The Stoic rejection of the passion of grief strikes many ethicists writing on dying as inhuman, selfish, or lacking appreciation for the world. This essay argues that Stoics rejected grief and the fear of death because these passions alienated one from the present through sorrow or anxiety for the future, disrupting one's ability to fulfill obligations of care for others and to feel gratitude for the gift of loved ones. Early Christian writers on death, such as Ambrose, maintained (...) much of the substance of Stoic doctrine but transformed it through their belief in the resurrection and their corresponding revaluation of the future. While these writers rejected grief as an affective response to death, they affirmed longing for lost loved ones. These authors provide an example of how contemporary religious ethicists can use Stoic insights for recovering the tradition of the art of dying. (shrink)

In the moment of grief, people need consolation coming from the very core of human existence: living communication with one’s source of being. This communication ensues stories of life-sustaining one’s self-identity and spiritual vitality. When a story of life enlightens one’s experience of grief, it becomes a curative force for one’s soul-healing process. Yet if the life story becomes ineffective, it needs an “editing” process—or a revision—to get a meaning reconstruction that is more compatible with the grief (...) situation. Using a postcolonial ethnography, we evaluate the pastoral care done by Nias Christian Church for people experiencing grief. We will describe a theoretical framework to argue that pastoral care is fundamentally an editing process of the story of life-sustaining the well-being of the human soul. We, then, will describe the Nias tradition on grief. Finally, we will discuss how the church should develop pastoral care interculturally. (shrink)

The bereaved Christian faces not only the difficult task of grief, but also the morally charged evaluations of the grief process: whether it should be fast or slow, whether God is necessary or unhelpful, and whether grief is “proper” for Christians in light of their call to “not grieve as others do who have no hope”.1 This article showcases these tensions involved in defining a “proper” Christian approach to grief, retrieves resources born in the engagement of (...) similarly problematic tensions in the field of grief theory, and conscripts these resources in order to read the book of Job through a new lens, which relieves some of the tensions which arise in Christian considerations of grief. In sum, Christians commonly read the book of Job through the “stage model” of grief –- as if Job's experience throughout the book conforms to and requires a logically sequential grief-progress. Conversely, a “trajectory model” of grief, a new advancement in grief theory, opens the door for reading each pericope in Job as supplying a unique and independently legitimate path for grief that does not require any preceding or subsequent stages. In the same way that Job accommodates these variegated trajectories of grief, so also the Christian faith entertains equally legitimate grief trajectories, each appropriate for the various felt needs of the bereaved. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between the problem of evil and a kenotic view of the Atonement evidenced not just by feminist theologians, but by analytic philosophers of religion. I will argue that, although kenosis provides an interesting story about the ability of Christ to partake in human suffering, it faces debilitating problems for understanding divine concurrence with evil in the world. Most significantly, I will argue that the potential tensions between divine justice and divine love can be loosened by (...) looking at ‘redemptive accounts’ of theodicy in the scholarship of women writing in the early modern period in philosophy, particularly Mary Hays , and Catharine Macaulay . Their work collectively confirms the problem of concrete evil and yet offers a unique theodicy grounded in the saving power of the Atonement and restorative power of Christian service. Their arguments are all the more compelling for having been written in response to egregious civil rights abuses and rampant domestic violence of their day. If the Atonement is the divinely-ordained method for gaining insight into the redemptive power of divine grace, then rather than speculating about the metaphysical nature of the divine, this paper will question how we can understand divine perfection in light of evil in the world, especially if the Atonement of Christ involves kenosis. (shrink)

The proliferation of unconventional death practices in North America, however innovative, is in part an expression of societal confusion about the nature of death and grief. If the church can recover the theological and liturgical fabric of funerals, reclaiming their main purpose as public confession rather than private pastoral care, Christian funerals can serve as a hopeful counter-witness to an uncertain culture.

In thirteenth-century Castile, the kabbalist R. Joseph of Hamadan offered an unprecedented articulation of the idea of reincarnation (gilgul), proposing that Jewish men could be reborn as gentiles, women, or even animals. This article studies the formation of the Jewish belief in the transmigration of human souls into animal bodies, focusing on the question of animal pain. It contextualizes the kabbalistic literary treatment of animals by examining the thirteenth-century European genre of bestiaries, which attempted to instill proper morals in readers (...) by associating animals with sinners. Although the idea of animal reincarnation led kabbalists to treat animals as creatures with human souls, it did not lead to a fundamental or radical shift in the treatment of animals. (shrink)

In the face of violent crime, mothers are often the most vocal in fighting for justice. When those mothers are also active in a Christian Church, they are well versed in the motifs of sacrifice and forgiveness. From a feminist perspective, these motifs have been severely criticised for weighing more heavily on women than men, given Christianity’s long history of teaching the submission of women and the dominance of men, and, further, have been instrumental in keeping women in abusive relationships. (...) This paper will ask whether: when faced with the traumatic loss of a daughter or son due to the violent actions of another, are the motifs of sacrifice and forgiveness equally problematic or do they help mothers through their grief? Is forgiveness another form of sacrifice required of Christian mothers in the aftermath of violent crime? Does a mother’s fight for justice require that she does not forgive the perpetrator? How do mothers navigate their Christian faith and these varied motifs in recovering from the traumatic grief that they experience following sudden bereavement? This paper will explore these questions by engaging with the accounts of, for example, Julie Nicholson, the Anglican Priest, whose daughter was killed in the 7/7 bombings in London in 2005; Doreen Lawrence, whose son, Stephen, was murdered in a racist attack in London in 1993; Sybrina Fulton and Lucy McBath, whose sons, Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis, were fatally shot in separate incidents in Florida in 2012; and mothers affected by the Grenfell Tower fire in London in 2017. (shrink)

The problem for many troubled youths seeking help within a Christian context is that their need for meaningful connections and spiritual growth is attached to relationships with their significant others. When needs of attachment are not adequately met due to the effect of an insecure attachment working model in a relationship with God, the teen may end up leaving the faith community seeking a new caregiver or regress into spiritual struggles, depression, anxiety, self-doubt and other negative emotions. This paper responds (...) to the issues associated with youth attachment behaviour towards God using a caregiving theology that draws on the 'power of two' through incarnational creativity and pneumatological ecclesiology. This proposed theology first supplements the work of the pastoral counsellor to create a transformative container through which young people, already within a redemptive Christian community, can grow spiritually and deepen their relationship with God. Secondly, pastoral juxtaposition targeting the spiritual needs of hurting youths serves to create a magnet space within the church community that models incarnational love, pastoral care and support for young people by entering their world order to reframe their personal stories of grief, abandonment and insecurity through creative means. Finally, we theologise that pastoral juxtaposition also integrates the power of the Holy Spirit, as the ultimate caregiver in times of conflict, into each youth's unique journey of faith and healing. Implications of this pastoral theology are discussed and applied to everyday life. (shrink)

This book closely examines our commonly held beliefs about human suffering, and offers unique insights into God's role in why we suffer. Dr. Perri critically examines what it means to be human from a Judeo-Christian perspective, and extrapolates from the work of Carl Gustav Jung showing a deeply complex development of human transcendence in human suffering. On an interpersonal level, Dr. Perri elaborates on the work of Martin Buber and Emanuel Levinas and shows how our suffering can be shared and (...) lessened by our unconditionality and presence for the other. Scriptural passages are quoted from both the Hebrew and New Testament texts, and are used to depict the suffering of humankind as seen in the face of Job. It was this face, according to Perri, that Jesus saw in the faces of those He came to redeem, and that ultimately brought Him to the crucifix of redemption. Dr. Perri challenges Sartre's position that our existence precedes our essence, and draws on the work of Abraham Joshua Heschel and Christian theology in this regard. He further elaborates a neurodevelopmental paradigm that creates essence as the basis of our freedom to choose. This book can be read and studied by both professionals in the helping and healing professions, and lay persons seeking to better understand our suffering, and how to better help those who suffer. Dr. Perri offers specific ways in how to be present for those who suffer, how to read and receive the hidden language of human suffering, and how to use silence as a communication skill. (shrink)

