Religious Topics

Al correlacionar el aspecto histórico de la Escritura y su estatus como logos, Rudolf Bultmann introduce un procedimiento exegético-hermenéutico basado en la investigación histórico-crítica de la Escritura e impone, a su vez, la interpretación del logos como kerigma en un proceso que involucra las posibilidades de conocimiento presentes en un determinado contexto histórico-cultural y que conduce a la necesidad de corresponder a la cosmovisión de la época actual. Así, a partir del análisis crítico de Paul Ricoeur, el artículo se centra (...) en la desmitologización como distinción entre kerigma y mito en un movimiento que se solapa con el artificio mitológico y converge en el cuestionamiento de su significado original a través de un proceso que, al fin y al cabo, requiere su permanencia bajo el horizonte de la interpretación. El artículo señala que Ricoeur muestra que Bultmann prescinde de la reflexión que involucra al lenguaje lato sensu como objeto, superponiendo el lenguaje de la fe al lenguaje del mito en un movimiento que, aunque pretendiendo suplantar al sacrificium intellectus, finalmente converge hacia un construcción que tiende a exigir el sacrificium intellectus en las fronteras de la desmitologización y en el lenguaje de la fe que interviene en su proceso. (shrink)

Atribuindo à ironia a possibilidade de exercício da liberdade subjetiva, Kierkegaard sublinha a negatividade absoluta de tal processo em Sócrates, convergindo para assinalar o absoluto e irredutível valor do indivíduo em um movimento que envolve o início absoluto da vida pessoal entre criar-se e deixar-se criar (poeticamente), cuja construção encerra a tensão inaplacável entre existência e transcendência e implica a necessidade de tornar-se subjetivo, haja vista que a verdade consiste na transformação do sujeito em si mesmo entre a vertigem da (...) liberdade e o paradoxo da fé. Dessa forma, o prof. Luiz Carlos Mariano da Rosa mostra que, baseado na ordem de Deus para sacrificar o seu filho, Isaque, Abraão instaura uma nova experiência existencial, segundo o referencial teórico de Mircea Eliade, pois pelo ato de fé supera a condição mítico-religiosa e institui uma relação absoluta com o Absoluto, conforme a leitura teológico-filosófica de Kierkegaard, o que implica a intervenção do Eterno no temporal, a manifestação do Deus-Homem Jesus Cristo que, de acordo com a perspectiva teológico-bíblica católico-protestante, possibilita a realização de um novo ser e de um novo modo de existência. (shrink)

"Chegaram ao lugar que Deus lhe havia designado; ali edificou Abraão um altar, sobre ele dispôs a lenha, amarrou Isaque, seu filho, e o deitou no altar, em cima da lenha; e, estendendo a mão, tomou o cutelo para imolar o filho. Mas do céu lhe bradou o Anjo do SENHOR: Abraão! Abraão! Ele respondeu: Eis-me aqui! Então, lhe disse: Não estendas a mão sobre o rapaz e nada lhe faças; pois agora sei que temes a Deus, porquanto não me (...) negaste o filho, o teu único filho. Tendo Abraão erguido os olhos, viu atrás de si um carneiro preso pelos chifres entre os arbustos; tomou Abraão o carneiro e o ofereceu em holocausto, em lugar de seu filho. E pôs Abraão por nome àquele lugar - O SENHOR Proverá. Daí dizer-se até ao dia de hoje: No monte do SENHOR se proverá." (Gn 22.9-14). Atribuindo à ironia a possibilidade de exercício da liberdade subjetiva, Kierkegaard sublinha a negatividade absoluta de tal processo em Sócrates, convergindo para assinalar o absoluto e irredutível valor do indivíduo em um movimento que envolve o início absoluto da vida pessoal entre criar-se e deixar-se criar (poeticamente), cuja construção encerra a tensão inaplacável entre existência e transcendência e implica a necessidade de tornar-se subjetivo, haja vista que a verdade consiste na transformação do sujeito em si mesmo entre a vertigem da liberdade e o paradoxo da fé. Dessa forma, o Prof. Luiz Carlos Mariano da Rosa mostra que, baseado na ordem de Deus para sacrificar o seu filho, Isaque, Abraão instaura uma nova experiência existencial, segundo o referencial teórico de Mircea Eliade, pois pelo ato de fé supera a condição mítico-religiosa e institui uma relação absoluta com o Absoluto, conforme a leitura teológico-filosófica de Kierkegaard, o que implica a intervenção do Eterno no temporal, a manifestação do Deus-Homem Jesus Cristo que, de acordo com a perspectiva teológico-bíblica católico-protestante, possibilita a realização de um novo ser e de um novo modo de existência. "A fé é a mais alta paixão de todo homem." (Kierkegaard). (shrink)

