Naive Experience, Religious Root Unity, and Human Identity

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
James W. Skillen
Keyword(s):  
Cosmic Time ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
The Other ◽  
Common Denominator ◽  
Human Identity ◽  
Human Community ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Image Of God ◽  
The Way

Abstract Resolving Dooyeweerd’s temporal/supratemporal dialectic opens the way to a deeper appreciation of naive experience and human identity as the image of God. This essay makes a case for that proposition, building on my critique of Dooyeweerd’s idea of cosmic time published previously in this journal. There I hypothesized that time—temporality—should be recognized as the first modal aspect rather than as a transaspectual common denominator of the other aspects. The religious root unity of the human community is not a supratemporal, spiritual concentration point but rather humans themselves in their generations answering to God in all that they are and do. Humans are not temporal bodies directed by imperishable souls but whole persons-in-community, subject to all the modal laws and norms (including the temporal), living by faith in the true God or in false gods throughout this age, which opens to creation’s fulfillment in the age to come.

feminine, masculine vocabulary is rarely questioned, yet its usage creates expectations that determine male as the norm, female as the secondary. Verbal descriptions of sex and gender construct, not merely describe. Such construction of belief can be found transmitted through dictionaries. When defining ‘manly’ Webster’s Dictionary says that manly means: …having qualities appropriate to a man: open in conduct bold resolute not effeminate or timorous gallant brave undaunted drinks beer. [Give me a break!!!] For ‘womanly’ one finds: …marked by qualities characteristic of a woman, belonging to attitudes of a woman not a man. Female is defined by the negative of the other, of the male. In this way, sexism pervades the ‘objective’ nature of the dictionary, subordinating the female to the male. Sexist language pervades a range of sacred texts and legal texts and processes. Religion can be and is one of the most powerful ideologies operating within society, and many religions and religious groupings are hierarchically male oriented. The law maintains that the male term encompasses the female. Many religions maintain that man is made in the image of God; woman in the image of man. The female is once removed in both law and religion. Even in the 19th century, English law continued to maintain that the Christian cleaving of male and female meant the subjugation of the female and the loss of her property and identity to the male. English family law was based upon Christian attitudes to family and accounted for the late introduction of flexible divorce laws in the 1950s. Both law and Christianity reflect a dualism in Western society. The power of language is illustrated here. A pervasive sexism is made possible and manifest through language which, therefore, easily carries discrimination. So far, the discussion has centred on the construction of the world by, and through, language as written word. There are different ways of speaking and writing. People use the modes of speaking and writing experience and education notes as the most appropriate. However, language exerts power, too, through a hierarchy given to ‘ways of speaking’; through a hierarchy based on accent as well as choice of, or access to, vocabulary. People often change the way they speak, their accent and/or vocabulary. Such change may be from the informality of family communication to the formality of work. It may be to ‘fit in’: the artificial playing with ‘upper class’, ‘middle class’, ‘working class’, ‘northern’ or ‘Irish’ accents. Sometimes presentation to a person perceived by the speaker as important may occasion an accent and even a vocabulary change. Speakers wish to be thought well of. Therefore, they address the other in the way it is thought that the other wishes or expects to be addressed.

2012 ◽  
pp. 25-25
Keyword(s):  
Image Of God ◽  
The Other ◽  
Western Society ◽  
Sex And Gender ◽  
Divorce Laws ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Written Word ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
The Image Of God ◽  
The Way

On the transcendence and immanence of God

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Nestler
Keyword(s):  
Image Of God ◽  
The Other ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
Divine Punishment ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
The Image Of God

Transcendence and immanence are two terms used to differentiate two realities, one of transcending worldly experience and the other of an inner-worldly experience. In scholastic theology (kalām), a respective distinction is being made regarding the image of God, whereby transcendence (tanzīh) is set against anthropomorphism (tašbīh) to solve the problem of how to deal with Quranic expressions that attribute human – formal or essential – characteristics to God. Also, in mysticism, the notion of transcendence and immanence of God plays a central role, for instance, in the teachings of Ibn al-ʿArabī. He mainly discusses this distinction in the chapter of Noah in Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam (“The Bezels of Wisdom”), regarding knowledge of God. He rejects a pure theology of transcendence as it describes only a part of the divine reality. However, he points out that even though His immanent reality can be experienced, it is not comprehensible, because it is unlimited. Both realities interlock through the idea of the Oneness of Being or Unity of Existence (waḥdat al-wuǧūd), because ‘in reality’ they are nothing else than God. Ibn al-ʿArabī illustrates this ontological dependency by the example of Noah’s legend, by showing that the prophet supported the belief of the absolute transcendence of God, which was unacceptable for his people, not because they negated God’s existence, but because they had an immanent image of God. Accordingly, Ibn al-ʿArabī interprets the divine punishment, instead of misfortune, as immersing in the sea of knowledge of God. In this way the soul becomes a place of manifestation or a mirror of the divine reality.

