Being Perfect: A Lutheran Perspective on Moral Formation

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-26
Author(s):  
Ian A. McFarland
Keyword(s):  
Moral Agency ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Moral Formation ◽  
Ethical Action ◽  
Human Agent ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Competitive Nature

Jennifer Herdt argues that Luther’s account of human ethical action implies an absolute passivity before God that both leads to psychological paralysis and fails to appreciate the non-competitive nature of the relationship between divine and human agency. This article argues that neither accusation can be sustained. Not only does Luther’s work lack any evidence of the paralysis Herdt ascribes to him, but Luther’s understanding of the relationship between divine and human action reflects a more theologically persuasive understanding of the distinct modes by which God relates to human beings in creation and redemption than does Herdt’s nature-grace framework. The passivity of the human agent in Luther simply reflects the communicative situation in which Christian moral agency follows on hearing of the gospel, resulting in a model of moral formation in which the focus is on the good of the neighbour rather than one’s own ethical qualities.

Teaching the Faith in Early Christianity: Divine and Human Agency

2020 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-164
Author(s):  
Peter Gemeinhardt
Keyword(s):  
Christian Education ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract The present paper investigates the relationship between divine and human agency in teaching the Christian faith. While Christian education actually was conveyed by human beings (apostles, teachers, catechists, bishops), many authors claimed that the one and only teacher of Christianity is Jesus Christ, referring to Matt 23:8-9. By examining texts from the 2nd to the 5th century, different configurations of divine and human teaching are identified and discussed. The paper thereby highlights a crucial tension in Early and Late Antique Christianity relating to the possibilities and limitations of communicating the faith.

scholarly journals Capitalismo e destruição ambiental

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 179
Author(s):  
Nildo Viana
Keyword(s):  
Modern Society ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Production Environment ◽  
Critical Perspective ◽  
Capitalist Mode ◽  
Environmental Destruction ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Mode Of Production

ResumoO presente artigo aborda a relação entre capitalismo e destruição ambiental, numa perspectiva crítica. O objetivo foi demonstrar a relação específica entre ser humano e natureza instituída na sociedade capitalista e seus efeitos destrutivos, relação com as demais contradições do capitalismo e as possibilidades futuras. O modo de produção capitalista é o elemento fundamental para compreender o processo de destruição ambiental na sociedade moderna, especialmente em sua dinâmica marcada pela reprodução ampliada do capital. As ideologias que visam resolver o problema ambiental dentro do capitalismo são descartadas por causa dessa característica específica do capitalismo. A destruição ambiental é uma das contradições do capitalismo e pode se tornar a mais importante, promovendo o fim do capitalismo ou da humanidade. No entanto, o fim do capitalismo não ocorre sem ação humana e é essa que determina o que o substituirá. Isso coloca em evidência nossa responsabilidade na definição do futuro da humanidade.Palavras-chave: modo de produção capitalista, meio ambiente, destruição ambiental, tendências. AbstractThis article discusses the relationship between capitalism and environmental destruction, a critical perspective. The objective was to demonstrate the specific relationship between human beings and nature established in capitalist society and its destructive effects, compared with other contradictions of capitalism and the future possibilities. The capitalist mode of production is the key element to understand the process of environmental destruction in modern society, especially in its dynamic marked by the reproduction of capital. Ideologies aimed at solving the environmental problem within capitalism are discarded because of this specific characteristic of capitalism. Environmental destruction is one of the contradictions of capitalism and can become the most important, promoting the end of capitalism or of humanity. However, the end of capitalism is not without human action and it is this that determines what will replace it. This highlights our responsibility in shaping the future of humanity.Keywords: capitalist mode of production, environment, environmental destruction, trends. ResumenEn este artículo se analiza la relación entre el capitalismo y la destrucción ambiental, una perspectiva crítica. El objetivo era demostrar la relación específica entre los seres humanos y la naturaleza establecida en la sociedad capitalista y sus efectos destructivos, en comparación con otras contradicciones del capitalismo y las posibilidades futuras.El modo de producción capitalista es el elemento clave para entender el proceso de destrucción del medio ambiente en la sociedad moderna, sobre todo en su dinámica marcada por la reproducción del capital. Las ideologías orientadas a resolver el problema del medio ambiente dentro del capitalismo son descartados debido a esta característica específica del capitalismo. La destrucción del medio ambiente es una de las contradicciones del capitalismo y puede convertirse en el más importante, promover el fin del capitalismo o de la humanidad. Sin embargo, el fin del capitalismo no está libre de la acción humana y esto es lo que determina lo que va a reemplazarlo. Esto pone de relieve nuestra responsabilidad en la formación del futuro de la humanidad.Palabras-clave: modo de producción capitalista, medio ambiente, destrucción ambiental, tendencias. 

