bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
British Idealism: Its Political and Social Thought
Authors: Simchoni Avital
Published: August 2016

British Idealism is often identified with the three best known British Idealists: T.H. Green, F.H. Bradley and B. Bosanquet. However, the full range of British Idealists includes also E. Caird, D.G. Ritchie, J.S. Mackenzie, H. Jones, J.H. Muirhead, W. Wallace, A.S. Pringle-Pattison, R.B. Haldane, R.L. Nettleship and J. Watson. Shortage of space does not allow a satisfactory discussion of the nature of British Idealist thought, nor is it the aim of this article. What follows intends to be introductory only. It brings to the fore the concept of reconciliation as the idea that gives unity to British Idealism, explains the role of Idealist thought in nineteenth century British social thought, and reveals the contribution of British Idealism to substantive social and political thought. This introductory account is coupled with a bibliographical essay to illustrate the range of concerns Idealist thought embraces.

British Idealism is sometimes described as an intellectual ‘movement’ not as a result of any comprehensive study of the idealists and their views so much as on the strength of its supposed role in providing intellectual support for the ‘collectivism’ or increasing state intervention that is claimed to have dominated British politics in the late nineteenth century. Indeed, the intellectual interest in British Idealism has generally followed on the belief that Idealism was the major force behind the politics of collectivism.

Although British Idealists did constitute a group, this group did not and, indeed, could not have had the effect on British politics that is usually suggested. British Idealism could not have lent itself exclusively to one line of policy.
Hegel and Onto-Theology
Authors: Westphal Merold
Published: August 2016

Postmodernism and religion. The discussion continues to become increasingly rich and complex. In the background of much of it is Heidegger's critique of onto-theology, in which Hegel is one of his two prime paradigms. He introduced this term in 1949 in relation to Aristotle's completion of his ontology with a theology of the Unmoved Mover. When he returned to it in 1957, it was in the context of a seminar on Hegel's Science of Logic. There he described onto-theology as allowing God to enter philosophical discourse only on philosophy's terms and in the service of its project and complained, in the spirit of Pascal and Kierkegaard, that this God was religiously otiose. What he says there specifically about Hegel will best be understood after we see in what sense Hegel is a pantheist.

It is possible to date quite precisely the time when Hegel abandoned theism for good. Ironically, it was in 1795 in correspondence with his two friends from seminary days at Tübingen. Schelling and Hölderlin had become Fichte enthusiasts, as we see from letters they sent to Hegel early that year. On the basis of prepublication access to Fichte's 1794 Wissenschaftslehre, Schelling wrote on January 5,

Philosophy is not yet at an end. Kant has provided the results. The premises are still missing. And who can understand the results without the premises? … Kant has swept everything away, but how is the crowd to notice? One must smash it to pieces before their very eyes, so they grasp it in their hands. The great Kantians now everywhere to be seen have got stuck on the letter … [;] the old superstition of so-called natural religion as well as of positive religion has in the minds of most already once more been combined with the Kantian letter. It is fun to see how quickly they get to the moral proof. Before you can turn around the deus ex machina springs forth, the personal individual Being who sits in Heaven above! Fichte will raise philosophy to a height at which even most of the hitherto Kantians will become giddy … . Now I am working on an ethic á la Spinoza (HL 29).
The Parmenides and De Anima in Hegel's Perspective
Authors: de Laurentiis Allegra
Published: August 2016

In the chapter on ‘Plato and Aristotle’ of the Lectures on the History of Philosophy Hegel praises Aristotle's work for displaying a principle of ‘pure subjectivity’ in a manner that he considers to be largely absent from the Platonic corpus:

In general, Platonic thinking [das Platonische] represents objectivity, but it lacks a principle of life, a principle of subjectivity; and this principle […], not in the sense of a contingent, merely particular subjectivity, but in the sense of pure subjectivity, is proper to Aristotle. (W vol. 19, p. 153)

Elsewhere, Hegel refers to Aristotelian conceptions of organic life and of thinking as to the earliest speculative insights of Western philosophy. In § 378 of the Encyclopaedia (1830) he calls the De Anima ‘the best or even only work of speculative interest ever written on the philosophy of spirit’. In yet other places, however, Hegel attributes at least ‘intuitive’ forms of speculation to Plato as well.

In a preliminary way, a 'speculative relation’ in Hegel's acceptation is instantiated by a subject's theoretical and practical relation to itself — that is, theoretical self-knowing and practical self-will. ‘Speculative’ is any concept which grasps as a unity what other kinds of cognition keep asunder: for example, the subjective and objective dimensions of a phenomenon or state of affairs. But even independently of a detailed analysis of what ‘the speculative’ entails, one is struck by the apparent inconsistency of these claims regarding Plato or Aristotle with Hegel's overall view of the logical necessity of philosophy's historical development. This view is synthetically expressed in the 1820 Introduction to these same Lectures.
Hegel on Aristotle's Energeia
Authors: Ferrarin Alfredo
Published: August 2016

What is coming to assert itself as the mainstream reading of Hegel's philosophy at the start of our century is the picture of a reaction to, elaboration of, and finally solution to, Kantian problems. What goes hand in hand with this reading is a rejection of metaphysics as supposedly uncritical pre-Kantian baggage unaware of its presuppositions and unable to examine its own sources and the legitimacy of its claims.

