I show that David Lewis¡¯s argument in ¡°Divine Evil¡± has logical problems and also misrepresents Christianity. He offers a ¡°straw figure¡± argument and with it commits an ad hominem against Christian people. In ¡°Divine Evil¡± he fails to acknowledge that in the long and serious intellectual tradition of Christianity, his view of God is unrecognizable. In this tradition, evil is the deprivation of being and is parasitic on the goodness of being. God overcomes it through God¡¯s redemptive actions and, thus, it¡¯s impossible for God to do evil and philosophically irresponsible to say the Christian view of God is evil.

This paper argues that Karl Rahner¡¯s concept of self-determination through the fundamental option was profoundly shaped by his sensitivity to the social, political, and spiritual struggles of his time. Drawing on historical studies, it examines the pastoral situation of the German Catholic community during Rahner¡¯s youth and early adulthood, highlighting the simultaneous strengthening of Catholic identity and self-determination among laypeople, alongside anxieties about moral uprightness. While Rahner¡¯s theology is often considered complex and inaccessible, this paper demonstrates how it directly addresses these religious concerns in ways that the contemporary realist debate could not. Taking Hearer of the Word as a key example of his early theological thought, the study shows how Rahner grounds his theology in the existential relationship between the person and God. In doing so, Rahner dissolves the notion of an independent autonomy that might conflict with the Church, while offering a balm to the moral anxiety and turmoil of the war years. Situating his thought within the historical challenges faced by German Catholics in the early twentieth century, this paper reveals his theology as both a response to and a reflection of the lived experience of the Catholic community.

The essay discusses two sources of randomness in the natural world. The first one is methodological and is associated with the complexity of the system, the inability to handle data of astronomically large scale, or the lack of adequate theory. The second is due to the emergence of a state that cannot be expressed as a function of a previous state albeit it is perceived as its derivative. By examining the ramifications of each possibility, the essay concludes that in both cases, albeit from different directions, objectivism is an illusional concept and that the only avenue to move forward is an anthropocentric perception of life and of the natural world. In both cases the conclusions reached may appear as paradoxical which raises skepticism regarding the breadth of the modern epistemological perspectives.

Karl Rahner used the word-pair ¡°transcendent¡± and ¡°categorical¡± to describe God¡¯s reality in relation to the predicates of human knowledge. Rahner¡¯s earliest writings elaborated the word-pair as an expression of Thomist metaphysics. Then, at the time of Vatican II, he applied the two words to humanity¡¯s participation in revelation while avoiding the immanentism of the Modernists. In his final years, Rahner used categorical and transcendent to explain moral freedom and divine revelation. Today the word-pair can help solve problems that hinge on human knowledge of the divine.

Rahner¡¯s theology of the cross, as articulated in the last two decades of his life, has several weaknesses: it neglects Jesus¡¯ Jewishness, makes supersessionist presumptions, is typically more abstruse than dramatic, and is insufficiently connected to his theology of sin. At the same time, many of his core soteriological insights remain valuable. This article seeks to expand on those insights, especially by integrating post-conciliar covenantal theologies. A soteriology which features Christ as the covenant-in-person, I argue, can serve as a corrective to these shortcomings and capitalize on Rahner¡¯s contributions.

This article explores the relationship between Karl Rahner¡¯s well-known supralapsarian approach to the doctrine of the incarnation and the theme of social salvation. It examines his distinctive supralapsarian approach to the Incarnation of the Word and the implications that Christological emphasis has for understanding not just individual salvation, but corporate or social salvation, including the whole of creation¡ªhuman and nonhuman alike. First, we situate Rahner¡¯s supralapsarianism within the broader tradition of this Christological approach. Second, we highlight the cosmic significance of Rahner¡¯s supralapsarian argument for the divine ratio for the Incarnation through the lens of ¡°deep incarnation¡± theology. Finally, we argue that Rahner¡¯s supralapsarian Christology gestures toward a form of ¡°social salvation¡± understood in a more cosmic and capacious sense.

This paper presents the novel and seemingly controversial philosophical theology of Patrick Masterson, who dares to connect metaphysics to phenomenology in the continental philosophy of religion. He boldly claims that God is Esse Subsistens, the self-subsistent unlimited act of existence that exists independently of any relation to human consciousness. The paper lays out the dialogue between Masterson¡¯s Thomistic-inspired metaphysics and some of the major trends in the phenomenology of religion. Parallels between his project and Vatican I and Fides et Ratio are added for philosophical theological context. He concludes that without a metaphysical qualification, the current philosophy remains locked in an immanent frame that prevents any credible and realistic presentation of God.