Consistindo em diferentes possibilidades diante da condição trágica da existência, o estético, o ético e o religioso são os modos existenciais em Kierkegaard que trazem como personagens o Poeta, o Herói Trágico e o Cavaleiro da Fé. Se o que perfaz o estético é a fruição do prazer em uma relação baseada na pura imediatez e sedução como esforço de conquista de si mesmo, o ético encerra a harmonização da subjetividade com a generalidade do bem e do mal, convergindo ambos (...) para reduzir a busca do Absoluto à imanência. Dessa forma, baseado no princípio hermenêutico-existencial de Kierkegaard, o Prof. Luiz Carlos Mariano da Rosa investiga o dever ético do Herói Trágico e a sua virtude moral, detendo-se na distinção entre Agamêmnon e Abraão, o Cavaleiro da Fé e a sua relação absoluta com o Absoluto. Assim sendo, a pesquisa assinala que Abraão inaugura uma experiência existencial que encerra a fé como relação absoluta com o Absoluto e converge para a superação do determinismo natural e do terror da história através de uma liberdade absoluta, que pressupõe um novo ser e um novo modo de existência e implica a manifestação do Eterno no temporal, a encarnação do Lógos, Deus-Homem Jesus Cristo. (shrink)

Se a pregação de Jesus consiste no pressuposto da teologia neotestamentária, segundo o pensamento de Bultmann, a análise do seu conteúdo emerge como fundamental para a compreensão do querigma cristão e da construção literário-teológica da comunidade primitiva. Dessa forma, o artigo se detém na pregação ético-escatológica de Jesus, que anuncia o reino de Deus e o tempo da decisão e o chamado à decisão, que converge para a radicalidade e exige a obediência escatológica enquanto realização da vontade de Deus. Assim, (...) escapando à condição de um dever que converge para a formação do caráter e ao princípio de determinação da comunhão humana, o artigo assinala que é a exigência do amor que se impõe à pregação escatológica de Jesus e a sua pregação ética e ao conhecimento da vontade de Deus, que implica o dever-ser e o poder-fazer envolvendo o bem incondicional em uma construção teórico-conceitual e subjetivo-existencial que envolve a consciência da situação-limite da existência e a necessidade de uma decisão existencial. (shrink)

Sublinhando que a evocação dos acontecimentos que tiveram lugar ab origine convergir, segundo a perspectiva mítico-religiosa, para a manifestação das sagradas, o Prof. Luiz Carlos Mariano da Rosa, baseado no método histórico-comparativo de Mircea Eliade, atribui à prece a condição de suscitar o poder sagrado em um processo capaz de exercer influência sobrenatural e alcançar os recônditos da consciência, como afirma Marcel Mauss. Dessa forma, sobrepondo-se às práticas mágico-religiosas e aos processos litúrgico-rituais do politeísmo, a oração característica do monoteísmo de (...) Israel, segundo a perspectiva bíblico-teológica veterotestamentária, assinala um relacionamento pactual e uma aliança que envolve Yahveh e como morais implicadas em seus atributos, a sabre, justiça, fidelidade e bondade, convergindo para a vida em sua plenitude histórica. Finalizando, o Prof. Luiz Carlos Mariano da Rosa mostra que a oração, segundo a perspectiva bíblico-teológica neotestamentária, implica a expressão da existência escatológica entre a contingência e a transcendência em Bultmann, encerrando a criatividade diretiva de Deus em Tillich e a superação do estado de alienação existencial. (shrink)