The problem of evil has generated varying attempts at theodicy. To show that suffering is defeated for a sufferer, a theodicy argues that there is an outweighing benefit which could not have been gotten without the suffering. Typically, this condition has the tacit presupposition given that this is a post-Fall world. Consequently, there is a sense in which human suffering would not be shown to be defeated even if there were a successful theodicy because a theodicy typically implies that the (...) benefit in question could have been gotten without the suffering if there had not been a Fall. There is a part of the problem of evil that would remain, then, even if there were a successful theodicy. This is the problem of mourning: even defeated suffering in the post-Fall world merits mourning. How is this warranted mourning compatible with the existence of an omniscient, omnipotent, perfectly good God? The traditional response to this problem is the felix culpa view, which maintains that the original sin was fortunate because there is an outweighing benefit to sufferers that could not be gotten in a world without suffering. The felix culpa view presupposes an object of evaluation, namely, the true self of a human being, and a standard of evaluation for human lives. This book explores these and a variety of other topics in philosophical theology in order to explain and evaluate the role of suffering in human lives. (shrink)

American Christians have developed a long list of expectations about what the life with God will feel like. Many Christians rightly deny the Prosperity Gospel-the idea that God wants you to be healthy and wealthy- but instead embrace its more subtle spin-off, the Emotional Prosperity Gospel, or the belief that God wants you to always experience happiness and fulfillment. Our society has become increasingly averse to sadness and emotional discomfort. Too often, people of faith assume that difficult feelings are a (...) result of either God's judgment or our own lack of spiritual maturity. Some even equate happiness with holiness. In Holy Unhappiness, Amanda Held Opelt, author of A Hole in the World, grapples with her own experience of disillusionment when life didn't go the way she expected. She examines some of the historic, religious, and cultural influences that led to the idolization of positive feelings and the marginalization of negative feelings. Unpacking nine elements of life that have been tainted by the message of the Emotional Prosperity Gospel - including work, marriage, parenting, calling, community, and church - she points to a new path forward, one that reimagines what the "blessed" life can be like if we release some of our expectations and seek God in places we never thought to look. While Opelt acknowledges the dignity of desiring happiness, she ultimately pleads for the normalization of sadness, anger, grief, disappointment, and other uncomfortable feelings as a part of the Christian experience, making a case that there is holiness to be found even in our unhappiness. (shrink)

Most foundational texts on theological ethics address the person or the society; the point of departure determines, inevitably, fairly different trajectories. By starting with the experience of grief, this book posits the human as ineluctably social: grief is an epiphany that reveals how the human is inseparable from the collective. Indeed, grief inevitably summons us to grieve socially. Nothing discloses the human more rawly than grief that "it is not good for the human to be alone." (...) Keenan then develops an ethics of vulnerability, following Judith Butler, understanding it not primarily as a compromised state of being but rather as that which establishes the human as capacious for recognizing and responding to others. Mutual recognition, a theme that can be found from Georg Hegel and Sigmund Freud to Axel Honneth, Nancy Frasier and Jessica Benjamin, emerges as the first moral act of the vulnerable human. In light of vulnerability and recognition, Keenan shows how we can now understand conscience as guiding the activity of one who has first vulnerably recognized others. The second half of the book works out a Christian ethics of vulnerability, starting with discipleship, then grace and sin, then the virtues, and finally the communion of saints, the works of mercy, and the beatitudes. (shrink)

Issues surrounding pregnancy loss are rarely addressed in Christian philosophy. Yet a modest estimate based on the empirical and medical literature places the rate of pregnancy loss between fertilization and term at somewhere between 40–60%. If miscarriage really is as common as the research gives us to believe, then it would seem a pressing topic for a Christian philosophy of the future to address. This paper attempts to begin this work by showing how thinking more closely about pregnancy loss understood (...) as a grievable event can have a profound impact on the way we think about particular theoretical debates in Christian philosophy and provide opportunities for the discipline to put its skills to use in the development of helpful conceptual and hermeneutical resources for those grieving such losses. However, this will require seeking out and taking seriously the testimony of those who have undergone pregnancy loss, as well as getting clearer on how best to conceptualize pregnancy and its loss in the first place. (shrink)

The concept of πρoπαειαι or "pre-emotions" is known not only to the Roman Stoics and Christian exegetes but also to Philo of Alexandria. Philo also supplies the term πρoπαεια at QGen 1.79. As Philo cannot have derived what he knows from Seneca, nor from Cicero, who also mentions the point, he must have found it in older Stoic writings. The πρoπαεια concept, rich in implications for the voluntariness and phenomenology of the passions proper, is thus confirmed for the Hellenistic period. (...) It is not to be expected that Philo's handling of this or any concept will necessarily conform to the usage of his Stoic sources. His evidence is nonetheless of great value where it coincides with that of other witnesses. In QGen 4.73 the emphasis falls upon involuntariness and the mechanisms of impression and assent as in Epictetus fr. 9. The πρoπαεια saves the virtuous person's insusceptibility to emotion exactly as it does for the Stoic spokesman in Gellius NA 19.1; this point is of some interest in view of the Christological use of this concept in Origen and Didymus. QGen 1.55 and 3.56 indicate that the occurrence of the πρoπαειαι is dependent upon uncertainty, and further, that for Philo, as for Seneca in Ira 2.3.4, a thought not acted upon can count as a πρoπαεια. In QGen 4.15-17 and 1.79, Philo indicates that hope and perhaps laughter may be related to joy as πρoπαεια to παoς; these assertions are not paralleled in extant Stoic texts. Further, in QGen 2.57, he names "biting and contraction" as the ευπαεια corresponding to grief, supplying a helpful parallel for Cic. Tusc. 3.83 and Plut. Virt. Mor. 449a. The topic may well have been discussed by Posidonius, as suggested by Cooper and others, but Posidonius' attested innovations are rather different in character from the points which have caught the attention of Philo. Taking together the indirect evidence of Philo, Seneca, and Cicero, we may reasonably infer that the πρoπαεια concept belonged already to an earlier period of Stoicism. (shrink)

Theology, vulnerability, and art as the consciousness of grief -- Christology positive and im-positive -- Dedication to vulnerability in the form of art -- Visual art as a resource for theology of the incarnation -- Beyond language, beyond reason: vulnerability, art, and the problem of catastrophic suffering -- The presence of the absent God: incarnation and abstract expressionism.

