An analysis of the value systems of critical social issues is difficult to carry out in any qualified sense from an unstructured basis and that attempts to do so easily result in relatively superficial discussions of particular issues. Instead, we suggest how this might be viewed from a more holistic ethical and systems theological perspective. In doing so, we review a new framework that aims to distil relevant issues regarding necessary trade-offs and how this can be done. Broadly speaking, this (...) consists of a kind of Socratic dialogue that systematically examines the value basis of the decisions that need to be made, as well as whether the effects of the decisions become unacceptable and thus need to be modified vis-à-vis the normative system embraced by the decision-maker. We discuss the role of theologians in this and emphasise that they should take a larger place in discussions on how to deal with complex societal crises. (shrink)

A decolonial practice and understanding of education (whether theological or otherwise) requires engaging, subverting, deposing and reimagining a whole ecology of imaginaries, practices, structures, institutionalities, traditions, power asymmetries etc.: a task that is far beyond the capacities of any individual, community or even generation. Cognisant of this reality, the article foregrounds the question of pedagogy in theological education (but only as an integral part of the colonial/decolonial ecology of education) and argues that in so far as our pedagogies in theological (...) education treat students primarily as ‘thinking creatures’, we are engaging in a dis-membering pedagogy that reproduces the coloniality of being. I identify a Cartesian anthropology (‘ego cogito sum’) – engendering a host of dualisms giving artificial supremacy to certain dimensions of reality over others – as a key animating source of dis-membering pedagogies. Drawing on the ‘pedagogical excess’ (i.e. underexplored pedagogical themes) in the theological anthropology of Simon Maimela in conversation with pedagogical visions that cohere and extend his anthropological commitments, I argue that a re-membering pedagogy is, at minimum: a pedagogy of performative action, embodiment and (community based) liminality. I argue throughout the article that in the work of re-sourcing our animating anthropologies and re-imagining our pedagogies, we are engaged in the healing work of re-membering that which coloniality has torn apart: theory and practice, mind and body, the individual and relationality, the student and the teacher, the theological school and society. Contribution: This article outlines my attempts to theoretically and theologically ground (and extend) my espoused pedagogical commitments forged at the intersection of my community work and teaching as a theological educator in an undergraduate BTh programme. This article invites other theological educators to become conscious of the theological anthropology that their espoused pedagogical commitments assume and reflect on the pedagogical commitments that their theological anthropology entails, especially as it relates to the ongoing calls for the Africanisation/decolonisation of theological education in South Africa. (shrink)

In this paper, I will discuss and characterize transcendental and salvational aspects of two naturalistic philosophical projects, those of Robert Corrington, a contemporary American Naturalist and George Santayana, the first identifiable American Naturalist. I am considering here soteriological pathways available for transformation or transfiguration of the self toward a state of spiritual optimization in an imminent natural cosmos where all but limited gains seem to be out of human hands. The individual, imbedded in Nature, is caught up in an unteleological (...) stream of Nature's own formation. In my consideration of this subject in relation to Robert Corrington's work, I have found a helpful and insightful .. (shrink)

The commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself” is central to Christian discipleship. How does the concrete way that we express love enhance or diminish our ability to love? This paper brings Karl Rahner’s theology of neighbor love into dialogue with a description of altruism and compassion provided by social psychologist, C. Daniel Batson, and neuroscientists Tania Singer and Olga Klimecki. For Rahner, grace enables and sustains love. In addition, a mutually reciprocal relationship of (...) unity exists between human love for God, neighbor, and self. Furthermore, Rahner contends prayer as one way to cultivate compassion for another. The scientific research presented here examines aspects of the relationship between self and other known as empathy and compassion. The research of Batson, Singer, and Klimecki shed light on the role of self-love in compassion as well as the ways our capacity to empathize conditions our potential for altruism. (shrink)

Based on a philosophical interpretation of the Ancient concepts, philia and agape, the present contribution offers a comparative study of the ancient Greek ethics of friendship and the Christian theology of love. While the former tradition understands philia as a finite relationship between human selves within a sociopolitical context, agape is regarded by the latter tradition as the bond of love which God grants all humans who believe in Jesus Christ as the Messiah. Despite the fundamental differences (...) between the two conceptions of love, they converge at one point, namely in the caring concern for the stranger, who humans are called upon to receive in hospitality. (shrink)

