Multitrait-multimethod (MTMM) analysis is one of the most frequently employed methods to examine the validity of psychological measures. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) is a commonly used analytic tool for examining MTMM data through the specification of trait and method latent variables. Most contemporary CFA-MTMM models either do not allow estimating correlations between the trait and method factors or they are restricted to linear trait-method relationships. There is no theoretical reason why trait and method relationships should always be linear, and quadratic (...) relationships are frequently proposed in the social sciences. In this article, we present two approaches for examining quadratic relations between traits and methods through extended latent difference and latent means CFA-MTMM models (Pohl et al., 2008; Pohl and Steyer, 2010). An application of the new approaches to a multi-rater study of the nine inattention symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in children (N = 752) and the results of a Monte Carlo study to test the applicability of the models under a variety of data conditions are described. (shrink)

Since Mueller’s 1958 article calling Hegelian dialectics a “legend,” it has been fashionable to deny that Hegel used thesis-antithesis-synthesis dialectics. But in truth, Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit has 28 dialectics hidden on four outline levels, and The Philosophy of History has 10 more on three outline levels. In Phenomenology’s macrodialectic, Hegel’s nonsupernatural Spirit–all reality, everything in the universe, including man and artificial objects–advances from unconscious + union (thesis) to conscious + separation (antithesis) to a synthesis of conscious (from the antithesis) (...) + union (from the thesis). Previous interpretations of Phenomenology have missed this dialectic: they have assumed that Spirit’s journey begins with consciousness, whereas the journey actually begins in the primordial state of nature, before man arrives and provides Spirit with its Mind (the collective mind of man). Mind then misperceives itself as a multitude of separate alien “objects”–things other than itself. The macrodialectic and all other dialectics are based on Christianity’s Johannine separation-and-return mythology; all Hegelian dialectics separate from a concept in the thesis, going to that something’s opposite (antithesis), and then return to the thesis concept. Thus, in Hegel’s master-and-slave dialectic (God = master, man = slave), man advances from potential + freedom to actual + bondage (religiosity) to actual + freedom (atheism). Only Marx and Tillich understood Hegelian dialectics. Marx’s basic dialectic (one of four) saw history separating from and returning to Communism, going from communal ownership + poverty (primitive communism, or gens) to private ownership + wealth (slavery, feudalism, capitalism) to communal ownership + wealth (final communism). Tillich’s basic dialectic (one of many) separates from and returns to God, advancing from Yes to God + Yes to supernaturalism (theism) to No to God + No to supernaturalism (atheism) to Yes to God + No to supernaturalism (humanism: humanity is the nonsupernatural “God above the God of theism”). (shrink)

In Transcendent Love: Dostoevsky and the Search for a Global Ethic, Leonard G. Friesen ranges widely across Dostoevsky's stories, novels, journalism, notebooks, and correspondence to demonstrate how Dostoevsky engaged with ethical issues in his times and how those same issues continue to be relevant to today's ethical debates. Friesen contends that the Russian ethical voice, in particular Dostoevsky's voice, deserves careful consideration in an increasingly global discussion of moral philosophy and the ethical life. Friesen challenges the view that contemporary liberalism (...) provides a religiously neutral foundation for a global ethic. He argues instead that Dostoevsky has much to offer when it comes to the search for a global ethic, an ethic that for Dostoevsky was necessarily grounded in a Christian concept of an active, extravagant, and transcendent love. Friesen also investigates Dostoevsky's response to those who claimed that contemporary European trends, most evident in the rising secularization of nineteenth-century society, provided a more viable foundation for a global ethic than one grounded in the One, whom Doestoevsky called simply "the Russian Christ." Throughout, Friesen captures a sense of the depth and sheer loveliness of Dostoevsky's canon. Dostoevsky was, after all, someone who believed that the ethical life was sublimely beautiful, even as it recklessly embraced suffering and unreasonably forgave others. The book will appeal to both students and scholars of Russian literature and history, comparative ethics, global ethics, and cultural studies, and togeneral readers with an interest in Dostoevsky. "Others have written about Dostoevsky's ethics, but I am not aware of any single-authored, sustained attempt to make the case for Dostoevsky's 'transcendent love' as part of a larger discussion of a global ethic. Moreover, Leonard Friesen presents his case in an engaging and highly accessible form. He believes passionately that Dostoevsky is deeply relevant to the discussion; his commitment rings through the pages and draws the reader in. In this way, his essay makes an original contribution to Dostoevsky studies that will appeal to scholars in a variety of disciplines and to educated lay readers with ethical concerns about the path of modernity, as well as to the many fans of Dostoevsky's work." --Russell Hillier, Providence College. (shrink)

