scholarly journals Beyond Sacrifice: Milton and the Atonement

PMLA ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 125 (2) ◽  
pp. 354-369 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory Chaplin
Keyword(s):  
Human Dignity ◽  
Paradise Lost ◽  
Ethical Decision ◽  
Traumatic Event ◽  
Blood Sacrifice ◽  
Orthodox Theology ◽  
Radical Republicanism ◽  
The Trinity

In Paradise Lost, Milton imagines a cosmos at odds with orthodox theology, making a heretical departure that parallels his reluctance to dwell on the Crucifixion and his Arian Christology. Belief in a plurality of worlds threatens the integrity of the Trinity: it exalts the omnipotence of the creator, while it limits the significance of the redeemer. In effect, it produces a tension best resolved by Milton's position that the Father and the Son are two distinct beings—the former uncreated, infinite, and immutable and the latter created, finite, and changeable. This distinction enables Milton to fashion a theory of salvation that transforms Christ's sacrifice from a singular, traumatic event to an ethical decision that other created beings can emulate. These heterodox views constitute the theological underpinnings of his radical republicanism, which embraces an idea of human dignity and agency antithetical to the tyrannical politics of torture and blood sacrifice.

scholarly journals Covid-19: Pandemonium in our time

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Bergquist ◽  
Laura Rinaldi
Keyword(s):  
Shock Wave ◽  
Paradise Lost ◽  
Actual Data ◽  
Ground Zero ◽  
Nuclear Bomb ◽  
True Value ◽  
Epic Poem ◽  
Bomb Test ◽  
The World ◽  
The Trinity

While pandemonium has come to mean wild and noisy disorder, the reference here is to John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost and the upheaval following Lucifer's banishment from Heaven and his construction of Pandæmonium as his hub. Today's avalanche of conflicting news on how to deal with the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) brings to mind the Trinity nuclear bomb test with Enrico Fermi estimating its strength by releasing small pieces of paper into the air and measuring their displacement by the shock wave. Fermi's result, in fact not far from the true value, emphasised his ability to make good approximations with few or no actual data. The current wave of Covid-19 presents just this kind of situation as it engulfs the world from ground zero in Wuhan, China. Much information is indeed missing, but datasets that might lead to useful ideas on how to handle this pandemic are steadily accumulating.

A Secularism of the Royal Doors: Toward an Eastern Orthodox Christian Theology of Secularism

2019 ◽  
pp. 108-130
Author(s):  
Brandon Gallaher
Keyword(s):  
Christian Theology ◽  
Eastern Orthodox ◽  
The West ◽  
Bearing Witness ◽  
Orthodox Christian ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Orthodox Theology ◽  
The Trinity

The opposites, sacred and secular, are in an ‘original’ or ‘polemical unity’ in Christ and do not have their reality except in Him in a polemical attitude toward one another bearing witness in this way to their common reality and unity in the God-Man. History’s movement consists of divergence and convergence from and toward Him. One cannot, therefore, understand secularism and the secular and secularization apart from the fact that the secular is what is continuously being accepted and becoming accepted by God in Christ. Influenced by the work of Bonhoeffer, Bulgakov, and Richard Kearney and invoking Orthodox liturgy and iconography, Gallaher points to a church that images Christ and the Trinity by manifesting itself in kenosis. He argues for a move from an Orthodox anti-secularism that simply denounces and shakes its fist at the West to a positive Orthodox theology of secularism that tries to see how Orthodoxy might witness boldly to Christ in the modern pluralistic and secular West.

The eternal manifestation of the Spirit through the Son: a hypostatic or energetic reality? Inquiry in the works of Gregory of Cyprus and Gregory Palamas

2020 ◽  
Vol 113 (3) ◽  
pp. 1041-1068
Author(s):  
Anne-Sophie Vivier-Mureşan
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Second Step ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
The Third ◽  
Third Person ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Orthodox Theology ◽  
The Third Person ◽  
The Trinity

AbstractThe theological formulation of the “eternal manifestation of the Spirit through the Son”, developed by the patriarch of Constantinople Gregory of Cyprus in the 13th century, has been the subject of numerous studies in the 20th century and played an important role in the renewal of Trinitarian Orthodox theology. The interpretations are however diverging. Most theologians see in this formulation the manifestation of the uncreated energy, which would have been formalized later by Gregory Palamas. Others understand it as a hypostatic reality concerning the third Person of the Trinity. This paper contributes to the discussion by re-analyzing the main texts of Gregory of Cyprus and of Gregory Palamas on this matter. In a first step, we defend the thesis that in the thought of the Byzantine patriarch, this expression truly concerns the hypostasis of the Spirit. In a second step, we question the existence of the theme of an “eternal manifestation” of the uncreated energy in the work of Gregory Palamas.

