We study a notion of ‘o-amorphous’ which bears the same relationship to ‘o-minimal’ as ‘amorphous’ 191–233) does to ‘strongly minimal’. A linearly ordered set is said to be o-amorphous if its only subsets are finite unions of intervals. This turns out to be a relatively straightforward case, and we can provide a complete ‘classification’, subject to the same provisos as in Truss . The reason is that since o-amorphous is an essentially second-order notion, it corresponds more accurately to 0-categorical o-minimal, (...) and our classification is thus very similar to the one given in 565–592) for that case. More interesting structures arise if we replace ‘interval’ in the definition by ‘convex set’, giving us the class of weakly o-amorphous sets. Here, in fact, there are so many examples that a complete classification seems out of the question. We illustrate some of the structures which these may exhibit, and classify them in certain instances not too far removed from the o-amorphous case. (shrink)

A set is said to be amorphous if it is infinite, but cannot be written as the disjoint union of two infinite sets. The possible structures which an amorphous set can carry were discussed in [5]. Here we study an analogous notion at the next level up, that is to say replacing finite/infinite by countable/uncountable, saying that a set is quasi-amorphous if it is uncountable, but is not the disjoint union of two uncountable sets, and every infinite subset has a (...) countably infinite subset. We use the Fraenkel–Mostowski method to give many examples showing the diverse structures which can arise as quasi-amorphous sets, for instance carrying a projective geometry, or a linear ordering, or both; reconstruction results in the style of [1] are harder to come by in this case. (shrink)

Dougherty investigates the classical roots of Western culture and its religious sources in an effort to define its underlying intellectual and spiritual ...

It is a widely held belief that one can will to believe, disbelieve, and withhold belief concerning propositions. It is sometimes said that we have a duty to believe certain propositions. These theses have had a long and respected history. In one form or another they receive the support of a large number of philosophers and theologians who have written on the relationship of the will to believing. In the New Testament Jesus holds his disciples responsible for their beliefs, reprimands (...) them for doubting, and speaks of the ability to believe as if it were optional. Paul makes it clear that he thinks propositional belief is a necessary condition for salvation. If a man confesses Christ as Lord with his lips and believes in his heart that God has raised him from the dead, he shall be saved . The writer of Hebrews implies that unless we have certain propositional beliefs we cannot please God . In the New Testament most cases of pistis involve more than a propositional attitude. They involve the idea of trust and faithfulness. Nevertheless, a prima facie case for saying that the volitional theses can be found in the New Testament can be made. Forms of volitionalism can be found stated more explicitly in the writings of the early Church, in the writings of Irenaeus, in the Athanasian Creed, and in Augustine. Acquinas describes faith as an act of the intellect moved by the will. Descartes is perhaps the classic example of a volitionalist, holding that if we were not responsible for our beliefs , then God would be - which is tantamount to blasphemy in that it makes God into a deceiver. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:PROFESSING THE CREED AMONG THE WORLD'S RELIGIONS For Hans-Georg Gadamer FRANS JOZEF VAN BEECK, 8.J. Loyola University Chicago, Illinois The Creed, the Created Order, and the Religions T:HE CHRISTIAN CREED is a particular profession of aith, yet it is not Hie creed of a sect; it is essentially niversalist. Both are dear not only from the Creed's oontent but aJ,so fr.om. the act by (...) which it is professed. By means of the Creed, one particular, identifiable (" visible ") eommunity----the Christian Church-profosses, both to its own membership and to eviery pa,rt1cu1ar person or community 1that wants to listen, its faith :in God in the name of Jesus Christ. The part]cular profession is offered with a universa1ist intent, in the context of a communa:l missionary commitment to the whole world and, beyond that, in the perspectivie of the supernwbural, all-1 encompassing, escha:tologrcal "life of the world to come." It is not surprising, the1~efore, thait even those primitive trinitarian creeds that lack every trace of christoJogica.l narrative (and rthus also every ireferenoe rto Christ's coming to do justice to the living and the dead) still include a profession of at least a few eschatolog1erwl artides of belief at the end. The most nota.b1e among these features are il:he univiersaJ chm,ch (which represents and anticipates the finaJ gathering of the saints), rthe (definitive) forgivieness of sins, the resurrection of the flesh,,and rbhe life that fasts forever.1 But the Creed harbors another universraJism as well. It is 1 Cf. DS 1-6. 539 540 FRANS JOZEF VAN BEECK, S.J. natural, fuilldamentail, p:mtoilogiical. In!the text of the Creed, this univiersalism surfaces in the professwn of God,as Creato!l' of aJil,thait is, whether seen or unseen, and of Jesus Christ a:s God's 1agent in creation. In.addressing itself to humanity at ~arge, the Creed relies on this. It 'appeals to humanity's native eras-its native.attunement.to God am!d 1to the whole worLd, its limitless caipacity for ;authentic understanding, and its unquenchable thirsit for ioommunion. In the rhetoric of the Christian profiession of £aith, :the fO!l'IDer univiersalism enjoys pride of plare. The Creed's primary profession is positive: thematiicailly, the Creed is designed to formuilate the Christian £aiith in its mnc11ete, historic partioofarity, :in :i:ts commitment to the Christian mission to the whole worLd, and in its anticipation of :the eschaton. But if it is rtrue that the Creed primariily ·addresses itself to :ail:l of humanity with the es1chato1ogiterul message thrut is the horizon of the Christi,an faith, this positivie profoss,ion is undergirded by a commitment to humanity allld the wol'lld in their natu1~ail integrity, by means of ra "suhsidiairy universwlism." If, in the actualiity of its hisrboric e:~istence, the Coorch ·aiddresses itself to all of humanity :and the wor1d with its partrowlar message of sru1vati.on, it is only by virtue of.a fundam.entail, natural universalism thrut it can so aiddress them. And it is on the strength of this 1aitber univiersailism that the Christian community it·self, itoo, acknowledges an whl-iillclusive natura.l order which it shares with all. of humanity. " All of humanity " is no:t an 1abs:tmntion; it comes in the form of ithe greiat variety of "rull nations" (Mt ~8: 19), along with their great religions. The theologircail. 'bask of interpreting the Creed in light of ilts.commitment to £UDJdamentail universalism, therefo11e, must.somehow raise the issue of Christianiity ';s relationship with the world's great religions. ln taking on this issrue, we must remind ourselv;es of an important ooail:ity-one heavy with consequence, as will be1come ·dear in the oomse of this es1 say. This 11eality was not unknown to the first Christian apologists: the Consrtantinian THE CREED AND THE RELIGIONS 541 and Theodosian settlements of the fourth century slowly but surely, and ever more fo11cefolly, eased it ~nto abeyance. But it began to J.~eturn with a vengeance in the early eighteenth century, when the Enlightenment, iinereasingJy fascinated by the variety of religions and cultures in... (shrink)