However complex this perspective and intelligent its merits, even if the intention is the well-meaning one of liberating Hegel's philosophy from whatever smacks of traditionalist views fuelling the various Hegel myths and legends and of making Hegel palatable again to a naturally suspicious English-speaking world, I think that this picture does Hegel a disservice. It is also detrimental to our understanding of the pre-Kantian tradition, which is all too often misconstrued as indistinguishable from Wolffian metaphysics. While I do not intend to dispute in any way the crucial importance of critical philosophy for the genesis of absolute idealism, or suggest that this appropriation of Hegel is merely instrumental, I am saying that it is one-sided in that it ignores Hegel's extraordinary attempt at understanding his own philosophy as digesting what is best about our tradition, assimikting it, and making it speak for us again in a new voice.

So I am not denying that trying to update or appropriate Hegel might shed considerable light on select deeper meanings of a thought whose opacity still makes us regard it as an inert and surd obstacle to straight and unambiguous philosophical practice. But all too often one gets the impression that for most proponents of such a view metaphysics is the naive description of a sort of formal ontology, which does not question its fixed meanings but adopts stable substrates represented as such from ordinary experience, and understands thought as a description, as the realistic mirroring of an objectivity that is given to it.
The Young Hegel on ‘Life’ and ‘Love’
Authors: Sembou Evangelia
Published: August 2016

Wilhelm Dilthey, the first scholar to study Hegel's early writings, most of which have been published by Herman Nohl under the title Hegels Theologische Jugendschriften, examined the thought of the young Hegel in the light of German idealism; Dilthey was interested in establishing the Kant-Fichte-Schelling-Hegel Entwicklungsgeschichte. Another line of interpretation, no doubt encouraged by the tide of Nohl's compendium, has been to see these writings as dealing with a religious experience and religious issues. Unique in the literature stands Laurence Dickey's study of intellectual history, in which he shows that the young Hegel was influenced by the culture of Old Württemberg – more specifically, by Württemberg's ideal of Protestant civil piety. Finally, Georg Lukács and Raymond Plant concentrate on the social and political concerns of the young Hegel. On the one side, Lukács, writing from a Marxist perspective, explores the political and economic ideas of the young Hegel as well as the way these have contributed to the development of the dialectical method. For his part, Plant has put forward the view that the essays compiled by Nohl in his collection constitute a series of attempts on the part of the young Hegel to comprehend and account for the cultural and socio-political crisis of his time. For Plant, Hegel sought the causes thereof in religion.

I propose to look at the young Hegel from yet another angle. I shall argue that what lies beneath Hegel's exegesis of the Scriptures is a Platonism. H. S. Harris has noted this aspect of Hegel's thought in his seminal study of Hegel's development, but the Platonism of the young Hegel has generally been under-researched. In this paper I shall try to bring this out. To do this, I shall explore the meaning and significance of ‘life’ and ‘love’ by focusing on ‘The Spirit of Christianity and Its Fate’ essay, the fragment on ‘Love’, as well as some of the fragments in the appendix of Nohl's volume. Let us not forget that, despite his practical concerns, Hegel was also interested in theological doctrine, which, he thought, expressed substantial truths in metaphorical language; so in the ‘Spirit of Christianity’ essay, as well as providing an historical account of Judaism and a description of Christian ethics, Hegel also discusses theological tenets. Hegel always believed that theory and practice go hand in hand, and he was convinced that religion was as much about dogma as it was about practice. For this reason I deem it necessary to look at Hegel's interpretation of Christian theology in the course of this paper.
The Functionality of Christian Life: Problems of The Early Hegel's Epistemology of Religion
Authors: Schulting Dennis
Published: August 2016

In this paper I want to explore a central line of reasoning in Hegel's early philosophy of religion, which he expounded in fragments he wrote while he was in Bern and Frankfurt in the 1790's. These fragments are known under the titles, Fragmente über Volksreligion und Christentum (dated around 1793–94), Die Positivität der christlichen Religion (1795–96), Entwürfe über Religion und Liebe, and a later essay entitled Der Geist des Christentums und sein Schicksat, they were written sometime between 1798 and 1800, a few years before Hegel published his seminal Jena texts, but they remained unpublished in his lifetime. These texts have, since Nohl's edition of 1907, come to be known collectively as Hegel's ‘theologische Jugendschriften’. I believe that they contain the inchoate system of Hegel's thought in general and his mature philosophy of religion in particular. My main claim here is that Hegel believes that there is an intimate relation between reason and religion, so much so in fact that one can argue that there is reason in religion.

