In the varying perspectives of theological thought the contrasting ideas of transcendence and immanence must inevitably be looked at together. To whatever extent they are held to be mutually compatible or mutually exclusive, neither can be considered without at least some cognizance being taken of the other. Nevertheless, in the swinging of the pendulum from era to era, first one and then the other theme receives the greater weight of attention. Thus, nineteenth-century liberalism placed more emphasis on immanence, whereas (...) the twentieth-century revolt against liberalism has concentrated on transcendence. In this book the author studies the transcendent aspect of God as developed by five contemporary theologians. Two of the men whose work Dr. Farley examines, Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich, are thoroughly familiar. The other three, Karl Heim, Charles Hartshorne, and Henry Nelson Wieman, have received less attention in recent studies. The five represent widely divergent traditions, but all of them agree in opposing immanentism. Moreover, they all deal with the tension between the philosophical and the Biblical affirmations of God's transcendence, and attempt to show, in their respective ways, how these types of ""beyondness"" are related. (shrink)

This paper is an interpretation of the thought of the twentieth century Korean religious thinker, Yoo Yŏng-mo (柳永模, 1890-1981), a pioneer figure who sought to re-conceptualise a Christian understanding of the Ultimate Reality in the light of a positive openness to the plurality of Korean religions. Yoo Yŏng-mo considered that it was possible to present an overall picture of harmony and complementarity between the three traditions of Korea and Christianity, and this is endorsed by the present thesis. This essay is (...) aimed at providing a religious rationale for inter-faith dialogue. Using the principles of ‘Change’ (易, i) and ‘Yin-ying’ (陰陽)dominated in Chinese Classics and East Asian way of thinking, this paper lays out a methodology for envisaging harmony and mutual complementarity between traditions. The effect of some central concepts from within Confucian, Buddhist and Taioist tradition on the Christian thought of Yoo Yŏng-mo is then analysed and examined. In this respect, this paper argues that the Ultimate Reality based on the principle of harmony and mutual complementarity is not only both personal and impersonal as well as both transcendent and imminent, but also neither personal nor impersonal as well as neither transcendent nor imminent. Essentially, therefore, this essay accepts that Yoo Yŏng-mo’s equating of the Christian idea of God with the ‘Great Ultimate’ (太極) in Confucianism, with ‘Nothingness’ (無) in Buddhism and with the ‘One’ or Tao (道) in the thought of Lao-Chuang (老莊思想) of Taoism is a legitimate equivalence to make and that this does indeed pave the way for a potentially fruitful dialogue between Korea’s main religions. The drawing together of the Great Ultimate, Absolute Nothingness, the One Absolute from the Tao and the traditional personal God of Christianity gives the discussion an entirely new direction which has become a challenge for traditional orthodoxChristian theology and also for a pluralistic religious society. (shrink)

The designation of Diego Maradona’s ‘handball’ goal, that it was an intervention by God himself, brings the phenomena of sport and religion into an interrelationship. The basic thesis of this paper is that, despite many of their phenomenal similarities, explicit religion is not, and cannot be, substantially related to sport, as the two manifest themselves in different ways of being. This thesis is supported by arguments from three philosophical areas: 1. The ontological dimension of the manifestation of the sacred in (...) the profane through the process of hierophany in sport does not refer to a specific deity or God, and is therefore not a presentation but an indirect representation of the sacred; 2. The epistemological perspective of the intentional relation of consciousness to religious ritual justifies the necessity of situating them in an overall horizon of references and meanings to the horizon of the lifeworld; 3. The existential and experiential aspects of transformative sport experiences transform the horizon of meanings of empirical reality, but lack the sacramental perspective. Implicit religion as a possibility of transition on a continuum of complementary existential states is a suitable explicative framework for analyzing the phenomenal similarities and essential differences of religion and sport. (shrink)

RESUMEN Para Emmanuel Lévinas la teología cristiana ontologiza y, consiguientemente, intelectualiza a Dios y al prójimo, ajustándolos a la medida de las categorías cognitivas del sujeto que los recibe. Este artículo señala que pretender cristianizar y así ontologizar la propuesta filosófica levinasiana no solo la devalúa, sino que neutraliza y destruye la trascendencia del dios hebreo planteada en ella. En vista de lo anterior, se utilizará el método histórico-sistemático, que consiste en analizar toda la obra de Lévinas, así como algunos (...) de los textos más importantes de varios especialistas en el campo de la teología vinculada con este autor. ABSTRACT According to Emmanuel Lévinas, Christian theology ontologizes and, therefore, intellectualizes God and the other, adapting them to the cognitive categories of the receiving subject. The article argues that this attempt to Christianize and ontologize Lévinas's philosophical proposal not only devaluates it but also neutralizes and destroys the transcendence of the Hebrew God it proposes. In view of this, the paper analyzes the work of Lévinas, as well as some of the most important texts by various specialists in the field of theology related to Lévinas, using a historicalsystematic method. (shrink)

This article explores the various ways in which Muslims, in the past and the present, think about God. The article canvasses a range of views on questions and puzzles pertaining to the essence and attributes of God, the basis of God's Justice, the transcendence of God, and our ability to know and understand God. We encounter a diverse, and at times radically divergent range of views on how best to understand divinity within the tradition of Islam. Given the various (...) conceptions of divinity, available within the tradition, I develop an argument for the view that God is best understood as love. The view that God is love, I contend, emerges directly from the Quran, which is a document that sits at the very heart of the Islamic tradition. (shrink)

