bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
From the Separateness of Space to the Ideality of Sensation. Thoughts on the Possibilities of Actualizing Hegel's Philosophy of Nature
Authors: Wandschneider Dieter
Published: August 2016

The Cartesian concept of nature, which has determined modem thinking until the present time, has become obsolete. It shall be shown that Hegel's objective-idealistic conception of nature discloses, in comparison to that of Descartes, new perspectives for the comprehension of nature and that this, in turn, results in possibilities of actualizing Hegel's philosophy of nature.

If the argumentation concerning philosophy of nature is intended to catch up with the concrete Being-of-nature and to meet it in its concretion, then this is impossible for the finite spirit in a strictly a priori sense — this is the thesis supported here which is not at all close to Hegel. As the argumentation rather has to consider the conditions of realization concerning the Being-of-nature, too, it is compelled to take up empirical elements — concerning the organism, for instance, system-theoretical aspects, physical and chemical features of the nervous system, etc. With that, on the one hand, empirical-scientific premises are assumed (e.g. the lawlikeness of nature), which on the other hand become (now close to Hegel) possibly able to be founded in the frame of a Hegelian-idealistic conception. In this sense, a double strategy of empirical-scientific concretization and objective-idealistic foundation is followed up, which represents the methodical basic principle of the developed considerations.

In the course of the undertaking, the main aspects of the whole Hegelian design concerning the philosophy of nature are considered — space and time, mass and motion, force and law of nature, the organism, the problem of evolution, psychic being — as well as Hegel's basic thesis concerning the philosophy of nature, that therein a tendency towards coherence and idealization manifests itself in the sense of a (categorically) gradually rising succession of nature: from the separateness of space to the ideality of sensation. In the sense of the double strategy of concretization and foundation it is shown that on the one hand possibilities of philosophical penetration concerning actual empirical-scientific results are opened, and on the other hand — in tum — a re-interpretation of Hegel's theorem on the basis of physical, evolution-theoretical and system-theoretical argumentation also becomes possible. In this mutual crossing-over and elucidation of empirical and Hegelian argumentation not only do perspectives of a new comprehension of nature become visible, but also, at the same time — as an essential consequence of this methodical principle — thoughts on the possibilities of actualizing Hegel's philosophy of nature.
Antigone: towards a Hegelian Feminist Philosophy
Authors: Hutchings Kimberly
Published: August 2016

To engage with Hegel's philosophy from a feminist perspective is necessarily to be confronted with questions about the politics of reading (specifically the politics of reading canonic philosophical texts). Politics, that is, both in the obvious, traditional ideological sense (since feminism involves an explicit political agenda) and in the less obvious sense of the politics of the relation between reader and text. For some scholars this automatically places feminist readers in the category of a dubious scholarship which rests on a mistaken understanding of the meanings of both politics and truth.

It seems to me a mistake — and an inexcusable conceit — to say as some now do, that all scholarship is somehow ‘political’ or is itself politics practised by other means. That view demeans both politics and scholarship. Now this is not to say that a scholar's motives must not be political, only that the methods and results of her researches must be judged according to scholarly standards and not political ones. The aim of scholarship is to seek and to tell the truth, as best one can discern it, and not to promote any particular partisan cause. (Ball, 1995: 24)

Ball here confines the role of politics in the traditional (ideological) sense to the Weberian category of ‘value’, which may motivate and orient scholarship but which cannot provide the criteria according to which scholarly work is carried out or its findings are judged. He dismisses the relevance of the category ‘politics’ to the understanding of the relation between reader and text as such and instead, argues that ‘truth’ is what that relation should be about. Yet, the work of interpretation and reflection in the reading of texts insofar as it involves a process of interaction between reader and text always problematises, I would argue, the distinction between politics and truth upon which Ball's analysis relies. There are various models on offer, both descriptive and prescriptive for what the process of textual interpretation does or should involve. One can contrast the notion of ‘scholarly standards’ as the route to the true meaning of a text with Skinner's new historicism, the virtuous circle of hermeneutics or the destabilising ambitions of deconstruction (Tully, 1988; Bamett, 1998). These approaches elicit very different interpretive results but they also differ in their assumptions about what is or ought to be taken as authoritative for understanding and interpretation and in this sense they are characterised by a politics of the interplay between reader and text. This is a modest claim but one which disrupts the politics/truth distinction even if it doesn't necessarily imply the end of distinguishing between good and bad, valid and invalid understanding/interpretation.
Religious Philosophy: Hegel's Occasional Perplexity in the Face of the Distinction Between Philosophy and Religion
Authors: Bernasconi Robert
Published: August 2016

