scholarly journals Difficulties in Particular: Theological and Historical Context of the Anonymous Treatise “On the Common Nature and the Trinity”

Scrinium ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 218-238
Author(s):  
Timur Shchukin ◽  
Oleg Nogovitsin
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Present Author ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The Common ◽  
Common Nature ◽  
The Trinity ◽  
Conceptual Language ◽  
Constitutive Element

Abstract The anti-Monophysitic anonymous treatise On the common nature and the Trinity was written in the 550-560s for the educational purposes in philosophy and theology. Therefore, its content was perceived in those days as something certainly traditional. It reflects theological discussions of its time, thus making feel the degree of complication of the current theological situation and the extent of mutual comprehension between the rival parties. The anonymous author normally keeps himself within the conceptual language of the late Neoplatonism, especially the school of Ammonius of Alexandria known by its interest to peripatetic instruments. The author himself is a Chalcedonian. When rejecting both “Nestorian” and “Severian” Christologies, he claims that the human nature became a constitutive element of the hypostasis of Christ (consisting of two common natures) and by no means an independent hypostasis. There are some similarities with the teaching of Leontius of Byzantium’s Against the Nestorians and the Eutychians and Solution of the Syllogisms of Severus, whereas the present author is much more succinct, and his exposition is simplified. For instance, unlike Leontius of Byzantium, he does not distinguish the contexts, where the notions of nature and substance could be used differently; he does not state explicitly that the human nature within the hypostasis of Christ is the common nature and not a particular nature. The latter term is used but never explained. The treatise is a curious witness of the relevance of an intra-Monophysite controversy for Chalcedonites.

scholarly journals Editorial: Conciliar Trinitarianism

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-4
Author(s):  
Beau Branson ◽  
Joseph Jedwab ◽  
Scott Williams
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Analytic Philosophy ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Mutual Engagement ◽  
Apparent Inconsistency ◽  
Common Parlance ◽  
The Common ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Trinity

Much recent work in analytic theology concerned with Trinitarian doctrine has been limited both by: (1) a narrow focus on the apparent inconsistency of the doctrine and (2) little regard for the historical context in which the doctrine developed. This special issue represents an effort to overcome these limitations in two ways. First, following Timothy Pawl’s definition of “Conciliar Christology,” we define “Conciliar Trinitarianism” as the conjunction of claims about the Trinity in the first seven Ecumenical Councils. Rather than speculative attempts at reconciling, say, sentences taken from the Athanasian Creed, or the common parlance of contemporary, Western Christians, the papers in this issue all address specifically Conciliar Trinitarianism. Second, the special issue brings together both analytic philosophers and patristics scholars in a format in which, in several cases, a scholar from one field responds to a scholar from another. We hope that this will help to jump-start some further conversations between scholars in analytic philosophy and in patristics, as we believe both fields can benefit from a deeper mutual engagement in the study of Conciliar Trinitarianism.

scholarly journals Trinitarian Anthropology

2008 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 222-249
Author(s):  
J Theron
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Creative Work ◽  
Christian Anthropology ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
The Cross ◽  
The Trinity ◽  
Constitutive Element

This article looks at the problem of the so-called “point of contact” between God and mankind, or more particularly, the relation between trinity and anthropology. Does Christian anthropology develop from the doctrine on creation, the human nature of Christ or the work of the Holy Spirit? In opposition to the current trinitarian perspectives on humanity, which mainly focus on relational similitude, the theology of the Dutch theologian, Oepke Noordmans critically resists any attempt at finding analogies between the trinity and humanity. According to him, creation is judgment of God, which has critical implications for any independent anthropology: There is no perpetuation of the incarnation in our humanity, church or liturgy after the resurrection, and the re-creative work of the Spirit does not have a point of contact with any constitutive element in our humanity. The judgment of the cross reaches from creation across history to recreation.

Aristotle on the Sources of the Ethical Life

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvia Berryman
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Common Belief ◽  
Ethical Life ◽  
Metaphysical Grounding ◽  
Middle Way ◽  
The Common

This work challenges the common belief that Aristotle’s virtue ethics is founded on an appeal to human nature, an appeal that is thought to be intended to provide both substantive ethical advice and justification for the demands of ethics. It is argued that it is not Aristotle’s intent, but the view is resisted that Aristotle was blind to questions of the source or justification of his ethical views. Aristotle’s views are interpreted as a ‘middle way’ between the metaphysical grounding offered by Platonists and the scepticism or subjectivist alternatives articulated by others. The commitments implicit in the nature of action figure prominently in this account: Aristotle reinterprets Socrates’ famous paradox that no one does evil willingly, taking it to mean that a commitment to pursuing the good is implicit in the very nature of action. This approach is compared to constructivism in contemporary ethics.

