NeoNeoplatonism: Can Theology be studied With the Scientific Attitude

Author(s): Bruno Marchal / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2015

In this short paper I will argue that theology, or at least Platonist theology can be done with the scientific method, but that, perhaps paradoxically at first sight, this does not prevent the role of religion, nor the necessity of a dialog between science and theology (making it in part into a dialog internal to science) or between science and religion, seen as possible applied theology. It is important to keep in mind that science, well understood, has at the start something common with (some) religion, which is a humility and modesty attitude. Science is born from the doubt, lives with the doubt, and never abandon the doubting attitude in any of its possible conclusion. We just don’t know, in science, and can only make our beliefs/ assumptions/theories as much precise as possible so that we make higher the possibility of refuting them, so that we can abandon them or improve them. Theology, once made with the scientific attitude is no exception, and (re)making theology into a science, consists in reintroducing genuine doubts in the heart. Only bad faith can fear reasons. Only bad reasons can fear faith. When fundamental science forget this, it becomes a kind of pseudo-religion.

The image of the universe as cultural choice  between science and theology. Probabilism and realism from the Middle Ages to the Modern age

Author(s): Francesco Fiorentino / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2014

The famous Galilean question was to become the paradigm of the conflict between Nature and Scripture, science and faith, free research of natural reason and authority of the ecclesiastical institution, obscurantism of the medieval period and scientific progress which would illuminate the modern age. It is well known that the stereotype of the pure conflict between scientific thought and religious dogma for long dominated the interpretation of the most profound essence of the Middle Ages, as an obscurantist age in the grip of the universalist political and religious authorities. This image of the Middle Ages was greatly corroborated by the Humanist writers of the Renaissance and Enlightenment historiography. This contribution purports to analyse late–medieval science from a holistic methodology based on history of science and philosophy of science, to obtain a big picture in front to Scientific Revolution and to show the cultural roots of the different images of the universe.

How Can God Act in the World? Modern Science and the Problem of Divine Causation

Author(s): Juuso Loikkanen / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2014

The belief that God actively acts in the world has been fundamental to orthodox Christian theology throughout the history of Christianity. Since the rise of modern science, however, this traditional understanding of God’s actions has attracted more and more critique. Firstly, it has been argued God cannot act in the world without violating the allegedly all-encompassing laws of nature, and, consequently, because the laws of nature cannot presumably ever be broken, it is considered totally impossible for God to influence the physical world in any way. Secondly, it is claimed that even if breaking the laws of nature was not, in theory, impossible, it would still be, in practice, impossible for an immaterial entity such as God to influence the material world. In this article, I argue that the first objection, i.e., that God cannot act in the world, holds partly true. I maintain that God cannot act without interfering with the processes of nature (although some recent attempts of building noninterventionist theories of God’ actions have been made). Nevertheless, I do not see how God’s intervention would constitute a problem for modern physics, as has often been proposed. Moreover, the second claim, i.e., that immaterial entities cannot affect material entities, is not based on evidence but on an unfounded assumption that because we do not know the mechanism of causation between immaterial and material entities, this causation is not possible.

Death gene

Author(s): Tudor Cosmin Ciocan,Alina MARTINESCU / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2014

This paper is trying to put together two different researches, from theology and from genetics, about a general and undetermined topic, death. It is undetermined because no one can say something demonstrable and unequivocal about it, since no person alive can cross over the edge of life and come back from the domain of death with information about it. But we can discuss nevertheless things that are obvious and possible to be reasonably inferred about death even by livings. In this regard Theology will provide the mainline of what is to be known as death for religion in general, while Genetics will try to come with its research to sustain or contradict the general premise: death is not an ontological behavior of living matter, but an imposed attribute after the sin occurred into the world.

