Two Ways to God in Thomas Aquinas and Michel Henry

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 164-187
Author(s):  
Steven Nemes

Abstract One can discern passages in the writings of the Scholastic doctor Thomas Aquinas and the contemporary French phenomenologist Michel Henry which can be interpreted as putting forth very similar ways for grasping the existence of God. These “ways to God” can be fruitfully compared from the point of view of their philosophical starting points as well as of their consequences for theological epistemology. The purpose of the present essay is to pursue this comparative work and to see what philosophical-theological fruit it can yield.

2021 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 103-126
Author(s):  
Steven Nemes

"The purpose of the present essay is to present a version of the evidential argument from evil and to propose a ‘skeptical theistic’ response from a phenomenological point of view. In a word, the problem with the evidential argument from evil is that it attempts to put forth as justified an interpretation of the moral significance of historical events which actually exceeds the limits of human knowledge and which is based on a misinterpretation of experience. The essay also corrects certain analytic-philosophical notions regarding the nature of appearance, terminating with a discussion of the familiar critiques of analytic skeptical theism and the question of whether the belief in the existence of God might not be affected by the apparent skepticism implied by the phenomenological approach to knowledge in general. Keywords: existence of God, argument from evil, skeptical theism, phenomenology, analytic philosophy "


2011 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Guðmundur Heiðar Frímannsson

Jurisprudence is a lively field of inquiry and law and justice are among its most important subjects. They are not exclusive to jurisprudence but are also inquired into in ethics and political philosophy. The book under review is an extensive inquiry into law and justice from the point of view of jurisprudence but it is jurisprudence that has deep roots in the history of the discipline. The authors use ideas from Aristotle, Gaius, Justinian, Thomas Aquinas, Adam Smith, Hobbes and from various law books from the Code of Hammurabi onwards. One way of understanding the book is to see the authors as reworking an old tradition that has not been prominent in modern jurisprudence. This approach leads to surprising conclusions from a modern point of view that are both radical and conventional.


2018 ◽  
pp. 67-73
Author(s):  
Bogdan Teodorovich Zavidniak

This article examines Erich Przywara‘s conceptual understanding of the proofs for the existence of God. It also interprets the proofs of God’s existence. Тhe concept of God in the philosophy of Przywara is considered by exploring the nature of the relations between the transcendent sphere of God and the spiritual world of the human person. From the point of view of historiography, the role of the book “The Analogia entis” by Przywara is highlighted.


2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (18) ◽  
pp. 61
Author(s):  
Mauro Meireles

<div class="page" title="Page 1"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p>A eucaristia é um rito católico que visa reafirmar a fé cristã. O presente texto ocupa-se, portanto, da eucaristia enquanto ato instituinte do ser e busca pensar o referido rito a partir da perspectiva de Mikhail Bakhtin. Desta feita e a partir do enfoque da antropologia, se ancora em certas sínteses na medida em que, a validade daquilo que se pressupõe verdade, do ponto de vista da cognição, não depende do fato desta ser ou não ser conhecida por alguém. Pois, é o homem que une fé e rito, que une verdades da ciência e fenômenos físicos. Desta feita, tem-se então que, quando postulamos a existência de Deus a partir de certos escritos canônicos – e o reafirmamos no rito eucarístico – lhe conferimos existência e tangibilidade. Sobretudo, defende- se no decorrer do texto que a eucaristia, seja enquanto ato instituinte, seja enquanto rito, nada mais é do que uma enunciação de si sobre si que só tem significado, manifesto em seu conteúdo- sentido, se enunciado por aquele que experimenta e executa o ato.</p></div></div><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><span>P</span><span>ALAVRAS</span><span>-C</span><span>HAVE</span><span>: </span><span>Eucaristia. Rito Eucarístico. Mikhail Bakhtin. Rito e Fé. Antropologia da Religião. </span></p><p><span>A</span><span>BSTRACT </span></p><p><span>Eucharist is a Catholic rite that aims to reaffirm the Christian faith. This paper analyzes the Eucharist rite as instituted act of being and aims think that rite in the Mikhail Bakhtin ́s perspective. So, from an anthropology's approach, it is based in some perspectives that recognize validity in of what is assumed true, in a cognition point of view, depends on whether this is or is not known to anyone. That is because the man is the one who unites faith and rite, truths of science and physical phenomena. Therefore, when we postulate the existence of God from certain canonical writings - and reaffirm the Eucharistic rite, we give him existence and tangibility. Most of all, this text argued that the Eucharist is as instituted act or a rite, is nothing more than a statement of itself that only has meaning, manifest in their content-sense, if enunciated by one who experience and performs the act. </span></p><p><span>K</span><span>EYWORDS</span><span>: </span><span>Eucharist. Eucharistic rite. Mikhail Bakhtin. Ritual and faith. Anthropology of Religion </span></p></div></div></div>


Author(s):  
Andrea Possamai

The present essay aims, on the one hand, to recall the reasons of anti-naturalism, intended in a metaphysical perspective, of a large part of medieval philosophical and theological reflection and, on the other hand, to show how the same type of problems, specifically those concerning the possible mutability or immutability of the past, can be employed in favour of various conflicting positions on the matter. To demonstrate this, reference was made to some thinkers who could represent emblematic positions on the theme, in particular: Pliny the Elder for the ancient world, Augustine of Hippo, Peter Damian, Bonaventure and Thomas Aquinas for the medieval era.


2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benedikt Paul Göcke

The existence of God is once again the focus of vivid philosophical discussion. From the point of view of analytic theology, however, people often talk past each other when they debate about the putative existence or non- existence of God. In the worst case, for instance, atheists deny the existence of a God, which no theists ever claimed to exist. In order to avoid confusions like this we need to be clear about the function of the term ‘God’ in its different contexts of use. In what follows, I distinguish between the functions of ‘God’ in philosophical contexts on the one hand and in theological contexts on the other in order to provide a schema, which helps to avoid confusion in the debate on the existence or non-existence of God.


2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-42
Author(s):  
Franklin T. Harkins

Abstract This article broadly considers the commentaries on Job of Thomas Aquinas and Albert the Great as offering a helpful theological alternative to some modern philosophical approaches to the ‘problem of evil’. We seek to show that whereas some modern philosophers understand evil as a problem for the very existence of God, whether and how God can coexist with evil was never a question that evil seriously raised in the minds of Aquinas and Albert. In fact, although the suffering of the just in particular led our medieval Dominicans to wonder about divine providence and our ability to know God in this life, they understood the reality of evil as compelling evidence for the existence of God.


Dialogue ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 151-160
Author(s):  
DAVID K. KOVACS

Christine Overall has argued that miracles, if they exist, would be an evil committed by God and therefore disprove the existence of God. However, her notion of a miracle as an intervention presupposes a view about the relation between God and creation that posits God as an ‘outsider.’ Such a view has not been held by all theists. It was not held by Thomas Aquinas. I show that Aquinas’s conception is not susceptible to Overall’s criticisms. The upshot is that theists should avoid any view of God as an ‘outsider,’ if they wish to avoid Overall’s criticisms.


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