In this article, I consider the cases of religious Moorean propositions of the form ‘d, but I don't believe that d’ and ‘d, but I believe that ~d’, where d is a religious dogma, proposition, or part of a creed. I argue that such propositions can be genuinely and rationally asserted and that this fact poses a problem for traditional analysis of religious assertion as an expression of faith and of religious faith as entailing belief. In the article, I (...) explore the possibility of undermining these commonly held assumptions and argue that the assertability of religious Moorean propositions can be justified by an account of faith as an intention to form religious beliefs. In the end, I also consider the consequences of such a stance, especially concerning the debate on the ethics of religious belief and doxastic voluntarism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Introduction to the Mystery of the Church by Benoît-Dominique de La Soujeole, O.P.David OlsonIntroduction to the Mystery of the Church. By Benoît-Dominique de La Soujeole, O.P. Trans. by Michael J. Miller. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2014. Pp. xxviii + 640. $75.00 (cloth). ISBN: 978-0-8132-2607-1.La Soujeole intends his work to be a textbook in an introductory course in ecclesiology. While this is a review of (...) the English translation, the book was first published in French in 2007, and the preface to the original edition stated, “The present volume is a course in ecclesiology that has been taught regularly at the Dominican House of Studies in Toulouse” (xxv). As a textbook, it is well structured and should be accessible to a wide variety of students. The writing style in translation is clear and straightforward, with explanations given for any terms of art which are used, making it accessible to an audience with some theological training.The tone of the book is theological, that is to say, it is focused on an ordered view of the Catholic faith. It is not apologetic or polemical as is sometimes the case with books on ecclesiology, particularly those preceding the Second Vatican Council. On the other hand, it is certainly not a relativistic, blandly Christian study of various notions of church. Each of the topics within the book is situated within Scripture, and the author provides ample bibliography, though—not surprisingly, considering his religious order and background—the work leans heavily upon St. Thomas Aquinas. The book gives a very balanced view of the teachings of Vatican II.The author begins his work with a general introduction that provides a brief historical overview of important moments and trends in the theology of the Church, as well as a review of ecclesiology as a separate theological subject. One point is that the study of ecclesiology per se is relatively new, beginning only in the fourteenth century, but that questions concerning the ecclesia are found within all major areas of theological study. Ecclesiology cannot neatly be divorced from the study of the doctrine of God, Christology, or the sacraments. Issues regarding sacramental theology and Christology are prominent in the second portion of the book.Explanations are full and show a certain rigor. Some might consider them at times pedantic. For example, the distinction of belief in God from belief in the Church in the Nicene Creed is more than four pages in length, rehearsing difficulties of translation (296-301). More substantially on this point, over these four plus pages the author does not manage to make what would be to many theologians the obvious distinction between the absolute God and the created reality referred to as the Church. In fact, it is not clear that this is a distinction the author would want to make, as the second part of the book, containing his speculative theology, eschews a distinction between a visible and invisible church, the body of the Church and the grace of Jesus Christ. A [End Page 324] too-cursory reading of the second part could tend toward conflating the Church and the inner life of God.The book is divided into three parts. The first part is subdivided into thematic descriptions of the Church. The several themes explored are “Images of the Church and the Kingdom of God,” “the Church [as] the Body of Christ,” “the Church [as] the Temple of the Spirit,” and “the Church [as] the People of God.” The discussion on the Kingdom of God is the most limited. The first part of the book concludes with a section entitled “Recapitulation: The Church Is a Mystery.”The presentations on the Body of Christ, the Temple of the Spirit, and the People of God are done thoroughly. They follow a standard pattern of reviewing Scripture, patristic developments, the medieval period (mostly St. Thomas), and developments from Vatican II, which the author characterizes as the council on the Church. Following a thematic approach, particularly in teaching ecclesiology, seems most appropriate since the typical student may lack the needed... (shrink)

Western Creed, Western Identity: such was the title of a volume of collected essays by Jude P. Dougherty published in 2000; most of these essays are now made available in this German translation. Since the author is well known to the readership of the Review of Metaphysics, which he has served as editor for thirty years, his thought need not to be introduced by way of a book review; rather, it will be of interest to emphasize the timeliness of (...) these studies for the German audience. (shrink)