Culture

2020 ◽  
pp. 266-291
Author(s):  
Ben Bradley
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Moral Agency ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Social Darwinism ◽  
Human History ◽  
Group Life ◽  
The Social ◽  
Subordinate Role

The concepts of civilization and culture play a structuring role in Descent’s discussion of human agency. The evolutionary history Darwin described found continuity between animals and proto-humans. Thereafter, human history took on the idealized form of a single stairway rising in stages. Despite his enlightened opposition to slavery, Darwin placed on the stairs’ bottom step ‘the lowest savage,’ pictured in a disturbingly derogatory way. On the top step were certain nineteenth-century Europeans. Descent does not hold the progress of civilization to be inevitable, however. Indeed, Darwin holds natural selection to play a subordinate role in shaping contemporary human agency. While the foundations of human action are laid by our descent from animals, agency is specified—for good or ill—by the social customs and institutions which structure the development and group-life of a given individual: evolution proposes, culture disposes. This formula is fleshed out through Descent’s discussions of language use, moral agency, religious belief, virtue, and aesthetics. Resonances are explored with perspectives on social organization in Social Darwinism, Evolutionary Psychology, and theories of cultural evolution.

Divine and Human Agency in Calvin’s Institutes

2021 ◽  
pp. 42-56
Author(s):  
Emily Theus
Keyword(s):  
Human Agency ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
Christian Religion ◽  
Divine Agency ◽  
Human Responsibility ◽  
Good And Evil ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter considers the doctrines of providence and sin in the Institutes of Christian Religion in order to draw out Calvin’s views on the interplay of human and divine agency. Calvin’s account of God’s particular providence establishes the basic conditions for human responsibility and characterizes God’s agency as perfectly efficacious—so much so that the relationship between God’s willing and evil/sin cannot adequately be captured through language of ‘permission’. The doctrine of sin further inflects this account, clarifying the relationship between human freedom, necessity, and responsibility for sin. The result is a challenging picture, in which humans are responsible for sin, but not for good, and in which God is causally determinative of both good and evil. The key to this account—to understanding its perplexities and to identifying what features of meaningful human action are at stake—is the nesting of intentions within a layering of human and divine agency.

Barth and Gender

2019 ◽  
pp. 531-547
Author(s):  
Faye Bodley-Dangelo
Keyword(s):  
Theological Anthropology ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Gender Theory ◽  
Human Agent ◽  
Gender Binary ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

At the heart of Barth’s theological anthropology and its accompanying special ethics is a human agent set in motion by the creative and redemptive work of Christ and directed towards its human fellows in a relationship of shared need and obligation. I mobilize the ethically oriented, critical, and reflective mechanisms in Barth’s depiction of this agent to contest his heterosexist framework for the relationship and difference between the sexes. I propose that Barth’s Christocentric account of human agency undermines his efforts to subordinate women to men, that it has critical mechanisms that can contest, decenter, and reconfigure his rigid gender binary, and that it resonates in productive and suggestive ways with Judith Butler’s gender theory.

Elateres Motiva: From the Good Will to the Good Human Being

2013 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 413-437 ◽  
Author(s):  
Inder Marwah
Keyword(s):  
Moral Agency ◽  
Division Of Labour ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Moral Obligations ◽  
Moral Law ◽  
Moral Anthropology ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Kant's Ethics ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractKant's ethics has long been bedevilled by a peculiar tension. While his practical philosophy describes the moral obligations incumbent on all free, rational beings, Kant also understands moral anthropology as addressing ‘helps and hindrances’ to our moral advancement. How are we to reconcile Kant'sCriticalaccount of a transcendentally free human will with hisdevelopmentalview of anthropology, history and education as assisting in our collective progress towards moral ends? I argue that Kant in fact distinguishes between theobjectivedetermination of moral principles andsubjectiveprocesses of moral acculturation developing human beings’ receptivity to the moral law. By differentiating subjective and objective dimensions of moral agency, I argue (1) that we better interpret the relationship between Kant's transcendental and anthropological accounts as a division of labour between principles of obligation and principles of volition, and so, as complementary rather than contradictory; and (2) that this counters the view of Kant's ethics as overly formalistic by recognizing his ‘empirical ethics’ as attending to the unsystematizable facets of a properly human moral life.

scholarly journals HUMAN AGENT DALAM TRADISI FIKIH: Studi Relasi Hukum Islam dan Moralitas Perspektif Abou El Fadl

Kodifikasia ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Abid Rahmanu
Keyword(s):  
Moral Agency ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
The Body ◽  
Human Agent