This article seeks to show that recent deployments of Augustine’s theology of love as an alternative to, or resource within, contemporary liberalism are typified by attempts to use Christologically-grounded reconsiderations of the relation between the Creator and the creature to respond to the suggestion that Augustine cannot accommodate love of creaturely goods. It then argues that these attempts rest on abstract understandings of divine presence that issue from a breakdown of distinctions between Christology, ecclesiology and the (...) class='Hi'>theology of creation. It concludes by suggesting that Augustine’s theology of love is best approached by considering the relation of Augustine’s Christology and pneumatology, for this relation makes a Christologically-conditioned notion of justice constitutive of Christian loving in a way that is generative for consideration of both Augustine’s theology of love and his relation to contemporary liberalism. (shrink)

Religious believers understand the meaning of their lives and of the world in terms of the way these are related to God. How, Vincent BrU;mmer asks, does the model of love apply to this relationship? He shows that most views on love take it to be an attitude rather than a relationship: exclusive attention (Ortega y Gasset), ecstatic union (nuptial mysticism), passionate suffering (courtly love), need-love (Plato, Augustine) and gift-love (Nygren). In discussing the issues, BrU;mmer (...) inquires what role these attitudes play within the love-relationship and examines the implications of using the model of love as a key paradigm in theology. (shrink)

Love is a key concept in the theory and history of civil disobedience yet it has been purposefully neglected in recent debates in political theory. Through an examination of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s paradoxical notion of “aggressive love,” I offer a critical interpretation of love as a key concept in a vernacular black political theology, and the consequences of love’s displacement by law in liberal theories of civil disobedience. The first section locates the origins of (...) aggressive love in an earlier generation of black theologians who looked to India’s anticolonial struggle to reimagine the dignity of the oppressed as “creative survival.” The second contextualizes King’s early sermons on moral injury and self-respect within this tradition to reinterpret Stride toward Freedom’s account of the dignity-enhancing effects of nonviolent resistance as the triumph of love over fear. The third considers the implications of these arguments for conceptualizing the moral psychology of the white citizen and its consequences for contemporary debates over the ideological uses of Civil Rights history. The call to respond to oppression with aggressive love illustrates the paradoxical character of civil disobedience obscured by legal accounts as well as by criticisms of the very idea of “civil” disobedience. This is the paradox of affirming civility while enacting disobedience in order to bind political confrontation with political pedagogy. (shrink)

In this paper, I present a piece of natural theology, whose pro tanto conclusion is the existence of god-the-artist, that is a lower case “g” god, a creator who creates for the sake of beauty, but who is not worthy of worship, a god who can be admired but should not be loved. I then consider some only partially successful responses to this dismal conclusion. Finally, I show to reconcile the idea of a god motivated by love of (...) beauty with the religious tradition of an upper case “G” God, who is not merely to be worshiped but loves us and invites a loving response. (shrink)

In 2022, at an interdisciplinary conference on Creation and the Imago Dei, Biola psychologist Liz Hall posed a powerful challenge to the philosophers and theologians in the room. In the face of the “already and not yet” nature of Christian theology, she put forth the need for a “theology of tension.” Over and over again, while reading Biblical Philosophy, I was reminded of this challenge. The features Johnson puts forth as emblematic of Hebraic Philosophy can help in this (...) respect, in two clear ways: First, retrospectively, Johnson’s categories are useful for diagnosing both the philosophical missteps targeted by critiques of theodicy and the features held in common by some of the more successful accounts. Second, going forward, the convictions and modes of argument central to Hebraic philosophy may help guide future philosophical responses to suffering. In general, I believe that the philosophical problems related to suffering are especially well-suited to responses that are pixelated, networked, mysterianist, creationist, transdemographic, and ritualist. Perhaps Hebraic philosophy can succeed where Hellenist philosophy has struggled: in addressing the tension that arises from the experience of suffering in a world governed by a loving, providential, sovereign God. While I am largely in favor of Johnson’s Hebraic philosophy, I will conclude by breaking from his view in one important respect. Johnson presents the Biblical view as substantially contrasting with the correspondence theory affirmed by many contemporary philosophers. I will end by pushing back on this claim. On Johnson’s own account, the Hebraic notion of truth is determined with reference to the divinely designed order. I propose that we understand the Hebraic notion of truth as degrees of correspondence to this divinely ordered, absolute reality. (shrink)