In the first section of my paper, I elaborate on some general problems concerning the relation between faith and reason, in particular, concerning the criterion of truth and viewpoint-neutrality. In the second section, I introduce Hegel's well-known problematic of the sublation of conceptual oppositions, which in the context of an account of the positivity of religion he already articulates, in some form, in these early documents and which may provide a solution for the problems that, in the first section, I argue arise around the relation between faith and reason. This will be merely a rough outline. I subsequently discuss, very briefly, some central aspects of Kant's philosophy of religion, to which to an important extent Hegel's is indebted. In the fourth section, I go on to indicate, also very broadly, the sense in which Hegel attempts to improve upon Kant and thus apparently proves to be more consistent than him. I then raise an issue concerning Hegel's particularist position in his epistemology of religion, which does not sit well with the notion of rationality as viewpoint-neutral. To illustrate this, I look at Hegel's reading of the Eucharist. This is all very sketchy and is meant mainly to elucidate the sense in which, according to Hegel, there is reason in religion.
G.R.G. Mure as Hegelian Scholar
Authors: Walsh W.H.
Published: August 2016

Geoffrey Mure, who died on 24 May 1979 at the age of 86, owed his original interest in Hegel, and indeed the greater part of his philosophical education, to his Merton tutor H.H. Joachim, later Wykeham Professor of Logic at Oxford. Joachim was an accomplished philosophical scholar who did distinguished work on Aristotle and Spinoza, approaching both from a point of view which was broadly Hegelian; he was also the author of a short but powerful book on the Coherence theory of truth. The book was welcomed by some critics of the current idealism, including Russell, because it said that the Coherence theory ended in shipwreck. But it was certainly never Joachim's intention to suggest that, because of his criticisms, idealism should be abandoned. What he wanted, and what Mure wanted after him, was to strengthen that philosophy by eliminating residual elements of false doctrine which (they thought) survived in the versions of it put out by F.H. Bradley and Bernard Bosanquet; to do that it was necessary to make explicit appeal to Hegel. It must be emphasised that, for Joachim and Mure alike, idealism was the only serious possibility in philosophy; realism, empiricism and naturalism, its various antitheses, were hardly worth serious consideration. One third that weakened Mure's thought, and made his defence of his own doctrine less impressive than it might have been, was that he knew so little about his opponents. True, when he wrote Retreat from Truth in the 1950s he made a serious if not wholly successful attempt to grasp and grapple with certain theories of Russell, for whom he had always had an admiration. But though he pontificated a good deal on the subject of modern philosophy in that book and elsewhere, he never managed to study it very closely. Joachim had convinced him in advance that views of a certain sort could never be true, which meant of course that they could be dismissed without a hearing.
The Word Became Flesh or The Orthodox Hegel
Authors: Burbidge John W.
Published: August 2016

Certain men, rejecting the truth, are introducing among us false stories and vain genealogies, which serve rather to controversies than to God's work of building up in faith. By their craftily constructed rhetoric they lead astray the minds of the inexperienced, and take them captive, corrupting the oracles of the Lord, and being evil expounders of what was well spoken.

Thus did Irenaeus of Lyons initiate his treatise on the Refutation and Overthrow of the Knowledge Falsely So-called, commonly called Adversus Haereses. The targets of his polemic were the Gnostics: Valentinus, Marcion, Cerinthus and Basilides; among whom, for our purposes, we shall concentrate simply on Valentinus. According to Irenaeus, the Valentinians held that “neither was the Word made flesh, nor Christ, nor the Saviour who was made out of all the Aeons. For they allege that the Word and Christ never came into this world, and that the Saviour was neither incarnate nor suffered, but that he descended as a dove [that is, at his baptism] upon that Jesus who was made by dispensation, and when he has proclaimed the unknown Father ascended again into the Pleroma [that is, when Jesus said, ‘Into thy hands I commend my spirit.’] It is important to notice the distinction Valentinus draws between Christ, the divine Son (who simply appropriates the human Jesus for a time), and the Jesus who was born of Mary and died on Calvary. They are not to be simply identified.
The Role of Religion in Hegel's Epistemology
Authors: Collins Ardis B.
Published: August 2016

“Is there a way the world is regardless of how we think about it? If so, can we know the way the world is? Is knowledge a socio-historical phenomenon?” With these questions, Kenneth Westphal begins a study that explicitly aims at connecting Hegel's theory of knowledge to main stream epistemology. The project I am proposing here examines the connection between epistemological and religious issues. It will show how Hegel's strategy for an examination of knowledge changes the fundamental orientation of the epistemological project, transforms the questions we usually associate with it, and demonstrates an inseparable connection between epistemology and religion. Throughout the discussion, Westphal's questions will represent the concerns of contemporary epistemology. The project begins with an account of Hegel's strategy for a critical examination of knowledge.