Canning, Raymond I was born on 15 September 1947. That same year, on 5 August, the International Council of Christians and Jews, meeting in Switzerland, had issued what have become known as 'The Ten Points of Seelisberg'.1 As grief and shame over the Shoah took root, the necessity for a radical change of theological, cultural and political attitudes on the part of Christians became clear. These Ten Points articulate key dimensions of that growing perception. They can therefore be understood (...) as forming an initial basis for the Christian-Jewish dialogue that was already gathering momentum.2 They also represent a first step in the process that led, eighteen years later, to Nostra Aetate, the document on the Catholic Church's relation to non-Christian religions that would emerge from the Second Vatican Council in late 1965. At various stages during the council years, it had appeared that the bishops' engagement with the new demands and manifold ramifications of Christian-Jewish relations expressed at Seelisberg might fail to produce any new official statement of Catholic Church teaching on the matter. Would the council after all remain silent on this crucial question? Yves Congar expressed the sentiments of many when, faced with this prospect in May 1965, he wrote in his council diary: 'For myself, however, I am in no way in favour of the pure and simple withdrawal of the text. Twenty years after Auschwitz it is impossible for the Council to say nothing'.3 And, as we now know, with the declaration Nostra Aetate the 'something' the council did succeed in saying, however small it may have appeared at that time, continues to resonate more than fifty years later. (shrink)

The impact of Stoicism on Roman culture and early Christianity was considerable. Unfortunately, little survives of the early writings on Stoicism. Our knowledge of it comes largely from a few later Stoics. In this unique book, William O. Stephens explores the moral philosophy of the late Stoic Epictetus, a former slave and dynamic Stoic teacher. His philosophy, as recorded by one of his students, is the most earnest and most compelling defense of ancient Stoicism that exists. Epictetus' teachings dramatically capture (...) the optimistic spirit of Stoicism by examining our greatest human challenges, such as the death of a loved one. Stephens shows how, for Epictetus, happiness results from concerning ourselves with what is up to us while not worrying about what is beyond our control. He concludes that the strength of Epictetus' philosophy lies in his conception of happiness as freedom from anger, fear, worry, grief, and dependence upon luck. (shrink)

Since the wife-husband team of Anne Case and Angus Deaton popularized the term deaths of despair, psychologists have become more interested in decoupling despair from clinical depression and anxiety. Despair’s central marker is the loss of hope. It is characterized by feelings of social and spiritual isolation, meaninglessness, hopelessness, helplessness, demoralization, and shame. Causes of despair are complex, ranging from individual (e.g., grief, bad health, addiction, abuse), to societal (e.g., social and cultural dislocation, unemployment, economic disaster, poverty), to a (...) combination of both. Sometimes, acknowledging and/or addressing despair’s material causes is enough. But the problem with despair is that it tends to generate a vicious cycle of self-defeat. Often, it manifests in self-perpetuating negative cognitive biases, self-defeating emotional reactions, and self-destructive behavior. To break free, the person must address the psychological and spiritual roots of her despair. Here, I offer insights from a Christian tradition grounded in the monastic spirituality of the Desert Fathers in the hopes that these might help a therapist seeking to do just that. After distinguishing between an emotion and a sin of despair, I locate the latter’s roots in the vices of acedia and pride. Finally, I point to the virtue of humility as a traditional cure for despair. (shrink)

In recent years, multifetal pregnancy reduction (MFPR) has increasingly been the subject of debate in Norway, and the intensity reached a tentative maximum when Legislation Department delivered the interpretative statement § 2 - Interpretation of the Abortion Act in 2016 in response to the Ministry of Health (2014) requesting the Legislation Department to consider whether the Law on abortion allows for MFPR of healthy fetuses in multiple pregnancies. The Legislation Department concluded that current abortion laws allow MFPR within the framework (...) the law otherwise stipulates. The debate has not subsided, and during autumn 2018, it was further intensified in connection with the Christian Democrat "crossroads" and signals from the Conservatives to consider removing §2.3c and to forbid MFPR. -/- Many of the arguments in the MFPR debate appear seemingly similar to arguments pending in the general abortion debate, and an analysis of what sets MFPR apart from other abortions is wanting. The aim of this article is, therefore, to examine whether there is a moral distinction between abortion and MFPR of healthy fetuses. We will cover the typical arguments of the Norwegian debate, and highlight them with scholarly articles from the literature. The most important arguments against MFPR that we have identified we have dubbed the harm argument, slippery-slope argument, intent argument, grief argument, psychological long-term effects for the woman and sorting argument. We conclude that counter-arguments do not measure up in terms of detecting a morally relevant difference between MFPR of healthy fetuses and abortions. Our conclusion is therefore that—despite what several debaters seem to think—there is no morally relevant difference between the two. Therefore, when we allow abortion, we should also allow MFPR. (shrink)

In recent years, multifetal pregnancy reduction has increasingly been a subject of debate in Norway. The intensity of this debate reached a tentative maximum when the Legislation Department delivered their interpretative statement, Section 2 - Interpretation of the Abortion Act, in 2016 in response to a request from the Ministry of Health that the Legislation Department consider whether the Abortion Act allows for MFPR of healthy fetuses in multiple pregnancies. The Legislation Department concluded that the current abortion legislation [as of (...) 2016] allows for MFPR subject to the constraints that the law otherwise stipulates. The debate has not subsided, and during autumn 2018 it was further intensified in connection with the Norwegian Christian Democratic "crossroads" policy and signals from the Conservatives to consider removing section 2.3c and to forbid MFPR. Many of the arguments in the MFPR debate are seemingly similar to arguments put forward in the general abortion debate, and an analysis to ascertain what distinguishes MFPR from other abortions has yet to be conducted. The aim of this article is, therefore, to examine whether there is a moral distinction between abortion and MFPR of healthy fetuses. We will cover the typical arguments emerging in the debate in Norway and exemplify them with scholarly articles from the literature. We have dubbed the most important arguments against MFPR that we have identified the harm argument, the slippery-slope argument, the intention argument, the grief argument, the long-term psychological effects for the woman argument, and the sorting argument. We conclude that these arguments do not measure up in terms of demonstrating a morally relevant difference between MFPR of healthy fetuses and other abortions. Our conclusion is, therefore — despite what several discussants seem to think — that there is no morally relevant difference between the two. Therefore, on the same conditions as we allow for abortions, we should also allow MFPR. Keywords: abortion, ethics, medical ethics, MFPR, selective MFPR. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Making Fetal PersonsFetal Homicide, Ultrasound, and the Normative Significance of BirthCatherine MillsIn early 2012, the then attorney general of Western Australia, Christian Porter, announced plans to introduce fetal homicide laws that would “create a new offence of causing death or grievous bodily harm to an unborn child through an unlawful assault on its mother” (Porter 2012). While well established in the United States, fetal homicide laws are only beginning (...) to take shape in Australia.1 The proposed law would mean that if an offender assaulted a woman and thereby caused the death of the fetus she was gestating, the courts would be required to impose a sentence of life imprisonment in all but exceptional circumstances—equivalent to the penalty for murder. While the proposed fetal homicide law is said to give appropriate recognition to the grief and suffering of the woman involved—and while it may help to do that—this is certainly not all it would do.2 For it would also give existence to a new legal subject in Western Australia, that is, the “unborn child”: currently, under Western Australian law a child is only legally capable of being murdered when already external to the mother’s body. Thus, the woman’s body constitutes a kind of “natural” basis for a legal boundary—one that the proposed law transgresses and perhaps obliterates, at the same time as it purports to recognize the trauma associated with the transgression and obliteration of that boundary by another.Fetal homicide laws thus traverse difficult territory in the maternal-fetal relationship, in which actions against one person come to constitute a crime against another. Significantly, these laws are typically formulated to provide legal protection for pregnant women against the intrusions of a third party against [End Page 88] their person. However, it may be that they can also be interpreted more generally to provide legal protection for the fetus against others. So construed, such laws open up a danger for pregnant women themselves, insofar as their actions threaten the life and well-being of the fetus they carry. One recent example of the exploitation of this ambiguity in fetal homicide laws is the case of Bei Bei Shuai, a young woman of Chinese descent who faced felony charges of murder in Indiana after a failed suicide attempt resulted in the death of the thirty three week old fetus she was gestating (Pilkington 2011, 2012). If a woman’s actions against herself, leading to the death of her fetus, can be legally construed as murder, where does this leave the law on abortion? The Western Australian attorney general insisted that the proposed law would not affect laws on abortion in any way, since it would not encroach on a woman’s right to make decisions about her pregnancy (Porter 2012). But a woman’s decisional rights in regards to her pregnancy are at best an unstable dividing line; at worst, it is precisely her decision to terminate a pregnancy—that is, to intentionally bring about the death of the fetus—that substantiates a murder charge. Indeed, at the crux of the Shuai case was her suicide note, in which she apparently stated her intent to kill her fetus.This ambiguity between abortion and fetal homicide has been the topic of much discussion in legal literature, and it raises significant questions that bear further investigation. For one, it raises in a particularly pointed way questions about the moral and legal significance of birth, and the bearing it has on the status of the fetus. Birth has historically been significant in establishing personhood, but this reliance on birth is challenged by the shift to treating the fetus as a person for the purposes of some areas of the law. The further question then arises of whether that status must remain consistent across domains of the law, such as those addressed to the death of a fetus at the hands of a third party, and those on abortion. While these questions have been well canvassed in legal discussions, we might also consider the impact that technologies such as obstetric ultrasound have on notions of fetal life and personhood. Advances in medical technologies appear... (shrink)

