Two Flawed Frameworks for Divine Action

2021 ◽  
pp. 79-108
Author(s):  
Mark C. Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Divine Action ◽  
Strong Basis ◽  
Moral Standards ◽  
The Way

The aim of this chapter is to downgrade the plausibility of the two standard frameworks for understanding divine action: the morality framework and the love framework. The morality framework holds that God necessarily acts in accordance with a set of universal moral standards. The love framework holds that God necessarily exhibits to their maximum the desires constitutive of love. Against the morality framework, there is very strong basis to think that God does not necessarily have reasons to adhere to the norms of morality that bind us, and only if God were to have such reasons could such norms necessarily apply to God. Against the love framework, the view of God as necessarily maximally loving is at odds with the norms for perfection in love, relies on a false view about the way that our desires give us reasons, and founders when confronted with the difficulty of specifying an intrinsic maximum for being loving.

Theological Politics and the Davidic Monarchy: Three Examples of Theological Exegesis

2008 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-162
Author(s):  
Michael Allen
Keyword(s):  
Karl Barth ◽  
Divine Action ◽  
Divine Judgment ◽  
Scriptural Exegesis ◽  
Walter Brueggemann ◽  
Davidic Monarchy ◽  
Theological Politics ◽  
The Way

AbstractKarl Barth, Oliver O'Donovan, and Walter Brueggemann explicitly link their constructive political projects to extensive Scriptural exegesis. I will investigate their different readings of the Davidic monarchy within the life of Israel as a means by which to exposit and critique their respective accounts of centralized governmental authority. Along the way, three important judgments will be suggested from their theological exegesis for the task of theological politics: the analogical subordination of human government to divine judgment, an encouragement of prophetic counter-politics to ward off imperial idolatry, and affirmation of a positive creaturely witness to divine action.

The Divine Trinity

2018 ◽  
pp. 39-53
Author(s):  
William J. Abraham
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Divine Action ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Attributes Of God ◽  
Vision Of God ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Trinity ◽  
The Way

The Christian vision of God is that God is three Persons in one Substance. This vision went beyond Scripture in order to do justice to Jewish monotheism, encounters with Jesus as an agent of divine action, and personal and corporate experiences of the Holy Spirit. Objections based on entanglement with Greek metaphysics and on certain feminist claims about male language fail. Loss of the Trinity involves serious impoverishment of the life and work of the church. Its continued embrace prepares the way for the exploration of the attributes of God.

Divine Love, Divine Holiness, and the Atonement

2021 ◽  
pp. 188-211
Author(s):  
Mark C. Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Divine Action ◽  
Divine Love ◽  
Penal Substitution ◽  
Union With God ◽  
The Way

The chapter contrasts what we should expect and require from a theory of Atonement if we take divine action to be governed by the holiness framework and if we do not. The primary foil is Eleonore Stump’s unqualifiedly and exclusively love framework account of the Atonement. Stump’s way of categorizing theories of the Atonement based on whether the obstacle to union with God is in us or in God is inadequate; rather, the appropriate distinction is between views that take the obstacle to be psychological (as Stump’s own view does) or normative (as satisfaction and penal substitution views do). By Stump’s own lights, the way in which past sin is an obstacle to union with God requires a normative treatment, and the holiness framework provides a plausible explanation of this: so long as such past sin is not dealt with, it normatively precludes the fuller unity with God that is constitutive of our good.

scholarly journals Downward Causation – The Way How Mind and Matter Interact?

Open Theology ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Losch
Keyword(s):  
Best Approximation ◽  
Downward Causation ◽  
Divine Action ◽  
The Best Approximation ◽  
Matter Interaction ◽  
The Way

AbstractThe paper analyzes Karl Popper’s and John Eccles’ account of mind-matter interaction and compares their use of the concept of downward causation with other more recent accounts of it, especially those of Nancey Murphy and George Ellis. The argument includes John Polkinghorne’s take on Divine action, as it provides an interesting version of downward mind/matter-interaction. It will be argued that while downward causation is a speculative concept, it nevertheless remains the best approximation to a scientific perspective on mind/matter interaction that we can obtain. As a result, Popper’s and Eccles’ account seems to be more interesting in these regards than usually assumed, and should not continue to be overlooked in the debate.

Cruel Consciousness

2016 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-114
Author(s):  
Jeanette Samyn
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Natural World ◽  
John Ruskin ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Moral Standards ◽  
Human Ethics ◽  
Ecological Thought ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Way

Jeanette Samyn, “Cruel Consciousness: Louis Figuier, John Ruskin, and the Value of Insects” (pp. 89–114) This essay examines two opposing theories of consciousness and value in relation to nineteenth century entomology. In The Insect World (1868), the French popularizer of science Louis Figuier extends consciousness to aesthetically unappealing and seemingly cruel insects such as parasites by attributing to them sociality and industry. With little recourse to theological or conventional moral standards, Figuier ascribes value to parasites—on account of their consciousness, which aligns their experience with human sentience, and also because of their role as environmental mediators. In this view, he subtly paves the way for a biocentric approach to the natural world that remains controversial today. John Ruskin, meanwhile, brings up popular entomology (epitomized, he says, by Figuier’s text) as a complicated counter to his own views on labor and aesthetics in his letters to the working men and women of England, Fors Clavigera (1871–84). Questioning the contemporary “instinct” for the study of parasites—and despite recent associations of Ruskin with ecological thought—Ruskin takes pains in these letters to uphold the difference between human and nonhuman life. In his efforts to limit consciousness to the most valuable and difficult of human labors, however, he engages seriously with the implications of proto-parasitological thought for human ethics.

