The Common Ground of Wesley and Edwards

1990 ◽  
Vol 83 (3) ◽  
pp. 271-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard E. Brantley
Keyword(s):  
Common Ground ◽  
Jonathan Edwards ◽  
Philosophical Theology ◽  
Great Awakening ◽  
Common Denominator ◽  
John Wesley ◽  
Direct Impact ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common ◽  
Religious Morality

Although evangelicalism is “spiritual” and empiricism is “natural,” the great principle of empiricism, that one must see for oneself and be in the presence of the thing one knows, applies as well to evangelical faith. Each of these two methodologies operates along a continuum that joins emotion to intellect; each joins externality to words through “ideas/ideals of sensation,” that is, through either perception or grace-in-perception or both. While empiricism refers to immediate contact with and direct impact from objects and subjects in time and place, evangelicalism entertains the notions that religious truth is concerned with experiential presuppositions and that experience need not be nonreligious. On the basis of the experiential common denominator between empiricism and evangelicalism, through the “both/and” logic of philosophical theology, I argue that John Wesley (1703–91), founder of British Methodism, and Jonathan Edwards (1703–58), leader of the American Great Awakening, theologize empiricism. They ground transcendentalism in the world, balance religious myths and religious morality with scientific reverence for fact and detail, and ally empirical assumptions with “disciplined” spirit. Above all, they share the simultaneously rational and sensationalist reliance on experience as the avenue to both natural and spiritual knowledge.

Jonathan Edwards on the Sense of the Heart

1948 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Perry Miller
Keyword(s):  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Jonathan Edwards ◽  
Great Awakening ◽  
American Mind ◽  
Freedom Of The Will ◽  
The World ◽  
Real Work ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Mind

The reputation of Jonathan Edwards, impressive though it is, rests upon only a fragmentary representation of the range or profundity of his thinking. Harassed by events and controversies, he was forced repeatedly to put aside his real work and to expend his energies in turning out sermons, defenses of the Great Awakening, or theological polemics. Only two of his published books (and those the shortest), The Nature of True Virtue and The End for which God Created the World, were not ad hoc productions. Even The Freedom of the Will is primarily a dispute, aimed at silencing the enemy rather than expounding a philosophy. He died with his Summa still a mass of notes in a bundle of home-made folios, the handwriting barely legible. The conventional estimate that Edwards was America's greatest metaphysical genius is a tribute to his youthful Notes on the Mind — which were a crude forecast of the system at which he labored for the rest of his days — and to a few incidental flashes that illumine his forensic argumentations. The American mind is immeasurably the poorer that he was not permitted to bring into order his accumulated meditations.

scholarly journals Messianism and UFO Sightings as Counterfactual Strategies of Enchantment of the World

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-109
Author(s):  
Piotr Urbanowicz
Keyword(s):  
Technological Progress ◽  
New World ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
World Order ◽  
Common Denominator ◽  
New World Order ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common

Summary In this text, I argue that there are numerous affinities between 19th century messianism and testimonies of UFO sightings, both of which I regarded as forms of secular millennialism. The common denominator for the comparison was Max Weber’s concept of “disenchantment of the world” in the wake of the Industrial Revolution which initiated the era of the dominance of rational thinking and technological progress. However, the period’s counterfactual narratives of enchantment did not repudiate technology as the source of all social and political evil—on the contrary, they variously redefined its function, imagining a possibility of a new world order. In this context, I analysed the social projects put forward by Polish Romantics in the first half of the 19th century, with emphasis on the role of technology as an agent of social change. Similarly, the imaginary technology described by UFO contactees often has a redemptive function and is supposed to bring solution to humanity’s most dangerous problems.

