FOUR. Pagan Justice and Christian Love

2009 ◽  
pp. 71-82
Keyword(s):  
Christian Love

Kenotic Gestures

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 198-218
Author(s):  
Michelle Voss Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Gender Norms ◽  
Spiritual Practice ◽  
Aesthetic Theory ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Christian Love ◽  
Love Of God ◽  
Shed Light

Christians sometimes take Christ's ken?sis, or self-emptying, as the pattern for Christian love of God and neighbor. Feminist critics suspect that this model reinforces unhealthy gender norms and oppressive power structures and contest the nature and extent of this template. Interreligious study can shed light on the debate. The Gau??ya Vai??ava tradition employs the categories of Indian aesthetic theory to explain how types of loving devotion (bhakti rasa) toward Krishna are evoked and expressed. The subordinate and peaceful modes of love for Krishna can serve as a heuristic for understanding Sarah Coakley's and Cynthia Bourgeault's retrievals of ken?sis in spiritual practice. A comparative reading suggests that objections to Coakley's version, which resembles the subordinate love of God, are more intractable due to the rootedness of its aesthetic in oppressive human experiences, while Bourgeault's reclamation of ken?sis aligns with a peaceful or meditative mode of love that feminists may more readily appreciate.

Beyond Self-Interest

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua May
Keyword(s):  
Moral Development ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Helping Behavior ◽  
Self And Other ◽  
Concern For Others ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Christian Love ◽  
The Right ◽  
Conceptual Difficulties

This chapter introduces the long-standing idea that inappropriate motives, such as self-interest, can militate against virtuous motivation (acting for the right reasons). Some theorists have tried to show that we are universally egoistic by appeal to empirical research, particularly evolutionary theory, moral development, and the neuroscience of learning. However, these efforts fail and instead decades of experiments on helping behavior provide powerful evidence that we are capable of genuine altruism. We can be motivated ultimately by a concern for others for their own sake, especially when empathizing with them. The evidence does not show that empathy blurs the distinction between self and other in a way that makes helping behavior truly egoistic or non-altruistic. Whether grounded in Christian love (agape) or the Buddhist notion of no-self (anātman), such self-other merging proposals run into empirical and conceptual difficulties.

scholarly journals Christianity and the “Social Question” in N.А. Berdyaev’s and S.L. Frank’s Philosophical Works

2021 ◽  
pp. 135-153
Author(s):  
I.V. Demin
Keyword(s):  
Social Issue ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Social Philosophy ◽  
Social Question ◽  
General Importance ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
Christian Socialism ◽  
Christian Love

The article analyzes and compares two interpretations of the “social question” and the ways of solving it as they are offered in the works of N.A. Berdyaev and S.L. Frank. A particular attention is paid to the connection between the “social question” and the problem of “Christian socialism”. While acknowledging the general importance of the social issues for the Christian mindset, both philosophers traced the origin of social injustice to the human nature rather than to the social structure. In both interpretations, in fact, the value of social justice is inferior in its hierarchal status to the value of Christian love. However, while they both rejected the socialist utopia of a “paradise on Earth” and the idea of a “Christian socialism”, Berdyaev and Frank radically diverged in their interpretation and assessment of socialism as a social system. This article highlights the fact that Berdyaev combines a criticism of the ideological claims concerning atheistic and materialist socialism with an uncritical acceptance of a number of socialist ideologies (e.g. “class struggle” and “exploitation”) and assumptions. Unlike Berdyaev, in interpreting the “social issue” Frank tended to distance himself from both classical liberalism (with its notions of private property, freedom, and state) and from socialism, which he considered as another ideological extremity. Frank’s social philosophy treats the thesis that the socialist system is more consistent and successful than others in tackling the “social issue” as an empirically dubious assumption. On the contrary, Berdyaev took this thesis for granted and used it as the starting point of his reasoning. This divergence, along with the fact that the same key terms were often used by the two philosophers in different (ideological) meanings, partly accounts for their differences in the interpretation of the “social question” and in the assessment of socialism.

scholarly journals Jan Chryzostom objaśnia "Hymn o miłości" [1Kor 13] (In I Epistolam ad Corinthios hom. 33-34)

Vox Patrum ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 291-315
Author(s):  
Jan Iluk
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
The Road ◽  
Shortest Route ◽  
John Chrysostom ◽  
Christian Love ◽  
The Times ◽  
Autumn And Winter ◽  
The Church

