Science has demonstrated that the universe creates itself through its own history. This history is the result of a probabilistic process, not a deterministic execution of a plan. Science has also documented that human beings are a result of this universal, probabilistic process of general evolution. At first sight, these results seem to contradict Christian teaching. According to the Bible, history is essentially the history of salvation. Human beings therefore are not an “accident of nature” but special creations to (...) be saved. With deeper theological probing, it becomes clearer, however, that creation must create itself. The Christian God is the loving God who enters into a loving relationship with human beings if they desire to reciprocate. If creation could not create itself, human beings could not be free. Without freedom to ignore or reject God's love, the central act of the Christian God, the drama of salvation, would become a parody played by marionettes in the hands of a supernatural manipulator. Christians should welcome the fundamental insight brought forth by science that the universe, including human beings, created itself through its own history. This article will try to show that this scientific insistence is required and confirmed by the intrinsic character of the orthodox, Judeo‐Christian concept of God. That nature has to create itself, including human beings, secures human freedom and with it, the responsibility for human actions. From this perspective one might better understand the Bible in the light of God's revelation through the book of nature. (shrink)

The doctrine of creation and the knowledge of nature have come into tension in modernity. Against this background, the article discusses the basic problems of a theology of nature starting from a systematic theology of religious communication. Dogmatic statements about the world as God’s creation are not about a description of nature and reality but about a reflexive account of Christian–religious communication. The object of the doctrine of creation is thus the world-related contents of (...) the Christian religion as well as the function these have in it. Thus, both the critique of the representational version of the doctrinal tradition’s conception of creation and its reflexive turn in 20th-century Protestant theology are taken up and carried forward in such a way that the belief in creation is not understood as a general qualification of the world but is related to the concrete contents of religious communication. Contribution: The article proposes a new formulation of the traditional doctrine of creation on the basis of a systematic theology of religious communication. This approach is intended to avoid a coexistence of religious belief in creation and scientific explanation of the world, as well as their being pushed into one another. By transferring the belief in creation to Christian–religious communication, the latter thematises how religious contents are created in the Christian religion. (shrink)

In contrast to Christian theology that has ignored science, this essay suggests that a credible doctrine of God as creator must take into account scientific understandings of the world. The introduction of the principle of inertia into seventeenth‐century science and philosophy helped change the traditional idea of God as creator (which included divine conservation and governance) into a deist concept of God. To recapture the idea that God continually creates, it is important to affirm the contingency of the (...) world as a whole and of all events in the world. Reflecting on the interrelationship of contingency and natural law provides a framework for relating scientific theories of a universal field, the concept of emergent evolution, and the theological concept of eternal divine spirit active in all creation. (shrink)

The purpose of this brief study is to ascertain Peter Lombard's understanding of what the Christian doctrine of creation means and his judgment about whether pagan philosophers were able to reach this doctrine through the light of natural reason. Lombard's views on creation set the foundation for thirteenth-century discussions of creation, since all the scholastic masters of Oxford and Paris commented on Lombard's 'Sentences' and thus recorded their agreement or disagreement with him. Lombard's views (...) are of especial importance for understanding Aquinas's teaching on creation, since Aquinas's first detailed discussion of creation takes place in his Sentences Commentary, bk II, d. 1, q. 1, in which he forcefully presents the essence of creation as demonstrable through philosophy, though knowable more perfectly through faith, and reinterprets the essential meaning of creation using Avicenna's metaphysics. My study thus complements the studies of Timothy Noone, Stephen Baldner, William Carroll, Mark Johnson, John F. Wippel, and Lawrence Dewan on how Aquinas's understanding of creation and of whether Plato and Aristotle taught the doctrine of creation differs from that of the immediate Latin scholastic tradition, though I will not be able to show here how Aquinas adapts some of Lombard's ideas and suggestions even as he moves quite far beyond them in metaphysical sophistication. Additionally, the medieval reception of Plato and Aristotle will be touched upon. (shrink)

This article explores the intersection between Karl Barth’s doctrine of creation and African Christology seeking to elicit similarities as well as differences. It argues that this intersection is contested and open to different understanding and interpretation. The common goal amongst the two doctrines is that they derive from biblical teachings about creation and the creator. However, there is also divergence between the doctrines. Barth’s point of departure in his doctrine of creation maintains the Covenant of (...) God to humanity which is not extended to all creation. African Christology’s point of departure, on the other hand, maintains that the relations between God, humanity and all life-forms are sacred because of its intrinsic value and sacramental nature. From an African perspective, creation is mutually related and interconnected to the web of life. All life forms hold intrinsic value. It is argued that African Christology implicates Barth’s Christological focus as something that reveals Barth’s doctrine of creation as anthropocentric.Contribution: The article promotes a multi-disciplinary approach to eco-theology by exploring the intersection between Karl Barth’s doctrine of creation and an African Christological perspective on ecology. It implicates Christian anthropocentrism as a contributory factor to ecological degradation and suggests that African Christology is an important resource for developing a remedial eco-theology. (shrink)

There is a religious ethics implicit in Schleiermacher's doctrine of creation based on the universal feeling of absolute dependence "prior to" its being informed by any historical tradition. The "highest good" which fundamentally characterizes his religious ethics is found at the intersection of God and the World. The "original perfection of man" and the "original perfection of the world" come together when human life in the world is fully informed by the feeling of absolute dependence. Although Schleiermacher did (...) not develop his religious ethics to the same extent as his philosophical and Christian ethics, it should still be of interest to ethicists in many religious traditions, as it establishes contours and sets limits for the ethics of any monotheistic religious tradition. (shrink)

The shape of the Christian doctrine of creation throughout the history of theology has usually been an outcome of the encounter between the revealed Truth and particular philosophical systems. Following this pattern, Joanna Leidenhag strives to convince the reader to join her in embracing the recent resurgence of philosophical panpsychism as a framework that “might benefit the doctrine of creation” ...