Soulignant que l'évocation des événements qui ont eu lieu ab origine converge, selon la perspective mythique-religieuse, pour la manifestation des forces sacrées, le professeur Luiz Carlos Mariano da Rosa, s'appuyant sur la méthode historico-comparative de Mircea Eliade, attribue à la prière la condition d'éveiller le pouvoir sacré dans un processus capable d'exercer une influence surnaturelle et d'atteindre les recoins de la conscience, comme l'affirme Marcel Mauss. Ainsi, en superposant les pratiques magico-religieuses et les processus liturgiques-rituels du polythéisme, la prière caractéristique (...) du monothéisme d'Israël, selon la perspective des vétérans de la théologie biblique, marque une relation pacifique et une alliance qui implique Yahveh et les exigences morales qu'impliquent ses attributs, à savoir la justice, la fidélité et la bonté, convergeant pour la vie dans sa plénitude historique. Enfin, le professeur Luiz Carlos Mariano da Rosa montre que la prière, selon la perspective néo-théologique biblique, implique l'expression de l'existence eschatologique entre contingence et transcendance chez Bultmann, fermant la créativité directive de Dieu à Tillich et le dépassement de l'état d' aliénation existentielle. (shrink)

Luiz Carlos Mariano da Rosa, opierając się na historiaczno-komparatywnej metodzie Mircea Eliade, przypisuje modlitwie warunek wzbudzenia świętej mocy w procesie zdolnym do wywierania śdwierania nadnaturalnego zakówierania twiero marciano marciano zakówiwieria marciano zakówieria marciano marciano marciano wpływieria marciano mar zdociwier do marciano marciadoci docciwier do mar. W sposób dez, nakładając nd siebie praktyki magiczno-religijne i procesy liturgiczno-krytyczne politeizmu, charakterystyczna dla monoteizmu Izraela Modlitwa, według biblijno-teologicznej perspektywy kombatanckiej, oznacza pokojowy Związek i Sojusz, który angażuje Yahvé i moralne postulaty zawarte w jego atrybutach, (...) czyli SPRAWIEDLIWOŚCI , wierności i dobroci, zbiegające się do życia w jego historycznej pełni. Luiz Carlos Mariano da Rosa pokazuje wreszcie, że modlitwa, zgodnie z biblijno-teologiczną perspektywą neotesteologiczną. (shrink)

De evocatie van de gebeurtenissen die plaatsvonden ab origine convergeert, volgens het mythisch-religieuze perspectief, voor de manifestatie van de heilige krachten, schrijft Prof. Luiz Carlos Mariano da Rosa, gebaseerd op de historisch-vergelijkende methode van Mircea Eliade, aan het gebed de voorwaarde toe van het opwekken van de heilige kracht in een proces dat in staat is om bovennatuurlijke invloed uit te oefenen en de uitsparingen van het bewustzijn te bereiken, zoals Marcel Mauss stelt. Door de magisch-religieuze praktijken en liturgisch-rituele processen (...) van het polytheïsme, het kenmerkende gebed van het monotheïsme van Israël, volgens het bijbelse-theologische veteranenperspectief, over elkaar heen te leggen, wordt een vreedzame relatie en een bondgenootschap getekend waarbij Jahve en de morele eisen die in zijn attributen worden geïmpliceerd, namelijk rechtvaardigheid, trouw en goedheid, samenkomen voor het leven in zijn historische volheid. Tot slot laat Prof. Luiz Carlos Mariano da Rosa zien dat het gebed, volgens het bijbels-theologische neotestheologische perspectief, de uitdrukking van het eschatologische bestaan tussen contingentie en transcendentie in Bultmann impliceert, waardoor de richtlijncreativiteit van God in Tillich wordt afgesloten en de staat van existentiële vervreemding wordt overwonnen. (shrink)

Christianity 101 is a book that provides foundational knowledge about the Christian faith. When learning any new subject, there is a learning curve that can sometimes feel like you are in a maze. Questions arise like, What does that term mean? How does that subject relate to the others, and where do I start in this learning process? Christianity 101 provides a starting place that provides knowledge about terminology and how to understand the foundational teachings of faith in Jesus Christ. (...) If you are new or someone seeking to know more about the Christian faith in general, then this book will be a good start. It will provide you an organized approach to the key elements of the faith and how it all works together, moving you out of the maze and onto a path that is much less confusing to travel on. (shrink)

