Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons^™

The History Of Apologetics: A Collaborative Article Review, Isaiah B. Parker

Eleutheria: John W. Rawlings School of Divinity Academic Journal

In The History of Apologetics, the authors examine a variety of noteworthy Western apologists throughout seven distinct historical eras: Patristic, Medieval, Early Modern, Nineteenth Century, Twentieth Century (American), Twentieth Century (European), and Contemporary. Each chapter presents four essential elements relating to the life and work of one apologist: historical background, theological context, apologetic methodology and response, and critical contribution(s) to apologetics. They aim to provide an overview of influential apologists within their unique cultural contexts. This review structures its content in the same manner, albeit with some necessary minor changes to the elements for ease of reading. The historical …

Interdisciplinary Convergence To God: A Supplement To The Big Bang & God– An Astro-Theology, Theodore Walker

Perkins Faculty Research and Special Events

Here is a December 2022 supplement to the 2015 book—The Big Bang and God: An Astro-Theology wherein an astronomer and a theologian offer a study of interdisciplinary convergences with natural theology both in the scientific researches of Sir Fred Hoyle and in the philosophical researches of Charles Hartshorne and Alfred North Whitehead, thereby illustrating a constructive postmodern trend (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015) by Theodore Walker Jr. and Chandra Wickramasinghe, with editing and co-authoring by Alexander Vishio.

Biology, astronomy, astrobiology, cosmology, and theology converge when the word “God” refers to “that than which none greater can conceived” (St. Anselm), …

Religious Education: Necessary For Perfection, Daniel Skinner

Aristos

No abstract provided.

The Introduction To Being And Time, David Good

Aristos

The clearest summary of Heidegger’s thought in the Introduction to Being and Time is provided by Thomas Sheehan, who says:

Heidegger made the point by pressing his students on what it is they first encounter in their lived experience. Is it things? Objects? Values? No, he insisted, it is:

the meaningful [das Bedeutsame] – that’s what is primary, that’s what is immediately in your face without any detour through a mental grasp of the thing. When you live in the world of first-hand experience, everything comes at you loaded with meaning, all over the place and all the time. Everything …

“The Inner Form Of The Church:” The Mariology And Ecclesiology Of Erich Przywara, Danijel Uremovic

Aristos

In this paper, we will explore the link between the Mariology and ecclesiology of Polish-German theologian Erich Przywara, paying special attention to his designation of Mary as the “inner form of the Church.” Following a brief introduction to his doctrine of analogy, we will examine Przywara’s understanding of Mary’s formal-causal role in shaping the Church. To this end, we will consider three specific sites of his Mary-Church link, namely, Christ’s passion, Mary’s motherhood, and her nuptiality. We will then explore the implications of this three-fold link, and what it means for Przywara’s understanding of the Church. Finally, we will conclude …

Logos Ii Ethical Case Study: Virtue Ethics And The Cheating Partner, Rebecca Saleme

Aristos

No abstract provided.

Logos I Major Essay: In Defence Of Alasdair Macintyre On The Importance Of Catholic University Education, Laurel Hooper

Aristos

No abstract provided.

Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi: Eschatological Teachings In The Prayers Of A Funeral Mass, Carolyn Lewis

Aristos

In light of twenty-first century secularization, and with the liturgical revisions following the Second Vatican Council, some lament that the true eschatological doctrines of the Catholic faith are no longer evident in the Funeral Mass. This would then miscarry the axiom Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, exposing significant shortcomings within these liturgical revisions. This paper analyses the propers of the Funeral Mass, in order to assess which eschatological teachings are evident in those prayers. Examined first are the Christocentric salvific teachings, considering the hopeful Paschal focus of the Funeral Mass. Representations of the nature of the afterlife are then analysed, …

What Roles Do Reason And Revelation Play In The Knowledge Of The Trinity, According To St Thomas Aquinas?, Matthew Anslow

Aristos

The Holy Trinity is viewed, within the Catholic tradition, as “the central mystery of the Christian faith and life.” Given the importance of the doctrine, this paper explores to what extent, and by what means, humans are capable of knowledge of the Trinity. It summarises Thomas Aquinas’ account of the knowledge of the Trinity, beginning with an outline of Aquinas’ understanding of the place of revelation and reason in the knowledge of God in general. From there, the paper notes Aquinas’ denial of the ability of human reason to discern the Trinity before turning to his primary reason for this …