On Humour and the Comic in the Hebrew Bible. Edited by Y. T. Radday and A. Brenner.The Trouble With Kings: The Composition of rhe Book of Kings in the Deuteronomistic History. By Steven L. McKenzie.Sacred Space: An Approach to the Zheology of the Epistle to the Hebrews. By Marie E. Isaacs.Fourth Ezra: A Commentary on the Book of Fourth Ezra. By Michael Edward StonePaul the Convert: iShe Apostolate and Apostasy of Saul the Pharisee. By Alan F. Segal.Creative Biblical Exegesis: Christian (...) and Jewish Hermeneutics through the Centuries. Edited by Benjamin Uffenheimer and Henning Graf Reventlow.The Hope of the Early Church: A Handbook of Patristic Escharology. By Brian E. Daley.The Emergence of the Laity in the Early Church. By Alexandre Faivre, translated by David Smith.Pastoral Life and Practice in the Early Church. By Carl A. Volz.The Making of the Creeds. By Frances Young.La correzione fratenia in s. Agosrino. By Agostino Clerici.Beaup and Revelation in the Thought of St Augustine. By Carol Harrison.Grace, Politics and Desire. Edited by Hugo Meynell.Boerhius and Aquinas. By Ralph McInerny.The Weight of Glory. A Vision and Practice for Christian Faith: The Future of Liberal Theology. Edited by D. W. Hardy and P. H. Sedgwick.Atonenrent and Incarnation. By Vernon White.Tragic Method and Tragic Theology: Evil in Contemporary Drama and Religious Thought. By L. D. Bouchard.Parmenides of Elea, Fragments: A Text and Translation, with an Introduction. By David Gallop.Language, Thought and Falsehood in Ancient Greek Philosophy. By Nicholas Denyer.Weakness of the Will. By Justin Gosling.Knowledge and the Sciences in Medieval Philosophy. Vol. I, edited by Monica Asztalos, John E. Murdoch and Ilkka Niiniluoto.Episcopal Power and Norenrine Sociev. 1000–1320. By George W. Dameron.Matins, Lauds and Vespers for St David's Day. By Owain Tudor Edwards.More's ‘Utopia’. By Dominic Baker‐Smith.Frontiers of Heresy: The Spanish Inquisitionfrom the Basque Lands to Sicily. By William Monter.Inquisition and Society in the Kingdom of Valencia, 1478–1834, By Stephen Haliczer.The Fear of Hell: Images of Damnation and Salvation in Early Modern Europe. By Piero Camporesi, translated by Lucinda Byatt.Lucrecia's Dreams: Politics and Prophecy in Sixteenth‐Centun Spain. By Richard L. Kagan.Heresy and Mysticism in Sixteenth‐Century Spain: The Alumbrados. By Alastair Hamilton.Japan's Encounter with Christianiry: The Catholic Mission in Pre‐Modern Japan. By Neil S. Fujita.Galileo, Bellannine and the Bible. By Richard J.Augustine Baker's Inner Light: A Study in English Recusant Spirituality. By James Gaffney.The Prorestarit Evaqelical Awakening. By W. R. Ward.The Study of Anglicanism. Edited by Stephen Sykes and John Booty.The Anglican Tradition: A Handbook of Sources. Edited by G. R. Evans and J. Robert Wright.The Restoration Church of England, 1646‐1689. By John Spurr.Awash in a Sea of Faith: Christianizing the American People. By Jon Butler.A Woman Styled Bold: The Life of Cornelia Connelly, 1809–1879. By Radegunde Flaxman.Cane Ridge: America's Pentecost. By Paul K. Conkin.Revivalism and Social Change: Christianio, Nation Building and the Market in the Nineteenth‐Century United States. By George M. Thomas.Church and State: The English Experience. By Adrian Hastings.Evelyn Underhill: Artist of the Infinite Life. By Dana Greene.Northern Ireland: Fairh and Faction. By Maurice Irvine.The Tragedy of Belief: Division, Politics, arid Religion in Ireland. By John Fulton.Shattered Vows: Exodus from the Priesthood. By David Rice.Making Saints: Inside the Vatican: Who Become Saints, Who Do Not, and Why. By Kenneth L. Woodward.Ecclesiae Memoria: Miscellanea in onorr del R. P. Josef Metzler, O. M. I. Edited by Willi Henkel. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Without Buddha I Could not Be a ChristianPeter A. HuffWithout Buddha I Could not Be a Christian. By Paul F. Knitter. Oxford: Oneworld, 2009. xvii + 240 pp.Paul Knitter’s contributions to interfaith dialogue and Christian theologies of religions are well known and widely appreciated. Even critics of Christian theories of pluralism, most prominently Pope Benedict XVI, have acknowledged the significance of Knitter’s strategic integration of perspectives from liberation (...) theology into what is sometimes an overly abstract field of inquiry. Colleagues active in Buddhist-Christian studies hold Knitter in especially high esteem as a writer, teacher, translator, [End Page 211] editor, self-described interreligious theologian, and unapologetic person of faith. This book, his first major publication since accepting the Paul Tillich chair at Union Theological Seminary, offers a uniquely first-person reflection on the spiritual fruits of a career profoundly and provocatively shaped by two religious traditions.Written for a popular audience, the book, the author says, has been in the works “for the past forty years” (p. xv). The reader gains valuable insight into the professional and private life of a remarkable “dialogical theologian” (p. xv), whose experience includes a rather conventional upbringing in working-class Midwestern Catholicism, some twenty years of service as a seminarian and missionary priest with the Society of the Divine Word, graduate education in Europe with the likes of Bernard Lonergan (1904–1984) and Karl Rahner (1904–1984) during the revolutionary years of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), and nearly four decades of pioneering work as a productive scholar-activist in mainstream academic theology. At times Knitter even quotes from his unpublished journals in an effort to document fully his unscripted intellectual and spiritual development.Though highly personal, the book is not primarily an autobiography or conversion narrative. Instead, it is an introspective analysis of the internal dialogue that virtually all participants in interreligious affairs recognize as the heart of the global ecumenical encounter. Knitter’s book serves as something of an apologia for what is known today as dual religious belonging or hyphenated religious identity. The author concludes his text with this intriguing but not surprising spiritual self-portrait: both lifelong baptized Christian and “card-carrying Buddhist” (p. 216). The challenge of accounting for this “both /and” orientation grants the book its distinctive character and its reason for being.Knitter borrows his method from the twentieth-century minor classic The Way of All the Earth: Experiments in Truth and Religion (1978). In that work, Notre Dame theology professor and Holy Cross priest James Dunne suggested that the path to holiness in the contemporary West leads inevitably through intimate engagement with the ancient wisdom traditions of the East. Even a casual review of the spiritual history of the last century or so will confirm how earnest seekers in modernity’s secular city have renewed, rediscovered, or critically redefined their native faith commitment through life-changing contact with the ideas and values of Asian religious traditions. It is a story familiar to anyone acquainted with the extraordinary religious pilgrimages of interfaith saints such as Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968), Thomas Merton (1915–1968), and Bede Griffiths (1906–1993).Dunne dubbed this experience the “spiritual adventure of our time” (p. 2); Knitter passionately agrees. He applies Dunne’s dialectical method and his special terminology to his own spiritual odyssey, “passing over” from Christian questions and problems to possible answers and solutions in the Buddhist tradition and then “passing back” to Christian belief and practice with enhanced purpose and a fresh sense of integrity.The starting point for Knitter’s project is cognitive, moral, even emotional dissatisfaction with some of the fundamental structures of the historic Christian worldview: God as transcendent creator and lord of history, Jesus Christ as incarnate Logos and [End Page 212] universal savior, and salvation as the survival of human personality after death and the eschatological redemption of all finite reality. In essence, Knitter claims, traditional theism and the core myth of Christianity as expressed in scripture, creed, and liturgy appear painfully ineffective and to a large extent incoherent in the context of modern life and the international interface of world religions. What especially drives the... (shrink)

In God, Chance and Purpose, statistician David Bartholomew chides Christians who cling to, in his words, a “naive orthodoxy.” Such Christians view God as exhibiting a set of perfections (especially omniscience and omnipotence) and as satisfying a set of propositions (a creed). Such a view is, according to Bartholomew, unworthy of God. In place of a “naive orthodoxy,” he therefore proposes a “critical orthodoxy.” At the center of his “critical orthodoxy” is the skeptical claim that “all knowledge is uncertain, (...) in varying degrees” (p. 232). Question: To what degree is that claim uncertain? Bartholomew’s claim does not pass its own test. (shrink)

