{"title":"Saving the Analogy of Being: Christological Recapitulation and Trinitarian Horizon","authors":"Cyril O’Regan","doi":"10.1111/moth.12954","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/moth.12954","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":18945,"journal":{"name":"Modern Theology","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-07-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141609939","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Rowan Williams's trinitarian ontology rests on the affirmation of eros within God and the ‘irreducible otherness’ of the divine persons to one another. The divine persons are accordingly conceived in ek‐static terms as ‘giving more than they are’. In the generation of the Son and the spiration of the Spirit we discern the ‘timeless making other that is intrinsic to God's being’. It is this poetics from above that is the ‘fountainhead’ of finite human creativity on Williams's view, and more specifically, the eternal filial reality of the Son as the Art, Image or Sign of the Father. Conversely, his poetics from below begins with a phenomenology of artistic labour and linguistic practice that is acutely alert to the material and temporalized conditions of human making. In this article, I elaborate and defend the coordination and mutual illumination provided by his poetics from above and from below which affects a significant reworking of how we imagine the relation between the finite and the infinite. What emerges from this re‐working, I will argue, is a profound, ecstatic and ‘personalist’ view of the material and temporal human creature becoming ‘hypostatic’ via a filial mode of creativity.
{"title":"Homo Poeta: Rowan Williams and Poetic Anthropology","authors":"Patrick John McGlinchey","doi":"10.1111/moth.12950","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/moth.12950","url":null,"abstract":"Rowan Williams's trinitarian ontology rests on the affirmation of <jats:italic>eros</jats:italic> within God and the ‘irreducible otherness’ of the divine persons to one another. The divine persons are accordingly conceived in <jats:italic>ek‐static</jats:italic> terms as ‘giving more than they are’. In the generation of the Son and the spiration of the Spirit we discern the ‘timeless making other that is intrinsic to God's being’. It is this poetics from above that is the ‘fountainhead’ of finite human creativity on Williams's view, and more specifically, the eternal filial reality of the Son as the Art, Image or Sign of the Father. Conversely, his poetics from below begins with a phenomenology of artistic labour and linguistic practice that is acutely alert to the material and temporalized conditions of human making. In this article, I elaborate and defend the coordination and mutual illumination provided by his poetics from above and from below which affects a significant reworking of how we imagine the relation between the finite and the infinite. What emerges from this re‐working, I will argue, is a profound, ecstatic and ‘personalist’ view of the material and temporal human creature becoming ‘hypostatic’ via a <jats:italic>filial</jats:italic> mode of creativity.","PeriodicalId":18945,"journal":{"name":"Modern Theology","volume":"70 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-05-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141196038","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Thomas Aquinas did not simply write a Summa “against” the Gentiles (contra Gentiles), but rather first and foremost a Summa “for” the Gentiles (pro Gentilibus). As the sole recourse for Muslims and pagans for whom there was no Scripture in common, natural reason is not only a vertical site for access to God; it designates the horizontal topos for a human community capable of gathering us together. Yesterday's “reason” (Thomas Aquinas) plays the role of “finitude” today (Heidegger) – to know what forms us “in common.” Such is the unique perspective of an apologetics that no longer holds itself up with a kind of “looming transcendence” (Merleau‐Ponty), as if the absolute were immediately given. We will cease opposing metaphysics and theology with a discourse that is supposedly pure yet wrongly sought. The lesson of the Council of Nicaea (325 CE) guides us to transform tradition rather than overcome it. The Council's “that is” regarding the same substance (homooúsion) of the Father translates the biblical into the Hellenic, rather than endeavoring to depart from the Hellenic as such. In this respect, the famous “that which everyone calls God” (et omnes dicunt Deum) at the end of each of Aquinas’ Five Ways indicates less the idol of a conceptual God to be overcome, and instead signals the icon of a rational God, who in its kenosis takes up our proper nature in order to transform it. From a theo‐logy where “only God speaks well of God” (subjective genitive), we shall pass over to a theo‐logy where “humans can also speak of God, at least in part” (objective genitive). A new connection between metaphysics and theology is established here, one capable of initiating a different relation between the believer and the world.