Hegel is widely recognized as the preeminent philosopher of the history of philosophy. His Lectures on the History of Philosophy are designed in large measure to answer questions about philosophy's apparent futility by reformulating the presentation of the seemingly pointless succession of forms of philosophy so as to show its organic development (Hegel, 1994, 24). To reveal the proper shape of the history of philosophy, what is extraneous to it had to be omitted. Much that had previously been regarded as philosophy was now to be treated under the heading of religion. The distinction between philosophy and religion, the decision as to what was philosophy and what was religion, took on an importance it had previously lacked. Although subsequent historians of philosophy did not always share Hegel's concern to show the organic development of the history of philosophy, his decisions about what was to be included and what excluded from philosophy proved particularly important in respect of the question of the place subsequently given to Indian philosophy. For this reason Hegel deservedly holds a central place in current discussions about the philosophical canon.
Hegel and the Meaning of the Present Moment
Authors: Shanks Andrew
Published: August 2016

“The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.” As a critique of Feuerbach, which is what it primarily is, this verdict of Marx's seems to me fair enough. But to what extent does it also apply to that other great philosopher with whom Marx is preoccupied: Hegel?

Superficially, it might appear that Hegel too is only an ‘interpreter’ of the world. Does he not, after all, repudiate any ambition to ‘give instruction as to what the world ought to be’ in his Preface to the Philosophy of Right? And does he not then famously go on to argue that

philosophy in any case always comes on the scene too late to give it. As the thought of the world, it appears only when actuality is already there cut and dried after its process of formation has been completed […] The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk —?

Well, yes. But the particular sort of ‘instruction’ in question here is the devising of political Utopias, or the drafting of detailed programmes of government. And this is by no means the only way in which thinking may move beyond simple ‘interpretation’ to become strategically effective in worldly terms.
Justice for Wage Earners: Retrieving Insights from the Catholic Community
Authors: Lamoureux Patricia Ann
Published: August 2016

Throughout much of the history of Catholic social teaching, the question of wage-earner justice has been of central import. In response to the condition of workers who do not receive sufficient compensation to maintain a decent livelihood for themselves and their families, a theory of just wage has evolved. There is wisdom to be gleaned from the tradition that can enrich the contemporary debate on just wage. The challenge lies in discerning what is normative from that which is socially and culturally biased. It will be informative to explore the meaning of just wage from a wide spectrum of perspectives, including the sometimes forgotten voice of women. This article examines the contributions of several levels of the Catholic faith community and retrieves essential insights that can contribute to a revitalized just wage discourse.
Of Fork and Spoon or Fingers and Chopsticks: Interreligious Dialogue in Ecclesia in Asia
Authors: Chia Edmund
Published: August 2016

The Synod of Bishops for Asia which was held in Rome in April 1998 aroused much interest. The long awaited Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, Ecclesia in Asia (EA), was finally released in November 1999. Its reception is the topic of the present article. At issue is the tension between the proclamation of Christ and interreligious dialogue in Asia. The Asian bishops are unanimous in upholding the importance of evangelization but have different understandings of how that should be carried out. Rome insists on the “one and only” way it knows. The present article looks at this dialogue between Rome and Asia.
Providence, Power and the Holy Spirit
Authors: Carr Anne E.
Published: August 2016

This essay envisions the meaning of providence according to recent feminist and process theologies of power and attempts to distinguish the meaning of providence from the action of the Holy Spirit in our lives. It compares the classical meaning of providence with those elements in modern and contemporary thought that warrant changes in our understanding of these themes, while it maintains the continuity of Christian tradition. In doing so, it offers some reflection on the relationship between theology and spirituality, and suggests a new synthesis between the immanence and transcendence of God in the experience of Christians today. In light of the biblical idea of justice as right relations, the mystical and political are integrated.
Theology as Work: The Mandatum and the Rights of Labor
Authors: McCormick Patrick T.
Published: August 2016

Many oppose the mandatum as a threat to the academic freedom of Catholic scholars and the autonomy and credibility of Catholic universities. But the imposition of this juridical bond on working theologians is also in tension with Catholic Social Teaching on the rights and dignity of labor. Work is the labor necessary to earn our daily bread. But it is also the vocation by which we realize ourselves as persons and the profession through which we contribute to the common good. Thus, along with the right to a just wage and safe working conditions, Catholic Social Teaching defends workers' rights to a full partnership in the enterprise, and calls upon the church to be a model of participation and cooperation. The imposition of the mandatum fails to live up to this standard and threatens the jobs and vocations of theologians while undermining this profession's contribution to the church.
“Who Do Men Say That I Am?” — Modern Scholarship on Gospel Christology
Authors: Brown Raymond E.
Published: August 2016