The Western philosophical tradition has shown a marked and perennial fondness for tragedy. From Plato and Aristotle, through the development of Christianity, to German idealism, and even to contemporary reflections on the murderous violence of the twentieth century, philosophy has repeatedly looked to tragedy for resources to make suffering, grief, and death thinkable. But what if by showing such a preference for tragedy, philosophical thought has unwittingly and unknowingly aligned itself with a form of thinking that accepts human suffering (...) and pain without protest? This collection explores possibilities for philosophical thinking that refuse the tragic model of thought and turn instead to its often-overlooked companion: comedy. Composed of a series of experiments ranging across the philosophical tradition, the essays in this volume propose to break, or at least suspend, the use of tragedy as an index of truth and philosophical worth. Instead, they explore new conceptions of solidarity, sympathy, critique, and justice. In addition, the essays collected here provide ample reason to believe that philosophical thinking, aligned with comedy, is capable of important and original insights, discoveries, and creations. The prejudicial acceptance of tragic seriousness only impoverishes the life of thought; it can be rejuvenated and renewed by laughter and the comic. This book was originally published as a special issue of Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities. (shrink)

The central claim of this comparative study of Kant and Kierkegaard is that the aesthetic experience of the sublime is both autonomous and formative for extra-aesthetic ends. Aesthetic autonomy is thus inseparable from aesthetic heteronomy. In Part I, through an examination of Kant’s Critique of Judgement and his essays on the French Revolution, the Kantian sublime is shown to conflict with our existing cognitive, moral and political frames of meaning, at the same time that the engagement of the aesthetic judge (...) (Chapter 1) or the enthusiastic spectator (Chapter 2) with this conflict furthers our pursuit of cognitive, moral and political ends. The Kantian sublime is built on the autonomy of aesthetic judgement, which nevertheless has non-aesthetic value. Part II argues that certain aesthetic and ethical-religious figures in Kierkegaard’s work can be shown to be transfigurations of the Kantian sublime, despite the absence of the term. Antigone and the silhouettes from Either/Or embody what I coin the tragic sublime and sublime grief. The God-man in Practice in Christianity is interpreted as a sublime image of contradiction. The figures are submitted to aesthetic representation, while their contradictory interior lives are unrepresentable. The Kierkegaardian sublime is built on a radical critique of aesthetic autonomy, whose failure serves the end of ethico-religious self-formation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Is God Still at the Bedside?Mara Kelly-ZukowskiIs God Still at the Bedside? Abigail Rian Evans Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2011. 484 pp. $30.00.It is extremely difficult to find a comprehensive book for use in death and dying courses. Princeton Theological Seminary professor Abigail Rian Evans has produced a notable exception to this. Although her book seems more suited for ministers, chaplains, and pastoral counselors, it would also prove (...) to be useful for those working in the areas of thanatology, medical ethics, health care, and theological eschatology. It could definitely be used as a student textbook, preferably in schools of theology or seminaries.Acknowledging that the “complexity of death” requires an interdisciplinary approach, Evans invokes a variety of disciplines as she moves through four major sections: “Prologue” (a theological and sociological analysis of American attitudes toward death); “Negotiated Death” (a philosophical, theological, and legal discussion of euthanasia, suicide, organ donation, and legal issues); “The Experience of Dying” (a theological and ethical view of pain and suffering, hospice care, and mourning); and “God at the Bedside” (a practical look at the role of clergy, ministry to the dying, and Christian funerals). She begins each chapter with a literary excerpt, includes statistics and polls to support her analyses, and examines the positions of the mainstream religious traditions with regard to each issue. Included, for example, is a most valuable eight-page chart outlining twenty-seven major religions’ positions on euthanasia (101–8).While Evans is careful to include references to religious traditions other than her own (Presbyterian), her treatment of some of their perspectives is a bit simplistic. For instance, she asserts that “Aquinas allowed abortion based [End Page 223] on the principle of double effect” (14) without providing the essential nuances to his thought. However, she does cite many prominent moral theologians throughout her book, including references to the most recent meetings of theological organizations.The major strength of Evans’s treatment of death issues lies in her ability to draw upon her own experience as a Presbyterian pastor, liturgist, Christian bioethicist, and theologian. She has served as minister to parish communities, as thanatology instructor, as counselor to the dying and the bereaved, and as consultant to various educational organizations in their efforts to institute faith-based health care programs. The anecdotes she provides from these varied roles imbue the material with a richness that a purely academic treatise would lack.Because of her experiences, Evans has also furnished her readers with a wealth of practical information. The appendices include resources for patients and their families, information about advance directives, the patients’ bill of rights, a caregiver’s decision-making guide for end of life, and helpful tips for effective care giving and grief management.The last third of the book is dedicated to a thorough discussion of how to minister to the dying. Based on an extensive theological examination of Christian resurrection, Evans’s advice also includes pastoral, psychological, and sociological dimensions. She cites the concept of FCN (faith community nurse), for example, as one of the latest and much needed nursing specialties (349–66). Tracing its history from deacons and deaconesses in the early church to the traditional black church nurse, Evans objectively sets forth its advantages as well as the disadvantages. She concludes that the current economic environment and credentialing issues might make implementation of this innovation in health care problematic (362–64).To the question posed by the book, is God still at the beside?, Evans answers with a resounding “yes” (424). Her comprehensive, well-researched, and extremely practical handbook for end-of-life issues makes it clear that a theology of life and death provides a framework in which we make choices not only about how we will die but also how we will live (xvi). [End Page 224]Mara Kelly-ZukowskiFelician CollegeCopyright © 2012 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

_A deeply researched and poignant reflection on the practice of forgiveness in an unforgiving world__ “Broad in its philosophical sweep and fine in its literary analysis, this work redefines forgiveness as the modest yet heroic ability to hold pain and anger together with hope and nonviolence.”—Joie Szu-Chiao Chen, _Lion’s Roar__ Matthew Ichihashi Potts explores the complex moral terrain of forgiveness, which he claims has too often served as a salve to the conscience of power rather than as an instrument of (...) healing or justice. Though forgiveness is often linked with reconciliation or the abatement of anger, Potts resists these associations, asserting instead that forgiveness is simply the refusal of retaliatory violence through practices of penitence and grief. It is an act of mourning irrevocable wrong, of refusing the false promises of violent redemption, and of living in and with the losses we cannot recover. Drawing on novels by Kazuo Ishiguro, Marilynne Robinson, Louise Erdrich, and Toni Morrison, and on texts from the early Christian to the postmodern, Potts diagnoses the real dangers of forgiveness yet insists upon its enduring promise. Sensitive to the twenty-first-century realities of economic inequality, colonial devastation, and racial strife, and considering the role of forgiveness in the New Testament, the Christian tradition, philosophy, and contemporary literature, this book heralds the arrival of a new and creative theological voice. (shrink)