A new era has emerged in research on entheogens largely due to clinical trials conducted at Johns Hopkins University and similar studies sponsored by the Council for Spiritual Practices. In these notes and queries, I reflect on implications of these developments for psychological studies of religion and on what this research may mean for Christian churches in the United States. I conclude that the aims and methods of this research fit well within Jamesian efforts of contemporary psychology of religion (...) to assess religious practices by their fruits for life. Furthermore, some communitarian religious concerns that religious experiences occasioned by entheogens pose risks to the integrity of religious community are shown to be largely unfounded. However, it is suggested that certain risks for religious life posed by all investigations/interventions by knowledge experts—in particular, the colonization of the religious life world and the commodification of its practices—also attend these developments for Christian churches. Additionally, risks of individual harm in the use of entheogens appear to be significant and, therefore, warrant earnest ethical study. (shrink)

This essay uses the global impact of the Coronavirus as a heuristic semiotic for exploring the future of the church. Unlike the pandemic of 1918, which left few dents on the world's economic, social, and cultural systems, almost all the nations of the world have passed laws and implemented procedures that are only comparable to world wars in their impact on entire populations. Nations are acting in unison, but not in unity. This post-COVID, post-Corona world is the 'time that is (...) given' to the church. But it will not be a post-pandemic world. We may become COVID-proof, but we will never be pandemic-proof. There is no pre-COVID reset. There is only risk assessment from natural extinction risks to existential dangers of our own creation that are catching up to us. Disruption is the new status that is never quo; stability is the new abnormality; global cataclysm is the ever-present peril. The only way to prepare for a future of constant 'the end of the world as we know it?' moments is by developing a high Contextual Quotient, and deepening our Contextual Intelligence so we can choose 'the next right thing' in a world of volcanic volatility. CONTRIBUTION: This essay frames the semiotics of a missional ecclesiology in the COVIDian wake from the hermeneutics of blessings not curses. What virtues might we expect to come out of a virus that is fast-forwarding the future, virtues that will shape the contours of Christianity. What if the pandemic is a shock treatment that is putting the world, and the church, back in a new and better equilibrium? What if there are goldmines on the other side of the landmines and minefields? (shrink)

Psychology and religious belief.--The self and "the unconscious."--Sin and its remedy in the light of psychology.--The question of freedom.--Freedom, grace and providence.--Compromise, tension and personality.--Birth control and Christian ethics.--Original sin and baptism.--Sacraments.--Authority.--The reunion of Christendom.--Corruptio optimi pessima.

When I was beginning my studies in Oxford in the years before 1914, philosophy was emerging from the dominance of Hegelian idealism and theology was nearing ...

An appeal to all that doubt or disbelieve the truths of the Gospel, whether they be deists, Arians, Socinians, or nominal Christians, by W. Law.--Siris; a chain of philosophical reflexions and inquiries concerning the virtues of tar water, and divers other subjects, by G. Berkeley.--Observations on man, his frame, his duty, and his expectations, by D. Hartley.--The theory of moral sentiments, by A. Smith.--An essay on original genius, by W. Duff.--The light of nature pursued, by A. Tucker.--A new system; or, (...) An analysis of antient mythology, by J. Bryant.--Enquiry concerning political justice and its influence on morals and happiness, by W. Godwin. (shrink)