I trust that my choice of the topic of christology for an address to a national convention of the College Theology Society needs no explanation. Christology was, is, and, I suspect, always will be the single most important question in Christian theology. Of the three religions of the book, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, we Christians are the only ones who have accepted identification in terms of our stance about a person of history, Jesus of Nazareth. Although Judaism revers Moses as the lawgiver, the designation “Judaism” suggests that primary identity is not in terms of an attitude toward Moses but in terms of relationship to the tribe of Judah and the people of Israel. Westerners persist in calling Muslims “Mohammedans,” but that is by false analogy with the title “Christians.” While Mohammed is the prophet, a Muslim is one who has accepted Islam, that is, submission to the will of Allah, as preached by Mohammed. Christians, however, are those who profess that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, the Christ. The question “Who do men say that I am?” stands in a central place in the tradition of the Synoptic Gospels, symptomatic of where it stands in our faith; and we Christians are those who think that, whether he understood it fully or not, Peter gave the correct answer to that question.
Autobiography and Religion
Authors: Battaglia Anthony
Published: August 2016

The growing popularity of courses which use autobiographical materials as an introduction to the study of religion signals a changing cultural perception of what religion is. Whereas before religion was thought of in terms of faith in a supernatural being, now we are beginning to see that religion is any attempt to integrate our lives. This changed perception has important consequences for the Christian faith.
So You're Looking for a Chairperson?
Authors: Gaffney J. Patrick
Published: August 2016

Although few want ads for “Chairperson of Theology Department” appear in the Chronicle of Higher Education, nonetheless, it is more than rumor that a number of colleges and universities are searching for that “ideal” leader for the theology/religious studies department. The basic difficulty faced by search committees is that they find it difficult to draw up a job description of the position. Usually a letter announcing the opening simply declares that the university desires an “administrator-theologian,” dodging any details. A more lengthy ad—which did appear in The Chronicle—added: “who is willing to work in harmony with ecclesiastical authorities,” which makes the post even more mysterious, if not ominous.

However, in defense of search committees, it can safely be said that it is almost impossible to define the task of departmental chairpersons. Faculty consider them part of administration, administration declare that they are essentially one of the faculty; they should be leaders in their discipline, but are given little time for research; they should be better-than-average performers in the classroom, but their teaching abilities are allowed to rust as they become more and more a cog in bureaucratic machinery. Moreover, in some institutions they are expected to be no more than the “secretary” of the faculty, while in others (at least according to the ‘manual’) they are endowed with dictatorial powers. In any case, they are surely “responsible for the department,” although realistically, their powers are so sorely limited by established procedures, bone-marrow budgeting, a freeze on hiring, that they are fortunate if they can even maintain the status quo.
The Faith of the Historical Jesus
Authors: Mackey James P.
Published: August 2016

This is a sequel to the author's “The Theology of Faith” in Horizons of Fall, 1975. In that first survey article it was suggested that Christian faith is now seen as a radical commitment to God precisely through the ordinary things of our world and our history. The present article asks the questions: was this the faith of Jesus, the founder of our faith? Can one speak of Jesus as a man of faith at all? And if one can, how did Jesus himself become the object of a confession of faith, as he certainly did become in our tradition?
Robert Johann—an Ontological Basis for an Ethics of Responsibility
Authors: Malloy Edward A.
Published: August 2016

This article places Robert Johann's ethics of responsibility within the context of his evolved philosophical position which is decisively influenced by the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas and John Dewey. Building on a perspective that he called “ontological pragmatism,” Johann began to explore the ethic of responsibility developed by H. Richard Niebuhr in The Responsible Self. However, Johann's version is significantly different from that of Niebuhr. After describing Johann's ethics of responsibility, I conclude by criticizing his moral methodology as insufficiently developed and by charging that his anthropology fails to account for certain crucial dimensions of human experience.
The New Religious Dimension in Western Marxism: II
Authors: Siebert Rudolf J.
Published: August 2016

Both Marxists and phenomenologists have a critical attitude toward religion. For the phenomenologist critique means clarification of meaning; for the Marxist it means the emancipation of men and women from the quasi-natural forces of opaque and ossified traditions, from irrational authorities, and from the ideology which but-tresses unjustifiable dialectical contradictions in civil and socialist society. Marxists such as Georg Lukacs, Max Horkheimer, and Leszek Kolakowski apply ideology critique to the dimension of religion. Lukacs acknowledges not only reactionary, but also progressive aspects in the Catholic and Protestant form of Christianity. For Horkheimer, complete emancipation from faith in a power independent from history and at the same time determining it belongs to the most primitive intellectual clarity and veracity of modern humanity. But Horkheimer continues to read the Bible. He observes and suffers deeply from the immeasurable gap between the moral norms and values which Europeans have acknowledged since the introduction of Christianity and the behaviour of the European Christians, which is the difference between Christian theory and practice. Kolakowski finds the antagonism between the philosophy of the priest and the philosophy of the jester in all spheres of human life, including religion. The priest eternalizes and guards the absolutes acknowledged at certain times in certain societies. The jester, on the other hand, continually questions what societies consider ultimate and doubts everything “given” in any social formation. Finally Horkheimer sums up the whole Western Marxist theory of religion in his assertion that the concept of God kept alive the idea that there are other norms besides those to which the finite world considered as nature, society and history gives expression. The concept of Infinity preserves an awareness of the finality of human life and of the inalterable aloneness and abandonment of humanity. Horkheimer cannot affirm any philosophy or politics which does not also embrace a theological moment. Theology is the hope and the longing that the injustice which characterizes the world as society, state and history today may not have the last word.
Religious Studies by Correspondence: One Department's Beginning
Authors: Carmody John
Published: August 2016

