Divine Creation

2018 ◽  
pp. 127-141
Author(s):  
William J. Abraham
Keyword(s):  
Natural Theology ◽  
Natural Evil ◽  
Empirical Inquiry ◽  
The World ◽  
Triune God ◽  
The Face ◽  
Devotional Life ◽  
Ex Nihilo ◽  
Doctrine Of Creation

The Triune God created everything there is ex nihilo. This represents a move beyond Scripture but compatible with Scripture. This doctrine is not just a fitting exegetical and theological decision based on Scripture, but is a true judgment. Because God is a transcendent agent and given the kind of attributes God has, God can create the world ex nihilo. The doctrine of creation ex nihilo was hammered out in the patristic period in opposition to Gnosticism. This doctrine is compatible with the findings of science, but theology should not adopt an apologetic enterprise against the advances of scientific, empirical inquiry. It is important for a balanced devotional life and applies across the board to everything that exists, including angels. It allows also space for the development of natural theology and for efforts to provide a credible theodicy in the face of moral and natural evil.

scholarly journals SOME ASPECTS OF THE CONTROVERSIAL NEXUS BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-44
Author(s):  
Alexandru-Corneliu ARION ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Orthodox Christian ◽  
Creation Theology ◽  
The World ◽  
Ex Nihilo ◽  
Doctrine Of Creation

The present paper takes into consideration a few aspects related to the relation between the two disputed domains of knowledge: science and religion. After having pointed out the main eight warfare and nonwarfare models of interaction between science and religion, the study focuses on the motives of Eastern and Western Christianity breach, which resides on the very different attitude to Science and Nature. The main part of depicting the nexus between the two fields of research is focusing on the doctrine of creation, the one Christian theology truly revolutionized. The Christian Weltanschauung was so new in comparison with Greek cosmology that it had to raise new questions and make radical modifications, especially regarding the understanding of space and time. The Fathers of the Orthodox Church were happy to use the science and philosophy of their time in their theological thinking. However, they did not pursue a natural theology in the sense the term is often now understood based on scholastic theology. According to the Orthodox understanding, the intellect provides not knowledge about the creation but rather a direct apprehension or spiritual perception of the divine Logos (Word) incarnate in Christ, and of the inner essences or principles (logoi) of the cosmos components created by that Logos. The arguments of Orthodox Christian theology proof that the quantum universe was created out of nothing and that it is kept in existence only by God's relationship with creation through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. In relation to itself, the universe is reduced to nothing, because God is in Himself, while any other created thing is dependent upon Him, into an indissoluble connection with Him. According to creation theology, God gives the world its rational, intelligible structure as described by the laws of nature through the transcendent and eternal act of bringing the world into existence ex nihilo. As immanent creator, God also continues to create (creatio continua) and providentially direct processes and events towards their consummation in the eschaton. Overall, there is a poignant reason for keeping science and religion together once “science without religion is lame and religion without science is blind” (Einstein).

A Pascal-type Justification of Faith in a Scientific Age

Philosophy ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 80 (4) ◽  
pp. 543-563 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur Falk
Keyword(s):  
Opposite Direction ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
Corrected Version ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
Pascal’S Wager ◽  
Justification Of Faith ◽  
Radical Transformation

The author argues that faith survives as a rational option, despite science rendering improbable distinctively theological claims about the world and history. After rejecting justifications of faith from natural theology and natural law, he defends a seemingly weaker strategy, a corrected version of Pascal's wager argument. The wager lets one's desires count toward showing one's faith to be rational, and the faith requires that oneÕs desires undergo radical transformation to protect the faith, making the wager argument really quite strong. As Nietzsche insisted, to be an atheist in the face of this challenge, one would have to become superhuman and transform one's values radically in the opposite direction.