Pensare Dio. Spunti di riflessione in dialogo con Anca Vasiliu

Elenchos ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 181-194
Author(s):  
Angela Longo
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Common Thread ◽  
Critical Issues ◽  
Relevant Topic ◽  
The Common ◽  
The One ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Trinity

AbstractThe following work features elements to ponder and an in-depth explanation taken on the Anca Vasiliu’s study about the possibilities and ways of thinking of God by a rational entity, such as the human being. This is an ever relevant topic that, however, takes place in relation to Platonic authors and texts, especially in Late Antiquity. The common thread is that the human being is a God’s creature who resembles him and who is image of. Nevertheless, this also applies within the Christian Trinity according to which, not without problems, the Son is the image of the Father. Lastly, also the relationship of the Spirit with the Father and the Son, always within the Trinity, can be considered as a relationship of similarity, but again not without critical issues between the similarity of attributes, on the one hand, and the identity of nature, on the other.

scholarly journals Human Rights and Human Nature

2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 523-534
Author(s):  
Jean Rhéaume
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Positive Law

At least two important consequences follow from the fact that human rights are based on human nature. First, they exist according to natural law even in cases where positive law does not recognize them. Secondly, they cannot evolve because the nature and purpose of the human being does not change: only their formulation and level of protection in positive law can vary according to the socio-historical context.

The Virtues of Justice: Toward a Moral and Jurisprudential Psychology

2021 ◽  
pp. 0306624X2110668
Author(s):  
Christopher Williams ◽  
Bruce Arrigo
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Crime Control ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Offender Therapy ◽  
Psychological Structure ◽  
The Common ◽  
Over Time

Within the theoretical literature on crime control and offender therapy, little has been written about the importance of virtue ethics in the experience of human justice and in the evolution of the common good. As a theory of being, the aretaic tradition extols eudemonic existence (i.e., excellence, flourishing) as a relational habit of developing character that is both practiced and embodied over time. What this implies is that virtue justice depends on a set of assumptions and predispositions—both moral and jurisprudential—whose meanings are essential to comprehending its psychological structure. This article sets out to explore several themes that our integral to our thesis on the virtues (i.e., the being) of justice. We reclaim justice’s aretaic significance, critique the common conflation of justice and law, discuss how the dominant legalistic conception of justice is rooted in a particular view of human nature, suggest how justice might be more properly grounded in natural moral sensibilities, and provide a tentative explication of the psychological character of justice as a twofold moral disposition. Given this exploratory commentary, we conclude by reflecting on how individual well-being, system-wide progress, and transformative social change are both possible and practical, in the interest of promoting the virtues of justice within the practice of crime control and offender therapy.

Fielding and Richardson

PMLA ◽  
1966 ◽  
Vol 81 (5) ◽  
pp. 381-388
Author(s):  
William Park
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
General Type ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Tom Jones ◽  
The Common ◽  
The One

But the Discovery [of when to laugh and when to cry] was reserved for this Age, and there are two Authors now living in this Metropolis, who have found out the Art, and both brother Biographers, the one of Tom Jones, and the other of Clarissa.author of Charlotte SummersRather than discuss the differences which separate Fielding and Richardson, I propose to survey the common ground which they share with each other and with other novelists of the 1740's and 50's. In other words I am suggesting that these two masters, their contemporaries, and followers have made use of the same materials and that as a result the English novels of the mid-eighteenth century may be regarded as a distinct historic version of a general type of literature. Most readers, it seems to me, do not make this distinction. They either think that the novel is always the same, or they believe that one particular group of novels, such as those written in the early twentieth century, is the form itself. In my opinion, however, we should think of the novel as we do of the drama. No one kind of drama, such as Elizabethan comedy or Restoration comedy, is the drama itself; instead, each is a particular manifestation of the general type. Each kind bears some relationship to the others, but at the same time each has its own identity, which we usually call its conventions. By conventions I mean not only stock characters, situations, and themes, but also notions and assumptions about the novel, human nature, society, and the cosmos itself. If we compare one kind of novel to another without first considering the conventions of each, we are likely to make the same mistake that Thomas Rymer did when he blamed Shakespeare for not conforming to the canons of classical French drama.

Homo Suffragator

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Michael Bruter ◽  
Sarah Harrison
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Human Evolution ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Psychological Mechanisms ◽  
New Concepts ◽  
Electoral Behaviour ◽  
Electoral Power ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter briefly explores the scope and historical context of this book, introducing some key new concepts and their articulation with the existing concepts and literature of electoral behaviour. Homo Suffragator literally means ‘person who can vote’. What this power entails, what it changes with regard to man's condition and social interaction, and what the psychological mechanisms are that determine whether or not one exercises this power are all questions central to the puzzles the study aims to resolve. Throughout, the book explores the relationship between human nature, personality and morality variations, cognitive and emotional elements, and systemic choices and determinants which constrain and shape voters' electoral power. The chapter then highlights how one can borrow from the combination of physiological, anthropological, and psychological insights traditionally applied to understand the stages of human evolution similarly to comprehend the psychology, functioning, personal/societal relationships, and behaviour of Homo Suffragator.

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