scholarly journals SOME ASPECTS OF THE CONTROVERSIAL NEXUS BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-44
Author(s):  
Alexandru-Corneliu ARION ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Orthodox Christian ◽  
Creation Theology ◽  
The World ◽  
Ex Nihilo ◽  
Doctrine Of Creation

The present paper takes into consideration a few aspects related to the relation between the two disputed domains of knowledge: science and religion. After having pointed out the main eight warfare and nonwarfare models of interaction between science and religion, the study focuses on the motives of Eastern and Western Christianity breach, which resides on the very different attitude to Science and Nature. The main part of depicting the nexus between the two fields of research is focusing on the doctrine of creation, the one Christian theology truly revolutionized. The Christian Weltanschauung was so new in comparison with Greek cosmology that it had to raise new questions and make radical modifications, especially regarding the understanding of space and time. The Fathers of the Orthodox Church were happy to use the science and philosophy of their time in their theological thinking. However, they did not pursue a natural theology in the sense the term is often now understood based on scholastic theology. According to the Orthodox understanding, the intellect provides not knowledge about the creation but rather a direct apprehension or spiritual perception of the divine Logos (Word) incarnate in Christ, and of the inner essences or principles (logoi) of the cosmos components created by that Logos. The arguments of Orthodox Christian theology proof that the quantum universe was created out of nothing and that it is kept in existence only by God's relationship with creation through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. In relation to itself, the universe is reduced to nothing, because God is in Himself, while any other created thing is dependent upon Him, into an indissoluble connection with Him. According to creation theology, God gives the world its rational, intelligible structure as described by the laws of nature through the transcendent and eternal act of bringing the world into existence ex nihilo. As immanent creator, God also continues to create (creatio continua) and providentially direct processes and events towards their consummation in the eschaton. Overall, there is a poignant reason for keeping science and religion together once “science without religion is lame and religion without science is blind” (Einstein).

Divine Creation

2018 ◽  
pp. 127-141
Author(s):  
William J. Abraham
Keyword(s):  
Natural Theology ◽  
Natural Evil ◽  
Empirical Inquiry ◽  
The World ◽  
Triune God ◽  
The Face ◽  
Devotional Life ◽  
Ex Nihilo ◽  
Doctrine Of Creation

The Triune God created everything there is ex nihilo. This represents a move beyond Scripture but compatible with Scripture. This doctrine is not just a fitting exegetical and theological decision based on Scripture, but is a true judgment. Because God is a transcendent agent and given the kind of attributes God has, God can create the world ex nihilo. The doctrine of creation ex nihilo was hammered out in the patristic period in opposition to Gnosticism. This doctrine is compatible with the findings of science, but theology should not adopt an apologetic enterprise against the advances of scientific, empirical inquiry. It is important for a balanced devotional life and applies across the board to everything that exists, including angels. It allows also space for the development of natural theology and for efforts to provide a credible theodicy in the face of moral and natural evil.

Experiencing the Spirit

2020 ◽  
pp. 48-79
Author(s):  
Simeon Zahl
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Systematic Theology ◽  
Emotional Impact ◽  
Temporal Specificity ◽  
The World ◽  
The Holy Spirit

This chapter argues that a constructive recovery of the category of “experience” in Christian theology is best accomplished through the lens of the theology of the Holy Spirit. Thinking about experience in terms of the work of the Holy Spirit helps specify what we mean when we talk about Christian “experience,” while also avoiding the problems that arise in appeals to more general concepts of “religious experience.” The chapter shows how a pneumatologically informed theology of experience draws attention to a problematic tendency towards abstraction and disembodiment in much modern systematic theology. It then argues that the work of the Spirit is likely to take forms that are “practically recognizable” in the lives of Christians in the world, exhibiting temporal specificity as well as affective and emotional impact, and that pneumatologies that cannot take account of such practically recognizable effects are deficient.