Prof. Luiz Carlos Mariano da Rosa unterstreicht, dass die Evokation der Ereignisse, die ab origine stattgefunden haben, gemäß der mythisch-religiösen Perspektive für die Manifestation der heiligen Kräfte konvergiert. Auf der Grundlage der historisch-komparativen Methode von Mircea Eliade schreibt Prof. Luiz Carlos Mariano da Rosa dem Gebet die Bedingung zu, die heilige Kraft in einem Prozess zu erwecken, der in der Lage ist, einen übernatürlichen Einfluss auszuüben und die Vertiefungen des Bewusstseins zu erreichen, wie Marcel Mauss feststellt. Auf diese Weise überlagert (...) das charakteristische Gebet des Monotheismus Israels die magisch-religiösen Praktiken und liturgisch-rituellen Abläufe des Polytheismus und markiert nach der biblisch-theologischen Veteranenperspektive eine friedliche Beziehung und ein Bündnis, das Jahwe und die in seinen Attributen implizierten moralischen Forderungen, nämlich Gerechtigkeit, Treue und Güte, für das Leben in seiner historischen Fülle zusammenführt. Schließlich zeigt Prof. Luiz Carlos Mariano da Rosa, dass das Gebet nach der biblisch-theologischen neotestheologischen Perspektive den Ausdruck der eschatologischen Existenz zwischen Kontingenz und Transzendenz bei Bultmann, die Schließung der direktiven Kreativität Gottes bei Tillich und die Überwindung des Zustands der existentiellen Entfremdung impliziert. (shrink)

This paper was made as part of a wider research I made about rituals and their meaning and roles they are playing in the religious system of thinking. The way they are thought, displayed, precisely followed as instructed and believed, makes them a powerful social act that has been always provided by any religion, and also a tool for religion to make the human society what it is today. After I speak about what is a ritual and its religious content (...) in general, I am enumerating roles and functions of play and theatre in particular have, both for profane and religious purpose. Do we still use play/games as adults because they are rewarding, they give us pleasure? They are used as means of relaxation, or for continuing the age of childhood; or it is in our nature to play games in everything we do? In this paper I have emphasized play as adaptive potentiation or adaptive variability useful both in therapy, as in religious ceremony. The relation and comparison of rituals with play is due to the fact that playing is the most engaging behavior performed by man and animals, and it can be found as foundation of almost any ritualist activity. (shrink)

The purpose of this chapter is to unearth the cultural conditionals that silently buttress the recurrence of one of the most violent crimes of our times, namely mass shootings. These conditionals are rooted in a religious discourse that thrives on the notions of sacred and sacrifice as a violent act par excellence, yet of inaugural value for the constitution of a community and its symbolic order. The offered analysis draws on Kristeva’s semanalytic perspective, in an interdisciplinary dialogue with sociological strands.

We present a simple model to show the compossibility of middle knowledge, grounded truth, libertarian free will, predestination, evil, hell, a sin-free heaven, God being perfectly just, free, praiseworthy, and necessarily omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent, this world being both replete with injustice and the best of all possible worlds, heinous suffering, no-one unjustly suffering, God’s grace for the godly, the prospering of the godless, original sin, human responsibility, transworld depravity, irresistible grace, and Arminian human choice. The model is not intended (...) to be realistic, but its possibility argues for the possibility that a realistic model containing such compossibles could exist – and even be actual. (shrink)

This essay demonstrates the prominence of imitation in Kierkegaard’s ethics. I move beyond his idea of authentic existence modeled on Christ and explore the secular dimension of Kierkegaard’s insights about human nature and imitation. I start with presenting imitation as key to understanding the ethical dimension of the relationship between the universal and individual aspects of the human self in Kierkegaard. I then show that Kierkegaard’s moral concepts of “primitivity” and “comparison” are a response to his sociological and psychological observations (...) about imitation from an ethical point of view. In the final section of this paper, I briefly engage Friedrich Schleiermacher’s “ethics of individuality” and Gabriel Tarde’s “laws of imitation” to explore Kierkegaard’s consideration of ethics and imitation as situated within the context of a broader conversation on imitation. (shrink)