All the medical and bioethical questions, ranging from stem cell research to converging technologies and synthetic biology, touch on the question regarding the image of human beings and their position in the cosmos, by which we are able to orient ourselves. This article argues that the biblical belief in creation and the discourse about humans as created beings by and in the image of God can still be proclaimed as a viable form of human self-interpretation in the present. The (...) distinction between practical knowledge and knowledge of orientation may be of help here. Guidance for how to live and act is not best found in abstract principles, but rather in meaningful stories, in metaphors and symbols. On this level, too, is also where faith in creation and the certainty of our own creatureliness is located. Contribution: This article interprets the doctrine of creation by a hermeneutical theology. It analyses the interdependence between hermeneutics and criticism in the process of reinterpreting the classical propositions about the human being and the world as God’s creation and the relation of anthropology and ethics. The aim is to show what might be the contribution of Christian faith in creation to the approach of an ethics of responsibility in the field of bioethics and ecology. The specific contribution of this article to current debates on an ethics of creation is the thesis that the key to a well-balanced theological approach to all this is the Pauline doctrine of justification as interpreted by the protestant reformers. (shrink)

In the proposed article by Maxim Isaenko "Ukrainian Christian tradition of state creation... "on the question of application A comparative methodological approach is presented in the analysis conceptual dispositions available in Ukrainian, Polish, and Russian types of state-building and organization of power institutions. Studying socio-legal models that are characteristic of three Slavic peoples, vectors of kinship and distance are outlined understanding of the phenomena of the state, power, law.

Many Christian scholars have argued that standard versions of evolutionary theory and orthodox theological commitments can be reconciled. Some theistic evolutionists or “evolutionary creationists” have argued that evolutionary mechanisms such as random mutation and natural selection are nothing less than God’s way of creating. Though I dispute the logical coherence of these attempted reconciliations elsewhere, I argue here that there is little reason for Christians to attempt them, since an accumulating body of evidence from multiple subdisciplines of biology casts (...) doubt on the creative power of the main evolutionary mechanisms. Thus, rather than addressing the question, “Can a meaningful doctrine of divine providence or creation be reconciled with mainstream evolutionary theory?” this essay will address the question of whether Christians should, or need to, attempt such a reconciliation at all. (shrink)

In the article, I present the main assumptions of the natural-order theodicy and the free-will theodicy defended by William Hasker. Next, I pose the question of whether Hasker’s theodicies are compatible with the Christian doctrine of continuous creation accepted by Hasker himself. I consider several different ways of how the doctrine of continuous creation can be understood and the difficulties associated with them. Finally, I propose a modified conception of continuous creation and I claim (...) that it is consistent with the main assumptions of William Hasker’s theodicies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Engaging the Doctrine of Israel: A Christian Israelology in Dialogue with Ongoing Judaism by Matthew LeveringJustin Schembri O.P.Engaging the Doctrine of Israel: A Christian Israelology in Dialogue with Ongoing Judaism by Matthew Levering (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2021), 547 pp.Engaging the Doctrine of Israel not only presents an interesting take on an old and complex problem but also is intriguing in its basic thesis (...) and overall development. In this book, Levering attempts, and succeeds, to marry a scripturally grounded dialogue with ongoing Judaism with the necessary presuppositions of Christian dogmatics. He does so in order to understand the central realities of God's biblical people Israel and to shine a light on how these realities must inform Christian thought (3).Such a volume fills a gap in research, since Christian dogmatic studies [End Page 1437] often suffer a lack of appreciating just how important understanding "Israel's covenantal life" is for Christian doctrine (3). Thus, while Levering tells us that this book is "the dogmatic sequel" to his Engaging the Doctrine of Marriage (1), the content of the book cannot be divorced from its scriptural foundation, nor from a contemporary dialogue with Israel.After an ample introduction (1–47), Levering begins his treatment of the matter by explaining the necessary hermeneutical framework in which such an engagement can take place (48–109). This foundational chapter not only provides the grounding for the chapters that follow but also examines the pitfalls to avoid in dialoging with ongoing Israel. In particular, Levering finds a balance in the need for both Christians and Jews to retain core beliefs and a recognition that both sides have suffered from unnecessary and painful biases that have hurt dialogue in the past (52–53).Since Levering is writing from the point of view of a Christian, he is right to point out that a healthy and fruitful dialogue with Judaism in the present moment requires both a solid foundation in Christian doctrine and an acknowledgement of how the New Testament has been misused to reject and subject the Jewish people to injustice over the centuries. Thus, in agreement with the author, I too think that Christian–Jewish dialogue plays a vital role not only in healing such biases but also in bridging needless gaps between the two groups (108–109).This crucial chapter is followed by an examination of six different areas (110–443) in which Levering engages with Israel's doctrine through a Christian lens. In each case, a similar format is found in the sense that Levering first introduces the topic and then engages with different Jewish and Christian scholars in order to elicit a more robust space for dialogue to happen. Each topic of study, then, is brought to a conclusion wherein Levering explicates both the pitfalls to be avoided and what truth can Christians glean.The first area to be discussed is creation (110–46). In this chapter, Levering examines why is it important for both Jews and Christians alike to affirm that omnipotent God created creation ex nihilo. The author is right to point out that if God did not create creation out of nothing, then God is not omnipotent but rather merely a "powerful finite being" (111).While I would have like to see a more robust exegetical analysis on Gen 1:1–2 (especially with regards to bǝrē'šît, since it is not so certain that this prepositional phrase should be interpreted temporally), the author is right to move beyond the metaphysical question of creation ex nihilo, to point out that creation is "also rooted in God's speaking, and thus his Word," since creation must be understood as the way in which God establishes "a dialogic communion" (124) with creation. After all, it is the Word which is [End Page 1438] fundamental; God speaks and practically invites creation to take its place amongst the grooves that God has made.What is more is that this Word, as Levering acknowledges, is both divine and human, since it is the Word of God written in human language. Thus, in Scripture, we cannot escape the "divine–human collaboration" (145) that is willed by... (shrink)