The Spirit in creation

2014 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
David T. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Direct Action ◽  
External Action ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Discrete Elements ◽  
Second Person ◽  
The World ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
The Creation

AbstractThe result of the Arian controversy was the affirmation of the total equality of the trinitarian persons. This led to the realisation that all three persons of the Trinity are involved in every external action of God. Despite this, the role of the Holy Spirit in creation has not been clear, partly due to few specific references in the creation narratives. However, it may be suggested that the Spirit does not act in the creation of matter, which is the role of the second person, but in the provision of the underlying form and order necessary for very existence, and specifically for the dynamic interaction which is of the essence of life, as in the second account of the creation of the man (Gen 2). This reflects the fact that the action of the Spirit is also essential in salvation to link Christ's work on the cross to the believer. While separation is a feature of the Genesis creation narrative, this is balanced by the interrelating of what had been created.So, although Christian theology has commonly seen the world as ‘spirit’-less, restricting the action of the Holy Spirit to the church, this would be understood as referring to the limitation of his direct action. His immanent presence is nevertheless essential in all for very existence. The Spirit is not in the world, but underlies it.Creation may be seen as a theistic act, by transcendent intervention to give matter, and giving interaction in immanent presence. The nature of the world therefore reflects the theistic nature of God, involving both distinction and relating. Indeed it then reflects the trinitarian nature of the creator, in which the persons maintain their absolute distinction at the same time as their total equality through the interaction of perichōrēsis, specifically enabled by the action of the Spirit as generating and undergirding relationship. The parallel between the created and the creator is seen especially insofar as the discrete elements of matter interrelate to give form and interaction.It is in their interaction that the elements of creation fulfil their purpose, and so specifically that humanity reflects its nature as created in imago Dei.

scholarly journals The invention of reality

2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 428-440
Author(s):  
Viktor S. Levytskyy ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Integral Image ◽  
One Dimensional ◽  
Universal Principles ◽  
The World ◽  
Scientific Mind ◽  
The Subject

The subject of the article is the process of forming ideas about the world as reality, which is most accurately described by the word “invention”. The author, relying on classical texts in this respect (E. Husserl, M. Heidegger) and modern studies (A. Makushinsky, J.-F. Kurtin) substantiates the position according to which the idea of reality is not a cultural invariant. The notion that reality has always existed, and thanks to scientific reason has been most adequately reflected, understood and described, is a significant modernization. This has been evidenced by both the etymology of the concepts of “reality” and “reality”, which first appeared only in scholasticism (D. Scotus, M. Eckhart), and the process of their content filling, which is inextricably linked with the formation of scientific rationality. The article shows that both the scientific mind and the integral image of the world created by it, which we call reality, genetically date back to the Christian value-semantic universe. Initially, it was within the framework of the discourse of natural theology that the image of the autonomous world has been conceptualized, developing according to the universal principles established by God. In the first scientific programs (R. Descartes, G. Galilei, I. Newton), these ideas were continued, as a result of which the world began to be understood as an immanent reality that is subject to the laws of nature. The new ontological beliefs received the ultimate philosophical foundation in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, to whom the phenomenal world exhausts the reality available to man. Accordingly, the world turns into a one-dimensional detranscendentalized reality. This methodological approach allows the author to make the following conclusions: 1) the image of world “reality” is a rather modern “invention”, which was unknown in previous eras; 2) at the same time, it is genetically connected with the Christian semantic universe, outside of which it could not appear; 3) the world in it is understood as a one-dimensional immanent reality.

Towards a Theology of Nature

1964 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-145
Author(s):  
W. A. Whitehouse
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Systematic Theology ◽  
Evolutionary Aspect ◽  
Physical Universe ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject

The phrase ‘a theology of nature’ is an abbreviation for ‘a theological account of natural happenings’—happenings which are properly investigated in the first instance by appropriate ‘natural sciences’. A Christian theology of nature seeks to provide a systematic appreciation of the physical universe, its items and occurrences, from a Christian theological point of view. If it is to rank as a serious contribution to human wisdom, it must be a disciplined effort to understand in appropriate terms the object of interest. One version of the discipline would be to produce an extension of the natural sciences, to cover topics—God, freedom, immortality—which fall outside their scope by a ‘metaphysical’ science which links these topics to the subject-matter of natural sciences in a theoretical account of ‘being as such’. This would have the effect of reintroducing ‘Natural Theology’, reshaped and revitalised, into the fabric of Christian systematic theology. This project is not being advocated in this article. It is mentioned solely in order to distinguish the present topic, a ‘theology of nature’, from what is traditionally known as ‘natural theology’. The purpose of this article is to explore afresh the structure of Christian intellectual response to the wonder of the world, as it is now being analysed by science, with particular attention to the ‘evolutionary’ aspect of things, appreciation of which has radically affected modern sensibility.