Hegel defines his relation to epistemology in the Introduction to the Phenomenology of Spirit. It seems natural to assume, Hegel says, that we must first come to an understanding about cognition — its different forms, their nature and limits — before we use cognition to know what truly is. Hegel describes this assumption as “a certain uneasiness,” “a mistrust,” a “fear of error,” which “seems justified.” If we do not determine precisely what cognition can and cannot know, if we do not identify which form of cognition is appropriate for knowing reality as it truly is, we might accept as true of reality itself what is only cognition's way of knowing it.
Kant, Hegel, and the Bounds of Thought
Authors: Deligiorgi Katerina
Published: August 2016

Hegel's relation to Kant is often portrayed in terms of epistemic impatience. For W.H. Walsh, for example, whereas Kant seeks to ‘demonstrate that certain kinds of thing [cannot] be objects of human knowledge’, and thus that there are ‘limits to men's cognitive aspirations’, Hegel issues the ‘demand that thought be free to range unchecked wherever it chooses’ and claims the ‘Absolute’ as an object of human knowledge. There are two flaws in this standard account. First, it underestimates the cognitive confidence of Kant's project of a critique of pure reason. Central to this project is the idea that reason has the resources to adjudicate its own claims and thus to know itself. Second, it neglects Hegel's conception of dialectic as the inner discipline of thought. I shall deal with each of these issues in turn. The first part of the paper examines the intellectual commitments entailed by the very idea of a critique of pure reason; the second part addresses the boundary-determining function of dialectic. A fuller understanding of what is meant by ‘critique’ and ‘dialectic’ should enable us not only to re-assess Hegel's relation to Kant, but also to retrieve their shared conception of philosophical reflection as rational self-knowledge. The aim of this paper therefore is to highlight the common ground between the two projects, rather than to emphasise their critical distance. I seek to show that Hegel shares Kant's conviction that ‘philosophy consists in knowing its bounds’ (seine Grenzen zu kennen), even though he accords such knowledge a different status from Kant.
‘Sense Certainty’, or Why Russell had no ‘Knowledge by Acquaintance’
Authors: Westphal Kenneth R.
Published: August 2016

Famously, by launching analytic philosophy Moore and Russell revolted against British Idealism, with Hegel tossed in for good measure. In 1923 Russell declared:

I should take ‘back to the 18th century’ as a battle-cry, if I could entertain any hope that others would rally to it. (CP 9:39)

To Russell, the philosophical headmaster of the Eighteenth Century was Hume, not Kant. Russell sought to dispatch rationalism with his logically sophisticated empiricism, based on ‘knowledge by acquaintance’: the non-conceptual apprehension of simples. He sought to dispatch Hegel in particular by condemning his alleged conflation of the ‘is’ of identity and the ‘is’ of predication.

The battle lines thus drawn between analytic philosophy and (especially) Hegel's philosophy have had deep, lasting and very unfortunate consequences in the field. Hence it is all the more tragic that neither of Russell's criticisms of Hegel is sound. Sense Certainty presumes that the ‘is’ of identity and the ‘is’ of predication are the same, or rather, that it can dispense with predication and hence with any predicative use of ‘is’. Hegel accepts Sense Certainty's presumption as a premise in his reductio ad absurdum argument against sense certainty. Thus Hegel shares rather than denies Russell's thesis about the two senses of ‘is’. However, Hegel further argues that predication is required in order to identify any particular one presumes to know. In this way, Hegel refutes Russell's ‘knowledge by acquaintance’ just over a century in advance.
Ethics as Transformative Love: The Moral World of Etty Hillesum
Authors: Hannafey Francis T.
Published: August 2016

Etty Hillesum, a Dutch Jew who died at Auschwitz at the age of twenty-nine, left behind a diary and letters written during the last two years of her life. In An Interrupted Life and Letters from Westerbork, Hillesum tells a deeply moving story of religious experience, evil and suffering, spiritual growth, and interior and exterior moral transformation. While current scholarship on Hillesum focuses almost entirely on her personal life and religious journey, this essay examines the moral vision that emerges in her writings. Hillesum's diaries and letters present an engaging vision of the moral life—one that points with clarity to the importance of love of God and love of neighbor. This essay proposes that a love ethic is at the center of Hillesum's worldview and examines major influences on her religious and moral thought.
Practicing Catholic “Place”—The Eucharist
Authors: Sheldrake Philip F.
Published: August 2016

A sense of place is critical to human identity. The Eucharist is a ritual practice that “places” us within a narrative wider than our individual and exclusive stories. The Eucharist breaks open private identities to embrace theoikumenēof all times, places and people. This article explores ways in which the Eucharist may be thought of as “the practice of Catholic place.” It does this by integrating sacramental and ethical perspectives. The eucharistic narrative in a radical way makes a place for stories of suffering and exclusion that demand redress. It is a place of reconciliation that makes space for memories that refuse to remain silent. The Eucharist draws believers into the all-embracing catholicity of God. It thus engages a power beyond the ritual enactments themselves that makes an entry point for “the other,” not least for the oppressed, the marginalized and the excluded.
Commitment to One—Openness to Others: A Challenge for Christians
Authors: Knitter Paul F.
Published: August 2016

As we so often hear, Christians of every new generation, or in any new cultural context, have to answer for themselves the question Jesus posed for the first generation of disciples: “Who do you say I am?” (Mk 8:27) This is a question that can be answered only in the light of other questions—that is, the personal, social, political, scientific questions we find ourselves grappling with in our own age and experience. The meaning of Jesus “becomes flesh” again in the meaning and direction we struggle for in our own times.

