It has been assumed that the person represented on the Shroud of Turin is dead and the image corresponds to a person dead from crucifixion. We have conducted an analysis of the cadaveric data of a body and the presence of face life signs and we could think that the image could corresponds to a living person. Therefore, it might correspond to a man starting a getting up gesture. If we examine the Gospels, a remarkable symmetry is found between the data obtained from the image and the events described in the Gospels, regarding the death and resurrection of Jesus.
{"title":"The Man of the Shroud of Turin: Is He Dead or Alive?","authors":"Bernardo Hontanilla Calatayud","doi":"10.12775/setf.2022.005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12775/setf.2022.005","url":null,"abstract":"It has been assumed that the person represented on the Shroud of Turin is dead and the image corresponds to a person dead from crucifixion. We have conducted an analysis of the cadaveric data of a body and the presence of face life signs and we could think that the image could corresponds to a living person. Therefore, it might correspond to a man starting a getting up gesture. If we examine the Gospels, a remarkable symmetry is found between the data obtained from the image and the events described in the Gospels, regarding the death and resurrection of Jesus.","PeriodicalId":41706,"journal":{"name":"Scientia et Fides","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86374057","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Although Political Theology examined mainly the political dimension of the relationship between God-Father and God-Son, it is paramount to consider the political performance of the Holy Spirit in the Economy of Redemption. The Holy Spirit has been characterized as the binding cause and the principle of relationality both referring to God’s inner life and to God’s relationship with His creatures. As the personalization of relationality, the Holy Spirit performs a unique task: to bring together what is apart by means of organisation. This power of the Spirit to turn a plurality into a unity is manifested in the Latin translation of oikonomía as disposition, that is, giving a special order to the multiple elements within a certain totality. Within this activity of the Spirit, Theodicy can be regarded as the way to depict God’s arrangement of the world and of history, bringing everything together towards the eschatological Kingdom of God. The paper aims at showing this fundamental activity of the Holy Spirit in Christian Theology, and intends to pose the question on how to think on a theology beyond theodicy, that is, how to think on a Trinitarian God beyond the categories of sovereignty and totalization.
{"title":"Political Theology as Theodicy: The Holy Spirit’s Performance in the Economy of Redemption","authors":"Martina Grassi","doi":"10.12775/setf.2021.025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12775/setf.2021.025","url":null,"abstract":"Although Political Theology examined mainly the political dimension of the relationship between God-Father and God-Son, it is paramount to consider the political performance of the Holy Spirit in the Economy of Redemption. The Holy Spirit has been characterized as the binding cause and the principle of relationality both referring to God’s inner life and to God’s relationship with His creatures. As the personalization of relationality, the Holy Spirit performs a unique task: to bring together what is apart by means of organisation. This power of the Spirit to turn a plurality into a unity is manifested in the Latin translation of oikonomía as disposition, that is, giving a special order to the multiple elements within a certain totality. Within this activity of the Spirit, Theodicy can be regarded as the way to depict God’s arrangement of the world and of history, bringing everything together towards the eschatological Kingdom of God. The paper aims at showing this fundamental activity of the Holy Spirit in Christian Theology, and intends to pose the question on how to think on a theology beyond theodicy, that is, how to think on a Trinitarian God beyond the categories of sovereignty and totalization.","PeriodicalId":41706,"journal":{"name":"Scientia et Fides","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89032970","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
"More recently, cognitive psychologists have used the resources of psychological science to study the foundations of religion, and to discuss and possibly illuminate issues of concern for theologians. The new field, known as the cognitive science of religion (CSR), draws from work by Ernest Thomas Lawson, Robert McCauley, Pascal Boyer and Justin Barrett, among others. Many of its scholars are inspired by a spirit of collaborative work with theologians and philosophers of religion, emphasizing the need of serious cross-training between disciplines. Driven by the same spirit, the present issue of Scientia et Fides documents instances of integrative work at the intersection of psychological science and philosophical or theological knowledge, specifically centered around our understanding of what a person is. We hope that, apart from their individual worth, as a whole these contributions will stimulate further interdisciplinary studies, in order to achieve genuine science-engaged philosophy and theology, and a science that is aware of philosophical and theological discussions." (from the introduction)