For half a century, readers of C. S. Lewis had only two problematic and at times obscure spiritual autobiographies to use in attempts to understand Lewis’s journey to faith through what he called Joy, Sehnsucht, or longing. Both books, though important and full of key insights, in some ways hid more than they revealed. Recent discoveries, however, have widened the arc of autobiography. Lewis’s landmark pre-Christian account of his conversion to theism, ‘Early Prose Joy’, published in 2013, monumentally widened and (...) deepened our understanding of Lewis’s spiritual journey to faith. And the fragmentary poem ‘I Will Write Down the Portion that I Understand’ also adds significant insight, at least into Lewis’s composition process of grappling with conversion. Insightful recent scholarship by Alister McGrath suggests widening the scope of what we consider spiritual autobiography in Lewis to include A Grief Observed; this idea opens the door to a broader view of how autobiography functions both in Lewis’s compositional life and in the categorization of his writings. This essay accepts that invitation, finding clear autobiographical efforts to capture the role of Joy in Lewis’s early poetry, including Dymer, and in his late novel Till We Have Faces. That last book, written with soon-to-be-wife Joy Davidman, serves crucially to change the focus of Lewis’s spiritual autobiographies from Joy to love. By thus expanding and exploring Lewis’s autobiographical arc, this essay brings to light an almost teleological understanding of love and the central theme of Lewis’s life and work. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Too Expensive to Treat? Finitude, Tragedy, and the Neonatal ICU by Charles C. CamosyAutumn Alcott RidenourReview of Too Expensive to Treat? Finitude, Tragedy, and the Neonatal ICU CHARLES C. CAMOSY Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010. 208 pp. $18.00In Too Expensive to Treat? Charles Camosy makes an important contribution to bioethics and Christian ethics by making the case for the need to consider social factors when treating imperiled newborns. (...) Arguing for both the full moral status of newborns and Roman Catholic social teaching’s emphasis on the just allocation of resources, Camosy calls the medical community, bioethicists, and [End Page 209] Christian ethicists to account for current practices that disproportionately favor exorbitant costs for imperiled infants over other even more basic medical needs within the US health care system. Written before the adoption of the Affordable Care Act under the Obama administration, Camosy’s argument has only increased in significance given the national need to prioritize resources in view of the government’s expansion of health care coverage.Born within twenty-two to twenty-four weeks of gestation and weighing between 500 and 850 grams, some imperiled infants absorb hundreds of thousands of dollars in short-term care that may extend into millions of dollars given long-term costs (146, 171–93). Recognizing the tragic reality in which “we have virtually unlimited health care needs” coupled with “limited health care resources,” Camosy contends that current Medicaid funds that privilege the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) should be reevaluated (1–3). In an effort to temper the “autonomous,” patient-driven principle with “justice,” Camosy poses a challenging philosophical, theological, and practical proposal for what he identifies as the “gray area” of the NICU.Maintaining a twofold commitment to human dignity that values the moral worth of the infant, on the one hand, and the common good that privileges a preferential option for the poor, on the other, Camosy develops his argument in four major steps. First, he validates the moral status of newborn infants and rejects social quality of life models that dismiss their intrinsic status as “persons.” Second, he dismisses arguments that emphasize personal dignity at the expense of considering the social quality of life, pointing out that such arguments disregard Catholic social teaching’s emphasis on the link between relational anthropology and human personhood (100). Third, he contends that “weak” social quality of life models that privilege the patient or individual over social considerations do not take seriously either Catholic social teaching’s emphasis on the common good or the potentially overwhelming economic and practical burdens they might place on families and society as a whole. Finally, Camosy presents a constructive proposal for limiting NICU resources that seeks to counter a culture of overtreatment that idolizes technology and is at the mercy of an unrestrained free market (162). Emphasizing the need for a just allocation of resources, he supports withholding and withdrawing life-sustaining treatment in some cases, thus foreseeing the possible death of some infants. Although he does not accept the direct killing of these infants, he does maintain that Catholic social teaching would allow for the withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment based on certain criteria.Camosy raises a host of important considerations relevant to decisions about imperiled infants. Yet a few questions remain. First, from a Christian point of view, does he not fall into a kind of soft utilitarianism, even though he himself desires to avoid the pitfalls of utilitarianism? Second, how might Camosy envision Christian practices that care for “exposed” infants left without life-sustaining treatment? Finally, what about the difficult emotions that accompany [End Page 210] the death of an infant or child? Do certain kinds of grief complicate our rationing choices that appear to pit the old against the young? While perhaps unanswerable, these questions merit further discussion.Autumn Alcott RidenourMerrimack CollegeCopyright © 2015 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

George McClure offers here a far-reaching analysis of the role of consolation in Italian Renaissance culture, showing how the humanists' interest in despair, and their effort to open up this realm in both social and personal terms, signaled a shift toward a heightened secularization in European thought. Analyzing works by fourteenth-and fifteenth-century writers, from Petrarch to Marsilio Ficino, McClure examines the treatment of such problems as bereavement, fear of death, illness, despair, and misfortune. These writers, who evinced a belief in (...) the legitimacy of secular sadness, tried to forge a wisdom that in their view dealt more realistically with the art of living and dying than did the disputations of scholastic philosophy and theology. Arguing that consolatory concerns helped spur the revival of classical schools of psychological thought, McClure reveals that the humanists sought comfort from once-neglected troves of Stoic, Peripatetic, Epicurean, Platonic, and Christian thought. He contends that the humanists' pursuit of solace and their duty as consolers provided not only a forum but perhaps also an incentive for the articulation of prominent Renaissance themes concerning immortality, the dignity of man, and the sanctity of worldly endeavor. Originally published in 1990. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

One does not read very far in the second and by far the longest section of Herbert’s The Temple before the single-minded exhortations of the speaker in “The Church Porch” and the early Lenten “complaints” of Christ to his people in “The Sacrifice” turn to the unpredictable elements of the speaker’s human condition: puzzlement, striving, grief, joy. The quick movement between these elements is due not only to Herbert’s poetic sensibility, I argue, but also to his anthropological understanding and (...) his interest in early Christian precedent. I focus on remnants of Prudentius’ 5th-century Psychomachia in Herbert’s poetry and prose and suggest that they open a new vista onto Herbert’s performance of the unsteady dual state of the temple builder, whether poet or reader. (shrink)

This article examines the dual consolatory approach of Theodoret of Cyrus, a fifth-century Syriac bishop. Theodoret's method of grief counseling may be examined by drawing upon several of his letters of consolation as guiding examples. Using the philosophical theme of reason's control of the passions together with the Christian hope of the resurrection, Theodoret consoled his mourning friends, yielding an instructive model for contemporary pastors and counselors to consider. Theodoret practiced letter writing as a valid and constructive consolatory medium, (...) demonstrated a balance of faith and reason in Christian counseling, and modeled theologically robust grief counseling. The article opens with an extract from Theodoret's lengthiest letter of comfort, to his newly-widowed friend, Alexandra. (shrink)