The value of human life and the attitude towards abortion

Author(s): Gabriela Andrei,Ana Ion / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2014

Abortion, the cruel reality of the contemporary mankind, bites with no mercy our life and lacerates the humanity face, relativizing life’s ultimate value. We fight for the animal’s lives and rights, but we kill our children in womb. We are confused and living up to the rules imposed by us, and we fail, because we do not see the „Light of the world” (John 8,12) - Jesus Christ, losing sight of the reference frame – the divinity. We have declared God dead [1], the fountain of life , and we put ourselves in His place. We lost indiscriminatingly the values of “as Gods” ( Genesis 3,5) and “as God’s image” (Genesis 1, 27) drifting on the gradient of big fails, as big as God we have chased but never listened. So, that, from the survival outlook and lacking of love in our life, the fight for survival targets against the somebody ‘s else life, and no illustration is more eloquent and tragic as the mothers, families and society’s fight against the procreation generally, and particularly against the unborn child.

Conditions for a Possible Dialogue between Theology and Science from the Perspective of the Concept of Frontier

Author(s): Călin Săplăcan / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2014

Is there a way without conquests and wars to be found in the relationship of theology and science? This relation is analyzed from the perspective of the concept of frontier in order to establish the conditions for a possible dialogue. Paradoxically, the frontier unites and divides at the same time. On the one hand, the frontier marks the differences, on the other hand it appears as a crossing, a passageway. The frontier is an in-between, a huge space in which the two sides are called together to explain each other, and in order to create a passage between the two sides. The methodological framework of analysis is the approach of analytical theology to distinctions in language and significance. As a frame of reference, the possibility conditions for a philosophical dialogue between phenomenology and analytical philosophy have been considered.

Tjelesna ontologija duše i zdravstvena reforma: adventistički zaokret u kršćanskoj antropologiji

Author(s): Matija Kovačević / Language(s): Croatian Issue: 03/139/2015

Following the spread of Platonic anthropology, Christianity has started, already since the 2nd century A.D., to be dominated by dualism – a trend undisturbed by somewhat more holistic Thomism, and further strengthened by Cartesianism, which distanced Christian theology and soul even further away from the body. During the 1960s, theologians have become aware of the far more positive and inclusive attitude that the Bible has towards the body. Yet, a century before, the Adventist movement was born in conditionalism such as presented by Hobbes in Leviathan (XLIV). Man does not have a soul; he is a “living soul” – a body vivified by the “breath of life” (Gen 2:7). Without the body, there is no life, nor, consequentially, eternal hell. To this Adventists have also conjoined a philosophy of health reform in which the care of the body has a key role, and upon which depends man’s intellectual and spiritual wellbeing. On this foundation, they have built a rich healthcare and educational practice. This physicalist version of Christian anthropology is a unique worldview contribution to philosophy of the body and a subject worthy of academic attention.

Niczego nie urodzić – obsolety nowoczesności i zawieszenie przymusu (re)produkcji

Author(s): Andrzej Marzec / Language(s): Polish Issue: 06/2014

In the article the author discusses the messianic hopes associated with childbirth. He contrasts the enthusiastic expectations for salvation associated with childbirth with Derrida’s concept of desert messianism, of hope without hope. The author then shows how the appearance of the child carries with it the promise of death, using the Greek myth of Kronos and the philosophical considerations of Georges Bataille. Next, the author focuses on the phenomenon of the loss of visions for the future, which he calls the “stillbirths of modernity”, and attempts to explain this reluctance to create the perfect world of tomorrow. The last part of the article is an interpretation of "Huba" ("Parasite", 2014), directed by Anna and Wilhelm Sasnal, which represents in this context an attempt to abstain from forced (re)production.

Гелиан Михайлович Прохоров на 75 години

Author(s): Regina Koycheva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 24/2012

Ku filozofii przyjaźni. W dialogu z Platonem, Arystotelesem i św. Teresą od Jezusa

Author(s): Albert Stanisław Wach / Language(s): English,Polish Issue: 1/2016

The entire text is divided into four chapters, two of which are published in the present issue of Itinera Spiritualia. In Chapter One, historical in its character, all participants of the debate on friendship voice their opinion: firstly, we pose the problem of the condition of friendship in the contemporary culture; secondly, Plato and Aristotle shed light on our problem from the point of view of Greek antiquity and their own philosophies; finally, St Teresa, creating a link between our times and Greek antiquity, provides original and significant input into the understanding of friendship.In Chapter Two, of metaphysical character, only two participants of the friendship debate speak: Plato and St. Teresa. Plato the Philosopher employs a strictly speculative method, but he does not lack mystical experience; Teresa the Mystic shares her personal friendship stories, but not without a substantial and rational metaphysical basis.

