Models of God's Transcendence

1966 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 200-209
Author(s):  
Robert H. King
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Causal Model ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Self In Relation ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The World

“The causal model emphasizes priority in respect to efficacy, but that is by no means the only kind of priority God exhibits. The elusive priority of the self in relation to its action, as well as the priority of persons in relation to one another, is also important and characteristic of religious apprehension of God in some of its modes anyway. On the other hand, the two more personal models, Schleiermacher's and Barth's, include a feature that is conspicuously lacking in the causal model, yet equally important to religious experience, the aspect of immediacy. So there may be good reason for preferring one model to another, while not excluding one or another. It is, after all, with a model that we have to do, and not with the thing itself. The relation of God and the world is unique and mysterious. It is not surprising that several different models have been used to interpret it.”

Self within World

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John L. Culliney ◽  
David Jones
Keyword(s):  
Personal Development ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Dynamic Flow ◽  
The West ◽  
Self In Relation ◽  
The Core ◽  
The World ◽  
Constructive Interaction

We describe the foundations of the fractal self in relation to the Chinese notion of personal development and enhancement of adeptness in the world and mutualism with the other. This seeking, described in the codified system of Daoism, is a pathway that may progress to the highest level of achievement of such a self: that which defines a sage. The chapter introduces the view that a sage is a fractal self that achieves a peak of intimacy and constructive interaction with the world. We detail the development of human beings on this pathway, emerging beyond the core embodiments of empathy, sympathy, and rudimentary morality observed in apes. The self for the early Chinese was always a being that was embedded in the world and dynamic flow of forces. This self was defined in intimate terms as adaptable and adept, seeking to be a microcosmic contributor to some holistic macrocosm. In this chapter, Daoism leads our thinking on how the fractal self engages with the world. In turn, this way of understanding selfness and its potential to enrich its system from within resonates with discussions of the interactive self of Buddhism and was also in the minds of Pre-Socratic thinkers in the West.

The Solution

2020 ◽  
pp. 7-12
Author(s):  
Nicolas Bommarito
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Careful Examination ◽  
Philosophical Question ◽  
Buddhist Practice ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The World ◽  
The Mind

This chapter examines two general strands in Buddhism: philosophy and practice. Philosophy involves understanding the nature of the world and the mind. It involves careful examination, reasoning, and analysis of the world in general and the self in particular. Meanwhile, practice involves specific techniques to bring about a change in how we respond to the world. It aims at changing mental habits and ways of experiencing the world. These two aspects can, and often are, discussed separately. This is no surprise given how monumental each task is; people sometimes devote their entire lives to only one philosophical question or Buddhist practice. Nevertheless, these two aspects do inform each other. Philosophy helps to establish the aim of practice. Practice, on the other hand, can help one to have certain experiences which can, in turn, inform ideas about how the world works.

scholarly journals Between History and Universality: Understanding Identity in the Public Sphere

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-36
Author(s):  
Nisar Alungal Chungath
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Being ◽  
The Public ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The World ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The One

Identity is not a fixed and frozen prison-house for the self, but a liquid continuum, affected and shaped by the ‘outside’ or the world. The self, which is situated and which undergoes revisions and transformations, keeps identity as a frame within which it makes sense of things. On the one hand, there is a ‘history’ within which an identity is rooted and through which meaning-making is made possible, and on the other hand, every person aspires to be a ‘universal’ and recognition-worthy human being. Both inherent identity and inherent universality of the self should be considered in their interactions in the public sphere, which has been traditionally viewed as a space of discrete individualities. The ontological force of this argument aside, the paper demonstrates that reduction of an identity without crediting its aspiration for universality and consideration of universality without crediting the historical underpinnings of identity are both acts of violation. 