For a century the Bahá’í Faith has been classified, within the German academy, as a world religion. This article highlights the major historical milestones in this process of recognition. The process was initiated on the eve of the First World War by the two Jewish Germanophone orientalists Goldziher and Vambery. In the inter-war period, the categorization of this faith as a world religion – rather than a sect of Islam, as it had once been viewed – was further propelled by (...) academics outside the field of theology and religious studies, such as the natural scientist Auguste Forel. It was only after the catastrophic experience of World War II, a period when the German Bahá’í community evinced a spirit of resilience in the face of Nazi oppression, that scholars in the field of Christian theology and religious studies, such as Heiler, Mensching and Benz, who represented the school of Religionswissenschaft des Verstehens, began to adopt the classification of the Bahá’ís as new world religion. (shrink)

Abstract This essay uses James Baldwin’s thought about racism and homophobia as a critical lens for thinking about some influential strands of Christian ethics. The first part shows how Baldwin understood racism and homophobia and related them to one another by framing them as instances of spirit/flesh dualism and as effects of Christian supremacy. The second part relies on Baldwin’s categories to analyze and juxtapose the thought of select neo‐Anabaptist and neo‐Augustinian social ethicists. Like Baldwin, the ethicists I engage respond (...) to the distorting power of Christian supremacy and of spirit/flesh dualism. Unlike Baldwin, these ethicists frame their response to Christian supremacy and dualism as a recovery of a more authentic or faithful Christian tradition. Baldwin, who often relied rhetorically and morally on Christian claims and frequently called on Christians to reflect the example of Jesus and the precepts of love, related to the tradition from the perspective of someone who had become an outsider to the church. He tended to focus instead on what the problems he described reflected about Christianity. The contrast with Baldwin helps identify two distinct retrieval strategies, which characterize the neo‐Anabaptist and neo‐Augustinian ethicists I discuss. One strategy seeks to preserve the integrity of Christian faith, and the other seeks to protect its essential decency. In what follows, I highlight some of the weaknesses of these approaches to tradition retrieval. (shrink)

After the episode of the golden calf, in his anger Moses had smashed and broken the tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments. Despite the shameful apostasy of the people, they were given another opportunity to enter into a covenant relationship with the living God. The first set of tablets God had given to Moses, and now it is Moses who must bring new tablets that God will inscribe. It is symbolic of the fact of the covenant relationship that humanity must (...) do its part and not leave it all to God as passive recipients; no, we must become active participants. Centuries later, the prophet Jeremiah will speak of the law being written on our hearts. All of us are invited to bring our hearts into God's presence so that the process of conversion may continue. Moses' proclamation of the tenderness, compassion and kindness of God in the face of human frailty should never be forgotten. (shrink)

This writing is a review of the 3rd chapter of Katherine E. Southwood's "Marriage by Capture in the Book of Judges".

Conversion is a word with a variety of meanings. It also has various significations, from the exchange between different currencies, to job conversion or the change of career path, to the change from one religion, political belief, viewpoint, etc., to another – all these types of conversion have mutual methods and shared purposes. They are all requiring malleability, the capacity of exchanging old things for the new ones, openness to different, the will to adopt something new or at least different, (...) and the legerity of giving up on the old things. All these requirements are always easier said than done, and therefore conversion is not for all types of characters and personalities, some being more stable and fundamental, thus resistant to renewal. There is no religion, on the one hand, that does not promote conversion and thus use proselytism to do it. On the other hand, same religions that believe conversion is an act of God, a sign that everyone should embrace and leave whatever religious belief they might have previously, consider it as a ‘sin’, an act that should be forbidden, the conversion/leaving for other, diverse religion. How is it regarded by religions and scientific thought and at what point it became obsolete? (shrink)