"Faith Has Its Reasons" shows readers how struggles, heartache, and tears can transform from a nightmare into a ministry. This book contains the encouragement to take the first steps out of grief and climb the mountain out of the valley of the shadow of death. This book will also inspire those that may question heaven. A child's amazing visits to heaven gave him the courage to tell others about Jesus. His bravery and boldness after dying and losing his father (...) will open your eyes to how God can use an unthinkable tragedy for His glory. If you have endured a catastrophic loss and questioned God, this book will show you how to persevere and find happiness again. (shrink)

The question of evil—its origins, its justification, its solution—has plagued humankind from the beginning. Every generation raises the question and struggles with the responses it is given. Questions about the nature of evil and how it is reconciled with the truth claims of Christianity are unavoidable; we need to be prepared to respond to such questions with great clarity and good faith. God and Evil compiles the best thinking on all angles on the question of evil, from some of the (...) finest scholars in religion, philosophy and apologetics, including Gregory E. Ganssle and Yena Lee Bruce Little Garry DeWeese R. Douglas Geivett James Spiegel Jill Graper Hernandez Win Corduan David Beck With additional chapters addressing "issues in dialogue" such as hell and human origins, and a now-famous debate between evangelical philosopher William Lane Craig and atheist philosopher Michael Tooley, God and Evil provides critical engagement with recent arguments against faith and offers grounds for renewed confidence in the God who is "acquainted with grief.". (shrink)

In Greek mythology, Lamia, daughter of the king of Libya, bore several children to Zeus, but his jealous wife, Hera, killed all but one of them. Transformed by grief and anger, Lamia became a monster with the manners and physical traits of an animal. The word lamia can also be found in the form of an appellative. In the book of Isaiah in the Vulgate, the lamia is among the animals, beasts and monsters which will despoil Jerusalem when God's (...) judgement befalls the city. Ancient zoological works use the word to indicate what is probably a species of shark, while medieval encyclopedias add several other meanings: lamia denotes, among other things, a hybrid creature which looks like a woman with horse legs; and a four-legged animal which damages plants in gardens at night and is likely to attack people it encounters. The origins of most ancient, early-Christian and medieval conceptions of the lamia have been traced more or less satisfactorily; the only tradition which remains unexplained is that of the fierce quadruped which threatens property and people's lives. The purpose of the present Note is to explore the origins of this ferocious creature, to determine what animal or animals may have inspired it, and to map the ways in which it entered medieval culture under the new name of lamia. The answers to these questions are to be found in the medieval reception of Aristotle's zoological observations, through the Arabic and Latin translations of his Historia animalium. (shrink)

Attention to economic inequality has increased in the wake of the global financial crisis, and along with this increased attention has come the need for reconsideration of the dynamics of moral reflection on inequality. Inequality is often viewed as a negative in terms of economic and social costs. But there are also moral challenges that arise from inequality. The Christian tradition emphasizes the diversity, and therefore the inequality, of the created order, and as such inequality is not simply a result (...) of sin. After the fall into sin, there are new dynamics which consist of sinful kinds of inequality as well as sinful attitudes towards the gifts and endowments of others. This “grief” at the good of others has been classically understood as the vice of envy. This article argues for the ongoing relevance of envy as a particularly important moral category for evaluation of economic inequality. (shrink)

If Haecker's book on History and the Attitude of the Christian be considered as an index, there seems to be a strong humanistic current in present day Catholicism. Haecker develops in his book the Christian belief that history manifests the will of God, and that all wars, upheavals and revolutions really occur for the salvation of the soul of the individual. He opposes the modern trend to deify nation and race, and presents the elevation of man from his fall, and (...) his return to God, as the eternal goal of all that ever happens. Because Haecker insists upon the intrinsic value of each single man, because he refuses to accept the ruling totalitarian ideology of the day, even the non-Catholic can go a long way with him in his humanism.Horkheimer, however, demonstrates that the connection between this kind of humanism and Catholicism is a very loose one. The deep understanding of human misery that is evident in Haecker's pages fits other convictions and persuasions just as well as it does a Catholic philosophy. Haecker's contention that to reject a sense and a meaning transcending the temporal world is to drive man to despair, does not invalidate the rejection of a supernatural significance. Despair is no argument against truth. Grief over the present is well justified ; nevertheless an attitude is possible which permits of a positive cooperation in the historical tasks of the day.Le livre de Haecker sur la philosophie chrétienne de l'histoire donne à Horkheimer l'occasion de présenter quelques remarques de principe au sujet du courant humaniste dans le catholicisme contemporain. Haecker développe Vidée chrétienne que l'histoire est soumise à la volonté de Dieu, et que dans toutes les guerres, les crises et les révolutions, c'est en vérité le salut de l'âme individuelle qui est en jeu. Il s'oppose à la divinisation moderne du peuple et de la race, et montre dans le relèvement de l'homme après la chute et dans son retour à Dieu le but éternel du devenir. Dans cette affirmation de la valeur de chaque personne, dans la négation des idéologies totalitaires régnantes, s’exprime un humanisme que le philosophe non-catholique peut reconnaître et approuver.Cependant, Horkheimer indique que le lien de cet humanisme et du catholicisme est — logiquement — très lâche. La compréhension de la misère humaine, qui apparaît dans le livre de Haecker, ne peut nullement confirmer la vision catholique du monde, elle s'adapte aussi bien à d'autres convictions. Certes, on comprend l'affirmation de Haecker que le refus de la transcendance doit mener l'homme au désespoir ; mais la négation d'une signification supranaturelle n'est pas ainsi réfutée : le désespoir n'est pas un argument contre la vérité. La tristesse légitime que nous inspire le présent, appelle, bien loin de l'exclure, la décision de travailler aux tâches que l'histoire nous assigne. (shrink)

In Book Four of his Confessions, Augustine recalls his grief at the death of his closest friend. Augustine believes he grieved excessively because he loved his friend as an idol, in the place of God. To illuminate the problems with Augustine’s friendship, I will draw on Jean-Luc Marion’s helpful analyses of the idol and the icon. In doing so I seek to clarify not only Augustine’s position on proper human love in the Confessions, but also suggest a way to (...) understand his infamous uti/frui (use/enjoyment) distinction from On Christian Teaching, a nearly contemporaneous text to the Confessions. (shrink)