Penelitian ini ingin menguak bagaimana kontruksi human agent dikembangkan olehAbou El Fadl dalam rangka membangun relasi hukum Islam dan moralitas, dan apasandaran teologis dan epistemologis Abou El Fadl dalam mengidealisasikan humanagent dalam tradisi hukum Islam. Jawaban-jawaban terhadap pertanyaan ini menurutpenulis sangat penting karena paling tidak dua hal: pertama, karena masih relatifkeringnya wacana moralitas dalam kajian hukum Islam. Hal ini dikarenakan keyakinanbahwa kedaulatan hukum secara mutlak ada di tangan Tuhan, dan tiada pilihan bagimanusia kecuali ketaatan secara harfiyah terhadap teks hukum. Kedua, perlunyamengaitkan hukum Islam dengan basis teologis untuk menunjukkan pentingnyainterkoneksi hukum Islam dengan keilmuan lain untuk menunjukkan pada the body ofknowledge yang komprehensif dan utuh tentang Islam. Penelitian ini merupakanpenelitian kepustakaan dengan menjadikan buku-buku Abou El Fadl sebagai referensiprimer. Dengan paradigma verstehen dan interpretative understanding, dan pendekatanteks, serta teori human agent, data akan diolah, dianalisa dan ditafsirkan sesuai rumusanmasalah penelitian. Penelitian ini menyimpulkan: pertama, hukum Islam menurut AbouEl Fadl dimediasi oleh human agency (perwakilan manusia atau khalifatullah). Dalamkonteks hukum Islam human agency bersifat kolektif sebagaimana tidak ada institusikependetaan dalam Islam. Human agency dalam konteks hukum Islam lebih banyakdibawa oleh Abou El Fadl pada moral agency. Kedua, Persepsi teologis Abou El Fadlsebagai bangunan dasar pemikiran hukum Islamnya lebih dekat dengan paham teologisMu’tazilah sebagaimana kecenderungannya pada rasionalitas dan kebebasan bertindak.

Concluding Part I

2020 ◽  
pp. 165-186
Author(s):  
Helga Varden
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Moral Agent ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
General Introduction ◽  
Social Nature ◽  
Human Agent ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Way

To conclude this first part of the book, let me revisit a core challenge mentioned in the general Introduction.1 Insofar as Kantians humanize their agents by showing them to be more embodied and social (and not only rational), as I have done, they appear to encounter a new problem: their accounts of human agency appear not to be distinctively Kantian. This Hegelian “empty formalism” line maintains that the more embodied and social the Kantian conception of the human agent, the less that conception can capture Kant’s emphasis on the noumenon, how human beings are distinct from all other animals in that they can act in truly free ways—they have “free will”—which lies at the heart of Kant’s conception of morality. Kantian ethicists therefore face a dilemma: either they must choose formalism, in which case they cannot capture the (importance of the) embodied, social nature of human beings, or they lose the formalism distinctive of Kant’s position. Kantians cannot have it both ways. Having chosen the path of humanizing the Kantian moral agent and having argued that it is the path that Kant himself chose (even if Kant and I disagree on how best to understand issues of sex, love, and gender), it is important to explain why my theory has not lost Kant’s formalism, and its distinctive value, along the way. I owe an explanation as to why my theory can capture the philosophical insights in, and even requires, Kant’s distinction between noumenon and phenomenon, of transcendental freedom, and a “free will.”...

Plural Trajectories: Introduction to African Futures

2019 ◽  
pp. 5-14
Author(s):  
David O’Kane ◽  
Dmitri Bondarenko
Keyword(s):  
Human Agency ◽  
Human Action ◽  
African Studies ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Empirical Reality ◽  
The Relationship

The editors of this issue of the Journal of the Institute for African Studies introduce the theme of African futures, and insist on the plural meanings it involves as both a concept and an empirical reality. The relationship between the continent’s futures and its multiple pasts and presents are considered, and the concept of ‘trajectory’ is used to integrate those multiple African realities into an integrated picture of human agency and human action in the continent today. The editors then introduce the papers that follow in this special issue.

Ethics in Pure Land Schools

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Conway
Keyword(s):  
Human Beings ◽  
Buddhist Ethics ◽  
Ethical Practice ◽  
Pure Land ◽  
Ethical Action ◽  
Pure Land Buddhism ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Relationship

The exclusivist strand of Pure Land Buddhism that developed in China and took strong root in Japan stresses the inability of human beings to bring about their own liberation from the effects of karma through their own ethical practice, and instead views reliance on the working of Amitābha as the only possible path to liberation. Because of its denial of the efficacy of ethical action as a cause of Buddhahood throughout its history, this tradition has addressed a variety of delicate problems dealing with the relationship between ethical action and Buddhist attainment. This chapter explores how that tension played out in various recensions of the central sutra of the tradition, and the thought of two representative thinkers: Shandao (613–681) and Shinran (1173–1262). These considerations show that the Pure Land tradition offers many insights that might help advance discussions in the discipline of Buddhist ethics in the future.

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