The purpose of the article is to identified the origin and essence of Western individualism. Methods of research. I used the methodology of post-nonclassical metaphysics of history, as well as the methods of epistemological polytheism and comparative. Results. The first sprouts of individualism can be detected in Greek poleis. It is the crisis of the polis system in Ancient Greece that predetermined the disappointment of the Greeks in the old collectivist ideals. Roman collectivism quite naturally got along with ideas about (...) civil liberties and the dignity of an individual citizen. The idea of citizenship was brought to the theoretical perfection by moving it beyond the boundaries of city walls. The Christian ideal is not a self-sufficient person, but the community of believers. It is the weakening of the church’s position and the strengthening of the influence of Antiquity that led to the formation of the Western style of thinking, which became the basis of the new European civilizational project. John Locke rethought the Hobbesian “Roman” theory of the social contract, thereby laying the foundations of liberalism, and hence of individualism. However, radically changing the hierarchical society, even the shaken revolution and the restoration of the Stuarts, no theoretical work could not. But in the New World, free from class barriers, Locke’s ideas found a much more fertile soil. Conclusions. The Western version of individualism emerges as a civilizational ideal at the junction of two completely different paradigms — the Ancient (Greek and Roman) and the Christian. Being present in the “body” of the West, individualism could not access its code. The latter was guarded by numerous barriers, among which the Catholic collectivism and the class divisions of hierarchical society were the most powerful guards. In American society, security barriers were significantly weaker, which allowed individualism to develop in the United States. Then American individualism returned to Europe and is now perceived as an integral element of Western civilization. (shrink)

I thought that I knew Adam Smith. Apparently not! "The political economy of the USA today is based on a laissez-faire interpretation of his Wealth of Nations," which, according to John E. Hill, "grossly distorts Smith's ideas." Furthermore, "correctly interpreting" Smith's thought would lead to greater happiness in all capitalistic political economic systems". The general slant of this book is that gross misinterpretations of Smith's theory of market capitalism have been used to justify the destruction of the moral standards on (...) which market capitalism depends. In other words, market capitalism requires a moral infrastructure or foundation, which has been eroded by Smith's recent... (shrink)

Nicholas Wolterstorff: Practices of belief: selected essays, volume 2 (Terence Cuneo, ed.) Content Type Journal Article Category Book Review Pages 255-258 DOI 10.1007/s11153-011-9287-4 Authors Scott A. Davison, Philosophy Program, Morehead State University, 150 University Blvd., 354A Rader Hall, Morehead, KY 40351, USA Journal International Journal for Philosophy of Religion Online ISSN 1572-8684 Print ISSN 0020-7047 Journal Volume Volume 70 Journal Issue Volume 70, Number 3.

We examine conceptual and methodological problems that arise in the course of the scientific study of possible influences of religious belief on the experience of physical pain. We start by attempting to identify a notion of religious belief that might enter into interesting psychological generalizations involving both religious belief and pain. We argue that it may be useful to think of religious belief as a complex dispositional property that relates believers to a sufficiently thick belief system that encompasses both cognitive (...) and non-cognitive elements. Such a conception of religious belief is more likely to correlate with psychological properties of believers that are both sufficiently shared and sufficiently unique to distinguish their psychology from believers in another religion or from non-believers. If the dispositional psychological property that constitutes religious belief does influence pain, then our analysis suggests that it doesn’t do so directly but rather through one of its occurrent manifestations. We offer a taxonomy of the different ways in which occurrent states of belief or experience may interact with physical pain, and we try to identify those that are more interesting or promising. We then proceed to employ the conceptual framework we developed to some of the existing evidence about the neural and psychological correlates of religious belief and experience, and about the cognitive modulation of physical pain. Finally we turn to analyse two experiments that directly investigated the relation between religious belief and pain. We draw attention to the limitations of existing evidence and end by suggesting directions for future conceptual and empirical inquiry. (shrink)

This paper examines the concepts of desert and luck, familiar in political theory but neglected by sociologists. I argue that the idea of desert is composed of both personal performance and the degree of responsibility a person has over that performance. Distribution ought to be in accordance with the indebtedness created by the person's performance. This can be compromised by luck; that is, personal desert is undermined where lack of performance scuttles the applicability of the contributory model. This paper examines (...) recent work, focusing on establishing desert criteria for each person's ends and life-plans, and a formula for distribution according to personal welfare. (shrink)

This essay replies to the responses of Harold Netland, Charles Taliaferro, and Kate Waidler to my symposium paper, “Gethsemane Epistemology.” It contends that a God worthy of worship would not need the arguments of traditional natural theology, and that such arguments would not lead to such a God in the way desired by God. In addition, it explains why Paul’s position in Romans 1 offers no support to the arguments of traditional natural theology.

