acquisition of knowledge while still requiring God’s illumination for actual cognition. In short, I conclude that, although human bodies interfere with God’s direct illumination of our intellects, God nevertheless plays a crucial ideogenic role in human cognition by illuminating the objects of our intellection and making them intelligible to us. (shrink)

Citation:Christodoulou, Marina. “Technopolis as the Technologised Kingdom of God. Fun as Technology, Technology as Religion in the 21st Century. God sive Fun.” Cahiers d'études germaniques N° 74, 2018. La religion au XXIe siècle - Perpectives et enjeux de la discussion autour d'une société post-séculière. Études reunites par Sébastian Hüsch et Max Marcuzzi, 119-132. -/- -------- -/- Neil Postman starts his book Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (1993)1 with a quote from Paul Goodman’s New Reformation: “Whether or not it (...) draws on new scientific research, technology is a branch of moral philosophy, not of science.” (Postman 1993: motto; Goodman 2010: 40). I would extend Postman’s Technopoly to Technopolis, to give it more of a presence in time and space. Hence, I will use the term Technopoly when I am referring to Postman; the term Technopolis is my own. -/- In his book From Faith to Fun: The Secularisation of Humour, Russel Heddendorf argues that humour is a technology (Heddendorf 2009: 32-34), as it is understood and theorized by Neil Postman in Technopoly. Russel Heddendorf also argues that “Technopoly” is a term correlated with Wittgenstein’s use of the term “worldview” (Weltanschauung) (Heddendorf 2009: 11). -/- I would like to draw on these thoughts to propose that Technopoly (or Technopolis) could be the secularized Kingdom of God, namely that Technology is the Religion of the 21st century, and that Fun is a paradigm of such a Technology / Technique. God is yet another technique or Technology of and in Technopoly. -/- The godless individual in the 21st century, I will argue, is as much a believer as the faithful in the Sacred Religion (term used in opposition to Secular or rather Technological or Technologized Religion, which is Fun). He believes in Fun (as a post-modern form of pleasure), as much as the believer believes, or more accurately, believed in God. In the 21st century, the faithful in Sacred Religion believes in a fun God, as opposed to the serious God of the past. Fun is turning into the Technologized Religion for all; for the faithful in Godly / Sacred Religion, as well for as the unfaithful. Fun (pleasure, humour) is the definitive qualia of 21st century pleasure. The mechanics of Fun make it absolutely functional for controlling people; as Aldous Huxley wrote in Brave New World, people “are controlled by inflicting pleasure” (cited in Heddendorf 2009: 158). Now, indulging in pleasure is having Fun. In the 21st century, nobody is unfaithful, nobody disputes God, because God has been manufactured into Fun. We are living in the most religious century of all. -/- The commodity of God, now inextricably blended into work and leisure ethics and culture, is as unavoidable as survival. You don’t work, you don’t survive, you don’t exist. You work, you are entitled to leisure, or free time – the time (“busy-time”) when you are busy is work. The free time of leisure (“fun-time”) is a time for fun (pleasure). The time dedicated to Fun is culturally (capitalistically) pre-defined; no moment is actually free, each moment that is sold as free is to be bought with Work Time tokens –which is money. Believe is Enjoy. Happiness, achieved through pleasure, and pleasure through Fun, and Life as Play, is the recipe for Teleology in the 21st century. -/- The Technological God (Fun), as the Sacred God before him, is sovereignty’s technique or a social “mode of release”: demonstrations, marches, petitions, freedom of speech, citizen and human rights vindications, are “modes of release”, so that the next day, feeling relieved and released that you are working for a better life and a better world, you can wake up cheerfully to walk to your workplace, feeling it will change because of your marching, or your petition, or your speech, or the mass you attended, or the prayer you said yesterday. Thus life continues unchanging, through postponing hope; the tension of the tragedy is always released (lysis) in catharsis: refreshment for the next day of work. Art, especially cinema, (namely, simulated life) follows the same cathartic principles as real life. Thus, you can keep coping, and hoping in the meantime is of much help. Religion, Art, Science, Therapy, and Technology are all technologies used to market life, sell it or lend it, and humans are buying it back. Fun is free to produce, and expensive to buy. (shrink)

Nietzsche’s Ecce homo, Notebooks and Letters: 1888-1889 / Translation by Daniel Fidel Ferrer. ©2023 Daniel Fidel Ferrer. All rights reserved. -/- Ecce homo: How One Becomes What One Is (Ecce homo: Wie man wird, was man ist). -/- Who should read Nietzsche? You can disagree with everything Nietzsche wrote and re-read Nietzsche to sharpen your attack. Philosophy. Not for use without adult supervision (required). Philosophy is a designated area for adults only. Read at your own risk. You have the pleasure (...) of reading and of course disagree with all philosophy. Warning philosophical ideas are present. Reading Nietzsche does not mean you will gain anything, in fact, you might lose your previous ideas. -/- Nietzsche does not call this book an autobiography (he has written many short autobiographical sketches before); but rather, uses the expression “I tell myself my life”. -/- Nietzsche was the past philosopher who wrote about our future, “The time is coming when the struggle for the domination of the earth will be waged - it will be waged in the name of basic philosophical doctrines.” KGWB/NF-1881, 11[273]. The world has seen plenty of wars and death, since 1881. The process of the domination of the earth and world is still on-going. -/- What is Nietzsche’s overall project with Ecce homo? -/- Main Leitmotifs in Ecce homo. -/- Christianity as the denial of the will to life, revaluation of all values (Umwerthung aller Werthe), Amor fati, Dionysus as a god and his philosophy (future project for Nietzsche), overthrowing idols, two worlds (“true world" finally became a fable) against Plato eternal world and forms, eternal recurrence or the eternal return of the same (Nietzsche heaviest thought, also his most abysmal thought “abgründlichsten Gedanken”), opposite and counterpart to type of person decadent (décadent), “I count the overcoming of pity among the noble virtues”, against the concept of God (Christian), overman or superman (Übermensch), Will to Power (Wille zur Macht), great politics, immoralist, morality of the Christian church, and Declaration of war (“Kriegserklärung”). -/- Table of Contents -/- Motto [page 3]. Epigraph [pages 4-6]. -/- Preface to the Translation of Ecce homo [pages 7-16] -/- Major Leitmotifs in Nietzsche [pages 17-24]. -/- Translations from Nietzsche’s German to English include. -/- 1). Ecce homo: How One Becomes What One Is (Ecce homo: Wie man wird, was man ist. [pages 25-113]. -/- 2). This poem was included in the first publications of Ecce homo (1908). Glory and Eternity (Ruhm und Ewigkeit). [pages 114-124]. -/- 3). These are all of Nietzsche’s last notebooks (complete) they are numbered 21, 22, 23, and 24. There are a total of 82 notes. Final notes by Nietzsche from the Nachlass (Nachlaß). Sometime in German called the Notizheft. Nietzsche’s notebooks that include some drafts for Ecce homo and other topics he was thinking during his last writings. Dating from October 1888 until early Janurary 1889. [pages 125-191]. -/- 4). Nietzsche’s Letters Regarding Ecce homo. Nietzsche’s letters starting at the end of October 1888 discussing Ecce homo. These are not always the complete letters but include all of the passages of Nietzsche discussing Ecce homo. Complete translation of the last letter Nietzsche wrote. Dated until BVN-1889. #1256. Letter to Jacob Burckhardt in Basel. Turin, about 6 January 1889. [pages 192-223]. -/- Bibliographies [pages 224-254]. -/- Nietzsche’s Philosophy Final Thoughts [pages 255-259]. -/- Enjoy reading Nietzsche's last book. (shrink)