In 1CorHom, edited in the autumn and winter of 392 and 393 AD, John Chrysostom found a natural opportunity to return to his numerous utterances on the role of love in the lives of people. Obviously, the opportunity was the 13“ chapter of this Letter - The Song of Love. Among his works, we will find a few more smali works which were created with the intention of outlining the Christian ideał of love. Many of the contemporary monographs which were devoted to the ancient understanding of Christian „love” have the phrase „Eros and Agape” in their titles. In contemporary languages, this arrangement extends between sex and love. Both in the times of the Church Fathers (the 4th century AD) and currently, the distance between sex and love is measured by feelings, States and actions which are morę or less refined and noble. The awareness of the existence of many stops over this distance leads to the conviction that our lives are a search for the road to Agape. As many people are looking not so much for a shortcut but for a shorter route, John Chrysostom, like other Church Fathers, declared: the shortest route, because it is the most appropriate for this aim, is to live according to the Christian virtues that have been accumulated by the Christian politeia. There are to be found the fewest torments and disenchantments, although there are sacrifices. Evangelical politeia, the chosen and those who have been brought there will find love) - as a State of existence. In the earthly dimension, however, love appears as a causative force only in the circle of the Christian politeia. Obviously, just as in the heavenly politeia, the Christian politeia on earth is an open circle for everyone. As Chrysostom’s listeners and readers were not only Christians (in the multi-cultural East of the Roman Empire), and as the background of the principles presented in the homilies was the everyday life and customs of the Romans of the time, the ideał - dyam] - was placed by him in the context of diverse imperfections in the rangę and form of the feelings exhibited, which up to this day we still also cali love. It is true that love has morę than one name. By introducing the motif of love - into deliberations on the subject of the Christian politeia, John Chrysostom finds and indicates to the faithful the central force that shaped the ancient Church. This motif fills in the vision of the Heavenly Kingdom, explains to Christians the sense of life that is appropriate to them in the Roman community and explains the principles of organised life within the boundaries of the Church. It can come as no surprise that the result of such a narrative was Chrysostonfs conviction that love is „rationed”: Jews, pagans, Hellenes and heretics were deprived of it. In Chrysostonfs imagination, the Christian politeia has an earthly and a heavenly dimension. In the heavenly politeia, also called by him Chrisfs, the Lord’s or the

scholarly journals Aesthetization of the christian ethical ideal in o. wilde's fairy tale «The Happy Prince»

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (22) ◽  
pp. 11-16
Author(s):  
Vitaliia Aleksenko ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Fairy Tale ◽  
Ancient Philosophy ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
Dead Bird ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Christian Love ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Precious Stones

The paper explores the problem of the relationship between the ideas of aesthetics and the Christian doctrine of active love in the famous tale written by O. Wilde. The research which emphasizes the Christian basis of the author's outlook became the methodological basis of the present study on the background of a detailed analysis of various assessments of the writer's position, interpreted as an immoral aesthete and as a supporter of socialist ideas or a recipient of ideas of ancient philosophy of spiritual beauty. The study proves this in detail, analyzing the plot and figurative solutions of the fairy tale «Happy Prince», taking into account the traditional Christian symbols. Thus, the image of the Prince-Statue, decorated with gold and precious stones, is interpreted as a symbol of Christ, who gives his splendor and power to save the poor. It is also reminiscent of the words of Christ, who tells a young rich man who seeks perfection to sell his wealth and give money to the poor. The very values of the earthly world, gold and precious stones, luxurious things made of them, are transparently interpreted in an ironically reduced tone. The confirmation of the fact that the aestheticization of being yields to the hidden spiritual greatness of Christian love and self-sacrifice is also that that the values of the earthly world, gold and precious stones are transparently interpreted in an ironic tone in the fairy tale. The swallow, being the ancient symbol of the Renaissance, this bird was lured by the perishable beauty of idols and tombs of Egypt, the biblical symbol of captivity. The swallow finds its purpose in the service of the Prince, scattering his precious clothes to the poor. And here the ethical criterion turns out to be higher than the aesthetic one. They are not rewarded on the Earth: the bird dies of the cold, and the remains of an unpresentable statue of the prince are demolished, the decisive word to belong to the professor of aesthetics. However, the angel of God brings the most precious things he has found in this city to the heavenly palaces of the Lord: the tin heart of the Prince, torn by grief, and a dead bird. By analyzing the writer's ideological system with implicit implications, Wilde's position is quite obvious: despite his apparent admiration for the aesthetics of beauty, the writer rejects ultimately the doctrine of aesthetics and exalts Christian values, setting out his concept in the style of a parable.

Amore

GROUNDING ◽  
2009 ◽  
pp. 9-13
Author(s):  
Pierluigi Sambuceti
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Experience ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
Christian Love

- The author combines an ancient biblical text about love with the writings of Lowen, who, starting from his clinical experience has developed his thoughts on love, and proposes a small synopsis among the second letter of Paolo to the Corinthians - a manifesto of Christian love - and some passages on love from the writings of A. Lowen.

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