Philosophy and Theology

The history of the Church is sad witness to the ongoing dominance of creed over compassion. Following a short historical survey, the author suggests that Macmurray’s account of personal integration constitutes an effort to heal the breach between theory and practice within Christianity.

This study provides (1) a reading of the theses of John Macmurray, (2) a comparative phenomenological analysis, and (3) an investigation of the meaning of affectivity within this analysis.

Macmurray’s understanding of the vocation of the artist and how it is that the artist can create and be are discussed in two sections. In the first, which is subdivided into four smaller sections, presents a discussion of what Macmurray means by ‘contemplation’. The second is devoted to the artist’s role in helping to bring about ‘the Kingdom of the Future’.

The logic of mutual heterocentrism requires two radical changes in our traditional way of thinking. First, it requires that we accept ourselves as gifts received. Second, it requires that we take seriously the notion that God can and does act in history. Macmurray’s Persons in Relation provides not only an analysis of these claims, but also metaphysical support for them.

First I investigate the concept of friendship in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, books eight and nine. Next, I touch on some of the distinctively Christian aspects of the concept of friendship in Thomas Aquinas’s though, with particular attention to the virtue of caritas as friendship with God. Having by these means gained some perspective on the problem, I describe the new direction taken by Macmurray’s interpretation of friendship, and especially the question of friendship with God.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the work of John Macmurray as a philosophical resource for Christianswhose theological framework presumes an epistemological shift, toward a new starting point in the way we understand our knowledge of God. After a brief introduction to both contextual theology and John Macmurray, the paper will concern itself with an exploration of Macmurray’s critique of idealist epistemology and the relationship this critique has to the assumptions of contextual theology. Next we will consider the implications of this shift for both philosophy and theology. Thirdly, we will offer support for the claim that Macmurray’s work represents a positive future resource for those who are struggling to make sense of the practical demands of a living faith. In closing, some criticisms of Macmurray from the perspective of contextual theology will be anticipated.

I address a simple question: How are the notions or “discourse” and “text” to be understood, and what does it mean that they “create” their own object? A historical reconstruction seems to be required, if we are to make some sense of the provocative postmodern statements. In order to understand how a discourse can create its own object, three features need to be examined: (1) the inheritance of F. de Saussures’s structuralism, (2) the influence of the Freneh NouvelIe Critique, and (3) Heidegger’s radicalization of hermeneutics. A brief overview is provided of the first two topics, and l will then focus upon the third: an attempt to reconstruct Heidegger’s understanding of ‘discourse’, ‘Ianguage’, and ‘category’ in a course he gave on Aristotle in Freiburg University in 1931.

Evil is a noticeably absent concept in modern and contemporary literature. The author protrays Scheler’s approach to the question of evil as that which has existence only in or on the substrate of person. Furthermore, this “dis-value” of evil, like the person, is a phenomeon of temporality.

Postmodern understandings of the god concept, based upon sociological and anthropological insights, support the ontological reality of the god concept. AII such god constructs can be understood as real but human products which come out of a situated Drama of the Holy. The reality quotient of any god concept can be seen as a function of solidarity activities within a society. Social justice concerns are, thus, the best indicators of that reality quotient while divisive, exploitative and oppressive practices in the world tend to desanctify both society and nature thus justify Death of God analyses. Two interrelated solidarity activities are discussed for their efficacy in sanctification of nature and society: 1) situated Dramas of the Holy and, 2) social policies in the political economy. A variety of grand narratives are mentioned, each with differing foundational concepts, with which to institute social justice as we move into the 21st century.

There are two ways in which Ghazali contributes to the discussion of whether God exists: by arguing for the existence of God, and by arguing against certain views which, in his opinion, stand in the way of truly believing that God exists. In this paper I examine Ghazali’s argument from creation and his refutation or the philosophers’ second proof for the eternity or the world. My purpose will be to argue that: firstly, Ghazali’s argument and his refutation are based on incompatible views of time, and cannot, therefore, both be maintained. Secondly, Ghazali fails to establish the one interesting premiss which he employs in his argument from creation.

This study calls for a re-evaluation of Schleiermacher’s relevance and contemporaneity, with special emphasis on his account of consciousness and his theory of religion. Through a critical examination of Hegel’s critique of Schleiermacher, the author argues that Schleiermacher suceeeded in overcoming the paradigm of subjectivity in some ways, and failed in others.

In its own contemporary context, Kant’s views on the relationship between reason and religion played a crucial role in debates about the nature of the Enlightenment. The terms of that debate, as they were most sharply formulated by F. H. Jacobi, posed an either/or choice of reason or faith, between which Kant offered a third option that would synthesize reason and faith. A newly published collection of essays, Kant’s Philosophy of Religion Reconsidered, not only echoes this debate in current terms but also suggests that the unfinished business of the Enlightenment in regard to morality, religion, and the historicity of reason is still with us.

In this study of Marshall’s Christology in Conflict, the author deals with three questions and issues which can be raised regarding Marshall’s argument: his account of the historical shape of the problem, his critique of Rahner, and his use of Barth’s christology.

Two models of person are discussed, and while it is noted that Rahner’s christology emphasizes person as subject and Barth’s person as self-agent, both christologies include the two models. Rather than view the two models as an either/or choice or as in conflict with one another as Bruce Marshall seems to do, they should be thought of as paradoxical, and as such, valuable for leading to new insights in christology.

Questions concerning issues in Christology in Conflict are addressed. James Buckley’s attention to Barth’s metaphysical account and Rahner’s notion of Jesus as Realsysmbol are highlighted and clarified. Criticisms by Robert Krieg are briefly discussed and answered. Finally, though Rahner’s transcendental account of the person of Jesus is shown to lead to certain logical inconsistencies, it is argued, nevertheless, that his christology, though internally incoherent, is valuable.

The emphasis on analytical reason may be insufficient to explain all of life’s enigmatic experiences. Imaginative myth can play an important role in the expression and explanation of an enigmatic occurrence. Symbols, developed from myth and the imagination, may also be useful in accepting and successfully coping with enigmas.

This paper is a study of Kierkegaard’s concept of despair. The Danish etymology of fortvivleslse is examined in order to argue that, for Kierkegaard, despair is not simply a feeling, but is more fundamentally a willed misrelation in the self.