Summary The essay exposes, recognizes the astonishing originality, and showcases the shortcomings of Christoph Türcke’s Philosophy of Dreams, which offers a theory of the origin of religion inspired by both psychoanalysis and critical theory. Among the objections raised are the speculative nature of the enterprise, which is not sufficiently based on empirical data, the lack of knowledge concerning the transition from apes to humans, the impossibility for hallucinations to be the basic doxastic act, the exaggerated focus on dread, which is only one form of the numinous experience, and on the repetition compulsion, which could hardly prove as creative as the author assumes particularly concerning the origin of sacrifice, and the confusion of genesis and validity.
{"title":"Repetition compulsion as primum movens of religion? On Christoph Türcke’s Philosophy of Dreams","authors":"Vittorio Hösle","doi":"10.1515/nzsth-2022-0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/nzsth-2022-0007","url":null,"abstract":"Summary The essay exposes, recognizes the astonishing originality, and showcases the shortcomings of Christoph Türcke’s Philosophy of Dreams, which offers a theory of the origin of religion inspired by both psychoanalysis and critical theory. Among the objections raised are the speculative nature of the enterprise, which is not sufficiently based on empirical data, the lack of knowledge concerning the transition from apes to humans, the impossibility for hallucinations to be the basic doxastic act, the exaggerated focus on dread, which is only one form of the numinous experience, and on the repetition compulsion, which could hardly prove as creative as the author assumes particularly concerning the origin of sacrifice, and the confusion of genesis and validity.","PeriodicalId":51975,"journal":{"name":"NEUE ZEITSCHRIFT FUR SYSTEMATISCHE THEOLOGIE UND RELIGIONSPHILOSOPHIE","volume":"64 1","pages":"141 - 160"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48088545","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Summary Humans are now entering a post-human era. Through technological advancements and their applications for humans themselves, humans as homo sapiens might change into a different species. Depending on individual decisions about whether to embrace certain technologies, the co-existence of humans and post-humans is also possible. Christians and theologians must ponder this trajectory for the technology will affect all domains, including religions, in society at large. In this regard, this article introduces and examines transhumanism. Transhumanism is a movement based on the convergence of ideology and scientific technology which aims to liberate humans from their biological constraints (i. e., disease, aging, and death), thereby bringing about human well-being. This article argues that the transhumanist ideology should be critically examined while its technology can be embraced and even supported from a theological perspective because this ideology determines the direction of technological advancement and application. Regarding ideological problems, I highlight transhumanists’ disembodiment propensity, optimistic belief in the progress of human civilization, and individualism. These features are embedded in and originate from transhumanism’s succession of classical humanism and the Enlightenment. If these features are not rectified, transhumanism and its technology might repeat disastrous incidents in human history such as eugenics and exacerbate social inequality. As a theologian, I critically examine the ideological features of transhumanism, proposing an alternative understanding with regard to human beings and existence. This effort helps to remedy potential problems of transhumanism in the future, relieve anxiety relating to these problems, and prepare a dialogue between transhumanism and Christian theology. This dialogue will eventually contribute to the robust development of transhumanism and the opening of a new era of the post-human.
{"title":"Transhumanism and Theological Anthropology: A Theological Examination of Transhumanism","authors":"Dae-kyung Jung","doi":"10.1515/nzsth-2022-0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/nzsth-2022-0009","url":null,"abstract":"Summary Humans are now entering a post-human era. Through technological advancements and their applications for humans themselves, humans as homo sapiens might change into a different species. Depending on individual decisions about whether to embrace certain technologies, the co-existence of humans and post-humans is also possible. Christians and theologians must ponder this trajectory for the technology will affect all domains, including religions, in society at large. In this regard, this article introduces and examines transhumanism. Transhumanism is a movement based on the convergence of ideology and scientific technology which aims to liberate humans from their biological constraints (i. e., disease, aging, and death), thereby bringing about human well-being. This article argues that the transhumanist ideology should be critically examined while its technology can be embraced and even supported from a theological perspective because this ideology determines the direction of technological advancement and application. Regarding ideological problems, I highlight transhumanists’ disembodiment propensity, optimistic belief in the progress of human civilization, and individualism. These features are embedded in and originate from transhumanism’s succession of classical humanism and the Enlightenment. If these features are not rectified, transhumanism and its technology might repeat disastrous incidents in human history such as eugenics and exacerbate social inequality. As a theologian, I critically examine the ideological features of transhumanism, proposing an alternative understanding with regard to human beings and existence. This effort helps to remedy potential problems of transhumanism in the future, relieve anxiety relating to these problems, and prepare a dialogue between transhumanism and Christian theology. This dialogue will eventually contribute to the robust development of transhumanism and the opening of a new era of the post-human.","PeriodicalId":51975,"journal":{"name":"NEUE ZEITSCHRIFT FUR SYSTEMATISCHE THEOLOGIE UND RELIGIONSPHILOSOPHIE","volume":"64 1","pages":"172 - 194"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49047700","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Summary The author studies the form of philosophical optimism in Slovak Lutheran ethics in the first half of the 19th century in the views of Ján Kollár and Ján Chalupka. Herder’s philosophy of history and his philosophy of historical progress significantly influenced Slovak Lutheran ethics of the given period. In the author’s view, Kollár and Chalupka mainly appreciated human history as progress in all parts of life and refused glorification of the past. However, they did not limit their assessment to a positive evaluation of the present; they used one’s own mistakes and faults to appeal to moral development of man and placed to the forefront the belief in a better future of mankind in the form of humanity.