In this essay, I explore Emmanuel Falque¡¯s interpretation of S?ren Kierkegaard¡¯s Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits (1847), specifically his quotation of ¡°the burden is light¡± passage from Matthew 11:30. I argue that his use of the ¡°Gospel of Sufferings¡± offers a methodological insight into Falque¡¯s motif of transformation. The lightness of the burden is an invitation to the imitation of Christ that retains the full weight of finitude. The savior models the decision coram Deo (¡°before God¡±) that brings the ¡°other¡± to bear on our experience, but Falque augments this by emphasizing the concept of being cum Deo (¡°with God¡±), providing a fuller praxis in our existential habituation of eternity. The ¡°other¡± is what determines the lightness of the burden and invites us to a fraternal solidarity with God and humanity. I begin my argument by offering an exposition of Falque¡¯s philosophy of religious experience, then I survey texts where Falque employs the lightness of the burden. I conclude by focusing on Falque¡¯s use of this passage in his recent discussions of tragedy and trauma.

Karl Rahner wrote regularly on the topic of Christology and possessed a profoundly Incarnational theology. He nonetheless rarely acknowledges Jesus¡¯s ministry period, the miracles, or parables. This article will contend that Rahner postulates Jesus¡¯s ministry as an absolute self-offer to God, matched by God¡¯s new turn towards men and women. These novel relationships are the true foundation for the Kingdom of God, the central theme of the ministry period. Jesus¡¯s self-offer to God contains a solidarity with all men and women, as he calls them to follow and promises the same destiny.

Starting from Maimonide¡¯s conception of biblical prophecy, Spinoza tried to prove that prophecy is a pure illusion, intended to subjugate the Hebrew people who always turned towards superstition. I will examine Spinoza¡¯s thesis, analyzing the traditional sources he uses, placing it in its medieval philosophical context, and highlighting the difficulties of his argument.

Gaunilo¡¯s island analogy to Anselm¡¯s ontological argument is often dismissed as weak. Alvin Plantinga rejects the concept of the greatest island as incoherent, arguing that island great making properties like coconutty lack intrinsic maxima¡ªan island with more coconuts can always be found. In contrast, God is omniscient, ensuring that no being can surpass His knowledge. Plantinga suggests that divine attributes guarantee insurmountable greatness, unlike the attributes of an island. However, I challenge this view, arguing that the concept of the greatest possible island is as coherent as that of the greatest possible being, both of which require select interpretation of the properties attributed to them. By applying omni qualifiers to island qualities and appealing to logical possibility, a map to Gaunilo¡¯s lost island may be found.

When Merleau-Ponty writes about belief in the Christian God, he does not explicate the belief phenomenologically, whilst accepting Husserl¡¯s claim that God cannot perceive panoptically or access human consciousness fully. For the later Merleau-Ponty the Christian idea of God incarnate does not separate the absolute from existence, and God is found wherever we gather in his name and ameliorate suffering. Yet Christianity remains haunted by the threat of acosmism, or the collapse of the real world into the divinity. I respond that believers are not concerned by full access to their first-person states. What is important is the way we are accessed. When we turn to Merleau-Ponty¡¯s later conception of God, I contend that it draws on the resources of the Christian tradition it disavows and is open to a Nietzschean critique. Just as importantly it neglects the phenomenon of motivation. I suggest that William James does much to set out a first-person phenomenology of an inspirational belief in God that Merleau-Ponty neglects.

In the work of the French thinker Ren¨¦ Girard (1923-2015), Christology originates in the view of Jesus as a scapegoat and non-violent role model. Initially, imitation creates the conditions for sacrifice, and sacrifice becomes a way of holding a society together. Mimetic theory localises the problem in rivalistic desires, a process where those who rival each other become more and more preoccupied with outdoing each other. Imitating Christ therefore helps one overcome the desire for otherness and instead identify with the other. A number of theological implications arise from Girard¡¯s theory on divine imitation, and it seems that it is Christ¡¯s perfect imitation of God that makes him divine. Through imitation, Christ becomes both a mediator and a representation of God. Girard seems to replace the notion of following Christ with imitating Christ, as imitating Christ indicates a more common and everyday relationship.

