scholarly journals Orthodox Cosmology and Cosmography

Eikon / Imago ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 77-94
Author(s):  
Rotislava Todorova
Keyword(s):  
Image Of God ◽  
Imago Dei ◽  
The World ◽  
Creatio Ex Nihilo ◽  
Ex Nihilo ◽  
Symbolic Images ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Image Of God ◽  
The Invisible

Orthodox iconography is focused on the idea of representing the cosmos, the essence of God’s creatio ex nihilo, thus serving as a visual cosmology and thence - as a cosmography of all being. Icons depict the image of the archetypal world in its integrity, unachievable for the limited human abilities, and are ontologically inseparable from this archetype. Therefore, iconography has been always related with the idea of representing the world trough symbolic images. In this context, it becomes a visual cosmology, and hence - a kind of cosmography of all being. Although not identical to cartography, Orthodox iconography creates symbolic images that can be interpreted as an image of the whole world – oikoumene. One particular example in this respect relates with the semantics and usage of mandorla symbol. In the Orthodox iconography, the mandorla has its function as a vision of Divine. It can be called even Imago Dei, expressing the invisible to the eyes and incomprehensible to the mind essence of God. However, in a number of iconographic scenes the image of God is related theologically and artistically with the cosmological perceptions of Christianity about the theocentricity of cosmos. Thus, mandorla as Imago Dei often plays the role of a symbolic Imago Mundi.

Sport Does Not Make Man

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-71
Author(s):  
Boban Milenkovic
Keyword(s):  
New World ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Sports Industry ◽  
New Man ◽  
Right To Work ◽  
The World ◽  
The Gift ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Image Of God

SummarySyncretism, by which the man is being destroyed, connects the sport and the industry with different philosophical-religious stances toward the world, and it hides behind a mask of progress whose real face is greed – an insatiable wish to own the new world, which is without man and without God, and to create a “new” man. The world of progress is a world of greed which has its own laws, i. e. its ethics, in which a man as a creature which bears the image of God does not fit. It only fits if it is just a lever of this same progressive greed. The man by its nature shows himself through the work, and hence man has the right to work, for man makes work being work, it is not that the work makes man being a man. In such a context the game/sport is in the category of man’s work and the showing (accomplishment) of human God-likeliness and by that the central (man-centered) role of the man concerning the world around him, which is only preparation to accomplish the full theanthropocentricity (having Christ as center) of the whole creation. Sports industry requires the new ethics by its own measures, and by them it shapes the sportsmen as its indispensable, not self-aware parts. Regardless of being wounded by sin, corruptibility and death, by the gift of Lord, each grace-filled synergetic move (hence the game/sports) of the man toward the world is the confirmation of the theanthropocentricity of the creation and Christ-centered nature (theanthropocentricity) of man.

scholarly journals Alone in the world? Imago Dei from theological anthropology to Christology

2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadia Marais
Keyword(s):  
Theological Anthropology ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Imago Dei ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
The World ◽  
Human Uniqueness ◽  
Science And Theology ◽  
Interdisciplinary Projects ◽  
The Image Of God

In Princeton theologian Van Huyssteen’s (2006) major interdisciplinary work, Alone in the World? Human Uniqueness in Science and Theology, human uniqueness is rhetorically coupled with human aloneness. A comparison with a contemporary theological anthropology, namely Yale theologian Kelsey’s (2009) Eccentric Existence: A Theological Anthropology, shows an alternative approach to the notion or concept of the imago Dei, namely a theological shift from viewing human beings as image(s) of God, to viewing human beings as images of Christ, or images of the image of God. This contribution responds to the invitation implied in Van Huyssteen’s book title – are we alone in the world? – by exploring some of the rhetorical implications of a Christological interpretation of the imago Dei. One such implication may imply a different answer to Van Huyssteen’s question – are we alone in the world?; not yes, but no. Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s idea of Christ’s promeity illustrates how the rhetorical dynamics behind such a move in response – from yes to no – may potentially look, and that a rearticulation of human uniqueness could have direct consequences for how we imagine our human aloneness in the world.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article contributes to a specifically intradisciplinary conversation in Systematic Theology, on reading and interpreting the notion or theological idea of human beings being created in the image of God. This article does this through a close reading and comparison of two interdisciplinary projects on what it means to be human, namely Van Huyssteen’s Alone in the World? and Kelsey’s Eccentric Existence.

scholarly journals Pico della Mirandola on the Dignity of Man and Some Contemporary Echoes of His Philosophy

Clotho ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 59-72
Author(s):  
Marko Uršič
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Belief In God ◽  
Marsilio Ficino ◽  
Renaissance Period ◽  
The World ◽  
Human Quality ◽  
The Image Of God

The Oration on the Dignity of Man makes a claim, characteristic for the Renaissance, that the dignity of man, the real “excellency of human nature,” is not present in any specific human quality or ability. Neither is it present in the role of the human soul as the “tie of the world” (copula mundi), as Marsilio Ficino has taught. Even higher than this eminent human role in the world is the freedom of man to choose his role and task himself. At the same time, Pico believes that Man was created as the image of God, in the sense that no man is determined in advance: human free will reflects God’s free will in creation. From the point of view of the mainstream modern dualism, this is a paradox, even a contradiction. This paper argues the opposite: that the human free will is even nowadays, not less than in the Renaissance period, compatible with the belief in God. However, this is only the case if God (being transcendent or immanent to the world) does not command anything, if God does not demand anything – except love. Violence and killing are eo ipso prohibited, especially in the name of faith. Therefore, freedom and faith are perfectly compatible. Even more, modern humans are fatally unfree either in the secular “radicalization” of faith or in the atheistic secularization of the world. Unfree due to their existence (Dasein), enslaved by the Angst of “mere nothing.”

