A Puzzle in the Three Dialogues and Its Platonic Resolution

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Russell Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Image Of God ◽  
Central Idea ◽  
Innate Ideas ◽  
Abstract Ideas ◽  
Cambridge Platonism ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
The Image Of God ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
The Way

This essay suggests that Berkeley’s Neoplatonism may be profitably viewed as developed under the influence of Cambridge Platonism. A brief account of some key aspects of Cambridge Platonism are reviewed, specifically the central idea of the Image of God Doctrine (IGD) and Cudworth’s Axiarchism. Then possible points of influence of these aspects on Berkeley’s views are explored. In support of its possible usefulness, this approach to Berkeley’s Neoplatonism is used to shed light on his otherwise puzzling embrace of the pure intellect and abstract ideas. If Berkeley is drawing on the Cambridge Platonism tradition in the way suggested, he can have his pure intellect and its innate ideas without dragging along a commitment to a faculty of abstraction and its abstract ideas. Instead, the pure intellect is seen as a reflective faculty directed to the perfectly particular, concrete self.

Naive Experience, Religious Root Unity, and Human Identity

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
James W. Skillen
Keyword(s):  
Cosmic Time ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
The Other ◽  
Common Denominator ◽  
Human Identity ◽  
Human Community ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Image Of God ◽  
The Way

Abstract Resolving Dooyeweerd’s temporal/supratemporal dialectic opens the way to a deeper appreciation of naive experience and human identity as the image of God. This essay makes a case for that proposition, building on my critique of Dooyeweerd’s idea of cosmic time published previously in this journal. There I hypothesized that time—temporality—should be recognized as the first modal aspect rather than as a transaspectual common denominator of the other aspects. The religious root unity of the human community is not a supratemporal, spiritual concentration point but rather humans themselves in their generations answering to God in all that they are and do. Humans are not temporal bodies directed by imperishable souls but whole persons-in-community, subject to all the modal laws and norms (including the temporal), living by faith in the true God or in false gods throughout this age, which opens to creation’s fulfillment in the age to come.

Embracing Our Interdependence on God and Others

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Beste
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Social Status ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Committed Relationships ◽  
Self Sufficiency ◽  
Self Worth ◽  
The Image Of God ◽  
High Social Status ◽  
Shed Light

The first aspect of Johann Metz’s account of becoming fully human is to honor how deeply our sense of self and capacity to flourish depend on a network of relationships with God, others, and the rest of creation. Students’ reflections demonstrate that, in order to become fully human, we must let go of the belief fueled by popular culture that self-worth, success, and happiness result from a lifestyle marked by self-sufficiency, competition, perfectionism, wealth, materialism, and high social status. Instead, recalling our special dignity as persons created in the image of God, we must reclaim a vision of our intrinsic self-worth and embrace our interdependence on God and others. Both my students’ and Johann Metz’s analyses of Western culture shed light on why hookups appear psychologically safer and more “reasonable” than committed relationships.

feminine, masculine vocabulary is rarely questioned, yet its usage creates expectations that determine male as the norm, female as the secondary. Verbal descriptions of sex and gender construct, not merely describe. Such construction of belief can be found transmitted through dictionaries. When defining ‘manly’ Webster’s Dictionary says that manly means: …having qualities appropriate to a man: open in conduct bold resolute not effeminate or timorous gallant brave undaunted drinks beer. [Give me a break!!!] For ‘womanly’ one finds: …marked by qualities characteristic of a woman, belonging to attitudes of a woman not a man. Female is defined by the negative of the other, of the male. In this way, sexism pervades the ‘objective’ nature of the dictionary, subordinating the female to the male. Sexist language pervades a range of sacred texts and legal texts and processes. Religion can be and is one of the most powerful ideologies operating within society, and many religions and religious groupings are hierarchically male oriented. The law maintains that the male term encompasses the female. Many religions maintain that man is made in the image of God; woman in the image of man. The female is once removed in both law and religion. Even in the 19th century, English law continued to maintain that the Christian cleaving of male and female meant the subjugation of the female and the loss of her property and identity to the male. English family law was based upon Christian attitudes to family and accounted for the late introduction of flexible divorce laws in the 1950s. Both law and Christianity reflect a dualism in Western society. The power of language is illustrated here. A pervasive sexism is made possible and manifest through language which, therefore, easily carries discrimination. So far, the discussion has centred on the construction of the world by, and through, language as written word. There are different ways of speaking and writing. People use the modes of speaking and writing experience and education notes as the most appropriate. However, language exerts power, too, through a hierarchy given to ‘ways of speaking’; through a hierarchy based on accent as well as choice of, or access to, vocabulary. People often change the way they speak, their accent and/or vocabulary. Such change may be from the informality of family communication to the formality of work. It may be to ‘fit in’: the artificial playing with ‘upper class’, ‘middle class’, ‘working class’, ‘northern’ or ‘Irish’ accents. Sometimes presentation to a person perceived by the speaker as important may occasion an accent and even a vocabulary change. Speakers wish to be thought well of. Therefore, they address the other in the way it is thought that the other wishes or expects to be addressed.