"A brilliant young scholar, Robert Neville, an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church teaching philosophy and theology at Fordham University, offers a new challenging theory of creation that defends religion in the Platonic-Augustinian tradition for the contemporary world. In preparing his argument, Neville orients his position with regard to contemporary alternatives--the existential philosophy of Paul Tillich, the neo-classical or process metaphysics of Charles Hartshorne, and the speculative Aristotelian philosophy of Paul Weiss. Neville approaches his theme, the problem of the (...) transcendence and the presence of God, in three ways. On one level the issue is metaphysical, and the author elaborates and argues for an abstract speculative theory of creation based on the dialectic of the one and the many; in doing so, he criticizes the views of Aquinas, Hegel, Royce, Wiess, and others. The issue on another level is epistemological, and the author offers a way of coping with modern criticisms of the metaphysics of creation, arguing that they theory of creation is not only intelligible but is demanded by the very structure of intelligibility. The author then applies the theory of creation to the practice of religion itself, applying abstract theory to creatin fundamental phenomena of religion to give experiential support to the earlier arguments. Speculation so sophisticated and daring will surely invite responses from both philosophers and theologians."-Publisher. (shrink)

In Postmodernity's Transcending: Devaluing God, Laurence Paul Hemming grapples with the philosophical weakness that characterizes postmodern theory, its privileging of the visual, and its reductive description of the self. He offers a profound challenge to many theologians and philosophers currently articulating questions concerning God, value, and the supposed "nihilism" of the postmodern situation. He does this by examining the origin and trajectory of the aesthetic sublime, beloved of postmodern theologians, philosophers, and theorists of art. Hemming's work undertakes on one hand (...) a history of the concept of the sublime; on the other, it explores the limits of theological thinking, where theology is understood either as a practice arising from faith or from thinking alone. By examining concepts like soul, experience, analogy, and truth, Hemming provokes contemporary Christian theology to a more serious engagement with philosophy. Hemming gives an authoritative genealogy of the predominance of the visual, beginning with the Presocratics and ending in the present. He examines the confrontation with God and the gods to be found in Protagoras, Longinus, Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Zizek, and Derrida, and, in the process, offers innovative readings of these thinkers. A highly original study, Postmodernity's Transcending: Devaluing God will stimulate considerable discussion about postmodernity, representation, and subjectivity and, in particular, philosophical and theological discussions of the sublime and transcendence. -/- Introduction -- Postmodernity's transcending -- Rhetor and rhetoric -- The truth of sublimity -- The soul of sublimity -- Analogia entis -- Counting up to one is sublime -- Negating sublimity -- Devaluing God -- Transcending postmodernity -- Conclusion. (shrink)

‘PROOFS of God’ are under a cloud today, and whether the cloud can be dissipated or not, I am not going to try to dissipate it in this article. Modern thinkers have created a mental climate very unfavourable to metaphysics, but they have certainly not succeeded in disproving on principle the possibility of valid and fruitful metaphysical arguments even in the old transcendent sense of ‘metaphysics’. However, I must admit that in my opinion the best that can be said of (...) arguments for the existence of God is that they give some intellectual support to the belief, not that they are really decisive. If this is so, it becomes of very special importance to consider whether those may be right who maintain that we can come to knowledge of or at least justified belief in God otherwise than by inference. I am not considering the views of those who base the belief solely on authority: argument would be required to decide whether we ought to accept an authority, and if so which. What I am referring to is the claim that there are certain 'mystical' and other religious experiences which can without argument adequately and rationally assure one of God's existence. Obviously from the nature of the case a man who makes this claim for himself cannot prove to others that he is right, but can any good reason be given to support the view that he is wrong? If not, the possibility remains that those who dispute with him are in a similar position to that of a tonedeaf man disagreeing with Beethoven about the value of music. (shrink)

Exploring alternative conceptions of the divine, Jessica Eastwood considers the ways of believing in God that are authentic and sincere, moving beyond traditional metaphysical structures that many find difficult to accept. She examines a unique branch of religious anti-realism known as religious fictionalism, making the case for its ability to resonate on an intellectual and emotional level. Considering the extent to which fictionalism allows us to make sense of the role of religion in our spiritual lives, she also presents its (...) limitations on adhering to what might be an attractive contemporary model for philosophy of religion called 'the humane turn'. (shrink)

Derrida, especially in his late work Politics of Friendship (1997), has introduced the concept of ‘a‐humanist’ politics in the context of his general project of the deconstruction of politics as following upon his showing all such words as state, nation, democracy, justice, law, community et al to be fundamentally breached by their own opposites. All these notions may be retained at one level but also transcended and transgressed by confronting them with their binaries. Derrida’s entire discursive endeavour indeed is characterized (...) by the motifs of transgression and extratranscendence. All the notions of rationality, sanity, normality, morality etc. need to be aporetically transcended and breached. Even the ‘humanity’, the least innocuous of the terms, would be supplanted by the opposite of ‘ahumanity’. ‘Is it possible’, asks Derrida, ‘without setting off loud protests on the part of militants of an edifying or dogmatic humanism, to think and to live … the experience of a certain ahumanity, beyond or below the commerce of gods and men?’ The politics, here, ‘exceeds the measure of man, without becoming a theologem’ (p.294). What could one say about this politics which resists becoming a ‘theologem’ but is still a politics, a politics beyond politics, politics of mysticism in other words. Itcertainly saves us from the dangers of certitude, of dogmatism, even of opinion. But does it also not deprive us of our own selves i.e. our humanity, our community and nation, our values and our God. Is the commitment to a voluntary death our only fate. Is the messiah of Derrida a saviour who saves or is he one who facilitates our death by coming into life himself? Is he the symbol of life or death – death of others, and then of himself. (shrink)

