scholarly journals Evil and Meaningful Existence: A Humanistic Response through the Lens of Classical Theism

2021 ◽  
pp. 120-129
Author(s):  
Bonaventure B. Gubazire
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Spiritual Guidance ◽  
Human Suffering ◽  
Attitudinal Change ◽  
Classical Theism ◽  
God's Love ◽  
Meaningful Existence

This study modestly proposes a humanistic response as supplementary to classical theism in addressing concrete cases of gratuitous human suffering. Classical theism places evil in God’s divine plan of salvation for humanity. There is thus a good reason behind human suffering. However, there are times when suffering is so intense and dehumanising that any attempt to justify it in terms of God’s love for humanity fails to make sense in the lives of most people. It is at this point that a humanistic response, coupled with spiritual guidance, becomes relevant. A humanistic response expresses itself through an African ethical theory and practice known as Ubuntu. It pivots on key human values such as love, compassion, trust, consideration, dialogue, forgiveness, solidarity, justice as equity, etc. It is in a spirit of togetherness that most existential challenges can be squarely faced to make human life more meaningful. Ultimately, a humanistic response recommends a change of attitude towards human suffering. Suffering should be seen as part of what it means to Be in this finite world, and that it is in one’s struggle towards the heights that one finds a sense in living. Keywords: Evil, Classical Theism, Humanistic Response (Ubuntu), Attitudinal Change.

scholarly journals Dari Teodisi dan Antropodisi Menuju Teo-antropodisi: Mengasihi Allah dan Sesama di Tengah Pandemi COVID-19

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony Wiyaret Fangidae
Keyword(s):  
Social Economic ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Social Solidarity ◽  
Human Suffering ◽  
New Name ◽  
God's Love ◽  
The World ◽  
Religious Aspect

Penderitaan merupakan realitas yang tak terelakkan. Kali ini, dunia berhadapan dengan pandemi COVID-19 yang menyebabkan penderitaan di beberapa aspek kehidupan manusia seperti kesehatan, sosial, ekonomi, psikologis, hingga religius. Polemik ini menghantar kita pada diskusi seputar teodisi. Teodisi merupakan paradigma yang digunakan Leibniz untuk membela kemahabaikan dan kemahakuasaan Allah di hadapan realitas penderitaan, tetapi teodisi cenderung berhenti pada ranah teori tanpa praktik. Sontag mengusung paradigma antropodisi dalam wujud solidaritas sosial yang mengedepankan praktik untuk mengkritik teodisi yang terlampau abstrak dalam membela Allah tanpa mempedulikan penderitaan manusia. Antropodisi tampaknya terlalu sosialis dan cenderung berpegang pada kemampuan manusia, sehingga mengeksklusi aspek religius dalam solidaritas sosial. Levinas merespons kegelisahan ini dengan mengusung teodisi etis. Paradigma teodisi etis digunakan Levinas untuk memperlihatkan kehadiran Allah melalui manusia yang bertanggung jawab terhadap penderitaan sesamanya. Artikel ini mengusulkan nama, pemaknaan, dan pengembangan baru terhadap teodisi etis, yaitu teo-antropodisi. Teo-antropodisi merupakan paradigma yang merangkul teodisi sekaligus antropodisi. Teo-antropodisi berusaha membuktikan kasih Allah bukan dengan pembelaan ala Leibniz yang melulu berteori atau bukan semata-mata solidaritas sosial ala Sontag yang mengedepankan praktik. Teo-antropodisi mengorelasikan teori dan praktik tersebut sama seperti iman (teodisi), tanpa perbuatan (antropodisi) adalah mati. Teo-antropodisi berfondasikan prinsip “mengasihi Allah dengan segenap hati, jiwa dan akal budi” serta “mengasihi sesama manusia seperti diri sendiri.” Suffering is an inevitable reality. This time, the world is dealing with a COVID-19 pandemic that causes suffering in several aspects of human life such as health, social, economic, psychological, and religious. This polemic leads us to a discussion around theodicy. Theodicy is a paradigm Leibniz used to defend God's benevolence and omnipotence in front of the reality of suffering, but the theories tend to stop in the realm of theory without practice. Sontag carries the paradigm of anthropodicy in the form of social solidarity that promotes the practice of criticizing the overly abstract theodicy in defense of God regardless of human suffering. Anthropodicy seems to be too socialist and tend to hold on to human abilities, thus excluding the religious aspect in social solidarity. Levinas responded to this anxiety by carrying an ethical theodicy. The ethical theodicy paradigm is used by Levinas to demonstrate God's presence through humans who took responsibility for alleviating the suffering of his neighbor. This article proposes a new name, meaning, and development of ethical theodicy, namely theo-anthropodicy. Theo-anthropodicy is a paradigm that embraces both theodicy as well as anthropodicy. Theo-anthropodicy seeks to prove God's love neither with Leibniz-style defenses that merely theorize nor with Sontag-style social solidarity that merely promotes practices. Theo-anthropodicy correlates these theories and practices in the same way that faith (theodicy), without action (anthropodicy) is dead. Theo-anthropodicy is  based on the principles of "loving God with all your heart, soul and mind" and "loving others as yourself."  

