ex nihilo
Recently Published Documents


TOTAL DOCUMENTS

441
(FIVE YEARS 124)

H-INDEX

6
(FIVE YEARS 1)

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 24-36
Author(s):  
Dalius Jonkus

Even though cultural actions are creative, they are not established ex nihilo. They are based on previous actions, their passive or active memory, and extension. Memory is impossible without forgetting. To remember, we have to choose what matters and what does not. The mechanism of memory is based on forgetfulness, which does not deny memory as such, but in a sense makes it passive. Passive memory (forgetfulness) can be transformed into active memory through the actions of actualization and reactivation. Writing is a form of passive memory that can be activated by intelligent reading. The aim of the article is to discuss the phenomenon of the mobile phone as an example of socio-cultural writing and to raise the question of the relationship between writing and memory. Based on the concepts of writing developed by the Italian philosopher Mauricio Ferraris, Derrida, and Husserl, I argue that writing is a model of cultural sedimentation and memory.


Metaphysics ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 57-64
Author(s):  
Archpriest Kirill Kopeikin

The biblical story begins with the story of the creation of the world out of nothing. In the context of theological tradition, creation means non-self-being; this is the reason for the constant variability of the universe. Biblical Revelation presupposes the assumption of a special kind of ontology of creation: nothing is self-existent, all being is relative and everything is relative to God. The entire history of natural science, starting with Galileo, shows that its development proceeded along the path of concretizing and expanding the field of applicability of the principle of the relativity of being: from Galilean relativity - to Einstein’s special theory of relativity - and, finally, to quantum mechanics - to the fact that one of the greatest physicists of the XX century academician Vladimir Fock called the principle of relativity to the means of observation. Considering quantum mechanics as the last natural link in this chain of realization of the principle of relativity in physics, we can, from the many alternative interpretations of quantum mechanics existing today, single out those that are organically consistent with the fundamental biblical principle of the relativity of being and consistently explain what is perceived as quantum paradoxes. This will allow you to take the next step towards comprehending the fundamental nature of reality.


2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (46) ◽  
pp. 3-25
Author(s):  
James K. Galbraith
Keyword(s):  

La economía es una disciplina política que trata los problemas de la organización social y del bien general, coevoluciona con las circunstancias y es históricamente contingente. El mundo al que se dirigen las políticas económicas es un sistema complejo, pero los economistas que buscan elaborar políticas apropiadas se guían necesariamente por simplificaciones y heurísticas. La pregunta que enfrenta la disciplina es qué tipo de simplificación se adapta mejor a la tarea. Este artículo argumenta que las generalizaciones, simplificaciones, heurísticas y principios apropiados se deben derivar del estudio del mundo real. Aunque pueden emplear herramientas matemáticas y aprovechar ideas del comportamiento de los sistemas matemáticos, estos son inadecuados, en especial cuando parten de los dogmas muertos de la corriente neoclásica: ex nihilo nihil fit.


2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-127
Author(s):  
Wojciech Szczerba

The monograph of Jacek Zieliński, The Concept of Creatio ex Nihilo in the Thought of the Greek Apologists of the 2nd century, published by Wroclaw’s Atut in 2013, discusses an important problem of the theory of creation from nothing. It also asks an important question, how far the elements of the concept, articulated in its final form only by Augustine of Hippo can be found in the writings of the Christian apologists of the 2nd century. It is an important question, especially that the Bible in its canonical form, the early extra-biblical Jewish literature or – even more – Greek tradition does not unambiguously advocate the concept creatio ex nihilo. Hence the question how, when and why the concept was articulated, since it played such an important role in the Christian thought of later centuries. In addition, the book of Jacek Zielinski is important in Polish market, because there are only a few serious publications dealing with the issue. The article gives a description and short analysis of the book, pinpointing its strong sights and showing areas, which could be strengthened in this and — hopefully — following publications on creatio ex nihilo by Jacek Zieliński.


2021 ◽  
pp. 181-192
Author(s):  
Bruce Ledewitz

The book returns to the question of God within the world of the yes. The reader is given tools to continue the investigation, but no final conclusion is reached on the question of God. David Griffin’s process thought is naturalistic and panentheistic. This view of God shares attributes of traditional theism. But in process thought, God does not create ex nihilo, does not coerce, and remains within the causal structure of nature. Griffin argues that God is a necessary feature of process thought and its endorsement of enduring meaning. Donald Sherburne offers a different view, called “Whitehead Without God.” The book concludes that process thought without God can still renew public life. It remains for us in the future to investigate the mystery of holiness in the universe.