Is the existence of God a question of fact? To the majority of theists, both now and in the past, I think it has seemed clear that, if the phrase ‘God exists’ is to be meaningful, then it is a fact, either that God exists or that he does not. This assertion may even seem trivially true; and yet it has evidently been denied, in recent years, by many theologians. The reasons for such a denial are, in part, to be (...) found in the general reaction against metaphysical philosophy, which was characteristic of the early years of this century, and which is, in Britain, epitomised by A. J. Ayer's stipulation that no proposition can be factually significant unless it is verifiable; unless, in principle at least, some series of observations could conceivably show it to be true. By restricting ‘observation’ to the senses of the physical body, and by emphasising the fact that God, as transcendent by definition, was not a possible object of the senses, some philosophically sensitive theologians were startled into denying that ‘God’ was, even in principle, verifiable; and consequently into denying that propositions purporting to assert his existence were factual. (shrink)

Deleuze’s philosophy of immanence, because it vigorously rejects every appeal to the beyond, is often presumed to be indifferent to the concerns of religion. This book argues against such a presumption. It does so, first of all, by emphasising how both Deleuze’s thought and the notion of religion are motivated by a demand to create new modes of existence, or to imagine and enact a future that would substantively break with the present configuration of being. If Deleuze’s thought and the (...) notion of religion intersect in this regard, then their divergence must be located elsewhere, namely in the distinction between immanence and transcendence. The book thus argues that the enemy of Deleuze’s thought is not religion in general but instead the specific operation of transcendence. Furthermore, it argues that since Deleuze’s thought is not simply anti-religious, it cannot be identified with secularism. Along these lines, the book shows how Deleuzian immanence is able both to oppose religious transcendence and to enter an allliance with immanent accounts of the name of God. The effect of this is to suspend the paralysing debate between religion and the secular in order to attend to the ways in which immanence – whether “religious” or “secular” – is able to break with the present and to create the future. (shrink)

This essay compares and contrasts nine different conceptual models of God: atheism, agnosticism, deism, theism, pantheism, polytheism, henotheism, panentheism, and eschatological panentheism. This essay justifies employment of the model method in theology based on commitments within philosophical hermeneutics, philosophy of science, and the theological understanding of divine transcendence. The result is an array of conceptual models of the divine which have reference, but which make indirect rather than literal claims. Of the analyzed models, this essay defends “eschatological panentheism” as (...) the most satisfying model for Christian constructive theology. This paper was delivered during the APA Pacific 2007 Mini-Conference on Models of God. (shrink)

William Desmond maintains that preserving the difference between God and humanity means retaining the transcendent otherness of God. In this article, by contrast, I argue that Hegel is right to maintain that insisting on God’s transcendent otherness actually turns God into a finite divinity and so eliminates the very difference Desmond wishes to retain. The only way to preserve the genuine difference between God and humanity, therefore, is to give up the idea that God is a transcendent other and to (...) understand him to be immanent in humanity itself. I argue that this Hegelian position is closer to the orthodox Christian understanding of God than Desmond allows. (shrink)

Mark Lloyd Taylor in God is Love: A Study in the Theology of Karl Rahner charges that Rahner’s understanding of the essential immutability of God renders his theology incoherent. For Taylor, Rahner’s assertion of God’s essential immutability prevents him from cartying through in a consistent manner the methodological turn to the subject which is at the heart of his theological project. An assessment of the validity of Taylor’s process-informed critique requires a careful examination of Rahner’s understanding of analogy. Analogy, for (...) Rahner is not based on a conceptual or semantic distinction but on the ontological constitution of human transcendence. From Rahner’s perspective, Taylor’s critique is faulty because it springs from an impoverished view of Being and a diminished sense of the radical nature of human transcendence. While Taylor’s critique does not undermine Rahner’s position, it alerts one to the propensity of his position to generate substantialized interpretations and, at times, Rahner’s own tendency to dissolve too quickly dialectical tensions within his position. (shrink)

Is there a language of transcendence which does not fall under the well-worn categories of monism, theism, pantheism, biblical or pagan monotheism, personal or tripersonal God, or an impersonal absolute, conceived as immanent and/or transcendent? The present set of studies from different fields of research centers on the question whether it is possible to speak at all of transcendence or a divinity, and if it is, under what limitations does such speech proceed. In current discussion in theology and (...) in philosophy of religion, there is a pervasive awareness that the inherited terms and alternatives, developed in the western tradition, no longer facilitate an adequate understanding of the divine. Increasing familiarity with the languages of 'immanence' and 'transcendence' (under erasure) in Hindu and Buddhist thought has further jumbled our coordinates, while holding out the promise of a more subtle and vital engagement with the matter itself of religious inquiry. A further long-established distinction, between 'personal' and 'impersonal, ' also takes on rich new hues in Asian contexts, where the very notion of 'person' may undergo unsettling critiques. Transgressing the categories of 'personal' and 'impersonal' points to the mystical depth of religious traditions, emphasizes their openness and reintegrates essential elements of both perspectives. Advancing with curiosity and caution, all the contributors take seriously the diversity of historical religious traditions, while nevertheless searching for a fresh language that may connect these traditions and provide a common ground of understanding. (shrink)

An argument that Pamela Sue Anderson’s critique of Irigaray commits her to a version of the Ideal Observer Theory, a theory Anderson rejects. This paper was delivered in the APA Pacific 2007 Mini-Conference on Models of God.

