scholarly journals Gregory of Nyssa on the Metaphysics of the Trinity (with Reference to his Letter To Ablabius)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Marmodoro
Keyword(s):  
Philosophical Problem ◽  
Gregory Of Nyssa ◽  
The World ◽  
One And Many ◽  
The One ◽  
The Trinity ◽  
Special Case ◽  
The Way

This chapter explores Gregory’s metaphysics of the Trinity, which used an innovative distinction between stuffs (e.g. gold), which cannot be counted, and individuals (e.g. rings), which can. Gregory identifies the nature of any kind with the totality of its instances: the nature of man is the totality of men; the nature of gold is the totality of gold. For Gregory, the totality is more ‘real’ than the individuals into which it is articulated, which are merely the way in which the kind is present in the world. God is then identified as the total quantity of divinity in the world, and is thus one, and real. The Persons of the Trinity into which God is articulated are the ways God is in the world, and can be comprehended by us. Thus, the problem of the Trinity is solved as a special case of the philosophical problem of the One and Many.

Ibn al-‘Arabi, Muhyi al-Din (1164–1240)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neal Robinson
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Inner Experience ◽  
Divine Essence ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Creation ◽  
One And Many ◽  
The One ◽  
Southeast Spain ◽  
The Way

Ibn al-‘Arabi was a mystic who drew on the writings of Sufis, Islamic theologians and philosophers in order to elaborate a complex theosophical system akin to that of Plotinus. He was born in Murcia (in southeast Spain) in AH 560/ad 1164, and died in Damascus in AH 638/ad 1240. Of several hundred works attributed to him the most famous are al-Futuhat al-makkiyya (The Meccan Illuminations) and Fusus al-hikam (The Bezels of Wisdom). The Futuhat is an encyclopedic discussion of Islamic lore viewed from the perspective of the stages of the mystic path. It exists in two editions, both completed in Damascus – one in AH 629/ad 1231 and the other in AH 636/ad 1238 – but the work was conceived in Mecca many years earlier, in the course of a vision which Ibn al-‘Arabi experienced near the Kaaba, the cube-shaped House of God which Muslims visit on pilgrimage. Because of its length, this work has been relatively neglected. The Fusus, which is much shorter, comprises twenty-seven chapters named after prophets who epitomize different spiritual types. Ibn al-‘Arabi claimed that he received it directly from Muhammad, who appeared to him in Damascus in AH 627/ad 1229. It has been the subject of over forty commentaries. Although Ibn al-‘Arabi was primarily a mystic who believed that he possessed superior divinely-bestowed knowledge, his work is of interest to the philosopher because of the way in which he used philosophical terminology in an attempt to explain his inner experience. He held that whereas the divine Essence is absolutely unknowable, the cosmos as a whole is the locus of manifestation of all God’s attributes. Moreover, since these attributes require the creation for their expression, the One is continually driven to transform itself into Many. The goal of spiritual realization is therefore to penetrate beyond the exterior multiplicity of phenomena to a consciousness of what subsequent writers have termed the ‘unity of existence’. This entails the abolition of the ego or ‘passing away from self’ (fana’) in which one becomes aware of absolute unity, followed by ‘perpetuation’ (baqa’) in which one sees the world as at once One and Many, and one is able to see God in the creature and the creature in God.

How do novels hang together? Characterization as registerial meta-stability

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-48
Author(s):  
Fang Li ◽  
David Kellogg
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Middle Ground ◽  
The World ◽  
The One ◽  
Special Case ◽  
The Way

AbstractHow does a novel like Middlemarch cohere, since it is made up of at least two very different kinds of text, narrative on the one hand and dialogue on the other? In this paper, we look to two authorities: to literature, where authors seem to agree that it is consistency in voice that holds both narrators and characters together, and to linguistics, where a computerized corpus allows us to measure variation between and within characters. Where previous researchers found unsystematic variations, we find meta-stability: characters remain true to themselves only through variation. The way in which Dorothea addresses her future husband differs from the way she addresses her little sister in Chapter Five of Middlemarch but this is in turn a special case of differences between the way in which Dorothea addresses men and the way in which she addresses women. Such a difference serves to symbolically articulate a key theme of Eliot’s novel – the middle ground that every woman must occupy in the march from the world of our forefathers through that of our husbands to that of our children.

