This paper is divided into four sections. -/- The first section contains an informal characterization of what may, for the purposes of this discussion, be referred to as the standard interpretation of theological statements. -/- Then, in the second section, I mention two challenges to the commonsense view that theological statements have cognitive content: the quote “falsifiability challenge” and the “ translatability challenge”. -/- Both of these challenges involve an appeal to an empiricist criterion of cognitive (...) content, but I contend that they are nonetheless very different arguments and that clarity about the fundamental issues involved in the question of theology and verificationism cannot be achieved unless these two lines are argument are carefully distinguished. -/- The third section is concerned with the question of the possibility of an empiricist criterion of cognitive significance. The underlying purpose of the discussion will be to arrive derive at an evaluation of the commonly advanced claim that verificationist objections to the meaningfulness of theological language can be refuted by simply arguing that is not possible to formulate an adequate confirmability criterion of cognitive significance. -/- I then conclude by suggesting some responses that seem more promising. (shrink)

In a recent paper Michael Tooley has argued that theological statements can be confirmed relative to a phenomenalistic observational language given a certain construal of confirmation. Consequently, he maintains that the verificationist challenge to theological statements, namely that in order to be significant they must be confirmable, can be answered. In this paper I will show that Tooley's argument has serious problems.

This chapter contains sections titled: Background Atheism and Meaninglessness The Positivist Verifiability Theory of Meaning Three Typical Responses Three Standard Criticisms of the Theory and Its Present Standing Can the Standard Criticisms be Answered? Conclusion Works cited.

This important contribution to the ground-breaking Radical Orthodoxy series revisits the works of Husserl, Heidegger, Augustine and Derrida to reconsider the challenge of speaking of God through predication, silence, confession and praise. James K. A. Smith argues for God's own refusal to avoid speaking as well as for our urgent need of words to make Him visible to us. This leads to a radical new "incarnational phenomenology" in which God's love endows imperfect signs with the means to indicate true states (...) of infinitude, and in which we may ultimately discover a new theology of the arts. (shrink)

In this book Christopher Norris develops the case for scientific realism by tackling various adversary arguments from a range of anti-realist positions. Through a close critical reading he shows how they fail to make adequate sense on any rational, consistent and scientifically informed survey of the evidence. Along the way he incorporates a number of detailed case-studies from the history and philosophy of science. Norris devotes much of his discussion to some of the most prominent and widely influential source-texts of (...) anti-realism. Also included are the sophisticated versions of verificationism developed by thinkers such as Michael Dummett and Bas van Fraassen. Central to Norris's argument is a prolonged engagement with the once highly influential but nowadays neglected work of Norwood Russell Hanson. This book will be welcomed especially by readers who possess some knowledge of the background debate and who wish to deepen and extend their understanding of these issues beyond an introductory level. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This essay’s aim is to demonstrate how recent defenses of divine simplicity have failed to address the prevailing challenge of analogical language, and thereby render much of their argumentation for simplicity’s appropriateness in Christian theology null-and-void. For this task, three book-length works published within the last few years are examined: Steven Duby’s Divine Simplicity: A Dogmatic Account, D. Stephen Long’s The Perfectly Simple Triune God: Aquinas and His Legacy, and Jordan Barrett’s Divine Simplicity: A Biblical and Trinitarian Account. (...) The first section briefly details what each author understands divine simplicity to characterize, and how that characterization involves the pivotal denial of God belonging to any genus. The second section addresses the extent to which each author provides an answer as to how one can analogically speak of a simple God. Finally, the third section critiques the kinds of analogical positions found in Thomas Cajetan’s influential De Nominum Analogia, showing that they do not provide a sufficient analogical framework to ground intelligible propositions or inferences about a simple God, which thereby places the original three authors’ defenses in danger of serious incoherence. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 66.4 (2005) 527-539 [Access article in PDF] Salvatore Camporeale's Contribution to Theology and the History of the Church Mariangela Regoliosi University of Florence Salvatore Camporeale's research, as rich and varied as it was, revolved around several primary axes and was inspired by several fundamental concerns.1 One of the objectives that certainly oriented his cultural effort was a serious, critical, and passionate desire to (...) reform the church, to recuperate its radical and founding truths, to go beyond all superstructure and pseudo-truth. I believe that, for this very reason, Camporeale engaged with Valla (to whom he devoted most of his scholarly work): because the latter had, with extraordinary lucidity, raised issues and proposed solutions in perfect keeping with his own essential needs.Naturally, arriving at such a perception of the innovativevalue and ideological depth of Valla's thoughtinvolved far more than this. We are indebted to Camporeale for having developed the lesson of his mentor, Eugenio Garin: that is, the view that—against the interpretive limitations widely heldby other scholars and other schools—Lorenzo Valla was not onlythe excellentphilological emender of Livy's text, nor simply the "grammarian" restorer of the Latin language, but that such tangible gifts and capacities were sustained by more general philosophical motives and by an organic project of cultural refounding, that would challenge established categoriesin all fields, from language to history to theology.Camporeale was thus able to identify—beginning with his distinguished book published in 1972, Lorenzo Valla. Umanesimo e teologia—the foundations and ultimate scope of Valla's philosophy of language and, consequently, the unifying elements in his apparently heterogeneous works, which range from historiography to historical criticism, from ethics to linguistics, from [End Page 527] logic to rhetoric, from the philological study of classical works to that of the NewTestament. And he was able to see that, also for Valla, the critical revision of the ecclesiastical tradition, and of the "models" of theological discourse, had been a Leitmotiv or, better yet, an arrival point.It is within this specific, though not limited sphere of inquiry that I intend to situate my study, a personal, brief recollection of the friend we lost. Therefore, I will focus on two particular contributions, one from 1977, Lorenzo Valla tra Medioevo e Rinascimento. "Encomion s. Thomae". 1457, the other from 1988, Lorenzo Valla e il "De falso credita donatione". Retorica, libertà ed ecclesiologia nel '400. As their titles openly declare, they investigate two of Valla's works diverging not only in time but in content as well ("De falso credita donatione" dates from 1440, the "Encomion sancti Thomae" from 1457); the one is intended to denounce the so-called "Donation of Constantine" as a forgery, the other to commemorate Saint Thomas on the day of his liturgical anniversary. And yet, Camporeale correctly identifies a peculiar and intrinsic unity in these works, namely the effort to rediscover an authentic Christianity: an authentic "form" of the church on the one hand, and an authentic "form" of Christian theology on the other.I will start with, and devote special attention to, the Encomion sancti Thomae. Camporeale correctly recognized this short text as Valla's "spiritual testament," not only, or not so much because it is his last piece of writing (he died a few months after the Encomion), but because, in a few dense but clear pages, it sums up Valla's entire logico-linguistic program and, consequently, his stance on the expressive potentialities of human language, up to the highest levels of the expressible, those of metaphysics and of theology. The way Camporeale develops his considerations on the "panegyric" is admirable, as he supports it with the experienced philosophical and theological competence (in the history of theology, and especially Thomistic theology) that he, as a Dominican, mastered so well. (In passing, it is worth noting that such competence alone could allow for a thorough assessment of the historical significance of Valla's discourse, too frequently trivialized or misunderstood by readers lacking the necessary tools). The following... (shrink)