Religious Education? Tell Me Why! An Essay On The Philosophy Of Education, Lydia Hyland

Aristos

By first considering the nature of religious knowledge, I will discuss whether religious education should be part of every person’s education. In examining the aims of all education and human development in classical and Christian philosophy, we may explore how education in a Catholic context impels us to cultivate a person’s wholistic nature. I will aim to demonstrate how this occurs through fully embracing his spiritual dimension: encouraging, instilling, and modelling a lifelong desire and concurrently fostering a spiritual-intellectual capacity for right relationship with the divine (and, therein, with others and the world around them.) In so doing, educators help …

The Church As Lumen Christi Et Sal Terrae, Harry Mcclifty

Aristos

No abstract provided.

Hawthorne’S Human Nature And Sin: Criticisms Of Puritanism And Progressivism, Oscar Martinez

Theses and Dissertations

One of America’s greatest authors, Nathaniel Hawthorne lived in a time of rapid scientific, material, and intellectual advancement. However, unlike many of his peers who went all-in on utopian reform movements, Hawthorne took a cautious and reserved approach to progress even though he supported the idea abstractly. Using six tales written acrossHawthorne’s career, this work will examine what each has to say about Hawthorne’s belief in human nature and why he takes such a skeptical position against movements aiming to fundamentally reshape people and society. The tales from the 1830s, “The Gentle Boy,” “Young Goodman Brown,” and “The Minister’s Black …

Dialogue Concerning The Existence And Nature Of God, Theodore J. Szpakowski

Student Publications

This fictional work is based on Euthyphro by Plato and Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume. It mimics the dialogue style of these authors and places Socrates, Cleanthes, and Philo at Gettysburg College to discuss the existence and nature of God along with the author, a Gettysburg College student. In doing so, it shows how the questions asked by Plato and Hume are relevant today.

From Post-Pantheism To Trans-Materialism: D. T. Suzuki And New Buddhism, James Mark Shields

Faculty Contributions to Books

In modern Western thought, pantheism remains a powerful if controversial undercurrent. Recent re-evaluations of the work of Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) point to pantheism’s radical implications for metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and politics. Pantheism (Jp. hanshinron 汎神論) also has significant valence within Japanese Buddhist modernism, particularly in the work of scholars and lay activists who articulated the outlines of a New Buddhism (shin bukkyō 新仏教) from the 1880s through the 1940s. For these thinkers, pantheism provided a “middle way” between materialism and idealism, as well as between theism and atheism. In the postwar period, lapsed radical turned Buddhist Sano Manabu …

Buddhist Socialism In China, 1900–1930: A History And Appraisal, James Mark Shields

Faculty Contributions to Books

Although it is only in recent decades that scholars have begun to reconsider and problematize Buddhist conceptions of “freedom” and “agency,” the various thought traditions of Asian Buddhism have for some centuries struggled with questions related to the issue of “liberation,” along with its fundamental ontological, epistemological and ethical—if not economic and political—implications. With the development of Marxist thought in the mid to late nineteenth century, a new paradigm for thinking about freedom in relation to economics, history, identity and socio-political transformation found its way to Asia, where it soon confronted traditional religious interpretations of freedom as well as competing …

“It's So Normal, And … Meaningful.” Playing With Narrative, Artifacts, And Cultural Difference In Florence, Dheepa Sundaram, Owen Gottlieb

Articles

This article considers how player interactions with religious and ethnic markers, create

a globalized game space in the mobile game Florence (2018). Florence is a multiaward-

winning interactive novella game with story-integrated minigames that weave

play experiences into the narrative. The game, in part, explores love, loss, and

rejuvenation as relatable experiences. Simultaneously, the game produces a unique

experience for each player, as they can refract the game narrative through their own

cultural, identitarian lens. The game assumes the shared cultural space of the player,

the player-character (PC), and the non-player-character (NPC) while blurring the

boundaries between each of these …

The Volition Of Faith And Appreciation Of Pragmatism And Existential Contributions, Sterling Courtney

