Pub Date : 2021-10-20DOI: 10.1080/21692327.2021.2003231
Dimpho Takane Maponya
ABSTRACT Religion is both valuable and influential to the organization of society. It affects, not only how people relate to God, but also how they relate to each other. In this paper, I examine the relationship between religion and society in relation to gender inequality. I argue that the patriarchal nature and organization of religion influences and perpetuates gender inequality in the broader social context, especially in a country as religious as South Africa. Since, for religion, a meaningful life is believed to be a life that fulfills God’s will, adherents of religion subscribe to these patriarchal notions because they are believed to be coming from God. The implication for South Africa is that, while it is considered to be a liberal state, its state of religiousness makes it difficult for equality to be realized from a purely liberal position. Therefore, to begin addressing this issue, I maintain that the application of a feminist standpoint approach to religion can be helpful in: 1) realizing the extent to which gender inequality exists in religion and its patriarchal contribution in society and 2) providing a method in which women’s experiences and relations to religion are taken into consideration.
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Pub Date : 2021-10-20DOI: 10.1080/21692327.2021.1997630
F. Ellis
ABSTRACT I offer an approach to the problem of life’s meaning which poses a radical challenge to some of the familiar terms of this debate. First, I defend an expansive form of naturalism which involves a rejection of the common assumption that naturalism and theism are logically incompatible and offers a framework from which to rethink some of the central concepts operative in discussions of life’s meaning. Second, I defend a ‘desire solution’ to the problem of life’s meaning. My initial inspiration is Richard Taylor’s version of such a position as articulated in his book Good and Evil. I argue that this solution is best articulated from within an expansive naturalist framework, raise some doubts about Taylor’s metaphysics, and make a connection with the Nietzschean problem of nihilism.
{"title":"Meaning, desire, and God: an expansive naturalist approach","authors":"F. Ellis","doi":"10.1080/21692327.2021.1997630","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21692327.2021.1997630","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT I offer an approach to the problem of life’s meaning which poses a radical challenge to some of the familiar terms of this debate. First, I defend an expansive form of naturalism which involves a rejection of the common assumption that naturalism and theism are logically incompatible and offers a framework from which to rethink some of the central concepts operative in discussions of life’s meaning. Second, I defend a ‘desire solution’ to the problem of life’s meaning. My initial inspiration is Richard Taylor’s version of such a position as articulated in his book Good and Evil. I argue that this solution is best articulated from within an expansive naturalist framework, raise some doubts about Taylor’s metaphysics, and make a connection with the Nietzschean problem of nihilism.","PeriodicalId":42052,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Philosophy and Theology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43357602","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}
Pub Date : 2021-10-20DOI: 10.1080/21692327.2021.2003232
C. Taliaferro
ABSTRACT Thaddeus Metz is probably the leading expert on the meaning of life. His latest book admirably displays his intellectual agility and fairness: arguments, counter-arguments, examples and counter-examples come in wave after wave that may compel most of us to slow down the pace of reading. If you have ever had the delight of interacting with Professor Metz at a conference, you know his irrepressible energy and love for debate. In this brief essay, I challenge some of Metz’s terminology, raise a worry about the role of metaphysics in the meaning of life literature, suggest a reply to the religious relational account of meaning, and firm up the intuition that meaning is enhanced in a theistic cosmos.
{"title":"Meaning, metaphysics, and mystics: Thaddeus Metz’s God, Soul and the Meaning of Life","authors":"C. Taliaferro","doi":"10.1080/21692327.2021.2003232","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21692327.2021.2003232","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Thaddeus Metz is probably the leading expert on the meaning of life. His latest book admirably displays his intellectual agility and fairness: arguments, counter-arguments, examples and counter-examples come in wave after wave that may compel most of us to slow down the pace of reading. If you have ever had the delight of interacting with Professor Metz at a conference, you know his irrepressible energy and love for debate. In this brief essay, I challenge some of Metz’s terminology, raise a worry about the role of metaphysics in the meaning of life literature, suggest a reply to the religious relational account of meaning, and firm up the intuition that meaning is enhanced in a theistic cosmos.","PeriodicalId":42052,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Philosophy and Theology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44061657","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}
Pub Date : 2021-10-20DOI: 10.1080/21692327.2021.2020150
Cathal Smith, Paul Slama
ABSTRACT In this special issue of the International Journal of Philosophy and Theology, we focus on the questions around Meaning and Gods and their connection.
