The article deals with the problem of the divine light in the mystical works of St Symeon the New Theologian in the context of the Eastern Christian ascetical tradition. The author focuses on the passages referring to the divine light in the works of Evagrios Pontikos, St Isaac the Syrian, St Maximus the Confessor, and in the Makarian corpus. As is shown in the present contribution, none of these authors created a fully-developed theory of the vision of the divine light. (...) Being close to these writers in many ideas, St Symeon was generally independent of any of them in his treatment of the theme of vision of light, always basing himself primarily upon his own experience. (shrink)

Nostra Aetate indisputably represented at its promulgation in 1965 a momentous step forward in Catholic theology of religions. But its perspective on other religions still remains deeply "Christianity-centric" in that it views other religions from the Christian vantage-point and uses Christianity as the yardstick to evaluate them. Graphically, its theology of religions may be represented by a series of concentric circles with Christianity occupying the center of the innermost circle and other religions occupying successive circles, with increasing distance (...) from the center, depending on the number of the elements of the true religion, which is Christianity, they possess. How would the "the relation of the Church to non-Christian Religions" look like if we start from other religions and see them on their own terms, as they see themselves, that is, not as "non-Christian," and inquire into their mutual relations? The essay begins with an examination of the theology of religions implicit in the use of the expression “non-Christian” when referring to religions other than Christianity. It is argued that the “non” is not a neutral descriptive term but represents the “fulfillment theology” of religions prevalent before and during Vatican II. Next a critique of this fulfillment theology is presented showing that it is seriously inadequate for interreligious dialogue. Finally the essay proposes a different way to conceiving the relation between Christianity and other religions by applying the insights of the Jewish-Christian dialogue, especially its rejection of supersessionism, its condemnation of the “teaching of contempt,” and its Trinitarian theology of religion. In summary, the essay attempts to formulate a Christian “kenotic theology of religion,” in which Christianity and the church no longer stand at the normative center toward which “non-Christian” religions move as their “fulfillment” and perfection. Rather all religions, including Christianity, must “empty” themselves so as to be “filled” by the “other” in mutual correction, learning, and enrichment. (shrink)

