bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Confessions of an Existentialist: Reading Augustine After Heidegger: Part I
Authors: Smith James K.A. 
Published: July 2007

Our task is to read Augustine after Heidegger, in a double sense: first, chronologically, returning to read Augustine after having passed through Heidegger, re-reading the Confessions after reading Being and Time. But in a second hermeneutical sense, we are reading Augustine after Heidegger; that is, we are reading Augustine after/as Heidegger read him in the period of his earliest development. By doing so, we mean to let Heidegger’s sketch of factical life (Existenz) function as a “hermeneutical situation” of our reading of Augustine as well indicate the way in which Augustine’s Confessions functions as a horizon for Being and Time.The impetus for returning to Augustine is found in Heidegger’s turn to the doctor gratiae in his early work on the phenomenology of religion. In the young Heidegger’s work in the phenomenology of religion, it is as much phenomenology as religion which is at stake; that is, the rigorous questions of phenomenological method find a limit case in the consideration of religious experience. Thus, a phenomenology of religion functions as something of a ‘testing ground’ for phenomenology understood as a hermeneutics of facticity. As Jean Greisch has noted, these “questions of method, which have an effect on the philosophy of religion, primarily take up the question of the status of phenomenology itself, and even the status of philosophy itself in the sense of an appropriate conceptuality.”
Renewed, Dissolved, Remembered: MacKinnon and Metaphysics
Authors: Lash Nicholas 
Published: July 2007

‘I have some longstanding debts: to Donald MacKinnon, who introduced me to philosophy at Aberdeen between 1950 and 1952; to Cornelius Ernst, who got me to read Wittgenstein, together with Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, at Hawkesyard in 1957-60; and to Adolf Darlap, who helped me to understand Heidegger (much easier than understanding Wittgenstein), in Munich between 1964 and 1965’.Serendipitously, a few days before being invited to contribute to these celebrations some remarks on that ‘longstanding debt’ to Donald MacKinnon, while sorting out some papers I came across three yellowing pages of typescript. On the top of the final page was written, in that inimitably energetic and near-illegible hand: ‘Done for Theology in July 1977, but rejected by the editors as unsuitable on the inflexible recommendation of Dr James Mark (reviews editor). DMM’. (This was by by no means the only occasion on which Donald had noted the inflexibility of one to whom he usually referred as ‘the brother of the Commissioner of Metropolitan Police’.) The spurned offering was a review of Christopher Stead’s Divine Substance, which had been published earlier that year.
Demons
Authors: Eagleton Terry 
Published: July 2007

The demonic is mysterious because it appears to be without cause. It is an apparently unmotivated malignancy, which delights in destruction for its own sake. Or, as the saying goes, just for the hell of it. It is hard to know quite why Iago feels so resentful of Othello. The witches of Macbeth reap no obvious profit from driving the protagonist to his doom. This kind of wickedness seems to be autotelic, having its grounds, ends and causes in itself. It thus joins a privileged, somewhat underpopulated class of objects, which includes God and art. It is enigmatic because it is brutely itself, not because it has the inscrutability of something too deep to fathom. As St. Augustine remarks in the Confessions of his youthful debauchery, I had no motive for my wickedness except wickedness itself. It was foul, and I loved it’.For many commentators, the Holocaust would be the prime example of this phenomenon. Part of its horror lies in its apparent pointlessness. Even if you had wanted to rid the world of Jews, you could have found some less unspeakable way of doing it. As Stangl, the ex-commandant of Treblinka, was asked later: ‘Considering that you were going to kill them all... what was the point of the humiliations, the cruelties?’ Or as Primo Levi inquires:
‘Why go to the trouble of dragging them on to their trains, take them to die far away, after a senseless journey, die in Poland on the threshold of the gas chambers? In my convoy there were two dying ninety-year-old women, taken out of the Fossoli infirmary; one of them died en route, nursed in vain by her daughters. Would it not have been simpler, more “economical”, to let them die, or perhaps kill them in their beds, instead of adding their agony to the collective agony of the transport? One is truly led to think that, in the Third Reich, the best choice, the choice imposed from above, was the one that entailed the greatest amount of affliction, the greatest amount of waste, of physical and moral suffering. The "enemy" must not only die, but must die in torment.
Religion and Violence: Plea for a ‘weak’ theology in tempore belli
Authors: Engel Ulrich 
Published: July 2007