scholarly journals A Functionalist Account of Human Uniqueness

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 326-344
Author(s):  
Anthony Bolos ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Imago Dei ◽  
Biology I ◽  
Human Uniqueness ◽  
Functionalist Account ◽  
The Image Of God

I challenge the assumption that human uniqueness of the sort motivated by the doctrine of the imago Dei is incompatible with contemporary views in evolutionary biology. I first develop a functionalist account of the image of God and then argue that image bearing is a contingently imposed function. Humans, chosen by God to bear his image, are unique in that they alone possess an ideal range of image bearing capacities. This ideal range makes humans well-suited for the role of image bearing.

scholarly journals Beeldspraak over oorlog en schepping, geweld en geweldloosheid in de Openbaring van Johannes

2008 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Decock
Keyword(s):  
Image Of God ◽  
Divine Power ◽  
New Creation ◽  
Divine Warrior ◽  
The World ◽  
Prophetic Witness ◽  
The Image Of God

Images of war and creation, violence and non-violence in the Revelation of John Much of the violent imagery of Revelation can be seen as inspired by the image of God as the Divine Warrior who will overcome the chaotic forces threatening creation and who will bring creation to its fulfillment. This violence is reserved for God and the exalted Jesus although the prophetic ministry of churches shares to some extent in this divine power and even in its violence (11:5-6). However, human victory is won through worship of God instead of worship of Satan and the Beast, and through prophetic witness unto death in order to bring the inhabitants of the world to repentance and so to overcome sin that destroys creation. This human victory is made possible by the “blood of Jesus” and requires that his followers persevere in the works of Jesus to the end (2:26) in order to share in the new creation of which Jesus is God’s agent from the beginning (3:14).

Nature

1965 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Evdokimov
Keyword(s):  
Image Of God ◽  
Central Position ◽  
Direct Relation ◽  
Biblical Narrative ◽  
The World ◽  
The Image Of God ◽  
Progressive Course

The biblical narrative describes the progressive course of creation ending with man. Man appears as its culmination, as a centre on which all the planes of the world converge, a ‘microcosm’. But, ‘created in the image of God’ he is also, according to the Fathers, a ‘microtheos’. This central position of man explains the normative subjection of nature to man as to its cosmic logos, as to one of its multiple hypostases. Man ‘cultivates’ nature, gives a name to creatures and things, ‘humanises’ them. His direct relation with the Creator is constitutive of his being.

‘He Spoke and It Was’: Human Language, Divine Creation, and the imago dei

2014 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-59
Author(s):  
Gerald A. Klingbeil
Keyword(s):  
Image Of God ◽  
Spoken Word ◽  
Human Language ◽  
Human History ◽  
Abstract Concepts ◽  
John 1 ◽  
Human Ability ◽  
The Image Of God ◽  
Point Of Departure

Abstract This study examines the triangle linking biblical creation, anthropology, and human language. It takes as its point of departure the notion that language is an important part of the image of God in which humanity was created (Gottebenbildlichkeit). Since most of creation is accomplished through God’s spoken word (see Gen 1 and also John 1), the human ability to speak and communicate abstract concepts appears to be an echo of the divine and distinguishes humans from the rest of creation. The paper traces some of the highlights marking the important role of language within the context of human history, including the fall and the divine plan of redemption, thus linking the theological categories of anthropology and soteriology.

Coleridge and Preaching a Theological Imagination

2005 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-94
Author(s):  
Stephen Edmondson
Keyword(s):  
Image Of God ◽  
The World ◽  
Imaginative Thinking ◽  
The Image Of God ◽  
Interpretive Process

ABSTRACTThis article explores Coleridge's understanding of imagination, Scripture, the spirituality of the world, and our reality as the image of God. I begin with Coleridge's understanding of the inspiration of Scripture and the interpretive process. By locating the imagination in this interaction among writer, reader, and God, I surface Coleridge's more significant description of imaginative thinking as a spiritual act that calls us into the truth of our being and of the world's reality. Implicit in Coleridge's vision is a correlation between human imaginative creativity and the creative being of God as a dimension of our reality as the image of God. Thus, I claim that imaginative preaching, when seen through Coleridge's lens, renews that image within us, awakening us to our reality as spiritual, free beings, but only when we enact our freedom within the context of God's freedom and action which we know through our reading of Scripture.

scholarly journals Embodiment and the Philosophy of Mind

1998 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
pp. 35-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andy Clark
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Real World ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Local Environment ◽  
Inner Model ◽  
The World ◽  
Cognitive Scientist ◽  
Biological Problem ◽  
The Mind

Cognitive science is in some sense the science of the mind. But an increasingly influential theme, in recent years, has been the role of the physical body, and of the local environment, in promoting adaptive success. No right-minded cognitive scientist, to be sure, ever claimed that body and world were completely irrelevant to the understanding of mind. But there was, nonetheless, an unmistakeable tendency to marginalize such factors: to dwell on inner complexity whilst simplifying or ignoring the complex inner-outer interplays that characterize the bulk of basic biological problem-solving. This tendency was expressed in, for example, the development of planning algorithms that treated real-world action as merely a way of implementing solutions arrived at by pure cognition (more recent work, by contrast, allows such actions to play important computational and problem-solving roles). It also surfaced in David Marr's depiction of the task of vision as the construction of a detailed threedimensional image of the visual scene. For possession of such a rich inner model effectively allows the system to ‘throw away’ the world and to focus subsequent computational activity on the inner model alone.

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