First published in 1959, Our Experience of God examines the relationship between philosophy and religion. The author argues that, we cannot construct a religion for ourselves out of merely philosophical elements, and that the attempt to provide some philosophical or similar substitute for religion, as it normally presents itself, is misconceived. It brings themes like religion and belief; belief and mystery; religion and transcendence; history and dogma; material factors in religion; symbolism and tradition; art and religion; religion and morality; (...) and encounter and immediacy, to show that the place of philosophy in religion is not to provide proofs for beliefs but to make more explicit for us what is the nature and status of the beliefs we do hold and commend to others. This book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of religion, philosophy, and theology. (shrink)

"This study of the idea of God in 300 African tribes is the fruit of extensive research by a distinguished African theologian. Professor Mbiti has successfully translated a mass of anthropological information into theological terms (a task for which he is thoroughly equipped) and, in doing it, has combined lucid writing with vivid imagery, to create a book that will be read with enjoyment by many. The author shows that, behind many simple expressions of belief—for example, the Zulu saying of (...) a thunderstorm, "the King is playing"; the Kikuyu praying to their Father to give them goats, sheep, and children; the Bambuti picturing God with a long beard—there often lies a profound faith in God as father and creator, or in God working as spirit. A moving and explicit description of God as a spirit comes from a traditional hymn of the Pygmies. Certain African tribes have inherited myths telling of the Creation and Fall in terms akin to those of the Book of Genesis. Others are familiar with the idea of a God both immanent and transcendent and of worship as an activity filling the whole life. It is one thing to admire the way in which Africans have enriched Christianity with their own cultural and spiritual heritage. It is quite another to be able to explore now, with Dr. Mbiti as guide, the sources of that wealth and to discover, as he has done, how much there is of the universal in each tribal theology."-Publisher. (shrink)

There are many reasons to believe that, if God exists, God is in large measure hidden from us. The hiddenness of God is one aspect of the religious ambiguity of the world. Since the world is religiously ambiguous, it may reasonably be interpreted either in secular terms or in terms provided by any one of a number of religious traditions. Theists have made many attempts to account for God's hiddenness, some of which contend that the advantages of God's hiddenness outweigh (...) whatever benefits would result if God's existence and nature were clear to us. One such good of clarity may be that belief in God would be more common than is now the case. Other attempts to account for the hiddenness of God appeal to human defectiveness or to divine transcendence. (shrink)