{"title":"Metaphysics and Theology: A Summa “For” the Gentiles","authors":"Emmanuel Falque","doi":"10.1111/moth.12936","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/moth.12936","url":null,"abstract":"Thomas Aquinas did not simply write a <jats:italic>Summa</jats:italic> “against” the Gentiles (<jats:italic>contra Gentiles</jats:italic>), but rather first and foremost a <jats:italic>Summa</jats:italic> “for” the Gentiles (<jats:italic>pro Gentilibus</jats:italic>). As the sole recourse for Muslims and pagans for whom there was no Scripture in common, natural reason is not only a vertical site for access to God; it designates the horizontal <jats:italic>topos</jats:italic> for a human community capable of gathering us together. Yesterday's “reason” (Thomas Aquinas) plays the role of “finitude” today (Heidegger) – to know what forms us “in common.” Such is the unique perspective of an apologetics that no longer holds itself up with a kind of “looming transcendence” (Merleau‐Ponty), as if the absolute were immediately given. We will cease opposing metaphysics and theology with a discourse that is supposedly pure yet wrongly sought. The lesson of the Council of Nicaea (325 CE) guides us to transform tradition rather than overcome it. The Council's “that is” regarding the same substance (<jats:italic>homooúsion</jats:italic>) of the Father translates the biblical into the Hellenic, rather than endeavoring to depart from the Hellenic as such. In this respect, the famous “that which everyone calls God” (<jats:italic>et omnes dicunt Deum</jats:italic>) at the end of each of Aquinas’ Five Ways indicates less the idol of a conceptual God to be overcome, and instead signals the icon of a rational God, who in its <jats:italic>kenosis</jats:italic> takes up our proper nature in order to transform it. From a <jats:italic>theo</jats:italic>‐logy where “only God speaks well of God” (subjective genitive), we shall pass over to a theo‐<jats:italic>logy</jats:italic> where “humans can also speak of God, at least in part” (objective genitive). A new connection between metaphysics and theology is established here, one capable of initiating a different relation between the believer and the world.","PeriodicalId":18945,"journal":{"name":"Modern Theology","volume":"142 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-05-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141063594","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The sixth “showing” that Julian of Norwich recounts in her Revelation of Love includes a vision of the saints receiving thanks from God. Julian echoes and refers back to this scene at several other points in her text, but she never acknowledges its oddity within the broadly Augustinian‐Platonist stream of theology within which she works. How can it make sense for the God who is Being, Goodness, and Truth—the creator and cause of all that is—to give thanks to a creature? I argue that Julian's image of a grateful God accords with (1) her account of God's aim in creation, including the defeat of sin and evil, and (2) her understanding of the place of giving and receiving in humans’ likeness to God.
{"title":"Julian of Norwich's Grateful God","authors":"Ryan McAnnally‐Linz","doi":"10.1111/moth.12945","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/moth.12945","url":null,"abstract":"The sixth “showing” that Julian of Norwich recounts in her <jats:italic>Revelation of Love</jats:italic> includes a vision of the saints receiving thanks from God. Julian echoes and refers back to this scene at several other points in her text, but she never acknowledges its oddity within the broadly Augustinian‐Platonist stream of theology within which she works. How can it make sense for the God who is Being, Goodness, and Truth—the creator and cause of all that is—to give thanks to a creature? I argue that Julian's image of a grateful God accords with (1) her account of God's aim in creation, including the defeat of sin and evil, and (2) her understanding of the place of giving and receiving in humans’ likeness to God.","PeriodicalId":18945,"journal":{"name":"Modern Theology","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-05-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140937739","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Afternoon of Christianity: The Courage to Change by TomášHalík, trans. GeraldTurner (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2024), xv + 238 pp.","authors":"Aden Cotterill","doi":"10.1111/moth.12944","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/moth.12944","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":18945,"journal":{"name":"Modern Theology","volume":"136 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-05-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140937738","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In the last twenty‐five years scientific research on embodied cognition and related discussions in the philosophy of technology and science have led to two groundbreaking insights: 1. Perceptions, memories, meanings, and volitions are neither located in the brain nor reducible to intentional acts of ‘autonomous subjects’. 2. Human intelligence is always embedded in an embodied, simultaneously natural and artificial environment that is charged with meaning. These insights are compatible with holistic, relational concepts of embodied intelligence in the tradition of sapiential thinkers like Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and Nicholas of Cusa, and related sacramental ontologies. The modern break with this tradition was inspired by the dataist metaphysics of the ‘Gutenberg revolution’ and culminated in the thesis that human cognition is a kind of pattern extraction or the upshot of the synthesis of elementary sensory data. By contrast, the fact that the business of pattern‐extraction has become replaceable by the work of ‘artificial intelligences’ calls two things to mind: First, the late‐modern confusion of human with ‘artificial intelligence’ is the upshot of a reductionist metaphysics that provoked an unhealthy assimilation of human cognition to the way machines work. Second, in order to strengthen what distinguishes human intelligence from ‘artificial intelligences’, we need to recover the premodern unity of being, truth, beauty and the good, starting from a holistic, trinitarian anthropology. As the most recent research on Human Computer Interaction (HCI) shows, this requires a revision of our modern, instrumental attitude toward technical artifacts which emerged in the Age of the Reformation. Seen from this angle, the recovery of the sacramental ontology of premodernity has become a matter of urgency not primarily in terms of theological developments but in terms of the very innovations that provoked its modern ‘disenchantment’.