The Hilltop Review

Propositions of belief depend on some degree of factual basis. Philosophical arguments vary as to whether certainty is necessary to form beliefs which can lead to compelling faith. Furthermore, if faith is a criteria for salvation, the volition of faith would be fundamental in ones’ culpability for having faith. Idealism represents the antithetical position of pragmatism and involves factual accounts in which to base beliefs, however, this paper intends to provide various considerations for pragmatic and existential philosophies by examining concerns of William James, Blaise Pascal, Soren Kierkegaard, and others. I.e., “Pascal’s Wager” is a philosophical idea used to demonstrate …

The Politics Of The Self: Psychedelic Assemblages, Psilocybin, And Subjectivity In The Anthropocene, Joshua Falcon

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines how psychedelic substances become drawn into particular sociohistorical and political arrangements, and how psychedelic experiences with psilocybin ‘magic mushrooms’ are used as tools of subjectivation. Guided by literatures in philosophy, critical theory, and the social sciences that focus on subjectivity, assemblage theory, and critical posthumanism, I argue that psychedelics are drawn into variegated assemblages, each of which conceptualizes the nature of psychedelics in highly specific ways that reflect implicit conceptions of the world and the self. In developing the concept of psychedelic assemblages, this research provides a window onto the politics of the self in the Anthropocene. …

Cura Personalis: The Incarnational Heart Of Jesuit Education, Catherine Peters

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

Cura personalis is one of the distinctive characteristics of Jesuit education, but the precise meaning of this phrase can sometimes be difficult to discern. Often translated as “care or education of the whole person,” the expansiveness of its formulations can lead to an overlooking of what should be central: the care of a person in their full personhood and a reminder of the person’s ultimate end. To understand cura personalis in a way that retains its distinctive character, I propose a return to Ignatius of Loyola himself, focusing especially on the importance of the Incarnation. I maintain that the …

Hope And Wonder In The Wasteland: Post-Apocalyptic Fiction As Tolkienian Fairy Story, Alfredo J. Mac Laughlin

Journal of Tolkien Research

J. R. R. Tolkien’s four functions of fantasy stories, as developed in his Andrew Lang lecture “On Fairy Stories” (1939), have become a key conceptual tool for discussing human beings’ attraction to fantasy stories, particularly when attempting to push the analysis beyond the literary into the aesthetic, and beyond the aesthetic into the existential. Applying this interpretive key to an analysis of the expanding genre of post-apocalyptic fiction reveals that post-apocalyptic stories, despite superficial differences, are surprisingly close to fairy stories in their aesthetic core and orientation, and that post-apocalyptic stories are well-suited to fulfill—albeit with their own distinctive aesthetic …

Spirituality, Well-Being, And The Role Of Oneness, Kelly S. Erickson Albonico

Psychology ETDs

Spirituality is generally found to have a significant but small positive association with well-being; however, the associations between spirituality and well-being vary greatly. One organizing framework for understanding the varying associations may be the degree to which spirituality and well-being measures capture connection, the pinnacle of which may be conceptualized as Oneness. The purpose of this paper is twofold: to begin exploring this hypothesis by examining the associations between beliefs in Oneness and dimensions of subjective well-being and to test possible conflating and contributing factors in the associations between beliefs in Oneness and subjective well-being. Results indicated preliminary support for …

How Speech Act Theory Can Help Address Problems In Theology And Church Posed By Modern Philosophy, Charles W. Westby

Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation

Westby, Charles W. “How Speech Act Theory Can Help Address Problems in Theology and Church Posed by Modern Philosophy.” Ph.D. diss., Concordia Seminary, 2022. 347 pp.

This dissertation analyzes modern idealism as developed by René Descartes and Immanuel Kant to show how modern philosophy has impacted conservative theology, focusing on the theology of Carl F. H. Henry. The relationship between theology and philosophy is analyzed in terms of foundationalism, using postliberal theological analysis propounded by Hans Frei and George Lindbeck. Speech Act Theory as propounded by J. L. Austin and John R. Searle is used to critique modern idealism in …

On Certain Antinomies Of Freedom: Divine Foreknowledge And Immutability, Tanja T. Rounds

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The objective of this inquiry is to establish the compatibility of free operation in the divine essence given that God is omniscient, and immutable. As such, this inquiry differs from conventional philosophical debate surrounding the divine attributes and creaturely freedom. Chapter I will respond to the antinomy of God’s foreknowledge and divine freedom, and offers a theory for divine freedom and foreknowledge compatibilism from the theory of truthmaking. Chapter II will respond to the antinomy of divine freedom and immutability, and offers a Neo-Thomist account of freedom to explain free action in the divine essence.

