Music and Divine Revelation

Author(s):  
Jeremy Begbie

Music has been perennially associated with divine revelation. This chapter asks why this might be the case, with special reference to the self-revelation of God in the Christian faith. It begins by outlining the theology of music offered by Augustine in his De musica, in which the numerical character of the cosmos, to which sounding music is attuned, is said to give access to God. This is set alongside Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834), for whom music more than any other art shares in and awakens that dimension of human experience he regards as distinctively religious. Critical questions are asked of both theologians, in the light of which some four fundamental yet oft-neglected themes and trajectories of classical Christian theology are explored with respect to music’s revelatory potential: the priority of God’s revealing action, the social and embodied character of revelation, creation’s revelation of the divine, and revelation through language.

2021 ◽  
pp. 095269512110209
Author(s):  
Leonidas Tsilipakos

This article presents a long overdue analysis of the idea of an ethically committed social science, which, after the demise of positivism and the deeming of moral neutrality as impossible, has come to dominate the self-understanding of many contemporary sociological approaches. Once adequately specified, however, the idea is shown to be ethically questionable in that it works against the moral commitments constitutive of academic life. The argument is conducted with resources from the work of Peter Winch, thus establishing its continuing relevance and critical importance for the social sciences, sociology in particular. Special reference is made to heretofore unappreciated aspects of Winch’s work, including within the groundbreaking The Idea of a Social Science and Its Relation to Philosophy, but focusing specifically on his later contributions to ethics.


2007 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 271-293 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Diller

AbstractIn hisThe Postfoundationalist Task of Theology, F. LeRon Shults recommendspostfoundationalismas avia mediabetween modernist foundationalism and postmodernist antifoundationalism. He advocates postfoundationalism as an epistemological approach which avoids the pitfalls on either side and provides the best way forward for constructive theological work. In this article I attempt to assess how well Shults's proposal treats Christian theological knowing. I begin by entertaining a Barthian theological concern which might be employed as soft criteria for an assessment of any proposed theological epistemology. This concern stipulates that an epistemology in the service of Christian theology must respect a commitment to the objective reality of God who, as Word become flesh, makes himself known through the human experience of reality to his church, while recognising the fallibility of human knowing, presupposing a knowledge of God accessible through experience always only by the prevenient, self-giving action of God. I then turn to a brief analysis of the Shults–van Huyssteen case against foundationalism and nonfoundationalism, focusing particularly on the postfoundationalist critiques of foundationalism and fideism in dialogue with Barth. The article concludes with an appraisal of the postfoundationalist recommendation. I argue that Shults's approach maps well to the theological concern for critical realism and a recognition of the social embeddedness of human knowing. Postfoundationalism's underlying commitments, however, leave it closed to an external source of warrant, and as a consequence repudiate afrom aboveview of theological knowing. I suggest instead that only atheofoundationalist epistemology avoids the pitfalls sketched by Shults in a way that maintains proper epistemic humility without entering the ghettos of fideism or scepticism.


2019 ◽  
Vol 78 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 69-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikaël De Clercq ◽  
Charlotte Michel ◽  
Sophie Remy ◽  
Benoît Galand

Abstract. Grounded in social-psychological literature, this experimental study assessed the effects of two so-called “wise” interventions implemented in a student study program. The interventions took place during the very first week at university, a presumed pivotal phase of transition. A group of 375 freshmen in psychology were randomly assigned to three conditions: control, social belonging, and self-affirmation. Following the intervention, students in the social-belonging condition expressed less social apprehension, a higher social integration, and a stronger intention to persist one month later than the other participants. They also relied more on peers as a source of support when confronted with a study task. Students in the self-affirmation condition felt more self-affirmed at the end of the intervention but didn’t benefit from other lasting effects. The results suggest that some well-timed and well-targeted “wise” interventions could provide lasting positive consequences for student adjustment. The respective merits of social-belonging and self-affirmation interventions are also discussed.


