Faith and Science in Russian Religious Thought

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teresa Obolevitch
Keyword(s):  
Science And Religion ◽  
Synthetic Approach ◽  
Religious Thought ◽  
Theology And Science ◽  
Science In Russia ◽  
History Of ◽  
Lev Shestov ◽  
Lev Tolstoy ◽  
Russian Religious Thought ◽  
The Relationship

The book brings forth a comprehensive presentation of one of the most interesting of contemporary issues, namely an analysis of the relation between science and faith in Russian religious thought. It is a synthetic approach on the development of the problem throughout the whole history of Russian thought, starting from the medieval period and arriving in contemporary times. The key topic is considered the relationship between science and religion in the eighteenth century, the so-called academic philosophy of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the thought of Peter Chaadaev, the Slavophiles, and in the most influential literature figures, such as Fedor Dostoevsky and Lev Tolstoy. The book also analyzes two channels of the formation of philosophy in the context of the relationship between theology and science in Russia. The first is connected with the attempt to rationalize the truths of faith and is exemplified by Vladimir Soloviev and Nikolai Lossky; the second, the apophatic tradition, is presented by Fr. Pavel Florensky and Semen Frank. The book then describes the relation to scientific knowledge in the thought of Lev Shestov, Nikolai Berdyaev, Sergius Bulgakov, and Alexei Losev as well as the original project of Russian Cosmism (in the examples of Nikolai Fedorov, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, and Vladimir Vernadsky). Finally, the book presents the current state of the discussion on this topic by paying attention to the Neopatristic synthesis (Fr. Georges Florovsky and his followers) and offers a brief comparative analysis of the relationship between science and religion from the Western and Russian perspectives.

Religious Thought in Medieval Rus

2019 ◽  
pp. 7-13
Author(s):  
Teresa Obolevitch
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Human Reasoning ◽  
Religious Thought ◽  
Faith And Reason ◽  
Divine Essence ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Theology And Science ◽  
Russian Religious Thought ◽  
The Relationship

Chapter 1 explores the beginning of Russian religious thought in light of the relationship between faith and reason, Christian revelation and ancient philosophy. Two tendencies in Eastern Christian cosmology, reflecting two of the aspects (the transcendent and the immanent ones: the divine essence and the divine energies) of God are analyzed. The first one is typical for, and supposes that there is a clear-cut borderline between, the divine essence and creation and, respectively, between theology and science. Consequently, the task of philosophy is nothing other than to expose the limits of human reasoning and especially scientific knowledge. The second tendency claims that since the divine energies penetrate the empirical realm, therefore, cosmology is considered a part of theology. In Medieval Rus both approaches concerning the possibility of cognition of God through creation and, as one of the consequences, a link between theology and science, were adopted.

Deification in the Long Nineteenth Century

2019 ◽  
pp. 55-81
Author(s):  
Ruth Coates
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Institutions Of Higher Education ◽  
Religious Thought ◽  
History Of ◽  
Cultural Expressions ◽  
Russian Religious Thought ◽  
The Church

Chapter 2 sets out the history of the reception of deification in Russia in the long nineteenth century, drawing attention to the breadth and diversity of the theme’s manifestation, and pointing to the connections with inter-revolutionary religious thought. It examines how deification is understood variously in the spheres of monasticism, Orthodox institutions of higher education, and political culture. It identifies the novelist Fedor Dostoevsky and the philosopher Vladimir Soloviev as the most influential elite cultural expressions of the idea of deification, and the primary conduits through which Western European philosophical expressions of deification reach early twentieth-century Russian religious thought. Inspired by the anthropotheism of Feuerbach, and Stirner’s response to this, Dostoevsky brings to the fore the problem of illegitimate self-apotheosis, whilst Soloviev, in his philosophy of divine humanity, bequeaths deification to his successors both as this is understood by the church and in its iteration in German metaphysical idealism.

Thought Experiments and Religion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yiftach Fehige
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Thought Experiments ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
The Core ◽  
Literature And Religion ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
The Relationship

Thought experiments are basically imagined scenarios with a significant experimental character. Some of them justify claims about the world outside of the imagination. Originally they were a topic of scholarly interest exclusively in philosophy of science. Indeed, a closer look at the history of science strongly suggests that sometimes thought experiments have more than merely entertainment, heuristic, or pedagogic value. But thought experiments matter not only in science. The scope of scholarly interest has widened over the years, and today we know that thought experiments play an important role in many areas other than science, such as philosophy, history, and mathematics. Thought experiments are also linked to religion in a number of ways. Highlighted in this article are those links that pertain to the core of religions (first link), the relationship between science and religion in historical and systematic respects (second link), the way theology is conducted (third link), and the relationship between literature and religion (fourth link).