This paper revisits close encounters with perceived non-human intelligences through the Strieber letters that are available in the Rice University Woodson Archives. In 1997, Michael E. Zimmerman first published on the ¡®alien abduction¡¯ phenomenon in hopes of generating philosophical conversation regarding these extraordinary and unexplained experiences. I begin by comparing the contents of the Strieber letters to other research that has been done on abduction and close encounters. I then explain how the experiences violate the existing social ontology, that is to say, the boundaries for defining ¡®truth¡¯ and ¡®reality¡¯ in mainstream society, drawing on existing work by Zimmerman. I proceed to show that the phenomenology of close encounters reveals them as subversive experiences that initiate a process of transformation in the individual experiencer. I show that the experience is meant to leave the experiencer questioning their current understanding of reality, thus opening them up to the possibility of a new metaphysical and ethical paradigm. Many who have extraordinary encounters report profound shifts in worldviews following their close encounter experiences. Last, I draw parallels between the close encounter experience and the clown or trickster figure in the Native American worldview.

The essay introduces the English translation of Karl Rahner¡¯s early writing, ¡°The Foundations of a Theory of Knowledge with Joseph Mar¨¦chal.¡± This piece, written in 1927, provides insight into Rahner¡¯s early formation, especially as it relates to the thought of the Belgian Jesuit Mar¨¦chal. In it, there is a focus is upon how the analysis of judgment gives a ground for a metaphysics of knowledge. This essay gives a brief account of the history of the piece, its content, as well as some reflections on its significance and its limitations.

The essay is a response to an invitation to offer reflections on Richard Lennan¡¯s recent book Tilling the Church for a panel at the annual gathering of the Karl Rahner Society. It situates the work within the distinctive spiritual and intellectual heritage shared by Karl Rahner, Pope Francis, and Lennan¡¯s scholarly community and vocational home at Boston College, namely by reading it through an intentionally Ignatian lens. The review overlays the volume¡¯s ecclesiological explorations with reference to the Spiritual Exercises and to the contours of the current emphasis or re-emergence of the Ignatian tradition on a global stage given the last eleven years and the unique pulpit they provide via the Petrine Office. The piece argues that the adaptability and flexibility of the Ignatian heritage finds profound and lasting resonance with Lennan¡¯s recent project and hopeful agenda.

Richard Lennan¡¯s Tilling the Church treats ecclesial conflict, the possibility of change, and the tensions involved. He acknowledges the resistance to development within the Church¡¯s structures. This resistance helps to explain the church¡¯s distrust of women, which frustrates many Catholics. Cornell philosopher Kate Manne puts resistance to change in context by describing the social expectations of women, by showing that those who resist change feel entitled to do so, and by revealing how victimization is legitimated. ¡°Tilling the church¡± is an apt metaphor for transformation that does not sufficiently appreciate socially-mediated systems of privilege and vulnerability.

Karl Rahner (1904¨C1984) has exercised a profound influence on Catholic theology. This paper reconstructs both why and how Rahner¡¯s ideas were received in the United States since the 1950s. American theologians did much more than simply repeat what the German Jesuit had outlined. Rather, they made use of his thought in order to do theology constructively. Thus, even today Rahner¡¯s influence in the US is quite noticeable.

J. Matthew Ashley¡¯s Renewing Theology compellingly argues that academic theology needs renewal by way of a ¡°living circulation¡± with spirituality. The latter may be an animating force for the former, assuring that theology, even in its academic form, arises from concrete experiential encounter with God. Ashley rec?ommends Ignatian spirituality as a tradition distinctively suited to renewing theology in late modernity, and offers detailed accounts of Karl Rahner¡¯s, Ignacio Ellacur¨ªa¡¯s, and Pope Francis¡¯s diverse theological appropriations of Ignatian spirituality to substantiate his case. Among the book¡¯s numerous successes is Ashley¡¯s creative presentation of Rahner as retrieving Ignatian spirituality so as to present a message and mission of consolation to the modern world; thus Rahner can be a productive model for academic theology today.

Derrida¡¯s corpus explored the human animal/non-human animal (hereafter HA/NHA) binary. Indeed, in his writings, Western thought regarding the binary is examined, as well as its inherently anthropocentric framework. Derrida successfully, however, decon?structs its systems and highlights why the binary¡ªlargely¡ªremains in place. In Derrida¡¯s The Animal That Therefore I Am, he belies the Western tradition that separates NHAs from HAs by excluding them from things thought to be only proper to mankind: that is, thinking, laughing, perceptible suffering, and verbalization. Animals have traditionally been considered the absolute other of human beings, a view of otherness that has served as the rationale for their domi?nation, exploitation and slaughter. This type of ¡°animal thinking¡± may help us to think of the world¡ªor imagine the possibility of thinking about it¡ªin a non-exclusively human fashion. Looking at a possible theoretical framework that draws on both Whitehead and Derrida, we may posit that it consists of six ideas, some which are more Whiteheadian than others.

