A synodal church makes assumptions about our basic ecclesial experience which takes place when we assemble liturgically, especially when we act eucharistically. The basic assumption is that we are a genuine human community knowing and relating to one another as brothers and sisters in baptism. Only real communities can authentically image the church's nature. This is a ‘bottom – up’ activity. If we wish this, then we must rediscover our liturgy and celebrate it in a new way as flowing out (...) from a community and helping it to discover its own nature. This, in turn, makes demands on our understanding of ministry and its structures. While many Catholics endorse synodality, their willingness to change the shape of the presbyterate is uncertain. (shrink)

The Didache is a short text, which was likely intended to be committed to memory, offering training in ‘The Way’ of the Lord, the practices of the churches, and in the community’s hope for the future. Dating from the first century, and quite plausible from before 70 AD, it offers us a unique vantage point into the concerns, attitudes, and praxis of the communities who would have heard our gospels from the lips of the evangelists. The purpose of this paper (...) is to bring it to light in the hope that this can be further studied in relations to the gospels and mission. (shrink)

One of the matters on which the layman Januarius questioned Augustine was on differences regarding the celebration of the foot washing in various churches. Augustine, unwilling to accept the assumptions of his questioner’s ecclesiology, defends the practice – in all its variety – as a useful means of communication of the gospel. The exchange allows us to see aspects of Augustine’s view of both liturgy and catechesis using a very precise screen. This, in turn, reminds modern scholarship of just how (...) little we know about the north African liturgy. (shrink)

Adomnán of Iona's work on the holy places of Jerusalem and surrounding regions has been used as a guide to seventh-century Palestine. In particular, its plans of monuments such as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre have been used by archaeologists for information about buildings, while their form interests historians of cartography. However, these plans must be read with the book's several purposes in mind. They attempt to harmonize biblical data visually. In addition, they project elements of Iona's monastic liturgy (...) into an alien liturgical space. The plans are not simply illustrations to clarify the text but constitute a distinct, parallel text of their own, with elements shown that Adomnán would not have asserted in writing. They indicate that, for Adomnán, there were different orders of verification for written texts and visual materials such as plans. (shrink)

We humans construct time around us: in it we live, organise our activities, mark events, and celebrate our memories. This celebration of our memories, anamnesis, is part of who we are as the community who profess and proclaim faith. But because religious calendars have been part of every religion, Christians have sometimes been suspicious of marking time – this paper suggests that in a world where ‘time is money’, we should also assert that time is precious; and we should be (...) sensitive to its place in celebrating the Christian mystery. (shrink)

This paper is focussed on a passage from the fourth-century Christian treatise, De uiris illustribus. This is the oldest extant witness to some traditions about Jesus that is often lumped together as ‘apocrypha’. The passage in question addresses the issue of a post-resurrection meal. The passage suggests that we need a more all embracing notion of sacramentality of Christians eating at table than one where a sacramental dimension is linked to ritual or even ceremonial form.

In Acts 10–11: 18, Luke use a set of connected stories about Peter, shared eating, and food to explore issues of Christian boundaries and the boundaries between Christians. Luke’s presentation of the apostolic history argues for a genuine ecumenism between Jewish and Gentile Christians characterized and enacted through commensality. Moreover, when this commensality within the Eucharistic pattern of all early Christian community meals, we see that it has a bearing on how Luke viewed the Christian symposium; while it has definite (...) implications for Christian Eucharistic sharing/ecumenism today. (shrink)

From, at least, the mid-fourth century until the mid-fifth-century AD a controversy concerning a seemingly trivial fact engaged Christian scholars: when did Methuselah die? Although most of the major Latin fathers were drawn into the fray — and echoes of the debate continued in Latin exegesis for another five centuries — this controversy has escaped historians and is today unknown. So this paper has a double task. First, uncover from its remnants what we can know of this problem that elicited (...) much exertion on the part of Jerome and Augustine at its height, and was discussed urgently before them by Hilary of Poitiers , and after them by Eucherius of Lyons . Second, to examine some of the effects of this controversy on the Latin theology, and, in particular, the Latin church’s understanding of scripture. While any conscious awareness of the controversy itself has disappeared, many of the ideas which underwent development in the controversy, such as the notion of inerrancy and of the fundamental role of the Hebrew text, became part of the life-blood of Latin theology. (shrink)