scholarly journals Trauma as common denominator of sexual violence and victimisation

Temida ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 27-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natasa Veselinovic
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Sexual Offenders ◽  
Sexual Offender ◽  
The Other ◽  
Traumatic Experience ◽  
Treatment Programs ◽  
Common Denominator ◽  
Victim Empathy ◽  
Behavioural Patterns ◽  
The Way

Results of researches on biological, psychological and sociological characteristics of sexual offenders show etiological and phenomenological differences, while, on the other side, treatment programs show tendency toward unification. Unification that works contains behavioural learning victim empathy work and work on one?s own trauma. In this paper the author looks for an answer to the question who is the sexual offender and how he became that. In theory rapists and paedophiles are similar as much as their victims are, and they are often victims of some traumatic experience which seeks for satisfaction in inappropriate but well-known way. Sexual violence can be stopped by breaking the circle of its beginning and development by helping sexual perpetrator to find the way out from sexual violence circle and healthier behavioural patterns.

Known by God: C. S. Lewis and Dietrich Bonhoeffer

2005 ◽  
Vol 77 (4) ◽  
pp. 343-352
Author(s):  
Brian S. Rosner
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
The Other ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Human Relationship ◽  
Dietrich Bonhoeffer ◽  
Introductory Essay ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Pastoral Value ◽  
The Image Of God

Whereas knowing God is central to every version of Christian theology, little attention has been paid to the other side of the divine-human relationship. This introductory essay approaches the subject via the brief but poignant remarks of two twentieth-century authors appearing in a work of fiction and in a poem. If C. S. Lewis recognizes the primacy of being known by God, Dietrich Bonhoeffer helps define it and underscores its pastoral value. Both authors accurately reflect the main contours of the Bible’s own treatment. Calvin’s view of the image of God, which T. F. Torrance defines as ‘God’s gracious beholding of man as his child,’ may be of assistance in defining what it means to be known by God.

Trade and Financial Relations between India and Pakistan

2020 ◽  
pp. 161-182
Author(s):  
Pallavi Raghavan
Keyword(s):  
Terms Of Trade ◽  
The Other ◽  
Boundary Line ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The Face ◽  
To Come ◽  
The One ◽  
The Way

In this chapter, I chart out how partition shifted the terms of trade between two points now divided by the boundary line. While, on the one hand, both governments made lofty declarations of carrying out trade with one another as independent nation states—taxable, and liable to regulations by both states—on the other, they were also forced to come to a series of arrangements to accommodate commercial transactions to continue in the way that they had always existed before the making of the boundary. In many instances, in fact, it was actually impossible to physically stop the process of commercial transactions between both sides of the border, and the boundary line. Therefore, the question this chapter is concerned with is the extent to which both governments’ positions were amenable to the necessities of contingency, demand, and genuine emergency, in the face of a great deal of rhetoric about how the Indian and Pakistani economies had to be bolstered on their own merits.

God′s Body: Epistemic and Ritual Conceptions from Sanskrit Texts of Logic

Paragrana ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-63
Author(s):  
Gérard Colas
Keyword(s):  
Image Of God ◽  
The Other ◽  
Religious Images ◽  
Natural Laws ◽  
Sacred Texts ◽  
Technical Requirements ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Image Of God ◽  
The Universe

AbstractDiscussions on the nature of the relationship between a god, his body and his material representation are almost non-existent in the Hindu devotional perspective, where such concerns are superfluous. Hindu theological and ritual Sanskrit texts, on the other hand, applied procedures of reasoning with regard to that relationship. This rationalization however accommodated rather than conflicted with the devotional attitude. Their attempt to clarify their stand vis-à-vis god′s body and material image followed from ideological or technical requirements. This was done sometimes systematically, as in the Viśiṣṭādvaita school of philosophy where the ritual image is declared to be “a divine descent (of God) for the purpose of worship”; sometimes incidentally, as in ritual manuals, where the process of changing statues into divine bodies is described.But why should gods have a body at all? While some contend that they do not possess any body, others assert that they possess several at the same time, yet others infer the necessity of a body for God to create the universe, to reveal sacred texts, etc. These are some arguments and counter-arguments found in theological texts. The nature of the hierarchy between divine descents and images (which may or may not be considered as real bodies of gods) is another aspect of the discussion.Another question is the various ways in which ritual texts consider the relation between a god and his image. While immediacy characterizes the relation between the devotee and the image of god, the relation between ritual and image is far from being spontaneous. Rituals insure the presence of a god in an image through a technico-mystical process consisting of successive stages and involving patrons, astrologers, artists, priests and others. The final product, namely a concrete god-cum-image, is fit for devotion, but remains for ever fragile, dependent on the continuity of rites and on the material preservation of the image. Behind the ritual perspective also lies the notion that this process of creating a body for a god is in keeping with “natural” laws. Hindu ritual prescriptions are applicable only to the religious images which, though man-made, are considered as “natural”. Supra-natural divine images, known as “self-manifested” images, must be worshiped, but are beyond the range of these prescriptions.