Sedam darova Duha Svetoga. Moralno promišljanje u duhu skolastičke teologije

Author(s): Marinko Perković / Language(s): Croatian Issue: 1/2015

Despite an insufficiently developed pneumatological dimension in moral theology, in the first part of this article the author points to the active presence of the Holy Spirit in the life of Christians. (e notes that anonymity and namelessness are defining characteristics of the Third Person of the Trinity. Therefore, the very activity of the Spirit is hidden, which means it is difficult to show it in a systematic way. As the Spirit works in the soul and through seven gifts that empower and strengthen Christians in the way of holiness, the second part of the article describes each gift individually. After this the author offers some insights and conclusions in the final part: the gifts of the Holy Spirit are not noticeable in the lives of many baptized Christians because these people may not be open to such a course of action of the Spirit. )n addition, many believers do not know or have forgotten that these gifts really exist. Therefore, at the end of the article the author encourages devout Christians to remind their fellow believers that in their inner being there is the hidden treasure of the Holy Spirit and that this needs to be brought to the surface so that it can enrich them and others. If they succeed, they will become inwardly freer, more faithful to Christ, more responsible and more morally mature.

Slobodné konanie a vedecké metódy skúmania

Author(s): Ľuboš Rojka / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 3/2015

Experience of free decision-making is, according to D. Pereboom, illusory, because there is no evidence of a change of the probabilities predicted from the observation of the brain activity. P. van Inwagen, for similar reasons, declares free will agency unknowable. The probabilistic models used by Pereboom a van Inwagen are limited. For an evidence about the influence of free will on human life, one needs to go into the field of scientific psychology. The goal of scientific methods in psychology is similar to empirical methods, and there are four important elements in their research: the description of the events, prediction of the future events, explanation of the causal relations among these events, and application of the acquired knowledge to improvement of human life. These four individual steps can demonstrate objectively observable influence of the libertarian free will on human behavior

Wolność w refleksji św. Augustyna

Author(s): Jacek Salij / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2015

Augustine rejected the Manichean claim that freedom was something illusory. It was precisely in debates with the Manicheans that he forged his doctrine of evil as a lack of good where it ought to exist. Freedom, necessarily directed toward good and justice, is the opposite of coercion, but concurrently cannot be reconciled with evil and sin, whereas our real freedom is never in discord with the absolute transcendence of God.

Nacionalsocijalizam, svjetski Židovi i povijest bitka

Author(s): Richard Wolin / Language(s): Croatian Issue: 19/2014

Schwarze Hefte (»Crne bilježnice«) Martina Heideggera, a prve tri su nakon tiskanja u Njemačkoj nedavno izazvale veliku kontroverzu, naposljetku će biti objavljene kao osam posljednjih svezaka njegovih gigantskih Gesamtausgabe (»Sabrana djela«).

Koncepcja woli według św. Augustyna – perspektywa antropologiczna

Author(s): Martyna Koszkało / Language(s): Polish Issue: 3/2016

The subject matter of this article is the concept of free will presented in some of Saint Augustine’s works. In the first part, I present Augustine’s view about the structure of the human soul. I emphasize that, according to Augustine, our free will is both distinct from reason and memory, and identical to the soul and the moral agent. In the second part, I provide an overview of the selected features that are connected with human will and freedom, for example: (1) wanting, (2) being an agent, (3) responsibility, (4) auto-determination. Next, I investigate two interpretations of Augustine’s concept of the original sin (by W.S. Babcock and by Scott C. MacDonald). I try to demonstrate that the first one assumed a too strong concept of the continuity between the dispositions, intentions of the agent and his/her acts of will, while the second one treated freedom in a too intellectualistic manner. Eventually, I discuss the voluntaristic components of Augustine’s theory of happiness.