In this article, I draw upon the ‘post-Kantian’ reading of Hegel to examine the consequences Hegel’s idea of God has on his metaphysics. In particular, I apply Hegel’s ‘recognition-theoretic’ approach to his theology. Within the context of this analysis, I focus especially on the incarnation and sacrifice of Christ. First, I argue that Hegel’s philosophy of religion employs a distinctive notion of sacrifice (kenotic sacrifice). Here, sacrifice is conceived as a giving up something of oneself to ‘make (...) room’ for the other. Second, I argue that the idea of kenotic sacrifice plays a fundamental role in Hegel’s account of Christ. Third, I conclude by sketching some of the consequences of Hegel’s idea of a God who renounces his own divinity for an idealistically conceived metaphysics. My main thesis is that the notion of incarnation is conceived by Hegel as the expression of a spirit that advances only insofar as it is willing to withdraw and make room for the other. A kenotic reading of the Hegelian notion of the incarnation is also useful in terms of a clarification of the dispute between ‘left Hegelians’ and ‘right Hegelians’ concerning the status of the idea of God in Hegel’s philosophy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Other Side of Nothingness: Toward a Theology of Radical OpennessPaul O. IngramThe Other Side of Nothingness: Toward a Theology of Radical Openness. By Beverly J. Lanzetta. Albany: State University of New York, 2001. 182 pp.The central thesis of The Other Side of Nothingness is that apophatic mystical experience offers Christians a theology of humility sensitive to religious pluralism, which in turn is a means (...) of overcoming the "pains of spiritual oppression" caused by religious intolerance and doctrinal imperialism. The book's argument is that "mystical consciousness" overturns the dogmatic truth claims of "conventional theology" by preparing the self for the experience of radical openness to "divinity," however "divinity" is theologically named in the "conventional theology" of humanity's religious traditions. The book's author, Beverly J.Lanzetta, draws on a variety of Christian mystical texts to support her claims: Meister Eckhart, Gregory of Nyssa, Pseudo-Dionysius, Teresa of Avila, Bonaventure, and the anonymous author of the Cloud of Unknowing. She also makes comparative references to Hindu, Buddhist, and Sufi traditions, along with contemporary writers such as Abraham Joshua Heschel, Mahatma Gandhi, Thomas Merton, Howard Thurman, and Dorothy Day to illustrate her claim that apophatic mystical experience—the experience of the utter [End Page 306] annihilation of the self—draws the mystic to a place beyond a tradition's historical and normative self-understanding to new dimensions of the Sacred and, sometimes, to new "revelatory paradigms." The revelatory paradigm Lanzetta believes she has discovered in the evidence she cites is that "the divine nature itself is pluralistic, non-absolute, and is continually the source of new religious traditions," by which she means something similar to what John Cobb calls "creative transformation." For her, this is the antidote to religious imperialism and the exclusivism of conventional theology, meaning "non-mystical theology," which she argues is the source of religions fanaticism in all religions traditions, particularly in Christianity.There is much to admire about Lanzetta's take on mysticism and its importance for undercutting theological absolutism of the sort one encounters in the Christian Right or in certain radical movements within contemporary Islam. Her analyses of the mystical texts she cites to support her arguments are carefully crafted and accurately express the theologies of the Christian mystics who are the foci of her own theological reflection. Her writing style is elegant and clearly expresses the passion with which she embraces her views. I especially liked her focus on kenotic Christology in her description of the "Apophatic Christ" who "bears the generosity of speech and teaches an ethic of radical openness," which Lanzetta claims is also an openness to truths found outside Christian tradition. "All are called not to his name, his ministry, or even to his person, but are called to sustain the tension between the saying and the unsaying, and between the living and the dying, in which God's nonviolent heart yearns for unconcealment" (p. 90). Indeed, this is the heart of Christian mystical experience of Christ, particularly attested to in the writings of Maguerite Porete and Hildegard von Bingen. Yet kenotic Christologies are also found in nonmystical theology, which Lanzetta tends to lump together pejoratively under her category "conventional theology." Consequently, as much as I admire this book and agree with its essential conclusions—but for different reasons—my trouble with this work originates in Lanzetta's assertion of a hard dualism between mystical theology and "ordinary theology," a dualism that undermines her arguments and conclusions. My concern is threefold.First, mystical experience is primarily a matter of consciousness in the sense that something previously unknown and unexperienced is suddenly "there." This unanticipated presence is as real to the mystic's perspective as everyday experiences are, which is why mystics so often speak of being empowered to "see" or "touch" or "taste" what has been up to now imperceptible. If the experience is apophatic in structure—a usually brief moment of awareness in which all subject-object duality is overcome so that the mystic isn't aware of a self separated from what the self experiences or even that there is an "experience happening"—the mystic is neither thinking, feeling, or interpreting. That is... (shrink)

Both Paul Knitter and John Hick rely heavily on the exclusivist-inclusivist-pluralist paradigm. In a world that has become increasingly suspicious of missionary activity, moving beyond this paradigm calls for a bigger theology, wider methodology, and deeper missiology characterized by participant theologizing.

The book follows on the heels of the acclaimed Criticism of Heaven, being the second volume of a five volume series called Criticism of Heaven and Earth.

