Calvinism and Humanism: The First Generation

1975 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert D. Linder

The nature of the relationship between the Renaissance and the Reformation has intrigued historians of both the past and the present. Recently a number of noted scholars have attempted to demonstrate the connection between the two movements with varying degrees of success. Historians seem to have marshalled an impressive and growing body of evidence to show the direct relationship between the advent of humanism and the coming of the Lutheran Reformation, even though the exact nature of this relationship has not yet been clarified in a definitive manner. But in the case of humanism and Calvinism no consensus has been reached concerning this problem; consequently, the situation is still in doubt. The purpose of this study is to enhance the historical understanding of the connection between humanism and Calvinism by a fresh analysis of the life and thought of three important first generation leaders of the Reformed church, namely, John Calvin, Theodore Beza and Pierre Viret. Moreover, new evidence on the subject from the career of Viret, the least known but nevertheless a very important member of this Calvinist trinity, will be presented to demonstrate more clearly the positive and direct link between humanism and Calvinism in the formative years of the Reformation.

Ecclesiology ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-52
Author(s):  
John P. Bradbury

This article traces the continuities and discontinuities in the idea of individual conscience and its relationship to ecclesial authority from the Reformation period to the present day. It does this with particular reference to the Reformed theological tradition, particularly the British non-conformist traditions that today form the United Reformed Church. Through an engagement with John Calvin, William Ames, confessional texts and later thinkers, key shifts in the understanding of conscience, from being informed by revelation within the context of the Church, to the more contemporary individual subjective model are explored. An account of the place of conscience within the union negotiations that brought the URC into existence is offered based on archival material. It is argued that the shift of understandings of freedom of conscience to the secular political realm, opens up a specifically ecclesiological space in which the relationship between individual conscience and ecclesial authority has been, and can be, reconceived.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (12) ◽  
pp. 6222
Author(s):  
Kacper Szewczyk ◽  
Aleksandra Chojnacka ◽  
Magdalena Górnicka

Tocopherols and tocotrienols are natural compounds of plant origin, available in the nature. They are supplied in various amounts in a diet, mainly from vegetable oils, some oilseeds, and nuts. The main forms in the diet are α- and γ-tocopherol, due to the highest content in food products. Nevertheless, α-tocopherol is the main form of vitamin E with the highest tissue concentration. The α- forms of both tocopherols and tocotrienols are considered as the most metabolically active. Currently, research results indicate also a greater antioxidant potential of tocotrienols than tocopherols. Moreover, the biological role of vitamin E metabolites have received increasing interest. The aim of this review is to update the knowledge of tocopherol and tocotrienol bioactivity, with a particular focus on their bioavailability, distribution, and metabolism determinants in humans. Almost one hundred years after the start of research on α-tocopherol, its biological properties are still under investigation. For several decades, researchers’ interest in the biological importance of other forms of vitamin E has also been growing. Some of the functions, for instance the antioxidant functions of α- and γ-tocopherols, have been confirmed in humans, while others, such as the relationship with metabolic disorders, are still under investigation. Some studies, which analyzed the biological role and mechanisms of tocopherols and tocotrienols over the past few years described new and even unexpected cellular and molecular properties that will be the subject of future research.


1987 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 295-299 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marleen Pugach ◽  
Mara Sapon-Shevin

The calls for educational reform that have dominated the professional and lay literature for the past few years have been decidedly silent in discussing the role of special education either as a contributor or a solution to the problems being raised. As an introduction to this “Special Focus” on the relationship between general educational reform and special education, this article summarizes some of the more prominent reports with regard to their treatment (and nontreatment) of special education. The impact of proposed reforms for the conceptualization and operation of special education is the subject of the five articles that follow.


1974 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 5-7

During the past forty years the dominant preoccupation of scholars writing on Livy has been the relationship between the historian and the emperor Augustus, and its effects on the Ab Urbe Condita. Tacitus’ testimony that the two were on friendly terms, and Suetonius’ revelation that Livy found time to encourage the historical studies of the future emperor Claudius, appeared to have ominous overtones to scholars writing against the political backcloth of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Though the subject had not been wholly ignored previously, the success of the German cultural propaganda-machine stimulated a spate of approving or critical treatments. While some were hailing Livy as the historian whose work signalled and glorified the new order, others following a similar interpretation were markedly scathing.


