scholarly journals Kant on Radical Evil: A Pragmatic Reading

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-76
Author(s):  
Anthony Rimai
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Formal Proof ◽  
Religious Discourse ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
Divine Intervention ◽  
Radical Evil ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Evil Nature

One of the primary concerns of Immanuel Kant in his major works on philosophy of religion is the doctrine of radical evil. He was greatly perplexed by the conundrums of this doctrine. Although Kant claimed it to be a universal trait, he failed to give a formal proof (evidence) supporting it. However, he asserted that the conducts of human beings are enough to demonstrate the nature of radical evil. The complexity of the doctrine is further fuelled by introducing the idea of the need of divine intervention for one to overcome such moral-religious predicament. Critical responses from both Christian and secular scholars reflect interesting take on his ethico-religious discourse. One of the prominent criticisms to Kant’s doctrine of radical evil is its relapse to religious absurdity reflecting the Christian doctrine of the ‘fall of mankind’ as narrated in the first book of the Bible. Consequently, the seriousness of the criticism not only affects the moral maxims but also the portrayal of its strong religious affinity, rendering the doctrine even more allusive and perplexing. The article intends to throw some light on the pragmatic perspective of the doctrine with special focus on the universality of the radical evil nature of human.

The Problem of Holiness

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 29-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Mittleman
Keyword(s):  
Religious Discourse ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Brute Fact ◽  
Social Facts ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Contemporary View ◽  
Institutional Reality

Holiness is an important but problematic concept for religious discourse. It is unclear what it means, both in classical texts and in contemporary usage. Holiness seems to signify a property in some cases and a relation in others. The Bible itself preserves a range of usages. Some of these are ontological: holiness as a would-be property inheres in objects, places, persons, or times. Other uses are imputed: holiness connotes a status that human beings ascribe to things. The range of use can be explicated by the concept of a social or institutional reality developed by Searle. Social facts entail valuations, intentions, and practices; they presuppose a basis of brute fact. A plausible contemporary view of holiness will link ontological and axiological commitments in such a way as to express the underlying goodness of being.

Conceptions of Trust in the Qur'an

2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 56-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nora S. Eggen
Keyword(s):  
Social Trust ◽  
Social Ethics ◽  
Religious Discourse ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Normative Claim ◽  
Trust Relationship ◽  
Trust Relationships ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
The Guardian

In the Qur'an we find different concepts of trust situated within different ethical discourses. A rather unambiguous ethico-religious discourse of the trust relationship between the believer and God can be seen embodied in conceptions of tawakkul. God is the absolute wakīl, the guardian, trustee or protector. Consequently He is the only holder of an all-encompassing trusteeship, and the normative claim upon the human being is to trust God unconditionally. There are however other, more polyvalent, conceptions of trust. The main discussion in this article evolves around the conceptions of trust as expressed in the polysemic notion of amāna, involving both trust relationships between God and man and inter-human trust relationships. This concept of trust involves both trusting and being trusted, although the strongest and most explicit normative claim put forward is on being trustworthy in terms of social ethics as well as in ethico-religious discourse. However, ‘trusting’ when it comes to fellow human beings is, as we shall see, framed in the Qur'an in less absolute terms, and conditioned by circumstantial factors; the Qur'anic antithesis to social trust is primarily betrayal, ‘khiyāna’, rather than mistrust.

Religion and Toleration from the Enlightenment to the Post-Secular Era

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rainer Forst
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Fundamental Question ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Pierre Bayle ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter addresses the classical question of the relationship between enlightenment and religion. In doing so, the chapter compares Jürgen Habermas's thought to that of Pierre Bayle and Immanuel Kant. For, although Habermas undoubtedly stands in a tradition founded by Bayle and Kant, he develops a number of important orientations within this tradition and has changed his position in his recent work. The chapter studies this change to understand Habermas's position better. It also draws attention to a fundamental question raised by the modern world: what common ground can human reason establish in the practical and theoretical domain between human beings who are divided by profoundly different religious (including antireligious) views?

