Metaphysics Commons^™

Awe As Signpost: An Argument For The Consistency Of Lewis’S “Joy” And Psychological Awe, Audrey Hendricks

Senior Honors Theses

C.S. Lewis’s Surprised by Joy details Lewis’s autobiographical apologetic for the existence of God through his experiences of “Joy,” a technical term invented by Lewis. Upon close study, his experiences of Joy contain many similarities to psychological awe. This investigation compares Lewis’s Joy with psychological awe using the Awe Experience Scale (AWE-S) to determine consistency. Lewis’s Joy was found to be consistent with all six criteria of the AWE-S in addition to other recognized psychological characteristics of awe. In addition to qualitative consistency, this review also argues for the teleological consistency of the two concepts, contending for a Christian teleological …

Timbre — A Transcendent Paradox?, Eugenia Siegel Conte

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

Timbre, as ethnomusicologist Cornelia Fales writes, is “paradoxical” precisely because it is one of the most exacting processes in which the human body may sense and comprehend the source of a sound even as that comprehended sound is impossible to describe outside of metaphor or comparison. As one of the more recognizable qualities of sound but the most difficult to describe, timbre allows us to consider physical/emotional (affective) experiences of sound as a key aspect of faith and meditation. In this article, I examine physical-affective intersections of faith and meditation that often are key to praxes of worship, and show …

Resonances Of Universalism In Tolkien's Legendarium, Nick Polk

Journal of Tolkien Research

Presented at the inaugural Holy Moot, a survey of a collection of passages from Tolkien's writings that demonstrate having the resonances of patristic universalism is conducted. It is then argued that all Tolkien’s writings be investigated separately in their context, comparing the location of each item under investigation with one another, and explore their connections without syncretizing them into a monolithic construct. To do this, it is argued that a hermeneutical theory rooted in the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead is necessary. Concluding is a connecting of Whitehead's understanding of the expression of language with Tolkien’s own understanding of expression …

The Theological Structure For Forming Christian Vocational Spirituality: A Practical Method For The Whole Of The Christian Life, Yong Sub Sim

Doctor of Ministry Projects and Theses

The Christian church works for reconciliation between God and his creatures through Jesus Christ. For this, the church calls people and helps them hear, understand, recognize and receive the Spirit of God through Jesus. This dissertation explains this process as walking with, working with and following Jesus.

This dissertation builds a theological structure for forming “Christian vocational spirituality” as the whole of the Christian life reconciled with the Spirit of God through Jesus Christ. This theological structure guides the process through which a human being becomes a true Christian being, and a Christian being becomes a true human being reconciled …

A Journey To Finding Space In The Tension: Experience Of Instructors' Relationship With Religion And Spirituality In Doctoral Psychology Programs, Samantha Mcgee

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Religion and spirituality, when viewed through a holistic lens, can reflect important aspects of a person’s identity. It can be a source of well-being and also struggle. The fields of religion, spirituality and psychology have had a history of being polarized, with some efforts to integrate the two fields. Tensions exist at multiple ecological levels around the topic of religion and spirituality, which can make it easier to avoid discussing it in classrooms and therapy rooms. It is important to address and create room for discussion of experiences around religion and spirituality in classrooms that are training psychologists so they …

When Half The Neighborhood Is Missing: How To Overcome Systemic Poverty And Gentrification Following The Models Of Dudley Street And Mission Waco, Kevin A. Brown, Kevin A. Brown, Kevin A. Brown

Doctor of Ministry Projects and Theses

Abstract

By following the examples of Mission Waco and The Dudley Street Initiative, it is possible to renew a sense of beloved community by changing the narrative of poverty and gentrification by rebuilding the village through empowering the poor and marginalized.

Mission Waco and The Dudley Street Initiative are comprehensive sustainable communities because they combine numerous social and economic interventions under developed strategic plans. The principal question that this dissertation seeks to answer is whether these models can be implemented in local communities to help overcome gentrification and poverty. Implementation can be successful if we can identify the problem, rethink …

Digital Occult Library, Alexis Brandkamp

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This capstone project is a website, titled Digital Occult Library, hosted by the CUNY Commons and built with WordPress. The site address is:

digitaloccultlibrary.commons.gc.cuny.edu

It features (in this iteration) twenty-five unique pages with information on and discussion of occult and esoteric topics. It also hosts a forum that can be accessed and utilized by anyone, not just those registered on the Commons. The purpose of the site is to inform three types of interested parties on the highlighted topics: a general audience with no current knowledge of the occult, practitioners of esoteric traditions, and academics. Not only is the …

On What Is Real In Nāgārjuna’S “Middle Way”, Richard H. Jones

Comparative Philosophy

It has become popular to portray the Buddhist Nāgārjuna as an ontological nihilist, i.e., that he denies the reality of entities and does not postulate any further reality. A reading of his works does show that he rejects the self-existent reality of entities, but it also shows that he accepts a "that-ness" (tattva) to phenomenal reality that survives the denial of any distinct, self-contained entities. Thus, he is not a nihilist concerning what is real in the final analysis of things. How Nāgārjuna’s positions impact contemporary discussions of ontological nihilism and deflationism in Western philosophy is also discussed.

The Moral Argument, Existential Problems Of Evil, And A Non-Existential Alternative, Jonathan Smith

Senior Honors Theses

Within this paper, it is shown that certain ethical assumptions are implicit within the claim that certain kinds of evil exist. When taken in tandem with the moral argument for the existence of God, these assumptions can be arranged in such a way as to provide a contradiction. To avoid this contradiction, I posit a non-existential alternative to direct inductive arguments from evil, but the non-existential alternative gives rise to novel objections. When considering their respective ethical implications, both the existential and non-existential variations of direct inductive arguments fail. Since any direct inductive problem of evil must be either existential …

The Quest Of Vision: Visual Culture, Sacred Space, Ritual, And The Documentation Of Lived Experience Through Rock Imagery, Aaron Robert Atencio

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This document will approach the multifaceted concepts that arise through the study of rock art and the cultivation of culture and belief through vision. Through this document the audience will encounter conceptual ideas regarding belief systems, ritual, experience, cognition, sacredness, and space/landscape — and how these are all essential dynamics that take place in the processes that cultivate the Shoshone visual culture. This document will employ an anthropological lens on the mentioned subject matters, while also approaching these concepts with an interdisciplinary curiosity of how they intermingle; creating a cohesive experience that focuses on these processes which empowered these people[s] …

Is Bodily Resurrection Compatible With Materialism?, Lucienne Altman-Newell

Scripps Senior Theses

It is widely known that at least three of the major world religions—Christianity, Islam, and (more controversially) Judaism—embrace the theory of bodily resurrection, or an event in which a person or people are brought back to embodied life after death. But is this theory compatible with materialism, or the philosophical doctrine that nothing exists except matter and its movements and modifications? In other words, if my “self” is identical with and nothing more than my body, could my unique and particular “self” come to exist again on Earth after my death? This thesis examines theories of compatibility from ancient times …