Only a few minutes after the events of September 11, 2001, the perfidious terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington were being linked with the religious sphere. It made no difference whether it was the slogan of “battle of the cultures” (S.P. Huntington) which made the rounds of the mass media or whether the public took a look at the simplistic Islamic thoughts of Mohammed Atta, which the pilot of death had left behind in his will, or whether it was in the context of the political war rhetoric which accompanied the allied attack on Osama bin Laden and the whole of Afghanistan, or whether it was in the statements made by church officials at the innumerable memorial services for the victims of the attacks: religion was or, rather, is, always involved.The questions are obvious: What is this link between violence and religion about? Is there a potential for violence which is structurally inherent in the religious - outside or particularly also within the concrete religions of revelation: Judaism, Christianity and Islam? Does the terrorist attack on the twin towers of Manhattan - symbols of globalized capitalism - demonstrate the reawakening of “religious mania” (as the German news magazine Der Spiegel put it)? These and similar questions challenge (Dominican) theologians to give their opinions about this, since each religion determines its relationship to violence through its particular theology (cf. H.-J. Sander).
Broken on the Wheel of History: A Pentecostal Perspective on Summa Theologiae 3a, 48
Authors: Armitage Mark 
Published: July 2007

In Summa Theologiae 3a, q48 Thomas Aquinas proposes five ways or models of atonement. These are, in order, the ways of merit, satisfaction, sacrifice, redemption and efficient causality. In line with the patristic and mediaeval tradition, Aquinas presents these five models very much in terms of what Hans Urs von Balthasar might call a theodramatic ‘action’ between God and humanity—a drama centred on the person of the incarnate Son who in some sense or other offers recompense to his Father for our sins. This theodramatic approach to soteriology dominates Catholic thought from Anselm to Balthasar and Protestant thought from Luther to Barth and beyond, but it takes little account of the latest thinking in historical Jesus studies or of current interpretations of Paul and other New Testament writers, and in this article I would like to suggest a way of rereading Summa Theologiae 3a, q48 in the light of what might be termed the Schweitzer/Sanders/Wright understanding of Jesus and Paul.For Albert Schweitzer, Jesus was an eschatological prophet who saw himself as heralding the end of the age and who, when his preaching did not result in the anticipated apocalypse, effectively ‘broke himself on the wheel of history’ in order to bump human history over into the next phase. Paul picked up on this, and (according to Schweitzer) his ‘Christ-mysticism’ explored the various ways (being ‘in Christ’, dying and rising with Christ, mystical body, Holy Spirit) in which Christians become bound up with the Messiah whose death has inaugurated the eschatological kingdom.
When Time Is of the Essence: Aquinas and the Imago Dei
Authors: McFarland Ian A. 
Published: July 2007

There are probably few theological categories more contested than the image of God. The reasons why are not hard to fathom. Though the priestly writer to whom we owe the phrase nowhere specifies in what this image consists, theologians since Irenaeus have seen in it the key to understanding human distinctiveness. Though Irenaeus’ own interpretation of the imago Dei is remarkably holistic, the phrase has more often been understood in narrowly cognitive terms. And while the faculties cited as the seat of the divine image have generally been viewed as widely inclusive of all human beings, those in power have proved all too willing to question the humanity of those whose cognitive abilities they have judged somehow deficient.Partly as a protest against narrowly cognitive interpretations of human distinctiveness, the last century has seen an increasing emphasis on the capacity for relationships with others as the defining feature of the divine image in human beings. Insofar as such capacity is also subject to variation among individuals, however, relational criteria seem as open to exclusive interpretation as those pertaining to the use of reason or will. In both cases, an essentialist interpretation of the imago Dei threatens to result in the boundaries of the human being drawn too narrowly.
Not the Whole Story: Another Response to John Milbank's Theology and Social Theory: Part II
Authors: Daniels John 
Published: July 2007

This paper is an attempt to respond to John Milbank’s Theology and Social Theory from a perspective informed by hermeneutical phenomenology. In the first part, the ‘classical’ distinction of explanation and understanding was defended against Milbank’s critique by reference to Paul Ricoeur’s account of the distanciation/appropriation polarity. It was argued that Milbank’s account does not sufficiently grasp identity as a hierarchical synthesis of ‘ironic’ identities which reflect different degrees and kinds of distanciation from the paramount reality of everyday life (see Schutz 1962a, 1975). The explanation/understanding binary therefore retains a validity insofar as it draws attention to the way in which different readings variously manifest the moments of distanciation and appropriation.With this groundwork in view, the second part of the paper sets out to examine Milbank’s understanding of the role of Christian theology vis-á-vis other accounts of being and the adequacy of the category of narration.
Wounding and Healing: Reciprocity in Divine and Human Narratives: the Cases of Christina Mirabilis, Hadewijch, and Mechthild
Authors: Neal Diana 
Published: July 2007