Hope at the End of Our Tether

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
David W. Orr
Keyword(s):  
Global Warming ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
The Other ◽  
Ability To Work ◽  
Knowing That ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The World ◽  
Human Flesh

We like optimistic people. they are fun, often funny, and very often capable of doing amazing things otherwise thought to be impossible. Were I stranded on a life raft in the middle of the ocean with the choice of an optimist or a pessimist for a companion, I’d want the optimist, providing he did not have a liking for human flesh. Optimism, however, is often rather like a Yankee fan believing that the team can win the game when it’s the bottom of the ninth and they’re up by a run with two outs, a two-strike count against a .200 hitter, and Mariano Rivera in his prime on the mound. That fan is optimistic for good reason. Cleveland Indian fans (I am one), on the other hand, believe in salvation by small percentages (if at all) and hope for a hit to get the runner home from second base and tie the game. Optimists know that the odds are in their favor; hope is the faith that things will work out whatever the odds. Hope is a verb with its sleeves rolled up. Hopeful people are actively engaged in defying the odds or changing the odds. Optimism, on the other hand, leans back, puts its feet up, and wears a confident look, knowing that the deck is stacked. “Hope,” in Vaclav Havel’s words, “is not prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons . . . Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, . . . but, rather, an ability to work for something because it is good” (1991, p. 181). I know of no purely rational reason for anyone to be optimistic about the human future. How can one be optimistic, for example, about global warming? First, as noted above, it isn’t a “warming,” but rather a total destabilization of the planet brought on by the behavior of one species: us.

scholarly journals Antara Selfie Dan Selfless: Sebuah Tinjauan Teologis Terhadap Tren Instagram

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 369-394
Author(s):  
Yudi Jatmiko
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Literary Research ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The World ◽  
Per Se ◽  
God's Image

The emergence of Instagram has indisputably made the world full of pictures. Messages that are generally dominated by words have turned into a collection of colorful pictures on Instagram. Pictures have brought a world that is beyond words. On the other hand, many experts observe the destructive sides of Instagram. The pictures that are initially meant to reveal beauty have transformed into a means of self-fulfillment. Pictures have turned into a context where the self has become the center of the message and the world. In the Christian faith, this is fatal! A self-centered life is contradictory to the Christian nature as God’s image, which basically must center life on God. The question begs to answer: how should Christian respond to Instagram? This is the focus of the research. To answer the question above, using the methodology of phenomenology approach and literary research, I will explain the history and impacts of Instagram. After that, I will analyze it from the perspective of the Christian faith, especially those that are related to the philosophy undergirding Instagram. Finally, I believe Instagram is not evil per se. However, appropriate responses are needed to bring forth a clearer God’s image in the world that is full of pictures.

scholarly journals Diving in Sin and Resurfacing with the Discovery of the Self in Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 203
Author(s):  
Khalid Sultan Thabet Abdu
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Original Sin ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Robinson Crusoe ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The World ◽  
Self Discovery ◽  
Western Hegemony

This paper attempts to study the novel of Robinson Crusoe from the perspective of Eurocentric discourse of travel. The paper sheds light on Western hegemony of travel from the metropolis to the peripheries for the sake of discovering and colonizing the “Other” parts of the world in one hand; on the other hand, these journeys enable the protagonist to grow physically, psychologically, spiritually and mentally. The paper also traces the physical journey that coincides with the inner journey which results in the self-discovery of the protagonist of himself as sequences of gradual growth from childhood to maturity; this trait makes the novel as bildungsroman. The protagonist commits a sin of disobedience at the beginning of his life and he has to endure all difficulties of life because of that deadly sin and with the passage of time he discovers his mistakes and repents from his wickedness and comes back to God who redeems him from his original sin. Therefore, he discovers himself after reaching the stage of wisdom, maturity and repentance. He has also been redeemed and awarded the fruitfulness of his endurance by reaching his father’s house again and reunited with his family.

A personal quest: Travel writing as self-exploration in Eddy L. Harris’s Native Stranger: A Blackamerican’s Journey into the Heart of Africa

2016 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 363-378 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicklas Hållén
Keyword(s):  
Travel Writing ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Double Consciousness ◽  
The Past ◽  
Social Narratives ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The World ◽  
The One