在这期《国际哲学与神学杂志》的特刊中，我们聚焦于意义与神及其联系的问题。
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Pub Date : 2021-05-27DOI: 10.1080/21692327.2021.2017324
L. Mabille
ABSTRACT The article examines Nietzsche’s evaluation of D. F. Strauss’ progressive theology. It argues firstly, that Nietzsche identified a nihilistic strain in Strauss’ vision, a strain which renders his views ultimately untenable and that this strain is detectable in latter-day atheistic activism. This claim is supported by identifying two major contradictions in Strauss’ thought. The first is a misreading of Hegel which renders Strauss’ own reliance on Hegel illegitimate and incoherent. The second is Strauss’ failure to appreciate the full impact of Darwin’s naturalistic shift. It is demonstrated that Strauss’ attempt to forge a new progressive religion on scientific principle still rests upon Christian moral principle. Like his latter-day inheritors, Strauss ultimately fails to make a convincing argument. The article shows the nihilistic consequences of Strauss’ continuous reliance on Christianity.
{"title":"Nietzsche, D.F. Strauss and the question of Darwinian asceticism","authors":"L. Mabille","doi":"10.1080/21692327.2021.2017324","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21692327.2021.2017324","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The article examines Nietzsche’s evaluation of D. F. Strauss’ progressive theology. It argues firstly, that Nietzsche identified a nihilistic strain in Strauss’ vision, a strain which renders his views ultimately untenable and that this strain is detectable in latter-day atheistic activism. This claim is supported by identifying two major contradictions in Strauss’ thought. The first is a misreading of Hegel which renders Strauss’ own reliance on Hegel illegitimate and incoherent. The second is Strauss’ failure to appreciate the full impact of Darwin’s naturalistic shift. It is demonstrated that Strauss’ attempt to forge a new progressive religion on scientific principle still rests upon Christian moral principle. Like his latter-day inheritors, Strauss ultimately fails to make a convincing argument. The article shows the nihilistic consequences of Strauss’ continuous reliance on Christianity.","PeriodicalId":42052,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Philosophy and Theology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60496193","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}
Pub Date : 2021-05-27DOI: 10.1080/21692327.2021.2014938
Hannah Lingier
ABSTRACT Hume’s Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1779) describes a philosophical discussion on the validity of the argument from design. What Hume investigates, however, is not the rational grounds of religion, but human nature and its attraction to the idea of design. I argue that the key to understanding Hume’s Dialogues is his conception of the imagination as described in the Treatise. Hume characterizes the human imagination or mind as self-indulgent, with a strong drive to unite perceptions in relations of resemblance, contiguity or causality, often adding fictional constructions to create an easy transition between ideas. Natural religion is a prime example, as the whole universe is united in orderly means-to-ends relations and provided with a familiar cause: something resembling the human mind. This reading of the Dialogues, however, does not warrant the conclusion that Hume provides a reductionist natural explanation of natural religion. Knowing human nature helps to understand religion’s attraction and the attraction of religion helps to understand humans, because it is paradigmatic of who we are. To connect perceptions, construct wholes and create meaning out of chaos is an essential feature of human nature, and a source of great pleasure.
{"title":"Hume’s Dialogues: a natural explanation of natural religion?","authors":"Hannah Lingier","doi":"10.1080/21692327.2021.2014938","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21692327.2021.2014938","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Hume’s Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1779) describes a philosophical discussion on the validity of the argument from design. What Hume investigates, however, is not the rational grounds of religion, but human nature and its attraction to the idea of design. I argue that the key to understanding Hume’s Dialogues is his conception of the imagination as described in the Treatise. Hume characterizes the human imagination or mind as self-indulgent, with a strong drive to unite perceptions in relations of resemblance, contiguity or causality, often adding fictional constructions to create an easy transition between ideas. Natural religion is a prime example, as the whole universe is united in orderly means-to-ends relations and provided with a familiar cause: something resembling the human mind. This reading of the Dialogues, however, does not warrant the conclusion that Hume provides a reductionist natural explanation of natural religion. Knowing human nature helps to understand religion’s attraction and the attraction of religion helps to understand humans, because it is paradigmatic of who we are. To connect perceptions, construct wholes and create meaning out of chaos is an essential feature of human nature, and a source of great pleasure.","PeriodicalId":42052,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Philosophy and Theology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42736683","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}
Pub Date : 2021-05-27DOI: 10.1080/21692327.2021.1994447
Martin Westerholm
ABSTRACT This article takes up questions regarding the interrelation of the given and the undetermined in Augustine’s understanding of the self. As a critical point, it argues that debate regarding the Augustinian self has been marked by an emphasis on given structures that has constricted conceptions of human becoming. This emphasis emerges by way of competing narratives of discovery: Augustine is presented as a discoverer either of a constitutive space of the self, or of a determinative temporality. It results in accounts of formation that occlude the spiritual significance of the full sweep of Christ’s history, from incarnation through ascension. As a constructive point, this article argues that Augustine positions himself to develop a Christological vision of Christian becoming, rooted in attention to all aspects of Christ’s life and work, by understanding space and time not as structures that fix the bounds of human becoming, but rather as realities that take on different forms in accordance with differing modes of love.
