THE FALLEN WORLD OF CYCLICAL TIME:

2021 ◽  
pp. 143-178
Keyword(s):  
Open Theology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 299-308
Author(s):  
Raul-Ovidiu Bodea

Abstract In Berdyaev’s notion of freedom the borders between theology and philosophy seem to fall down. The same existential concern for spiritual freedom is at the heart of both theology and philosophy. From the point of view of existential philosophy as Berdyaev understands it, only a theologically informed account of freedom, could do justice to the concept of freedom. But a freedom determined by God is not what Berdyaev had in mind as representing authentic freedom. It was necessary for him to reinterpret Jakob Boehme’s concept of Ungrund to arrive at a notion of uncreated freedom that both God and man share. But the articulation of this freedom, and an account of it within our fallen world could only be done as a philosophical pursuit. To arrive at the authentic understanding of spiritual freedom, that is theologically informed, Berdyaev believes that a philosophical rejection of erroneous views of freedom should take place. The articulation of the notion of freedom that does justice to the complexity of the existential situation of both God and man is not for Berdyaev a purpose in itself. The purpose is the arrival at a non-objectified knowledge of freedom that would inform a theologically committed existential attitude.


1994 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 495-507 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve Pile

In Geography and the Human Spirit, Buttimer argues that the history of geographical concern is marked by cyclical time, which is distinguished by three phases: Phoenix, Faust, and Narcissus, By taking a longer look at one of these myths, Narcissus, it is possible to suggest that Buttimer bases her account on some problematic assumptions. Thus, the figure of Echo, absent from Buttimer's telling of the myth, can return to disrupt her story. This mytho-poetic assessment reveals something of the way in which ‘others’ are constituted in her story: I take this erasure to be symptomatic of an ‘othering’ humanism, which is predicated on the other, but considers itself self-grounded and thereby distances itself from others. The conclusion questions Buttimer's universalism, her concept of cyclical time, and her sense of a liberation cry of humanism, I suggest that an emancipatory geography cannot rely on undisclosed and marginalized ‘others’, in this case represented by the figure of Echo.


2019 ◽  
Vol 93 (2) ◽  
pp. 32-35
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Fifer
Keyword(s):  

2022 ◽  
pp. 147-162
Author(s):  
Kathleen French
Keyword(s):  

Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 60
Author(s):  
Signe Cohen

The Upaniṣads (ca. 800 BCE) were composed during a transitional time period in Hinduism when Vedic ritual and cosmogonic ideas began to give way to new worldviews. The intriguing Upaniṣadic notions of time have received little attention in the scholarly literature compared to the elaborate models of cyclical time that develop in later texts. I propose, however, that the Upaniṣads represent a seminal reorientation in Hindu conceptions of time. We still find an older view of time in the Upaniṣads as something that marks the rhythms of the ritual year, but later Upaniṣadic texts begin to explore entirely new ways of thinking about time. I propose that the movement away from the more integrated view of the material and immaterial as one reality in the Vedas towards a radical dualism between the spiritual and the material in later Hindu thought informs many of the new ideas of time that emerge in the Upaniṣads, including that of time as an abstract construct. The authors of the Upaniṣads investigate—and ultimately reject—the notion of time itself as the cause of the visible world, ponder the idea that time is something that is created by a divine being in order to structure the world, speculate that time may be a mere intellectual construct, and postulate that the highest reality may be situated in a realm that is outside of time altogether.


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