Among the questions that most stir the minds and feelings of Christians today, perhaps one of the most rankling and challenging is that of other religions traditions and other religious believers—the issue of religious pluralism. To answer the question “Who do you say I am?”, we have to connect it to the question “Who do you say they are?” How do we understand Jesus—his person and his work—in view of so many other religious persons and their words and works of wisdom? As Roger Haight has perceptively pointed out, the reality of other religions is not a question we take up after we have worked out our Christology. It enters into, and directs and determines, how we do our Christology from the very start.

If I can try to formulate how “Who do you say I am?” translates into the context of religious pluralism, it might be something like: “How can I be truly committed to Christ and at the same time be truly open to other religions?” That, I think, captures the questions and the struggles many Christians are feeling as they try to understand themselves as Christians in a world of many religions.
A Process Theological Interpretation of the Primeval History in Genesis 2–11
Authors: Gnuse Robert Karl
Published: August 2016

Genesis 2–11, or the primeval history of the Yahwist tradition, has been assessed theologically in several ways by biblical commentators over the years. The author suggests that this portion of the biblical text may be analyzed from the perspective of a process theological hermeneutic to gain new insights. In particular, one may observe the progressive involvement of Yahweh in the creative activity of establishing a world order, which is not always perfect in its developmental advance. Such a portrayal reflects not an omnipotent deity of classical theology, but rather a personal deity deeply related to the on-going creative processes of this world. Such perceptions of God dovetail well with the assumptions of process theology.
A Study of Catholicism: An Interdisciplinary Faculty Seminar
Authors: Heft James L.
Published: August 2016

This essay describes an intensive eight-month long interdisciplinary faculty seminar which brought together faculty from the social sciences and humanities to explore, with different methodologies, the nature and traditions of Catholicism. It describes the way in which the seminar was organized, the participants selected, the syllabus chosen and how the discussion unfolded. It concludes with an evaluation by the author of what was learned, and then provides a brief description of the research projects undertaken by the seminar participants.
Jesus in the New Testament: A Bibliographical Survey
Authors: Mackey James P.
Published: August 2016

Since I bear the brunt of editorial responsibility for this section ofHorizons, I take this opportunity to propose some guidelines for future contributors here and to give an example in the pages which follow. The topics chosen for a survey of recent literature, I feel, should be substantive; the kind of topic that would normally be central to a college or university course. The presentation should aim at thematic continuity rather than discrete quantity. This means that not every book and article written in the last decade need be mentioned, and older works are not excluded; but an attempt is made to achieve a critical assessment of dominant trends in the topics chosen. So, the theology of this section will be research-oriented, as all good theology should be, but, given the predominant membership-interest of the CTS, it should be aimed at classroom courses, actual or possible.

Secondly, cooperation in contributions counts as additional value, in view of the growing need for interdisciplinary interest in most areas of theology today. A systematic theologian in particular, someone has said, is one who knows something about everything and everything about nothing. I therefore acknowledge my debt in the present piece to my colleague at the University of San Francisco, John H. Elliott, whose work in New Testament is well known to those who read the professional journals and monographs in that area, and who heartily agrees with me that our team-teaching in the classroom has been an indispensable aid to our own specialties. With these preliminary remarks I offer the following example to the critical view of readers and future contributors.
Ethics and Human Identity: The Challenge of the New Biology
Authors: May William E.
Published: August 2016

The major reason why ethics seeks to determine the rightness or wrongness of human acts is that it is principally concerned with the question of our identity as human beings, an identity that we shape for ourselves by our willingness to choose to do specific kinds of deeds or acts. Questions of morality, in other words, are at root questions of human identity. We make or break our lives as human beings by the deeds we choose to do.