In South Africa and in many other countries in Africa and around the globe, the demand for more Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) candidates has increased. With such a demand, a number of challenges also arise. In the discipline of Theology, these challenges are becoming apparent in Old and New Testament Studies, where these fields are experiencing a declining number of students enrolling for biblical languages. This problem is enhanced as the current inherent requirement to study for a PhD (...) in Old Testament is that one must have a knowledge of Biblical Hebrew (and Aramaic), and for New Testament, one needs Greek at an advanced level. Supervisors are challenged more and more to defend these requirements that are complicated by the developmental goals of institutions that require that the number of PhD candidates be increased. In this article, the challenges faced by PhD supervisors (and candidates) in respect of students wanting to enrol for PhDs in Old and New Testament without the necessary requirements are considered, and a case is made as to why it is essential that these students have a background in biblical languages. If students do not take the biblical languages as part of their (undergraduate) studies, immediate concerns for the future of Old and New Testament research and biblical translations (and ministry) are raised. The article concludes with possible suggestions for addressing some of these concerns. Contribution: This article makes an interdisciplinary contribution based on current challenges experienced in the education and supervision of postgraduate studies in the fields of Old Testament and New Testament and on the development and training of postgraduate supervisors in practical education as to contribute to the relevance and practice of theological education today and the future. (shrink)

Current philosophical and legal bioethical reflection on reprogenetics provides little more than a rationalization of the interests of science. There are two reasons for this. First, bioethicists attempt to address ethical issues in a “language of precision” that characterizes science, and this works against analogical and narratological modes of discourse that have traditionally provided guidance for understanding human nature and purpose. Second, the current ethical and legal debate is framed by a public/private distinction that banishes robust norms to the (...) private realm, and leaves a minimalist public discourse of harm avoidance that is insufficient for regulating the science. In this essay, I argue that Mark Hanson's account of anxiety provides a valuable starting point for addressing deficiencies in the current philosophical and legal debate, and it highlights the need for a theological discourse on genetic enhancements. Through an assessment of Joel Shumann's criticism of the public/private distinction, I show how the needed theological discourse should be situated in the context of robust communities, and how such a communitarian inter-ethic is compatible with a variant of liberalism. Finally, I critically assess James Keenan's account of virtue and perfection, in order to outline what a sufficient discourse on reproductive and genetic enhancements requires. (shrink)

The eight essays assembled under this title were originally presented at the 1965 Great Thinkers Forum sponsored by the Department of Philosophy and Religion at the University of Georgia. These essays are now being published in the conviction that they all make "valuable contributions toward the understanding and resolution of the contemporary challenge to theology and religion." The challenge in question is the one that comes from neopositivism and linguistic analysis. By the time the reader comes to the end of (...) his own effort he finds himself wondering in what sense the 1965 papers are to count as valuable contributions. No doubt they are valuable in the sense that it is worthwhile watching a single-minded philosopher pouring his soul out in an attempt at showing how the "disguised nonsense" of religious language is "patent nonsense," or how the "putatively factual assertions" of religious language are "bogus, pseudo-factual statements, devoid of the kind of intelligibility that believers rightly demand of them." Along the way one may collect pearls of rare beauty, such as the statement that "There is no convention in English or logical rule which makes ‘there is no God’ a contradiction," or questions such as "Who has observed him under controlled conditions?" Another contribution of the same general usefulness may well be that the thoughtful reader is being initiated to the exertions of that transformational hermeneutics by which pseudo-assertive religious statements are being rescued from wholesale meaninglessness, and accorded the innocuous meaningfulness of emotive or convictional language, or of disguised moral discourse. Professor Frank H. Harrison III makes an interesting attempt at injecting into the landscape, linguistically and epistemologically so bleak, what he calls "knowledge by acquaintance," which is in his vocabulary the equivalent of what mysticism calls amor Dei, and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry describes as a seeing with the heart. The discussion of myth by Professor Robert H. Ayers ignores what happens to be the heart of the matter in mythic thinking, namely the absence of the distinction between object and subject, but does provide a good introduction to the "profusion of confusion" that flourishes around myth, "one of the most traveled hobos in our times.". (shrink)