In Book Four of his Confessions, Augustine recalls his grief at the death of his closest friend. Augustine believes he grieved excessively because he loved his friend as an idol, in the place of God. To illuminate the problems with Augustine’s friendship, I will draw on Jean-Luc Marion’s helpful analyses of the idol and the icon. In doing so I seek to clarify not only Augustine’s position on proper human love in the Confessions, but also suggest a way to (...) understand his infamous uti/frui (use/enjoyment) distinction from On Christian Teaching, a nearly contemporaneous text to the Confessions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 26.2 (2002) 456-458 [Access article in PDF] Quarrel & Quandary, by Cynthia Ozick; xiii & 247 pp. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000, $25.00. Ask Cynthia Ozick to define a Jewish book and she launches into an extended defense of the integrity of the body of traditional Jewish writing: Torah, Talmud, liturgy, ethics, and philosophy. Ozick takes her Judaism seriously; its literature, in the broad sense, (...) for her, is didactic and dedicated to the promotion of virtue attained through study. She takes literature seriously too and strenuously defends fiction as an act of the "free imagination," with an equal emphasis on both elements of that phrase although, Ozick rightly argues, the imagination by definition is free. Thus, a Jewish book and Jewish fiction are contradictory. To different degrees, emphasis, and purpose, both are freighted by moral purpose.So are the various Ozicks! A traditional Jew, a Jewish American writer, a novelist, an essayist, a classical feminist—all describe Ozick who obviously belies all simple categories save one: writer. Yet even as a writer, Ozick is complex and conflicted, lamenting that she hasn't written enough fiction but claiming that it simply could not have been different.While Ozick may not be as prolific as she would like, she is a commanding presence in American fiction and belles lettres. Her latest collection of non-fiction work, Quarrel & Quandary, demonstrates her clear thinking, breadth of expertise, seriousness, and intelligence. Ranging from the autobiographical to the political, each essay is informed by history and none is light nor nostalgic. "Dostoyevsky's Unabomber" is perceptive and regrettably prescient in its depiction of the philosopher-murderer. In "The Posthumous Sublime," Ozick walks us through the "grieving that has been made beautiful" in the four stories of Sebald's The Emigrants. "A Drug Store Eden" is a warm and familiar but never sentimental portrait of her hard-working parents and her Uncle Ruby. The humor of "Lovesickness" and "How I Got Fired from My Summer Job" resonate for middle-class, studious, awkward young girls. In another essay, awe-inspired respect for Kafka is balanced by reverent awe of God, which is tempered by an uncomfortable acceptance of Job's acquiescence. Where is Job's "impious impatience" in the face of his renewed prosperity and health?, she asks. Where is "the father's bitter grief over the loss" of his first family? In quintessential [End Page 456] Ozick, she acknowledges the staying power of the ancient sages who argued God's majesty at the same time reserving her right to "philosophic doubt," especially in light of the Shoah.Two essays in this volume are exceptional in their insight and influence. "Who Owns Anne Frank?" should put to rest the sentimentalization of Anne Frank and her diary. It should stop the shameless marketing of the Holocaust—the catastrophe that marked a century—as yet another genocide. Ozick's relentless focus on the reality of Nazi evil and its consequent waste of human lives and potential should abort further distortions about Anne's short life, but it probably won't. The diary has been "bowdlerized, distorted, transmuted, traduced, reduced... infantilized, Americanized, homogenized, sentimentalized, falsified, kitschified, and, in fact, blatantly and arrogantly denied." It has "nonsensically" been described as cheerful and optimistic, even in the face of the fact that Anne, along with other members of the attic community, were targeted for murder and that, one month before liberation, Anne and her sister Margot died as prisoners in the unimaginable horror of Bergen Belsen, a camp so lice-ridden and disease-infested that it was burned to ashes by the British rather than cleansed, disinfected, or rehabilitated.Ozick tracks the controversy centered on the transformation of Anne's diary into the Americanized, christianized, perky Junior Miss that American audiences would accept, including the fabrication of lines that rendered the targeting of the Jews as one victim among many: "We're not the only people that've had to suffer" instead of Anne's more thoughtful and complex—and potentially problematic—"In the eyes of the world, we're doomed.... Who knows, maybe our religion will teach... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Absolute and Ordained Power of God in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century TheologyFrancis Oakley[W]e must cautiously abandon [that more specious opinion of the Platonist and Stoick]... in this, that it... blasphemously invades the cardinal Prerogative of Divinity, Omnipotence, by denying him a reserved power, of infringing, or altering any one of those Laws which [He] Himself ordained, and enacted, and chaining up his armes in the adamantine fetters of Destiny.Walter (...) Charleton, The Darknes of Atheism Dispelled by the Light of Nature : A Physico-Theologicall Treatise (London, 1652)Of the various attributes characteristically ascribed to God in the Christian tradition—goodness, wisdom, omniscience, omnipotence, and the like—it is omnipotence which of recent years has most persistently been the object of focused attention among philosophers and historians alike. That that should be the case with philosophers working in the Anglo-American analytic tradition is not altogether surprising. While it is doubtless a development few would have predicted half a century ago, the years since then have seen something of a recrudescence of interest in a legislative or divine-command ethic. 1 Had that [End Page 437] not itself conspired to make omnipotence an obvious focus of philosophic attention, the deepening contemporaneous preoccupation with modal logic or the logic of possibility would surely have succeeded in so doing. Understood classically as affirming of God the ability to do all things and connoting a virtual capacity for action (as opposed to a power exercised in actuality), omnipotence has proven to be something of a troublesome notion, inviting unrestrained speculation about hypothetical divine action and generating a veritable cat’s cradle of philosophical conundrums concerning the relationship of God’s power to his will, wisdom, goodness, and justice.Medieval theologians and philosophers alike were forced to grapple with these taxing problems, 2 and philosophers of our own era have found them no less directly pertinent to their own logical and ethical concerns. 3 In 1955 Mackie inaugurated what was destined to become an ongoing discussion of omnipotence in the philosophical journals, 4 and such philosophers as Kenny and Keane, Cowan and Wolfe, Dummett, Plantinga, Swinburne, and Geach have been drawn into the fray. Since then, as a result, the pages of Mind, Philosophy, Philosophical Review, and even The Listener have been punctuated by their efforts to grapple with those venerable questions concerning the divine power that had exercised St. Peter Damiani in the mid-eleventh century, brought Abelard to grief a half-century later, and subsequently led Peter Lombard to devote to them a crucial and influential section of his Sentences—whether God of his omnipotence could undo the past, whether he could have made things other than he had, or created a world better than he did, and so on. 5 [End Page 438]While no medievalist can be expected to be anything but gratified by this unexpected testimony to the enduring significance and power of medieval scholastic concerns, those of us interested especially in the intellectual developments of the later-medieval centuries have particular reason to be energized by it. The years since Mackie launched this contemporary philosophical debate have also seen an intensification of interest on the part of historians in the ways in which, during these particular centuries, medieval thinkers themselves came to terms with the implications of the divine omnipotence and dealt with the theological and philosophical puzzles characteristically generated by that notion. Unlike the philosophers, whose concerns have been somewhat more broad-ranging, the historians have focused in particular on a quintessentially scholastic distinction that was developed, it has been said, “as a ‘yes and no’ answer to the question whether God is able to do or arrange things other than he did in creating the orders of nature and grace.” 6 The distinction in question is that between God’s power understood as absolute and as ordained (potentia dei absoluta et ordinata), which the theologians and philosophers of the period deployed as part of their great effort of accommodation between Greek philosophical and biblical notions of the divine, and the historical significance of which the scholarship of the past forty years has served increasingly to vindicate. 7 But while that distinction has been... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Original Dwelling Place: Zen EssaysRobert E. GossOriginal Dwelling Place: Zen Essays. By Robert Aitken. Upland, California: Counterpoint, 1996. 241 pp.Robert Aitken narrates his over forty-year journey into Zen, elucidating not only his spiritual journey but also reflecting the Americanization of Zen Buddhism. He was introduced to Zen Buddhism during World War II as an internee in a camp for enemy civilians in Kobe, Japan. Original Dwelling Place is Aitken’s (...) ninth book to explore a series of topics that accent his personal journey into Zen. He has gathered a series of essays about the texts and lineage teachers with whom he studied over the years. In the opening section, entitled “Ancestors,” he pays homage to the masters [End Page 212] who influenced his own Zen practice. He writes, “All of my guides have passed away, but they are alive in my mind and body” (p. 5). The book reflects his continuing bond with those deceased teachers who exercised a vital presence and environmental influence within his life. He shares some stories, personal insights, and legacies of some of his guides, such as Nyogen Senzaki, Soen Roshi, Blyth Sensei, and D. T. Suzuki. I found his essay on the legacy of Dwight Goddard filling in many personal details of a pioneer Western Buddhist who significantly contributed to the Americanization of Buddhism. In many ways, Aitken’s own spiritual development and Original Dwelling Place recapitulate the Americanization of Zen Buddhism, providing some important insights into that process of Buddhist acculturation.Yet Aitken does not limit his guides to twentieth-century ones. He brings alive the classical discourses and relates them to contemporary life. Throughout his essays, I was struck by how alive and dynamic Aitken’s Mahayana contemplative vision and practice are. There is a spirit of “contemplative action” that collapses the duality of meditative practice and living that discovers the truth dynamically within a matrix of open living. As a Christian practitioner of Ignatian spirituality, I found many parallels to the Jesuit ideal of being “contemplative in action.” Aitken’s essays elucidate an ongoing dynamic dialectic that fluctuates between meditative reflection and the world of experience—reminding me at times of the contemplative Trappist monk, Thomas Merton, and at other times of the Jesuit poet-activist, Daniel Berrigan.The reader garners an aesthetic sense that classical Zen texts have been an integral part of his journey and have provided him with a platform to reflect on topics such as marriage, death, the use of money, sexuality, and Zen practice. Some of his essays have a meditative quality, drawing the reader into an web of intertextuality and experience where Zen teachers and Western poets engage in a contemplative path of pleasure expressed in awareness of the everyday dewdrop world. There were moments that I envisioned reading a particular essay on retreat, for they had a meditative quality that reminded me of some the writings of Thomas Merton. Like Merton, Robert Aitken does not merely probe meditative experience but attempts to interrogate the everyday experiences of Western Buddhists from meditative awareness. Most Japanese Buddhists, he notes, are married within Shinto ceremonies, and Western Buddhists have resurrected old Buddhist marriage ceremonies seldom used by Japanese practitioners. Western Buddhist marriage ceremonies, Aitken notes, are a relatively new tradition that often blends ceremonies from The Book of Common Prayer with Buddhist rituals. He ends his short essay on marriage with final reflections on how marriage and family form a little sangha.In “Death: A Zen Buddhist Perspective,” Aitken breaks new ground by noting how Buddhists face the fact of death and find solace in impermanence. He quotes the Japanese haiku poet, Isa Kobayashi (1763–1827), grieving at the loss of his baby daughter:The dewdrop world is the dewdrop world, and yet—and yet(p. 124). [End Page 213]Isa looks desperately for something to give him hope but only finds comfort in his grief. Aitken points out that within grief is emancipation and that bereavement can be a good teacher. He develops some reflections on a highly underdeveloped topic within Buddhism: grieving and the transformation of grief into solace.Aitken writes on political revolution and the matters of ethics. He addresses... (shrink)