Elaine Scarry’s text The Body in Pain offers an analysis of the human experiences of suffering and pain as effects of divine and human making and remaking. Assuming a Feuerbachian analysis of the human projection of the divine, she maintains that God is the primal human Artefact who, once made, remakes the human subject in his own image through wounding and healing. That which distinguishes the human from the divine is embodiment. Embodied as they are, human beings can be wounded. God, being bodiless, cannot be wounded.Scarry’s thesis relies overwhelmingly on a Western notion of human work that she believes has been passed into our culture through two dominant sets of religious and politico-economic discourses, for her those of Judeo-Christianity and of Marxism. These discourses have been so influential in the formation of western subjectivity that they reveal much, she holds, about the way Western subjects are constructed by discourses of pain and illness. It is this aspect of Scarry’s monumental work that interests me, and which I will initially use to read the text of the 13th century Flemish mystic Christina Mirabilis, before moving on to a consideration of her medieval contemporaries Hadewijch of Antwerp and Mechthild of Magdeburg. In reading Christina’s text, the problem I will pose is how her performance of wounding and healing assist in constructing/reconstructing herself as a mystical subject. Secondly I will ask the question, what theological and literary purpose does the language of wounding and healing serve in the medieval texts of the Beguines Hadewijch and Mechthild? In other words, what does the text produce?
Finnis and Aquinas on the Good of Life
Authors: Lamont John 
Published: July 2007

In his Natural Law and Natural Rights, Fundamentals of Ethics, and other works, the Oxford professor of jurisprudence and moral theologian John Finnis has elaborated a theory of ethics and natural law that he presents as being based on the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. (Finnis has been influenced in this project by the moral theologian Germain Grisez, and has worked in cooperation with Grisez and Joseph Boyle on these issues, but I will confine myself to a discussion of Finnis’s thought, while noting that my conclusions will have implications for the views of Grisez and Boyle as well.) His account of natural law incorporates a particular account of human life as a good for practical reasoning, from which he concludes — in disagreement with Aquinas — that capital punishment is immoral. This conclusion has gained wide acceptance among Catholics, partly because of the influence of Finnis and Grisez’s moral theories. I want to examine his understanding of the good of life, contrasting it with the actual views of St. Thomas, and argue that it is mistaken. I will then explain why I think his mistake is an important one that needs to be avoided.Finnis presents his account of natural law as being modelled on St. Thomas’s account of the first principles of natural law, which is given chiefly in the Summa Theologiae, la2ae q.94 a.2. It may be helpful to sketch St. Thomas’s understanding of practical as opposed to theoretical reason. Theoretical reason aims at knowledge of how things are, and its activity terminates in belief about how things are.
Thinking About Good—Thomas Aquinas on Nicomachean Ethics I, Divine Names IV‐V and de Ebdomadibus
Authors: Boland Vivian 
Published: July 2007

Herbert McCabe taught in many ways, not least per viam provocationis. One day in the mid 1970s he provoked something far beyond his intentions with a throwaway remark about Summa theologiae I, q. 15, the question on ‘ideas’. ‘It must have been written by Saint Thomas on a platonic off day’, he declared, a comment that remained with the present writer to stimulate research in directions that might not have overly pleased Herbert. ‘Platonic’ and ‘platonist’ were not usually good words in his vocabulary, profoundly impressed as he was by Thomas’s achievement in developing Christian theology in radically new ways using the works of Aristotle, Plato’s brightest student and critic.Thomas Aquinas himself, though, at the midpoint of his career, was convinced that the Platonists, in what they had to say about the first principle of things, were exactly right (verissima) and completely in harmony with Christian faith ‘. In fact, in a brief but potent contribution to the 1974 Thomistic Congress for the seventh centenary of Saint Thomas’s death, Andre von Ivanka asserted that as regards ‘good’, and because of the ontology supporting his understanding of it, Thomas not only ‘platonises’ but formally contradicts Aristotle. Where Aristotle argues that ‘good is not a general term corresponding to a single idea’ (.Nicomachean Ethics 1.6, 1096b25) Thomas says that ‘all things, in seeking their proper perfections, seek God himself, insofar as the perfections of all things are reflections (similitudines) of the divine being’ (Summa Theologiae I 6, 1 ad 2). Elsewhere Thomas says that ‘all things seek, as their ultimate end, to be united with God’ (Summa Contra Gentiles III. 19).
Irony and the Eucharist
Authors: Eagleton Terry 
Published: July 2007