Education by correspondence is now a quite flourishing enterprise. Penn State presently enrolls about 25,000 persons for credited courses; Brigham Young, Nebraska, Iowa, and Wisconsin are universities with comparable programs. In each case, people outside the normal college population are being offered opportunities for further professional or personal growth. My department at Penn State has decided to offer religious studies by correspondence, and I have written the first course: Religious Studies 1: Introduction. What follow are specimens from this course—possible stimuli for your department's consideration of religious studies by correspondence, as well as fillips about the nature of religious studies, Jainism, and Taoism.

The first materials below come from a “General Introduction.” In my total booklet they are followed by general directions from the correspondence division about the preparation of a lesson report (LIF), examinations, final grades, etc. The two sample lessons illustrate typical booklet units based (as correspondence courses usually are) on a core textbook. Following Man's Religions, by John Noss, my course has twenty lessons (see “Table of Contents” appended). Lesson 4, on Jainism, exemplifies the usual commentary. Lesson 9, on Merton's Chuang Tzu, aims at varying the objective fare with something more lyric.

In these twenty units, then, I have tried to compose an equivalent of a regular three credit (quarter system) course. The reading materials amount to about 1,100 ordinary pages, while the student's written work amounts to about 50 typed pages. This surely does not substitute for a live teaching presence, but it may bring ultimate concerns to a new and receptive audience.
The Belief of the Poet: Was It Kept from the Poetry? T. S. Eliot and “Orthodoxy of Sensibility”
Authors: Kauffman S. Bruce
Published: August 2016

Throughout his numerous literary critical and theoretical essays, T. S. Eliot frequently discussed the relationship between a poet's belief—particularly, religious belief—and the sensibility informing the poet's work. Eliot contended that if a poet's belief is truly significant to his poetry the significance should be evident not simply through inclusion or reference to certain dogmatic formulae or symbols but, more profoundly, in how the poet sees and receives the world: belief should have a palpable effect on the sensibility that readers encounter in the literary work.

Now, of course, one of the most conspicuous facts of Eliot's own career is his acceptance, in middle age, of Christian belief. And Eliot's poetry after his conversion is often drenched in Christian motifs and images. But to what extent can Eliot's Christianity be said to have transformed his poetic sensibility?

This paper first rehearses Eliot's theoretical position and then employs that position in considering poems and plays Eliot wrote after he had accepted the Christian witness of faith. The conclusion is that Eliot, in his poetry did not fully achieve the “orthodox” sensibility he posited as the Christian poet's ideal.
A Methodological Flaw in Tracy's Revisionist Theology
Authors: O'Brien William J.
Published: August 2016

What is remarkable about David Tracy's Blessed Rage for Order is the absence of what Bernard Lonergan has designated as the specifically theological principle: conversion. The present writer regards this absence as a flaw, despite the ambiguity of “conversion” in general and of Lonergan's use of the term in particular. An attempt at clarification is made, showing how “conversion” can operate as Lonergan intends. In contrast, the methodologically self-conscious style of the proposed revisionist theology appears to be self-defeating.
A Reply to Donald Heinz
Authors: Efroymson David P.
Published: August 2016

Professor Heinz's welcome and provocative essay serves us all. What we are about is both important and delicate enough to demand being constantly rethought. And Heinz will make us think. Many will find focussed and verbalized in his essay a vigorous defense of what they will wish they had said. And for those who disagree, there is the opportunity and obligation to identify what it is they oppose, and why.