The idea that some things are fine in theory, but do not work in practice, was already an “old saying” when Kant wrote about it in 1793. Kant, who was annoyed that a man named Garve had criticized his ethical theory on this ground, responded by pointing out that there is always a gap between theory and practice. Theory provides general rules but it cannot tell us how to apply them--for that, practical judgment is needed. “[T]he general rule,” said Kant, (...) “must be supplemented by an act of judgement whereby the practitioner distinguishes instances where the rule applies from those where it does not.” This means that those who lack judgment might be helpless, even though they know a lot of theory. “There are doctors and lawyers,” Kant explains, “who did well during their schooling but who do not know how to act when asked to give advice.” The point is especially important for the kind of absolutist ethic that Kant defends. Kant held that moral rules have no exceptions; on his way of thinking, we may never lie, we may never break a promise, and so on. This is a clear example of an ethic that seems not to work in practice, for sensible people recognize that in extreme circumstances even very serious rules may have to be broken. But the “gap” that Kant identifies has often been exploited to soften the impact of such harsh precepts. Traditional Christian ethics, for example, says (like Kant) that suicide is always wrong; but because judgment is required to determine which acts count as suicide, casuists have been able to excuse various sorts of self-destruction (and, not coincidentally, avoid consigning the deceased to hellfire) by classifying them as something else. Thus the hero who sacrifices herself to save others is not a suicide, nor is the man who kills himself while blind with grief, as he lacks the required rational intention. It might be thought that such gaps could be closed by adding further principles to the theory--for example, principles that specify more closely what counts as suicide.... (shrink)

Clues in the Gospels, evidence from Jewish historian Josephus, belief in the transmigration of souls, and well-documented examples of erroneous declarations of death, combine to support a natural explanation for the Easter story: Jesus survives his short stay on the cross, and is discovered to be barely alive by the few followers who retrieve him. Fearful because they have illegally retrieved a condemned man, they carry out a decoy burial in a tomb. Jesus expires soon after, and is buried quietly (...) in an anonymous grave, but rumor of his survival reaches his followers, as well as the Romans, who open the tomb and find it empty, except for burial linen used in the decoy. To sooth their grief the disciples seize on the rumor of Jesus’ survival and encourage each other to hear the voice and see the image of their master in others. Although the probability of the scenario proposed herein is low, it is surely far larger than the supernatural one. It also is arguably more likely than other non-supernatural hypotheses. It does not require Jesus to survive his crucifixion and meet his followers, or, if Jesus died, to have his body stolen, or be removed from the tomb after the Sabbath and reburied in a lower class graveyard. One only need propose that Jesus was still alive when taken down from the cross and envision how events most likely would unfold from there. (shrink)

Recent literature on the ethics of medical error disclosure acknowledges the feelings of injustice, confusion, and grief patients and their families experience as a result of medical error. Substantially less literature acknowledges the emotional and relational discomfort of the physicians responsible or suggests a meaningful way forward. To address these concerns more fully, I propose a model of medical error disclosure that mirrors the theological and sacramental technique of confession. I use Aquinas’ description of moral acts to show that (...) all medical errors are evil, and some accidental medical errors constitute venial sins; all sin and evil should be confessed. As Aquinas urges confession for sins, here I argue that confession is necessary to restore physicians to the community and to provide a sense of absolution. Even mistakes for which physicians are not morally culpable ought to be confessed in order to heal the physician–patient relationship and to address feelings of professional distress. This paper utilizes an Episcopal theology of confession that affirms verbal admission and responsibility-taking as freeing and relationally restoring acts, arguing that a confessional stance toward medical error both leads to better outcomes in physician–patient relationships and is more compassionate toward physicians who err. (shrink)

An engaging and illuminating exploration of grief—and why, despite its intense pain, it can also help us grow Experiencing grief at the death of a person we love or who matters to us—as universal as it is painful—is central to the human condition. Surprisingly, however, philosophers have rarely examined grief in any depth. In Grief, Michael Cholbi presents a groundbreaking philosophical exploration of this complex emotional event, offering valuable new insights about what grief is, whom (...) we grieve, and how grief can ultimately lead us to a richer self-understanding and a fuller realization of our humanity. Drawing on psychology, social science, and literature as well as philosophy, Cholbi explains that we grieve for the loss of those in whom our identities are invested, including people we don't know personally but cherish anyway, such as public figures. Their deaths not only deprive us of worthwhile experiences; they also disrupt our commitments and values. Yet grief is something we should embrace rather than avoid, an important part of a good and meaningful life. The key to understanding this paradox, Cholbi says, is that grief offers us a unique and powerful opportunity to grow in self-knowledge by fashioning a new identity. Although grief can be tumultuous and disorienting, it also reflects our distinctly human capacity to rationally adapt as the relationships we depend on evolve. An original account of how grieving works and why it is so important, Grief shows how the pain of this experience gives us a chance to deepen our relationships with others and ourselves. (shrink)