During the past thirty years our knowledge of the mechanism of morphogenesis has been pushed further forward in the case of the amphibia than in that, perhaps, of any other developmental type. More recently, the facts which have been established by the experimental embryologists have become the subject of biochemical experimentation. The general upshot has been a realization of the extremely close relationships which exist between normal metabolic processes and normal morphogenesis, especially as reagards the formation of the primary neural axis in which the action of the evocator in the dorsal lip of the blastopore is involved. A knowledge of the metabolic processes normally preceding and accompanying the liberation of the primary evocator in the dorsal lip of the blastopore will evidently give us a clearer picture of the exact nature of the connextion between metabolism and morphogenesis in the gastrula. A morphogenetic hormone, the effect of which must surely be the ordering of protein molecules in cell and tissue architecture, does not arise from nowhere; it has a metabolic origin and metabolic relationships.


2009 ◽  
Vol 21 (10) ◽  
pp. 2755-2773 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yonatan Loewenstein ◽  
Drazen Prelec ◽  
H. Sebastian Seung

Over the past several decades, economists, psychologists, and neuroscientists have conducted experiments in which a subject, human or animal, repeatedly chooses between alternative actions and is rewarded based on choice history. While individual choices are unpredictable, aggregate behavior typically follows Herrnstein's matching law: the average reward per choice is equal for all chosen alternatives. In general, matching behavior does not maximize the overall reward delivered to the subject, and therefore matching appears inconsistent with the principle of utility maximization. Here we show that matching can be made consistent with maximization by regarding the choices of a single subject as being made by a sequence of multiple selves—one for each instant of time. If each self is blind to the state of the world and discounts future rewards completely, then the resulting game has at least one Nash equilibrium that satisfies both Herrnstein's matching law and the unpredictability of individual choices. This equilibrium is, in general, Pareto suboptimal, and can be understood as a mutual defection of the multiple selves in an intertemporal prisoner's dilemma. The mathematical assumptions about the multiple selves should not be interpreted literally as psychological assumptions. Human and animals do remember past choices and care about future rewards. However, they may be unable to comprehend or take into account the relationship between past and future. This can be made more explicit when a mechanism that converges on the equilibrium, such as reinforcement learning, is considered. Using specific examples, we show that there exist behaviors that satisfy the matching law but are not Nash equilibria. We expect that these behaviors will not be observed experimentally in animals and humans. If this is the case, the Nash equilibrium formulation can be regarded as a refinement of Herrnstein's matching law.


1932 ◽  
Vol 78 (320) ◽  
pp. 12-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. M. Ford-Robertson

The subject of this thesis is the outcome of what might be termed a hereditary interest in the complex problem of the relationship of chronic infections to the psychoses and allied mental disorders. Circumstances enabled me, while still a student, to undertake very humbly the continuation of my father's researches in the Scottish Asylums' Laboratory at a point where his illness and death might have proved the closing of a long and arduous chapter. That this would have been so is, as far as I know, borne out by the fact that up to the present no work directly bearing on his later bacteriological studies has been published. The researches I have undertaken during the past six years have been an attempt to elucidate more clearly what exactly are the bacteriological factors at work, and, further, in what manner they attack the economy generally, and with what result. In my endeavour to verify and extend Ford-Robertson's views I have been singularly fortunate.


1941 ◽  
Vol 145 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. H. Johnson

After dealing briefly with the historical and general aspects of the subject, the author touches on the disposition of lifeboats round the coast and the factors which govern this distribution. Details of the boats themselves and their equipment are not given, but the paper concentrates on the difficulties involved, and the methods and equipment employed, in launching from the beach. Certain difficult beach conditions have been met by mounting the 11 tons of lifeboat and carriage on track units of the rigid girder type. Reference is made to the wheels employed in launching lighter boats in the past. Excessive rolling resistance made these wheels impracticable for soft beaches. The relationship between rolling resistance and the width and diameter of steel-tyred wheels is given, together with a description of the girdled wheels devised some forty years ago by Commander Gartside-Tipping, R.N. The development and construction of the girder track units now employed in place of wheels is fully dealt with. The method of launching a lifeboat by tractor is described, and shows how necessary are extreme reliability and watertightness in the tractor employed. The lifeboat “roadless” tractor is then described in detail and particulars given of the methods by which it is made waterproof. Special mention is made of gear for extracting the tractor from quicksand or mud pockets, and a résumé is given of the experience gained in this direction with tanks during the war of 1914–18. An alternative method to that adopted for waterproofing the tractor is referred to. A summary is provided of the submergence and other tests to which the tractor is subjected and of the special precautions which are taken in service to prevent trouble arising from internal corrosion due to condensation. The paper closes with the possible applications in other directions of the experience gained with the machinery described.