Provides an important step in the emerging movement toward global dialogue and peace. It is the belief of the book's contributors that human culture has entered a new age of Global Dialogue in response to increased inter-penetration of the world's cultures. In our emerging global village, guidance is needed, for as we have painfully seen, our century is not only the century of world culture, it is also the century of world wars, world famines, and worldwide environmental destruction. In this (...) inspiring arid challenging book, Prof. Leonard Swidler presents the next stage in the Global Ethic Movement. For All Life includes Professor Swidler's draft of a Universal Declaration of a Global Ethic, followed by responses from religious scholars representing Christian. Buddhist. Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, African, Chinese, and Baha'i traditions. (shrink)

Written for the people shearing the same reality, the same mental world of Modernity, this paper starts from the premise that we, as human beings, are not always consciously aware of the world we live in, of its constantly changing characteristics or attributes. It has already been demonstrated that our knowledge is contextual and limited. Thus, in order to accurately depict at least some of the attributes of Modernity, and consequently, to observe the major paradigm shift towards an age of (...) dialogue, entailed by this expending-modernity, it became necessary to describe the values promoted by Modernity. In this paper we aim at discussing notions such as freedom, critical-thinking, history and the increasing need to be in dialogue with those who think differently from us, values which guide us mentally and determine our actions through Modernity. (shrink)

Leonard Hodgson. Biblical Theology and ' The Sovereignty of God Leonard Hodgson BIBLICAL THEOLOGY AND THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. Front Cover .

Thomas Aquinas was first and foremost a Christian theologian. Yet he was also one of the greatest philosophers of the Middle Ages. Drawing on classical authors, and incorporating ideas from Jewish and Arab sources, he came to offer a rounded and lasting account of the origin of the universe and of the things to be found within it, especially human beings.

This book assembles the evidence for what the Greek Fathers, the men whose contructive thought underlies the creeds, really thought and taught about the nature of God. It shows that they were original thinkers, with a profound reverence for the text of the Scriptures, and minds keenly tranined to discuss what ultimate truths were expressed in the scriptural text and what reality should be ascribed to Christian religious experience. The results indicate that a good deal which is assumed in (...) current theological text-books needs to be revised. The Fathers had to reconcile monotheism with faith in a Trinity of divine Persons. In the process, they pursued many lines of inquiry, often only to discard them after trial, but after following various clues and making various intellectual adventures they reached a solution of the problem, which was both true to their data and philosophically reasonable. Though the bulk of the book is concerned with the third and fourth centuries, during which the creeds were in the process of formulation, the story is carried down to the eighth century where the progress of original thought came to a standstill. It is shown that a great change came over the philosophical tradition during the sixth century, and owing to the consequent growth of formalism, a genuine outbreak of tritheism occurred. The book ends with the account of how this outbreak was met and overcome, largely through the efforts of a thinker whose very name is unknown, and whose book has only survived under the name of another man. (shrink)

Clues in the Gospels, evidence from Jewish historian Josephus, belief in the transmigration of souls, and well-documented examples of erroneous declarations of death, combine to support a natural explanation for the Easter story: Jesus survives his short stay on the cross, and is discovered to be barely alive by the few followers who retrieve him. Fearful because they have illegally retrieved a condemned man, they carry out a decoy burial in a tomb. Jesus expires soon after, and is buried quietly (...) in an anonymous grave, but rumor of his survival reaches his followers, as well as the Romans, who open the tomb and find it empty, except for burial linen used in the decoy. To sooth their grief the disciples seize on the rumor of Jesus’ survival and encourage each other to hear the voice and see the image of their master in others. Although the probability of the scenario proposed herein is low, it is surely far larger than the supernatural one. It also is arguably more likely than other non-supernatural hypotheses. It does not require Jesus to survive his crucifixion and meet his followers, or, if Jesus died, to have his body stolen, or be removed from the tomb after the Sabbath and reburied in a lower class graveyard. One only need propose that Jesus was still alive when taken down from the cross and envision how events most likely would unfold from there. (shrink)

Disability theology has been a small but growing field over the past thirty years. This paper reviews the current methods used in the discipline and proposes ways to move the field forward. Two intersections between disability studies and Christian theological ethics are explored in particular: bioethics and critical theory. Bioethics helps to address the material health and wellbeing concerns of people with disabilities and the discriminatory attitudes about disability that stem from the medical field. Critical theory on the other (...) hand, examines disability through cultural productions that shape our ableist imaginary. Critical theory offers resources for countering or “disciplining” our imaginations. Both bioethics and critical theory offer unique entry points into disability, but each also contains limitations that reveal why disability theology must continue to engage multiple methods and discourses. (shrink)

