Tradition and Human Life

Author(s):  
Gerald O’Collins, SJ

Help towards understanding the human and religious functions of tradition comes from such sociologists as Peter Berger, Anthony Giddens, and Edward Shils. Tradition by Shils continues to illuminate how, although human beings modify inherited beliefs and change traditional patterns of behaviour, the new always incorporates something of the past. Shils takes a global view of tradition; it embodies everything individuals inherit when born into the world. It is through tradition that new members of society begin to identify themselves. The bearers of tradition may be not only official but also ‘learned’ and ‘ordinary’. Shils dedicates many further pages to changes in traditions and the forces leading to these changes. What sociologists like Giddens say about globalization also affects theological reflection on tradition. Surprisingly, the very few theologians who have published on tradition have ignored the sociologists.

2008 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry Harvey

AbstractThe practices, habits and convictions that once allowed the inhabitants of Christendom to determine what they could reasonably do and say together to foster a just and equitable common life have slowly been displaced over the past few centuries by new configurations which have sought to maintain an inherited faith in an underlying purpose to human life while disassociating themselves from the God who had been the beginning and end of that faith. In the end, however, these new configurations are incapable of sustained deliberations about the basic conditions of our humanity. Dietrich Bonhoeffer's theology provides important clues into what it takes to make and keep human life human in such a world. The first part of this essay examines Bonhoeffer's conception of the last things, the things before the last, and what binds them together. He argues that the things before the last do not possess a separate, autonomous existence, and that the positing of such a breach has had disastrous effects on human beings and the world they inhabit. The second part looks at Bonhoeffer's account of the divine mandates as the conceptual basis for coping with a world that has taken leave of God. Though this account of the mandates has much to commend it, it is hindered by problematic habits of interpretation that leave it vacillating between incommensurable positions. Bonhoeffer's incomplete insights are thus subsumed within Augustine's understanding of the two orders of human society set forth in City of God.


The Batuk ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 55-66
Author(s):  
Arjun Dev Bhatta

This article analyzes and evaluates Henrik Ibsen’s most controversial drama “Ghosts” from naturalistic point of view. Naturalism views human life in relation to internal and external environment. It insists on the effect of the past that shapes the present life of human beings. Based on this philosophy of life, this article examines how the life of the leading characters Mrs. Alving and her son Oswald has been influenced. Mrs. Alving’s present values and views on life have a concern with conventional and religious past whereas Oswald’s philosophy of life is guided and governed by his dead father. This article also shows heredity and genetic transformation are biological facts that affect human life. Thus, the object of this article is to explore how human beings are controlled by the inescapable past.


2013 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 37
Author(s):  
Mrs. Khafidhoh

Human life has always been dealt with various disasters from earthquake,  tsunami to volcano eruption. In the past, as listed in the Qur’an, a lot of stories depicted the vanished people of unbeliever. While the cases of unbeliever referred to the punishment of Alloh, the query is whether the disaster happened to the Believer served as the Divine punishment. Two questions are discussed in this research: (1) How Quraish Shihab interpreted the verses of disaster?, and (2) What is the theology of disaster in Quraish Shihab’s Tafsir al-Misbah? The research shows that natural disaster occurred, in Quraish Shihab’s view, due to the imbalance of environment. Alloh has created harmonious environment, but human being tends to conduct chaos and destruction. Disaster could be concluded into three: (1) disaster that denoted collective destruction, (2) disaster that related to the destruction of meaning, and (3), disaster that dealt with the danger. The cause of disaster could be categorized into three, namely, (1) disaster due to the will of God (2) disaster due to human error (3) disaster due to the wickedness of human. Pertaining to the ethics facing disaster, one couldrefer to istirja’, patience, learning, the obedience to Alloh. The lesson learned from the disaster are among others, (1) individual aspect : (a) increasing the degree of faith, (b) supporting one’s proximity to God, (c) realizing the love of God, (d) situating one’s faith and (e) supporting one’s humility and (2) social one, building solidarity among human beings.


Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 332
Author(s):  
Mark Roosien

This article identifies the upheaval of many people’s experience of time during the COVID-19 pandemic as part of a larger phenomenon of the 24/7 temporality that can be seen to contribute to the environmental destruction and social fragmentation typical of disaster capitalism. It then proposes liturgical temporality as an alternative to 24/7 temporality, framing it as a fitting context for the cultivation of solidarity between human beings and between human beings and the natural world. It argues that modern Jewish and Christian theologies of Sabbath-keeping as a mode of liturgical and ethical praxis have articulated a liberative vision for shared liturgical temporality but have not paid sufficient attention to concrete, collective modes of liturgical time keeping that could contend with the all-encompassing reality of 24/7 life. It concludes by discussing three ways that a more robust spirituality and praxis of liturgical time could support the cultivation of solidarity: a sense of the present that is mindful of the past and future, the invitation of practitioners into a shared story, and meaningful repetition toward the appropriation of a vision of redemption and liberation for human and non-human life.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (15) ◽  
pp. 1404-1413
Author(s):  
Leyla Savsar ◽  
Mehmet Savsar