Vladimir Soloviev on Nationalism

1946 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Karpovich
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Western World ◽  
Central Position ◽  
Religious Thought ◽  
Marked Individual ◽  
Individual Character ◽  
Russian Literary ◽  
Great Poet ◽  
History Of ◽  
Russian Religious Thought

The name of Vladimir Soloviev, insofar as it is familiar to the Western world, is known as that of a philosopher and religious thinker. This was, of course, the field in which he was particularly prominent. Russia can boast only a few formal philosophers (as distinguished from philosophizing novelists, poets or historians), and among those Soloviev is probably the most outstanding. Moreover, in the history of modern Russian religious thought, he occupies a central position, serving as a connecting link between the mid-nineteenth century Slavophils and such contemporary writers as Berdiaev and Bulgakov.But Soloviev's was a versatile and many-sided nature, and many other aspects of his life and activity deserve attention and study. He wrote interpretive essays on Russian poetry, some of which were landmarks in Russian literary criticism, and he was a poet himself—not a great poet, perhaps, but one with a strongly marked individual character.

scholarly journals Rethinking the Integrative Dimension of Theology with Science: Syntheses and Congruences

2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-129
Author(s):  
Ioan Dura ◽  
Ionel Mihălescu ◽  
Mihai Frățilă ◽  
Victor Cîrceie ◽  
Rubian Borcan
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Social Progress ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
Number Of Components ◽  
Double Function ◽  
Theology And Science ◽  
The Relationship

If we want to define today's society in one word, trying to capture its meaning, it would be polarization. The interdependence between all social segments, articulated by globalization, has a double function: unpacking the identitary elements that enter in the structure of society (religion, politics, culture, science, etc.) and framing them in a relational dynamic. In this situation are Theology and Science, which, of course, maintain a number of components under their general names. Can we talk about a congruence between these two dimensions of human knowledge? Or they are developing completely separately and antagonistic in social progress? According to Ian G. Barbour there are four types of relation between Science and Religion: conflict, independence, dialogue, integration. This article intends to highlight the congruence between Theology and Science in the paradigm of neo-patristic synthesis , which explores in a phenomenological, theological and philosophical way the relationship between these two. Neo-patristic synthesis is a theological movement from the 20th century, generated by the initiative of the orthodox theologian G. Florovsky.

Religion of Chiropractic

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holly Folk
Keyword(s):  
Alternative Medicine ◽  
Progressive Era ◽  
Scientific Practice ◽  
The United States ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
The Body ◽  
Intellectual Culture ◽  
Cultural Resistance ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship

Chiropractic is the most common form of alternative medicine in the United States today, but its origins stretch back to the popular healing subcultures of the nineteenth century. This book focuses on two of chiropractic's earliest founders, Daniel David (D. D.) Palmer and his son, Joshua Bartlett (B. J.) Palmer, who established the Palmer College of Chiropractic in Davenport, Iowa in 1897. It traces the history of ideas behind early chiropractic theory, as developed by the Palmers and their contemporaries and rivals. This book argues that a great deal of alternative medicine can be apprehended through two themes: vitalism and populism, and that the protean positioning of chiropractic as a scientific practice and a holistic alternative allows it to appeal to health consumers desires. The Palmers' system depicted chiropractic as a conduit for both material and spiritualized versions of a “vital principle,” reflecting popular contemporary therapies and 19th -century metaphysical beliefs, including the idea that the spine was home to occult forces that regulated bodily health. Chiropractic illustrates how the ideological and therapeutic aspects of health care are intertwined. In the Progressive Era, as the relationship between science and religion took on an urgent, increasingly competitive tinge, many remarkable people, including the Palmers, undertook highly personal reinterpretations of their physical and spiritual worlds. In this context, this book reframes alternative medicine as a type of populist intellectual culture in which ideologies about the body comprise an appealing form of cultural resistance. This legacy continues in the Straight Chiropractic movement.