With this underlying theme the essay seeks to assess the adequacy of diverse moral methodologies insofar as these have been employed in an effort to confront the challenges posed by the new biology. Three types of approaches are examined: the consequentialist type exemplified by Joseph Fletcher, the “mediating” approach discernible in many contemporary writers and given its most systematic articulation by Richard McCormick, and the deontological type so ably presented by Paul Ramsey and Germain Grisez. The author argues that the Ramsey-Grisez type of approach is the most adequate, contending that the other two types of approaches are more concerned with what our deeds get done than they are with what our deeds have to tell us about the meaning of our existence as moral beings.
Church Architecture as an Approach to the Study of Religion
Authors: Brightman Robert S.
Published: August 2016

In the course Architecture in Worship, the interior functional design of churches is taken as a point of departure for the study of the theological beliefs and liturgical practices of various periods of church history and of different denominations. Using an inductive approach, the course provides a unique approach to the study of church history and sacramental theology, and thus is useful as an alternative among the varied departmental offerings.
Understanding the Religious Personality
Authors: Cenkner William
Published: August 2016

If greater intelligibility is to be achieved in the study of religious figures, the work of symbol in the life of individuals should be probed. Method grounded in sociological and psychological theory holds this possibility. Three considerations center this approach to understanding: (a) the religious figure is formed as he intersects with a symbol system, a process of creative resymbolization; (b) the religious figure is differentiated from others and understood within one of many distinct fields of experience, each field having significant psychological effects on spiritual development; (c) the understanding one achieves is contained by the questions brought to the datum. When more personalistic questions are raised of the religious figure within his symbol system, important differences in meaning result. Taken together, these meanings may approach integral understanding.
Clifford Geertz: An Interfacing of Anthropology and Religious Studies
Authors: Morgan John H.
Published: August 2016

Clifford Geertz is acclaimed today to be one of the most important theorists in the anthropology of religion. He has approached the subject-matter of religion from the perspective of a humanist seeking to come to an analytical understanding of the nature of culture as an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in a complex of symbol-systems. This approach, i.e., defining anthropology as a science of meaning-analysis, nurtures the study of culture as a meaning-system. Religion, too, says Geertz, is a cultural system and necessarily conveys meaning. Therefore, both culture and religion are meaning-systems and, we can conclude, both anthropology and theology attempt to analyze systematically these meaning-systems. The interfacing of the disciplines of anthropology (systematics of culture) and theology (systematics of religion) is made possible by the utilization of the category of “meaning” as a hermeneutical key to the understanding of both religion and culture as meaning-systems.
Informal Survey of Courses on Women in Religion
Authors: Swidler Arlene Anderson
Published: August 2016

In the early 1970's courses in Women's Studies began to appear on many campuses across the country, encouraged in part by the success of Black Studies. As the whole area of women and religion is a particularly complex and significant field, courses on women began to appear in religion as well as in psychology, literature, history, sociology and even natural science departments.

It was hard to know where to begin in organizing a course on “Women in Religion.” Most teachers felt some attention must be given to both Old and New Testament studies, church history, church law, non-Western religions, moral theology, and the role women play in contemporary churches; then secular history, literature, education and psychology must all be tapped to show parallels, causes and effects. People teaching in Women Studies programs tended to do a lot of sharing of experiences and resources.
Conscience: Developmental Perspectives from Rogers and Kohlberg
Authors: Philibert Paul J.
Published: August 2016

Theories of personal development can contribute to the understanding of conscience and conscience formation. (I) Clinical psychologist Carl Rogers has formulated a description of stages in the process of personal growth. While Rogers' stages run parallel to Kohlberg's stages of moral development, they contribute a more sensitive appreciation of some aspects of moral conscience. (II) Kohlberg's idea of conscience appears to be a postconventional phenomenon characterized by moral rationalism. This fact raises certain questions about the value of Kohlberg's work as a paradigm for Christian conscience formation. (III) Both Rogers and Kohlberg contribute to an understanding of conscience. In Christian theology, however, conscience is a multifaceted reality which represents a plurality of moral dimensions. While stage advance describes some characteristics of mature conscience, conscience is a broader reality than either Rogers' or Kohlberg's stages will satisfy to describe.
Von Hügel's Contribution to Religious Studies and to Religion
Authors: Biallas Leonard J.
Published: August 2016

Von Hügel performs an invaluable service for religion and deserves to be classified among the seminal thinkers in religious studies because of his holistic approach to the study and practice of religion. He insists on a healthy friction ortension between various elements of religion as a necessary component of a mature religious life. Such friction is found especially in the interplay of the mystical element of religion with the intellectual and institutional elements. This mystical element, which includes a person's volitional and intuitive side as well as effortful activity, is found to be a legitimate area of scientific investigation and a valid form of human knowledge. Von Hügel's contributions to the study and practice of religion are then situated and evaluated in terms of four areas of current interest. These areas are the journey toward wholeness, the possibility of self-transcendence, the spiritual importance of the body, and the eschatological anticipation of mankind's final end.
Christian Prayer: Practice and Theory
Authors: Dreyer Elizabeth , Egan Keith J.
Published: August 2016

A member of the Theology Department and of the Staff of Campus Ministry team taught at Marquette University a course in which the objective was to offer the opportunity for both the experience of prayer and for reflection upon that experience. In this article the two teachers describe that experiment and offer their reflections upon its potential for meeting the need for such cooperative ventures.
Teaching Theology: Some Affective Strategies
Authors: Ognibene Richard , Penaskovic Richard
Published: August 2016