Many people believe in angels and evil spirits, and popular culture abounds in talk about encounters with such entities. Yet the question of the existence of such spirits is ignored in the academy. Even the Christian Church, which one might expect to show keen interest in transcendent realities, does not appear to be paying much attention. In this book Phillip Wiebe defends the plausibility of the traditional Christian claim that spirits are real. Wiebe examines descriptions of encounters with both good (...) and evil transcendent beings in biblical times and in later Christian history, along with recent accounts of similar experiences. He argues that invisible beings can be postulated to explain events just as unobservable objects are postulated in many scientific theories. Beyond supporting claims for the existence of lesser spirits such as demons and angels, this empirical approach yields important results for assessing common arguments surrounding the existence of God - a question that has become artificially separated from the question of spirits as such. Grounding his argument in a wide range of phenomena - from near death experiences to demonic possession - Wiebe offers a sophisticated case for belief in God on philosophical and epistemological grounds. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Japan Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies 2005 Annual MeetingPaul SwansonThe 2005 meetings of the Japan Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies focused on the theme "Personal and Impersonal Aspects of the Absolute" and were divided into two venues, with a preliminary panel at the nineteenth World Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR) in Tokyo, March 24–30, and the regular annual meeting held in Kyoto on July 19–21. (...) At both meetings, the same four papers by JSBCS members were presented, in English at the World Congress and in Japanese at the regular meeting of the Society.The topic summary for the IAHR panel read as follows:In general, the Christian God is said to be transcendental and personal, but the Buddhist dharma is said to be immanent and impersonal. God, Christ, and Holy Spirit in the New Testament, however, have an immanent transcendent side, and it is impersonal on the immanence side. There is also a transcendent immanence side of the Buddhist Tathagata, and it is personal on the transcendent side. On the one hand, the three major personalistic monotheisms that originated in the Middle East traditionally understood the teachings of other religions as incomplete. On the other hand, in Buddhism other religions are looked down on as "other ways," unable to bring about final liberation (ADK IX). It is said that in the case of the personalistic religions, there is risk of spiritual attachment because God reveals His absolute divine will to believers through prophets; in the case of Buddhism, practitioners are urged to seek their own enlightenment and even, in some early sutras, to use critical reasoning. However, even in Buddhism the thoughts of the founders of the sects have authority. It is important to re-examine the meaning of God and dharma from the perspective of the human personality structure.Chaired by Watanabe Manabu, the IAHR panel consisted of the following four paper presentations:1. Hanaoka Eiko, "Absolute Infinite Openness in Christianity and Buddhism." The origin of a personal God in Christianity and impersonal "emptiness" or "absolute nothingness" in Buddhism are both personal and also impersonal [End Page 183] as an "absolute infinite openness." The self-awareness of absolute infinite openness is the self-awareness of the experience of the most personal dimension, and always simultaneously of the most impersonal dimension. It is that impersonal dimension that this paper investigates.2. Takemura Makio, "On the Significance of Buddha in Buddhism." Buddhism has a view of the Absolute that is comparatively unique. The Absolute is not found in the absolute in contrast to the relative. It is always found in the identity of the absolute and the relative, that is, the identity of any conditioned dharma (samskrita) and the ultimate unconditioned nature (asamskrita) as emptiness (sunyata), or the activity of jnana and the tathata or dharmata. In other words, the individuality or personality of Buddha and the universality or impersonality of tathata are never separated. The ultimate nature does not exist only by itself, and a buddha is one of many buddhas, even if people believe the Buddha as absolute. In Buddhism, buddhas as personal are filled with great compassion and work hard to guide people to become Buddha. They never judge people's guilt. Why is this so? This paper attempts to analyze the reasons in terms of questions such as whether or not the personality of the Absolute is rooted on emptiness, whether the Absolute is one or not, and so forth.3. Tanaka Yutaka, "God as the Locus of the World and the Ground of Human Freedom." This paper critically discusses Nishitani Keiji's arguments of "The Personal and the Impersonal in Religion" in his Religion and Nothingness. Comparing the Christian tradition of speculative mysticism or "panentheism" with the Zen Buddhist philosophy of "Nothingness," the paper seeks to show that God as the locus of the cosmos is the transcendental ground of human freedom and subjectivity.4. Yagi Seiichi, "Impersonal God in the New Testament." In the Pauline epistles and Johannine literature, the key words of a theology that indicates the oneness of divine-human activity can be identified: God working in us, as an expression of mutual... (shrink)

The quintessence of Byzantine faith is the twofold identification of the God-Man. Yet, the image of God Jesus Christ and the transcendent Trinity is a one-God concept. Inevitability, I argue Byzantine aesthetics had to recognize God as both anthropomorphous and divine. Since, omission of God’s divinity would verify God as divisible. In line with apophatic theology, Byzantine aesthetics used non-categorizations and non-identifications, what I denominate meta-images, to teach about God’s divinity and that God is. Since 'holy' equals right manner and (...) right teaching about God , anything else would have been heresy. The desired effect of salvation would come to naught if the image did not concur with 'right opinion' . Contemplation and imitation as well as communion with God depend on aesthetics 'of right belief' . God is Beauty and God is Truth, and vice versa. In context of aesthetics, the idea of beauty refers to potential impetus to restore the natural image in the believer. Beauty identifies in deification , spiritual knowledge of the supreme beauty of God. Beauty does not refer to the perishable, but to the imperishable, not to physical strength and vigor, but to spiritual strength, yearning, and purity. Aesthetic approaches that help believers go beyond physical law to divine law, beyond the corporeal mundane to spiritual knowledge are good and beautiful. Interaction of narration, flattened corporeality, inverted perspectives, and meta-images such as light, brilliance, and patterned borders identifies the twofold reality of God and the historical event within and beyond time and space. This interaction of Incarnation and Grace refers to the Beauty of God, the prerequisite for salvation of humankind. (shrink)

In sound, clear, and relentless argumentation Neville makes the case for God as being-itself. God as being-itself is indeterminate. Neville explores several theories that opt for the determinacy of being-itself and exposes the weaknesses of each. As indeterminate, being-itself is the ontological unity of the various determinations of being, and as such transcends them. This transcendent, indeterminate being-itself effects the unity of the determinations of being by creating them ex nihilo. The book spends some time exploring the structure of the (...) distinction between God and the created world, concluding that that distinction is itself determinate and created. God is not only transcendent for Neville, he is also present. He has some conditional features. However, the emphasis is overwhelmingly on transcendence. Neville rejects Hartshorne and insists that God is not conditioned by the determinations of being. Part II of the book is largely methodological, showing the move from "methodological dialectic" to "constitutive dialectic" in order to demonstrate how knowledge of this God is possible. The third part is an effort to connect religious experience with the constructs of Part I. Neville has one of those welcome styles in which the book offers a running commentary on itself: where it has been, where it is, where it is going, and how its success or failure might be judged. This is an important book, but more for its thoroughness and clarity than for its originality.--S. O. H. (shrink)