1999 ◽  
pp. 95
Author(s):  
Editorial board Of the Journal

In the 10th issue of the Bulletin “Ukrainian Religious Studies” in the rubric “Scientific Reports and Announcements” there are in particular the following papers: “Religious Studies and Theology” by A.Kolodny, “Activity of the Orthodox Mission in Ukraine on the Turning Point of the XIX-XXth Centuries” by G.Nadtoka, “Religion in the Spiritual Heritage of V.Lypinsky” by L.Kondratyk, “Church as a Factor of the Self-identification of the Nation in the Cultural and Civilization Environment” by O.Nedavnya, “The Problems of Development of The Social Teaching of the Catholicism” by V.Sergyiko, “The God-Thunder Perun in the Pagan World-outlook of the Ancient Rus’” by N.Fatyushyna and other papers


2011 ◽  
Vol 2011 (2) ◽  
pp. 377-400 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Schober

In recent years cultural definitions of »gender« have had extraordinary institutional success. This paper analyses visual worlds that have been motivated by constructivist gender concepts that often display a pronounced symmetry. It relates them to competing images which present difference as scandal, as a mirrored form of the self, or as figurations, and which politicize a-symmetrical forms. The study looks into the social condition of publicity that is constituted by such »picture acts«.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 150-158
Author(s):  
A. V. Zhuchkova

The article deals with A. Bushkovsky’s novel Rymba that goes beyond the topics typical of Russian North prose. Rather than limiting himself to admiring nature and Russian character, the author portrays the northern Russian village of Rymba in the larger context of the country’s mentality, history, mythology, and gender politics. In the novel, myth clashes with reality, history with the present day, and an individual with the state. The critic draws a comparison between the novel and the traditions of village prose and Russian North prose. In particular, Bushkovsky’s Rymba is discussed alongside V. Rasputin’s Farewell to Matyora [ Proshchanie s Matyoroy ] and R. Senchin’s The Flood Zone [ Zona zatopleniya ]. The novel’s central question is: what keeps the Russian world afloat? Depicting the Christian faith as such a bulwark, Bushkovsky links atheism with the social and spiritual roles played by contemporary men and women. The critic argues, however, that the reliance on Christianity in the novel verges on an affectation. The book’s main symbol is a drowning hawk: it perishes despite people’s efforts to save it.


Author(s):  
Gerald O’Collins, SJ

This chapter spells out the complex interrelationship between the divine self-revelation, the tradition that transmits the prophetic and apostolic experience of that revelation, and the writing of the inspired Scriptures. Primarily, revelation involves the self-disclosure of the previously and mysteriously unknown God. Secondarily, it brings the communication of hitherto unknown truths about God. Revelation is a past, foundational reality (completed with the missions of the Son and Holy Spirit), a present experience, and a future hope. Responding with faith to divine revelation, the Old Testament (prophetic) and then New Testament (apostolic) witnesses initiated the living tradition from which came the inspired Scriptures. Tradition continues to transmit, interpret, and apply the Scriptures in the life of the Church.


2020 ◽  
pp. 009164712097498
Author(s):  
John M. McConnell ◽  
Vincent Bacote ◽  
Edward B. Davis ◽  
Eric M. Brown ◽  
Christin J. Fort ◽  
...  

Multiculturalism, social justice, and peace are important aspects of the Christian faith. However, scholars in the literature seeking to integrate psychology and Christian theology have underrepresented them. In this present article, we review barriers to including them in our psychology–theology integration literature. Thereafter, we provide a trinitarian theology of multiculturalism, social justice, and peace with a hope that theological knowledge will help Christian psychologists begin to overcome barriers and to move this body of literature forward. We also offer implications for scholarship/research, education/training, and clinical work.


Author(s):  
Jakub Čapek ◽  
Sophie Loidolt

AbstractThis special issue addresses the debate on personal identity from a phenomenological viewpoint, especially contemporary phenomenological research on selfhood. In the introduction, we first offer a brief survey of the various classic questions related to personal identity according to Locke’s initial proposal and sketch out key concepts and distinctions of the debate that came after Locke. We then characterize the types of approach represented by post-Hegelian, German and French philosophies of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We argue that whereas the Anglophone debates on personal identity were initially formed by the persistence question and the characterization question, the “Continental” tradition included remarkably intense debates on the individual or the self as being unique or “concrete,” deeply temporal and—as claimed by some philosophers, like Sartre and Foucault—unable to have any identity, if not one externally imposed. We describe the Continental line of thinking about the “self” as a reply and an adjustment to the post-Lockean “personal identity” question (as suggested by thinkers such as MacIntyre, Ricœur and Taylor). These observations constitute the backdrop for our presentation of phenomenological approaches to personal identity. These approaches run along three lines: (a) debates on the layers of the self, starting from embodiment and the minimal self and running all the way to the full-fledged concept of person; (b) questions of temporal becoming, change and stability, as illustrated, for instance, by aging or transformative life-experiences; and (c) the constitution of identity in the social, institutional, and normative space. The introduction thus establishes a structure for locating and connecting the different contributions in our special issue, which, as an ensemble, represent a strong and differentiated contribution to the debate on personal identity from a phenomenological perspective.


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