Two disagreements will be expressed here: one is simply a matter of fact, but worth noting; the other is a matter of principle, and is worth debating. The factual matter is simply that, as far as I can detect, the “generally prevailing paradigm” which Heinz laments, at least as it involves “refraining from anything theological,” is not as prevalent on Catholic campuses as it may be elsewhere. The kind of theology that goes on is varied; there may be less of what Patrick Gaffney wants than of what Anne Carr thinks is necessary, but theology goes on. And not all of it can be characterized by either “objectivity” or “neutrality.” Heinz would, I believe, find some of it to his liking.
The New Religious Movements: Some Theological Reflections
Authors: Saliba John A.
Published: August 2016

The rise and spread of new religious movements, like the Unification Church, the Children of God, and the Hari Krishnas, have brought a lot of reactions from Jews and Christians alike. This paper examines the problem of how Christians should react and respond to these proselytizing groups. It is stressed that ridiculing the so-called cults is hardly an academic procedure and much less a viable theological and pastoral solution. Two responses, one by the National Council of Churches and one by the Lutheran Church are briefly described and evaluated. Finally, some guidelines towards a Christian theological and pastoral approach to the cults are proposed.
Gregory Baum on the Revelatory Work of the Holy Spirit
Authors: Schweitzer Don
Published: August 2016

This article explores Gregory Baum's notion of how the Holy Spirit leads the church to a new understanding of Jesus as the Christ. It begins by examining Baum's interpretation of the doctrinal development at Vatican II, then analyzes the innovative understanding Baum has developed based on how the Spirit works to reformulate the church's message through a process of cultural conversion. It relates Baum's theory to preceding reflection on the development of dogma, then takes up Rosemary Ruether's criticism that Baum's position deprives Scripture of its transcendence. It concludes by developing a way of relating Word and Spirit that combines Baum's openness to the spirit with Ruether's concern for the transcendence of Scripture.
Christian Rituals: An Essay in Sacramental Symbolisms
Authors: Lawler Michael G.
Published: August 2016

Both anthropologists and theologians, each in their separate ways, are interested in rituals and their symbol-units. Victor Turner, from extensive fieldwork, has evolved a definition of ritual as “prescribed formal behavior for occasions not given over to technological routine, having reference to beliefs in mystical beings or powers.” Monica Wilson has insisted that “it is the values of the group that are revealed” in rituals and their symbol-units. The present essay is located at the interface of anthropology and theology. It surveys pertinent anthropological information and then analyzes the Christian rituals of baptism, confirmation and eucharist, and their symbol-units, to clarify and focus their meanings and the values and ontology of the Christian group which are revealed in them.
Visual Story and the Religious Interpretation of Film
Authors: May John R.
Published: August 2016

There are three basic theoretical approaches to the study of literature and religion that can profitably be appropriated by the religious critic of cinema—heteronomy, theonomy, and autonomy; but the greatest of these is autonomy, which explores those dimensions of the formal structure of film that represent the visual analogue of religious or sectarian questions. Inasmuch as all of our culturally typical films are stories, the autonomy of film is preserved if the religious critic approaches film as visual story. The extremes of story, myth and parable, yield substructures that correspond to differing responses to the fundamental religious questions about our relationship to the universe, to others, and to ourselves. Moreover, certain cinematic elements are more suitable than others for the visual representation in story of our basic religious concerns.
Preying Birds: An Examination of Thomas Merton's Zen
Authors: Fittipaldi Silvio E.
Published: August 2016

An examination of major themes in Merton's writings on Zen; the ground out of which he met with Zen (theology as experienced in contemplation); his presentation of Zen enlightenment in terms of its effect on awareness; his movement from articulating Zen enlightenment as an experience of “being” to a presentation of it as a realization of “void”; and a positive analysis of his understanding of Zen from the writings of D. T. Suzuki and S. Hisamatsu.
Encountering the Crucified God: the Soteriology of Sebastian Moore
Authors: Loewe William P.
Published: August 2016

These reflections on Sebastian Moore's soteriology fall under four headings. By way of introduction and in order to establish a context, I commemorate an anniversary (I). There follows an effort to state in summary fashion what I understand Moore to be saying and what I understand him to be doing in what he says (II). A third section contains a suggestion concerning the ecumenical significance of Moore's work (III). The paper concludes with a number of critical observations and proposals for further work (IV).
The Relation between Faith and Morality: Sources For Christian Ethics
Authors: Walter James J.
Published: August 2016

The question of the sources for Christian Ethics has been a perennial problem. In the first part of this study a heuristic continuum is set up in order to examine briefly six ways of relating faith and morality at the level of sources for Christian ethics which some theologians have actually adopted (e.g., Karl Barth and James Gustafson). In the second part, the author's own constructive proposal is offered along with a critical analysis of the previous positions. It is argued that a critical-dialogical relation between faith and morality offers the best possibilities both for preserving the relative autonomy of each and for utilizing the resources of faith and morality in the discipline of Christian ethics.
Abortion and Argument by Analogy
Authors: Cahill Lisa Sowle
Published: August 2016

The purpose of this essay is to examine the consistency and coherence of some arguments about abortion. Theological, philosophical, and public policy discussions of abortion are linked by the necessity of understanding the legitimate claims of the fetus on the woman who bears it, as well as on the larger human community. The tools of moral philosophy widely are employed, whether directly or indirectly, to evaluate abortion as one solution to problematic pregnancies. In particular, theologians examining the problem of abortion from the standpoint of normative ethics find it necessary to take into account some of the seminal work in recent moral philosophy. However, the logic of the moral arguments adduced is not always given fully critical attention in either “pro-choice” or “pro-life” positions, whether they be essentially religious, philosophical, or political in character.