By religious experiences I mean those human experiences characterised by a kind of intuitional seeming to the effect that a transcendent or all‐encompassing being—God—exists. After explaining two significant similarities between religious and perceptual experiences, I will argue that the doctrine of phenomenal dogmatism about perceptual experiences can be applied to religious experiences as well. In the following two sections, the challenge arising from the objection from cognitive penetration is extended to the case of religious experiences. I show that the importance (...) of this challenge may be dependent on a debate over the proper content of experience—namely the debate over low‐level vs. high‐level content. In the subsequent section, I argue that even if the religious experience is deemed an experience with low‐level content, then the charge of cognitive penetration may not be avoided. Drawing upon the doctrine of divine simplicity, in the penultimate section, I argue that the experience of God has a specific characteristic which, in companion with its thin content, enables it to escape the charge of cognitive penetration. Alternatively put, the experience of God possesses an important epistemological advantage owing to its distinctive object, which makes it significantly reliable. In the final section, three possible objections are briefly addressed. (shrink)

For God's knowledge in all cultures have, therefore, humans are supposed to be easily understood. However, to find out the exact number of steps, so that we can from this world to make the conclusion that God exists, but why is still very difficult. This paper attempts to point out why the case. Reason to silt, to analyze all human beings are familiar with the cognitive activities of the universality of the difficulties faced, if, to analyze the experience we can (...) get the reality is very difficult, then to analyze our experience outside the awareness of God does it mean even more difficult. Therefore, in this paper should first study our knowledge of the world. The results are as follows: human cognition is for action of a different cognitive structure; each object has its own cognitive activity, and in accordance with certain specifications; and these norms are in our cognitive effort within. All these cognitive operations are located in three levels: 1) experiences, but the object of our knowledge there is "information." 2) As has been seen all the information we obtain one kind of intellectual . Then we have the knowledge to the intellectual to express a concept, and use this concept to think about this object. 3) by judge is correct), we have absolute certainty and understanding provided by the object, to our knowledge there are objects of this object. To our understanding of the world a reality, but reality does not explain why this would exist. For the "existence" of the issues raised by the end lead to the existence of an absolutely transcendent entity of the cognitive, physical such as an infinite intellectual ability to explain his own existence and the existence of the world . Der Artikel versucht zu zeigen, warum, obwohl die Gotteserkenntnis sich in allen Kulturen findet und deshalb fur den Menschen eher naheliegend sein muβ, es dennoch schwierig ist, die Schritte genau zu ermitteln, die uns erlauben, von der Welt her auf die Existenz Gottes zu schlieβen. Der Grund liegt in der allgemeinen Schwierigkeit, die allen, Menschen vertraute Erkenntnistätigkeit zu analysieren. Wenn es schon schwierig ist, unsere Erkenntnis der erfahrbaren Wirklichkeit zu analysieren, urn so mehr ist dies der Fall, wenn es um die Erkenntnis eines höchsten Wesens jenseits unserer Erfahrung geht. Im Artikel wird deshalb zuerst unsere Erkenntnis der Welt untersucht. Das Resultat ist folgendes: Die menschliche Erkenntnis besteht in einer Struktur verschiedener Erkenntnisakte, deren jeder ein eigenes Objekt hat und gemäβ Normen stattfindet, die unserem Erkenntnisstreben innewohnen. Diese Akte verteilen sich auf drei Ebenen. 1) In der Erfahrung erkennen wir ein Objekt als bloβ gegeben, als "Datum". 2) Mit der Einsicht erfassen wir in den Daten ein Intelligibles. Infolgedessen driicken wir das erkannte Intellibible in einem Begriff aus, mit dem wir das Objekt denken. 3) Mit dem Urteil bejahen wir absolut das gegebene und verstandene Objekt und damit erkennen wir es als ein Seiendes. Damit haben wir eine Wirklichkeit der Welt erkannt, aber nieht erklart, warum sie existiert. Die Frage nach der Existenz fuhrt schlieβlich zur Erkenntnis eines absolut transzendenten Wesens, das als ein unbegrenztes Intelligibles imstande ist, die eigene Existenz sowie die Existenz der Welt zu erklären. (shrink)

There are two philosophical commitments requisite to Christian belief: that God is the ultimate mystery and that God is present and active in the world. Attempting to avoid the trappings of a radical distantiation and the immanent collapse of God and world, Frank Kirkpatrick argues for a theory of agency and action that preserves the mystery of God while providing a philosophically robust account of divine action in created time and space. Kirkpatrick proposes a way around the stalemates that have (...) stymied thought on divine agency and enters into conversation with significant figures in systematic theology."--Publisher's website. (shrink)

This paper interrogates Hölderlin's effort to deconstruct the speculative matrix of tragedy, with a particular focus on his "Remarks on Antigone," which are appended to his translation of the Sophoclean tragedy. In focus are, firstly, the separative force of the caesura, which stems tragic transport and is here analyzed, in terms of Hölderlin's understanding of Greece in relation to "Hesperia," as an incipiently Hesperian poetic gesture. Secondly, Hölderlin's key thought of the mutual "unfaithfulness" of God and man is at issue: (...) the god here is revealed as sheer time, while man is thrown back upon the bare moment. This "unfaithfulness" must be tempered by a striving that turns back from the quest for transcendence to the measures of fmitude and to this world. By attentiveness to the singular (which is not the particular), the tragic poet, unlike the speculative philosopher, reveals time's agonal spacing. (shrink)