Umysł a kosmos

Author(s): Thomas Nagel / Language(s): Polish Issue: 3/2016

The essay outlines the main argument of Thomas Nagel’s influential book Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False (Oxford University Press 2012). According to the argument the physical sciences in their present form cannot adequately account for our conscious life and are thus incomplete. This should not lead us to accept some form of theism, however, but to a search for a broader, more adequate conception of nature.

ТЕТРАГРАММАТОН И КОНЦЕПЦИЯ ЕДИНОЙ БОЖЕСТВЕННОЙ СУБСТАНЦИИ В «ИСПОВЕДИ», КН. VII АВГУСТИНА И В УЧЕНИИ СПИНОЗЫ

Author(s): Igor Tantlevskij / Language(s): Russian Issue: 2/2015

The author supposes that the Tetragrammaton’s interpretation, attested in Ex. 3:14, exerted direct influence on the formation of the conception of single, eternal, and infinite God’s substantia, reflected in Augustine’s “Confessions”, book vii and in Spinoza’s teaching.

СОСТОЯНИЯ И ОТНОШЕНИЯ У ГРИГОРИЯ НАЗИАНЗИНА

Author(s): Pavel Butakov / Language(s): Russian Issue: 2/2015

The Greek word ‘schesis’ in the works of Gregory Nazianzen has generally been translated as ‘relation’ and interpreted as a programmatic term for his doctrine of Trinitarian relations. Although this may be a valid interpretation of the terminology of other 4th century theologians, this is not true of Gregory. His usage of the word ‘schesis’ does not correspond with the traditional Aristotelian or Stoic ways of designating a relation. It denotes a status or a disposition, it may even mean a place in a relation, but it is not the relation itself, and not a disposition towards another. Therefore all the interpretations of Gregory’s teaching on the Trinitarian relations are to be revisited and reformulated more carefully, keeping in mind the peculiarity of his usage of ‘schesis.’

ORIGEN IN RUSSIAN PHILOSOPHY: FROM GREGORY SKOVORODA TO NIKOLAI BERDYAEV

Author(s): Alexey Kamenskikh / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

Observing the history of reception of Origen’s intellectual heritage by Russian theologians and philosophers of the past few centuries, some key moments and figures are discernible. Those figures are Grigory Skovoroda (1722–1794), Vladimir Solovyov (1853– 1900), Sergei Bulgakov (1871–1944), Nicolay Berdyaev (1874–1948) and George Florovsky (1893–1979). Surely, the history of Origen’s reception in Russia cannot be reduced to them alone: translations were made of Origen’s works and special investigations were conducted into some aspects of his theology. But those authors’ significance for our outline is determined by (1) their key role in the evolution of Russian theological and philosophical thought and – at the same time – (2) by the fact that those authors’ own intellectual evolution and/or (3) their ideas’ reception by their contemporaries proceeded in close connection with the problem of Origen. So the process of reception of Origen’s intellectual heritage in Russia was substantially conditioned by the controversies raging around the key representatives of the so-called “Russian religious philosophy.”

НА ЧТО УКАЗЫВАЕТ ИСПРАВЛЕННЫЙ ТЕКСТ?

Author(s): Pavel Butakov / Language(s): Russian Issue: 2/2016

Available manuscripts of Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians have a variant reading of Jesus’ words at the Last Supper in 11:24. The longer reading contains “take, eat” while the shorter reading does not. The two readings have a noticeable difference in meaning. The longer one highlights the individual value of the Eucharist; the shorter version, however, favors its institutional significance. The existence of both readings can be interpreted as a witness to an ideological dynamics in the early church. Depending on which of the two readings is considered prior, the church history would be seen either as an increase of clerical authority, or as an increase of value of the individual.