As the detrimental effects of human agency loom large in the ‘Anthropocene’, theologians and philosophers have called for restraint by invoking the concept of kenosis. Although a ‘self-emptying’ form of life helps to counter the ways that humans are increasingly driving other species to extinction, we argue that such calls are often compromised by relying on notions of the Creator’s own attenuated or self-limited agency. They therefore trade in a competitive construal that is susceptible to the tendency of human agency (...) to either displace, or project itself upon, all other agencies, inadvertently perpetuating the ‘human epoch’. In their place, we critically develop the new direction in kenotic theology that speaks of divine self-realization in history through ‘deep incarnation’. Our constructive proposal argues for a more thoroughgoing recognition of both the transcendence of divine agency and, as a corollary, the diverse agencies of our fellow creatures. (shrink)

Book reviews: HARRIS, Elizabeth J.; HEDGES, Paul; HETTIARACHCHI, Shanthikumar. Twenty-First Century Theologies of Religions : Retrospection and Future Prospects. Leiden: Brill; Boston: Rodopi, 2016. 396 p.. ISBN 978-90-04-3224-62.

As the dialogue between science and religion has grown more robust, Christians have been led to more nuanced ways of thinking about the connections between these two modes of inquiry. This essay focuses on exploring various deficiencies in naturalistic conceptions of the cosmos, and further exploring how Eastern Orthodox theology provides a more encompassing picture of human beings and their place in the cosmos.

Did Chinese mysticism vanish after its first appearance in ancient Taoist philosophy, to surface only after a thousand years had passed, when the Chinese had adapted Buddhism to their own culture? This first integrated survey of the mystical dimension of Taoism disputes the commonly accepted idea of such a hiatus. Covering the period from the Daode jing to the end of the Tang, Livia Kohn reveals an often misunderstood Chinese mystical tradition that continued through the ages. Influenced by but ultimately (...) independent of Buddhism, it took forms more various than the quietistic withdrawal of Laozi or the sudden enlightenment of the Chan Buddhists. On the basis of a new theoretical evaluation of mysticism, this study analyzes the relationship between philosophical and religious Taoism and between Buddhism and the native Chinese tradition. Kohn shows how the quietistic and socially oriented Daode jing was combined with the ecstatic and individualistic mysticism of the Zhuangzi, with immortality beliefs and practices, and with Buddhist insight meditation, mind analysis, and doctrines of karma and retribution. She goes on to demonstrate that Chinese mysticism, a complex synthesis by the late Six Dynasties, reached its zenith in the Tang, laying the foundations for later developments in the Song traditions of Inner Alchemy, Chan Buddhism, and Neo-Confucianism. (shrink)

There are many arguments that so-called pluralistic theologies of religions face difficulties in being sufficiently pluralistic. In order to meet such an objection, a pluralist offers different solutions. I argue that the range of plausible possibilities for a pluralist is strongly constrained by philosophical arguments which one can develop out of the philosophy of Hilary Putnam. In the first part of this paper, I sketch out three important strands of the Putnamian thought I consider worth defending. Given such presuppositions, I (...) formulate two constraints on pluralistic theology of religions. In the last section of my paper, I briefly point out which of the particular standpoints, often labelled as “pluralistic theology of religions,” have problems with meeting formulated constraints, and which of the “pluralists” seem to be in accordance with them. (shrink)

There are many arguments that so-called pluralistic theologies of religions face difficulties in being sufficiently pluralistic. In order to meet such an objection, a pluralist offers different solutions. I argue that the range of plausible possibilities for a pluralist is strongly constrained by philosophical arguments which one can develop out of the philosophy of Hilary Putnam. In the first part of this paper, I sketch out three important strands of the Putnamian thought I consider worth defending. Given such presuppositions, I (...) formulate two constraints on pluralistic theology of religions. In the last section of my paper, I briefly point out which of the particular standpoints, often labelled as “pluralistic theology of religions,” have problems with meeting formulated constraints, and which of the “pluralists” seem to be in accordance with them. (shrink)

C.J. Bartley places Ramunuja in his intellectual context. This study is particularly concerned with Ramanuja's engagement with opposing schools of thought and practice, rendering it a valuable contribution to the history of Indian thought.