Philo of Alexandria (c.15 BC–c. AD 50)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David T. Runia
Keyword(s):  
Natural Theology ◽  
Philo Of Alexandria ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
Jewish Thought ◽  
Genesis 1 ◽  
Ex Nihilo ◽  
Doctrine Of Creation ◽  
Allegorical Interpretation ◽  
Human Intellect

Philo of Alexandria is the leading representative of Hellenistic-Jewish thought. Despite an unwavering loyalty to the religious and cultural traditions of his Jewish community, he was also strongly attracted to Greek philosophy, in which he received a thorough training. His copious writings – in Greek – are primarily exegetical, expounding the books of Moses. This reflects his apologetic strategy of presenting the Jewish lawgiver Moses as the sage and philosopher par excellence, recipient of divine inspiration, but not at the expense of his human rational faculties. In his commentaries Philo makes extensive use of the allegorical method earlier developed by the Stoics. Of contemporary philosophical movements, Philo is most strongly attracted to Platonism. His method is basically eclectic, but with a clear rationale focused on the figure of Moses. Philo’s thought is strongly theocentric. God is conceived in terms of being. God’s essence is unreachable for human knowledge (negative theology), but his existence should be patent to all (natural theology). Knowledge of God is attained through his powers and, above all, through his Logos (‘Word’ or ‘Reason’), by means of which he stands in relation to what comes after him. In his doctrine of creation Philo leans heavily on Platonist conceptions drawn from reflection on Plato’s Timaeus. The conception of a creation ex nihilo (‘from nothing’) is not yet consciously worked out. Philo’s doctrine of human nature favours the two anthropological texts in Genesis 1–2, interpreting creation ‘according to the image’ in relation to the human intellect. With regard to ethics, both Stoic concepts and peculiarly Jewish themes emerge in Philo’s beliefs. Ethical ideals are prominent in the allegorical interpretation of the biblical patriarchs. Philo’s influence was almost totally confined to the Christian tradition, which preserved his writings. He was unknown to medieval Jewish thinkers such as Maimonides.

scholarly journals En introduktion til Sergei Bulgakovs teologi

2010 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
pp. 195-212
Author(s):  
Kristian Mejrup Mejrup
Keyword(s):  
German Idealism ◽  
The World ◽  
Triune God ◽  
Ex Nihilo ◽  
Theology And Philosophy ◽  
The Trinity ◽  
Clear Line

An overlooked chapter in a Danish theological context is the sophiology and theology of Sergei Bulgakov who developed a theology based on the humanity of God. The Russian sophiological tradition draws no clear line between theology and philosophy. It mingles German idealism with Greek patristics, and a view of God, Goodness, Truth and Beauty is defended in a world full of cracks, antinomies and fragments of the Truth. Sophiology offers a view of the world englobed in divinity. Creation is a creation ex nihilo but also out of a superabundance in the inner divinity of the Triune God. Sophiology does not understand itself to be a new doctrine, but an interpretation of the doctrine of the Incarnation and the Trinity. Following the line of thought in Sergei Bulgakov’s sophiology, the relation between identity and differenc is rendered clear as a relation between God and the world. This article will particularly investigate the Christological and Trinitarian aspects of Bulgakov’s sophiology.

Power of Darkness: Narrative and Biographical Reflexivity in A Series of Unfortunate Events

2008 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 200-212
Author(s):  
ELIZABETH BULLEN
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Risk Society ◽  
Project Risk ◽  
Young Readers ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
High Earning ◽  
Textual Culture ◽  
Children’S Exposure ◽  
Central Claim

This paper investigates the high-earning children's series, A Series of Unfortunate Events, in relation to the skills young people require to survive and thrive in what Ulrich Beck calls risk society. Children's textual culture has been traditionally informed by assumptions about childhood happiness and the need to reassure young readers that the world is safe. The genre is consequently vexed by adult anxiety about children's exposure to certain kinds of knowledge. This paper discusses the implications of the representation of adversity in the Lemony Snicket series via its subversions of the conventions of children's fiction and metafictional strategies. Its central claim is that the self-consciousness or self-reflexivity of A Series of Unfortunate Events} models one of the forms of reflexivity children need to be resilient in the face of adversity and to empower them to undertake the biographical project risk society requires of them.