This article explores the way in which Madhva (1238–1317), the founder of the Dvaita Vedānta system of Hindu thought, reformulates the traditional exegetic practice of nirukta or “word derivation” to validate his pluralistic, hierarchical, and Vaiṣṇava reading of the Ṛgvedic hymns. Madhva’s Ṛgbhāṣya (RB) is conspicuous for its heavy reliance on and unique deployment of this exegetical tactic to validate several key features of his distinctive theology. These features include his belief in Viṣṇu’s unique possession of all perfect attributes (guṇaparipūrṇatva) (...) and His related conveyability by all Vedic words (sarvaśabdavācyatva). Such an understanding of Vedic language invokes the basic nirukta presupposition that words are eternally affiliated with the meanings they convey. But it is also based onMadhva’s access to a lexicon entitled Vyāsa’s Nirukti with which his critics and perhaps even his commentators seem to be unfamiliar.While the precise status of this text is the subject of ongoing debate, Madhva’s possession of special insight into the sacred canon is established in part by his unique claim to be an avatāra of the wind god Vāyu and a direct disciple of Viṣṇu Himself in the form of Vyāsa1. Thus, Madhva’s use of nirukta invokes his personal charisma to challenge not only conventional understandings of the hymns but traditional exegetic norms. Madhva’s provision of an alternative tradition of nirukta provoked sectarian debate throughout the Vijayanagara period over the extent to which one could innovate in established practices of reading the Veda. Articulating the Veda’s precise authority was a key feature of Brahmin debates during this period and reflects both the empire’s concern with promoting a shared religious ideology and the competition among rival Brahman sects for imperial patronage that this concern elicited. By looking at how two of Madhva’s most important commentators (the 14th-century Jayatīrtha and the 17th-century Rāghavendra) sought to defend his niruktis, this article will explore how notions of normative nirukta were articulated in response to Madhva’s deviations. At the same time, however, examining Madhva’s commentators’ defense of his niruktis also demonstrates the extent to which Madhva actually adhered to selected exegetic norms. This reveals that discomfort with Madhva’s particular methods for deriving words stemmed, in part, from a more general ambivalence towards this exegetical tactic whose inherent open-endedness threatened to undermine the fixity of the canon’s very substance: its language. (shrink)

In today’s society, models of God are challenged to account for more than the postmodern context in which Western Christianity finds itself; they should also consider the reality of religious pluralism. Non-monotheistic religions present a particular challenge to Western theological and philosophical God-modeling because they require a model of Gods. This paper uses an African traditional religion as a case study to problematize the effects of monotheism on philosophical models of God. The desire to uphold the image of a (...) singular God tends to invalidate religious experiences that deviate from a given scientifically-verifiable norm. It also mischaracterizes the concept of divinity in religions that maintain divine multiplicity. That is, scholars of African traditional religions affirm that “polytheism” is not an accurate naming of their traditions; rather these religions affirm a community of gods. I propose a Whiteheadian process model that describes a community of gods that has active interaction with the temporal world. Such a model not only broadens conversations of religious pluralism for Western-trained religious scholars, but also acknowledges the Western context in which many practitioners of African traditional religions live. (shrink)

This book uses insights from disability studies to understand in a deeper way the ethical implications that genetic technologies pose for Christian thought. Theologians have been debating genetic engineering for decades, but what has been missing from many theological debates is a deep concern for persons with genetic disabilities. In this ambitious and stimulating book, Devan Stahl argues that engagement with metaphysics and a theology of nature is crucial for Christians to evaluate both genetic science and the moral use (...) of genetic technologies, such as human genetic engineering, gene therapy, genetic screenings, preimplantation genetic diagnosis, and gene editing. Using theological notions of creation ex nihilo and natural law alongside insights from disability studies, the book seeks to recast the debate concerning genetic well-being. Following the work of Stanley Hauerwas, Stahl proposes the church as the locus for reimagining disability in a way that will significantly influence the debates concerning genetic therapies. Stahl's project in "genethics" proceeds with an acute awareness of her own liberal Protestant tradition's early embrace of the eugenics movement in the name of scientific and medical advancement, and it constructively engages the Catholic tradition's metaphysical approach to questions in bioethics to surpass limitations to Protestant thinking on natural law. Christianity has all too frequently been complicit in excluding, degrading, and marginalizing people with disabilities, but the new Christian metaphysics developed here by way of disability perspectives provides normative, theological guidance on the use of genetic technologies today. As Stahl shows in her study, only by heeding the voices of people with disabilities can Christians remain faithful to the call to find Christ in "the least of these" and from there draw close to God. This book will be of interest to scholars in Christian ethics, bioethics, moral theology, and practical theology. (shrink)

There are several tensions present in George Lindbeckís postliberal theology. One of these is between realist intuitions and a non-epistemic account of truth, on the one hand, and a social- constructivist non-realism with regard to theological statements. Theology is relegated to the status of second-order discourse, while first order language comprises the practices, rituals, vocabulary of a religion. I am challenging this intermediary status of religion with the help of Donald Davidsonís critique of the dualism between scheme and (...) content. Since there isnít much to be made of the notion of epistemic intermediaries (either as ëcontentí or as ëschemeí) it does not make sense to continue to speak either in terms of realism or of non-realism. This clears the way for treating theology as cognitive. (shrink)

