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The Secular Transformation Of Pride And Humility In The Moral Philosophy Of David Hume, Kirstin April Carlson Mcpherson

Dissertations (1934 -)

In this dissertation I examine Hume’s secular re-definition and re-evaluation of the traditional Christian understanding of pride and humility as part of his project to establish a fully secular account of ethics and to undermine what he thought to be the harmful aspects of religious morality. Christians traditionally have seen humility, understood as receptivity to God, to be crucial for individual and social flourishing, and pride as the root of individual and social disorder. By contrast, Hume, who conceives of pride and humility immanently in terms of our self-appraisals, sees pride as a key virtue that serves as the ultimate …

Primeval History According To Paul: "In Adam" And "In Christ" In Romans, Timothy A. Gabrielson

Dissertations (1934 -)

Paul’s comparison of Adam and Christ in Rom 5:12–21 is among the most influential doctrines in the Bible and Christian theology. Often it has been used to summarize God’s purposes in creation and redemption, from humanity’s “fall” in Adam to its restoration in Christ. In the past several decades, however, it has increasingly been seen as provisional and functional because the Jewish writings used to support it have now been dated after the apostle’s lifetime. This study retrieves the traditional position, but does so by appeal to different corpora of Jewish texts, those that are prior or contemporary to Paul. …

Kierkegaard In Light Of The East: A Critical Comparison Of The Philosophy Of Søren Kierkegaard With Orthodox Christian Philosophy And Thought, Agust Magnusson

Dissertations (1934 -)

This project presents a comparative philosophical approach to understanding key elements in the philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard by juxtaposing his works with the philosophy and theology of the Eastern Orthodox Church.. The primary aim of the project is to look at three key areas of Kierkegaard’s philosophy that have been either underrepresented or misunderstood in the literature. These three areas are: Kierkegaard’s views on sin and salvation, Kierkegaard’s epistemology, and Kierkegaard’s philosophy of personhood. The dissertation ends with an epilogue that briefly explores a further area where this comparative approach might provide fruitful results, namely Kierkegaard’s views on collective worship. …

Special Education As A Moral Mandate In Catholic Schools, Mary E. Carlson

Dissertations (1934 -)

This study summarizes the level of services offered to students with special educational needs in Catholic schools and finds that children with disabilities are underserved and that research regarding the extent and types of services offered is insufficient. More importantly, the author examines the practice of Catholic schools’ non-admission of students with special needs using: traditional Catholic Social Teaching, especially the doctrine of St. Thomas Aquinas; virtue ethics; the hermeneutic of real, lived experience; and liberation theologies and related liberatory disciplines. Viewed through each of these lenses, current Catholic school practice, in the majority of cases, is unjust. To remain …

Didymus The Blind, Origen, And The Trinity, Kellen Plaxco

Dissertations (1934 -)

This dissertation reconstructs Didymus the Blind’s theology in On the Holy Spirit as a pro-Nicene response to Origen’s theology of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The study begins by setting Origen’s speculation into a broad framework of schemes of emanation in Christianity and Platonism. I provide an account of Origen’s grammar of participation, which orders the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in a hierarchical series of causes. I show how Origen’s grammar of participation draws on the philosophy of Numenius of Apamea, and I argue that Origen uses his grammar of participation to oppose monarchian theologies that identify the …

Scripture In History: A Systematic Theology Of The Christian Bible, Joseph K. Gordon

Dissertations (1934 -)

This work utilizes advances in philosophical hermeneutics, the historical study of Christian Scripture, and traditional theological resources to articulate a systematic theology of the Christian Bible. Chapter one introduces the challenges of the contemporary ecclesial and academic situations of Christian Scripture and invokes and explains a functional notion of systematic theology as a resource for meeting those challenges. Chapter two examines the use of the rule of faith by Irenaeus, Origen, and Augustine to locate the emergence of Christian Scripture within the faith of early Christian churches. It shows that structured, intelligible Christian belief and thought are developing and operative …