One logical implement used broadly is the analogical argument. Burdensome pregnancy can be compared to other situations in which the duty of one individual to protect the rights of another either is sustained or is modified. Differences in evaluations of the morality of abortion can be clarified and perhaps reduced by probing the ways in which the morally significant features of fetal dependency, and of maternal and societal obligation, are partly revealed yet partly hidden by the analogical mode of moral argument.
To Set the Record Straight: Biblical Women's Studies
Authors: Fiorenza Elisabeth Schüssler
Published: August 2016

In the early 1970's women's studies emerged as an independent discipline. In all areas of scientific knowledge courses and research projects were developed to expand our knowledge of women's cultural-scientific contributions as well as to challenge androcentric texts, scholarly frameworks, and scientific reconstructions that overlooked or marginalized women. Women's studies in religion participate in these intellectual and educational goals of the Women's Studies movement, while feminist theology and feminist studies in religion share in the liberative goals of the feminist movement in society and church. In the context of this two-fold movement, feminist Biblical studies have moved from the concentration on what men have said about women in the Bible and from the apologetic-thematic focus on “women in the Bible” to a new critical reading of Biblical texts in a feminist theological perspective. In this process we have moved from discussing statements of Paul or the “Fathers” and Rabbis about women to the rediscovery of Biblical women's leadership and oppression as crucial for the revelatory process of God's liberation reflected in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures.
The Moral Act
Authors: Rigali Norbert J.
Published: August 2016

From the manuals of the classicist period, moral theology inherited an understanding of the moral act that is rooted in the classical conception of the human being as a rational animal. However, the new personalist and relational anthropology characterizing contemporary theology requires a corresponding revised idea of the nature of the moral act. This revision, it appears, cannot be definitively achieved unless a holistic material understanding of the moral life first replaces the merely formal and empty concept of it in the manualist tradition. Fortunately, this replacement seems to be occurring. The areas of sexual morality and social consciousness are those that suffer the greatest distortion in ethics based on classicist anthropology and, similarly, admit the greatest revision when transferred into the context of contemporary theological anthropology.
Initial Aims as Seeds of Contemplation: A Whiteheadian Interpretation of Merton
Authors: Doud Robert E.
Published: August 2016

Momentary divine instigations or seeds of love, liberty, and self-realization are showered down upon us inviting us to contemplation, conversion, and commitment. Contemplation knows God as the source of these instigations, and also knows them as a flow of opportunities by which we may respond to God in love. Merton calls these instigations “missions,” or “seeds of contemplation.” They are identical to Whitehead's “initial aims.” Whitehead's distinction of the “initial aim” and the “subjective aim” is important: each moment of emergent human existence is constituted by the tension of these two aims. The “initial aim” is taken in by the newly forming subject and redirected somewhat; that is, the new actual entity modifies the freedom it receives with the freedom of its own subjective decision. The new project designed by the actual entity out of the “initial aim” is called the “subjective aim.” The initial aim is the spark of givenness from God by which the new entity originates, and the subjective aim is the appropriation and redirection of this energy on the part of the new actual entity. The reality of contemplation involves attention to the initial aims, while conversion is concerned with the process by which the initial aim becomes the subjective aim.
Precious Mettle: Alchemic Aspiration as a Metaphor for Learning
Authors: Quillo Ronald
Published: August 2016

Recent criticism of higher education challenges professors to facilitate learning which involves critical thinking, self-awareness, social consciousness, creativity, and interdisciplinary perspective. The ancient art of alchemy, which antedated post-Newtonian scientific categorizations, was directed toward much more than the transmutation of base metals into precious ones. As a process involving philosophical and religious views brought to bear on self-improvement as well as the improvement of all creation, alchemy may function as an appropriate metaphor for learning which is transformative of both learners and their environments. A psychological interpretation of alchemical pursuits facilitates an understanding of transformation in this way. Higher education is thus directed toward and affirmed in its mission of fostering in students a holistic and interdisciplinary approach to knowledge and skills which may be utilized both personally and socially.
“I Saw a Kingfisher”: Grace and Ruin in Golding's The Spire
Authors: Yeager D. M.
Published: August 2016