The first section reconstructs Dugin’s claims to have charted a “fourth political theory” (4PT), which would have broken from “fascism” and “Nazism”, the “third political theory” (as well liberalism and communism, the first and second “PTs” respectively). The second section of the paper critically unpacks four Duginian claims to defend this position, despite his avowed recourse to intellectuals who became Nazi Party Members and public advocates of the Third Reich, led by Martin Heidegger and Carl Schmitt. In the third section, (...) we assess whether Dugin’s substantive claims hold up about “Nazism” and “fascism”, which enable him to present his 4PT as “anti-Nazi/fascist/racist”, by recourse to Aurel Kolnai’s monumental 1938 work The War on the West: the most extensive anglophone examination of the intellectual sources, texts, and parameters of “the Nazi creed, … its fundamental principles and its details” (Kolnai 1938: 18). Our argument is that Dugin’s “4PT” involves a more or less clever ideological repackaging of the “3PT” in the face of continuing horror at the Nazi’s crimes, rather than a novel political theory, based on a “retreat[ing] from the “sub-standard” Hitler to the “eminent” Spengler, Heidegger or Nietzsche” (Lukács 1980: p. 8). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:September 27, 2008 (1:09 pm) G:\WPData\TYPE2801\russell 28,1 048RED.wpd Reviews 89 MODERNIST HERESIES K.yE. Garay Arts & Science/Research Collections / McMaster U. Hamilton, on, Canada l8s 4m2 [email protected] Damon Franke. Modernist Heresies: British Literary History, 1883–1924. Columbus : Ohio State U. P., 2008. Pp. xx, 258. isbn 978-0-8142-1074-1 (hb). us$47.95. The editor of the Russell journal summed up Modernist Heresies: British Literary History, 1883–1924z with his usual brevity during a (...) recent conversation : “The Wrst part is about Russell and the rest of it isn’t.” In fact the Wrst two chapters are only somewhat concerned with Russell, since he Wgures as part of the Heretical Cambridge scene with which Damon Franke opens this study, but, September 27, 2008 (1:09 pm) G:\WPData\TYPE2801\russell 28,1 048RED.wpd 90 Reviews after a Xeeting appearance of both Russells, Bertie and Dora, in the opening pages of Chapter 3, Bertie is not heard from again. Franke, who teaches English at the University of Southern Mississippi, has set himself an ambitious task, the scope of which is not fully captured in this book’s title. The selection of no fewer than ten subject headings in the cataloguing data for this studyz—zheadings ranging from “Modernism (Literature)” through “English Literature”, “Religion and Literature”, “Heresies, Christian”, and “Paganism in Literature”z—zprovides the wary reader withsome forewarning of its breadth. The author’s focus is on nothing less than the emergence and development of modernism in England, using the rise and demise of what Franke terms “heresy” as his barometer. Nor does the ascribed date range, 1883– 1924, prove much more accurate; in one of the most persuasive segments of the book, the After Words, Franke extends his examination, Wrst into the 1930s and then as far as 1949, the year that Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Fourz was published. Selecting as his starting point the 1883 blasphemy trial of G.yW. Foote, the editor of The Freethinker, at which the right to attack “even the fundamentals of religion” was enshrined in English law, providing that “the decencies of controversy” are observed (p. 10), Franke argues that this decision made possible “intellectual and literary forms of heresy which questioned the principles of religion ” (ibid.). His use of the term “heresy” for his wide ranging survey of philosophical and linguistic as well as literary opinion, provoked pause in this reader. The Oxford English Dictionary, the Wrst edition of which appeared the year after Foote’s heresy trial, provides a primary deWnition of heresy as follows: Theological or religious opinion or doctrine maintained in opposition, or held to be contrary, to the “catholic” or orthodox doctrine of the Christian Church, or, by extension, to that of any church, creed, or religious system, considered as orthodox. It is only through an extended deWnition of heresy that the door opens to allow Franke’s highly variable use of the term: “Opinion or doctrine in philosophy, politics, science, art, etc., at variance with those generally accepted as authoritative ” (OED Online, 2008). As will be demonstrated, aspects of thought which the less adventurous might prefer to call agnosticism, paganism or even atheism, are subsumed into the wide-ranging scope of this provocative study. The Cambridge Heretics, the group of which Russell was an Honorary Member, provides Franke with both his heretical cornerstone and his book’s opening chapters. In a skilfully contextualized examination, Franke documents the group’s Michaelmas 1909 genesis in the shadow, or perhaps in the intellectual light, of the Chawner ATairz—zthe Master of Emmanuel’s public expression of his personal loss of religious faith. Its Wrst chairman was C.yM. Picciotto, but it was its Wrst secretary, C.yK. Ogden, a newly arrived Magdalene College under- September 27, 2008 (1:09 pm) G:\WPData\TYPE2801\russell 28,1 048RED.wpd Reviews 91 graduate, who was to prove the group’s guiding genius. Franke argues convincingly that the group, which included Bernard Shaw, J.yM. Keynes, I.yA. Richards and G.yE. Moore, as well as Russell, in its membership roster, has suTered puzzling scholarly neglect, particularly when compared with the Apostles, its... (shrink)