This paper is a response to Wolfhart Pannenberg's “God as Spirit—and Natural Science” (2001). I argue that the distinctiveness and significance of Pannenberg's approach to the conversation between theology and science lies in his method of relating biblical‐theological concepts specifically and directly to scientific knowledge and theories. The example at issue in this paper is his correlation of the biblical‐theological term spirit to the scientific term field. This approach is both distinctive and the most difficult of challenges. (...) However, it results in a genuinely theological interpretation of the scientific knowledge of the world. In his argument, Pannenberg asserts that his use of the term field is both similar to and different from the scientific use of the term. This assertion is provocative, but it also requires further discussion. (shrink)

There are many versions of naturalism as an overall position, and there are several significant and influential kinds of naturalism in ethics. The latter views may or may not be realist, and, if realist, may or may not be reductive in one or another sense. The antirealist versions include the noncognitivist view that moral claims do not ascribe genuine properties and, unlike assertions of fact, are not strictly speaking true or false. Which of these views, if any, are harmonious with (...) theism, particularly the monotheistic view that God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent? More broadly, which, if any, are a good basis for ethical reflection in the field of religion, conceived broadly as including nontheistic religions? One would think that, whether or not divine directives determine our obligations, the very existence of God would guarantee that there is a real distinction between right and wrong–or anyway that there are normatively authoritative standards of conduct, as there may be even in nontheistic religions. This essay will clarify naturalism in ethics, identify some major options for theologically oriented ethics, and sketch an ethical view that might capture many of the best elements in both perspectives. (shrink)

This article aims to respond to Vuyani Vellem’s challenge to black theology of liberation to ‘think beyond rethinking and repeating its tried and tested ways of responding to black pain caused by racism and colonialism’. Vellem argued that ‘BTL needs to unthink the west by focusing on and retaining African spirituality as a cognitive spirituality’ for the liberation of black people in South Africa. This article argues that Ubuntu is the spirituality of liberation that BTL needs to advance as one (...) of its interlocutors. This research work will consult the literature emerging from African philosophy, ethics, spirituality and BTL arguing that Ubuntu is an indigenous philosophy, spirituality that continues to exist in the languages and culture of the Abantu speaking people. This article is dedicated to the memory of Vellem as a BTL scholar and a faithful believer of the liberative paradigms of BTL.Contribution: The scholarly contribution of this article is its focus on the systematic and practical reflection, within a paradigm in which the intersection of religious studies, social sciences and humanities generate an interdisciplinary contested discourse. (shrink)

Introduction: Context and hisotry -- Introducing the dailogue partners : Torrance and Feyerabend -- Torrance : theology cohabiting with natural science -- Torrance's proposal : a new objectivity -- Feyerabend's challenge : 'knowledge without foundations' -- Two excuses -- Coherence and language -- From foundations to spirals -- Conclusion.

The article analyzes the main preconditions for the formation of pro-Ukrainian views among students of the Kyiv Theological Academy and determines their percentages among the graduates from the 1890s to 1907. When in the late 1850s and the early 1860s the Ukrainian intelligentsia carried out semi-legal cultural and educational work within Ukrainophile communities, few students of the Academy took part in their activities, with only 4 participants being active members in the Kyiv Hromada. Later, when students from the 1890s (...) to 1907 at the Kyiv Theological Academy joined the national movement, pro-Ukrainian activities became more popular with the clergy. According to statistical and biographical data gathered by the author, the percentage of nationally-minded graduates among Ukrainian-born students at the Academy varied from 5 to 38% depending on the year of graduation. They engaged in educational work in schools, popularized Ukrainian-language literature, collected ethnographic materials, studied the history of their native land, and translated religious literature. Moreover, 11 students left their mark in the history of the hromada movement. Such well-known public figures as Oleksandr Lototskyi, Volodymyr Durdukivskyi, Serhii Lypkivskyi, and Volodymyr Chekhivskyi, who all played a significant role in the events of the national revolution and the struggle for the independence of Ukraine, deserve special mention. Active participation of Academy graduates in Ukrainian public life challenges the general view of the Kyiv Theological Academy as a highly reactionary educational institution that trained cadres who served only the interests of the Russian Empire. (shrink)

Philosopher Daniel C. Fouke sheds the light of rhetorical analysis on a subversive thinker whose challenges to institutional authority have awakened recent scholarly interest. John Toland was a controversial Irish-born British freethinker, satirist, and critic of traditional Christianity. His work Christianity Not Mysterious, now considered a classic exposition of deism, provoked outrage in its time, but eventually led to a healthy skepticism regarding the historical reliability of the biblical canon. Though little known today, Toland was an acquaintance of Gottfried (...) Wilhelm Leibniz, John Locke, and Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury, among others. Fouke argues that Toland's use of language in theology and philosophy represents a neglected current of early modern thought, in significant contrast to Locke, to whom Toland is often compared. Toland's practice of philosophy recognizes a social dimension to knowledge, which cannot be found in many of his contemporaries. Fouke analyzes Toland's "exoteric strategy" of speaking as others speak, but with a different meaning. He argues that Toland's philosophy and theology had little to do with positive expression of beliefs, and that his philosophical aim was not to develop an epistemology, a true metaphysical system, an ideal form of governance, or the basis of ethical obligation, but to find ways to participate in the discourses of others while undermining those discourses from within. Fouke traces Toland's practices to Shaftesbury's conception of a comic or "derisory" mode of philosophizing aimed at exposing pedantry, imposture, dogmatism, and folly. This important study adds new depth to our understanding of a neglected though influential British writer. (shrink)