After locating postmodern philosophy in terms of its opposition to the quests for certainty in Descartes and Hegel and commenting briefly on its secular character, the article considers Jean-François Lyotard's critique of modernity's metanarratives and Heidegger's critique of onto-theology. The argument is a) that these critiques are not conceptually linked to the atheistic contexts in which they are found, b) that they can be read as unintentional commentaries on the Christian doctrines of Creation and the Fall and thus (...) on human finitude and fallenness, and c) that when recontextualized in this way these critiques can serve as guides to personal and corporate self-examination, both theoretical and practical. /// O presente artigo, depois de localizar a Filosofia pós-moderna em termos da sua oposição à busca da certeza em Descartes e em Hegel e de comentar brevemente o seu carácter secular, toma em consideração a crítica de Jean-François Lyotard às metanarrativas da modernidade bem como a crítica que Heidegger faz à onto-teologia. O argumento é o seguinte: a) que estas criticas não estão conceptualmente ligadas aos contextos de ateísmo em que se encontram; b) que elas podem ser lidas como comentários não intencionais às doutrinas cristãs da Criação e da Queda e, desse modo, à finitude e fragilidade humana; e c) que quando recontextualizadas desta forma estas criticas podem servirde guias para um exame crítico, tanto teorético como prático, a levar a cabo seja a nível pessoal seja ao nível corporativo. (shrink)

In philosophy of religion the term of Immanence is mostly applied to GOD in contrast to the divine Transcendence. This relation, as we will see here, it is not far from the truth since one cannot be without the other, however they are not to be put in contrast, but in conjunction. The one-sided insistence on the immanence of God, to the exclusion of His transcendence, leads to Pantheism, just as the one-sided insistence upon His transcendence, to the exclusion of (...) His immanence, leads to Deism. These two can be separated, but the consequences are great for human knowledge and society; it is the two taken together that result in, and are necessary to Theism. But from the least complicated idea that even the name of God is a manifestation of His immanence contrasting with Deus absconditus, whose existence and name cannot be known or thought, theology and religion in general need to regard immanence of God as crucial for the acts of worship. What are the philosophical background for Christian theology to imply the immanence characteristic for God’s existence related to His creation? – This is the main question the present work tries to answer as an overview. (shrink)

_Philosophical Theology and Christian Doctrine_ surveys and comments on recent work by philosophers of religion in the analytic tradition on the doctrines of the Christian creed. Topics covered include creation, Incarnation, Trinity, salvation and eschatology, and the ultimate future of creation. Comprehensive survey of core Christian doctrines.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Descartes on the Human Soul: Philosophy and the Demands of Christian DoctrineRichard A. WatsonC. F. Fowler. Descartes on the Human Soul: Philosophy and the Demands of Christian Doctrine. International Archives of the History of Ideas, 160. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1999. Pp. xiii + 438. Cloth, $168.00.As Defender of the Faith, René Descartes wrote his Meditations to fulfill the request of the Fifth Lateran Council (...) in 1513 "to support with rational demonstrations the Church's teaching on the immortality of the soul" (28). This allowed him to dedicate the Meditations to the Faculty of Theology at the Sorbonne in hopes of obtaining their approbation. The Faculty remained silent, but Descartes could interpret this as consent, although he removed from later editions the notice of approbation. What the Council asked for were demonstrations of the immortality of the soul and of the substantial union of the soul with the body.Mersenne thought the Meditiations were going to provide these demonstrations, so he included in the title of the first edition the promise to demonstrate the immortality of the soul, but in later editions Descartes changed this to a promise to demonstrate the distinction between the human soul and the body, or that the soul is an independent substance that is not destroyed by the death of the body, and so can be immortal. Independent substancehood does not prove that the soul is immortal, however, for Descartes agreed that God can destroy the soul at any time. This conclusion greatly bothered Mersenne and Arnauld. As for the absolute separation of the soul from the body, Descartes was criticized for supporting the Platonic doctrine of their absolute separation, making it impossible to demonstrate that the union between soul and body is substantial and not accidental. And "the central Christian doctrines of the Creation, Incarnation, Redemption, and Resurrection required a union of body and soul much more intimate than that of agent and instrument" (310). But all that Descartes's proof supports is the Platonic model of a sailor piloting a ship. Never mind that Descartes adamantly denies that the soul sits in the body thus—for the soul in union with the body feels the body as the sailor does not feel the ship—his friends and foes alike saw that the absolute difference of soul and body made their substantial union inexplicable. It also goes against the Aristotelian view of the Council of Vienne in 1311-1312 that "defined the rational soul as the forma corporis" (310). It is exactly this view that Descartes opposed by eliminating substantial forms from his philosophy.Arnauld warned Descartes about these problems, while Gassendi, Hobbes, and others attacked him. In response, Descartes expanded his views without altering them, and complained about being misunderstood. The Jesuit Father Bourdin's attacks hurt him most, for as he told Mersenne, this made him think that all the Jesuits (they stick together) were against him. This, Fowler argues, is why Descartes dedicated the Meditations to the Faculty of the Sorbonne, and not to the Jesuits.Fowler carefully presents the entire sweep of Descartes's ideas and arguments concerning the immortality of the soul and its union with the body. Descartes in fact did not manage to demonstrate either one. He did agree that of the three sorts of truths—those known by revelation alone, those known both by revelation and demonstration, and those known only by demonstration—these points about the soul belong in the middle category. But he never mentions immortality in the Meditations, and when Princess Elisabeth faces him with his inability to explain how the soul and body [End Page 120] can interact, he just says that we experience it. Gassendi asked him the same question, but Descartes ignored him. With other critics, he shifted the question into the first category of truths—it is a matter of revelation. This was not satisfactory either to his critics or to Descartes, for it had led Pompanazzi to materialism, and it led Descartes's first disciple Regius to say bluntly that metaphysics, and in particular Descartes's metaphysics, is irrelevant to the third category of truths, those of mechanics, physics, and medicine.Baillet calls... (shrink)