Creatio ex nihiloin Palestinian Judaism and Early Christianity

2012 ◽  
Vol 65 (3) ◽  
pp. 253-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus Bockmuehl
Keyword(s):  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Genesis 1 ◽  
Creatio Ex Nihilo ◽  
Ex Nihilo ◽  
Doctrine Of Creation ◽  
Roman Antiquity ◽  
Hellenistic Philosophy ◽  
Creation Of Matter

AbstractRecent decades have witnessed a near-consensus of critical opinion (1) that the idea of God's creation of matter ‘out of nothing’ is not affirmed in scripture, but instead (2) originated in a second-century Christian reaction against Gnosticism's convictions about matter as evil and creation as the work of an inferior Demiurge. (3) Judaism's interest, by contrast, was generally deemed late and philosophically derivative or epiphenomenal upon Christian ideas. This essay re-examines all three convictions with particular reference to the biblical creation accounts in Palestinian Jewish reception. After highlighting certain interpretative features in the ancient versions of Genesis 1, this study explores the reception of such ideas in texts like the Dead Sea Scrolls and early rabbinic literature. It is clear that the typically cited proof texts from biblical or deutero-canonical books indeed do not yield clear confirmation of the doctrine they have sometimes been said to prove. Genesis was understood even in antiquity to be somewhat ambiguous on this point, and merely to say that creation gave shape to formlessness need not entail anycreatio ex nihilo. This much seems uncontroversial. Nevertheless, closer examination also shows that the Scrolls and the rabbis do consistently affirm Israel's God as the creator ofallthings, explicitly including matter itself. Graeco-Roman antiquity axiomatically accepted that ‘nothing comes from nothing’, which also meant the pre-existence of matter. To be sure, the conceptual terminology of ‘nothingness’ came relatively late to Christians, and even later to Jews. Yet the substantive concern for God's free creation of the world without recourse to pre-existing matter is repeatedly affirmed in pre-Christian Jewish texts, and constitutes perhaps the single most important building block for the emergence of an explicit doctrine of ‘creation out of nothing’. In its Jewish and Christian origins, therefore, the idea ofcreatio ex nihiloaffirms creation's comprehensive contingency on the Creator's sovereignty and freedom. This in fact is a point which has been rightly and repeatedly accented in both historic and modern Christian theology on this subject (e.g. by K. Barth and E. Brunner, J. Moltmann and C. Gunton). Well before its explicit articulation in dialogue with Hellenistic philosophy, the doctrine of God's creation of all matter was rooted in biblical texts and their Jewish interpretation, which in turn came to be refined and enriched through Christian–Jewish dialogue and controversy.

scholarly journals Pneumatology and Politics: The role of the Holy Spirit in the articulation of an Orthodox political theology

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 184-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikolaos Asproulis
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Young Generation ◽  
Critical Dialogue ◽  
Orthodox Christian ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual

Abstract In this paper an attempt is made to discuss the importance of the Holy Spirit in the development of an Orthodox political theology, by bringing into critical dialogue the recent contributions of two of the most known Orthodox theologians of the young generation, namely A. Papanikolaou and P. Kalaitzidis. It is commonly recognized that the Holy Spirit is closely related both to the very “constitution of the whole Church” in virtue of the Eucharistic event, as well as to the everyday charismatic lives of individual Christians due to the various forms or stages of ascetism. In this respect a careful comparative examination of these two important works, would highlight some invaluable elements (Eucharistic perspective, eschatological orientation, historical commitment, ethical action, open and critical dialogue with modernity etc.) toward a formulation of a comprehensive and urgently necessary political theology. This sort of political theology should have inevitable implications for the Christian perception of the communal and the individual ecclesial life. This “theo-political” program proposed by the two thinkers and founded on a robust Pneumatology, could be perfectly included, following the apostolic kerygma and the patristic ethos, into a new way of doing (Orthodox) Christian theology, that takes as its starting point the grammar of the self-Revelation of God in the ongoing history of salvation (“Church and World Dogmatics”).

Philo of Alexandria (c.15 BC–c. AD 50)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David T. Runia
Keyword(s):  
Natural Theology ◽  
Philo Of Alexandria ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
Jewish Thought ◽  
Genesis 1 ◽  
Ex Nihilo ◽  
Doctrine Of Creation ◽  
Allegorical Interpretation ◽  
Human Intellect