{"title":"The Gift of Intelligence and the Sacramentality of Real Presence: Overcoming the Dataist Metaphysics of Modern Cognitivism","authors":"Johannes Hoff","doi":"10.1111/moth.12940","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/moth.12940","url":null,"abstract":"In the last twenty‐five years scientific research on embodied cognition and related discussions in the philosophy of technology and science have led to two groundbreaking insights: 1. Perceptions, memories, meanings, and volitions are neither located in the brain nor reducible to intentional acts of ‘autonomous subjects’. 2. Human intelligence is always embedded in an embodied, simultaneously natural and artificial environment that is charged with meaning. These insights are compatible with holistic, relational concepts of embodied intelligence in the tradition of sapiential thinkers like Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and Nicholas of Cusa, and related sacramental ontologies. The modern break with this tradition was inspired by the dataist metaphysics of the ‘Gutenberg revolution’ and culminated in the thesis that human cognition is a kind of pattern extraction or the upshot of the synthesis of elementary sensory data. By contrast, the fact that the business of pattern‐extraction has become replaceable by the work of ‘artificial intelligences’ calls two things to mind: First, the late‐modern confusion of human with ‘artificial intelligence’ is the upshot of a reductionist metaphysics that provoked an unhealthy assimilation of human cognition to the way machines work. Second, in order to strengthen what <jats:italic>distinguishes</jats:italic> human intelligence from ‘artificial intelligences’, we need to recover the premodern unity of being, truth, beauty and the good, starting from a holistic, trinitarian anthropology. As the most recent research on Human Computer Interaction (HCI) shows, this requires a revision of our modern, instrumental attitude toward technical artifacts which emerged in the Age of the Reformation. Seen from this angle, the recovery of the sacramental ontology of premodernity has become a matter of urgency not primarily in terms of theological developments but in terms of the very innovations that provoked its modern ‘disenchantment’.","PeriodicalId":18945,"journal":{"name":"Modern Theology","volume":"206 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-04-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140628240","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article examines Augustine's use of theological metaphor in his anti‐Pelagian writings. Drawing on disability studies in theology and literary theory, it explores how Augustine uses metaphors of disability to provide a material anchor for his concept of sin in Nature and Grace and The Grace of Christ and Original Sin. However, the article proffers that in The Nature and Origin of the Soul, Augustine offers us a model of apophatic theological metaphor which might benefit our figurative theological landscape for conceptualising sin. This latter metaphorical mode might be seen as being congruent with the priorities of contemporary disability theology, and provides a method to disrupt the analogy between sin and disability. The article finally uses these tools to re‐examine the story of Bartimaeus in Luke's gospel with a redistributed hermeneutic, and argues for the pastoral benefits of a more underdetermined approach to our concept of sin.
{"title":"Metaphors of Sin and Disability in Augustine's Anti‐Pelagian Writings","authors":"Tanya Kundu","doi":"10.1111/moth.12941","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/moth.12941","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines Augustine's use of theological metaphor in his anti‐Pelagian writings. Drawing on disability studies in theology and literary theory, it explores how Augustine uses metaphors of disability to provide a material anchor for his concept of sin in <jats:italic>Nature and Grace</jats:italic> and <jats:italic>The Grace of Christ and Original Sin</jats:italic>. However, the article proffers that in <jats:italic>The Nature and Origin of the Soul</jats:italic>, Augustine offers us a model of apophatic theological metaphor which might benefit our figurative theological landscape for conceptualising sin. This latter metaphorical mode might be seen as being congruent with the priorities of contemporary disability theology, and provides a method to disrupt the analogy between sin and disability. The article finally uses these tools to re‐examine the story of Bartimaeus in Luke's gospel with a redistributed hermeneutic, and argues for the pastoral benefits of a more underdetermined approach to our concept of sin.","PeriodicalId":18945,"journal":{"name":"Modern Theology","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-04-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140628248","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this article, the author explores what the future might hold for the sensibility known as Theological Interpretation of Scripture (TIS). In doing so, he identifies and discusses three interconnected areas TIS might from benefit reflecting more deeply upon. They are: (1) questions of Scripture's ontology; (2) notions of textuality and textual meaning; and, finally, (3) the concept of ‘mood’ as it relates to scriptural interpretation.
{"title":"What Next for Theological Interpretation of Scripture?","authors":"Jonathan Rowlands","doi":"10.1111/moth.12939","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/moth.12939","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, the author explores what the future might hold for the sensibility known as Theological Interpretation of Scripture (TIS). In doing so, he identifies and discusses three interconnected areas TIS might from benefit reflecting more deeply upon. They are: (1) questions of Scripture's ontology; (2) notions of textuality and textual meaning; and, finally, (3) the concept of ‘mood’ as it relates to scriptural interpretation.","PeriodicalId":18945,"journal":{"name":"Modern Theology","volume":"21 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140598129","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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