{"title":"Special Issue of Scientia et Fides on Experimental Psychology and the Notion of Personhood","authors":"J. F. Franck, Scott Harrower, Ryan S. Peterson","doi":"10.12775/setf.2021.015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12775/setf.2021.015","url":null,"abstract":"\"More recently, cognitive psychologists have used the resources of psychological science to study the foundations of religion, and to discuss and possibly illuminate issues of concern for theologians. The new field, known as the cognitive science of religion (CSR), draws from work by Ernest Thomas Lawson, Robert McCauley, Pascal Boyer and Justin Barrett, among others. Many of its scholars are inspired by a spirit of collaborative work with theologians and philosophers of religion, emphasizing the need of serious cross-training between disciplines. Driven by the same spirit, the present issue of Scientia et Fides documents instances of integrative work at the intersection of psychological science and philosophical or theological knowledge, specifically centered around our understanding of what a person is. We hope that, apart from their individual worth, as a whole these contributions will stimulate further interdisciplinary studies, in order to achieve genuine science-engaged philosophy and theology, and a science that is aware of philosophical and theological discussions.\" (from the introduction) ","PeriodicalId":41706,"journal":{"name":"Scientia et Fides","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88618699","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
José Víctor Orón Semper, Miriam Martinez Martínez Mares
La necesidad de categorizar la personalidad es recurrente en estudios filosóficos, teológicos y, especialmente, psicológicos. No obstante, la falta de diálogo entre las distintas disciplinas da lugar a diversos análisis que parecen dividir la realidad humana en “parcelas” que, a menudo, son incompatibles entre sí; ¿cómo hablar, por ejemplo, de libertad antropológica desde las numerosas aportaciones conductistas de la psicología? Atendiendo a este problema, el presente artículo propone el análisis integral de la acción humana (el modo en el que la persona se actualiza) como una perspectiva que da lugar a una parametrización psicológica ajustada a la complejidad de la personalidad. Partiendo de la visión integral de la acción, su aspecto comportamental y mental comúnmente estudiados se advierten como insuficientes y se amplía el horizonte al elemento de la interioridad. Este modo más completo de parametrizar a la persona atiende su complejidad y apunta, simultáneamente, a lo que no es conceptualizable en ella. Traer al escenario la interioridad supondrá una lectura renovada de la psicología, la filosofía y la teología, así como su evidente necesidad de interacción.
{"title":"La acción humana: una propuesta integral para el diálogo interdisciplinar sobre la personalidad","authors":"José Víctor Orón Semper, Miriam Martinez Martínez Mares","doi":"10.12775/setf.2021.022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12775/setf.2021.022","url":null,"abstract":"La necesidad de categorizar la personalidad es recurrente en estudios filosóficos, teológicos y, especialmente, psicológicos. No obstante, la falta de diálogo entre las distintas disciplinas da lugar a diversos análisis que parecen dividir la realidad humana en “parcelas” que, a menudo, son incompatibles entre sí; ¿cómo hablar, por ejemplo, de libertad antropológica desde las numerosas aportaciones conductistas de la psicología? Atendiendo a este problema, el presente artículo propone el análisis integral de la acción humana (el modo en el que la persona se actualiza) como una perspectiva que da lugar a una parametrización psicológica ajustada a la complejidad de la personalidad. Partiendo de la visión integral de la acción, su aspecto comportamental y mental comúnmente estudiados se advierten como insuficientes y se amplía el horizonte al elemento de la interioridad. Este modo más completo de parametrizar a la persona atiende su complejidad y apunta, simultáneamente, a lo que no es conceptualizable en ella. Traer al escenario la interioridad supondrá una lectura renovada de la psicología, la filosofía y la teología, así como su evidente necesidad de interacción.","PeriodicalId":41706,"journal":{"name":"Scientia et Fides","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73962697","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this paper, we argue that to reverse the excess of specialization and to create room for interdisciplinary cross-fertilization, it seems necessary to move the existing epistemic plurality towards a collaborative process of social cognition. In order to achieve this, we propose to extend the psychological notion of joint attention towards what we call joint intellectual attention. This special kind of joint attention involves a shared awareness of sharing the cognitive process of knowledge. We claim that if an interdisciplinary research team aspires to work collaboratively, it is essential for the researchers to jointly focus their attention towards a common object and establish a second-person relatedness among them. We consider some of the intellectual dispositions or virtues fostered by joint intellectual attention that facilitate interdisciplinary exchange, and explore some of the practical consequences of this cognitive approach to interdisciplinarity for education and research.