To liberate man, that is the theologian's task. But ever since the eighteenth-century Enlightenment theologians have been accused of failing dismally in this task. 'Who is this God you speak of? Why should I believe in him? Anyway, what difference will it make to me or anybody else if I do?' These are the most urgent of man's religious questions. And still it is widely believed that theologians have shrunk from giving answers to these questions in terms meaningful today, or (...) even that they have concealed their incapacity to give answers by discussing these fundamental questions in a technical language only comprehensible to themselves. Here, however, is a daring attempt to grapple with these basic questions compactly and in a language shorn of all jargon. The author is writing specifically of the Christian God, the trinitarian God, but this is no abstract exposition of formal points of doctrine. He discusses the present crisis of faith, traces its origins in the history of Christianity, describes how our idea of God has developed from Old Testament times to the present day, underlines the importance of insights of some of the greatest (and frequently most misunderstood) modern theologians and points to the challenge to so much of our thinking about God implicit in our new understanding of the individual's relationship to the community and in our discovery that the God of Christians is essentially a 'God of the future' -- "He who is to come.". (shrink)

During the course of his lengthy career, Edward Schillebeeckx has developed a series of epistemological frameworks which inform his theology. Using the metaphor of “circle” to describe these frameworks, the article will argue that Schillebeeckx in his earlier theology describes experience and knowledge within the framework of an ontological circle of subject and object. In his later work, Schillebeeckx develops a second, hermeneutical circle and finally a critical circle of theory and praxis. Later developments in his thought both depend upon (...) and radically re-interpret the earlier circles of epistemology. Since all theological language and practice must originate within the boundaries of human knowledge and experience, only by this reinterpretation of epistemology, Schillebeeckx argues, can Christian theology begin to meet the challenge of the understanding of faith in the modern and postmodern world. (shrink)

The 21st century has witnessed an urgent need to digitise, learn, manage, preserve and exchange oral history in South Africa. This forms the background of the demonisation of indigenous knowledge systems that has impacted negatively and eroded the African values, norms, purpose, growth, sustainability and improvement of indigenous communities. In light of this realisation, this article explores the challenges offered by digitisation of VhaVenda oral history. It is well known that the digitisation of oral tradition carries both the good (...) and the bad. Journalists, academics and archivists of oral history cannot become spectators and allow challenges to stop them from collecting, recording and managing valuable heritages. The article is premised upon the Sankofa and critical theory frameworks. An Afrocentric participatory and exploratory qualitative research design was employed to investigate the data. VhaVenda knowledge holders, journalists, academics, and archivists’ views were solicited using semistructured interviews. Participants were selected using purposive sampling. The article’s findings unveiled that the digitisation of VhaVenda oral tradition has been an acute daily agony because of the following thorny issues: language issues, methodological challenges, sponsorship and the politics of preferring. Because the country faces the danger of losing out on gaining the benefits of VhaVenda oral history, the authors encourage and promote a holistic approach embracing multiple stakeholders to overcome the challenges faced in digitising the VhaVenda oral tradition.Contribution: The study advocates for the balancing of ancient traditional forms and relating them to present technology so that oral history trajectories march into the future, grounded in Afrocentric expressions whilst maintaining flexibility to accommodate the versatile nature of culture by embracing technology. (shrink)

Studies of conceptual and neural mapping in cognitive linguistics, while posing a fundamental challenge for religious belief, also suggest new ways of understanding how people conceptualize God and make theological inferences. This book, inspired by that research and attentive to the distinctive insights of Christian theology, elaborates an innovative explanation of God-talk, better able to credibly address confusion and controversies that trouble the church, academic theology, and broader culture. The first part analyzes both cognitive linguistics' challenge to standard (...) class='Hi'>theological depictions of metaphorical, analogous, symbolic, and literal language, and the discipline's promise for providing a more satisfactory account. The second half examines six case studies to illustrate how clarifying the conceptual mapping in God-talk and theological inferences provides a powerful tool for advancing religious understanding. The illustrations include the hypothesis that religion is an epiphenomenon of evolution, the so-called new atheism, Black theology, and controversies between theologians and Church authorities. (shrink)

In its concern to evoke in its readership an appropriate response to the challenge posed by the contemporary environmental crisis, the recent papal encyclical Laudato Si': On Care for our Common Home differentiates between the task of human education, on the one hand, and the deeper and more abstract task of motivating the human will for change and action, on the other. What must take place, it asserts, is the creation of nothing less than an ‘ecological citizenship’. To describe how (...) this might be brought about, the encyclical employs the theological language of ‘conversion’. However, the rationale for this suggestion, and the implications it would entail for the way in which educational programmes on the environment might be pursued, is developed only minimally in the encyclical itself. The objective of this article is to take up and develop this hint by offering some philosophical and theological perspectives on the idea of human motivation towards care for the environment, and by exploring the current state of affairs in environmental education in light of it. The article therefore aims to develop the encyclical's brief and unthematized suggestion regarding an ‘ecological citizenship’ in a practical and applied direction.© 2018 Trustees for Roman Catholic Purposes Registered. (shrink)