In his Logic of Religion (1965) Bocheński presumed that: (1) ‘religion’ denotes a system of propositions of religious contents, (2) man becomes an advocate of a certain religion through an acceptance of its meta-dogma, i.e. a statement that the creed of this religion is true. In his article Religious Hypothesis Revised [in: P. Weingartner (ed.), Scientific and Religious Belief, Dordrecht 1994, 142-160] Bocheński writes that the concept of religion assumed in the Logic is wrong. Our experience shows that the (...) conversion of a man who previously was an unbeliever may occur in two steps: first, he accepts several elementary propositions about God. They constitute ‘basic faith’ (that God exists that He governs the events in the world, etc.). Then we have a collection of propositions that compose “the confession of faith” of a given religion. The religious hypothesis is applied, above all, when we accept a system. It is doubtful whether it can be used in the basic faith. In this paper, the author discusses first various forms of religious experience that inspires the basic faith: (1) a religious interpretation of secular phenomena; (2) an experience of sacrum in the world; (3) an ‘encounter’ of Transcendence. Then he presents a new version of this hypothesis: what kind of experience that some persons have accounts for religion and whether it permits to predict their new experiences or even new events. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:_Russell_ journal (home office): E:CPBRRUSSJOURTYPE2402\INDEXISS.242 : 2005-05-19 13:34
ibliographies, rchival nventories, ndexes INDEX TO RUSSELL’S THE IMPACT OF SCIENCE ON SOCIETY R H Summerfields, The Glade Escrick, York  , .. @.. he edition of the richly allusioned The Impact of Science on Society Tindexed here is that of George Allen and Unwin, published in London in . The pagination of Simon and Schuster’s edition (New York, ) is (...) different and spans pages – instead of the first British edition’s –. The very first edition of the book (New York: Columbia U. P., ) contained two paragraphs comparing Catholicism and Communism that were overlooked for the British and all subsequent editions. Russell regarded them as important, and Sir Stanley Unwin wrote him that they would be incorporated in the next printing. The next printing was not until , and the paragraphs were again overlooked. They belong just before the paragraph on page  beginning “Every fanatical creed” in Chapter , “Science and Values”. These paragraphs are not indexed.—Ed. I meet many people who think that the evils of Communism can be combated by Catholicism. This seems to me a dangerous error. What are the evils of Communism as it has developed? First, adherence to a rigid and static system of doctrine, of which part is doubtful and part demonstrably false. Second, persecution as a means of enforcing orthodoxy. Third, a belief that salvation is only to be found within the Church and that the True Faith must be spread throughout the world, by force if necessary. (These are the beliefs of Communists.) Fourth, that the priesthood, which alone has the right to interpret the Scriptures, has enormous power, physical east of the Iron Curtain and spiritual over the faithful in partibus. Fifth, that this power is used to secure an undue share of wealth for the priesthood at the expense of the rest of the population. Sixth, that bigotry, and the hostility that it engenders, is a potent source of war. Every one of these evils was exhibited by the Catholic Church when it had power and would probably be exhibited again if it recovered the position it had in the Middle Ages. It is therefore irrational to suppose that much would be gained if, in the defeat of Communism, Catholicism were enthroned in its place. (Pp. –) russell: the Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies n.s.  (winter –): – The Bertrand Russell Research Centre, McMaster U.  - _Russell_ journal (home office): E:CPBRRUSSJOURTYPE2402\INDEXISS.242 : 2005-05-19 13:34    Abraham  absolute monarchy  Adler, Alfred  adventure, impulse to ,  vs. rashness  aeroplanes  Africa cotton market  North, and Romans  age, average, in West – agriculture effects of  in history of man  integration into larger economy – wasteful of natural resources – see also soil conservation air power and governments  Alexander the Great and superstition  ambassadors, independence of  America see United States anaesthetics  anarchy  Anaxagoras ,  animals, and man  anthropology  apathy  Arab-Israeli conflict – Arabian Nights slaves of lamp in  Arabs and scientific technique  Archimedes , ,  Argentina agriculture  Arians  Aristotle  and causation – movement of heavenly bodies  armed forces and civil authorities  international, as concentration of power ,  perceptions of own/other nations’  in Russia –,  artillery  arts: authors and artists independence of –, –,  ascetic mentality  Asia: population and prosperity  astrology – astronomers Greek  prospects for life on earth  astronomical events indicating disaster  Atlantic Pact  atom bomb , , ,  atomic energy –, ,  Attica, history  Attlee, Clement  Augustine, Saint scientific argument against astrology – Auschwitz  Australia aborigines ,  agriculture  federal government  Austria: war with Prussia  Authority and the Individual (BR)  authority vs. observation –,  autonomy of physical world , – Aztecs and cannibalism  and infanticide  Babylonians and eclipses  Bacon, Francis and witchcraft  bacteriological war  Baltic–White Sea canal  barbarians, and late Roman Empire ,  Barbarossa (Frederick I)  , independence of  Bede, the Venerable on comets  belief(s) on basis of authority, as unscientific – science as determinant  in superstition  uncivilized peoples  benefits of scientific technique – _Russell_ journal (home office): E:CPBRRUSSJOURTYPE2402\INDEXISS.242 : 2005-05-19 13:34 Index to Impact of Science on Society  Bentham , ,  Bergson, Henri  Bible, false statements in  see also individual books of biological conditions of stability (of society) –, – biology technique(s) from – birth control and population , , – birth rate, low ,  Black Death , – Blimps, Col., Romans as  breeding, scientific – Bright, John  Britain, happiness in  British Empire... 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In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Mahāyāna Reading of Chalcedon Christology:A Chinese Response to John KeenanPan-chiu LaiIntroductionThe Christological formula of Chalcedon, especially its use of the substantialist concepts such as ousia, hypostatsis, and so on, has long been a target of criticism in the history of Western Christian theology.1 Recently, Kwok Pui-lan, an Asian feminist theologian, has queried not only the language or way of thinking of traditional Western Christology, but also its anthropocentric (...) tendency. According to Kwok, "the majority of Asian people find it difficult to accept a savior in human form because of their cosmological sensibility."2 Kwok also thinks that the Chalcedonian expressions such as "fully God and fully man" or "two natures in one substance" are quite beyondthe understanding of the majority of the Asian people. The lengthy debate on the difference between homoousia and homoiousia is also irrelevant to the average Chinese, because there are no immediate Chinese equivalents to the terms such as "being" or "essence." According to Kwok, Buddhism, in contrast, characterizes the world as transient and impermanent without using the philosophical language such as "being" and "nonbeing."3 Kwok further notes that "The Buddhist tradition asserts that there is not one Buddha, but many Buddhas, and that everyone has the potential to attain Buddhahood. If we get away from the framework defined by a language of substance, we will not be fixated on a one-time incarnation."4 Kwok concludes that the anthropocentric perspective and the substantialist language of the Chalcedonian Creed represent a burden or obstacle that needs to be put aside. She even laments that "the church worldwide is still much under the yoke of the Chalcedonian captivity and Eurocentric theological formulations based on Western heritages."5 Kwok's comment seems to imply that the Buddhist way of thinking may offer a better alternative or a remedy to Chalcedonian Christology.In the contemporary Buddhist-Christian dialogue, John P. Keenan, when proposing a Mahāyāna theology, also offers a critique of Chalcedonian Christology.6 [End Page 209] Through a response to Keenan's discussion, this paper will examine these critiques and will attempt to reinterpret the Chalcedonian Christology from a Mahāyāna perspective.The Mahāyāna Theology of John KeenanIn proposing a Mahāyāna theology, Keenan assumes a Christian standpoint and tries to make use of Mahāyāna Buddhism for the service of Christianity. As Keenan himself frankly admits, his basic approach is to adopt "Mahāyāna Thought as Theologiae Ancilla, " which is the heading for the second part of his The Meaning of Christ. Keenan's strategy of arguing for a Mahāyāna theology is to identify the need of Christianity first, and then to argue in what way Mahāyāna Buddhism can help Christian theology to solve its own problems. According to Keenan's diagnosis, a fundamental problem of the Western Christian tradition is the detrimental separation of mysticism from doctrine. In his own words,It is argued here that, to date, the Christian West has been unable organically to relate its own mystic thinkers to its doctrinal, theoretical thinking. The reason for this inability was not simply, as Adolf von Harnack thought, the adoption and superimposition of Greek patterns of ontology upon the gospel. Rather it is an inability to differentiate that realm of Greek, logos-centered theory from the more primal realm of mystic awareness, an ability to understand the mind of faith in its polyvalent realms of meaning.7In the first part of the book (ch. 1-5), based on his review of the historical development of the Christian understanding of Christ, Keenan highlights the tremendous tension between the primal experience of "being in Christ" and the theoretical understanding of Christ.8 Keenan believes that the school of wisdom literature in the Old Testament has prepared the New Testament for an understanding of the meaning of Christ as God's wisdom. This wisdom comprises essentially God as Father (Abba) as well as the theology of the cross and resurrection. He further points out that early Christians, following the example of Jesus Christ, had direct experience of God as Father. Owing to the... (shrink)

Thomas Taylor in England, by K. Raine.--Thomas Taylor in America, by G. M. Harper.--Biographical accounts of Thomas Taylor.--Concerning the beautiful.--The hymns of Orpheus.--Concerning the cave of the nymphs.--A dissertation on the Eleusinian and Bacchic mysteries.--Introduction to The fable of Cupid and Psyche.--The Platonic philosopher's creed.--An apology for the fables of Homer.--Bibliography (p. [521]-538).