Hobbes's Political Philosophy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.P. Martinich
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Literal Meaning ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
New Science ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Apparent Conflict

Hobbes’s Political Philosophy: Interpretation and Interpretations extends a position first explained in The Two Gods of Leviathan (1992). Hobbes presented what he believed would be a science of politics, a set of timeless truths grounded in definitions. In chapters on the laws of nature, authorization and representation, sovereignty by acquisition, and others, the author explains this science of politics. In addition to the timeless science, Hobbes had two timebound projects: (1) to eliminate the apparent conflict between the new science of Copernicus and Galileo and traditional Christian doctrine, and (2) to show that Christianity, correctly understood, is not politically destabilizing. The strategy for accomplishing (1) was to distinguish science from religion and to understand Christianity as essentially belief in the literal meaning of the Bible. The strategy for accomplishing (2) was to appeal to biblical teachings such as “Servants, obey your masters,” and “All authority comes from God.” Criticisms of the author’s interpretations are the occasion for (a) fleshing out Hobbes’s historical context and (b) describing the nature of interpretation in dialogue with opposing interpretations by scholars such as Jeffrey Collins, Edwin Curley, John Deigh, and Quentin Skinner. Interpretation is updating one’s network of beliefs in order to re-establish an equilibrium upset by a text. Interpretations may be judged according to prima facie properties of good interpretations such as completeness, consistency, simplicity, generality, palpability, and defensibility.

Reformation: a Two-edged Sword in the Cause of the Ministry of Women

2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-33
Author(s):  
Fleur Houston
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Logical Consequence ◽  
Social Model ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Women's Ministry ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Social Challenge ◽  
Normative Expectations ◽  
God's Grace

When Martin Luther mounted an attack on the industry of Indulgences, he affirmed key Reformation principles: human beings are saved by God’s grace alone and the priesthood of all the baptised gives all followers of Christ equal status. This was in conformity with an earlier generation of reformers who saw the Bible as ultimate authority and witnessed to biblical truth against corruption. The logical consequence of this should have been the enabling of women who were so disposed to exercise a theological vocation. In practice, the resulting rupture in religious and social life often affected women for the worse. Educational formation and leadership opportunities were restricted by the closure of convents. While the trade guilds, with their tightly regulated social systems, did not allow scope for women who transgressed normative expectations, their suppression was not necessarily liberating for women. The new social model of the home replaced that of convent and guild and marriage was exalted in place of celibacy. Changes in devotional practice involved loss and gain. Women who did not conform to the domestic norm were treated at best with misogyny and female prophets of the radical Reformation paid for their convictions with their lives. In education, leadership, piety and radical social challenge, women’s options were restricted. However, the key Reformation principles ultimately enabled the development of women’s ministry which was marked by the ordination of Constance Todd 400 years later.

scholarly journals The “sanctity” of marriage – an archaeology of a socio-religious construct: Mythological origins, forms and models

2008 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yolanda Dreyer
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Difference ◽  
Human Sexuality ◽  
Social Aspects ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Social Constructs ◽  
Social Construct ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biological Reality ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

The aim of the article is to argue that the sexual difference between female and male should be regarded as soteriologically indifferent. Though a biological reality of being human, sexuality is profoundly influenced by social constructs and the institution of marriage itself is a social construct. In this article the biological and social aspects are taken into account in a theological approach which on the one hand is interested in the relationship between God and human beings, and on the other in the way in which the Bible elucidates sexuality and marriage. The article indicates that the idea of sexual intercourse between a man and a woman as being equal to Godgiven “holy matrimony” has mythological origins. It focuses on these origins and on the multifarious forms of marital arrangements and models.

scholarly journals Autonomia świata a podmiotowość człowieka w ekoteologii

2010 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-131
Author(s):  
Jarosław Horowski
Keyword(s):  
Modern World ◽  
Ecological Problem ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Contemporary Culture ◽  
Inherent Value ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Teleological Argument ◽  
Christian Worldview ◽  
The World ◽  
Human World