{"title":"Second-person Perspective in Interdisciplinary Research: A Cognitive Approach for Understanding and Improving the Dynamics of Collaborative Research Teams","authors":"C. Vanney, J. I. Aguinalde Sáenz","doi":"10.12775/setf.2021.023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12775/setf.2021.023","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, we argue that to reverse the excess of specialization and to create room for interdisciplinary cross-fertilization, it seems necessary to move the existing epistemic plurality towards a collaborative process of social cognition. In order to achieve this, we propose to extend the psychological notion of joint attention towards what we call joint intellectual attention. This special kind of joint attention involves a shared awareness of sharing the cognitive process of knowledge. We claim that if an interdisciplinary research team aspires to work collaboratively, it is essential for the researchers to jointly focus their attention towards a common object and establish a second-person relatedness among them. We consider some of the intellectual dispositions or virtues fostered by joint intellectual attention that facilitate interdisciplinary exchange, and explore some of the practical consequences of this cognitive approach to interdisciplinarity for education and research.","PeriodicalId":41706,"journal":{"name":"Scientia et Fides","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88538871","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In recent decades, philosophers and theologians have become increasingly aware of the extent of animal pain and suffering, both past and present, and of the challenge this poses to God’s goodness and justice. As a result, a great deal of effort has been devoted to the discussion and development of animal theodicies, that is, theodicies that aim to offer morally sufficient reasons for animal pain and suffering that are in fact God’s reasons. In this paper, I ask whether there is a need to go even further than this, by considering whether effort should be made to extend theodicy to include plants as well. Drawing upon ideas found in some recent animal theodicies as well as in the work of some environmental ethicists, I offer three arguments for supposing that plants should indeed fall within the purview of theodicy: (1) the argument from non-flourishing as evil, (2) the argument from moral considerability, and (3) the argument from intrinsic value. I also consider a possible objection to each of these arguments. Having outlined and defended the aforementioned arguments for broadening theodicy to include plants as well as humans and animals, I conclude by considering what a plant theodicy might look like.
{"title":"Do we Need a Plant Theodicy?","authors":"L. Strickland","doi":"10.12775/setf.2021.026","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12775/setf.2021.026","url":null,"abstract":"In recent decades, philosophers and theologians have become increasingly aware of the extent of animal pain and suffering, both past and present, and of the challenge this poses to God’s goodness and justice. As a result, a great deal of effort has been devoted to the discussion and development of animal theodicies, that is, theodicies that aim to offer morally sufficient reasons for animal pain and suffering that are in fact God’s reasons. In this paper, I ask whether there is a need to go even further than this, by considering whether effort should be made to extend theodicy to include plants as well. Drawing upon ideas found in some recent animal theodicies as well as in the work of some environmental ethicists, I offer three arguments for supposing that plants should indeed fall within the purview of theodicy: (1) the argument from non-flourishing as evil, (2) the argument from moral considerability, and (3) the argument from intrinsic value. I also consider a possible objection to each of these arguments. Having outlined and defended the aforementioned arguments for broadening theodicy to include plants as well as humans and animals, I conclude by considering what a plant theodicy might look like.","PeriodicalId":41706,"journal":{"name":"Scientia et Fides","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86478236","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
La idea de que una filosofía de la persona substancialista e individualista ha atravesado toda la metafísica occidental y ha constituido un obstáculo para pensar la comunión y la intersubjetividad, se ha convertido en un lugar común del pensamiento contemporáneo. Se problematiza aquí esta perspectiva. Se sugiere que sus distintas formulaciones, muy variadas, obedecieron a un argumento similar, dependiente también de fundamentos teóricos muy cercanos entre sí. Se compara este planteo con el del personalismo ontológico y se evalúan los resultados del intento llamado “postmetafísico” de alcanzar una filosofía de la comunión superando el humanismo. Asimismo, se sugieren algunas influencias de esta problemática en psicoanálisis, filosofía analítica, y fenomenología. Autores variados como Heidegger, Foucault, Vattimo, Esposito, Scheler, Freud, Fromm, Kohut, Lacan, Deleuze, Madell, Stump, Ricoeur y Butler, entre otros, son referidos para ilustrar el debate.