The PhD is one of the most demanding investments made by most aspiring theologians. This article argues that apart from thinking about the topic of the PhD, the student needs to think through some basic questions about why she/he wants to go through this process. How does one see one’s topic in relation to the work one is going to do? How does it related to your interests in life and religion? And are you willing to engage in the change/growth (...) in your own theology that is part of the process? (shrink)

Philosophers of science discuss whether theory selection depends on aesthetic judgments or criteria, and whether these putatively aesthetic features are genuinely extra-epistemic. As examples, judgments involving criteria such as simplicity and symmetry are often cited. However, other theory selection criteria, such as fecundity, coherence, internal consistency, and fertility, more closely match those criteria used in art contexts and by scholars working in aesthetics. Paying closer attention to the way these criteria are used in art contexts allows us to understand some (...) evaluative and developmental practices in scientific theory selection as genuinely aesthetic, enlarging the scope of the goals of science. (shrink)

Discursive accounts of the body have been prominent recently. While acknowledging the usefulness of these, the author, drawing upon specific philosophers of the body and a wide range of other theorists, focuses attention on the experiencing body which she refers to as 'creatural existence’. Thinking in terms of the creatural, she argues, can better situate human beings in their environment, thus emphasizing a kind of 'ecological notion of subjectivity’, in which place-based existence is understood anew. The educational implications of focusing (...) on what bodies 'do' and not so much in terms of how they are socially inscribed, presents them as practico-sensory totalities which should perhaps be seen as systems rather than an as mere organisms or entities. Such an articulation of creatural existence emphasizes animality, and in so doing reminds us of the centrality of the senses in all knowing and doing, including crucially, in relation to those practices which we have understood as 'work'. Multi-sensorial education is a major sub-theme of the book and the author argues persuasively for this by means of a critical analysis of the ocularcentrism that is characteristic of contemporary culture. (shrink)

I examine error diagnosis (model-model disagreement) in climate model intercomparisons including its difficulties, fruitful examples, and prospects for streamlining error diagnosis. I suggest that features of climate model intercomparisons pose a more significant challenge for error diagnosis than do features of individual model construction and complexity. Such features of intercomparisons include, e.g., the number of models involved, how models from different institutions interrelate, and what scientists know about each model. By considering numerous examples in the climate modeling literature, I distill (...) general strategies (e.g., employing physical reasoning and using dimension reduction techniques) used to diagnose model error. Based on these examples, I argue that an error repertoire could be beneficial for improving error diagnosis in climate modeling, although constructing one faces several difficulties. Finally, I suggest that the practice of error diagnosis demonstrates that scientists have a tacit-yet-working understanding of their models which has been under-appreciated by some philosophers. (shrink)

O'Loughlin, Frank In this article I want to look at the priesthood specifically as a sacrament of the church. Much of what is presented here would also apply, mutatis mutandis, to the episcopate and some of it to the diaconate, the other two forms of the sacrament of orders.

O'Loughlin, Frank Over recent years there has been a great deal of discussion and disagreement about the nature of marriage and family both in the public sphere and within the church. Almost every aspect of human relationships and sexuality has come up for discussion. The two synods on marriage and the family that took place in Rome in 2014 and 2015 have been a watershed for Catholics in these discussions. Similar discussions will need to continue for some time yet (...) if we are to come to greater clarity and depth in our understanding of the many issues involved. In this article I am seeking to put forward elements of the Christian tradition concerning marriage that, I hope, may be helpful background in these current discussions. (shrink)

of (from British Columbia Philosophy Graduate Conference) Despite the apparent polarity between the philosophies of Wittgenstein and G�del, I here seek to demonstrate and consider important similarities in these two allegedly disparate interpretations of mathematical proposition. Wittgenstein asserts that the meaning is comprised by proof, while G�del relegates provability to an intrinsically imperfect status. Each represents metamathematical statements as severely limited, and analysis emphasizing the complementary here yields a rich interpretation of mathematical proposition: invention, but not without a basis for (...) describing these inventions as incomplete. As contrivances that exhibit a necessarily imperfect correlation to hypothetical completeness, the extent to which any one system is comparatively useful is thus a reflection of the degree of imperfection with which it correlates to the otherwise inarticulable qualities that dictate usefulness. Inconsistency produced by our necessarily incomplete systems should therefore be viewed as a natural consequence of the inherent imperfect correlation, and so admits of meaningful interpretation. (shrink)

This commentary questions the applicability of the Newell Test for evaluating the utility of connectionism. Rather than being a specific theory of cognition (because connectionism can be used to model nativist, behaviorist, or constructivist theories), connectionism, we argue, offers researchers a collection of computational and conceptual tools that are particularly useful for investigating and rendering specific fundamental issues of human development. These benefits of connectionism are not well captured by evaluating it against Newell's criteria for a unified theory of cognition.