Love lies at the very heart of the Christian faith and its conception of both God and the human being. Nevertheless, the growing field of theological anthropology has yet to fully avail itself of philosophy’s and theology’s renewed attention to the theme of love. The Introduction to this special issue proposes the phrase ‘in the image of Love’ as an invitation to examine the relation between theological anthropology and love throughout the history of Christian thought. (...) Guided by this motif, the issue’s contributors consider ten historical thinkers on love and the human in relation to their philosophical conversation partners at the time. The volume thus has a genealogical dimension, delving into often forgotten layers beneath our current, late modern view of the human/love. It thereby assists future theological anthropological discussions in the much-needed task of both integrating the crucial theme of love and formulating more historically grounded perspectives. This special issue also reveals the ways in which theologians have attempted to respond to the challenge posed by the modern subject while retaining the idea that the human creature is called by Love and called to Love, and provides an alternative to Nygren’s opposition of agape and eros. (shrink)

The Seraphic Doctrine: love and knowledge in the Dionysian hierarchy -- Affect, cognition, and the natural motion of the will -- Elemental motion and the force of union -- Hierarchy and excess in the Itinerarium Mentis in Deum -- The exemplary bodies of the Legenda Maior.

This book advances a persuasive account of Christian belief organized around the theme of love while also employing love as a constraint on theological formulation. Throughout, Gary Chartier seeks to understand divine action in ways that make it possible to affirm divine love in the face of evil. The Analogy of Love offers a stimulating model for thinking about God and the world.

Reflecting upon some problems of the moral life, Gilbert Meilaender considers their difficulties within a vision that accentuates not only the limits, but also the promise, of the Christian story. Created by God as finite beings, we make particular attachments. Redeemed by God for a community transcending nature and history, our love always carries us beyond the special bonds of time and place. We live, therefore, with a sense of permanent tension. If this tension heightens our sense of the (...) perplexities of life, it should not free us from the obligation to probe, clarify, and resolve some of those difficulties. The author holds that theological ethics must clarify the direction for growth and development within the Christian life. He undertakes such analysis, emphasizing throughout the limits of the human condition, the importance of our nature as embodied persons, and the danger and pretension in some of our attempts to take control of and master human life. This Christian vision is developed in chapters that explore a range of moral problems, such as abortion, artificial reproduction, euthanasia, care for defective infants, provision of artificial nutrition and hydration, and marital and political community. These are throughout, however, _theological_ explorations. Taken together they illumine not only particular problems of the moral life but a vision of life—classically Christian in its conception, humane in its care for particular bonds of attachment, and modest in its recognition of moral limits on our ability to seek the good. Meilaender has developed a broad recognition both among scholars and students of ethics and among interested general readers. He has the capacity to throw fresh angles of vision on complex problems so as to help both the sophisticated and the uninitiated reader to think more penetratingly about moral questions. (shrink)

Reflecting upon some problems of the moral life, Gilbert Meilaender considers their difficulties within a vision that accentuates not only the limits, but also the promise, of the Christian story. Created by God as finite beings, we make particular attachments. Redeemed by God for a community transcending nature and history, our love always carries us beyond the special bonds of time and place. We live, therefore, with a sense of permanent tension. If this tension heightens our sense of the (...) perplexities of life, it should not free us from the obligation to probe, clarify, and resolve some of those difficulties. The author holds that theological ethics must clarify the direction for growth and development within the Christian life. He undertakes such analysis, emphasizing throughout the limits of the human condition, the importance of our nature as embodied persons, and the danger and pretension in some of our attempts to take control of and master human life. This Christian vision is developed in chapters that explore a range of moral problems, such as abortion, artificial reproduction, euthanasia, care for defective infants, provision of artificial nutrition and hydration, and marital and political community. These are throughout, however, _theological_ explorations. Taken together they illumine not only particular problems of the moral life but a vision of life—classically Christian in its conception, humane in its care for particular bonds of attachment, and modest in its recognition of moral limits on our ability to seek the good. Meilaender has developed a broad recognition both among scholars and students of ethics and among interested general readers. He has the capacity to throw fresh angles of vision on complex problems so as to help both the sophisticated and the uninitiated reader to think more penetratingly about moral questions. (shrink)