Persons in a World of Things

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan L. Mittleman
Keyword(s):  
Explanatory Power ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
Classic Essay

This chapter focuses on the reality of persons in a world of things. It begins and ends with some relevant views drawn from the Jewish philosophers Buber (1878–1965), Heschel (1907–72), and Joseph B. Soloveitchik (1903–93). Framed by the Jewish concerns, it turns to a philosophical exploration of human personhood. The chapter begins by consiering Sellars's classic essay on the scientific and manifest images of “man-in-the-world.” Sellars shows how urgent and difficult it is to sustain a recognizable image of ourselves as persons in the face of scientism. With additional help from Nagel and Kant, it argues that persons cannot be conceptually scanted in a world of things. Notwithstanding the explanatory power of science, there is more to life than explanation. Explanation of what we are needs supplementing by a conception of who we are, how we should live, and why we matter. Those are questions to which Jewish sources can speak.

Too WEIRD, Too Fast: Preprints about COVID-19 in the Psychological Sciences

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arathy Puthillam
Keyword(s):  
Overwhelming Majority ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
Conducting Research ◽  
Psychological Studies

That American and European participants are overrepresented in psychological studies has been previously established. In addition, researchers also often tend to be similarly homogenous. This continues to be alarming, especially given that this research is being used to inform policies across the world. In the face of a global pandemic where behavioral scientists propose solutions, we ask who is conducting research and on what samples. Forty papers on COVID-19 published in PsyArxiV were analyzed; the nationalities of the authors and the samples they recruited were assessed. Findings suggest that an overwhelming majority of the samples recruited were from the US and the authors were based in US and German institutions. Next, men constituted a large proportion of primary and sole authors. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Aplikasi Kuartu Berbasis Android Sebagai Media Pertukaran Informasi Kartu Nama

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-32
Author(s):  
Nandi Syukri ◽  
Eko Budi Setiawan
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Devices ◽  
Information Exchange ◽  
Smart Phone ◽  
Black Box ◽  
Qr Code ◽  
Business Card ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
Index Terms

Business Card is the most efficient, effective and appropriate tool for every business men no matter they are owners, employees, more over marketers to provide information about their businesses. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to bring and manage business card in large numbers also to remember the face of the business card owner. A Business Card application need to be built to solve all those issues mentioned above. The Application or software must be run in media which can be accessed anywhere and anytime such as smart phone. Kuartu is as business card application run in mobile devices. Kuartu is developed using object base modeling for mobile sub system. The platform of the mobile sub system is android, as it is the most widely used platform in the world. The Kuartu application utilizing NFC and QR Code technology to support the business card information exchange and the Chatting feature for communication. Based on the experiment and test using black box methodology, it can be concluded that Kuartu application makes business card owner to communicate each other easily, business card always carried, easy to manage the cards and information of the business card owner can be easily obtained. Index Terms— Business Card, Android, Kuartu, NFC, QrCode, Chatting.

The Writings of Skryabin

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Nicholls ◽  
Michael Pushkin ◽  
Vladimir Ashkenazy
Keyword(s):  
World View ◽  
Creative Activity ◽  
Creative Play ◽  
Religious Feeling ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
Section Viii ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Final Text ◽  
Life Work

An introduction by Boris de Schloezer gives the genesis of the final text in the section, the Preliminary Action, and explains its relation to Skryabin’s projected life-work, the Mystery. Section I: an effusion of Orthodox religious feeling from teenage years. Sections II-VII: Around 1900, an expression of rejection of God in the face of disillusion is followed by the text of the choral finale of the First Symphony, declaring faith in the power of art. An unfinished opera libretto, symbolic in narrative, expressing belief in Art’s power to seduce and persuade. Three notebooks develop a world view in which the world is the result of the self’s creative activity. The creation of art and of the universe are identical. There is a higher self, identical with divinity. Forgetfulness of individuality leads to freedom and universal consciousness. Section VIII: The literary poem written during the composition of the symphonic Poem of Ecstasy summarises the scenario developed in the notebooks. Life starts with the desire to create, delight in creative play meets opposition, the creative goal is achieved and disappointment sets in. The process is repeated until it is realized that the struggle is itself joyful and self-affirmation is achieved. Section IX: The text of the Preliminary Action is symbolic in structure. Primal Male and Female Principles emerge; the Female is identified with Death. Life arises from the union of energies. Struggle and bloodshed follow. The conclusion is an impulse towards unification, the synthesis of experience and dematerialisation. Both the complete first draft and the incomplete revision are included.

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