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Dei Filius II:On Divine RevelationSimon Francis Gaine, O.P.With chapter 2 of Dei Filius, the First Vatican Council's Constitution on the Catholic Faith moves on from the confession of faith in God, the Creator of all things, to the fact of God's revelation to us human creatures. The chapter covers first natural revelation through creation and the possibility of our natural knowledge of God, then why we also need a (...) further revelation which is supernatural, the presence of that supernatural revelation in Scripture and Tradition, and finally the canonicity, inspiration, and interpretation of the Bible.1The first sentence of the chapter declares that "holy Mother Church holds and teaches that God, the beginning and end of all things, may be known with certainty by the natural light of human reason."2 This sentence, with its affirmation of the possibility of sure natural knowledge of God without the benefit of supernatural revelation, is perhaps the most well-known of the chapter, the most hotly debated at the council itself, and the most discussed in the secondary literature.3 Hardly any comment is [End Page 839] ever made, however, on how the second chapter begins with the statement that the Church "holds and teaches" what follows. This phrase tenet et docet contrasts neatly with how the first chapter began: "The Holy Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Church believes and confesses that there is one, true and living God," and so on. While chapter 1's opening sentence spoke of the Church believing and confessing, chapter 2's opening sentence speaks instead of the Church holding and teaching, employing the verb teneo (hold) in contrast to credo (believe).4One can easily recognize a structural parallel between the two phrases: the inner act of holding in chapter 2 corresponds to the inner act of believing in chapter 1, and the external act of teaching in chapter 2 corresponds to the external act of confessing in chapter 1. I shall say something about the Church's holding and teaching, and its overall contrast as a unit with the earlier unit of believing and confessing, before going on to say something about the wider content of the chapter in that light. I do this partly because this symposium is about not only Vatican I's Constitution on the Catholic Faith, but also theology today. Catholic theology today is familiar with a precise distinction between "believing" and "holding," and while it is closely related to the distinction between believing and holding found in Dei Filius, I do not think the two distinctions are quite the same. So, in order to avoid confusion, I shall say something about the distinction familiar in theology in today, and then say something about the distinction at work in Vatican I. [End Page 840]The Profession of Faith in use in the Church since 1989, after quoting the Nicene Creed, continues as follows: "With firm faith, I also believe everything contained in the word of God, whether written or handed down in Tradition, which the Church, either by a solemn judgment or by the ordinary and universal Magisterium, sets forth to be believed as divinely revealed."5 But to this primary profession of what is usually called theological or divine faith, since it is a response to God's revelation, there is then added the following: "I also firmly accept and hold each and every thing definitively proposed by the Church regarding teaching on faith and morals."6 A third category, which pertains to non-definitive teaching and to which the appropriate response is "religious obedience of will and intellect," need not detain us here.7The Latin of "I accept and hold" is amplector et retineo, and in the 1989 Profession, it is said in definite contrast to faith and belief as an assent distinct from but related to that of divine faith itself. Though officially translated as "hold"—which might also have rendered teneo—retineo seems to connote guarding and preserving something, holding onto it, rather than merely holding it. The difficulty in interpreting such formulas (including terms such as "profess," "hold," and so on) is indicated by the fact that the previous Profession of... (shrink)

This paper discusses the surprising resurgence in the fortunes of the British eugenics movement in the 1930s. It is argued that although mass unemployment may in the long run have discredited that version of eugenics in which social dependence and destitution were attributed to genetic defect, in the short run the Depression was often perceived as a vindication of the eugenical creed. In particular, the attempt to reduce the fertility of the unemployed by popularising birth control techniques, and the (...) voluntary sterilization campaign aimed at preventing the propagation of defectives from the so-called Social Problem Group, satisfied the urge felt by many conservative members from the professional classes to respond creatively to the country's crisis, without endangering existing social and economic institutions. It is also shown that not until 1938 did events in Germany cause substantial damage to the cause of eugenics in Britain. In fact, the ‘German experiment’ was actually greeted with approval by certain British eugenists of an authoritarian cast of mind. However, the Society as a whole never identified with these right-wing extremists, thanks in part to the moderating influence exercised by its General Secretary, Dr. C. P. Blacker, whose prime concern was with psycho-medical problems likely to concern people of all party persuasions. (shrink)

This article will attempt to show that from the beginning of the letter of Eusebius of Nicodemia to Paulinus of Tyre, the meaning of ὁμοούσιος should be sought in the opposition on the part of the Council of Nicea to the divisive doctrine of hypostases by Arius and his followers. The assertion of the similarity or identity of nature or ousia between the Father and the Son that ὁμοούσιος suggests is traceable to the teaching of Alexander of Alexandria, but also (...) of Eusthatius of Antioch, so that it could be thought that in Nicea a convergence between the two major opponents of Arius could have taken place, in the same way in which it had occurred over the Antiochene formula of 325. Analysis of the doctrine of ὁμοούσιος by Athanasius confirms that the term was opposed to the divisive interpretation of the hypostases within Arianism. The second part of the article, takes into consideration the study on the interpretation of the Nicene ὁμοούσιος proposed by P. F. Beatrice. The Author argues that Beatrice’s thesis, which attempts to trace the introduction of the term in the Nicene Creed back exclusively to Constantine, with the agreement of Eusebius of Caesarea, is not backed by the documentation at our disposal. (shrink)