2012 ◽  
pp. 25-25
Keyword(s):  
Image Of God ◽  
The Other ◽  
Western Society ◽  
Sex And Gender ◽  
Divorce Laws ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Written Word ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
The Image Of God ◽  
The Way

scholarly journals Allah yang Kreatif dan Dinamis dalam Ayub 42:7-17: Sebuah Perlawanan terhadap Teologi Retribusi

Kurios ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 240
Author(s):  
Firman Panjaitan ◽  
Hendro Hariyanto Siburian
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Human Actions ◽  
Book Of Job ◽  
Dynamic Image ◽  
Narrative Interpretation ◽  
The Image Of God ◽  
The Way

Theology often places the discourse on suffering in the concept of retribution, in the sense that suffering can occur because humans oppose God. Therefore, the way of deliverance or solution to suffering is through repentance, steadfastness, and persistence in suffering. This theological model of retribution is very contradictory to the message conveyed in the book of Job. By using the method of narrative interpretation, which tries to divide Job's story into several episodes and draws a "bridge" as a link between these various episodes, this paper intends to describe how God restored Job from all the suffering he had experienced. The conclusion of this research states that the God who is represented in the story of Job is a creative and dynamic God, and this would like to oppose the image of God in the view of retribution - orthodox, who will act based on human actions. The creative and dynamic image of God wants to open the eyes of everyone to believe that God is always involved in human life, not based on what humans do but based on God's free and independent will. Abstrak Teologi seringkali menempatkan diskursus tentang penderitaan dalam konsep retribusi, dalam pengertian penderitaan bisa terjadi karena manusia melawan Allah. Karena itu jalan kelepasan atau penyelesaian terhadap penderi-taan adalah melalui pertobatan, ketabahan dan kesebaran dalam penderitaan. Model teologi retribusi ini sangat berlawanan dengan berita yang disampaikan dalam kitab Ayub. Dengan menggunakan metode tafsir narasi, yang mencoba membagi kisah Ayub dalam beberap episode dan menarik ‘benang merah’ sebagai penghubung dari berbagai episode tersebut, tulisan ini hendak meng-gambarkan bagaimana Allah memulihkan Ayub dari segala penderitaan yang telah dialami. Akhir dari penelitian ini menyatakan bahwa Allah yang diha-dirkan dalam kisah Ayub adalah Allah yang kreatif dan dinamis, dan hal ini hendak menentang gambaran tentang Allah dalam pandangan retribusi-ortho-dox, yang akan bertindak berdasarkan tindakan-tindakan manusia. Gambaran Allah yang kreatif dan dinamis hendak membuka mata setiap orang percaya bahwa Allah senantiasa terlibat dalam kehidupan manusia, bukan didasarkan apa yang dilakukan oleh manusia melainkan berdasarkan kehendak Allah yang bebas dan tidak terikat.

Maimonides the Universalist

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Menachem Kellner ◽  
David Gillis
Keyword(s):  
Cross Section ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Jewish Law ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Philosophical Reflection ◽  
Legal Code ◽  
Universal Values ◽  
The Image Of God ◽  
The Way

Maimonides ends each book of his legal code, the Mishneh torah, with a moral or philosophical reflection, in which he lifts his eyes, as it were, from purely halakhic concerns and surveys broader horizons. This book analyse these concluding paragraphs, examining their verbal and thematic echoes, their adaptation of rabbinic sources, and the way in which they coordinate with the Mishneh torah's underlying structures, in order to understand how they might influence our interpretation of the code as a whole — and indeed our view of Maimonides himself and his philosophy. Taking this unusual cross-section of the work, the book concludes that the Mishneh torah presents not only a system of law, but also a system of universal values. It shows how Maimonides fashions Jewish law and ritual as a programme for attaining ethical and intellectual ends that are accessible to all human beings, who are created equally in the image of God. Many reject the presentation of Maimonides as a universalist. The Mishneh torah especially is widely seen as a particularist sanctuary. This book shows how profoundly that view must be revised.

scholarly journals The Elements of a Christological Anthropology

Perichoresis ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-20
Author(s):  
Rowan Williams
Keyword(s):  
Image Of God ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Material World ◽  
Proper Understanding ◽  
In Christ ◽  
The Image Of God ◽  
The Trinity ◽  
The Way

