scholarly journals Trinitizing the Universe: Teilhard’s Theogenesis and the Dynamism of Love

Open Theology ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 158-169
Author(s):  
Ilia Delio
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
New Physics ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Divine Love ◽  
Doctrine Of The Trinity ◽  
Pierre Teilhard De Chardin ◽  
Divine Life ◽  
The Universe ◽  
The Trinity

Abstract The God-world relationship bears an ambiguous relationship between God’s immanent life and God’s life in history. The development of the doctrine of the Trinity in the early Church gave rise to a distinction between theologia and oikonomia. Bonaventure’s theology sought to express an economic trinitarianism without compromising the integrity of God’s life, thus maintaining divine immutability and divine impassibility. Twentieth century trinitarian theologies challenge the notion of divine immutability in light of modern science and radical suffering. This paper develops on the heels of twentieth century theology by focusing in particular on the philosophical shifts rendered by modern science and technology. In particular, the insights of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin are explored with regard to Trinity and evolution, precisely because Teilhard intuited that evolution and the new physics evoke a radically new understanding of God. Building on Teilhard’s insights, I suggest that divine creative love is expressed in a fourth mystery which Teilhard called ‟pleromization.” Pleromization is the outflow of divine creative union or, literally, God filling the universe with divine life. Teilhard recapitulates this idea in the evolution of Christ so that theologia and oikonomia are one movement of divine love. My principal thesis is that the Trinity is integrally related to the world; the fullness of divine love includes the personalization of created reality, symbolized by the Christ. To explore this thesis I draw upon the cyborg as the symbol of hybridization and permeable boundaries and interpret Trinitarian life in evolution as cyborg Christogensis. Using the Law of Three, I indicate why a new understanding of Trinitarian life involves complexification and thus a new understanding of Trinity in which the fullness of divine life includes created reality.

The Doctrine of Appropriation as an Interpretative Framework for Karl Barth's Pneumatology of the Church Dogmatics

2007 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 278-290
Author(s):  
Adam McIntosh
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Trinitarian Theology ◽  
Church Dogmatics ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Doctrine Of The Trinity ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Trinity ◽  
Interpretative Framework

Although Karl Barth is widely recognised as the initiator of the renewal of trinitarian theology in the twentieth century, his theology of the Church Dogmatics has been strongly criticised for its inadequate account of the work of the Holy Spirit. This author argues that the putative weakness of Barth's pneumatology should be reconsidered in light of his doctrine of appropriation. Barth employs the doctrine of appropriation as a hermeneutical procedure, within his doctrine of the Trinity, for bringing to speech the persons of the Trinity in their inseparable distinctiveness. It is argued that the doctrine of appropriation provides a sound interpretative framework for his pneumatology of the Church Dogmatics.

Bodies, Rest, and Motion: from Cosmic Dance to Biodance

2000 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 211-218
Author(s):  
Cara Gargano
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Chaos Theory ◽  
Scientific Theory ◽  
Modern Dance ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
New Physics ◽  
Atomic Level ◽  
Modern Drama ◽  
New Science ◽  
The Universe

Ancient myth and modern science share a common, cosmic perception of dance as the formulating principle of the universe – whether through metaphor, in the perception of a ‘biodance of life’, or in the closeness to actuality of the ‘dance of the electrons’ at a sub-atomic level. A line of articles in NTQ has explored such connections, with theatrical examples deriving from and illuminating the scientific theory under discussion – but with dance, strangely, relatively neglected as a source of such examples. Here, Cara Gargano takes a number of major modern dance events from the span of the twentieth century to show the interaction between dance and scientific theory, from Loïe Fuller's work at its beginning to Maguy Marin's Coppélia towards its end. The latter, she argues, ‘brings quantum mechanics and chaos theory into the sociological realm’ as it demonstrates ‘how consciousness and social relations are tied to the new physics’. Cara Gargano is Chair of the Department of Theatre, Film, and Dance at the C. W. Post Campus of Long Island University. She has published in Modern Drama, L'Annuaire Théâtrale, and Dance and Research. In New Theatre Quarterly, her earlier contributions on plays which construct their world to reflect the new science were published in NTQ51 and NTQ54.

Are Mormons Theists?

1996 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 357-370
Author(s):  
A. A. Howsepian
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
Holy Ghost ◽  
Doctrine Of The Trinity ◽  
Mormon Church ◽  
The Universe ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Trinity

It is widely believed to be a fundamental tenet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (hereafter the LDS, or Mormon, Church) that a plurality of divine beings inhabits the universe. It has often been pointed out, for example, that according to Mormon doctrine Elohim (the Father), Jesus (the Son), and the Holy Ghost are three distinct Gods.1 The traditional Christian doctrine of the Trinity is, thereby, unambiguously rejected. In light of this, it has become commonplace among Christian apologists2 to infer

scholarly journals Entropy’s Enemies: Postmodern Fission and Transhuman Fusion in the Post-War Era

Humanities ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 23
Author(s):  
Jordan Burr
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Golden Age ◽  
Thomas Pynchon ◽  
Postmodern Fiction ◽  
Fiction Writers ◽  
Western Values ◽  
Pierre Teilhard De Chardin ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Universe

In the early to mid-twentieth century, thermodynamic entropy—the inevitable diffusion of usable energy in the Universe—became a ubiquitous metaphor for the dissolution of Western values and cultural energy. Many Golden Age science fiction writers portrayed twentieth century technological progress as anti-entropic, a sign of Universal progress and unity which might postpone or negate both cultural and thermodynamic forms of entropy. Following the evolutionary metaphysics of Georg Hegel and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Golden Age science fiction writers like Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov imagined the creation of powerful collective beings whose unitary existence signified the defeat of entropy. In contrast, later literary postmodernists like Thomas Pynchon and Pamela Zoline often accepted and even exalted in the chaotic, liberating potential of entropy. In postmodern fiction, the disorder of entropy was often compared favorably to the stifling hegemony of cultural universalism. More broadly, these two responses might be understood to represent two societal stages of grief-- denial and acceptance—to the new trauma introduced to the world by the parallel concepts of cultural entropy and a Universal “heat death.”

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