Philo of Alexandria is the leading representative of Hellenistic-Jewish thought. Despite an unwavering loyalty to the religious and cultural traditions of his Jewish community, he was also strongly attracted to Greek philosophy, in which he received a thorough training. His copious writings – in Greek – are primarily exegetical, expounding the books of Moses. This reflects his apologetic strategy of presenting the Jewish lawgiver Moses as the sage and philosopher par excellence, recipient of divine inspiration, but not at the expense of his human rational faculties. In his commentaries Philo makes extensive use of the allegorical method earlier developed by the Stoics. Of contemporary philosophical movements, Philo is most strongly attracted to Platonism. His method is basically eclectic, but with a clear rationale focused on the figure of Moses. Philo’s thought is strongly theocentric. God is conceived in terms of being. God’s essence is unreachable for human knowledge (negative theology), but his existence should be patent to all (natural theology). Knowledge of God is attained through his powers and, above all, through his Logos (‘Word’ or ‘Reason’), by means of which he stands in relation to what comes after him. In his doctrine of creation Philo leans heavily on Platonist conceptions drawn from reflection on Plato’s Timaeus. The conception of a creation ex nihilo (‘from nothing’) is not yet consciously worked out. Philo’s doctrine of human nature favours the two anthropological texts in Genesis 1–2, interpreting creation ‘according to the image’ in relation to the human intellect. With regard to ethics, both Stoic concepts and peculiarly Jewish themes emerge in Philo’s beliefs. Ethical ideals are prominent in the allegorical interpretation of the biblical patriarchs. Philo’s influence was almost totally confined to the Christian tradition, which preserved his writings. He was unknown to medieval Jewish thinkers such as Maimonides.

Creation and Religious Pluralism

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Cheetham
Keyword(s):  
Religious Pluralism ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Theology Of Religions ◽  
The Public ◽  
Creatio Ex Nihilo ◽  
Ex Nihilo ◽  
Doctrine Of Creation ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Religious Other

In the well-worn debates about religious pluralism and the theology of religions there have been many different rubrics used to account for, comprehend, or engage with the religious other. This book is chiefly a work of Christian theology and seeks to bring the doctrine of creation and the theology of religions into dialogue and in so doing it comes at things from a different direction than other works. It contains an extensive exploration of the doctrine of creation and asks how it might intervene distinctively in these discourses to produce a new conceptual and practical topography. It will consider interreligious engagement from the perspective of the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo that forms the dominant view in the Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions. In the course of the book’s narrative, there will be close consideration given to anthropology (i.e. creaturehood), the quotidian and wisdom, the idea of ‘sabbath’, human action, and work, and vivifying the immanent through a consideration of some representative phenomenologists. The book will develop these ideas in a more practical direction by considering sacraments and rituals in the public sphere as well as attempting to describe the kind of ‘creational politics’ that might bring traditions into dialogue. Whilst these themes will challenge more conventional ways of considering relations between religions, such themes—because they are different from concerns commonly found in the literature—can also be profitably engaged with across the spectrum of opinion (i.e. exclusivist or pluralist etc.). Thus, whilst the position adopted in this work is creatio ex nihilo, part of the motivation is to review the ways in which this focus helps to broaden rather than limit the discussion.

Natural Theology and Natural Law in Martin Luther

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Knut Alfsvåg
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Medieval Theology ◽  
Natural Knowledge ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
Creative Power ◽  
The World ◽  
Correct Understanding ◽  
Gospel Message

For Luther, the understanding of the world is determined by his theology of creation, according to which the world is created as an expression of the creative love of the eternal God. Natural theology, then, is the ability to interpret all created phenomena as gifts of the Creator, and natural law is the ability to align one’s life with this principle of lovingly serving everything created. However, in a sinful world afflictions and anxiety makes it impossible to maintain an attitude of unconditional trust toward God based on natural reason. In spite of the possibility of reaching a fairly correct understanding of God as the giver of gifts, one will therefore never learn through natural reason alone to trust God as one’s savior. The re-creation of a trusting attitude toward God is only possible through God’s presence in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The creative power of the gospel message thus entails the rediscovery of the significance of the natural knowledge of God and morality. A full appreciation of the natural is therefore dependent on having one’s trust in God re-established by an action of unconditional divine love. From within this perspective, natural law retains its traditional and positive significance. In this way, Luther integrates aspects of late medieval theology without being fully aligned with any of its prevailing schools of thought. Like the nominalists, he understands God as activity, not as substance, but not in the sense that God can be seen as arbitrary. For Luther, the trustworthiness of God’s promises is what anchors Christian theology. Luther’s understanding of the hidden God is therefore quite different from the nominalist idea of God’s absolute power. For Luther, theology’s dialogue with philosophy is important. He maintains, however, that rationality that is not explicitly grounded in a theology of creation will never develop an adequate worldview. Following his emphasis on the theology of creation, in his evaluation of the natural Luther was always looking for thought structures that would let the discontinuity of grace be fully appreciated.

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