The paper argues that the history of technology proves some common assumptions of the theological treatment of technology to be wrang. Therefore both the relation of technology to the Christian culture and the place of technology within Christian doctrine have to be reconsidered. As technology does not merely Substitute but supplements the existing the idea of the concursus divinus is a more adequate expression for a theological understanding of technology than the doctrine of creation. In (...) terms of method the ethics of technology deals with the different perceptions of a given technique, which is tobe evaluated with respect to its many places in contemporary culture. (shrink)

The idea that the Creator has a plan for creation is deeply rooted in the Christian notion of Providence. This notion seems to suggest that the history of creation must be the execution of the providential plan of God. Such an understanding of divine providence expects science to confirm that cosmic history is under supernatural guidance, that evolution is therefore oriented toward a goal—to bring forth human beings, for example. The problem is, however, that science finds evidence (...) for neither supernatural guidance nor teleology in nature. To address this problem, I understand Niels H. Gregersen to suggest that God is involved in the creative process. The reason science cannot demonstrate God's supernatural guidance of evolution is that the Creator structures the process from within. Gregersen argues that God is involved in the process of creation by changing the overall probability pattern of evolving systems.In my view, such a model of how God interacts with creation is supported neither by orthodox Christianity nor by modern science. After a critique of Gregersen's argument and a brief history of the relationship between Christianity and science, I shall suggest an alternative. It is that the freedom of creation to create itself is implicit in the fundamental dogma of Christianity that God is love. (shrink)

The three sections of the collection deal respectively with Doctrinal Themes, Philosophical Engagements and Church and Society. Core doctrines to be explored include God, creation, Christology, anthropology and eschatology. The philosophical material represents theological interactions with Humean scepticism, the ambivalence of Adam Smith's religious commitments, the possibility of a natural theology after Darwin, and recent work on religion and science. The final section deals more broadly with issues in contemporary church life and the contested place of theology in the (...) university. (shrink)

Intelligent design theorists assert that ID is a scientific theory that is merely consistent with some religious beliefs. Many critics point to the circumstantial evidence of the apparent development of ID from creation science and the affiliation of ID with mainstream evangelical organizations to assert its religious orientation. This article suggests that the position of ID proponents is a substantial understatement, and that beyond the circumstantial evidence of critics, fundamental Christian doctrine constitutes the essence of ID theory. (...) The bulk of scholarship on ID is polarized into those for and against, as most focus on adjudicating ID truth claims, but this adversarial structure elides some important complexities. This article sets aside the truth claims of ID and focuses more broadly on the discourse in which it is situated to show the Christian core of ID and to examine several hallmarks of religion apparent from this perspective. (shrink)

This book assumes an interdisciplinary character, providing a window into the subtle relationship between faith and reason in early patristic thought and its relevance for forging the doctrine of creation ex nihilo. In so doing, it highlights the extent to which early Christian thinkers found a common ground with the Greek philosophical tradition.

From the Christian perspective, creation exists through the Word of God. The Word of God does not create God again but brings forth the absolute “otherness” of God: creation. The nature of God is to exist. God is existence as unity in the diversity of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The gift of created existence reflects the triune nature of the Word of God. It is synthesis of diversity into unity that creates. Nature (...) brings forth new existence by unifying what it already brought forth previously. Therefore, the creative process of nature is self‐similar and nonlinear: self‐similar because at all levels it is synthesis that brings forth novelty; nonlinear because the properties of the new unities are not present in their (isolated) elements. The new properties of the wholes, however, do not destroy the properties of the parts. Rather, the elements integrated into new wholes become creatively transformed. This is because the parts become carriers of the whole, which transforms the parts through its presence. The parts become and express the qualities of the whole, qualities that the parts do not possess in isolation. Synthesis, therefore, transforms the parts creatively, because synthesis is creative. The qualities of the parts become “elevated” because the whole becomes present in and through the parts. The understanding of creation as the result of sequential, creative transformations offers a glance into the mystery of the Word of God present in the Eucharist. Here, too, the elements of bread and wine are not destroyed but elevated, creatively transformed into the Word of God. The elements (bread and wine) become the carrier of a transcendent “quality,” the Word of God. From this perspective, creation and the sacrament of the Eucharist illuminate each other. This is because the Word of God that creates the otherness of creation and the Word of God present in the Eucharist is the same. (shrink)

This paper seeks to examine the nature of matter from an Orthodox Christian patristic perspective, specifically that of St. Gregory of Nyssa, and compare this with David Bohm's concept of wholeness and the implicate order. By examining the ramifications of the doctrine of creation ex nihilo, the basic nature of matter as being rooted in the mind of God reveals itself, and furthermore shows that certain conceptions of quantum physics can provide language with which to give voice (...) to this ancient view. (shrink)