2013 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
pp. 156-167
Author(s):  
Susan Royal

The late medieval prophetic tradition played a significant role in how John Bale (1495–1563), England’s first Protestant church historian, formulated his ideas about the nature of revelation, which would become a contentious issue in the course of the Reformation. It is the goal of this essay to examine this first-generation evangelical’s views, which will bring us closer to understanding prophecy and its legitimacy in Reformation-era Europe. In an influential essay, Richard Southern illustrates the important role of the prophetical tradition in premodern historical writing: ‘Prophecy filled the world-picture, past, present, and future; and it was the chief inspiration of all historical thinking.’ But while its significance is easy to pinpoint, the varied nature of prophetic revelation does not make for easy delineations or definitions. Southern names four types of prophecy in the Middle Ages: biblical (Daniel, Revelation); pagan (sibylline); Christian (such as that of Hildegard of Bingen); and astrological (stars and celestial events). Of course, even these are not clearly distinct categories; Southern notes that Merlin is ‘half-Christian, half-pagan’. Lesley Coote points out that the ‘subject of political prophecy is king, people and nation’, separating this from theological, apocalyptic prophecy, though she also asserts that the two are closely related. Bernard McGinn remarks that in the later Middle Ages, prophecy is ‘seen as a divinatory or occasionally reformative activity – the prophet as the man who foretells the future, or the one who seeks to correct a present situation in the light of an ideal past or glorious future’.


2021 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 11-32
Author(s):  
Iker Samper Ayape

Tras los acontecimientos bélicos que asolaron el mundo durante el siglo XX, en concreto, a partid de 1980, aumento el interés y el acercamiento teórico sobre el pasado y la memoria. Partiendo de ello, la cuestión a tratar en el presente trabajo es: qué características tiene nuestro presente y cómo esto determina algunas formas de acceso al pasado. Para luego preguntarnos sobre la relación que se establece con los memoriales, es decir, en qué medida el contexto o condiciones del sujeto mediatizan su relación con la memoria. Dado que la reflexión acerca de la memoria puede estar condicionada por las características propias de nuestro contexto: aceleración social. El acercamiento que puede tener un sujeto perteneciente a las generaciones más alejadas de lo acontecido en el siglo XX difiere mucho de la relación que pueden tener aquellos que vivieron el suceso o las consecuencias de una forma más inmediata. Por ello, debemos preguntarnos: ¿Hemos -sobre todo las generaciones más jóvenes- volcado la memoria y el conocimiento en objetos externos a los que recurrir y de esa manera no llevar el peso y poder adaptarnos al contexto actual? Estos objetos portadores de la memoria y conocimiento, como las imágenes, internet, o los memoriales, etc. ¿Están sólo bajo una lógica del consumo inmediato?, o ¿es el tipo de uso más potenciado? ¿Qué relación establecemos con los memoriales? Monumentos creados con el fin de recordar. After the warlike events that devastated the world during the 20th century, specifically, from 1980, interest and the theoretical approach on the past and memory increased. Starting from this, the question to be dealt with in the present work is: what characteristics does our present have and how this determines some forms of access to the past. To then ask ourselves about the relationship that is established with memorials, that is, to what extent the context or conditions of the subject mediate his relationship with memory. Since the reflection on memory can be conditioned by the characteristics of our context: social acceleration. The approach that a subject belonging to the generations furthest away from what happened in the twentieth century may have differs greatly from the relationship that those who experienced the event or the consequences can have in a more immediate way. For this reason, we must ask ourselves: Have we - especially the younger generations - turned memory and knowledge into external objects to turn to and thus not carry the weight and be able to adapt to the current context? These objects that carry memory and knowledge, such as images, the internet, or memorials, etc. Are they only under a logic of immediate consumption? Or is it the most enhanced type of use? What relationship do we establish with the memorials? Monuments created in order to remember.


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