Human being is essentially a homo theologicus. Its thinking is a theologal way of being. The origin of theological thinking is the onto-existential condition of man as being in the world toward the Transcendence through death in the quest for Meaning. Transcendence is the perfect union of the ontological (Being) and the epistemological (Meaning) in an analogical relationship with the identity between “kalon” and “agathon” as present in Plato. There is an essential correspondence between Being and Meaning that has ontological (...) preeminence over the correspondence between Being and time. The present paper examines Heidegger’s main onto-existential categories in the horizon opened by E. Stein and V. Frankl. A critical approach to Heidegger’s anthropological ontology is carried out aiming to develop a theandric ontology of Dasein. A provisional general definition of the homo theologicus is acquired, in which human being is thought of as thankful thinking in the perpetual celebration of Meaning. (shrink)

Man is a "homo theologicus." The dominion of the cyberculture is determining the oblivion of the Sacred in a new fashion, creating fictional transcendences that replace traditional reality with cyberconstructions. We aim to show how man is essentially a theologal being and how the Byzantine notion of ϑέωσις (deification) as expressed in sacred arts can be a way of preserving human essence from its alienation in the fictional transcendences of cyberbeing. We approach cyberculture as a process of ontological desubstantiation via (...) artificial "intelligence" and virtual reproductions. We explain the dual phenomenon of the implanting of a decentered, networked techno-hedonism and the spread of the "avatar syndrome" as a cyber-disease that inhibits in man his responsibility to be real. By contrast, we underscore the importance of the fact that in cyberbeing the "enchantment before beings" as anticipation of radical freedom is especially safeguarded. While the modern aesthetic is mostly deprived of mystic origin and transcendental telos and proves useless against cyberbeing's desubstantiating power, Byzantine aesthetic as an ontological healing way can contribute to the de-oblivion of human essence. This implies that sacred Byzantine arts as aesthetic therapy open the horizon in which man experiences his essence as perpetual bliss in the meaning of Being. (shrink)

Sleep and dream visions as revelations, narrative devices, signs of illness, and aesthetic-artistic formulae alongside their interpretations, are common experiences shared by all cultures throughout the ages. They exhibit an astonishing variety of contexts and meanings. Rather than abstract time, with its mathematical indistinctness, a dialectical concreteness of signs and symbols in culture determines the specificity and character of dream experience and its complex hermeneutic.