Oriens ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 49 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 318-369
Author(s):  
Sajjad Rizvi

Abstract Despite the extensive work on the Safavid thinker Mullā Ṣadrā Šīrāzī (d. 1045/1636) nowadays in metropolitan academia, certain areas of philosophical and theological concern remain understudied, if studied at all – and even then, there is little attempt to consider his work in the light of philosophical analysis. We know of a venerable philosophical tradition of analysing the question of providence as a means for examining questions of creation (ex nihilo or otherwise), the problem of evil, determinism and free will, and the larger question of theodicy (and whether this world that we inhabit is indeed the ‘best of all possible worlds’). I propose to examine these questions through an analysis of a section of the theology in al-Asfār al-arbaʿa (The Four Journeys) of Mullā Ṣadrā (mawqif VIII of safar III) and juxtapose it with passages from his other works, all the while contextualising it within the longer Neoplatonic tradition of providence and evil. The section of the Asfār plays a pivotal role in outlining a wider theory of divine providence: following the analysis of the Avicennian proof for the existence of God as the Necessary Being and her attributes, and before the culmination on the emanative scheme of creation (or the incipience of the cosmos – ḥudūṯ al-ʿālam), Mullā Ṣadrā discusses the question of divine providence where one can clearly discern the influence of previous thinkers on him, namely Avicenna (d. 428/1037, al-Šifāʾ and Risālat al-ʿišq) al-Ġazālī (d. 505/ 1111, Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn), and Ibn ʿArabī (d. 638/1240, al-Futūḥāt al-makkīya). The section can be divided into four discussions: defining providence as well as the nature of good and evil, accounting for the ‘presence’ of evil in the cosmos, the ‘best of all possible worlds’, and erotic motion of the cosmos as well as the erotic attraction of humans for one another and back to their Origin. What emerges, however, is an account of providence that is subservient to Mullā Ṣadrā’s wider ontological commitment to the primary reality of being, its modulation and essential motion – the tripartite doctrines of aṣālat al-wuǧūd, taškīk al-wuǧūd and al-ḥaraka al-ǧawharīya – and fits within his overall approach to the procession of the cosmos from the One as a divine theophany and its reversion back to the One through theosis. Thus, an analysis of providence and evil demonstrates that underlying significance of Mullā Ṣadrā’s metaphysical commitments to a modulated monism.


Discourse ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 55-70
Author(s):  
A. V. Nesteruk ◽  
A. V. Soldatov

Introduction. The paper deals with the philosophical problems of the modern dialogue between cosmology and theology. It is argued that no existential contradiction is possible between them as originating in one and the same human condition. The difference between cosmology and theology amounts to the difference in their open-ended hermeneutics of the outer world. It is from within this philosophical conclusion that the hot issue of the dialogue are discussed and some insights are proposed.Methodology and sources. The philosophical analysis is based on the discussion of epistemological issues in modern cosmology and their relevance to theological view of the world. The method is similar to existential phenomenology’s approach to the constitution of the notion of the universe in cosmology and theology as an open-ended hermeneutics of the world.Results and discussion. It is shown that no existential contradiction is possible between two types of hermeneutics as originating in one and the same human condition. It is human being that becomes the major theme of the dialogue between cosmology and theology.On the basis of the conclusions made the paper discusses some “hot” issues in the contemporary cosmology-theology discussion, including: 1) The inseparability of cosmology and theology in justification of the possibility of cosmological knowledge, 2) Fine-tuning, Anthropic principle, fitness of the universe for life, 3) The unknowability of the universe and apophaticism in cosmology, 4) Multiple universes and their ontology, 5) How much of life is in the universe: the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), exoplanets and theological consequence for multiple incarnations, 6) The origin of the universe in modern scientific cosmology and its relevance to the theologically understood creatio ex nihilo, 7) Consciousness and the universe: can cosmology account for its own possibility without appealing to the theologically understood human capacity in producing an intellectual synthesis of the universe.Conclusion. On the basis of the methods applied to the hot issues in the dialogue between cosmology and theology one concludes that the dialogue between cosmology and theology is an open-ended enterprise related to the fundamentally concealed origins of humanity and universe. The difference is hermeneutics of the universe does not create any contradiction or tension but reflects a dualistic position of humanity in the universe, being an insignificant part of it and at the same time its center of disclosure and manifestation.


Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 948
Author(s):  
Kristen Blair

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints possesses a subversive and fecund interpretation of the Christian creation narrative. This interpretation, denying creation ex nihilo, bespeaks a particular attention to and care for the living earth. However, Latter-day Saint praxis is wounded by a searing disconnect between the theopoetics of its conceptual creation and its lived practice. I argue that the Church must understand this disconnect as a wound and attend to it as such. I turn to theopoetics, arguing that it is in the lived practices of Latter-day Saints engaging somatically with the Earth that can restore our imaginative potential and move toward healing. I begin by exploring the Christian conception of creation ex nihilo and juxtapose this with the Latter-day Saint understanding of formareex materia. I then explore the implications of such a cosmology for environmental ethics and probe the disconnections between theory and practice in Mormonism broadly construed. I propose that the healing salve for disconnection is imagination, a salve found in the first heartbeat of the Latter-day Saint story. I speak with Latter-day Saint theopoetics and indigenous voices, proposing ultimately that is with them that the healing of theology and praxis must begin.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document