William Golding, in The Spire, invites us to ask how we may know the will of God, and suggests that what we take to be the will of God is often simply the projection onto history of the disguised image of our private and self-absorbed desires. Though contemporary critics tend to interpret the novel as a sympathetic exploration of moral ambiguity rather than as a compelling condemnation of Jocelin's mortifying and death-dealing sin, the novel turns on the contrast between the drive toward dominion and the capacity for assent. The final salvific discovery, given form in Jocelin's mind by the experience of the apple tree and the kingfisher, is the overthrow of the will, its panicked drowning, in terrified apprehension of implacable glory and squandered gifts.
Mother Earth as Metaphor: A Healing Pattern of Grieving and Giving Birth
Authors: Lane Belden C.
Published: August 2016

Mother Earth is often revered as a goddess in world mythology, but seldom recognized as also an important metaphor in the biblical theology of Old and New Testaments. The image of the earth as grieving mother is a recurrent theme, used in Scripture to symbolize the movement from tragedy and loss to the beginnings of hope. It is an image rich in implications for a theological approach to ecological questions, a search for human and sexual wholeness in a technological age, and a study of the relationship of biblical thought to the universal process of mythogenesis. More than this, however, it touches most deeply the human quest for the lost mother and the role of Christ's passion in the renewal of spiritual connectedness to the natural world.
“Distinct but Not Separate”: Historical Research in the Study of Jesus and Christian Faith
Authors: Thompson William M.
Published: August 2016

“Distinct but not separate” is a venerable formula whose origins go back to the Council of Chalcedon's confession of 451 that Jesus' humanity and divinity are each distinct realities, yet at the same time united in the one person of the Savior himself. Jesus' singular personhood (= “not separate”) protected the New Testament insight that God really united himself with all humans in their historical and earthly condition through the deeds and words of Jesus himself. God's utterly personal oneness with Jesus was the way in which God became adoptively one with the whole human family and world. But this could only be a true union between God and humans if neither was swallowed up in the other, or reduced to the other. Union (we might say communion as well) presupposes oneness and difference. And so Chalcedon speaks of Jesus' divinity and humanity as remaining distinct. By our adoption in grace through Jesus (Rm 8:14–17) we ourselves are not pantheistically swallowed up in God, but retain our distinctiveness as humans as well.
Telling it Slant: American Catholic Public Theology and Prophetic Discourse
Authors: Lindsey William D.
Published: August 2016

Certain proposals to construe American Catholic public theology as civil discourse assume that public theological discussion needs to be disciplined to prevent “interest groups” from imposing their agendas on all participants. These proposals urge that all parties be required to employ the language of natural law, which is to be taught to all by theological experts.

Though American Catholic public theology traditionally seeks to avoid sectarianism by employing the philosophical language of natural law, and though civil discourse would presumably reinforce this anti-sectarian tendency, it has a significant shortcoming. Requiring public religious discourse to prescind from all specific interests would rule out prophetic contributions to public theology. Prophets always speak perspectivally and reflect the interests of their historical situations. The interests of religious speakers need scrutiny, but this scrutiny should not exclude from hand prophetic discourse arising out of experiences of oppression.

The essay provides a foundation for this thesis by examining what is at work in prophetic speech. It locates prophetic discourse at the intersection of the prophet's need to proclaim and the community's need to control. The argument of the essay moves to the conclusion that American Catholic theologians need to give more attention than previously to the rhetorical dimensions of public theological discourse.
Seeking a Minor Sun: Saints after the Death of God
Authors: Sanders Theresa
Published: August 2016

Theology lives in the days of the frost. Postmodern philosophers question the very possbility of God-language. In response, Edith Wyschogrod's Saints and Postmodernism attempts to develop an ethics grounded in lives of saints. Her definition of “saint” as one devoted to the alleviation of pain is problematic; moreover, her definition does not in fact grow out of hagiography. Rather, it reduces saints' lives to didactic tales. Still, Wyschogrod points toward a more adequate description of the saint as one who sees the being of others as constituted by a lack. An emphasis on otherness is developed in the theologies of Mark Taylor and Charles Winquist. Using their insights and Wyschogrod's, I propose that Christianity turn to the “minor sun” of saints' lives to rethink theology in light of the postmodern critique.
The Coherence of Catholic Social Thought: Toward a Theology of Involvement
Authors: Bayer Richard C.
Published: August 2016

Although recent attempts to state the coherence or integrating idea within Catholic Social Thought have contributed much to our understanding of the tradition, the attempts have been based on improper methodological presuppositions. For this reason the authors offering these theories have been unable to justify their selection and emphasis on certain documents; they have not fully considered the challenge to their theories by development in the integrating idea taken as most essential; and they have not been methodologically clear about the role which their own vision plays in the historical retrieval. Recognition of such problems in historical analysis, and the path toward dealing with them today in an historically conscious way, is found in the work of Ernst Troeltsch.
Historicism, Truth Claims, and the Teaching of Ethics
Authors: Reynolds Terrence
Published: August 2016