{"title":"Philosophical Optimism and Philosophy of Historical Progress in Slovak Lutheran Ethics in the First Half of the 19th Century","authors":"V. Gluchman","doi":"10.1515/nzsth-2022-0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/nzsth-2022-0006","url":null,"abstract":"Summary The author studies the form of philosophical optimism in Slovak Lutheran ethics in the first half of the 19th century in the views of Ján Kollár and Ján Chalupka. Herder’s philosophy of history and his philosophy of historical progress significantly influenced Slovak Lutheran ethics of the given period. In the author’s view, Kollár and Chalupka mainly appreciated human history as progress in all parts of life and refused glorification of the past. However, they did not limit their assessment to a positive evaluation of the present; they used one’s own mistakes and faults to appeal to moral development of man and placed to the forefront the belief in a better future of mankind in the form of humanity.","PeriodicalId":51975,"journal":{"name":"NEUE ZEITSCHRIFT FUR SYSTEMATISCHE THEOLOGIE UND RELIGIONSPHILOSOPHIE","volume":"64 1","pages":"124 - 138"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-04-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42754952","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Zusammenfassung Der Beitrag ist dem Thema der Kontinuität zwischen Gefühls- und Erfahrungstheologie in der deutschsprachigen nachkantischen Denktradition auf der einen und der späteren Religionswissenschaft (vor allem vergleichender Religionsgeschichte und Religionspsychologie) auf der anderen Seite gewidmet. Das Hauptaugenmerk liegt dabei auf methodischen Veränderungen, die das Studium der Religion so empirisch begründet und „unparteiisch“ wie möglich machen sollen. Die durch Kant präzisierte protestantische Aufmerksamkeit auf die religiöse Erlebensweise stimmte mit den im europäischen Denkraum immer einflussreicheren Wahrheitskriterien der Naturwissenschaften überein. Die Betrachtung der Erfahrung im historischen und gesellschaftlichen Kontext führte zur Religionswissenschaft (Müllers Theorie versuchte die Frage zu beantworten, wie vielfältig sich der Sinn des Unendlichen in den unterschiedlichen Glaubensweisen und Traditionen gesetzmäßig widerspiegeln kann). Die Betrachtung der Erfahrung im Kontext der Entfaltung der individuellen Erlebnisse fand jedoch in der Religionspsychologie ihren Ausdruck (Vorbrodt versuchte den psychologischen und sogar den biologischen Hintergrund der Religiosität detailliert darzustellen, wie auch zu rekonstruieren).