scholarly journals Tertullian on the Trinity

Perichoresis ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-98
Author(s):  
Bryan M. Litfin
Keyword(s):  
Second Century ◽  
New Development ◽  
The World ◽  
Generation Theory ◽  
Justin Martyr ◽  
Eternal Generation ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Trinity ◽  
The Way

Abstract Tertullian is often portrayed as a prescient figure who accurately anticipated the Nicene consensus about the Trinity. But when he is examined against the background of his immediate predecessors, he falls into place as a typical second-century Logos theologian. He drew especially from Theophilus of Antioch, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus of Lyons. At the same time, Tertullian did introduce some important innovations. His trinitarian language of ‘substance’ and ‘person’, rooted in Stoic metaphysics, offered the church a new way to be monotheistic while retaining the full deity and consubstantiality of the Word. Tertullian also significantly developed the concept of a divine oikonomia, God’s plan to create and redeem the world. The Son and Spirit are emissaries of the Father’s will—not ontologically inferior to him, yet ranked lower in the way that the sent are always subordinate to the sender. For this reason, Tertullian denied that a Father/Son relationship was eternal within the Trinity, seeing it rather as a new development emerging from God’s plan to make the world. Such temporal paternity and filiation distances Tertullian from the eventual Nicene consensus, which accepted instead the eternal generation theory of Origen. While Tertullian did propose some important terms that would gain traction among the Nicene fathers, he was also marked by a subordinationist tendency that had affinities with Arianism. Tertullian’s most accurate anticipation of Nicaea was his insistence on three co-eternal and consubstantial Persons. Historical theologians need to start admitting that Tertullian was a far cry from being fully Nicene. Rather, he offered a clever but still imperfect half-step toward what would become official orthodoxy..

David Brown's Divine Humanity

2015 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 106-113
Author(s):  
Kathryn Tanner
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Mutual Influence ◽  
The Self ◽  
Primary Indication ◽  
The World ◽  
The Trinity ◽  
The Way

The contributions of this fine book are many but I will concentrate on three, before turning to several more critical remarks.First, and most obviously, the book does the invaluable service of surveying developments in kenotic christology in the nineteenth century while situating them nicely in their different contexts of origin and with reference to lines of mutual influence: continental, Scottish and British trends are all canvassed rather masterfully. Some attention, in lesser detail, is also given to the way these christological trends are extended in the twentieth century to accounts of the Trinity and God's relation to the world generally: kenosis, the self-emptying or self-limiting action of God, in the incarnation, is now viewed as a primary indication of who God is and how God works, from creation to salvation.

The Attributed to Aristotle

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristina D'Ancona
Keyword(s):  
Causal Chain ◽  
First Principle ◽  
The World ◽  
Great Chain Of Being ◽  
First Cause ◽  
The One ◽  
The Way

The pseudo-Theology of Aristotle is the most important example of the exposure of the cultivated Arab readership to Neoplatonism in Aristotle’s garb. Plotinus’s doctrines are construed as the exposition genuinely made by Aristotle himself. Plotinus’s One and Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover merge, and the Plotinian principles Intellect and Soul are endowed with the task of letting the power of the First Cause expand until it reaches the world of coming-to-be and passing away. The great chain of being has its beginning in the First Principle: the One, the Pure Being, and Pure Good: every degree depends on it, and its power reaches the sublunar beings through the medium of Intellect and Soul. This causal chain is dominated by the pattern of the double journey of the soul, the way down along the necessary declension of the degrees of being, and the way back toward its homeland.

Concept and Time in Hegel

Dialogue ◽  
1973 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 403-422
Author(s):  
John Burbidge
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Philosophical Problem ◽  
Basic Requirement ◽  
Philosophy Of Time ◽  
Philosophical Thought ◽  
Definitive Answer ◽  
Dynamic Character ◽  
Conceptual Thought ◽  
The World ◽  
The Way

To formulate a philosophy of time is not easy, even though it would seem to be the basic requirement for any philosophy which attempts to comprehend the world of nature or of history. The problem is briefly posed: Can the conceptual framework of philosophical thought do justice to the dynamic character of time?The purpose of this paper is not to provide a definitive answer to this question. Its aim is more limited. By discussing carefully the way in which Hegel's philosophy related conceptual thought to time, it hopes to provide new perspectives on this vexing philosophical problem.