This essay examines an approach to teaching theology in which “asking and feeling” are equally important concerns. It is argued that courses in theology can be structured in ways that eliminate the cognitive-affective dichotomy, while providing experiences whose motivational appeal enhances dialogue and the prospect of individual growth. Special attention is given to: (1) ways of structuring the classroom experience so that students become responsible for their own learning; (2) activities designed to enhance the self-concept; and (3) methods for developing interpersonal communication skills that promote effective group discussion.
TheNembutsu: Prayer As Enlightenment in Shin Buddhism
Authors: Gurdak Thaddeus J.
Published: August 2016

The recitation of thenembutsu, a plea for salvation in the form of the ejaculatory prayer, “I call on Amida Buddha,” far from being an aberration of Buddhist practice, is an organic development of doctrine and practice based on early Mahāyana thought. With its roots in the work of Nāgārjuna and Vasubandhu, the practice grew from a perception of the Buddha's compassion being such that it would create a provisional paradise within which searchers for enlightenment could dwell, so that, free from the cycle ofkarma-defilement-suffering in this world, they could more readily attain ultimate enlightenment. Thenembutsuis the response of an individual to the compassion of the Buddha, a selfless acceptance of that compassion which allows the individual to be drawn into it, thus being ushered into enlightenment itself. The prayer of thenembutsuis itself a participation in the reality of enlightenment.
Apocalypticism in Political and Liberation Theology: Toward an Historical Docta Ignorantia
Authors: Ashley J. Matthew
Published: August 2016

This article examines political and liberation theologies as instances of apocalypticism, focusing in the work of Johann Baptist Metz and Jon Sobrino. The first section develops a heuristic framework for identifying and analyzing apocalyptic discourse in general, using the historical work of Bernard McGinn and the rhetorical analysis of Stephen O'Leary. The second section applies this framework to Metz and Sobrino, arguing that their theology is a legitimate, provocative, and instructive instance of apocalyptic discourse today, in part because of the way it integrates apocalyptic eschatology with Christology. In a final section, the intelligibility proper to this apocalyptic discourse is discussed by arguing a correlation with mystical theology with its discursive pair of cataphasis and apophasis. Just as this pair finds its context of meaning in the practice of contemplative prayer, apocalyptic affirmations and the reserve expressed in the eschatological proviso find their context of meaning in the practice of opting for the poor.
Creativity as a Problem for Moral Theology: John Locke's 99 Percent Challenge to the Catholic Doctrine of Property
Authors: Finn Daniel R.
Published: August 2016

According to the classic Catholic doctrine of property, owners who have more than they need are obliged to share their surplus with others who have less than they need. From the patristic era to the work of John Paul II, this obligation has been understood to arise most fundamentally from the character of the objects owned: the material world is a gift from the Creator, intended to meet the needs of all humanity. Three centuries ago, John Locke argued that 99 percent of the value of modern wealth is attributable not to natural resources but to human labor and invention, implicitly restricting the classic obligations of property owners to a mere 1 percent of wealth. Catholic moral theology has yet to integrate Locke's insight about human creativity and economic productivity into an adequate doctrine of property. This article surveys the problem and provides an outline of a constructive response.
Through Thick and Thin: Teaching Ethics from a Cross-Cultural Perspective
Authors: Bretzke James T.
Published: August 2016

Recent attention given to the globalization of ethics, the prospects for a common morality, as well as related issues such as inculturation, pluralism, and multiculturalism all provide a challenging context for critical reflection on how theological ethics can be done in light of some of these challenges. A concrete course on “Cross-Cultural Models of Christian Ethics,” taught regularly at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, with participants from diverse theological and cultural backgrounds is presented with a view to stimulate further reflection on both the theological issues connected with doing cross-cultural ethics in the Christian theological tradition as well as aiding concrete curricular development in this area.
Quantum Physics and Christian Anthropology
Authors: Fowler Dean
Published: August 2016

In order to overcome the fragmentation between science and theology, interdisciplinary criteria for meaning must be established. This task is made more complex because of increasing pluralism in the theoretical foundations both of science and of theology. In addition to the traditional coherence and correspondence criteria, the meaningfulness of an idea emerging out of a particular discipline should be directly related to the breadth of its generalized applicability in diverse disciplines. In the article, the thematic content of holistic quantum physics is explicated in order to explore the implications of quantum theory vis-à-vis Christian anthropology. I argue that quantum physics offers scientific foundations for affirming the holistic approach to human existence rooted in the Biblical tradition.
Militant Nonviolence: A Spirituality for the Pursuit of Social Justice
Authors: Hanigan James P.
Published: August 2016