Christians who affirm standard science and the biblical doctrine of creation often endorse theistic evolution as the best approach to human origins. But theistic evolution is ambiguous. Some versions are naturalistic (NTE)—God created humans entirely by evolution—and some are supernaturalistic (STE)—God supernaturally augmented evolution. This article claims that NTE is inadequate as an account of human origins because its theological naturalism and emergent physicalist ontology of the soul or person conflict with the Christian doctrine that God (...) created humans for everlasting life. Both the traditional Christian account of the afterlife and its modern Christian alternatives involve God's supernatural action and a separation (dualism) of person and body at death. STE can combine with several philosophical accounts of the body-soul relation to provide an adequate Christian account of original human nature. (shrink)

This essay describes a problem, that German protestant theology has faced for nearly a hundred years. The problem derives from a theory of death, which spread among theologians in the first decades of the 20th century. In contradiction to traditional doctrine they interpreted death not as the moment, when the immortal soul seperates from the body, but as the moment in time, when human life comes to its absolute end. That means, they denied the idea of an immortal soul. (...) Accordingly they interpreted the resurrection of the dead as a radically new creation. This theory, named Ganztodtheorie, caused an unsolvable problem, that can be described as follows: How can one be sure, that it is exactely he, who becomes resurrected and not a newly created double? Christian Henning discusses the answers to this question, that had been given by Carl Stange, Paul Althaus, Werner Elert, Karl Barth, Eberhard Jüngel and Wolfhard Pannenberg and finally presents his own solution. In doing so he modifies the traditional idea of the immortality of the soul. (shrink)

The doctrine of creation out of nothing was conceptually sharpened as the Church Fathers engaged the cosmological views of their opponents. This article discusses the emergence of this doctrine in the second century, focusing on the polemic of Irenaeus against the Gnostics. For Irenaeus, creatio ex nihilo was already a part of the “rule of truth,” which provided a hermeneutical key to the scriptures. Irenaeus also used rational arguments to show that Gnostic cosmologies obscured, rather than explained (...) the origins of the world. A different challenge arose in the fourth century, when Arius began to teach that the Son was created out of nothing, thereby treating the divine act of the generation of the Son analogously to the creating of the world. Athanasius of Alexandria introduced an important distinction by correlating the eternal generation of the Son with the divine essence and the creation of the world with the will of the Father. (shrink)

In this article, I explore how orthodox Christian theology informs a philosophical understanding of the mind-world relationship. First, I contend that the Christian doctrine of creation entails that the world possesses an intrinsic rationality and intelligibility. I then go on to show how three different views of the mind-world relationship are compatible with this fact about the world: (a) realism, (b) idealism, and (c) fallibilism. I also delineate the strengths of each view, in terms of how (...) well each view comports with other basic tenets of Christian orthodoxy. Finally, I show how fallibilism and idealism are incompatible with other important Catholic doctrines, which in turn leads me to recommend realism as the most viable position on the mind-world relationship for the Catholic philosopher to take. (shrink)

Kevin Murphy’s essay “Christians and the New Food Movement” (Autumn 2011) rightly warns about introducing non-Christian ideas associated with certain environmental movements into church practices. However, the essay embraces several errors that ultimately conflict with the Catholic faith. Catholic social doctrine, rooted in the universality of Christ’s salvific act, requires viewing food, agriculture, and the economy through a moral lens. A refusal to engage in such issues because they might bring the Church into contact with heterodoxy leads to (...) a form of protectionism that embraces a reductionist view of creation and, ultimately, the human person. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 12.2 (Summer 2012): 217–226. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THE ORIGINALITY OF ST. THOMAS'S POSITION ON THE PHILOSOPHERS AND CREATION TIMOTHY B. NOONE The Catholic University ofAmerica Washington, D.C. AS IS WELL KNOWN, Thomas Aquinas stands out from his contemporaries in his apparent willingness to defend the possibility of an eternal but created universe, although, like all orthodox Christian believers, he affirmed that the world had a temporal beginning in the light of Scriptural teaching. That (...) Thomas Aquinas defended the possibility of an eternal creation was amply demonstrated over a decade ago by Fr. John Wippel, who pointed to Aquinas's discussion of creation and endless temporal duration in the De aeternitate mundi, a work written in 12 71 or earlier.1 More recently, Professor Mark Johnson wrote an article in which he concluded that, no matter what doctrine the historical Aristotle may have held, St. Thomas consistently attributes a doctrine of creation to Aristotle.2 Most recent of all have come a pair of important studies by Wilks and Macintosh defending the coherence of Thomas's claim that the 1 John F. Wippel, "Did Thomas Aquinas Defend the Possibility of an Eternally Created World? (The De aeternitate mundi Revisited)," The Journal of the History of Philosophy 19 (1981): 21-37; on the date for Aquinas's De aeternitate mundi, see James A. Weisheipl, "The Date and Context for Aquinas' De aeternitate mundi," in Lloyd P. Gerson, ed., Graceful Reason: Essays in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy Presented to Joseph Owens, C.S.S.R., Papers in Medieval Studies, 4 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1983), 270. Arguments for an earlier dating can be found in Thomas Bukowski, "An Early Dating for Aquinas' De aeternitate mundi," Gregorianum 51 (1970): 277-303 and more recently, "Understanding St. Thomas on the Eternity of the World: Help from Giles of Rome?" Recherches de theologie ancienne et medievale 58 (1991): 113-25. The main thesis of this paper is unaffected by the dating of the De aeternitate mundi. 2 Mark F. Johnson, "Did St. Thomas Attribute a Doctrine of Creation to Aristotle?" The New Scholasticism 63 (1989): 129-55. 275 276 TIMOTHY B. NOONE world could be both eternal and created, while another pair of studies by Aersten and van Veldhuijsen have begun to explore from a more historical perspective the importance of Aquinas's formulation of the doctrine of creation for understanding his thought and its distinctiveness.3 The present paper is intended not so much to challenge the conclusions of any of these admirable studies as to put their findings into a wider historical framework through which we may hope to discover what is unique in Aquinas's doctrine of creation. In reading the Scriptum super Sententias of Thomas Aquinas, one is immediately struck by the novelty of Aquinas's claim that the philosophers and thus reason itself may reach the conclusion that the world is created. Such a claim seems quite different from the account of the philosophical knowledge of creation given by several of St. Thomas's immediate predecessors and contemporaries. What, then, emboldens Aquinas to make such a claim? Is Aquinas's reading of the philosophers so original and so superior to that of his contemporaries that he is capable of seeing in the philosophers a doctrine of creation that they missed? Or does Aquinas's originality on the philosophical demonstrability of creation have more to do with a reformulation of the doctrine of creation? Or does Aquinas both have an original interpretation of the philosophers and a different understanding of the doctrine of creation? In an attempt to answer these questions, the present paper will survey early and mid-thirteenth century views on the philosophers and the doctrine of creation and compare those views to Aquinas's position in the Scriptum super Sententias. The thirteenth-century authors included in this survey are chosen for their prominence in thirteenth-century thought, not 3 See Ian Wilks, "Aquinas on the Past Possibility of the World's Having Existed Forever," The Review of Metaphysics 48 (1994): 299-329; J. J. Macintosh, "St. Thomas and the Traversal of the Infinite," The American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 68 (1994): 157-77; J. A. Aertsen, "The Eternity of the World: The Believing... (shrink)