ON THE ISSUE OF THE “ROCK POETRY WORD” IN CONTEMPORARY RUSSIAN NOVEL. THE WORLD OF BORIS GREBENSHCHIKOV IN THE WORLD OF “DREAMS SWIMMER” BY LEV NAUMOV

2021 ◽  
pp. 96-111
Author(s):  
Yurii V. Domanskii ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Common Denominator ◽  
Russian Novel ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Modern Russian

The article deals with references to the work of Boris Grebenshchikov in the “Dreams Swimmer” by Lev Naumov “The swimmer of dreams” (2021). The common denominator of the system of these references is the aesthetic character of the hero’s understanding of himself in the world and the world in relation to himself, which, if not directly leads the hero to the idea of his own chosenness, then at least is a symptom of the emergence of this idea. As a result, the system of references to the songs of “Aquarium” in Naumov’s novel makes it possible to interpret the character’s worldview as a worldview based on the aesthetic concept of understanding reality. The example of the appeal of a modern Russian novel to the “word of rock” considered in the article allows us to make sure that such an inclusion contributes to the disclosure of the specifics of the character’s worldview, and the analysis of this appeal brings one closer to a deeper understanding of the text.

Introduction

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
MICHAEL AYERS
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Rene Descartes ◽  
Philosophical Theology ◽  
Baruch Spinoza ◽  
René Descartes ◽  
The Common ◽  
And Control

This introductory chapter explains the coverage of this book, which is about the relation between the concepts of rationalism, Platonism, and God. This book is intended as a contribution to the exploration and exposition of the common ground of the great early modern rationalist theories. It examines contemplation and control in Cartesian philosophy and analyses the priority of the perfect in the philosophical theology of the continental rationalists. It also provides commentaries on the relevant theories of philosophers Rene Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, and Gottfried Leibniz.

God and his Attributes

Gersonides ◽  
2010 ◽  
pp. 59-80
Author(s):  
Seymour Feldman
Keyword(s):  
Common Ground ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Underlying Assumption ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
Anselm Of Canterbury ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common ◽  
Religiously Based ◽  
Articles Of Faith ◽  
Basic Beliefs

This chapter explains how the existence of God is philosophically provable. It adopts the terminology of Thomas Aquinas about some of the basic beliefs of monotheistic religion. In attempting to delineate the distinct domain of theology, Aquinas distinguished between the “preambles of faith” and the “articles of faith.” This chapter analyzes the underlying assumption that human reason can prove and explain some of the basic beliefs of monotheistic religion. Not only does it discuss the common ground for philosophy and faith, but it explains monotheistic religions without religiously based assumptions. It describes the ontological proof of Anselm of Canterbury and points out various arguments about the world and how they cannot be explained without positing the existence of God.

The Difference between Lying and Misleading

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Stokke
Keyword(s):  
Common Ground ◽  
What Is Said ◽  
Conversational Implicatures ◽  
The World ◽  
Question Under Discussion ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Prosodic Focus

The notions of what is said and assertion, as relative to questions under discussion, are used to provide an account of the lying-misleading distinction. The chapter argues that utterances are sometimes interpreted relative to the so-called Big Question, roughly paraphrased by “What is the world like?” This observation is shown to account for the fact that, when conveying standard conversational implicatures, what is asserted is likewise proposed for the common ground. The chapter applies the resulting account of the lying-misleading distinction to ways of lying and misleading with incomplete predicates, possessives, presuppositions, pronouns, and prosodic focus. A formal notion of contextual questionentailment is defined which shows when it is possible to mislead with respect to a question under discussion while avoiding outright lying.

scholarly journals COVID-19 Pulmonary and Olfactory Dysfunctions: Is the Chemokine CXCL10 the Common Denominator?

2020 ◽  
pp. 107385842093903 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio Oliviero ◽  
Fernando de Castro ◽  
Francesca Coperchini ◽  
Luca Chiovato ◽  
Mario Rotondi
Keyword(s):  
Olfactory System ◽  
Distress Syndrome ◽  
Present Report ◽  
Subsequent Development ◽  
Common Denominator ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common ◽  
Established Role ◽  
Physiological Peculiarity