One of the most difficult problems, which is to be solved by contemporary culture, is the ecological problem. It concerns the culture because the hedonistic and consumerist mentality of man plays an important part in it. Biocentrism states that the ecological problem results from traditional Western attitudes to the non-human world based on the belief that humans are the central and most significant entities in the universe. Biocentrism puts forward a teleological argument for the protection of the environment. It indicates that non-human species have inherent value as well and each organism has a purpose and a reason for being, which should be respected. Biocentrism states that the anthropocentric attitude to the non-human world results from the Christian worldview based on the Bible where it is written that God gives man dominion over all creatures. The author analyses the main issues of the Catholic concept of the relationship between human beings and other creatures. He indicates that ecotheology respects the inherent value of non-human creatures because, as the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the modern world Gaudium et spes says: “all things are endowed with their own stability, truth, goodness, proper laws and order”, but maintains that the purpose of the world is connected with its relationship to God. The author considers also what is the human subjectivity in behaving towards the environment and what is the dependence between the autonomy of the world and the subjectivity of man in ecotheology. In the end, the author comes to the conclusion that according to ecotheology the ecological problem results from the broken relationship between the human and God and in consequence it the broken relationship between the world and God.

scholarly journals Kristologi dalam Injil Yohanes

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 75
Author(s):  
Roy Martin Simanjuntak
Keyword(s):  
Gospel Of John ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
Local Churches ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
History Of Christianity ◽  
The Bible ◽  
History Of ◽  
Modern Era

The issue of Christology from time to time is one very interesting theological topics to be discussed, both in intellectual circles, even church leaders in communities grow together in a group of local churches. The spread understanding or information about Christology are numerous and easy to find, therefore believers should to select sources so as not to cause a false understanding that led to the loss of the substance of Christology. It’s inevitable that people who are in this modern era of greatly affect the issue and the development of Christology. This discussion includes the concept Christology from the Bible, and then outlines how where fathers or figures of Christian thinkers to formulate it in a Christian doctrine that Christians are ultimately used in the history of Christianity. Christology that comes from understanding the Bible is acceptable and justified by the believer. In particular, in the Gospel of John is very fullgar when talking about Christology, both His nature as well as the work of God and man and his mission for the salvation of mankind. Abstrak Persoalan Kristologi dari zaman ke zaman merupakan sala satu topik teologi yang sangat menarik untuk dibahas, baik di kalangan intelektual, pemimpin jemaat bahkan juga di komunitas-komunitas kelompok tumbuh bersama dalam sebuah gereja lokal. Pemahaman-pemahaman yang beredar atau informasi tentang Kristologi sangatlah banyak dan mudah untuk menemukannya, oleh karenanya orang percaya mestinya menyeleksi sumber tersebut sehingga tidak menimbulkan pemahaman yang keliru dan berujung pada hilangnya substansi Kristologi tersebut. Tidak bisa dipungkiri bahwa masyarakat yang berada dalam era modern ini sangat mempengaruhi isu dan perkembangan Kristologi. Pembahasan ini meliputi konsep Kristologi yang bersumber dari Alkitab, dan kemudian menguraikan bagaimana bapa-bapa gereja atau tokoh-tokoh pemikir Kristen merumuskannya dalam sebuah doktrin Kristen yang akhirnya dipakai orang Kristen dalam sepanjang sejarah kekristenan. Kristologi yang bersumber dari Alkitab merupakan pemahaman yang dapat diterima dan dibenarkan oleh orang percaya. Secara khusus Injil Yohanes sangat terbuka membahas tentang Kristologi, baik hakikatNya sebagai Allah dan manusia maupun karya dan misiNya untuk keselamatan umat manusia.

scholarly journals The Impossible Spaces: A Commentary on Gen. 2:8–15

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 656
Author(s):  
Santiago García-Jalón
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Text ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Garden Of Eden ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Narrative Device ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
Structural Differences

A close analysis of the text of Gen. 2:8–15, pertaining to the Garden of Eden, shows the structural differences between said text and others from ancient mythologies that mention or describe a paradise. Likewise, that analysis suggests that the data provided by the Bible to locate paradise are merely a narrative device meant to dissipate all doubts as to the existence of a garden where God put human beings. Similar to other spaces that appear in the Bible, the Garden of Eden is, in fact, an impossible place. Throughout the centuries, however, recurring proposals have been made to locate paradise. As time went by, those proposals were progressively modified by the intellectual ideas dominant in any given era, thus leading the representations of the location of Paradise to be further and further away from the information provided by the biblical text.

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