This article analyzes the impact of postmodernism on the meaning, truth, and justification of claims in contemporary theology and ethics. It argues that historicist premises do not lead inexorably from a naïve objectivism in ethics to ethical relativism, as Sheila Greeve Davaney and Richard Rorty suggest. Instead, as the work of Carol Christ and Jeffrey Stout has argued, theologians and ethicists are justified in making indirect, web-of-belief related claims to ontological truth. Christ's theological realism and Stout's modest pragmatism both appear able to support meaningful discussions of truth, while avoiding the related dangers of relativism, skepticism, and nihilism. Paying careful attention to these methodological issues in a course on Religious Ethics and Moral Issues has proved very effective in overcoming student acquiescence to a relativist perspective, and in enabling them to propose and defend their own moral views with greater confidence.
Some Reflections on C.T.S. Beginnings
Authors: Sloyan Gerard S.
Published: August 2016

The College Theology Society had a difficult period of gestation but its birth was relatively easy. A few reminiscences may be in order, even though nostalgia isn't what it used to be. Some current members of the Society were present at a twenty-fifth anniversary meeting at Trinity College, Washington, the site of the first meeting, where some of what follows came to light.
Found in God: In Memory of John Carmody
Authors: O'Donovan Leo J.
Published: August 2016

“Seeking God in all things,” was one way Ignatius of Loyola described his pilgrim journey in this world—looking, longing, reaching always further for the "dearest freshness, deep down things" that he would call his Lord, his Majesty, his God. And for many years, even more insecure and inexperienced, in need of certitudes and formulas as I was, I heard the phrase, perhaps first in Hugo Rahner's luminous little book on The Spirituality of St. Ignatius of Loyola, as “finding God in all things.”
How Could We Break the Lord's Bread in a Foreign Land? The Eucharist in “Diet America”
Authors: McCormick Patrick T.
Published: August 2016

Understanding and celebrating the Eucharist does not take place in a vacuum, but depends at least in part on our ability to grasp and be moved by the fundamental symbols of food, body, and table. And yet in contemporary America we increasingly find ourselves in a culture characterized by distorted experiences and notions of all three of these. How, then, does our growing obsession with dieting, nutrition, and efficiency, as well as the increasing disparity of our national and global tables, challenge or undermine our experience of breaking, sharing, and eating the Body and Blood of Christ? And how does the Eucharist speak to and challenge some of the distortions of “Diet America” regarding the humanizing characteristics of food, the importance of embodiment, and the demands of table fellowship?
Emmanuel Levinas and the Problem of Meaningless Suffering: the Holocaust as a Test Case
Authors: Baird Marie L.
Published: August 2016

Johann Baptist Metz has exhorted Christian theologians to discard “system concepts” in favor of “subject concepts” in their theologizing. This revisioning of Christian theology recovers the primacy of the uniqueness and irreplaceability of the individual from totalizing doctrinal formulations and systems that function, for Metz, without reference to the subject. In short, a revisionist Christian theology in light of the Holocaust recovers the preeminence of the inviolability of individual human life.

How can such a revisioning be accomplished in the realm of Christian spirituality? This article will utilize the thought of Emmanuel Levinas to assert the primacy of ethics as “first philosophy” replacing ontology, and by implication the ontological foundations undergirding Christian spirituality, with the ethical relation. Such a relation is the basis for a new Christian spirituality that posits the primacy of merciful and compasionate action in the face of conditions of life in extremity.
Mentoring Moral Courage: Resources in Liberation Ethics, Community Service, and the Social Commitment of the Academy
Authors: Hobgood Mary E.
Published: August 2016

The essay argues that resources in Scripture, tradition, and social theory are important but insufficient to the task of teaching social ethics. Liberation ethics promotes not only diverse epistemologies to evaluate the structures that mediate social relations, but also moral courage to execute social responsibility. Given this agenda, teaching social ethics also requires community-based learning experiences, democratic classrooms, and the social commitment of the academy. Drawing on student writing and the example of the author's own academic institution, the essay argues that multiple resources and sites are needed to educate students in ethical theory and moral courage.
Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Theologians and the Mandatum
Authors: Moser M. Theresa
Published: August 2016

The title of my reflections is “Between a Rock and A Hard Place,” which I think aptly describes the situation of Catholic theologians in the United States since the bishops' meeting of November 1999. The imagery refers to the rock of Peter, the hard place to the problems the mandatum raises for ourselves and our Catholic colleges and universities. My question is: What can the social sciences tell us about our present dilemma? First, I will look at the history of the problem as we have experienced it in the U.S. Next, the bishops' document is now in the hands of the Roman Curia, so I will look at the role of that institution. And finally, I will review quickly events to date in the light of evidence from the social sciences and suggest a possible strategy to deal with the situation in our U.S. context.