COVID-19 is an ongoing viral pandemic that emerged from East Asia and quickly spread to the rest of the world. SARS-CoV-2 is the virus causing COVID-19. Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is definitely one of the main clinically relevant consequences in patients with COVID-19. Starting from the earliest reports of the COVID-19 pandemic, two peculiar neurological manifestations (namely, hyposmia/anosmia and dysgeusia) were reported in a relevant proportion of patients infected by SARS-CoV-2. At present, the physiopathologic mechanisms accounting for the onset of these symptoms are not yet clarified. CXCL10 is a pro-inflammatory chemokine with a well-established role in the COVID-19-related cytokine storm and in subsequent development of ARDS. CXCL10 is also known to be involved in coronavirus-induced demyelination. On these bases, a role for CXCL10 as the common denominator between pulmonary and olfactory dysfunctions could be envisaged. The aim of the present report will be to hypothesize a role for CXCL10 in COVID-19 olfactory dysfunctions. Previous evidences supporting our hypothesis, with special emphasis to the role of CXCL10 in coronavirus-induced demyelination, the anatomical and physiological peculiarity of the olfactory system, and the available data supporting their link during COVID-19 infections, will be overviewed.

Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak and the Knight of Faith by Kierkegaard: Common Ground

2020 ◽  
pp. 48-64
Author(s):  
Alla Radionova
Keyword(s):  
Common Ground ◽  
Great Influence ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Women's Images ◽  
Boris Pasternak ◽  
Modern Culture ◽  
The World ◽  
Rational Thought ◽  
The Common ◽  
Moral Model

The article deals with the intertextual relationships of the novel «Doctor Zhivago» by B. Pasternak and the treatise «Fear and Trembling» by Søren-Kierkegaard. Pasternak mentioned Kierkegaard in his works and noted his great influence on modern culture. While Pasternak was working on the novel, he used the concept of chivalry, which was an allusion to Kierkegaard. In his treatise «the Knight of Faith» is a moral model that has overcome the fetters of rational thought and broken out of the temporary boundaries. S. Kierkegaard gives his description, which is directly related to the themes and motives associated with the image of Yuri Zhivago. Both Kierkegaard and Pasternak emphasize that the heroes of the high spirit merge with the human community, they cannot be distinguished from the general population with their private existences; the authors carefully contemplate the world around them, trying to penetrate into the very essence of each phenomenon, they differ in external carelessness with the utmost tension of the inner spiritual life. In their self-denial they renounce the most beloved, precious, valuable. Their love takes the form of religious veneration, and the beloved combines the temporal and the eternal, the earthly and the divine. They transfer the pain of double existence and the pain of loss into the realm of the spiritual, the creative, and the realm of memory. In the treatment of women's images in «Doctor Zhivago» Pasternak is equally focused on both Kierkegaard and Dostoevsky, between whom, in turn, there are many similarities. The common ground between the two texts proves the presence of purposeful inter-system interaction.

Pythagoreanism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hermann S. Schibli
Keyword(s):  
Historical Development ◽  
Common Denominator ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Cosmological Context ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The World ◽  
Structural Principles ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Universe

Pythagoreanism refers to a Greek religious-philosophical movement that originated with Pythagoras in the sixth century bc. Although Pythagoreanism in its historical development embraced a wide range of interests in politics, mysticism, music, mathematics and astronomy, the common denominator remained a general adherence among Pythagoreans to the name of the founder and his religious beliefs. Pythagoras taught the immortality and transmigration of the soul (reincarnation) and recommended a way of life that through ascetic practices, dietary rules and ethical conduct promised to purify the soul and bring it into harmony with the surrounding universe. Thereby the soul would become godlike since Pythagoras believed that the cosmos, in view of its orderly and harmonious workings and structure, was divine. Pythagoreanism thus has from its beginnings a cosmological context that saw further evolution along mathematical lines in the succeeding centuries. Pythagorean philosophers, drawing on musical theories that may go back to Pythagoras, expressed the harmony of the universe in terms of numerical relations and possibly even claimed that things are numbers. Notwithstanding a certain confusion in Pythagorean number philosophy between abstract and concrete, Pythagoreanism represents a valid attempt, outstanding in early Greek philosophy, to explain the world by formal, structural principles. Overall, the combination of religious, philosophical and mathematical speculations that characterizes Pythagoreanism exercised a significant influence on Greek thinkers, notably on Plato and his immediate successors as well as those Platonic philosophers known as Neo-Pythagoreans and Neoplatonists.

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