This paper, as a response to Mark K. Spencer’s, “Perceiving the Image of God in the Whole Human Person” in the present volume, argues in defence of Aquinas’s position that the Imago Dei is limited in the human being to the rational, intellective soul alone. While the author agrees with Spencer that the hierarchical relation between body and soul in the human composite must be maintained while avoiding the various permeations of dualism, nevertheless, the Imago Dei cannot be located in (...) the human body or the principle of the body considered within the body/soul composite without betraying a number of fundamental Thomistic metaphysical principles. Essential to these includes Aquinas’s position that an image of God should image not only the Divine Nature, but also the Trinitarian relations between the Divine Persons. Further, the paper also argues that a phenomenology of sense experience could not, on principle, attain to an image of God in the whole human person within a Thomistic framework generally. (shrink)

The prominence of religion in recent debates around politics, identity formation, and international terrorism has led to an increased demand on those studying religion to help clarify and contextualise religious belief and practice in the public sphere. While many texts focus on the theoretical development of the subject, this book outlines a wider application of these studies by exploring the role of religious studies scholars and theologians as public intellectuals. -/- This collection of essays first seeks to define exactly what (...) makes an intellectual "public". It then goes on to deal with a few questions of concern: How do public intellectuals construct knowledge in religious and theological scholarship? What is the link between public intellectuals of higher education and their role in society? Do higher education institutions have a responsibility to endorse public intellectualism? -/- Looking at the individual and collective role of religious studies scholars and theologians in public life, this book will be of great interest to all scholars and academics involved in religious studies and theology across the academy. (shrink)

This article rejects the claim that human beings are religious by nature. This rejection is controversial. It is always said by catholic and protestant philosophers and theologians that human beings are religious by nature. Schleiermacher holds that the feeling of absolute dependence does not define religion, but it is the defining characteristic that makes a certain phenomenon a religiousone. This defining characteristic is borrowed from christian faith in the one God the creator. I raise two questions: 1. how does Schleiermacher (...) judge non-monotheistic religions in which the feeling of absolute dependence is vague 2. how does he judge non-believers who reject religion? As far as the first question is concerned Schleiermacher broadens his conception of religion in such a way that non-monotheistic religions are included. In fact he says that such people should become religious in the sense of having a pure feeling of absolute dependence. Factually, they have not. That is why in my opinion the feeling of absolute dependence is too limited to serve as a general denominator for religions. With regard to the second question Schleiermacher calls the relatedness of the sensible consciousness to the higher self-consciousness, the feeling of absolute dependence, the consummating point of the self-consciousness. In other words: unbelief is a disturbance in the development of the person. If one holds that view, those who are indifferent to religion cannot be equal partners in public discussion. The generic view of religion does not do justice to the unbeliever. He or she is considered as a prodigal son or daughter. Can these two objections of the generic conception of religion be met? Wilfred Cantwell Smith and Paul Tillich can meet the first one. They enlarge the defining characteristic of religion and consider it as faith or ultimate concern. My second objection can hardly be met. Tillich and John Smith tried by means of the conception of ‘quasi-religion’. I have my reservations and agree, that in Tillich and in John Smith secular worldviews are reduced to a form of wrong religiosity or are labelled as nihilism. A generic view of religion is of little or no use for public debate in the contemporary secular culture. With Schleiermacher I hold that religion is an irreducible given and not merely a coincidence. In the interest of a peaceful coexistence in a pluralistic society one needs to seek a generic element to which all people can agree. That generic element is worldview. I mean worldview as an anthropological category. It expresses the integrating and unifying character of our experience. All people have such a worldview as human beings. What worldview – marxism, humanism or a fragmented general worldview – they actually have is a contingent matter. When I substitute the claim that worldview is generic for the generic conception of religion, I do not mean that it is a matter of indifference as to whether one has a religious or a secular worldview. That is why, finally, something needs to be said about further justification of religion. Following Schleiermacher this does not consist of proofs of God or of historical arguments. It concerns the explication of the rationality of faith experience. For a peaceful coexistence between people with different worldviews, mutual dialogue is indispensable. (shrink)