Although declarations of the death of God seem to be provocations announcing the end of the era of theology, this announcement is actually central to the Christian revelation in its most classic forms, as well as to its reworkings in contemporary religious thought. Indeed provocative new possibilities for thinking theologically open up precisely in the wake of the death of God. Already Hegel envisaged a revolutionary new realization of divinity emerging in and with the secular world through its establishment of (...) a total order of immanence. However, in postmodern times this comprehensive order aspired to by modern secularism implodes or cracks open towards the wholly Other. A hitherto repressed demand for the absolute difference of the religious, or for “transcendence”, returns with a vengeance. This difference is what could not be stated in terms of the Hegelian System, for reasons that poststructuralist writers particularly have insisted on: all representations of God are indeed dead. Yet this does not mean that they cannot still be powerful, but only that they cannot assign God any stable identity. Nietzsche’s sense of foreboding concerning the death of God is coupled with his intimations of the demise of representation and “grammar” as epistemologically bankrupt, but also with his vision of a positive potential for creating value in the wake of this collapse of all linguistically articulated culture. He points the way towards the emergence of a post-secular religious thinking of what exceeds thought and representation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THE DOCTRINE OF GOD AFTER VATICAN II INTRODUCTION IT HAS BECOME commonplace to observe that the doctrine of God is in crisis, an acknowledgement that is softened somewhat in discerning that this is less a crisis of faith itself than of the cultural mediation of faith. For some this is theological disaster, marking the loss of the traditional concept of God to the forces of atheism and secularism. To (...) others it is a liberating factor in that it signals the displacement of an alienating idea of God that clears the way for a long overdue theological reconstruction. One undeniable benefit has been a return of the doctrine of God to its rightful place of centrality in theological discourse--a privileged position it occupied in the 13th century thought of Aquinas and Bonaventure, in the 16th century thought of Luther and Calvin, one retained by Schleiermacher in the 19th century and regained by Karl Barth in the 20th century. Once again, God has become the focus of theological questioning. The difference lies in the way the question has shifted: now the burning issue is the absence or silence of God. THE NEW WAY OF RAISING THE QUESTION OF GOD Heretofore the starting point for religion and theology was Credo in unum Deum, the creedal distillate of the Christian Gospel. This was the Archimedian point of belief upon which depended anthropology, christology, ecclesiology, sacramentology, etc. Such is no longer the case due to the success of the atheist critique beginning with Feuerbach. The atheist challenge remains, either in the negative form of a massive indifference (here the very question of God's existence pales into insignificance, Sartre tells us, because it makes no difference 395 396 WILLIAM J, HILL, O.P. whatsoever to the quality of life: believers kill one another just as do unbelievers, and even do so in the name of God), or in the positive form of a religious humanism, even in some quarters of a theology without God. More radical still is what has been called " semantic atheism ", i.e. the contention that the very word "God" is without meaning, any meaning, that is, that can be validated in the public forum. Nietzsche's cry " God is dead " gives way now to the assertion that the very term "God" has no referent other than that arbitrarily given to it by believers; no objectively real referent, that is. What has occurred, in a spontaneous dialectic of history, whether for good or for bad, is the overthrow of classical theism, i.e. of that understanding in which God is the Supreme Being explaining the existence of everything else-a preunderstanding that precedes revelation and makes the latter credible. This Hellenic and Medieval notion of God was called into question when the cultural world that gave it birth ceased to exist. What was rejected was an objectifying of God, cognitively, by way of metaphysics. This could no longer be the point de depart for the doctrine of God; it was no longer possible to begin with an idea that was then subsequently given content from the sources of revelation. This rendered suspect any demonstrating or verification of God's existence-though it must be said that the atheist premise was equally incapable of validation. This precipitated a radical shift in the question about God. No longer was the concern "Does God exist? ", "Is he real? '', but rather now "Is God present and operative in human life?", and" Does that presence make a difference?". This was in fact a return to the biblical question concerning God's role in human history both individual and social, a question especially urgent in the post-exilic period. God now meant, not" He who is" (lpsum Esse Subsistens), nor even "He who is with us" (mit- Sein), but" He who will be who he will towards mankind", "He who will be the God of our future". The new note being sounded is that of futurity; somewhat muted is the note of divine transcendence, at least in the sense that transcendence was being deferred. THE DOCTRINE OF GOD AFTER VATICAN II 397 The shift then was to the God of revelation, more concretely to the God encountered... (shrink)

The Alexandrian theologian Origen wrote that God the Father exceeds the Son in a way that surpasses the Son’s own transcendence of creation, and he apparently did so in order to oppose those who disregarded Jesus’ statement that «the Father is greater than I» . Just a few years after Origen’s death, however, when correction of his Son of God theology was well underway, Arius radicalized the latent subordinationism present in Origen’s thought by placing the Son among created things. (...) The Arian tendency to associate the Son with the created realm can be traced back to the attempts of Methodius of Olympus and Eusebius of Caesarea to counter Origen’s doctrine of eternal creation. Arius claimed that Christ is called «Son» because he is the created instrument of God’s will, and he gained sympathy for this voluntaristic view by citing John 14:28. Here was irrefutable scriptural proof of the metaphysical priority of the Father over the Son who is a separate and yet perfect creature of God. (shrink)