This is the first full-length study of the doctrine of the Trinity by an analytic philosopher. It appears in a new series, “Oxford Studies in Analytic Theology,” and so reflects the growing interest within analytic philosophy of religion in the application of the tools and results of analytic philosophy to Christian doctrinal claims. Hasker is concerned almost entirely to make sense of the doctrine rather than justify it, and claims to have reached “a coherent, meaningful, scripturally adequate, and theologically orthodox” (...) (p. 255) account of it. The classical statement of the doctrine is of course that contained in the Nicene Creed, which is in effect the common creed of all Christians: that there is “one God”; the Son is “of one substance with the Father” and the Spirit is “worshipped and glorified with the Father and the Son”; the Son was “begotten of the Father before all ages. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS The Logic of God Incarnate. By THOMAS V. MORRIS. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986. Pp. 220. $19.95. Thomas V. Morris, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, has written a technical yet provocative study on the Incarnation. As a faithful Christian he believes in and desires to defend the traditional Christian doctrine of the Incarnation proclaimed in the New Testament and defined by the (...) early councils of the Church, especially Chalcedon, that is, that Jesus is the One eternal Son existing in two natures. He also holds that, while the truth of the Incarnation is revealed, it must nonetheless stand the test of logic and reason. The Incarnation cannot be illogicaJ or meaningless. " If the church has been guided by God in such matters as the formulation of its creeds, conciliar decrees, and catechisms,.... we would not expect glaring logical flaws in its central doctrinal affirmations" (p. 46). The stated purpose of Morris's study is to defend the traditional doctrine against those who would hold it to be logically incoherent and meaningless. "In the course of thinking about the Incarnation for some years now, I have come to see that a few simple metaphysical distinctions and a solid dose of logical care will suffice to explicate and defend the doctrine against all extant criticisms of a philosophical nature" (p. 9). Morris meticulously analyzes and critiques a number of arguments that oppose the possibility of coherence of the Incarnation by attempting to demonstrate that such arguments are.either false and illogical themselves, or that they do not apply to a true understanding of the Incarnation. Moreover, Morris proposes a novel understanding of the Incarnation which he believes is both logical and intelligible, and which conforms to the Christian tradition. This goal of upholding the intelligibility of the Incarnate leads Morris to a three-fold task. He first of all must refute his chief adversaries, those who would deny the sensibleness of saying God became man in Jesus. Such critics deny the validity of the Incarnation on the ground..'! that it is meaning·less, and the'l'efore impossible to juxtapose the incommensurable. attributes of divinity and humanity, e.g., perfection/imperfection, immutability/corruptibility. They hold that Jesus could not have had both these sets of properties at once (cf. p. 20). Morris refuses to capitulate to such arguments. He nevertheless insists that any solution to the issue which would undermine human logic or which would fail to uphold the Christian's belief is no solution at all (cf. p. 32). 367 368 BOOK REVIEWS Secondly, Morris's task leads him to refute any attempts at a " OneNature " solution, which would "squash" together the human and divine natures in Jesus to form a single nature. Such proposals jeopardize either the integrity of Jesus's divinity (Arianism) or his humanity (Docetism, Monophysitism), inevitably composing a mythical tertium quid (cf. pp. 33-38). Morris presents a clear case against such corruptions of the Incarnation. Thirdly, Morris's task brings him to analyze contemporary kenotic Christology. He thoroughly discusses this approach, for the reason that it is directly involved in the issue at hand, namely, the incompatibility between divine and human properties in Christ. Secondarily, however, Morris's interest in kenoticism reflects his own hope that some variation of the approach might posibly arrive at a Christological solution (cf. p. 92). While he ultimately rejects kenoticism, Morris flirts with the various alternatives, and, as we shall see, his own perception of the Incarnation remains tinged with a kenotic flavor. How then is it possible to predicate of one and the same individual divine and human attributes intelligibly and coherentlyT To use contemporary computer jargon, the question might be phrased: is it possible that God and man can he "incarnation-friendly¥" Morris believes so. Morris first of all sets out to define the terms-divine nature and human nature. He believes part of the incompatibility problem lies in attributing to Jesus's humanity unnecessarily hostile aspects. He distinguishes between being "merely human" and being "fully human"· To be " merely human " is to possess not only those properties that narrowly define one's nature or kind, such as rationality, but... (shrink)