Few ideas have excited greater interest among theologians in recent decades than the idea of 'participation'. In thinking about creation, it is the notion that everything comes from, and depends upon, God, inviting the language of sharing, or of an exemplar and its images; in thinking about redemption, it points to the restoration of that image, and is expressed in the language of communion with God and with the redeemed community. In this volume, Andrew Davison considers these themes in (...) unprecedented breadth, investigating the fundamental character of participation as it can be applied to a wide range of theological topics. Exploring what it means to know, to love, to do good, and to live together well, he shows how these ideas animate a particular understanding of human life and how we relate to the world around us. His book offers the most comprehensive survey of participation to date, contributing to detailed discussions of these themes among academic theologians. (shrink)

Modern analytic philosophy of religion has become increasingly interested in the dogmatic substances of Christian theology. I argue that the doctrine of the Trinity provides an instance of the importance of dogmatic formulation for an appreciation of the philosophical aspect of the Christian concept of God. The starting point of my discussion is the recent defence of pantheism by Michael Levine, and his discussion of Neoplatonist and German Idealist models of deity. Both metaphysical theism and the alleged (...) Neoplatonic metaphysical generalogy of pantheism are considered with particular reference to St Augustine's account of creation in the "Confessions". Just as it is impossible to distinguish the purely philosophical from the purely dogmatic concept of God, one cannot give an adequate modern account of theism without a rigorous and sensitive treatment of the historical models. The issue of pantheism shows how a misunderstanding of the meaning of concept of 'unity' can distort our view of theism as a model of deity. (shrink)

