In his early, unpublished “Spirit of Christianit y and Its Fate,” Hegel used the term Wechsel-Stil to refer to a st yle of writing he considered inappropriate for the expression of feeling. The term seems to appear nowhere else in German literature, and its meaning has puzzled his readers. My suggestion: Hegel coined the term Wechsel-Stil to render in German the Greek word τροπή (trope). He wanted to say that the figurative language of tropes was not a natural way to (...) put feelings into words. (shrink)

Hegel’s early essay called “The Spirit of Christianity and Its Fate” contains his longest analysis of the resurrection of Jesus, which he attributes to the spirit of the early Christian communit y. To represent its practice of the love he taught, the community made him into a god. Furthermore, because it withdrew from life in the world, the communit y knew its love as deficient, and portrayed this defect by adding the separate human individuality of its teacher to his divinity. (...) The risen Christ (both human and divine) lives only in the subjective mind of the communit y, as an expression of its feeling. However, Hegel does recognize divine objectivity in the “one” source of theuniverse, the Father of Jesus. (shrink)

Among philosophers of religion and theologians, debates over Hegel's interpretation of religion in the Phenomenology of Spirit have become the stuff of scholarly legend. Was Hegel a humanistic atheist? Or was he a serious Christian thinker? Both positions have been defended with vigilance in recent years. Now into this fray steps Professor Jamros to offer fresh insights and to argue that neither of these received views captures the thoughts of the philosophical theist who wrote the Phenomenology. Expounding Hegel's philosophical (...) theism through a close and careful study of the texts dealing with religion, Jamros demonstrates that for Hegel divine essence is "universal-essence" and that the self-development of this essence into human existence describes God. In consequence, argues Jamros, the traditional "left-wing" interpretation of Hegel must be rejected, since the autonomy of divine essence in determining this self-development compels us to affirm God's existence. What's more, we realize that since God is the essence of earthly human existence, Hegel's vision of Christianity excludes divine personality and eschatology; we must reject the traditional "right-wing" interpretation as well. Jamros concludes that in the Phenomenology we discover a thinker who spurns Christian other-worldliness and who works assiduously to describe the nexus between God's being and human existence. This nexus ultimately is to be found not in revelation - for the idea of revelation suggests that God's being is something naturally inaccessible to the human intellect yearning for its discovery. Rather, we meet God in the very exercise of reason commended by our desire for assurance of God's being - for God is the logical ground of all that can be thought. (shrink)

The historical debate of scientific realism portrays a monumental sign of science-a way of critiquing philosophy. At first sight, this centrepiece of scientific realism could line up against the no-miracles argument and the pessimistic meta-induction because, by means of the no-miracles assumption, fundamental theories in science would be the fine manifestation of reality as well as are most likely to be the truth. Nonetheless, a means to an end of the pessimistic meta-induction arguably states the anti-realistic position-since scientific speculations are (...) not always plausible to be the ultimate truth vis-à-vis mature hypotheses of science in history. By and large, I have herein put forward a systemic meaning for realism: an inspection of unseen objects in the world, which are broken free from the human mind. However, I will demonstrate the no-miracles argument in the vicinity of realism, whilst the pessimistic meta-induction lies towards anti-realism. In the bargain, I will examine structural realism in response to this scientific dichotomy. Briefly, this research article is, apparently, bound-up with a very limited account of relevancies; ergo, it would be recommended to further research on this controversy. (shrink)

Placing the notion of sin in the context of a meontic account of evil, and emphasizing the effect of sin on the sinner himself, this commentary exposes the insufficiency of restricting oneself to human efforts at atonement, and of thus underemphasizing the role of Christ. Collange’s claim that the teaching of “predestination” is rooted in Paul and that the doctrine of merits and indulgences is rooted in Augustine is criticized, and Luther’s “forensic” understanding is linked with Augustine, rather than with (...) Paul. Collange’s reduction of the concern for holiness to respect and trust is contrasted with holiness’s essential context of loving unification with God. The commentary closes by exposing the unsatisfactory scantiness of Collange’s treatment of cloning, health-care economy, and of the evils of life. (shrink)

The author criticizes the essays in this issue by Waters, Erickson, Trotter and Verhey for not placing an adequate Christology at the center of their definitions what is Christian bioethics.

The December 1927 issue of the SCHOOLMAN contained Father Lord's forceful statements contending that philosophers could do nothing more conducive to their scholastic success than give forth again the philosophy they had assimilated by writing it out. The present vivid story is proof that Father Lord himself had "practiced what he preaches," for he wrote it during his own philosophate career. It is through the kind permission of the Editor of America, that this article appears in our magazine.

Religion, defined as ‘the idea of a state that transcends ourselves and our world and the working out of the consequences of that idea’, may influence the ethical thinking of scientists and engineers in two ways. The first is at the level of the individual and how personal beliefs affect the choice of research, design or development projects, relationships with other researchers and the understandings of the consequences of research on other aspects of life. The second level is that of (...) the social and cultural setting in which scientists and engineers work; how society decides which research to sponsor, how to apply the results of scientific discovery and which technology it chooses to develop and for what purposes. In neither of these areas is religious belief a necessary condition for scientists and engineers to pursue one course of action rather than another. The existence of religious belief within the individual and society is, though, part of the ethical framework in which scientist and engineers work and therefore something to which attention should be paid. Religion provides a particular perspective on what should be. Conversely science and technology provide information on the nature of the person and the universe in which we live, which must be taken into account when theologians and religious moralists apply their ethical norms and principles. (shrink)

(1990). Uncertainty as a Technique of the Exercise of Power: An Approach to the Question of Transition. World Futures: Vol. 29, Transition in Eastern Europe, pp. 47-67.