Sanctification As Virtue And Mission: The Politics Of Holiness, Nathan Willowby

Dissertations (1934 -)

This dissertation considers the political implications of the doctrine of holiness. I proceed by demonstrating the neglect of holiness in political theology, the viability of the holiness movement as an embodied witness of the political implications of the doctrine of holiness, and a biblical trajectory in Leviticus that extends into the New Testament. I describe this scriptural holiness as vocation for all of God’s people through personal formation and outward societal action to extend God’s holiness. With attention to the approaches of political theology and formation, I demonstrate that the holiness movement of the nineteenth century offers an example of …

Glorification Through Fear In 2 Enoch, Andrei Orlov

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

This article explores the imagery of fear found in 2 Enoch and its significance for the glorious transformations that Enoch undergoes during his heavenly journey. This transition from the fallen human form to the state of the celestial citizen, achieved through fear, evokes some protological allusions, namely, the protoplasts' fear in the Garden of Eden after their fall. This article argues that the fear of the visionary thus serves as an important prerequisite for the reversal of the fallen nature of humanity and as the first step towards the restoration of its nature to the prelapsarian state.

Authenticity, Accompaniment And Trust: Graces For A Discerning Church In An Age Of Secularity, Philip J. Rossi

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Campaign Finance And Collective Egotism, Conor M. Kelly

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

Currently, campaign finance law in the United States is governed by the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. FEC, but the debate surrounding the case has grown tired. In order to reinvigorate public discourse on this consequential topic, this article proposes an interdisciplinary conversation between theology and law, relying on Reinhold Niebuhr’s notion of collective egotism to shed new light on the decision. The comparison with Niebuhr highlights the Court’s problematic reliance on unexamined empirical claims, pinpointing areas of the case in need of further critical assessment and suggesting viable alternatives. The result is a more precise …

Review Of The Career And Writings Of Demetrius Kydones: A Study Of Fourteenth-Century Byzantine Politics, Religion And Society, Marcus Plested

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Wilderness In Public Theology: A Dialogical Approach, Mary Doak, Thomas Hughson

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

God's Immanence: Liturgical Implications?, Thomas Hughson

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

War As Morally Unintelligible: Sovereign Agency And The Limits Of Kantian Autonomy, Philip J. Rossi

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

Kant’s treatment of war is usually discussed as part of his political philosophy or philosophy of history. In contrast, this essay locates these discussions in direct reference to major elements of his moral philosophy: autonomy, the categorical imperative, and the moral relationality of the kingdom of ends. Within this context, Kant’s account of war, particularly in writings from the 1790s, can be read as affirming war as morally unintelligible: It is the expression of a collective withdrawal from the constitutive relationality of moral community. This results in a radical disparity in the exercise of moral autonomy by the sovereign agency …

Kenotic Ecclesiology: Context, Orientations, Secularity, Thomas Hughson

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Seekers, Dwellers, And The Plural Contingencies Of Grace: Hospitality, Otherness And The Enactment Of Human Wholeness, Philip J. Rossi

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Dorothy Day: Scholarship And Inspiration For Contemporary Students, Susan M. Mountin

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Gateway To The Syriac Saints: A Database Project, Jeanne-Nicole Mellon Saint-Laurent

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

This article describes The Gateway to the Syriac Saints, a database project developed by the Syriac Reference Portal (www.syriaca.org). It is a research tool for the study of Syriac saints and hagiographic texts. The Gateway to the Syriac Saints is a two-volume database: 1) Qadishe and 2) Bibliotheca Hagiographica Syriaca Electronica (BHSE).