In this paper, I use Gloria Anzaldúa’s narrative method of “autohistoría” in concert with theoretical analysis to reflect on my experiences as a queer teacher in the heteronormative United States schooling system. These reflections are aimed at unpacking the ways in which racialization, sexual orientation and coloniality are inseparably tied to living out one’s gender. It is this phenomenon of “Gender-as-Lived” that I urge become a focus of identity development research in education studies and is my central concern in this (...) post-intentional phenomenological study. Furthermore, Anzaldúa’s conceptualization of the liminal zone of “nepantla” as an embodied and in-between space of resistance offers to transform the practice of teaching into a vocation of healing. (shrink)

In this celebration of the work of Paul Hager, I draw attention to his highly successful collaborations with David Beckett and John Halliday as indicative of his collegiality and his conviction that knowledge is produced in cooperation with others. I highlight his enduring theme of practice and his deep concern for vocational and technical education. The theme of embodiment underpins his extensive explorations of practical knowledge, work and learning. Hager’s focus on those processes of making and repairing are foregrounded in (...) the article. The work of Mathew B. Crawford and Olivier Dupon is deployed to explore these ideas further, with particular attention paid to Crawford’s spirited defence of the trades and of tradespeople, artisans and repairers. The functioning of judgement as reasoning within practice and the significance of tacit knowing are briefly explored. Hager’s enormous contribution to our understanding of work and its significance to conceptions of the good life are wholeheartedly applauded. (shrink)

Despite more than a century of historical research on Latin patristic and medieval theology, one period still lags behind: the theologians between Augustine and Charlemagne — Boethius and Bede being exceptions — are an unstudied group. There are a few monographs on individuals and themes, but no more. The period is, in the eyes of many, a «dark age». This neglect is all the more surprising when we consider that when the «revival» of Latin learning took place it was based (...) not so much on the great works of the Fathers being re-read after centuries of neglect, as it was the outcome of the work who in previous generations had handed on and given particular slants to that illustrious legacy. This attitude of ignoring «the interval» has a long history going back to later medieval authors. From the early scholastic period there has been a tendency to by-pass this period as one which produced little of lasting value. Seen in this light the early writers could at best be presented as engaged in a «holding action» between the Fathers and the later period. Yet, these early writers produced the first European, in contrast to Classical, theology, and their works, for all their defects, were successful in the Christianisation of the new peoples within the frontiers of the old western Roman Empire. This paper seeks to highlight some characteristics of their works which may provide a window into their intellectual world. (shrink)

This piece was written for performance and might be best enjoyed read aloud. It was an imaginative exercise based on a kind of intertextuality— combining my own story with the story of the God of the Genesis creation stories. Thus God became a Mother who was experiencing some of the things that mothers of teenage children might experience. It is a sort of poem, following the style of the first creation story but also provides an explanation of why things are (...) as they are, like the second creation story. It was first read at a weekend conference on Ethics. (shrink)

Lisciandra poses a challenge for robustness analysis as applied to economic models. She argues that substituting tractability assumptions risks altering the main mathematical structure of the model, thereby preventing the possibility of meaningfully evaluating the same model under different assumptions. In such cases RA is argued to be inapplicable. However, Lisciandra is mistaken to take the goal of RA as keeping the mathematical properties of tractability assumptions intact. Instead, RA really aims to keep the modeling component while varying the corresponding (...) mathematical formulation. Thus, her argument concerning whether the associated mathematical properties of certain assumptions can be kept intact is irrelevant to the success of RA. Furthermore, we explicate and develop Lloyd’s account of “model robustness” to provide solutions to Lisciandra’s challenges. Our solutions are, namely, error analysis and independent empirical support. We conclude that although complex economic models do face potential dangers, there are solutions and robustness analysis need not be given up.. (shrink)