Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons^™

Vatican Ii And Intellectual Conversion: Engaging The Struggle Within, Dennis M. (Dennis Michael) Doyle

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

In 1980 I took a course with Joseph Komonchak entitled “The History and Theology of Vatican II” at the Catholic University of America. True to the title, Komonchak was doing history and theology together at the same time on a class-by-class basis. He would bring in documents from the Council and from the times leading up to it, often in Latin, and he would talk about how his goals as a theologian required him to work in a historical manner. To understand Vatican II, or the Church itself for that matter, required not just understanding theological concepts but also grasping …

Virtue Ethics, Nikki Coffey Tousley, Brad Kallenberg

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Virtue ethics emphasizes the development of moral excellence in terms of character qualities called virtues. Virtue are (1) habituated dispositions involving both an affective desire for the good and the skill to both discern and act accordingly; (2) learned through practice within a tradition (i.e., a historical community with a rich account of the "good"); and (3) directed toward this tradition's particular conception of the good (making virtues "teleological"). From a Christian perspective, virtue ethics is an ethics of discipleship, which emphasizes the development of the habits, practices, and wisdom necessary to pursue the "good" exemplified by Christ. Reading Scripture …

The Master Argument Of Macintyre's 'After Virtue', Brad Kallenberg

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

In September of 1995 the Associated Press released a wire photo showing Russian lawmakers of both genders in a punching brawl during a session of the Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament.' Is this behavior an ethnic idiosyncrasy? Do only government officials duke it out over matters of great importance? Or have fisticuffs suddenly become politically correct?

No, on all counts. Pick a topic, any topic -- abortion, euthanasia, welfare reform, military intervention in the Balkans -- and initiate discussion with a group of reasonable, well-educated people and observe the outcome. Chaos ensues. Of course the volume of the debate …

Why Study Mary?, François Rossier

Marian Library Faculty Presentations

Simple as the title "Why Study Mary?" may sound, Father François Rossier situates Marian studies in the broader context of Scripture and the Christian tradition. Making special reference to the Marianist tradition and its intimate connection with the University of Dayton's spirit and vision, he sees in Mary the "origin of theological reflection." It is a reflection that is documented not in a book, but in Mary's person. Being the "first theologian," she has a "concretizing function." She makes Jesus "tangible, concrete, accessible to our senses," but she also helps us "to get a sense of God's action and presence …

Dynamical Similarity And The Problem Of Evil, Brad Kallenberg

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Discussions of evil commonly fault God for not “doing something.” Defenders of God respond that God had good reasons for not “doing something.” Detractors observe that if a human being can snatch the toddler from the path of the oncoming bus, why does not God snatch the bus from the path of the oncoming toddler? The underlying assumption in such discussions is that God’s “doing something” is similar to humans’ “doing something.”

If human beings bear the image of their Creator as the Abrahamic faiths maintain, it is natural to suppose that divine action is similar to human action. But …

A Comparison Of The Aesthetic Approach Of Hans-Georg Gadamer And Hans-Urs Von Balthasar, Jason Paul Bourgeois

Marian Library Faculty Publications

Hans-Georg Gadamer (1901-2002), the German philosopher of hermeneutics, has exercised a powerful influence on post-Vatican II Roman Catholic fundamental theology, especially regarding questions of the development of doctrine and the appropriation of tradition. There is a tension in interpreting Gadamer's thought between his concept of "fusion of horizons," in which the horizon of the past is fused with the horizon of the present to yield new interpretations of past texts, and his defense of "prejudice, authority, classics, and tradition," in which Gadamer upholds the enduring truth-value of received wisdom from the past. … This article will broadly point out the …

Balthasar's Theodramatic Hermeneutics: Trinitarian And Ecclesial Dimensions Of Scriptural Interpretation, Jason Paul Bourgeois

Marian Library Faculty Publications

Hans Urs von Balthasar developed a unique style of biblical interpretation. This paper discusses four elements of his scriptural hermeneutics, a topic that offers glimpses of his fundamental theology and his ecclesiology as well. The first element of Balthasar’s hermeneutics is aesthetics. Balthasar’s aesthetic approach to scriptural interpretation stands in contrast with the commonly employed historical-critical method, which he found to be potentially limiting. The second element is theodrama. In Balthasar’s notion of theodramatic hermeneutics, the interpreter is already participating in the very salvation history that is being interpreted. The third and fourth elements of Balthasar’s hermeneutics involve the Trinitarian …

All Suffer The Affliction Of The One: Metaphysical Holism And The Presence Of The Spirit, Brad Kallenberg

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

When Copernicus and Galileo proposed that the earth circled the sun and not the 217 other way around, Christian believers faced the difficult prospect of surrendering a long-held belief that had seemingly undeniable support from the biblical text. After all, Joshua reported that the sun, not the earth, stood still; what could this mean if not that the sun orbited the earth? Today, centuries later, believers unanimously hold a heliocentric view of the solar system and are somewhat embarrassed by the ignorance of our pre-Enlightenment brothers and sisters. Ironically, however, such embarrassment masks the possibility that we ourselves may one …

Ethics As Grammar: Changing The Postmodern Subject, Brad Kallenberg

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Wittgenstein, one of the most influential, and yet widely misunderstood, philosophers of our age, confronted his readers with aporias—linguistic puzzles—as a means of countering modern philosophical confusions over the nature of language without replicating the same confusions in his own writings. In Ethics as Grammar, Brad Kallenberg uses the writings of theological ethicist Stanley Hauerwas as a foil for demonstrating how Wittgenstein’s method can become concrete within the Christian tradition. Kallenberg shows that the aesthetic, political, and grammatical strands epitomizing Hauerwas’s thought are the result of his learning to do Christian ethics by thinking through Wittgenstein.

Kallenberg argues that …

How Realistic Can A Catholic Writer Be? Richard Sullivan And American Catholic Literature, Una M. Cadegan

History Faculty Publications

Despite the fact that Sullivan never achieved the fame he sought, the record he left behind reveals much about the way one writer handled the complicated personal and professional questions of regional, literary, gender, and religious identity. He was a regional author with national ambitions, a serious author who did not disdain the notion of popular success, and a male author whose primary focus was domestic life and relationships. He was also a Catholic author-that is, he belonged to a tradition that believed in normative standards for artistic value in an era when such a belief was considered by some …