{"title":"Gefühls- und Erfahrungstheologie als methodologische Basis der Religionswissenschaft","authors":"V. V. Zolotukhin","doi":"10.1515/nzsth-2022-0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/nzsth-2022-0004","url":null,"abstract":"Zusammenfassung Der Beitrag ist dem Thema der Kontinuität zwischen Gefühls- und Erfahrungstheologie in der deutschsprachigen nachkantischen Denktradition auf der einen und der späteren Religionswissenschaft (vor allem vergleichender Religionsgeschichte und Religionspsychologie) auf der anderen Seite gewidmet. Das Hauptaugenmerk liegt dabei auf methodischen Veränderungen, die das Studium der Religion so empirisch begründet und „unparteiisch“ wie möglich machen sollen. Die durch Kant präzisierte protestantische Aufmerksamkeit auf die religiöse Erlebensweise stimmte mit den im europäischen Denkraum immer einflussreicheren Wahrheitskriterien der Naturwissenschaften überein. Die Betrachtung der Erfahrung im historischen und gesellschaftlichen Kontext führte zur Religionswissenschaft (Müllers Theorie versuchte die Frage zu beantworten, wie vielfältig sich der Sinn des Unendlichen in den unterschiedlichen Glaubensweisen und Traditionen gesetzmäßig widerspiegeln kann). Die Betrachtung der Erfahrung im Kontext der Entfaltung der individuellen Erlebnisse fand jedoch in der Religionspsychologie ihren Ausdruck (Vorbrodt versuchte den psychologischen und sogar den biologischen Hintergrund der Religiosität detailliert darzustellen, wie auch zu rekonstruieren).","PeriodicalId":51975,"journal":{"name":"NEUE ZEITSCHRIFT FUR SYSTEMATISCHE THEOLOGIE UND RELIGIONSPHILOSOPHIE","volume":"64 1","pages":"70 - 92"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-04-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47726116","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Summary Christians often presume that immediate and universally extensive divine governance of human behavior is incompatible with human agency and responsibility. Against this presumption, Kathryn Tanner argues for a distinctive metalinguistic paradigm whereby Christians can coherently speak of God’s transcendence in such a way that divine action could never in principle ‘compete’ with human action. Thus, it is said, God can comprehensively will each human action without thereby compromising significant human freedom and corresponding moral responsibility. In this article, it is argued that Tanner’s non-competitivist paradigm fails to circumvent a theological version of the ‘direct argument’ for the incompatibility between human moral responsibility and causal determinism.
{"title":"Competing with God?","authors":"P. Turner, J. Wessling","doi":"10.1515/nzsth-2022-0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/nzsth-2022-0003","url":null,"abstract":"Summary Christians often presume that immediate and universally extensive divine governance of human behavior is incompatible with human agency and responsibility. Against this presumption, Kathryn Tanner argues for a distinctive metalinguistic paradigm whereby Christians can coherently speak of God’s transcendence in such a way that divine action could never in principle ‘compete’ with human action. Thus, it is said, God can comprehensively will each human action without thereby compromising significant human freedom and corresponding moral responsibility. In this article, it is argued that Tanner’s non-competitivist paradigm fails to circumvent a theological version of the ‘direct argument’ for the incompatibility between human moral responsibility and causal determinism.","PeriodicalId":51975,"journal":{"name":"NEUE ZEITSCHRIFT FUR SYSTEMATISCHE THEOLOGIE UND RELIGIONSPHILOSOPHIE","volume":"64 1","pages":"50 - 69"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-04-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44159146","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Summary There has been an anthropocentric tendency in the doctrines of creation and redemption, especially, within the Western tradition of Christianity. In my view, contemporary theories of evolutionary and developmental biology help theology to understand how God’s creation unfolds. Meanwhile, a Trinitarian framework of creation provides meaning and purpose to the victims in evolutionary history. Furthermore, it contributes to overcoming the anthropocentric tendency in understanding the doctrine of redemption through the lens of the cosmic dimensions of Jesus’ cross and resurrection. Therefore, in this article, I argue that a Trinitarian framework of creatio ex nihilo can provide meaning and purpose to evolutionary history ridden by death, pain, and suffering, while evolutionary and developmental biology provides theology with a detailed explanation of biological evolution as God’s purposeful creation of the diversity of life in different levels of complexity. In the suggested Trinitarian vision of creatio ex nihilo, God creatively, compassionately, and redemptively works through biological evolution in general and particular modes.
{"title":"A Non-Anthropocentric Understanding of the Trinitarian Creatorship and Redeemership in an Age of Science","authors":"Jongseock Shin","doi":"10.1515/nzsth-2022-0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/nzsth-2022-0001","url":null,"abstract":"Summary There has been an anthropocentric tendency in the doctrines of creation and redemption, especially, within the Western tradition of Christianity. In my view, contemporary theories of evolutionary and developmental biology help theology to understand how God’s creation unfolds. Meanwhile, a Trinitarian framework of creation provides meaning and purpose to the victims in evolutionary history. Furthermore, it contributes to overcoming the anthropocentric tendency in understanding the doctrine of redemption through the lens of the cosmic dimensions of Jesus’ cross and resurrection. Therefore, in this article, I argue that a Trinitarian framework of creatio ex nihilo can provide meaning and purpose to evolutionary history ridden by death, pain, and suffering, while evolutionary and developmental biology provides theology with a detailed explanation of biological evolution as God’s purposeful creation of the diversity of life in different levels of complexity. In the suggested Trinitarian vision of creatio ex nihilo, God creatively, compassionately, and redemptively works through biological evolution in general and particular modes.","PeriodicalId":51975,"journal":{"name":"NEUE ZEITSCHRIFT FUR SYSTEMATISCHE THEOLOGIE UND RELIGIONSPHILOSOPHIE","volume":"64 1","pages":"1 - 23"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-04-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44018112","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Zusammenfassung Das Verhältnis zwischen Fichtes WL (1801/02) und Schleiermachers Reden (1799/1806) wurde heftig diskutiert. Dieser Aufsatz hält den Einfluss von Fichtes Wissenschaftslehre auf Schleiermacher für nicht stichhaltig. Es wird darauf hingewiesen, dass es verschiedene Modelle der Beziehung zwischen dem Gefühl und dem Absoluten bei Fichte und bei Schleiermacher gibt: Fichte betrachtet das „Gefühl der Abhängigkeit“ vom Absoluten oder vom absoluten Sein als eine Selbstvernichtung der formalen Freiheit, während Schleiermacher zufolge das Individuum mit dem Absoluten im Gefühl vereinigt wird.