Between 1934 and 1937 Maurice Blondel, the French Roman Catholic philosopher best known for his 1893 work, Action, published a trilogy of writings. Out of these writings came a theological ontology of tremendous force, creativity, and coherence. The purpose of the present dissertation is to reassess the viability of Blondel's ontology for contemporary theology. The retrieval begins with John Milbank's 1990 investigation of Blondel's early philosophy. While Milbank focuses on the strengths of Blondel, he also highlights some critical weaknesses. The (...) dissertation argues that Blondel later came to recognize and correct these weaknesses in his trilogy. ;La pensee, the first volume of the trilogy, discusses the nature and development of thought. Recognizing the ontological structure of thought leads Blondel to present his doctrine of the transnatural elan for assimilation to God. The transnatural desire for God is compared with Henri de Lubac's notion of naturae desiderium and then applied to the modern problem of the relationship between nature and supernature. ;The second installment of the trilogy, L'etre et les etres , explores the mysterious relation of Being and beings. Blondel situates the discussion within the language of creation, identifying Being as Creator and beings as creatures. The analogy of creation allows him to forge the proper relationship between Being and beings. After Blondel's death, two different schools of thought emerged on the mystery of being: Karl Rahner's Thomism and Jean-Luc Marion's new phenomenology. Each school is reviewed and critiqued from a Blondelian perspective. ;The trilogy concludes with a long-awaited revision of L'action . It begins by distinguishing the idea of action from action itself and establishing the ontological difference of action. Action is presented ontologically as enacted power, which is investigated in its individual, social, and metaphysical forms. Individual action is identified as making, practicing, and contemplating. Social action is studied next, with the conclusion that the social being of enacted power is determined by either a philosophy of peace or violence. Finally, divine action is evaluated with regards to the language of causality and absolute power. Blondel proposes instead to describe God's activity in terms of pure action. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The 1998 Meeting of the Society for Buddhist-Christian StudiesPeggy StarkeyThe annual meeting of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies was held at the Walt Disney World Dolphin in Orlando, Florida, on Friday, November 20, and Saturday, November 21, 1998. The theme for this year’s sessions was “Ritual and Its Connection to Ethical Activity in the World.”The Friday afternoon panel, moderated by John Berthrong (Boston University), focused on Buddhist (...) views. John Makransky (Boston College) argued from a Mahayana Buddhist perspective that ritual/contemplative activity is a more effective paradigm for contemporary Buddhist ethics than that of Buddhist doctrine, which is now regarded by many as the source of Buddhist ethics. Historically, ethics has been the outflow of ritual activity and as such is both available to many more Buddhists than doctrine and draws more fully upon the various resources of the tradition. Furthermore, rituals as communal/universal expressions of ultimate reality, when practiced within the horizon of the concerns of one’s culture, naturally take expression in forms of social engagement. Stephanie Kaza (University of Vermont) provided insight into the connection between ritual practice and ethics through her vivid explanation of specific Zen rituals. One such ceremony, adapted to address human suffering in a specific situation, took place at the Nevada Nuclear Test Site. The ceremony prepared people for the difficult decision of choosing or not choosing civil disobedience. Thus, Zen rituals not only provide the invitation for mindful awareness in daily life, but also the possibility, though not the guarantee, for transformation everywhere. Yukio Matsuda (University of Heidelberg) discussed the relation between ritual and social activities in the areas of peace, culture, and education in Nichiren Buddhism as practiced by the Soka Gakkai movement. Chanting the diamoku in front of the gohonzon, for example, enables one to directly touch one’s own enlightened life and encourages not only a responsibility for changing one’s own destiny, but also a commitment to social engagement that works toward the creation of a peaceful society. Don Mitchell (Purdue University), responding from a Roman Catholic perspective, stressed those aspects of the three papers that led him to a better understanding of his own tradition. As in Buddhism, he sees the ritual sacraments in Christianity as providing models for moral behavior, reinforcing faith, and [End Page 175] empowering ethical behavior. He also raised several issues pertaining to the reinterpretation of Buddhist rituals or even the creation of new ones by Western Buddhists.John Berthrong introduced the Saturday morning panel, which focused on Christian views. Nicholas Groves (Chicago Public Library) drew on the history of the Oxford Movement, which he traced from its inception in 1833, for his example of the influence of Christian ritual upon ethics. For this movement, ritual was both an expression of the Christian doctrines of the Incarnation and the Trinity and the basis of an imperative for social justice. For the discussion to follow, he asked, “What is the function of a prophetic and radical reading of a spiritual tradition, either Christian or Buddhist, within the larger community of the Sangha or the Church?” Speaking from a Protestant point of view, Jay Rock (codirector, Interfaith Relations, National Council of Churches of Christ, USA) discussed Christian ritual in terms of the reactualization of the past and of the transformation of the present. Baptism and the Eucharist commemorate past historical events that are made present in the liturgy in such a way that the participating Christians not only receive God’s gift of unlimited love, but also are sent out into the world to live out this love in ethical behavior. Christian ritual confronts the participants with the question, What is now required? Responding from a history of religions perspective, Jan Nattier (Indiana University) raised several questions for discussion: How does ritual—not the theological ideas behind it—empower social action? Would there be Christian social activists without the ritual of the Eucharist? What are the political factors, past and present, that have created a shared sense of the necessity of social action across the boundaries of such radically different traditions as Buddhism and Christianity? The session then ended with a lively discussion.President Paul Ingram presided over... (shrink)

In Evil and creation essayists investigating how the doctrine of creation relates to moral and physical evil pursue philosophical and theological analyses of evil rather than neatly solving the problem of evil itself.

Recent work on the ethics of love may be divided into norm-centered and affective-centered approaches. Norm-centered approaches, exemplified by Hallett and Outka, argue for either moral parity between self and other or for self-subordination; they regard self-love as legitimate within strict boundaries; and they sharply distinguish agape from other forms of love. Affective-centered approaches, exemplified by Vacek and Post, con- centrate on love for God as the central context for neighbor-love; they ac- cord a high status to friendship, marriage, and (...) other primary relationships; and they regard all forms of love as Christian in that they are transformed by grace and constitute cooperation with God. The re- maining agenda for both approaches is primarily theological, including especially the need to develop an extended application of the doctrines of creation and grace for the status of "special relations" in the ethics of love. (shrink)

This paper is not merely an attempt to come to terms with Edward Schillebeeckx’s theology and his philosophical mindset. Such attempts have already been made years back, when his ties with phenomenology, and also with postmodern hermeneutics and culture were pivotal for us in order to better understand his influence on mid-20th century Continental philosophy. This present study partially remains on those premises, but also brings Schillebeeckx’s thought closer to the 21st century, since nowadays concepts like salvation and resurrection tend (...) to embed particular meanings, such as well-being and ancestrality, which until recently were considered halfway synonyms of the previous images, and thus were looked upon with less persuasion. This study follows their interchangeable use in Schillebeeckx’s doctrine of creation, where the purpose of the Christian creedal formula is to appease in a tribal sense, rather than to fun­ction as a confession of faith. On the other hand, Schillebeeckx’s take on the resurrection as a means to reconnect humanity to its ancestral faith will further be inspected as the starting point of his rehabilitated anthropology or the humanum. The initial discussion on the relationship between God and Jesus in the history of salvation finalized with Jesus’ death receives a new turn in Schillebeeckx’s thought when in this same context he talks about the resurrection. Jesus’ status after the resurrection is analyzed here considering the tribal flavors it receives in Schillebeeckx’s work with an accent on its outcome for the new humanity and its well-being. (shrink)

This incisive study concerns the ways in which theological claims about creation's original and final perfection shape social ethics. Schuurman argues that prominent 20th century theologians Emil Brunner and Jurgen Moltmann wrongly envision the eschaton as radically discontinuous with creation, and that this discontinuity coheres with serious inadequacies in their social ethics. His thesis is that continuity between creation and eschaton is necessary if Christian social ethics is to avoid dualistic understandings of love and justice, personal (...) and impersonal values, church and world, revolutionism and conservatism. Schuurman establishes theological groundwork for a social ethic that calls for continuous transformation of social institutions and structures.". (shrink)