This essay suggests that a clearer understanding of violence and nonviolence as means to be used in the pursuit for justice will be achieved if we move the discussion of nonviolence to the domain of spirituality rather than ethics. A distinction is made between militant nonviolence and historic forms of pacifism and nonresistance, and it is argued that militant nonviolence only makes sense as a spirituality, rather than as an ethical demand. Finally it is argued that such a spirituality is essential for the pursuit of justice and some practical implications are drawn.
On Feminist Spirituality
Authors: Carr Anne
Published: August 2016

Discussion about women and spirituality can range from romanticized claims of special privilege to insistence that equality means sameness. Some typical questions focus the issues. “What is a women's spirituality?” “How is it different from male spirituality?” “What is spirituality, anyway?” And, “what is a feminist spirituality?” “Is it androgynous?” “Is it a stage on the way to something else?”
Feminism and World Religions
Authors: Carmody Denise Lardner
Published: August 2016

There are several ways in which teachers might introduce feminist studies into the mainstream of world religions. Perhaps the best way to proceed would be for me to sketch my own teaching efforts (which have criss-crossed the world religions and Christianity), so that the reader will have one fairly full model against which to react. I apologize for the self-advertising this will entail.

I began with a dual focus. On the one hand, I was asked to teach a course on “Women and Religion” that would serve a developing Women's Studies program (first at Penn State, then at Wichita State). The program was composed of various “Women and …” courses: “Women and Business,” “Women and the Law,” “The Psychology of Women,” “The Sociology of Women,” etc. On the other hand, I was asked to represent feminist scholarship and feminist interests within my home-base departments of Religious Studies. This meant cross-listing the course on “Women and Religion” as a Religious Studies elective, but also providing for feminist issues in other, usually general courses, such as “Introduction to Religion,” “Christianity,” “Traditional Religion in the Modern World,” and the like.
Non-Patriarchal Salvation
Authors: Cooke Bernard
Published: August 2016

Among the more fundamental—and for that very reason more complex—elements in the present reassessing of women's role in Christianity is the issue of the “masculinity” of God and the masculinity of Jesus. How are women, without conforming to the discriminations inherent in a patriarchal culture, to relate to God as a “he” or to accept as their savior a Christ who has never shared their femininity.

One of the key aspects of this issue, though by no means the only one, is the theological: how does Christian belief address itself to this issue, suggest “solutions,” or perhaps limit the range of acceptable feminist understandings of God. The present essay is meant to explore this theological dimension by relating New Testament understandings of Jesus' “Abba” experience (I) to two questions: How did Jesus' masculinity and his experience of God affect one another? (II) and In Christianity how appropriate is the name “Father” for God? (III).
Renewal or Repatriarchalization? Responses of the Roman Catholic Church to the Feminization of Religion
Authors: Gudorf Christine E.
Published: August 2016

This article will outline a feminist interpretation for responses of the Roman Catholic Church to particular events in modern history, and sketch feminist proposals for solving the resulting problems of the Church today. The first section interprets the Church's initial response to scientific and philosophic discoveries and movements of the late Renaissance and the Enlightenment period as responsible for the feminization of the image of Roman Catholicism in the secular mind. The second section interprets the Church's response to liberalism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as confirming for the secular, and increasingly popular, mind this feminine image of Catholicism. The third section depicts Vatican II as a contemporary attempt to create a more masculine image for the faith by moving the Church's sphere of action from the feminized private sector to the public world characterized by masculine rationality and technology. The final section sketches some ways in which modern feminist scholarship and its perspective can be a major and necessary contributor to the eradication of this feminine view of religion through the elimination of public/private dualism.
Catholic Theology in the United States, 1840-1907: Recovering a Forgotten Tradition
Authors: Portier William L.
Published: August 2016

Contrary to widely held assumptions, American Catholics in the nineteenth century made some interesting and even original contributions to religious thought. This essay serves as an introductory resource for this significant body of writing. Surveying the period between 1840 and 1907, it identifies distinctive and self-aware American Catholic contributions to theology in three areas, the church question, Catholic Americanism, and modernism. Finally it draws attention to some of the unfinished agenda left to us by this largely forgotten tradition.
Christianity's Elusive Style: Nietzsche and the Dilemma of Modernity
Authors: Schalow Frank
Published: August 2016

This paper attempts to elicit a certain sympathy for Nietzsche's view of Christianity by arguing that his critical attitude toward it must be considered more broadly within his quest to diagnose the illness pervading modern culture. Thus, while it has often been believed that Christianity contributes to the decline of modern culture, it is equally plausible that the institutions and language of modernity have become inadequate for the proper expression of the Christian message. The ostensibly “anti-Christian” sentiment in Nietzsche's thought, then, stems from an “anti-modern” stance, or, put more positively, from a vision that points ahead toward “post-modernity.” What becomes decisive for Christianity is not the formulation of any doctrine, but instead the implementation of a kind of “practice” or “style” that seeks as much an affirmation of life (even in view of life's suffering) as an escapist flight to the “other world.”

In defending this thesis, this paper counters a simple association of Nietzsche with atheism that still remains prominent in some theological circles.