The essay is an attempt to construct a new interfaith dialogical universal ethic after the Holocaust/Shoah, after first examining several biblical passages of both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, namely Leviticus 19:13–18; Matthew 22:34–40; Matthew 5:43–48; and Luke 10:25–37. The author contends that the foundational Jewish and Christian scriptural texts can no longer be read, understood, and either interpreted or reinterpreted the way they were prior to the events of 1933–1945. Thus, following an examination of the scriptural (...) passages in question, a new direction in the construction of such an ethic is suggested: that the only kind of holiness that merits our support is one grounded in ethical relations between all human beings, regardless of particularistic identities, and scriptural support for positions that exclude and distance rather than include and embrace must, ultimately, be rejected. (shrink)

"What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” Asked by the early Christian Tertullian, the question was vigorously debated in the nineteenth century. While classics dominated the intellectual life of Europe, Christianity still prevailed and conflicts raged between the religious and the secular. Taking on the question of how the glories of the classical world could be reconciled with the Bible, _Socrates and the Jews _explains how Judaism played a vital role in defining modern philhellenism. Exploring the tension between Hebraism (...) and Hellenism, Miriam Leonard gracefully probes the philosophical tradition behind the development of classical philology and considers how the conflict became a preoccupation for the leading thinkers of modernity, including Matthew Arnold, Moses Mendelssohn, Kant, Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud. For each, she shows how the contrast between classical and biblical traditions is central to writings about rationalism, political subjectivity, and progress. Illustrating how the encounter between Athens and Jerusalem became a lightning rod for intellectual concerns, this book is a sophisticated addition to the history of ideas. (shrink)

Abstractabstract:The Capuchin missionary Domenico da Fano (1674–1728) presented a report to the Propaganda Fide in 1713 based on his experiences in the Tibet mission from 1707 until 1711 when this mission was temporarily abandoned, principally due to lack of funds. The Report (Relazione) was the first detailed description of Tibet by a resident European observer since 1624, and it resulted in new funding and manpower for the mission, in which da Fano served as Prefect in Lhasa from 1714 to 1722. (...) In the introduction to this first English translation of da Fano's Report, we assess the background of the Capuchin mission and da Fano's contributions to it and touch on some of the highlights of the Report and its detailed account of the economy, agriculture, lifestyle, and politics of Tibet. Special attention is given to his conception of Tibetan Buddhism as having many similarities to Roman Catholicism, and especially to his view of the Buddhist Three Precious Objects of Refuge (dkon mchog gsum; triratna) as analogous to the Trinitarian doctrine of Christianity. (shrink)

Blindness has been a pervasive theme throughout Derrida’s career. But Derrida uses the word “blindness” only once in the title of one his works. This text is, ofcourse, Memoirs of the Blind, Mémoires d’aveugle, an essay he wrote for the catalogue for an exhibition he organized at the Louvre in 1990. I argue that Memoirs of the Blind is more than just a phase in Derrida’s deconstruction of the metaphysics of presence. Instead, it opens a larger, more ambitious project that (...) we can call “the deconstruction of Christianity.” The article ends with a consideration of a new form of vitalism. (shrink)

'Journey Towards the Goddess' is a personal narrative tracing the writer's path from the space left by a Christian faith that has become irrelevant, through a series of earth-based, feminine-orientated experiences and brief spiritual encounters with non-human life forms and with the non-physical world, towards an openness to the divine feminine in its pre-Christian and post-Christian guises. Citing Quaker sources as well as Starhawk, the anthropologist Felicitas Goodman and feminist theologians such as Mary Condren and Beverly Wildung (...) Harrison, she arrives at a conviction that goddess theology is not only valid but may be an essential component of a morally responsible spiritual outlook in the twenty-first century. The author is a poet and fic tion writer, and has also written two books that offer the non-judgmental life narrative as a way of spiritual understanding. (shrink)