Heidegger and Gadamer are typically read by different theologians. Heidegger tends to be read by philosophical theologians examining his contribution to matters of doubt, existential finitude, and atheism. Gadamer tends to be read by those with an interest in interpreting the Bible, especially by those with more confessional or epistemically optimistic sensibilities. In both cases, Heidegger and Gadamer have well-established associations with specific theological positions. Joshua Broggi challenges this arrangement by re-reading the primary texts as theological resources; (...) he defends an alternative theological appropriation of their philosophical work through a close engagement with portions of their argument. What emerges from Broggi's examination is an account of the unity of tradition, reason, and scriptural language. This account goes beyond claims of their relatedness, which are uncontroversial, and advances the stronger argument that they name the very same thing. Although initially counterintuitive, the central task set by both Heidegger and Gadamer is the investigation of that one phenomenon. This argument challenges the pervasive image in which Christians rely on 'tradition' to 'reason' about the meaning of 'scripture'. It puts into question the injunction that theologians should balance the resources of scripture, tradition, and reason. Broggi offers an account of Christian life as more fundamental than certain entities which are distilled out of it, namely: scripture, tradition and reason. (shrink)

We face reality presented with the data of conscious experience and nothing else. The project of early modern philosophy was to build a complete theory of the world from this starting point, with no cheating. Crucial to this starting point is the data of conscious sensory experience – sense data. Attempts to avoid this project often argue that the very idea of sense data is confused. But the sense-data way of talking, the sense-data language, can be freed from every (...) blemish using ideas from contemporary metaontology. We can adopt a sense-data framework that vindicates the traditional claims of sense-data theories and leads to plausible theories of perception and color. We can, we should, and in a sense, we must. Yet when we do, we face the traditional problem of external world skepticism, head-on. The real challenge of skepticism is forced upon us; it cannot honestly be avoided using externalist tricks, burden of proof shifting, or other razzle dazzle. But the challenge can be met: we are rational to posit the external world as the best explanation of the many synchronic and diachronic patterns over our sense-data. This paper argues for all of these points and ends with a plea for analytic empiricism – a traditional sense-data version of empiricism that uses all of the tools of analytic philosophy while avoiding the more questionable doctrines of the Vienna Circle (phenomenalism, verificationism). Analytic empiricism is our last best hope for completing the great philosophical project of early modern philosophy. (shrink)

The article discusses the challenge of Indecent Theology to Latin American liberation theology and feminist theology in unmasking their implicit support for the binary, heterosexual norms of society. Althaus-Reid argues that theology is a sexual act, and provides rich metaphors and language for a vibrant sexual political theology. Her work undresses conventional Christian symbols by queering the intersection of theology, sexuality, and politics.

This essay examines the rhetoric of war in the second edition of Karl Barth's Der Römerbrief. It argues that such rhetoric serves awell-defined purpose, particularly with regard to Barth's theological anthropology. Specifically, the appropriation of language associable with war helps Barth to portray the human being as he or she is confronted – attacked, in fact – by God's majestic, self-sufficient alterity; redefined by Christ's vicarious death, which effects our translation into a new, redeemed condition; and called to (...) a new kind of ethical and political discipleship, pertinent to the challenges faced by Europeans in the aftermath of the Great War. The essay shows, in fact, that the rhetoric of war in Der Römerbrief is not merely symptomatic of the historical context in which Barth wrote. Instead of being controlled by his context, Barth hopes to intervene in it, and enlists the language of war to support a compelling theological proposal. (shrink)

With a challenging title, based on an anecdote about a dialogue between a scientist/philosopher and a lady on the structure of the universe, David Kirchhoffer proposes that the insight that human beings are the world (rather than merely live in the world) should be our starting point for reflections on theological anthropology. Relationality thus being the key-word for an up-to-date theological anthropology, this chapter discusses the main challenges that such an anthropology faces: first, anthropocentrism (challenged by the (...) ecological crises, the debate on who counts as a person and technology); second, historicity (as introduced by social-constructivism and as taken more seriously in the Christian tradition in recent decades); third, vulnerability (as a morally neutral consequence of our interdependency); and finally, language (as a means to engage with diverse discourses ranging from art through to philosophy,business and cognitive neuropsychology). More than claiming to know the solutions for these different challenges, Kirchhoffer rather encourages theologians to further reflect on them and the way they are discussed in theological and other discourses with a necessary (self-)critical epistemological suspicion. For only in this way will we arrive at a relevant theological discourse on what human beings are, and be a legitimate dialogue partner for other discourses. (shrink)

The defects and blank spaces of language are a challenge for any theology that sees itself as a linguistic reflection of faith. If theology pretends to speaking with any philosophical relevance, it must respect these gaps. Hermeneutics and deconstruction offer philosophical ways of analysing these linguistic gaps present in theology. In this way, they can integrate the linguistic turn of philosophy into theology. The hermeneutical theology of the twentieth century is at an impasse. Insofar as deconstruction carries critically different (...) elements of the linguistic philosophy of hermeneutics forward, it provides theology with new opportunities to reflect on its own linguistic structure. (shrink)

In South Africa scholars in the broad field of practical theology are currently faced with a daunting challenge: to rethink the reconciling role of the institutional church in the light of continued challenges facing reconciliation within post-apartheid and post-Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) South Africa. This contribution investigates whether the transdisciplinary, region-centred scientific research approach with a focus on the Hölderlin perspective on reconciliation could assist scholars in practical theology to address reconciliation in a post-apartheid and post-TRC society. The (...) article proposes a contextual and constructive approach to reconciliation in order to assist South African scholars in the field of practical theology and the institutional church to address the challenges of reconciliation in a postapartheid and post-TRC society. The contribution confirms that this approach does indeed assist the field of practical theology to contribute to reconciliation without the risk of speaking a language that nobody beyond theology can understand. (shrink)