In Native Stranger: A Blackamerican’s Journey into the Heart of Africa (1992), Eddy L. Harris explores what it means to be the person he is. What, if anything, connects him to Africa? What is the relation between the person he knows himself to be, and the person others see? Searching for answers to his questions, he finds himself caught between his attempts to remain open to new ways of seeing and understanding the world, on the one hand, and succumbing to the pressures of monolithic narratives about African otherness, race, belonging, roots and the past, on the other hand. This tension gives rise to an ambiguity and a number of contradictions which make the text fold back on itself. His literary project therefore ultimately serves to raise questions not only about his own identity and place in the world, but also about the conditions of writing about the self. Central among the contradictions that permeate the text is a doubling of epistemological perspectives, which can be described as an effect of what W. E. B. Dubois famously termed double-consciousness. While Harris is able to use the contradictions that arise from his writing to explore and represent the complexity of the questions that are foregrounded in his text, he is unable to answer them. His project is in other words a kind of failure, but as this article argues, this failure is the price that Harris pays to access the full complexity of selfhood, beyond political and social narratives about collective identity and how the present is shaped by the past.

Stories and the Self

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 47-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Krause ◽  
Markus Appel
Keyword(s):  
Meta Analysis ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Lower Degree ◽  
Contrast Effects ◽  
Self Perception ◽  
Self Perceptions ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One ◽  
Implicit And Explicit

Abstract. Two experiments examined the influence of stories on recipients’ self-perceptions. Extending prior theory and research, our focus was on assimilation effects (i.e., changes in self-perception in line with a protagonist’s traits) as well as on contrast effects (i.e., changes in self-perception in contrast to a protagonist’s traits). In Experiment 1 ( N = 113), implicit and explicit conscientiousness were assessed after participants read a story about either a diligent or a negligent student. Moderation analyses showed that highly transported participants and participants with lower counterarguing scores assimilate the depicted traits of a story protagonist, as indicated by explicit, self-reported conscientiousness ratings. Participants, who were more critical toward a story (i.e., higher counterarguing) and with a lower degree of transportation, showed contrast effects. In Experiment 2 ( N = 103), we manipulated transportation and counterarguing, but we could not identify an effect on participants’ self-ascribed level of conscientiousness. A mini meta-analysis across both experiments revealed significant positive overall associations between transportation and counterarguing on the one hand and story-consistent self-reported conscientiousness on the other hand.

Don’t Put Me in This Group

2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 80-93
Author(s):  
Jort de Vreeze ◽  
Christina Matschke
Keyword(s):  
Positive Emotions ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Negative Information ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Group Memberships

Abstract. Not all group memberships are self-chosen. The current research examines whether assignments to non-preferred groups influence our relationship with the group and our preference for information about the ingroup. It was expected and found that, when people are assigned to non-preferred groups, they perceive the group as different to the self, experience negative emotions about the assignment and in turn disidentify with the group. On the other hand, when people are assigned to preferred groups, they perceive the group as similar to the self, experience positive emotions about the assignment and in turn identify with the group. Finally, disidentification increases a preference for negative information about the ingroup.

Simone de Beauvoir's Philosophy of Individuation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Hengehold
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Sexual Difference ◽  
Gilles Deleuze ◽  
The Other ◽  
Simone De Beauvoir ◽  
Second Sex ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The World

Most studies of Simone de Beauvoir situate her with respect to Hegel and the tradition of 20th-century phenomenology begun by Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty. This book analyzes The Second Sex in light of the concepts of becoming, problematization, and the Other found in Gilles Deleuze. Reading Beauvoir through a Deleuzian lens allows more emphasis to be placed on Beauvoir's early interest in Bergson and Leibniz, and on the individuation of consciousness, a puzzle of continuing interest to both phenomenologists and Deleuzians. By engaging with the philosophical issues in her novels and student diaries, this book rethinks Beauvoir’s focus on recognition in The Second Sex in terms of women’s struggle to individuate themselves despite sexist forms of representation. It shows how specific forms of women’s “lived experience” can be understood as the result of habits conforming to and resisting this sexist “sense.” Later feminists put forward important criticisms regarding Beauvoir’s claims not to be a philosopher, as well as the value of sexual difference and the supposedly Eurocentric universalism of her thought. Deleuzians, on the other hand, might well object to her ideas about recognition. This book attempts to address those criticisms, while challenging the historicist assumptions behind many efforts to establish Beauvoir’s significance as a philosopher and feminist thinker. As a result, readers can establish a productive relationship between Beauvoir’s “problems” and those of women around the world who read her work under very different circumstances.

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