{"title":"Space, time, and the formation of love: the Augustinian self revisited","authors":"Martin Westerholm","doi":"10.1080/21692327.2021.1994447","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21692327.2021.1994447","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article takes up questions regarding the interrelation of the given and the undetermined in Augustine’s understanding of the self. As a critical point, it argues that debate regarding the Augustinian self has been marked by an emphasis on given structures that has constricted conceptions of human becoming. This emphasis emerges by way of competing narratives of discovery: Augustine is presented as a discoverer either of a constitutive space of the self, or of a determinative temporality. It results in accounts of formation that occlude the spiritual significance of the full sweep of Christ’s history, from incarnation through ascension. As a constructive point, this article argues that Augustine positions himself to develop a Christological vision of Christian becoming, rooted in attention to all aspects of Christ’s life and work, by understanding space and time not as structures that fix the bounds of human becoming, but rather as realities that take on different forms in accordance with differing modes of love.","PeriodicalId":42052,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Philosophy and Theology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47964221","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}
Pub Date : 2021-05-27DOI: 10.1080/21692327.2021.1991642
J. Schrijvers
{"title":"Agamben’s philosophical trajectory","authors":"J. Schrijvers","doi":"10.1080/21692327.2021.1991642","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21692327.2021.1991642","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42052,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Philosophy and Theology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44160155","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}
Pub Date : 2021-05-27DOI: 10.1080/21692327.2021.1980422
Geert Van Coillie
ABSTRACT Starting from a philosophical, literary and historical frame of reference (Heraclitus, Hegel, Tolstoy, and Clausewitz), the paper aims to find a ‘deconstructive’ and anthropo-ethical way out of the binary opposition of war and peace (Levinas and Girard). ‘Apocalyptic reasoning’, inspired by a biblical view of man, gives insight into (in/un)human violence, and opens up a new perspective on necessary and possible conversion.
{"title":"Rethinking violence beyond war and peace: anthropo-ethics from Levinas to Girard","authors":"Geert Van Coillie","doi":"10.1080/21692327.2021.1980422","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21692327.2021.1980422","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Starting from a philosophical, literary and historical frame of reference (Heraclitus, Hegel, Tolstoy, and Clausewitz), the paper aims to find a ‘deconstructive’ and anthropo-ethical way out of the binary opposition of war and peace (Levinas and Girard). ‘Apocalyptic reasoning’, inspired by a biblical view of man, gives insight into (in/un)human violence, and opens up a new perspective on necessary and possible conversion.","PeriodicalId":42052,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Philosophy and Theology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60495885","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}
Pub Date : 2021-05-27DOI: 10.1080/21692327.2021.1978309
Jack Williams
ABSTRACT Philosophy of religion has recently made a turn to lived religion, an approach which seeks to understand lived religion as it is experienced concretely by individual practitioners. However, this turn to lived religion has seen limited engagement with the notion of belonging. Belonging here refers to the felt sense of being part of a group – of insidership – along with the development of positive social ties and mutual affective concern. It is my contention in this paper that reflection on this experience of belonging can improve our understanding of lived religion. In particular, I argue that human beings have an affective need to belong – a fundamental and affective need for belonging and positive social relationship which is felt in the body and rooted in human biology and evolutionary history. This paper makes the case for the affective need to belong, before examining its implications for understanding religion. It finds that the affectivity of belonging is capable of raising the affective salience of certain in-group beliefs, as well as creating affective hurdles to dissent, and in so doing can help to explain processes of religion conversion, sustained religious adherence, and religious disaffiliation.
{"title":"The affective need to belong: belonging as an affective driver of human religion","authors":"Jack Williams","doi":"10.1080/21692327.2021.1978309","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21692327.2021.1978309","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Philosophy of religion has recently made a turn to lived religion, an approach which seeks to understand lived religion as it is experienced concretely by individual practitioners. However, this turn to lived religion has seen limited engagement with the notion of belonging. Belonging here refers to the felt sense of being part of a group – of insidership – along with the development of positive social ties and mutual affective concern. It is my contention in this paper that reflection on this experience of belonging can improve our understanding of lived religion. In particular, I argue that human beings have an affective need to belong – a fundamental and affective need for belonging and positive social relationship which is felt in the body and rooted in human biology and evolutionary history. This paper makes the case for the affective need to belong, before examining its implications for understanding religion. It finds that the affectivity of belonging is capable of raising the affective salience of certain in-group beliefs, as well as creating affective hurdles to dissent, and in so doing can help to explain processes of religion conversion, sustained religious adherence, and religious disaffiliation.","PeriodicalId":42052,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Philosophy and Theology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46773246","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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