Ważyk metafizyczny? / Ważyk – A Metaphysician?

2013 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-47
Author(s):  
Jerzy Święch
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Late Phase ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Strict Sense ◽  
Ontological Security ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Self Sufficiency

Summary Adam Ważyk’s last volume of poems Zdarzenia (Events) (1977) can be read as a resume of the an avant-garde artist’s life that culminated in the discovery of a new truth about the human condition. The poems reveal his longing for a belief that human life, the mystery of life and death, makes sense, ie. that one’s existence is subject to the rule of some overarching necessity, opened onto the last things, rather than a plaything of chance. That entails a rejection of the idea of man’s self-sufficiency as an illusion, even though that kind of individual sovereignty was the cornerstone of modernist art. The art of late modernity, it may be noted, was already increasingly aware of the dangers of putting man’s ‘ontological security’ at risk. Ważyk’s last volume exemplifies this tendency although its poems appear to remain within the confines of a Cubist poetics which he himself helped to establish. In fact, however, as our readings of the key poems from Events make clear, he employs his accustomed techniques for a new purpose. The shift of perspective can be described as ‘metaphysical’, not in any strict sense of the word, but rather as a shorthand indicator of the general mood of these poems, filled with events which seem to trap the characters into a supernatural order of things. The author sees that much, even though he does not look with the eye of a man of faith. It may be just a game - and Ważyk was always fond of playing games - but in this one the stakes are higher than ever. Ultimately, this game is about salvation. Ważyk is drawn into it by a longing for the wholeness of things and a dissatisfaction with all forms of mediation, including the Cubist games of deformation and fragmentation of the object. It seems that the key to Ważyk’s late phase is to be found in his disillusionment with the twentieth-century avant-gardes. Especially the poems of Events contain enough clues to suggest that the promise of Cubism and surrealism - which he sought to fuse in his poetic theory and practice - was short-lived and hollow.

Metaphorical and Literal Groundings

2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 335-352
Author(s):  
Anna Cook ◽  
Bonnie Sheehey ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Ethical Standard ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Ethical Responsibility ◽  
Land Ethic ◽  
Indigenous Knowledges ◽  
Indigenous Philosophy ◽  
Ethical Approaches

Accounts of grounded normativity in Indigenous philosophy can be used to challenge the groundlessness of Western environmental ethical approaches such as Aldo Leopold’s land ethic. Attempts to ground normativity in mainstream Western ethical theory deploy a metaphorical grounding that covers up the literal grounded normativity of Indigenous philosophical practices. Furthermore, Leopold’s land ethic functions as a form of settler philosophical guardianship that works to erase, assimilate, and effectively silence localized Indigenous knowledges through a delocalized ethical standard. Finally, grounded normativ­ity challenges settlers to question their desire for groundless normative theory and practice as reflective of their evasion of ethical responsibility for the destruction and genocide of Indigenous communities.

This Sacred Life

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norman Wirzba
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Environmental Degradation ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Genetic Enhancement ◽  
Social Injustice ◽  
God's Love ◽  
Bear Witness

In a time of climate change, environmental degradation, and social injustice, the question of the value and purpose of human life has become urgent. What are the grounds for hope in a wounded world? This Sacred Life gives a deep philosophical and religious articulation of humanity's identity and vocation by rooting people in a symbiotic, meshwork world that is saturated with sacred gifts. The benefits of artificial intelligence and genetic enhancement notwithstanding, Norman Wirzba shows how an account of humans as interdependent and vulnerable creatures orients people to be a creative, healing presence in a world punctuated by wounds. He argues that the commodification of places and creatures needs to be resisted so that all life can be cherished and celebrated. Humanity's fundamental vocation is to bear witness to God's love for creaturely life, and to commit to the construction of a hospitable and beautiful world.