Healthcare has been one of the most vital endeavors in human life during the entire history of humanity. In the past two millennia, all efforts and expertise are put into healthcare in order to maintain human beings in healthy condition. While the science and technology in medical field has advanced incredibly, some serious issues remain as problems in healthcare activities that need attention. Two issues that have been researched and discussed in the literature during the past century are quality and ethical problems in healthcare. Parallel to these issues is a new branch of research, called medical humanities, which attempts to emphasize the subjective experience of patients within the objective and scientific world of medicine, where literature plays a major role to influence and enrich medical practice. In this paper, we try to summarize basic types of human errors, medical malpractices, causes of quality problems, and ethical issues in healthcare systems. We also try to present our views on healthcare quality and ethics and their relations to narrative medicine with an attempt to discourse the prospects of improving healthcare quality through narrative medicine. Keywords: Healthcare quality, healthcare errors, medical ethics, medical humanities, narrative medicine


2010 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-82
Author(s):  
Peter Nolan

This paper analyses the nature of capitalist globalization during the past three decades. This period was dominated by US-led free market fundamentalism. This produced great benefits arising from intense oligopolistic competition. However, it also produced deep contradictions that threaten the sustainability of human life. Faced with these profound Darwinian threats, the human species needs to establish globally cooperative institutions to regulate intelligently the forces of wild capitalism that human beings have themselves created.


el-'Umdah ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-46
Author(s):  
Miftah Ulya

Emotional anger is an urgent and has an essential role in living human life, besides he is also praiseworthy as well as the nature and attitude to watch out for, because anger is also the most active role in things that are self-preservation, family, and other social communities. Anger emotions arise as a result of feelings of displeasure with people other than themselves, or certain objects that are closely related to the personality and inner experience experienced by someone. In the Qur'an the expression "human emotion" is very closely related to human behavior personally related to information aspects of the past, present or future. In the Koran no less than 13 times in the form of unequal derivatives, where anger is depicted and seen in human attitudes and behaviors that sometimes appear on the face, can be detected in verbal and nonverbal forms, angry with fa'ali, angry with the qalb fil , angry in terms of quelling evil and angry in terms of human expectations that are not achieved.Humans are required to know and minimize the nature of anger because of the impact it has on the lives of human beings both psychologically, sociologically and psychologically. But through the media remember Allah Almighty, through purification media with the nature of Husn al-zhan, patience, gratitude, forgiveness is a solution in controlling human angry emotions


2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  

Philosophy is a search for a general understanding of values and reality by chiefly speculative rather than observational means. It signifies a natural and necessary urge in human beings to know themselves and the world in which they live and move and have their being. Hindu philosophy is intensely spiritual and has always emphasized the need for practical realization of Truth. Philosophy is a comprehensive system of ideas about human nature and the nature of the reality we live in. It is a guide for living, because the issues it addresses are basic and pervasive, determining the course we take in life and how we treat other people. Hence we can say that all the aspects of human life are influenced and governed by the philosophical consideration. As a field of study philosophy is one of the oldest disciplines. It is considered as a mother of all the sciences. In fact it is at the root of all knowledge. Education has also drawn its material from different philosophical bases. Education, like philosophy is also closely related to human life. Therefore, being an important life activity education is also greatly influenced by philosophy. Various fields of philosophy like the political philosophy, social philosophy and economic philosophy have great influence on the various aspects of education like educational procedures, processes, policies, planning and its implementation, from both the theoretical and practical aspects. In order to understand the concept of Philosophy of education it is necessary to first understand the meaning of the two terms; Philosophy and Education.


IIUC Studies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 33-46
Author(s):  
Kalim Ullah

Human beings are deeply related to land. Human beings take birth on land, live on land, die on land and mixes with land ultimately. As stated in the holy Quran: ‘We (Allah) created you (human beings) from the soil, we shall make you return to the soil and We shall call you back again from the soil’ (20:55). Human life is surrounded by soil i.e. land. So, land is a highly completed issue of human life involving economic, social, political, cultural and often religious systems. Land administration is thus a critical element and often a pre-condition for peaceful society and sustainable development. In administrating land, Khatian or record of rights plays a vital role to determine the rights and interests of the respective parties as supportive evidence. In this article, discussion is mainly made on the fact that Khatian or record of rights is not a document of title solely but it may be an evidence of title as well as possession. IIUC Studies Vol.15(0) December 2018: 33-46


Author(s):  
Volker Scheid

This chapter explores the articulations that have emerged over the last half century between various types of holism, Chinese medicine and systems biology. Given the discipline’s historical attachments to a definition of ‘medicine’ that rather narrowly refers to biomedicine as developed in Europe and the US from the eighteenth century onwards, the medical humanities are not the most obvious starting point for such an inquiry. At the same time, they do offer one advantage over neighbouring disciplines like medical history, anthropology or science and technology studies for someone like myself, a clinician as well as a historian and anthropologist: their strong commitment to the objective of facilitating better medical practice. This promise furthermore links to the wider project of critique, which, in Max Horkheimer’s definition of the term, aims at change and emancipation in order ‘to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them’. If we take the critical medical humanities as explicitly affirming this shared objective and responsibility, extending the discipline’s traditional gaze is not a burden but becomes, in fact, an obligation.


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