Material acquisition—buying, inheriting, being given—and nonmaterial—learning a word, assimilating a form—have been likened, and in both, meaningful acquisition cannot take place without a taxonomy, a scheme of categories into which the acquired element can be fitted. Then with these elements—both material and nonmaterial—we create a world or build and project a self, the painter and the interior decorator equally manipulating the elements in a vocabulary. The coarseness of such an outlook seems to bludgeon away long-established fine distinctions. We need not (...) deny, however, that there may be a kind of "indifference" in regard to "the real existence of the thing" which allows us "to play the part of judge in matters of taste," as Kant would have it,1 we need not deny the existence of an "aesthetic attitude: it is just that such indifference and such an attitude probably don't have much to do with our day-to-day experience of artifacts and perhaps needn't. The "aesthetic attitude" was not long ago defined by Jerome Stolnitz as "disinterested and sympathetic attention to and contemplation of any object of awareness whatever, for its own sake alone."2 Stolnitz is at pains to distinguish the aesthetic attitude from "interests" with which it may be preferable to confuse it. "One of them," he writes, "is the interest in owning a work of art for the sake of pride or prestige". And again, "Another nonaesthetic interest is the 'cognitive,' i.e., the interest in gaining knowledge about an object". Both these interests sound rather acquisitive, and let us consider the "aesthetic attitude" as somehow tied in everyday practice to the bundle of "acquiring" activities. · 1. Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Judgment, trans. James Creed Meredith, p. 43.· 2. Jerome Stolnitz, Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art Criticism, excerpted in Introductory Readings in Aesthetics, ed. John Hospers, p. 19; all further citations in text. Hiram W. Woodward, Jr. is a lecturer in the department of the history of art at the University of Michigan. He is editor of Eighty Works in the University of Michigan Museum of Art: A Handbook and coeditor of Barabudur: History and Significance of a Buddhist Monument. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:LITERAL AND METAPHORICAL USES OF DISCOURSE IN THE REPRESENTATION OF GOD IN HIS SEMINAL work on the theory of signs, Charles Morris affirms that human beings are " the dominant sign-using animals" and that" the human mind is inseparable from the functioning of signs-if indeed mentality is not to be identified with such functioning." 1 By means of acculturation we learn to use and interpret signs, both linguistic and (...) non-linguistic; and by virtue of these capacities we can appropriately designate the human animal as homo symbolicus, homo loquens, and homo sapiens. Indeed, all forms of human culture presuppose the ability to use and interpret signs, including that form of human culture which leads us to speak of ourselves as homo religious. Over the years I have come to understand and speak of religion as a community with its cultus. There is the community, be it triba1, national, or universal with its polity or structure and ongoing history; and there is the cultus with its organic system of linguistic and nonlinguistic signs, encompassing ·such elements as stories, creeds, scriptures, doctrines, theologies, confessions, prayers, chants, songs, rites, rituals, sacraments, artifacts, etc. Like any other cultural system, scheme or network of signs one can characterize a religious cultus as an inter -subjective set of signs whose usage is determined by the implicit or explicit rules that govern the relations of signs to each other; the relations of the signs to the objects which the signs designate or denote, or stand for in some way; and the relations of signs to the users or interpreters of these signs and to those who are affected by these signs in some way. 1 Charles W. Morris, FoundatioJi of the Theory of Signs, in International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, Vol. I, No. 2 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1939), p. L 6~7 628 WILLIAM L. POWER: Given this understanding of community and cultus, one can describe a religion as an organized group of socially interdependent human beings which uses or employs ·a system of linguistic and nonlinguistic signs to represent reality in its various modalities and mixtures of good and evil and to affect human ways of life on the basis of that representation. Altering the terminology somewhat, one could say that a religious community uses its cultus to proclaim, enact, and display a comprehensive worldview.and to form and tr:msform the ethospathos of human beings in their solidarity and solitude. Expressed semiotically, there is the system of signs of a particular community, the intended signification of these signs, and the significance of these signs for those who use and are affected by them. What distinguishes a religion from other forms of human culture is that a rel·igious cultuml sy•stem or a religious community with its cultus is primarily concerned with ultimate or supreme reality or with that which is divine, holy, or sacred and that reality's bearing on and relevance for human life and well-being. In short, a religion is a cultural system which functions to map the whole of re.ality and to acculturate in desirable ways or to civilize. If a religion is a cultural system, then one can identify three distinct yet inseparably related dimensions of every religion. There is 1) the cultural dimension consisting of the interrelruted signs, symbols and expressions of a cultus; 2) the reality and value dimension consisting of the ontological and axiological purport of the cultus; and 3) the experiential dimension consisting of the existential import of the cultus. It is this thioo dimension which has led many in the past and in the present to speak of religion as piety, consciousness of things divine, ultimate concern, religiousness, etc. In the tradition of Peircian semiotics, one can speak of these three dimensions as the syntactic, semantic, and praigmatic dimensions of a religion; and they can be analyzed and studied with the aid of syntactics or syntax, semantics, and pr:agmatics, which as a unity LITERAL AND METAPHORICAL USES OF DISCOURSE 629 constitute the discipline of semiotics. As Peirce recognized, modem semiotics is continuous with the Medieval trivium of grammar, logic, and rhetoric-the semiotics of almost a millennium a;go... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THE HOLINESS OF THE CHURCH IN LUMEN GENTIUM HE NOTION OF the Church as a smner, not often spoken of in Catholic theology of other times, has become quite common in recent years.1 Among the questions of a pastoral and theological nature that have given rise to it, the following may be noted: a) The ecumenical question. Many would wish the Church as such to accuse herself of sin, (...) as a means towards reconciliation. b) The idea borrowed from traditional Protestant theology of a certain compatibility between sin and holiness,2 the simul sanctus et pecca.tor of Luther. c) The notion of evil as a mere deficiency properly belonging to a given stage of development of the Cosmos; such is t:he understanding of Teilhard de Chardin.3 1 The mark of holiness has been applied to the Church more than any of the other three, from the very beginning of Christian times; Baptismal creeds are a clear witness to this. 2 Cf. n. 66 on Kiing. 3 "What is the inevitable complement of anything which results from such a process (an evolutive one) but having to pay the price of some losses? Lack of harmony and physical decomposition in the Pre-Vivant, suffering in the Vivant, sin in the dominion of Freedom..." (Comment je crois) ; "We must say that God, in spite of his power, cannot unite any creature to himself without necessarily entering into battle with Evil, because Evil appears inevitably with the first atom of being which creation 'releases' into existence. Creation and sinlessness are terms as much at loggerheads with divine Power and Wisdom as creature with unicity" (Notes sur les modes de l'ac-tion divine dans l'Universe-yr. 1920). Undoubtedly, sin in its effects is a lack of what man (and creation dependent on him) should have, but the point that Teilhard misses is that the 'deficiency' due to sin (unlike other imperfections found in creation) is due to the responsible action of human beings, and has no inevitability about it. 673 674 PAUL o'cALLAGHAN d) An increased awareness of the social dimension of sm. Undoubtedly sin has numerous (though divisive) social efects.4 But it would be incorrect to affirm that sin is an entirely social phenomenon.5 An application of such a notion to the Church would be an easy next stage. e) A certain undoing of the constrast between the ' Kingdom of God' and the 'world ',6 to the detriment, let it be said, both of the eternity and definitiveness of the former, and the progressive sanctification of the latter. The Church then, not belonging so intimately to the All-Holy, may be more easily looked upon as a sinner. f) Another factor has been the positive humanizing em4 In the Apostolic Exhortation Reeonciliatio et Paenitentia (English translation ; London: CTS, 1984) where Pope John Paul II ga.thers together the findings of the 1983 Synod of Bishops, many acceptable ways of understanding ' social sin' are explained: as mystically ' dragging down ' the whole world; in the sense that it goes in the detriment of our neighbour; in the relationships between various human communities (n.16: p. 51-54). 5 For example, the following words of G. Gutierrez: "No se trata, en la perspectiva liberadora, de! pecado como realidad individual, privada e intimista, afirmada justo lo necesario para necesitar una redenci6n 'espiritual ', que no cuestiona el orclen en que vivimos. Se trata del pecado como un hecho social, hist6rico... El pecatlo se da en estructures opresoras en la explotaci6n del hombre por el hombre, en la dominaci6n y esclavitud de los pueblos, razas y clases sociales. El pecado surge, entonces, como la alienaci6n fundamental, como la rniz de una situaci6n de injusticia y explotaci6n" Teofogia de la liberaci6n (Salamana: Sigueme, 1972), p. 236-237. And in a more recent work of his: " pecar es optar por la opresi6n y contra la liberaci6n " La fuerza hist6rioa de los pobres, (Lima, 1979) p. 19. As J. M. IbaiiezLanglois points out, this statement would be fine if it were to say 'to opt for oppression and against liberation is sinful', that is one more among many possible sins: Teologia de la liberacion... (shrink)

Many writers often generalise about mysticism without a sufficiently close analysis of texts. Consequently the generalisations are often invalid. My present aim is to analyse one text and, in the light of this analysis, to offer some observations concerning mysticism in general and Christian mysticism in particular.

Note by the Editor of Voprosy filosofii: The presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences has decided to hold, in Moscow in December 1980, the Third USSR Conference on Philosophical Problems of Contemporary Natural Science, dedicated to the one hundred and tenth anniversary of the birth of V. I. Lenin, and has established an organizing committee headed by P. N. Fedoseev, vice-president of the Academy, to prepare and conduct the conference.

The phenomenon of Petro Mohyla in the modern humanitarian university is most often viewed precisely from the point of view of understanding his figure not only as a building Church, its defender, in a sense as a Christian conservative, but also as a guardian and building national statehood, creator of religious-national transformation and state-renewal Khmelnytsky era and - later - Mazepa. As the History of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine rightly points out, "after 1632, when the Commonwealth entered into the (...) reign of Wladyslaw IV and was headed by Petro Mohyla of Kiev, the Orthodox Church also entered a new era of its existence. The government's new course in resolving the religious issue, increasing political activity of the Orthodox community gave the Kyiv Metropolitanate the opportunity to restore legal status, to regulate relations with the state and society… This authority … was conditioned by the ability of the church institution to be full-blooded… the inner life of the church became perhaps the overriding task of Petro Mohyla... Petro Mohyla justified the principles of its own jurisdiction... emphasized the legitimacy of its power. ". (shrink)