In his epic Paradise Lost, John Milton aims at a philosophically and theologically sound theodicy in order to “justify the ways of God to men”1. Milton’s approach has been criticised for creating an unsolvable tension between God’s foreknowledge and man’s free will and responsibility. The article wants to show that this criticism turns out to be unjustified if the philosophical basis behind the epic is thoroughly examined. Milton draws heavily on St. Augustine’s ontology: Every kind of being depends on its (...) intrinsic goodness insofar as it really is what it is by nature. God himself is the ultimate goodness: Therefore he is not subject to change, but transcends space and time. In his perfection, he cannot lack any kind of knowledge, but knows all things in an atemporal manner, without depriving men and women of their capability of free choice and action, for these are the distinct features that constitute the goodness of human nature. The crucial question of the article is why, according to Augustine and Milton, God’s foreknowledge should not at all be confused with fated determinism. (shrink)

This probing study of melancholy invites readers to view "depression" genealogically through the history of its interpretation. It plumbs interior depths where psychology, theology, philosophy, and literary creation intersect. Therapies proposed for the dark mood have included work, prayer, care of the self, and deepening awareness of its indispensable role in the development of consciousness of oneself and God. Reflecting on these historical responses and cures can prompt a personal exploration, making this a practical manual for self-knowing and self-transcending, a (...) philosophical "guide for the depressed.". (shrink)

There is no single Jewish philosophical conception of God, and the array of competing conceptions does not lend itself to easy systemization. Nonetheless, it is the aim of this chapter to provide an overview of this unruly theological terrain. It does this by setting out ‘maps’ of the range of positions which Jewish philosophers have taken regarding key aspects of the God-idea. These conceptual maps will cover: (i) how Jewish philosophers have thought of the role and status of conceiving of (...) God in the first place; (ii) what Jewish philosophers have understood to be definitive of God or Divinity; (iii) Jewish philosophical conceptions of God’s oneness; (iv) Jewish philosophical conceptions of God’s transcendence or immanence; (v) Jewish philosophical conceptions of God’s personhood or lack thereof; (vi) Jewish philosophical understandings of why God created (or caused) a world; and (vii) Jewish philosophical understandings of God’s relationship to the Jewish people. Jointly, these seven conceptual maps outline the broad range of vying conceptions of God that have been held by Jewish philosophers over the centuries, while also enabling the reader a bird’s-eye-view of how these multiple conceptions relate to one another. The chapter concludes by touching on what Jewish philosophers have made of this immense diversity of theological conceptions included within the tradition. (shrink)

Applying Michel Henry’s philosophical framework to the phenomenological analysis of religious experience, the author introduces a concept of material introspection and a new theory of the constitution of religious experience in phenomenologically material interiority. As opposed to ordinary mental self-scrutiny, material introspection happens when the usual outgoing attention is reverted onto embodied self-awareness in search of mystical self-knowledge or union with God. Such reversal posits the internal field of consciousness with the self-disclosure of phenomenological materiality. As shown by the example (...) of Vedantic self-inquiry, material introspection is conditioned on the attitude ‘I “see” myself’ and employs reductions which relieve phenomenological materiality from the structuring influence of intentionality; the telos of material introspection is expressed by the inward self-transcendence of intentional consciousness into purified phenomenological materiality. Experience in material introspection is constituted by the self-affection and self-luminosity of phenomenological materiality; experience is recognized as religious due to such essential properties as the capacity of being selffulfilled, and specific qualitative “what it’s like”(s). Drawing on more than 5000 live accounts of internal religious experience, it is shown that introspective attention can have different trajectories, producing, within a temporal extension of material introspection, different spatial modifications of embodied selfawareness and a variety of corresponding religious experiences. (shrink)

Making sense of our human existence can be difficult, but we may experience particular moments that prompt us to search for something deeper. Os Guinness tells stories of people who experienced these "signals of transcendence" and followed them to find new meaning and purpose in life-and the same can be true for us.

Merold Westphal's book is a wonderful introduction to the history of philosophy.

In The Shadow of God, Michael Rosen argues that modern moral philosophy in the tradition of German Idealism is profoundly shaped by religious views these thinkers could not overcome. However, a closer look at Rosen’s critique of Kant’s and Kantian conceptions of morality raises the possibility that Rosen’s view may itself be haunted by the shadow of God. In particular, Rosen appears to believe that a moral imperative of respect for human dignity necessarily requires a religious-transcendent grounding, such that there (...) is no purely moral answer to the question of why such respect is owed. In relegating morality to an impersonal realm that alienates us from our personal understandings of the good, Rosen fails to recognize not only that Kantian morality is meant to alienate us from certain ends (e.g., racist or sexist), but that it is also meant to overcome alienation. This is because Kantian morality is not so much impersonal, as it is interpersonal: it recognizes us as belonging to a community of free and equal persons, who are autonomous when we morally reflect on, or even reject, certain ends. (shrink)

Applying an ever more radical hermeneutics, John D. Caputo breaks down the name of God in this irrepressible book. Instead of looking at God as merely a name, Caputo views it as an event, or what the name conjures or promises in the future. For Caputo, the event exposes God as weak, unstable, and barely functional. While this view of God flies in the face of most religions and philosophies, it also puts up a serious challenge to fundamental tenets of (...) theology and ontology. Along the way, Caputo’s readings of the New Testament, especially of Paul’s view of the Kingdom of God, help to support the "weak force" theory. This penetrating work cuts to the core of issues and questions—What is the nature of God? What is the nature of being? What is the relationship between God and being? What is the meaning of forgiveness, faith, piety, or transcendence?—that define the terrain of contemporary philosophy of religion. (shrink)