These two remarkable books, both published in 2010, share many themes but differ in significant ways, and each is very much worth reading and pondering. Oord’s The Nature of Love concentrates primarily on conceptual and theological themes relating to the very nature of love itself and what influential theologians have had to say about love. His Defining Love focuses on how the social and physical sciences impact our understanding of human and divine love. Both books (...) presuppose and express many themes that are prominent in process theology such as: freedom is universally present (by degrees) in all creatures, especially us; predestination is abhorrent and untenable; God exists necessarily and everlastingly but not .. (shrink)

Confessions of Love: The Ambiguities of Greek Eros and Latin Caritas, edited by Craig J. N. de Paulo, Senior Editor, et al. American University Studies Series, vol. 7: Theology and Religion. New York: Peter Lang Publishers, 2011. Details: Collection of scholarly essays on love. Distinguished contributors include Roland Teske, S.J., Phillip Cary, Leonid Rudntyzky, Bernhardt Blumenthal, et al.

9 Eastern Christianity and Jesuit Scholarship on Arabic and Islam: Modern History and Contemporary Theological Reflections -- 10 Autonomy, Dignity, Human Rights: Correcting a Popular Error -- 11 Liberal and Authoritarian Approaches to Raising Good Citizens -- 12 Stewardship as Welcome and Respect for the Dignity of the Vulnerable: An Essay in Bioethics -- 13 Dialogue in a Pluralist Context: Theological Ethics and the New Interest in Happiness -- Index.

This work offers a thorough introduction to the theology of St Thomas Aquinas in accessible language. It aims to fill a gap in the literature on Thomas - a comprehensive introduction to his thought written by theologians.

The Heythrop Journal, Volume 63, Issue 3, Page 425-437, May 2022.

In his 1970s work Chance and Necessity, Jacques Monod provided an explanatory framework not only for the biological evolution of species, but, as has become recently apparent, for the evolutionary development of cancers. That is, contemporary oncological research has demonstrated that cancer is an evolutionary disease that develops according to the same dynamics of chance and necessity at work in all evolutionary phenomena. And just as various challenges are raised for religious thought by the operations of chance and necessity within (...) biological evolution, so this particular theological question is raised by the findings of contemporary cancer science: Where is love, divine and human, within the evolutionary chance and necessity operative in all dimensions of cancer? In this article, we contribute to the dialogue in science and religion by offering the following responses to this question: the thought of Arthur Peacocke to claim that divine love may be understood to be at work in, with, and under our very efforts to make theological meaning of the chance and necessity that inform the evolution of cancers; and Charles Sanders Peirce's evolutionary philosophy to make this claim: that the work of scientific communities of inquiry to understand and to find better ways to cope with the disease of cancer is itself the work of divine love amid the chance and necessity of cancer. (shrink)

This book offers a nuanced understanding of God's power and draws on a rich plurality of voices to describe God as much more loving than wrathful, as persuasive rather than coercive, as more passible than impassible, and offers three claims for confidence in the idea of God.