{"title":"¿La comunicabilidad operativa de la persona requiere su comunicabilidad ontológica? Discusión sobre un dogma filosófico de nuestro tiempo","authors":"Juan Pablo Roldán","doi":"10.12775/setf.2021.019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12775/setf.2021.019","url":null,"abstract":"La idea de que una filosofía de la persona substancialista e individualista ha atravesado toda la metafísica occidental y ha constituido un obstáculo para pensar la comunión y la intersubjetividad, se ha convertido en un lugar común del pensamiento contemporáneo. Se problematiza aquí esta perspectiva. Se sugiere que sus distintas formulaciones, muy variadas, obedecieron a un argumento similar, dependiente también de fundamentos teóricos muy cercanos entre sí. Se compara este planteo con el del personalismo ontológico y se evalúan los resultados del intento llamado “postmetafísico” de alcanzar una filosofía de la comunión superando el humanismo. Asimismo, se sugieren algunas influencias de esta problemática en psicoanálisis, filosofía analítica, y fenomenología. Autores variados como Heidegger, Foucault, Vattimo, Esposito, Scheler, Freud, Fromm, Kohut, Lacan, Deleuze, Madell, Stump, Ricoeur y Butler, entre otros, son referidos para ilustrar el debate.","PeriodicalId":41706,"journal":{"name":"Scientia et Fides","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76256526","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
I call the Particular Problem of Hell (PPH) the problem of explaining why God allows a certain set of created persons to populate hell, as opposed to allowing some other set of created persons to do so. This paper proposes a solution to PPH on behalf of proponents of Divine Universal Causality (DUC) — the view, roughly, that God causes everything distinct from himself to exist at any time it exists. Despite initial appearances, I argue, proponents of DUC can adopt a version of the popular approach to the Problem of Hell sometimes called the Choice Model. My proposal is based upon Eleonore Stump's Thomistically-inspired notion that our wills can enter a state of "quiescence" with respect to a given option. While proponents of DUC will, I argue, most likely find Stump's own quiescence-based solution to PPH unacceptable, there is a way of modifying her approach that renders it compatible with God's causing everything distinct from himself, including the free choices of his creatures.
{"title":"Divine Universal Causality and the Particular Problem of Hell: A Quiescence Solution","authors":"Adam Wood","doi":"10.12775/setf.2021.024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12775/setf.2021.024","url":null,"abstract":"I call the Particular Problem of Hell (PPH) the problem of explaining why God allows a certain set of created persons to populate hell, as opposed to allowing some other set of created persons to do so. This paper proposes a solution to PPH on behalf of proponents of Divine Universal Causality (DUC) — the view, roughly, that God causes everything distinct from himself to exist at any time it exists. Despite initial appearances, I argue, proponents of DUC can adopt a version of the popular approach to the Problem of Hell sometimes called the Choice Model. My proposal is based upon Eleonore Stump's Thomistically-inspired notion that our wills can enter a state of \"quiescence\" with respect to a given option. While proponents of DUC will, I argue, most likely find Stump's own quiescence-based solution to PPH unacceptable, there is a way of modifying her approach that renders it compatible with God's causing everything distinct from himself, including the free choices of his creatures.","PeriodicalId":41706,"journal":{"name":"Scientia et Fides","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81156392","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The article focuses on a currently hot debate in contemporary ethics that takes place between so-called situationists and the advocates of virtue ethics. The fundamental assumption made by virtue ethics is that developing and perfecting one’s moral character or moral virtues warrants one’s morally good action. Situationists claim that this assumption contradicts the results of the latest empirical studies. From this observation, they conclude that virtue ethics is based on an empirically inadequate moral psychology.In the first part of the article, I present the conceptions of virtue and moral character developed in response to the situationist criticism. I show to which degree these conceptions differ from the classical, so-called global approach in virtue ethics In the second part, based on the references to the latest empirical studies in social and cognitive psychology, I argue, against the situationist objection, that the classical notion of virtue meets the requirement of empirical adequacy. I mainly resort to the interactionist theory of personality by W. Mischel, R. Baumeister’s studies over self-control, D. Kahneman's conception of two-processual mind, and the studies over automatized processes by J. Bargh.