scholarly journals The catechetical value of Byzantine hymnography

Arta ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 7-10
Author(s):  
Violina Galaicu ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Sacred Music ◽  
The Other ◽  
Religious Music ◽  
Holy Trinity ◽  
The One ◽  
Heart And Mind ◽  
The Trinity ◽  
The Way

This paper is dedicated to the catechetical vocation of Byzantine hymnography, the author analyzing, on the one hand, the theological “matter” that nourishes it, and on the other - the way in which it is presented to the recipient. Thus, the dogma of the Holy Trinity (including that of trinity unity and intra-Trinitarian perichoresis) animates a series of liturgical songs and is also found in the ekfonises of prayers. No less fertile for Orthodox hymnography is the Christological dimension intimately associated with that of the trinity. To the extent that Byzantine sacred music has Christological and soteriological relevance, it is also the bearer of mariological meanings. Mariological images amplify the sacrificial, eschatological, and epiphanic resonances of Christian liturgy, in general, and of religious music in particular. In conclusion, we will state that, on its catechetical side, Byzantine hymnography has a higher efficiency than discursive theology. Due to the doxological form in which it presents its teachings, it manages to evade sterile didacticism, it communicates vividly with the heart and mind of the believers, fully involving them in the hierophantic exercise.

Voegelin and Aristotle on Nous: What is Noetic Political Science?

2002 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
David D. Corey
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
First Principles ◽  
Sense Perception ◽  
Human Consciousness ◽  
The World ◽  
Divine Activity ◽  
Eric Voegelin ◽  
The One ◽  
The Way ◽  
First Philosophy

The article examines Voegelin's understanding of nous as the ground for theorizing, and relates this back to Aristotle. Aristotle is shown to have understood the activities of nous in two distinct ways. On the one hand, nous is the divine activity of the soul exploring its own ground. But nous is also induction (epagôgê) of the first principles of science through sense perception, memory and experience. The two basic activities of nous are related, but they have different values when it comes to the world of particulars. The argument is that a substantive ethical and political science—one that sheds light on particulars—must include the inductive employment of nous and that the exclusion of this from Voegelin's political science results in some discernible limitations.The limitations of Eric Voegelin—s work are sometimes difficult to keep in view, particularly while he is expounding upon the totality of Being, the myriad dimensions of human consciousness, and the nature of order in personal, social, and historical existence. But in fact Voegelin's work is more limited than his magisterial tone might suggest. The argument of this article is that while Voegelin offers his readers profoundly important insights into the structure of human consciousness and into what Aristotle called first philosophy, the study of being qua being, he does not offer his readers much in the way of a substantive ethical or political science.

Ethics, Science, and Poetry

2019 ◽  
pp. 104-144
Author(s):  
Robert Stern
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Scientific Thinking ◽  
Normative Authority ◽  
The World ◽  
The One ◽  
Ethical Demand ◽  
The Way

This chapter covers Chapters 10 and 11 of The Ethical Demand, which focus on how Løgstrup sees the demand in relation to science on the one hand, and poetry on the other. In relation to science, Løgstrup argues for a form of philosophy that might be seen to challenge the ‘anti-metaphysical’ assumptions of scientific thinking, particularly in the way his account attributes a kind of normative authority to the demand as standing in judgement over our actions. Løgstrup also considers how far certain kinds of scientific determinism might pose a challenge to ethics, arguing that this challenge can be resisted. In Chapter 11, Løgstrup asks whether poetry can have implications for ethics, suggesting poetry can break through the triviality in which our lives are often lived, thus making us properly attentive to the world that surrounds us, including other people.

Introduction: A New Way to Read Nature

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
J. Arvid Ågren
Keyword(s):  
Nobel Prize ◽  
Nobel Prize Winner ◽  
Field Of Study ◽  
Natural Laws ◽  
The World ◽  
Living Organisms ◽  
Object Of Study ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Special Case ◽  
The Way

There really is something special about biology. The French biochemist and Nobel Prize winner Jacques Monod described its position among the sciences as simultaneously marginal and central (Monod 1970, p. xi). It is marginal, because its object of study—living organisms—are but a special case of chemistry and physics, contributing to only a minuscule part of the universe. Biology will never be the source of natural laws in the way physics is. At the same time, if, as Monod believed, the whole point of science is to understand humanity’s place in the world, then biology is the most central of them all. No other field of study deals so directly with the question of who we are and how we got here in the first place....

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document