One of the major causes of juvenile delinquency almost anywhere in the world, including Nigeria, is abusive conditions in the homes. The abusive condition in the Nigerian situation is exacerbated by the authoritarian concept of the home. Children are usually seen as mere objects who are to obey their parents, especially the father who has an absolute power over his children. Christian parents too are guilty of being authoritarian and their favourite cliché is 'children, obey your parents'. This article aims (...) at developing a theological guideline that would assist fathers in rearing their children from the biblical perspective via a socio-rhetorical study of Ephesians 6:4. It examines the rearing of children in the 1st century among the Jews and the Graeco-Romans - the original recipients. Then, it compares the social condition of Nigeria with that of the 1st century Graeco-Roman. It concludes by stating that the key to understanding the verse is the phrase μὴπαροργίζετε, a combination of μὴ and a present active imperative, which is used to prohibit actions already in progress. Thus, the verse becomes an appeal to fathers to stop exasperating their children. To achieve this, fathers should see their children as full-fledged human beings with a right to their opinions and decisions about their lives. CONTRIBUTION: This article holds that rather than being treated as obedient objects to fathers in all things, children must be seen as human beings created with will, mind and intelligence and therefore be given a say in issues that concerns them and be disciplined in love and not harshly. (shrink)

Hanna Kulagina-Stadnichenko in her article “Category of Love as a axiological marker by individual religiosity of the Orthodox believer” is examines the love category in the theological context of the present, to determine its axiological and praxeological potential value to the implementation of individual religious Orthodox believer, identify certain impacts related to the practical implementation of the concept of "love" in Orthodoxy.

Al-Sira Al-Nabawiyya is often used as a reference to violence in Islam, mainly because war narration is so dominantly displayed. The tendency of using Al-Sira Al-Nabawiyya as the basis of violence conception in Islam drives Islamic teaching practices to become violence-oriented. This article presents a re-reading of Al-Sira Al-Nabawiyya by Wakhiduddin Khan, Tariq Ramadan and Satha-Anand, with a mimetic anthropology framework. The reading on Al-Sira resulted in three conclusions. Firstly, there are many non-violence stories at all stages in the life (...) of Prophet Muhammad, since the pre-prophetic era until his death. Secondly, the Prophet Muhammad was a teacher who based his activities on the principles of tawhîd, patience, love, forgiveness and appreciation for humanity. Thirdly, educational activities are Muhammad’s exemplary activities which are full of non-violent values. The findings of this article can be used as the basis for the reformulation of Al-Sira Al-Nabawiyya teaching materials in Islamic Education as well as the basis of teaching activities for Islamic teachers. Contribution: This article contributes to a paradigm shift in teaching the History of the Prophet Muhammad in a peaceful Islamic education system. The peaceful paradigm in this article can also divert the tendency of Islamic extremism to become an Islam that provides peace and prosperity to the universe ( rahmatan lil ‘alamin ). (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article examines the Trinitarian anthropology inherent in the ‘charism of unity’ that characterizes the Focolare Movement stemming from the mystical experience of Chiara Lubich. After describing the theological cornerstones of this charism―namely the evangelical centrality of the commandment of reciprocal love, the circularity between theology and anthropology and Jesus Forsaken as the Christological key to understanding and achieving unity―the article studies its cultural implications as reflected in the philosophical and theological contribution of Klaus Hemmerle. In dialogue with (...) modern thought, Hemmerle in fact draws from and develops the anthropological meaning of the charism of unity as a feasible way to respond to the most acute challenges of today. (shrink)

Augustine was a representative of the theology of hope in the patristic age. He saw hope as the grasp of eschatological eternal happy life for human in this world. Together, the three virtues of faith, hope and love constitute the three interdependent faculties of the soul to know God. Hope, which comes from the grace of God given through Christ, is the knowledge of eternity, not of a future in time, and it helps one to resist the temptation (...) of goods which comes from the flesh and earthly things. Hope in eternity gives one a cognitive power beyond time and space, which leads to a unified vision of past, present and future, thus also causing important changes in how one lives in this created world. However, because of this unearthly hope, people can form a gradually expanding community of fraternity in this world, which helps them transcend differences of belief and seek a more virtuous life.Contribution: This article reconstructs Augustine’s interpretation of the nature of hope by synthesising his various texts, analysing the theological structure of the concepts related to hope, sorting out the ‘theology of hope’ he advocates and finally, in light of the wisdom of his philosophy, responding to what and how we can hope in suffering. (shrink)

This article pursues a Whiteheadian association of meals and cooking with an orienting concern for ecological well-being and planetary health. Process thought helps those who eat to recognize the real influences that our meals have upon the emerging world.