{"title":"The concepts of virtue after the „character – situation” debate","authors":"Natasza Szutta","doi":"10.12775/setf.2021.018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12775/setf.2021.018","url":null,"abstract":"The article focuses on a currently hot debate in contemporary ethics that takes place between so-called situationists and the advocates of virtue ethics. The fundamental assumption made by virtue ethics is that developing and perfecting one’s moral character or moral virtues warrants one’s morally good action. Situationists claim that this assumption contradicts the results of the latest empirical studies. From this observation, they conclude that virtue ethics is based on an empirically inadequate moral psychology.In the first part of the article, I present the conceptions of virtue and moral character developed in response to the situationist criticism. I show to which degree these conceptions differ from the classical, so-called global approach in virtue ethics In the second part, based on the references to the latest empirical studies in social and cognitive psychology, I argue, against the situationist objection, that the classical notion of virtue meets the requirement of empirical adequacy. I mainly resort to the interactionist theory of personality by W. Mischel, R. Baumeister’s studies over self-control, D. Kahneman's conception of two-processual mind, and the studies over automatized processes by J. Bargh.","PeriodicalId":41706,"journal":{"name":"Scientia et Fides","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77750776","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
May God may be understood and referred to as a “person”? This is a live debate in contemporary theological and philosophical circles. However, despite the attention this debate has received, the vital question of how to account for God’s trinitarian nature has been mostly overlooked. Due to trinitarian concerns about the unqualified use of “person” as an analogy for the Godhead, I intervene in this debate with a two-fold proposal. The first is that proponents of using a person as an analogy for the Godhead will be better served by using a psychologically informed analogy of a “self” instead. In particular, the Dialogical Self model of a person holds much promise. In what follows, I argue that the “Dialogical Self Analogy” for the Godhead is more likely to uphold God’s trinitarian nature, avoid trinitarian confusion and related problems than “person” analogies do. The primary benefit of speaking of God as a Dialogical Self is that it offers a psychologically modelled analogy for God, whilst avoiding the language of person, yet strongly taking into account God’s trinitarian nature. This has the important benefit of preserving the concept and language of “person” for the trinitarian persons (the prosopa/hypostases), and hence avoiding the linguistic, conceptual and ecumenical confusion that arises when referring to the Godhead as a person. The strength of using the model and language of a Dialogical Self as an analogy for the Godhead (instead of person) is demonstrated by showing its compatibility with Erickson’s criteria for describing the Trinity.
{"title":"The Dialogical Self Analogy for the Godhead: Recasting the “God is a Person” Debate","authors":"Scott Harrower","doi":"10.12775/setf.2021.020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12775/setf.2021.020","url":null,"abstract":"May God may be understood and referred to as a “person”? This is a live debate in contemporary theological and philosophical circles. However, despite the attention this debate has received, the vital question of how to account for God’s trinitarian nature has been mostly overlooked. Due to trinitarian concerns about the unqualified use of “person” as an analogy for the Godhead, I intervene in this debate with a two-fold proposal. The first is that proponents of using a person as an analogy for the Godhead will be better served by using a psychologically informed analogy of a “self” instead. In particular, the Dialogical Self model of a person holds much promise. In what follows, I argue that the “Dialogical Self Analogy” for the Godhead is more likely to uphold God’s trinitarian nature, avoid trinitarian confusion and related problems than “person” analogies do. The primary benefit of speaking of God as a Dialogical Self is that it offers a psychologically modelled analogy for God, whilst avoiding the language of person, yet strongly taking into account God’s trinitarian nature. This has the important benefit of preserving the concept and language of “person” for the trinitarian persons (the prosopa/hypostases), and hence avoiding the linguistic, conceptual and ecumenical confusion that arises when referring to the Godhead as a person. The strength of using the model and language of a Dialogical Self as an analogy for the Godhead (instead of person) is demonstrated by showing its compatibility with Erickson’s criteria for describing the Trinity.","PeriodicalId":41706,"journal":{"name":"Scientia et Fides","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79222236","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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