Proclus (c.412-485) once offered an argument that Christians took to stand against the Christian doctrine of creation ex nihilo based on the eternity of the world and God’s perfection. John Philoponus (c.490-570) objected to this on various grounds. Part of this discussion can shed light on contemporary issues in philosophical theology on divine perfection and creation. First I will examine Proclus’ dilemma and John Philoponus’ response. I will argue that Philoponus’ fails to rebut Proclus’ dilemma. The (...) problem is that presentism is incompatible with divine simplicity, timelessness, and a strong doctrine of immutability. From there I will look at how this discussion bears on contemporary understandings of divine perfection and creation, and argue that there are at least two possible ways contemporary philosophical theologians can try to get around the dilemma. One option is to adopt four-dimensional eternalism and maintain the traditional account of the divine perfections. I argue that this option suffers from difficulties that are not compatible with Christian belief. The other option is to keep presentism and modify the divine perfections. I argue that this option is possible and preferable since our understanding of the divine perfections must be modified in light of divine revelation and the incarnation. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: * I A Brief History * II The Rise of Science and the Doctrine of Creation * III “Why there?” * IV “Why then?” * V Other Implications and Parallels * VI Conclusion * Notes * Appendix.

In this paper I focus on a central phenomenological concept in Michel Henry’s work that has often been neglected: generation. Generation becomes an especially important conceptual key to understanding not only the relationship between God and human self but also Henry’s adoption of radical interiority and his critical standpoint with respect to much of the phenomenological tradition in which he is working. Thus in pursuing the theme of generation, I shall introduce many phenomenological-theological terms in Henry’s trilogy on Christianity as (...) well as how he understands the relationship between phenomenology and theology. In the final sections of the paper, I turn to positively defining Henry’s notion of divine generation and examine the theological implications of it in light of his confrontation and rejection of the doctrine of creation in the book of Genesis found in his book, Incarnation: une philosophie de la chair. Humans are not created but are eternally generated, a bold claim that brings Henry to the brink of a kind of interiorized pantheism or Gnostic dualism. Finally, I offer some critical comments specifically about Henry’s doctrine of generation in light of the tension between auto-affection and hetero-affection and thus how one might think after Henry in light of the basic Augustinian theological distinction between self and God and the intentionality of faith opened up by that distinction. (shrink)

The epistemological and ontological claims of social/ist ecofeminist thought (a combination of social and socialist ecofeminism) are moving away from the dichotomy between idealism and materialism (both forms of colonial thinking about humans and the rest of the natural world). The social/ist ecofeminists have constructed a postfoundational “eco-ontology” of nature-cultures (Haraway) in which the ideal and the material are co-agents in the continuing process of creation. Given that contemporary public discourse in the United States on the topic of “environmental (...) issues” is still heavily shaped by Christian theology and metaphors, changing or challenging this discourse must also mean speaking theologically. Based upon an understanding of social/ist ecofeminist “eco-ontology,” a new understanding of God (ideal) and Creation (material) can be constructed which suggests that God is a human horizon that helps reconnect (religion/religare) Christian humans with the rest of the natural world and with the manyhuman “others” of different religious traditions. In this construction, Carolyn Merchant’s understanding of humans as “partners” with nature and Catherine Keller’s postcolonial critique of the Christian doctrine of creation out of nothing are the most helpful. (shrink)

John Locke (29 August 1632 - 28 October 1704) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "Father of Liberalism". Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Sir Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social contract theory. His work greatly affected the development of epistemology and political philosophy. His writings influenced Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as (...) well as the American revolutionaries. His contributions to classical republicanism and liberal theory are reflected in the United States Declaration of Independence.Locke's theory of mind is often cited as the origin of modern conceptions of identity and the self, figuring prominently in the work of later philosophers such as David Hume, Rousseau, and Immanuel Kant. Locke was the first to define the self through a continuity of consciousness. He postulated that, at birth, the mind was a blank slate or tabula rasa. Contrary to Cartesian philosophy based on pre-existing concepts, he maintained that we are born without innate ideas, and that knowledge is instead determined only by experience derived from sense perception. This is now known as empiricism. An example of Locke's belief in Empiricism can be seen in his quote, "whatever I write, as soon as I discover it not to be true, my hand shall be the forwardest to throw it into the fire." This shows the ideology of science in his observations in that something must be capable of being tested repeatedly and that nothing is exempt from being disproven. Challenging the work of others, Locke is said to have established the method of introspection, or observing the emotions and behaviors of one's self.Locke's concept of man started with the belief in creation. We have been "sent into the World by order, and about his business, are his Property, whose Workmanship are, made to last during his, not one anothers Pleasure." Like the two other very influential natural-law philosophers, Hugo Grotius and Samuel Pufendorf, Locke equated natural law with the biblical revelation, since in their view both had originated in God and could therefore not contradict each other. "As a philosopher, Locke was intensely interested in Christian doctrine, and in the Reasonableness he insisted that most men could not hope to understand the detailed requirements of the law of nature without the assistance of the teachings and example of Jesus.". (shrink)

The word transcendence comes from the Latin and means literally to climb across or go beyond. To transcend is thus to surpass or excel or move beyond the reach or grasp of something. Sometimes the term is used epistemologically, as when something is beyond the reach of human knowledge. But in reference to the Christian doctrine of God, divine transcendence is used ontologically, and refers to God being beyond anything that is other than God. In Christian theology (...) what’s other than God is, by definition, the creation. (shrink)