{"title":"Erfassen des Absoluten durch das Gefühl","authors":"Xiaolong Zhou","doi":"10.1515/nzsth-2022-0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/nzsth-2022-0005","url":null,"abstract":"Zusammenfassung Das Verhältnis zwischen Fichtes WL (1801/02) und Schleiermachers Reden (1799/1806) wurde heftig diskutiert. Dieser Aufsatz hält den Einfluss von Fichtes Wissenschaftslehre auf Schleiermacher für nicht stichhaltig. Es wird darauf hingewiesen, dass es verschiedene Modelle der Beziehung zwischen dem Gefühl und dem Absoluten bei Fichte und bei Schleiermacher gibt: Fichte betrachtet das „Gefühl der Abhängigkeit“ vom Absoluten oder vom absoluten Sein als eine Selbstvernichtung der formalen Freiheit, während Schleiermacher zufolge das Individuum mit dem Absoluten im Gefühl vereinigt wird.","PeriodicalId":51975,"journal":{"name":"NEUE ZEITSCHRIFT FUR SYSTEMATISCHE THEOLOGIE UND RELIGIONSPHILOSOPHIE","volume":"64 1","pages":"93 - 123"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-04-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45380485","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Summary The hiddenness of God in relation to opus alienum reflects, in Luther, a particular theological anthropology: one based on the limits of humanity and the futility of human action; and one that ascribes a certain role to suffering. One aspect of this account of the hiddenness of God is a figure whose terror remains unmitigated even by the light of salvation. In their discussions of the hiddenness of God, Karl Barth and Eberhard Jüngel reject this particular hiddenness of God. However, their theologies draw on the opus alienum, and in doing so, they examine and analyse the despair and anxiety that characterise it in their own discussions of evil as nothingness. These accounts of nothingness engage with philosophical accounts of nothingness as being that which prompts self-assertion and actualisation as authentic existence. However, this use of the opus alienum opens their theologies up to the figure that they rejected in their prior accounts of hiddenness: the hidden, alien, and terrifying God.
{"title":"Nothingness and the Left Hand of God: Evil, Anfechtung, and the Hidden God in Luther, Barth, and Jüngel","authors":"Deborah Casewell","doi":"10.1515/nzsth-2022-0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/nzsth-2022-0002","url":null,"abstract":"Summary The hiddenness of God in relation to opus alienum reflects, in Luther, a particular theological anthropology: one based on the limits of humanity and the futility of human action; and one that ascribes a certain role to suffering. One aspect of this account of the hiddenness of God is a figure whose terror remains unmitigated even by the light of salvation. In their discussions of the hiddenness of God, Karl Barth and Eberhard Jüngel reject this particular hiddenness of God. However, their theologies draw on the opus alienum, and in doing so, they examine and analyse the despair and anxiety that characterise it in their own discussions of evil as nothingness. These accounts of nothingness engage with philosophical accounts of nothingness as being that which prompts self-assertion and actualisation as authentic existence. However, this use of the opus alienum opens their theologies up to the figure that they rejected in their prior accounts of hiddenness: the hidden, alien, and terrifying God.","PeriodicalId":51975,"journal":{"name":"NEUE ZEITSCHRIFT FUR SYSTEMATISCHE THEOLOGIE UND RELIGIONSPHILOSOPHIE","volume":"64 1","pages":"24 - 49"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-04-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45931335","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-01DOI: 10.5771/9783748906469-137
S. Gäb
{"title":"9 Was ist Gott?","authors":"S. Gäb","doi":"10.5771/9783748906469-137","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5771/9783748906469-137","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51975,"journal":{"name":"NEUE ZEITSCHRIFT FUR SYSTEMATISCHE THEOLOGIE UND RELIGIONSPHILOSOPHIE","volume":"32 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90459565","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}