First there is some preliminary clearing of the deck. I argue against Verificationism, and against Wittgensteinians. Then I turn to the main topics and the reference of “God.” Descriptive and direct reference are contrasted; it is held that both figure in religious discourse. The other main topic is the interpretation of the predicates of statements about God. It is inevitable that the basic theological predicates from which all others are derived are borrowed from elsewhere, primarily talk about human persons. (...) So the crucial question is how their senses in theological use are related to their senses in “secular” discourse. After rejecting the univocity position and the claim that they are all used metaphorically in application to God, reasons are explored for rejecting even partial univocity. The remaining alternative is an analogy between theological and anthropomorphic senses, an analogy that cannot be completely spelled out. For if we could, that would amount to partial univocity. (shrink)

The Homo naledi discovery introduced questions that had not been previously posed regarding fossil finds. This is because, apart from their fascinating physiology, they seemingly deliberately disposed of their dead in a ritualised way. Although this theory may still be disproved in future, the present article provisionally accepts it. This evokes religious questions because it suggests the possibility of causal thinking, wilful and cooperative behaviour, and the possibility that this behaviour entails traces of proto-religious ideas. This poses the challenge to (...) develop a hominin hermeneutics that endeavours to reconstruct the possible motivation behind this action. The relatively larger brain with its enlarged Broca's area suggests the possibility of a sophisticated communication system and an enhanced way of dealing with emotion. We know that almost all life forms have some form of awareness and that more sophisticated degrees of consciousness may be present in the higher primates. Various 'clues' are investigated to try and understand the H. naledi phenomenon: lessons from chimpanzee studies, the implications of tool making for hominin development, the possibility of a proto-language and the role symbol formation may have played. The H. naledi case also indicates on a theological level that religion is natural. Some attention is given to this thesis. Biological and environmental factors come into play to illuminate biological factors like emotion and higher cognition without which religion would not be possible. Sophisticated cognition is coloured by affect and this makes some form of reflection on the fate of loved ones who have died a strong possibility. (shrink)

In the academic year 1920-1921 at the University of Freiburg, Martin Heidegger gave a series of extraordinary lectures on the phenomenological significance of the religious thought of St. Paul and St. Augustine. The publication of these lectures in 1995 settled a long disputed question, the decisive role played by Christian theology in the development of Heidegger’s philosophy. The lectures present a special challenge to readers of Heidegger and theology alike. Experimenting with language and drawing upon a wide range of (...) now obscure authors, Heidegger is finding his way to Being and Time through the labyrinth of his Catholic past and his increasing fascination with Protestant theology. A Companion to Heidegger's Phenomenology of Religious Life is written by an international team of Heidegger specialists. (shrink)

This essay seeks to articulate the many implications which Giorgio Agamben's work holds for theology. It aims, therefore, to examine his conceptualizations of language in light of particular historical glosses on the “name of God” and the nature of the “mystical,” as well as to highlight the political task of profanation, one of his most central concepts, in relation to the logos said to embody humanity's “religious” quest to find its Voice. As such, we see how he challenges (...) those standard notions of transcendence which have been consistently aligned with various historical forms of sovereignty. In addition, I intend to present his redefinition of revelation as solely the unveiling of the “name of God” as the fact of our linguistic being, a movement from the transcendent divine realm to the merely human world before us. By proceeding in this manner, this essay tries to close in on one of the largest theological implications contained within Agamben's work: the establishment of an ontology that could only be described as a form of “absolute” immanence, an espousal of some form of pantheism yet to be more fully pronounced within his writings. (shrink)

This is the first work to combine an introduction to Augustine's _Confessions_ with a larger outline of his mature theology. Mallard provides guidance for reading the narrative _Confessions_ and at the same time, by certain extensions and comments, reveals the three major topical divisions within Augustine's thought: creation, salvation, and the City of God. Mallard is able to do this because Augustine's affirmation of the good of Creation, his view of the human will and God's grace, his sense of a (...) religious people's identity and their hope, and his view of faith and reason were all essentially in place at the time of the _Confessions_. Mallard argues that Augustine was not "in search of himself" in a modern sense but in search of a language of prayer, praise, and truth that would locate him within God's grace. That language turned out to be the language of Incarnation, which remains compelling and inviting today. As a classic work, the _Confessions_ is a monument to its own time, but it has striking resonances for our own. Mallard's interpretation will challenge readers to begin working out their own. The _Confessions_ endures because it is a story that illumines the stories of many, even to the present day. To analyze how it is like, and unlike, modern experiences is to exercise both mind and heart. In that respect, _Language and Love_ is a kind of theological meditation on the Confessions testing out a horizon of belief. Mallard views Augustine as a master of the spoken word in an age of broken and abused language and the _Confessions_ as a historic masterpiece of rhetoric. He contends that Augustine is the ancestor of many today who offer social and political hope through fresh rhetorical vitality. (shrink)

One of the most powerful traditions of the Jewish fascination with language is that of the Name. Indeed, the Jewish mystical tradition would seem a two millennia long meditation on the nature of name in relation to object, and how name mediates between subject and object. Even within the tide of the 20th century's linguistic turn, the aspect most notable in - the almost entirely secular - Jewish philosophers is that of the personal name, here given pivotal importance in (...) the articulation of human relationships and dialogue. The Name of God in Jewish Thought examines the texts of Judaism pertaining to the Name of God, offering a philosophical analysis of these as a means of understanding the metaphysical role of the name generally, in terms of its relationship with identity. The book begins with the formation of rabbinic Judaism in Late Antiquity, travelling through the development of the motif into the Medieval Kabbalah, where the Name reaches its grandest and most systematic statement - and the one which has most helped to form the ideas of Jewish philosophers in the 20th and 21st Century. This investigation will highlight certain metaphysical ideas which have developed within Judaism from the Biblical sources, and which present a direct challenge to the paradigms of western philosophy. Thus a grander subtext is a criticism of the Greek metaphysics of being which the west has inherited, and which Jewish philosophers often subject to challenges of varying subtlety; it is these philosophers who often place a peculiar emphasis on the personal name, and this emphasis depends on the historical influence of the Jewish metaphysical tradition of the Name of God. Providing a comprehensive description of historical aspects of Jewish Name-Theology, this book also offers new ways of thinking about subjectivity and ontology through its original approach to the nature of the name, combining philosophy with text-critical analysis. As such, it is an essential resource for students and scholars of Jewish Studies, Philosophy and Religion. (shrink)