Abstract Human beings exist in one of two sorts of solidarity, according to St. Paul—the solidarity of sin or alienation ‘in Adam’ or the solidarity of life-giving mutuality in Christ. There can be no Christian theology of the human that is not a theology of communion—which converges with the conviction that our creation in the divine image is creation in relationality. The image of God is not a portion or aspect of human existence but a fundamental orientation towards relation. This understanding of the divine image in turn points to the way in which—as the Orthodox theologian Vladimir Lossky stresses—a proper understanding of the nature of personal being depends upon a proper grasp of the divine image, including the fact that it is always an image of the divine ‘filiation’—the eternal relation of Word to the Father in the Trinity. Our personal flourishing is a filial dependence that liberates and empowers. And what is ‘empowered’ is the human vocation to make reconciled sense of the material world of which we are part, articulating and serving its Godward meaning, so that we may see our humanity as essentially a priestly calling within the reconciling priesthood of Christ, in whom all things cohere.

Géographie et cartographie fictionnelles dans l’Utopie (1516) de Thomas More

Moreana ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 47 (Number 181- (3-4) ◽  
pp. 9-68
Author(s):  
Jean Du Verger
Keyword(s):  
Complex Network ◽  
Narrative Strategies ◽  
Thomas More ◽  
The Third ◽  
Editio Princeps ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
The Way

The philosophical and political aspects of Utopia have often shadowed the geographical and cartographical dimension of More’s work. Thus, I will try to shed light on this aspect of the book in order to lay emphasis on the links fostered between knowledge and space during the Renaissance. I shall try to show how More’s opusculum aureum, which is fraught with cartographical references, reifies what Germain Marc’hadour terms a “fictional archipelago” (“The Catalan World Atlas” (c. 1375) by Abraham Cresques ; Zuane Pizzigano’s portolano chart (1423); Martin Benhaim’s globe (1492); Martin Waldseemüller’s Cosmographiae Introductio (1507); Claudius Ptolemy’s Geographia (1513) ; Benedetto Bordone’s Isolario (1528) ; Diogo Ribeiro’s world map (1529) ; the Grand Insulaire et Pilotage (c.1586) by André Thevet). I will, therefore, uncover the narrative strategies used by Thomas More in a text which lies on a complex network of geographical and cartographical references. Finally, I will examine the way in which the frontispiece of the editio princeps of 1516, as well as the frontispiece of the third edition published by Froben at Basle in 1518, clearly highlight the geographical and cartographical aspect of More’s narrative.

Persons Together

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan L. Mittleman
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Political Dimensions ◽  
Market Relations ◽  
The Image Of God

This chapter moves into the political and economic aspects of human nature. Given scarcity and interdependence, what sense has Judaism made of the material well-being necessary for human flourishing? What are Jewish attitudes toward prosperity, market relations, labor, and leisure? What has Judaism had to say about the political dimensions of human nature? If all humans are made in the image of God, what does that original equality imply for political order, authority, and justice? In what kinds of systems can human beings best flourish? It argues that Jewish tradition shows that we act in conformity with our nature when we elevate, improve, and sanctify it. As co-creators of the world with God, we are not just the sport of our biochemistry. We are persons who can select and choose among the traits that comprise our very own natures, cultivating some and weeding out others.

Gandhian Method of Conflict Resolution: Perception of Educated Youths

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (6) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dr. P. K. Kar
Keyword(s):  
Conflict Resolution ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Integral Approach ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Life Itself ◽  
The Image Of God ◽  
Negative Concept

Gandhiji’s method of conflict resolution was based on truth and non-violence. Truth was for him the image of God. He did not believe in personal God. For Gandhi truth is God and God is truth. Life is a laboratory where experiments are carried on. That is why he named his autobiography “My Experiment with Truth”, without these experiments truth cannot be achieved. According to Gandhi, the sayings of a pure soul which possesses nonviolence, non-stealing, true speech, celibacy and non-possession is truth. The truth of Gandhiji was not confined to any country or community. In other words , his religion had no geographical limits. His patriotism was not different from the service of human beings but was its part and parcel(Mishra:102). Gandhiji developed an integral approach and perspective to the concept of life itself on the basis of experience and experiments. His ideas ,which came to be known to be his philosophy, were a part of his relentless search for truth(Iyer:270). The realization of this truth is possible only with the help of non-violence The negative concept of Ahimsa presupposes the absence of selfishness, jealousy and anger, but the positive conception of ahimsa demands the qualities of love ,liberalism, patience, resistance of injustice, and brutal force.

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