scholarly journals Truthmaking and the world-time parallel

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Gareth Leniston-Lee
Keyword(s):  
Possible Worlds ◽  
The Other ◽  
Ontological Status ◽  
Parallel Argument ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
To Come ◽  
Structural Parallel ◽  
Made In ◽  
The Way

<p>There is a close structural parallel between the way we talk about time and the way we talk about modality (i.e. matters of possibility, necessity, actuality etc.). A consequence of this is that whenever we construct a metaphysical argument within one of these domains, there is a parallel argument to be made in the other. On the face of it, this parallel between possible worlds and moments in time seems to commit us to holding corresponding attitudes to the ontological status of non-present and non-actual entities.  In this thesis I assess a claim made by Sider (2001: 41-42) that truthmaking – the idea that truth is grounded in existence – provides a way to avoid the commitment to ontological symmetry that this world-time parallel seems to foist upon us. Truthmaking challenges presentists, who deny the existence of past entities and actualists, who deny the existence of merely possible entities, to come up with a way of grounding truths that are ostensively about the events and entities that they deny exist. Sider’s claim can be broken down into three propositions:  1. Truthmaking provides reason to reject presentism. 2. Truthmaking does not provide reason to reject actualism. 3. Truthmaking breaks the ontological symmetry between time and modality.  In this thesis I argue that while 1 is false, 3 remains true. While I am not a presentist myself I do not think that truthmaking provides a sound basis for rejecting the position. Much of this thesis is dedicated to defending presentism against the challenge truthmaking poses. I also don’t believe that truthmaking undermines actualism, but do not commit myself to any particular actualist response to the truthmaking challenge in this thesis. My central aim is to show that the presentist has a viable response to the truthmaking challenge and that this response does not have a viable parallel in the modal case. So while I think that both presentists and actualists can provide adequate responses to the challenge truthmaking poses, truthmaking still breaks the symmetry because the arguments made in defence of each position are very different. So one might rationally accept one argument but not the other.</p>

A Puzzle in the Three Dialogues and Its Platonic Resolution

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Russell Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Image Of God ◽  
Central Idea ◽  
Innate Ideas ◽  
Abstract Ideas ◽  
Cambridge Platonism ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
The Image Of God ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
The Way

This essay suggests that Berkeley’s Neoplatonism may be profitably viewed as developed under the influence of Cambridge Platonism. A brief account of some key aspects of Cambridge Platonism are reviewed, specifically the central idea of the Image of God Doctrine (IGD) and Cudworth’s Axiarchism. Then possible points of influence of these aspects on Berkeley’s views are explored. In support of its possible usefulness, this approach to Berkeley’s Neoplatonism is used to shed light on his otherwise puzzling embrace of the pure intellect and abstract ideas. If Berkeley is drawing on the Cambridge Platonism tradition in the way suggested, he can have his pure intellect and its innate ideas without dragging along a commitment to a faculty of abstraction and its abstract ideas. Instead, the pure intellect is seen as a reflective faculty directed to the perfectly particular, concrete self.

A Comparative Analysis of eBay and Amazon

2011 ◽  
pp. 29-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandeep Krishnamurthy
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Business Model ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Unique Nature ◽  
Auction Format ◽  
To Come ◽  
Over Time ◽  
The Way

Even though Amazon.com has received most of the initial hype and publicity surrounding e-commerce, eBay has quietly built an innovative business truly suited to the Internet. Initially, Amazon sought to merely replicate a catalog business model online. Its technology may have been innovative- but its business model was not. On the other hand, eBay recognized the unique nature of the Internet and enabled both buying and selling online with spectacular results. Its auction format was a winner. eBay also clearly demonstrated that profits do not have to come in the way of growth—an argument that Bezos never tired of making. Amazon was initially focused on BN.com as a competitor. Over time, Amazon came to recognize eBay as the competitor. Its initial foray into auctions was a spectacular failure. Now, Amazon is trying to compete with eBay by facilitating selling and strengthening its affiliates program.

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