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

The cultural transmission of theological concepts remains an underexplored topic in the cognitive science of religion (CSR). In this paper, I examine whether approaches from CSR, especially the study of content biases in the transmission of beliefs, can help explain the cultural success of some theological concepts. This approach reveals that there is more continuity between theological beliefs and ordinary religious beliefs than CSR authors have hitherto recognized: the cultural transmission of theological concepts is influenced by content biases that (...) also underlie the reception of ordinary religious concepts. (shrink)

. Stephen I Gould's notion of non‐overlapping magisteria is neither experientially supported nor rationally justifiable. Influence flows between science and religion, as when evolutionary thinking encouraged theology to adopt a kenotic view of the Creator's act of allowing creatures to be and to make themselves. Alleged simplistic dichotomies between science and religion, such as motivated belief contrasted with fideistic assertion, are seen to be false. Promising topics in the currently vigorous dialogue between science and religion (...) include relational ontology, eschatological credibility, and ethical issues relating to advances in human genetics. (shrink)

In this entry, we survey key discussions on the role of narrative in theology and philosophy of religion. We begin with epistemological questions about whether and how narrative offers genuine understanding of reality. We explore how narrative intersects with the problems of evil and divine hiddenness. We discuss narrative's role in theological reflection and practice in general, and in black and feminist theologies specifically. We close by briefly exploring the role of narrative in theorization about life's meaning.

This paper is an exercise in the Christian (meta)theology of religions. As such, it rests on the idea that systematic theology must take account of the fact of religious pluralism within its articulation of the Christian faith. It might be asked however, despite clear motivations such as the traditional imperative of mission, why we need a theology of religions at all. Why not simply dialogue or engage in a kind of comparative study of the texts and practices (...) of the religions? On the contrary, the fact of religious pluralism requires at least a basic or schematic response in the present, and not only in the alwayspostponed-future that makes true dialogue and comparative theology possible and fruitful. While remaining open to new developments that may arise out of the necessary work of dialogue and comparative theology, the theology of religions can, and should, provide an intellectual resting place, albeit a temporary one, as we shall see. (shrink)

Is there, today," asks Jacques Derrida, "another 'question of religion'?" Derrida's writings on religion situate and raise anew questions of tradition, faith, and sacredness and their relation to philosophy and political culture. He has amply testified to his growing up in an Algerian Jewish, French-speaking family, to the complex impact of a certain Christianity on his surroundings and himself, and to his being deeply affected by religious persecution. Religion has made demands on Derrida, and, in turn, the (...) study of religion has benefited greatly from his extensive philosophical contributions to the field. Acts of Religion brings together for the first time Derrida's key writings on religion, along with two new essays translated by Gil Anidjar that appear here for the first time in any language. These texts are organized around the secret holding of links between the personal, the political, and the theological. In these texts, Derrida's reflections on religion span from negative theologyto the limits of reason and to hospitality. Acts of Religion will serve as an excellent introduction to Derrida's remarkable contribution to religious studies. (shrink)

Philosophical vision and voice -- Comparative imagination: ways of philosophizing -- Tones of voice -- Finding spaces -- Problem of deep meetings -- Self that meets: inner architecture -- Imagining and seeing the other -- Aesthetic attitude -- Ethical spaces -- Wise meetings -- Texts or tents.

Intuitive theology.--The theology of the Hebrews.--Christian theology.--Christian belief.

In this paper I consider two books of Vladimir Shokhin, a distinguished philosopher in Russia, on philosophy of religion and philosophical theology as one project aimed at drawing the demarcation between these two disciplines. In what follows I will present Shokhin’s project and show briefly how it fits in with the current discussion on the topic, then, draw some consequences from his position, and make some critical notes, and at the end I will briefly present some my views (...) on the problem of drawing clear lines of demarcation between philosophy of religion and philosophical theology on the basis of the following questions: what is the topic of the disciplines, what are their methods, what are their guiding lines, and who may exercise them? (shrink)