This article explores the role of the antithesis between Athens and Jerusalem in the work of Karl Marx. Starting from an exploration of Ludwig Feuerbach’s Essence of Christianity, the essay attempts to situate Marx’s ‘On the Jewish Question’ within a longer history of philosophical writings about Judaism. It argues that, like previous writers, Marx depicts the Hellenic world as an implicit Other to Jewish modernity. Marx’s writings about Greece are heir both to the tradition of German philhellenism reaching back to (...) Schiller and to the insights into antiquity arising from the development of historical scholarship. While Marx’s writings have been instrumental in moving away from the Christian worldview, he has also played a contested and ambivalent role in the development of modern anti-Semitism. By exploring the representation of Greeks and Jews in Marx and Feuerbach, this article will trace how the conflict between Athens and Jerusalem played a crucial role in the shift from Christian anti-Judaism to secular anti-Semitism. (shrink)

Christiane Bailey and Chloë Taylor (Editorial Introduction) Sue Donaldson (Stirring the Pot - A short play in six scenes) Ralph Acampora (La diversification de la recherche en éthique animale et en études animales) Eva Giraud (Veganism as Affirmative Biopolitics: Moving Towards a Posthumanist Ethics?) Leonard Lawlor (The Flipside of Violence, or Beyond the Thought of Good Enough) Kelly Struthers Montford (The “Present Referent”: Nonhuman Animal Sacrifice and the Constitution of Dominant Albertan Identity) James Stanescu (Beyond Biopolitics: Animal Studies, Factory Farms, (...) and the Advent of Deading Life) Ian Werkheiser (Domination and Consumption: An Examination of Veganism, Anarchism, and Ecofeminism) Cynthia Willett (Water and Wing Give Wonder: Trans-Species Cosmopolitanism) Corey Lee Wrenn (Nonhuman Animal Rights, Alternative Food Systems, and the Non-Profit Industrial Complex) Emily R. Douglas (Eat or Be Eaten: A Feminist Phenomenology of Women as Food) Gary Steiner’s Animals and the Limits of Postmodernism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013) Chloë Taylor (“Postmodern” Critical Animal Theory: A Defense) Patrick Llored (La déconstruction derridienne peut-elle fonder une communauté politique et morale entre vivants humains et non humains?) Jan Dutkiewicz (“Postmodernism,” Politics, and Pigs) Gary Steiner (Response to Commentators). (shrink)

Christianity and Modern Medicine raises moral questions that were merely hypothetical just decades ago. Moreover, traditional moral models are incessantly challenged by the medical community at large, shifting the conversation to patient and societal rights within a framework of moral relativism and rendering the decision-making process morally vague and confusing. In Christianity and Modern Medicine, bioethicist Mark Wesley Foreman and attorney Lindsay C. Leonard delve into the major ethical issues facing today's medical professionals with the purpose of providing principles and (...) guidelines for making critical ethical decisions where medical knowledge, technologies, and capabilities are constantly evolving. Topics covered include: procreational ethics, genetic ethics, abortion, medical research, infanticide, clinical ethics, physician-assisted suicide, legal issues. While Christianity and Modern Medicine is designed specifically for students planning careers in the medical field, it is accessible to any Christian interested in steering through the moral fog in the practice of medicine today. (shrink)

Many researchers and intellectuals warn about extreme risks from artificial intelligence. However, these warnings typically came without systematic arguments in support. This paper provides an argument that AI will lead to the permanent disempowerment of humanity, e.g. human extinction, by 2100. It rests on four substantive premises which it motivates and defends: first, the speed of advances in AI capability, as well as the capability level current systems have already reached, suggest that it is practically possible to build AI systems (...) capable of disempowering humanity by 2100. Second, due to incentives and coordination problems, if it is possible to build such AI, it will be built. Third, since it appears to be a hard technical problem to build AI which is aligned with the goals of its designers, and many actors might build powerful AI, misaligned powerful AI will be built. Fourth, because disempowering humanity is useful for a large range of misaligned goals, such AI will try to disempower humanity. If AI is capable of disempowering humanity and tries to disempower humanity by 2100, then humanity will be disempowered by 2100. This conclusion has immense moral and prudential significance. (shrink)