Kant on Virtue

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Cureton ◽  
Thomas E. Hill
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Moral Standards ◽  
Moral Duties ◽  
Virtuous Life ◽  
Basic Features ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Way

Immanuel Kant defines virtue as a kind of strength and resoluteness of will to resist and overcome any obstacles that oppose fulfilling our moral duties. Human agents, according to Kant, owe it to themselves to strive for perfect virtue by fully committing to morality and by developing the fortitude to maintain and execute this life-governing policy, despite obstacles. This chapter reviews basic features of Kant’s conception of virtue and then discusses the role of emotions, a motive of duty, exemplars, rules, and community in a virtuous life. Kant thinks that striving to be more virtuous requires not only respect for moral principles and control of our contrary emotions, but also a system of legally enforced rules and communities of good persons. Exemplars and cultivated good feelings and emotions can be useful aids along the way, but Kant warns against attempting to derive one’s moral standards from examples or feelings.

The Turn to Theological Theology

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
William J. Abraham
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Analysis ◽  
Analytic Philosophy ◽  
Divine Action ◽  
Divine Agency ◽  
The Way

In this concluding chapter, the author provides a narrative of the argument laid out so far, and then takes up two contrasting objections to the role of conceptual analysis in debates about divine action. The first argues that the general disposition of analytic philosophy with respect to this debate is inappropriate; the second objection argues that the author has underestimated the resources available in analytic philosophy. In reply, the author argues that any theory of agency or action has inescapable limitations, and that the way forward involves a radical turn to theology: “theological theology.” The author contends that only such a turn will help us better understand divine agency and divine action.

Actions, Agents, Agency, and Explanation in Athanasius

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
William J. Abraham
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Divine Action ◽  
Divine Agency ◽  
In Christ ◽  
The Way

In this chapter, the author engages the theology of the fourth-century bishop Athanasius. For Athanasius, given the kind of agent that God is, God’s coming in Christ is a coherent and intelligible action, because God has the capacity and motivation to act in the way he did in Christ. Thus the author engages this primary claim in the chapter, exploring the various facets of Athanasius’ motif of agency and action. First, the author examines the treatise Contra Gentes and there engages Athanasius’ maxim that actions make manifest the identity and nature of the agent who performs them. Second, he explores how this maxim applies to discerning the identity of Jesus Christ, and third, he concludes by offering a brief commentary that highlights how Athanasius can contribute to contemporary thinking on divine agency and divine action.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Rodrigo Magalhães
Keyword(s):  
Design Theory ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Academic Development ◽  
Organization Design ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Organizational Environments ◽  
Everyday Lives ◽  
Design Culture ◽  
Moral Standards ◽  
The Way

The Introduction deals with four issues which summarize the aims and the reach of the book. First, the realization that organizations dominate our socioeconomic landscape, with their influence and their impact on the environmental, ethical, and social issues of our age, extending to our everyday lives. Second, it focuses on the widespread dissatisfaction with the way organizations are governed and managed, the lowering of moral standards, and the increase in the toxicity of most organizational environments. Third, it suggests that the prevalent theoretical paradigm of contingency and configuration not only seems to have reached a total impasse in terms of further academic development but, more importantly, it has not succeeded in creating organizations that fulfill the needs and ambitions of ordinary people. Fourth, it proposes that design, design theory, and design culture have much to offer to organization design and should indeed constitute the basis for the new, badly needed paradigm.

scholarly journals E-7 The impacts of Islamic teachings on core ethics of Sikhism: A research overview

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-75
Author(s):  
Sheraz Ahmad ◽  
Muhammad Imran
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Focal Points ◽  
The Third ◽  
Moral Standards ◽  
The World ◽  
The Way ◽  
Name Of God

Sikhism means the path of discipline and disciple ship as shown by the Sikh gurus. Guru Nanak was founder of Sikhism, was born in 1469 A.D. The main source of Sikh theology is Guru Granth Sahib. Sikhism is a monotheistic religion. There are approximately twenty seven millions Sikhs  around the world. The essential message of Sikhism is spiritual devotion and reverence of God. According to Sikhism God is realisable, approachable, and accessible entity. The commandments are the codified directions for the followers of a faith. Guru Nanak, laid down three foundation stones of the Sikh faiths, to meditate the name of God, to work honestly for his livings and to share his wealth and happiness to others. The moral standards of a society are the focal points of any ethical theory. There are three major concepts of Sikh philosophy hukam, purity and the solidarity of mankind.  In Sikhism, there are four inter related sets of rationale.The first set includes five evils, second set comprises eight virtues, the third set contains social and religious duties and the final set presents the way to realise the divine idealism. In this article a detailed study is presented regarding core ethics of Sikhism.

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