Attention, Reflection, And Contemplation: Approaching The Divine Through Romantic Poiesis, Katelynn Tyner

English Undergraduate Honors Theses

Often the techniques of the said and the unsaid work together. This paper will explore ways in which poets embrace iconophilic or iconoclastic postures toward divine poiesis. One objective will be to focus on the arrangement of an abundance of images into itineraries and poetic landscapes. Another objective will be to demonstrate how these patterns of cultivation can be related to a divine poiesis. Through poetry, there are ways of attending to, reflecting on, and contemplating divine images that can return us to forms of participation with the sacred. First examining poetic attention, I identify poets who demonstrate …

Becoming Stewards Of Attention: A Theological Appeal, Joshua Gorenflo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The widespread compromising of attention currently taking place in our digital age is, at least in part, a theological issue necessitating a theological response, which invites an examination of the human person in relation to God. Familiar within the biblical narrative and throughout Christian tradition, I suggest that when the role of steward functions as the operative paradigm for humans, the claims made upon their lives have profound implications for attending within the digital age. More specifically, the steward’s attention becomes a tangible expression of authority and accountability in representation of God’s image to the rest of creation. In pursuit …

A Humanist's Account: Manetti On Humanism's Impact On Morality In 15th Century Italy., Connor Kurtz, Beau Kilpatrick

Undergraduate Research Events

Abstract

Religion, art, and politics were at their peak during the Italian Renaissance. However, because of the generously allocated talent of the Italian sphere at this time it is easy to overlook the contributions of those who broke away from the Catholic concentration and kick started this humanistic era. Giannozzo Manetti, an Italian politician who in 1452 wrote De Ignate er Excellencia Hominis, a challenge to Pope Innocent III’s philosophy. The text has been translated to “On Human Worth and Excellence” and describes a deep-rooted foundation of humanism in religion. He concludes a functionality of society and religion in …

Transforming Leviathan: Job, Hobbes, Zvyagintsev And Philosophical Progression, Graham C. Goff

Journal of Religion & Film

The allegory of Leviathan, the biblical serpent of the seas, has undergone numerous distinct and even antithetical conceptions since its origin in the book of Job. Most prominently, Leviathan was the namesake of Thomas Hobbes’s 1651 political treatise and Andrey Zvyagintsev’s 2014 film of the same name, a damning indictment of Russian corruption. These three iterations underscore the societal transition from the recognition of power as being derived from God to the secularization of power in Hobbes’s philosophy, to the negation of the legitimacy of divine and secular institutional power, in Zvyagintsev’s controversial film. This examination of Leviathan’s three unique …

"For You There Are No Strangers": Albert Schweitzer And The Ethics Of Necessity In Pandemic America, Joel (J.T.) Young

Faculty Scholarship

Claiming millions of lives and affecting millions more, the Covid-19 pandemic has thrust humanity into a period of intense reflection on the fragility of life. However, in this time when people have been encouraged to care for their fellow human beings by taking the precautions necessary to protect one another, many have asked the same question as one of Jesus’ antagonistic opponents in the Gospel of Luke: “and who is my neighbor?” In addition to the virus, though, the United States has been plagued by another adversary: non-necessity toward the other. By claiming no responsibility for the well-being and care …

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 …

Knowledge Through Divine Light: Ghazali’S Notions Of Mystical Cognition, Maisara Maasoum Marzouk

The Undergraduate Research Journal

Illumination, or knowledge through divine light, is a type of mystical cognition that Abu Hamid Ghazali regarded to be the cause of his rescue from his famous skeptical crisis. According to him, this type of divine knowledge is the apex of knowledge, to which all other sciences are subordinate. The receptive organ of this knowledge is the heart, a divine and cognitive subtlety that is distinct though related to the physical heart. Such is done by removing the veils that obstruct divine light from reaching it by means of the science of unveiling. The disclosure of knowledge that occurs once …