Judaism and Russian Religious Thought

2020 ◽  
pp. 342-359
Author(s):  
Dominic Rubin
Keyword(s):  
Religious Identity ◽  
Jewish Question ◽  
German Language ◽  
Conservative Approach ◽  
Religious Thought ◽  
Russian Orthodoxy ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
Blood Libel ◽  
Lev Shestov ◽  
Russian Religious Thought

This chapter examines the role played by Judaism, the pre-1917 Russian ‘Jewish Question’, and anti-Semitism in the philosophical and cultural formation of key Russian religious thinkers. It explores how Vladimir Soloviev laid the foundations for a common ‘liberal–conservative’ approach to Jews and Judaism, by using them as tropes for his thinking on Russian nationhood and religious identity. It then examines how Sergii Bulgakov, Pavel Florensky and Vassily Rozanov each used Judaic elements to forge a philosophy of ‘sacred materialism’. The question of these three thinkers’ anti-Semitic writings is considered as part of a more general irrationalist element in Russian conservative religious thought, and the philosophical effects of the 1911–1913 Beilis blood libel trial on the work of Rozanov and Florensky are analysed. Finally, the chapter looks at the work of four Jewish thinkers: Aaron Steinberg, Mikhail Gershenzon, Lev Shestov, and Semyon Frank (the latter, despite his conversion to Russian Orthodoxy, preserved a connection to a particular form of Jewishness, it is argued, especially through his devotion to the German language). The author concludes that they succeeded in creating a pan-European universalist version of Russian thought that enabled them to find an outlet for an original fusion of Russian and Jewish elements, which was forged in creative tension with their dual heritage.

scholarly journals The shaping of rationality in science and religion

1996 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wentzel J. Huyssteen
Keyword(s):  
Science And Religion ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Religion And Science ◽  
Scientific Rationality ◽  
Theology And Science ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Epistemological Complexity ◽  
Human Rationality ◽  
Rationality Of Science

In this paper the focus is on the extreme epistemological complexity of the relationship between religion and science as two dominant forces in our culture today. This complexity is aggravated by a seemingly conflictual postrnodern, pluralist challenge to a culture that already reveals itself as decidedly empirically-minded. For theology  and science a meaningful dialogue becomes possible only if both modes of reflection are willing to move away from overblown foundationalist epistemologies and, for theology at least, from the intellectual coma of fideism. The paper finally argues for a postfoundationalist epistemology where theo-logy and science, although very different modes of reflection, do share the  richness of the  resources of human rationality. In so doing it attempts to answer three crucial questions: i) are there good reasons for still seeing the  natural sciences as our clearest available example of rationality at work? ii) If so, does the rationality of theological reflec-tion in any way overlap with scientific rationality?  iii) Even if there are impressive overlaps between these two modes of rationality, how would the rationality of science and the rationality of religious reflection differ?

scholarly journals Review of: Science and the Christian Faith: A Guide for the Perplexed. New York: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press Yonkers, 2020 (Foundation Series). 232 p. ISBN-978-088141-671-8

2021 ◽  
pp. 375-388
Author(s):  
Дмитрий Кирьянов
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Academic Field ◽  
Theology And Science ◽  
Orthodox Theology ◽  
Science And Theology ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Science And Faith

Вопросы взаимоотношения науки и религии уже много лет находятся в центре внимания учёных, богословов и философов. Среди множества книг, посвящённых дискуссиям о взаимоотношении науки и веры, встречается не так много работ, написанных православными богословами. Книга британского православного священника и одного из ведущих учёных в области диалога православного богословия и науки Кристофера Найта «Наука и христианская вера: руководство для сомневающихся» представляет особый интерес, поскольку написана человеком, который, как и многие учёные в академической области «наука и религия» обладает естественнонаучным и богословским образованием. The relationship between science and religion has been the focus of scholars, theologians and philosophers for many years. Among the many books devoted to the debate on the relationship between science and faith, there are not many works written by Orthodox theologians. Christopher Knight, a British Orthodox priest and one of the leading scholars in the field of dialogue between Orthodox theology and science, Science and Christian Faith: A Guide for the Doubting, is of particular interest because it is written by someone who, like many scholars in the academic field of "science and religion", has a background in science and theology.

scholarly journals Religion, theology and science - the correctness of the relationship and the relevance of complementarity

2013 ◽  
pp. 256-268
Author(s):  
Oksana Gorkusha
Keyword(s):  
Science And Religion ◽  
Theology And Science ◽  
Acceptable Model ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Ideological Context

The topic of synthesis or cooperation of science and religion is current in the contemporary intellectual-ideological context. Contrary to popular tendencies to substantiate the necessity and to offer an acceptable model of such synthesis, we will set the goal of determining the degree of correctness and expediency of such attempts.

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