Hagiography, the lives of the saints, is a multiform genre. It contains elements of myth, history, biblical exegesis, romance, and theology. The production of saints’ lives blossomed in late antiquity alongside the growth of the cult of the saints. Scholars have attended to hagiographic traditions in …

Introduction To Seekers And Dwellers: Plurality And Wholeness In A Time Of Secularity, Philip J. Rossi

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Invisible Missions: The Grace That Heals Disjunctions, Robert Doran

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Motivated For Action And Collaboration: The Abrahamic Religions And Climate Change, Jame Schaefer

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

Leaders of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have publicly advocated action to mitigate the adverse effects of human-forced climate change. Particularly prominent prior to, during, and after the 21st Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change were Rabbi Arthur Waskow, Pope Francis, and Patriarch Bartholomew. Also prominent was a group of Islamic clerics, leaders of organizations, and scholars who collaborated in issuing a declaration on climate change three months prior to COP 21. Informed by the Earth sciences, these leaders shared their faith-based rationales for acting locally to internationally as indicated in the documents explored …

Philosophia Perennis Im Umfeld Kritischer Neuscholastik, Ulrich Lehner

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

Hans Meyer (1884–1966) gehörte in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts zu den am meisten zitierten deutschen katholischen Philosophen. Er entfaltete eine immense Forschungsleistung für die Philosophiegeschichte, präsentierte aber auch eine beeindruckende systematische Summe des Denkens der abendländischen Philosophie. Politisch in der Zentrumspartei engagiert, gehörte er zur weltanschaulichen Opposition gegen den Nationalsozialismus. Sein 50. Todestag lädt zur Wiederentdeckung seines Werkes ein.

Hans Meyer (1884–1966) belonged in the first half of the 20th Century to the most frequently cited German Catholic philosophers. He produced an impressive body of works for the history of philosophy but also presented a marvelous systematic history …

Catholic Moral Traditions And Energy Ethics For The Twenty-First Century, Erin Lothes Biviano, David Cloutier, Elaine Padilla, Christiana Z. Peppard, Jame Schaefer

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

The Prospect Of Humanising Development Discourse In Africa Through Christian Anthropology, Joseph Ogbonnaya

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

The invention of development as public discourse began with US President Truman’s 1949 speech that trumped up an illusion of global material prosperity based on a total restructuring of the ‘developing’ world on the model of development and material achievement of the West. Truman argued that this painful process was the only recipe for world prosperity. After decades of serious engagement on development discourse and multiple implementations of successive theories, the situation of the developing countries has not improved as rapidly as expected. At the same time, the developed countries are experiencing various forms of financial crises. This article acknowledges …

Augustine's Trinitarian Sacramental Sensibilities, Influence, And Significance For Our Imperiled Planet, Jame Schaefer

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

The Correlation Between Ecclesial Communion And The Recognition Of Ministry, Susan K. Wood

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

Recognition of an imperfect communion between churches, the recognition of ecclesial communities as churches, and the mutual recognition of ministry are treated as separate and discrete topics in ecumenical conversations. Nevertheless, an ecclesiology of communion suggests that ecclesial recognition and recognition of ministry within a relationship of imperfect communion should be correlated with each other in such a way that an imperfect ecclesial communion contributes to an incremental recognition of ministry in ecumenical relationships. This essay explores this question with specific references to the concept of communion in Chapter II, part D and E of the World Council of Churches …

Gravissimum Educationis And African Anthropological Poverty, Joseph Ogbonnaya

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Das Menschliche An Der Kirche Christi: Der Paderborner Domprobst Paul Simon (1882–1946) Zur Apologetik Gegen Den Nationalsozialismus, Ulrich Lehner

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

The Cathedral Vicar Paul Simon (1882–1962) published numerous books and pamphlets in defense of the Catholic faith against the attacks of Nazi ideology. His widely read book “The Human Element in the Church of Christ” (1936) was such a work of apologetics, which this article introduces in more detail.

The Veneration Motif In The Temptation Narrative Of The Gospel Of Matthew: Lessons From The Enochic Tradition, Andrei Orlov

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Vinculum Caritatis: Bond Of Love, Susan K. Wood

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.