In one region of our lives, we have no problem in understanding how a thing can change its substance while apparently remaining itself. The process is known as metaphor. ‘Fire’ can mean anger or amorousness rather than literal flame, but the word ‘fire’ remains unaltered in this exchange, rather as the bread and wine of the eucharist still look and behave like bread and wine. Since the meaning of a word is its being, we can say that the being or ‘substance’ of the word has changed with this metaphorical transaction. Flame has transubstantiated into fury.Moreover, ‘fire’ can act as a metaphor of passion only because there are real resemblances between the two. The relation between the two signs is not iconic (they don’t look much like each other), but it is not arbitrary either. Maybe Seamus Heaney could get ‘carburetter’ to mean erotic passion, but for most of us ‘fire’ is a less laborious way of doing it. In a similar way, the bread and wine of the eucharist, as signs of our human solidarity which need to be destroyed (consumed) if they are to yield life, have natural affinities with the body of Christ. As Herbert McCabe once remarked, you couldn’t consecrate Coke and burgers because they aren’t food and drink.The notion of metaphor will only get us so far in understanding the eucharist, since a change of being which leaves a thing apparently intact is more mysterious than a change of meaning which does so. But a semiotics of the eucharist can be pressed further.
Eden and Beyond: Images of Paradise in Biblical and extra‐Biblical Literature
Authors: Gooder Paula 
Published: July 2007

The word paradise is one which is so familiar to most of us that its utterance evokes an immediate mental image of a beautiful garden where the righteous dwell for eternity. This image, while finding its roots in the biblical tradition, is influenced as much by Dante, Milton and many Christian paintings as it is by biblical traditions. In fact, it is hard to see the word paradise without bringing to mind those famous medieval and renaissance paintings of the Garden of Eden, Heaven and Hell. The problem of this Christian heritage is that it encourages a rather monochrome image of the nature of Paradise which runs contrary to the variety of images contained in texts from the biblical era.The purpose of this study is to examine the references to Paradise in texts from the biblical era and to explore the images evoked by them. The paper will begin and end with a consideration of the texts about Paradise in the New Testament. From there we shall move on to explore the background to these texts first in the Hebrew bible and the Septuagint and then in non-canonical texts from the second temple period. We shall note where ideas shift and develop and note how this affects the image of Paradise. We will end by returning to the texts from the New Testament and noting how this background affects our understanding of the relevant passages.
The Symbolism of Marriage and of the Parent‐child Relationship:
Authors: Sutton Agneta 
Published: July 2007

Both Karl Barth and John Paul II have written extensively on marriage and procreation. Coming from different traditions, they have of course different things to say. The aim of this paper is to show that the differences between them highlight theologically important questions relating to the symbolism of marriage, the value of procreation and the parental mission. Both theologians share the view that as Christians we must see the world and human relationships in the light of the Gospel News, and so from an eschatological perspective. Both of them, therefore, hold that under the New Covenant in Christ the relationship between mankind and God and also between man and woman in marriage take on a new meaning. But, nevertheless, they differ on the importance of procreation and also on the question of the God-given parental mission. The exploration of these differences will bring to the fore the question of what moral obligations are entailed by the concept of the child as a gift, a concept espoused by both theologians. It will also bring to the fore the question of the basis of the fourth commandment.The paper starts with a comparison between the two theologians’ views on marriage and procreation. Here it is shown why Barth considers procreation relativised under the New Covenant in Christ and so why he attaches less importance to procreation than John Paul II does. In the second part of the paper the two theologians’ views on the main role and mission of parents are discussed and it is shown why John Paul II puts the emphasis on the evangelising role of parents as Christian educators, whereas Barth stresses the symbolical role of parents as representatives of God.
In Support of Felix Wilfred: Some Implications of Wittgenstein's World‐Pictures for Interreligious Dialogue
Authors: Steinkerchner Scott 
Published: July 2007

Felix Wilfred, a Catholic theologian working in an Indian context, provides a trenchant critique of traditional Western theology’s ability to find relevance in India’s multi-religious context. This article explores how Ludwig Wittgenstein’s concept of world-pictures provides a philosophical support for Wilfred’s critique and indicates a different, more productive model of interreligious dialogue.There is a large amount of interreligious dialogue that is interested in ascertaining what is indeed true about the world. When different religious traditions make different and sometimes conflicting assertions about the world, the question arises about the relationship between these various claims. As these claims are part and parcel of the traditions themselves, springing from the core of the various religions, the question becomes how the religious systems themselves are related and what is the relationship between the truth claims of various religions? Various approaches to this can be categorized in three broad categories, exclusivist, inclusivist and relativist.In his last book, On Certainty, Ludwig Wittgenstein addressed the problem of making truth-claims, how anyone can validly say they were “certain” that something was indeed the case. He noticed that truth- claims were intrinsically connected to world-pictures with which they mutually arise, and that no truth-claim can therefore claim a status that transcends all world-pictures. This critique casts suspicion on the usefulness of the exclusivist-inclusivist-relativist categorization of theories of religious pluralism and points to a more productive model of interreligious dialogue that respects and utilizes the differences in different religions. Rather than comparing statements made by various faiths and determining which in fact are correct, I propose a model of dialogue that allows each side to attain a better perspective on their own position as they come to see a different way of understanding the world.