Distortion

Dismantlings ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 93-111
Author(s):  
Matt Tierney
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Transformative Change ◽  
The Future ◽  
Fiction Writer ◽  
As If

This chapter talks about distortion as a form of dismantling. It describes distortion as the historical and theoretical technique by which readers learn to approach political documents as if they were science fiction. When considered as a vehicle of distortion, literature is measured for its potential to alter exploitative conditions, like those of war, patriarchy, and racism. The science fiction writer Samuel R. Delany insists that transformative change takes shape neither in utopian nor in dystopian visions of the future, but rather in efforts toward significant distortion of the present. This attitude, which is also a theory and practice of literature, is one way to describe the inheritance of cyberculture in the works of writers and activists who employed speculative language to repurpose the thought of Alice Mary Hilton and the Ad Hoc Committee. These writers and activists focused not on the machines that would unveil the myth of scarcity, but instead isolate the forms of human life and relation that would follow the act of unveiling.

Eschatology

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen T. Davis
Keyword(s):  
Karl Marx ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
End Of History ◽  
Contemporary Philosopher ◽  
Bodily Resurrection ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
Immortality Of The Soul ◽  
Identity Problems

Eschatology is the study of or doctrine about the end of history or the last things. Eschatology is a branch of Christian theology, and the term still finds its primary home in that context, but it is also used broadly to cover any theory about the end of human life or of the world. There are many types of eschatological theory. Some of the most important are those of Plato, Vedāntic Hinduism, Karl Marx and Christianity. The contemporary philosopher of religion who makes most use of eschatology in his thinking is doubtless John Hick. There are several issues that are of interest to philosophers in the area of eschatology. Among them are such questions as whether there is good reason to believe that human life and/or history are moving towards a final end; whether personal identity problems are solvable in the eschaton (the end-state); whether eschatological considerations can help philosophers address other philosophical problems (for example, the problem of evil); whether the very notion of disembodied survival of death is coherent; and how (in Christian theology especially) immortality of the soul and bodily resurrection are related.

Feuerbach, Ludwig Andreas (1804–72)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans-Martin Sass
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Religious Orientation ◽  
Great Influence ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Radical Critique ◽  
I And Thou ◽  
God's Love ◽  
The Future ◽  
Moral System

Ludwig Feuerbach, one of the critical Young Hegelian intellectuals of the nineteenth century, has become famous for his radical critique of religious belief. In Das Wesen des Christentums (Essence of Christianity) (1841) he develops the idea that God does not exist in reality but as a human projection only, and that the Christian principles of love and solidarity should be applied directly to fellow humans rather than being regarded as an indirect reflection of God’s love. In religion, the believer ‘projects his being into objectivity, and then again makes himself an object of an object, another being than himself’. Religious orientation is an illusion and is unhealthy, as it deprives and alienates the believer from true autonomy, virtue and community, ‘for even love, in itself the deepest, truest emotion, becomes by means of religiousness merely ostensible, illusory, since religious love gives itself to man only for God’s sake, so that it is given only in appearance to man, but in reality to God’ (Feuerbach 1841: 44, 48). In Grundsätze der Philosophie der Zukunft (Principles of the Philosophy of the Future) (1843) he extends his criticism to all forms of metaphysics and religion: ‘True Dialectics is not the Monologue of the sole Thinker, rather the Dialogue between I and Thou’, he writes in paragraph 62 (1846–66 II: 345), criticizing in particular his former teacher Hegel. The philosophy of the future has to be both sensual and communal, equally based on theory and practice and among individuals. In an anonymous encyclopedia article (1847) he defines his position: ‘the principle from which Feuerbach derives everything and towards which he targets everything is "the human being on the ground and foundation of nature"’, a principle which ‘bases truth on sensuous experience and thus replaces previous particular and abstract philosophical and religious principles’ (1964– III: 331). Feuerbach’s sensualism and communalism had great influence on the young Karl Marx’s development of an anthropological humanism, and on his contemporaries in providing a cultural and moral system of reference for humanism outside of religious orientation and rationalistic psychology. In the twentieth century, Feuerbach influenced existential theology (Martin Buber, Karl Barth) as well as existentialist and phenomenological thought.

In Defense of Productive Human Rights

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bas van der Vossen ◽  
Jason Brennan
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Individual Rights ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
Freedom Of Contract ◽  
The Right

The chapter defends economic liberties such as the right to private property and freedom of contract as basic human rights, which the authors refer to as productive human rights. Despite being largely ignored or criticized in the theory and practice of human rights, they serve all the key functions that human rights generally serve. Using a basic interest framework, the chapter show that productive rights qualify as human rights because they both directly serve the interests of individual rights-holders, as well as the interests of people across the societies in which they are upheld. The chapter concludes by reflecting on the theoretical implications of a theory of justice that omits productive rights, and focuses only on things like meeting people’s needs. Such a theory will end up distorting important truths about human life and agency.

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