Milton's Arianism Again Considered

1961 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 195-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maurice Kelley
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Paradise Lost ◽  
De Doctrina Christiana ◽  
Textual Interpretation ◽  
Nicene Creed ◽  
The Cost ◽  
The Trinity

Since 1825, when Bishop Sumner issued the first edition of John Milton's De Doctrina Christiana, the Arianism of that treatise has become an all but unanimously accepted fact. Although reviewers of Sumner's two quarto volumes divided in praising or lamenting Milton's tenets on the Trinity, they united in pronouncing them unorthodox and Arian; and later scholars have generally accepted this nineteenth-century verdict. In 1959, consequently, students of Milton were surprised when William B. Hunter, Jr., under the title “Milton's Arianism Reconsidered,” devoted some twenty-five pages to the argument that “we may assert positively that Milton was not an Arian” even though “modern judges are unanimous in branding him one.” And more recently, Roland M. Frye, praising Mr. Hunter's work, has gone on to state that “Milton could never be convicted, before a fair and competent theological court, of trinitarian heresy in Paradise Lost.” With these assertions of the orthodoxy of Milton and his epic I cannot agree; and at the cost of controversy with two close friends, I must argue 1) that Mr. Hunter is wrong in believing that Milton's view of the Son accords with that stated in the Nicene Creed; and 2) that Mr. Frye violates an established principle of textual interpretation when he denies the Arianism of Paradise Lost.

scholarly journals Lived Traumatic Childbirth Experiences of Newly Delivered Mothers Admitted to the Postpartum Ward: a Phenomenological Study

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sedigheh Abdollahpour ◽  
Zahra Motaghi
Keyword(s):  
Human Dignity ◽  
Phenomenological Study ◽  
Traumatic Event ◽  
Stressful Event ◽  
Clinical Experiences ◽  
Emotional Experiences ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Colaizzi's Method ◽  
Traumatic Childbirth

Introduction: Childbirth is a stressful event in every woman's life, leading to traumatic deliveries in half of the cases. This study aimed at describing mothers’ lived experiences which make them perceive their childbirth as traumatic. Methods: In this descriptive phenomenological study, based on the DSM-V-A criteria, 32 mothers who had perceptions of a traumatic event during their labor and delivery were explored through semi-structured interviews, and the collected data were analyzed using the Colaizzi’s method. Results: Four main themes could be extracted from the experiences of the mothers. The first theme was sensational and emotional experiences followed by clinical experiences, legal experiences and human dignity, and environmental experiences. The sensational and emotional experiences included four main categories (anxiety, fear, sorrow, anger). The theme of clinical experiences included two main categories (avoidable and unavoidable childbirth complications). The theme of legal experiences and human dignity included two main categories (non-observance of the charter of patient rights, and non-observance of human rights). The theme of environmental experiences also included two main categories (lack of proper supervision and management). Conclusion: To prevent traumatic childbirth and its negative effects, different psychological aspects of childbirth need to be identified.

Orthodox Theology in Dialogue with Human Rights: Some Considerations on Current Themes, Problems, and Perspectives

Exchange ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 382-398 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfons Brüning
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Russian Orthodox Church ◽  
Dead End ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approaches ◽  
Critical Issues ◽  
Orthodox Theology ◽  
The Public Sphere

The article explores several critical themes in the dialogue between Eastern Christian theology and the concept of Human Dignity and Rights. Despite the publication of a basic document on the issue by the Russian Orthodox Church in 2008 this dialogue currently has reached a dead end. There is some agreement with the Human Rights idea, but a mainstream among Orthodox theologians remains skeptical. Critical issues are to be found in divergent understandings of human dignity, and — more or less derived from that — in emphases on either ‘freedom’ or ‘morality’ as guiding principles structuring the system of law and the public sphere. As it is argued, existing antagonisms are not necessarily unbridgeable. Attempts to overcome existing divergences in recent times have been made both within the discourse about Human Right and from the part of Orthodox theology. To make use of such possibilities would require both interdisciplinary approaches and further reflection on how to translate spiritual terms into socio-political concepts.

Breathing with Both Lungs: The Uncreated Grace of the Holy Trinity in the Works of Karl Rahner and St Gregory Palamas

2021 ◽  
Vol 86 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-146
Author(s):  
Thomas Duncan
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Eastern Orthodox ◽  
Karl Rahner ◽  
14Th Century ◽  
Holy Trinity ◽  
East And West ◽  
Orthodox Theology ◽  
The Trinity ◽  
Scholastic Tradition

Eastern Orthodox theology in the 20th century experienced what has been referred to as a ‘Palamite renaissance,’ through a certain rediscovery of the works of the 14th-century archbishop and theologian, St Gregory Palamas. In the Christian West, 20th-century theology saw a great ‘return to the sources,’ among which Karl Rahner’s influential work played an important role in integrating elements of the scholastic tradition with that of the biblical and Greek patristic traditions. While there is a growing awareness and acceptance of Palamas’s teaching among Western scholars, many still view it as an incompatible obstacle to reconciliation between East and West. This article seeks to demonstrate that Karl Rahner’s work on grace and the Trinity, while remaining within its respective system and never mentioning Gregory Palamas, is at its heart identical to that of Palamas in several key areas, and that these two theologians may in fact provide a bridge for integrating the two traditions.

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