Challenges to Moral and Religious Belief contains fourteen original essays by philosophers, theologians, and social scientists on challenges to moral and religious belief from disagreement and evolution. Three main questions are addressed: Can one reasonably maintain one's moral and religious beliefs in the face of interpersonal disagreement with intellectual peers? Does disagreement about morality between a religious belief source, such as a sacred text, and a non-religious belief source, such as a society's moral intuitions, make it irrational to (...) continue trusting one or both of those belief sources? Should evolutionary accounts of the origins of our moral beliefs and our religious beliefs undermine our confidence in their veracity? This volume places challenges to moral belief side-by-side with challenges to religious belief, sets evolution-based challenges alongside disagreement-based challenges, and includes philosophical perspectives together with theological and social science perspectives, with the aim of cultivating insights and lines of inquiry that are easily missed within a single discipline or when these topics are treated in isolation. The result is a collection of essays--representing both skeptical and non-skeptical positions about morality and religion--that move these discussions forward in new and illuminating directions. -/- Contributors: Robert Audi, University of Notre Dame; Michael Bergmann, Purdue University; Sarah Brosnan, Georgia State University; William FitzPatrick, University of Rochester; John Hare, Yale University; Timothy P. Jackson, Emory University; Patrick Kain, Purdue University; Jordan Kiper, University of Connecticut; Dustin Locke, Claremont McKenna College; Charles Mathewes, University of Virginia; Mark C. Murphy, Georgetown University; John Pittard, Yale Divinity School; Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Duke University; Richard Sosis, University of Connecticut; Sharon Street, New York University; Joshua Thurow, University of Texas at San Antonio; Ralph Wedgwood, University of Southern California. (shrink)

Modern medical ethics developed in America after mid-century chiefly at theological schools, but discourse on bioethics soon moved to the pluralist-secular settings of the academy and the clinic, where it acquired a philosophical and intentionally non-religious cast. An effort was made, on the grounds of ‘liberal culture’ and ‘late Enlightenment rationality’ to find a framework for inquiry which aspired to the universal. Today, while that language persists, it coexists with, challenges, and is challenged by forms of ethical (...) analysis and advocacy which take into consideration the ‘thickness’ of complicating narrative and reasoning based in the many religious traditions. It has become incumbent upon advocates of those traditions to propose ‘publicly accessible’ argument. Keywords: bioethics, church, religion, theology CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Stories about the divine are meant to help our imagination cope with what is ultimately not fully imaginable. In the process we make use of metaphors that rely on quantitative relationships to express the qualitative difference between the reality accessible to us and the transcendent reality of God. For example, because we have no notion of what it would mean to “be outside of time,” eternity tends to be explained in terms of infinite temporality. With the increasingly bizarre and unimaginable (...) worldview of contemporary physics, it is perhaps no longer clear what the difference is between the unknown and the unknowable, or even whether it is possible to articulate a meaningful difference. Science appears to have outrun theology in creating stories that engage our imagination. How to overcome the difficulties this raises, particularly with respect to a widening gulf between academic analysis and popular belief, is at present not clear. A “flight from metaphor” into formalized theory, although apparently valid in science, leads to a dead end in theology. A re‐thinking of many traditional concepts, such as immanence and transcendence, seems to be indicated. (shrink)

Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” is one of the best known and most commented on poems in the English language. According to the critical consensus, the poem is a seduction gambit in the “Carpe Diem” tradition. Interpretive debate therefore revolves around the significance of the allusions and imagery of the poem, rather than its central meaning. Moving against the current, this article challenges the critical consensus that Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” is a poem that has seduction (...) as its main significance or implied intention. Reading the poem with attention to its ironic moments and theological references reveals that its allusions and imagery are systematically ambivalent. In the context of Marvell’s other poetry, especially “Dialogue of the Soul and the Body,” it becomes possible to show that “Coy Mistress” shares many features with these metaphysical meditations on mortality and spirituality. By making reference to psychoanalytic theory, the article then demonstrates the plausibility of a reading in which the poem aims to avoid, rather than engorge, sexual desire. The poem is a monument to repression, and a reminder of mortality, not a love lyric. (shrink)

God Over All: Divine Aseity and the Challenge of Platonism is a defense of God's aseity and unique status as the Creator of all things apart from Himself in the face of the challenge posed by mathematical Platonism. After providing the biblical, theological, and philosophical basis for the traditional doctrine of divine aseity, William Lane Craig explains the challenge presented to that doctrine by the Indispensability Argument for Platonism, which postulates the existence of uncreated abstract objects. Craig provides detailed (...) examination of a wide range of responses to that argument, both realist and anti-realist, with a view toward assessing the most promising options for the theist. A synoptic work in analytic philosophy of religion, this groundbreaking volume engages discussions in philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of language, metaphysics, and metaontology. (shrink)