This article boards some of the central aspects of the philosophy proposed by Philip Mainl?nder. The intent is centered on glimpsing the implications that arise from the explored author¡¯s thoughts, primarily in regards to the attitude that is derived from the contemplation of human extermination as a consequent solu?tion to the suicide and death of God. The intention of man in the world from said perspective is analyzed and links are offered to authors who have adopted for themselves the scabrous and complex paths of committed Nihilism. The text ends with a series of human redemption alternatives through a philosophy about death and not as a function of death itself.

I examine how a naturalist worldview informs work in philosophy of mind with a special focus on the appropriateness of a naturalist adopting emergent properties in his or her ontology. First, I examine two versions of naturalism construed as worldviews and clarify their differences. I argue that one of these versions is what naturalists ought to embrace. Happily, most but not all naturalists recognize this. To defend this claim, I will lay out certain epistemic criteria that are helpful in adjudicating between rival scientific and philosophical paradigms. These criteria will contribute to supporting my preference for which version of naturalism is preferable. Next, I present a general depiction of the components and inner logic of a naturalistic worldview and follow this by providing a precise notion of an emergent property. Finally, I offer several criticisms of emergent properties and conclude that a naturalist ought to avoid them.

This paper is an investigation into the introduction of the term ¡®system¡¯ and its conceptual background in the writings of Bartholomew Keckermann. This includes a brief summary of the literature and evidence identifying Keckermann as the first to make significant usage of the term in logic, philosophy, and theology. Then, after a survey of his life, work and milieu, this paper will look closer at three of Keckermann¡¯s own ¡®systems¡¯; Systema logicae (1600), Praecognitorum Logicorum (1606), and Systema SS. Theologiae (1602). Finally, I will touch on the influence Keckermann¡¯s innovation had on subsequent ideas of method in modern philosophy, especially how his innovative use of this term gives the logician the directing role as a technical expert in mining the truth of theology, philosophy, and other sciences. This, of course, flies in the face of the medieval view of the Church and its elders controlling that role, characterizing the discovery and refinement of knowledge as being a process of electing and using worthy passive subjects as conduits of divine knowledge. Thus Keckermann¡¯s systems can be considered an important step away from this, towards the early modern epistemology requiring an active thinking subject, best characterized in Descartes¡¯ Meditations.

An analysis of the value systems of critical social issues is difficult to carry out in any qualified sense from an unstructured basis and that attempts to do so easily result in relatively superficial discussions of particular issues. Instead, we suggest how this might be viewed from a more holistic ethical and systems theological perspective. In doing so, we review a new framework that aims to distil relevant issues regarding necessary trade-offs and how this can be done. Broadly speaking, this consists of a kind of Socratic dialogue that systematically examines the value basis of the decisions that need to be made, as well as whether the effects of the decisions become unacceptable and thus need to be modified vis-¨¤-vis the normative system embraced by the decision-maker. We discuss the role of theologians in this and emphasise that they should take a larger place in discussions on how to deal with complex societal crises.

This essay examines Karl Rahner¡¯s theology of sin, specifically his unique rendering of original sin. Before advancing to this specific consideration of original sin, I shall seek to situate his overall theology of sin within his thinking on human freedom. Following this, Rahner¡¯s Mariology will be described and shown to be more or less compatible with traditional Marian teachings. The crux of this essay will argue that Rahner¡¯s rendering of original sin creates a tension with the Mariology that he and the church espouse. Therefore, revision or addition to either Rahner¡¯s Mariology or theology of original sin appears necessary for greater theological coherence.

This article investigates teachings from diverse mystical traditions and the quantum physicist, David Bohm. After a brief background on the traditions, a dialogue follows their teachings regarding these questions: How is infinite truth described? How does the phenomenal world relate to infinite truth? How do humans experience the infinite within the phenomenal world? The metaphors from quantum physics proposed by David Bohm poetically intertwine topics of emptiness, innermost awareness, sparks and relationships, storehouses and the heart, roots and souls, resurrection and the truth body, and perceiving truth.

The aim of this paper is to encourage liberals to reconsider whether liberalism needs to be compatible with naturalism¡ªas is demanded by public reason liberalism¡ªby showing the comparative cost of that and the advantages of grounding liberalism in theism, which is the main alternative to naturalism. The reason why theism provides better grounds for defending liberalism than naturalism does, is that justifying human freedom and equality¡ªwhich are core values of liberalism¡ªin a robust way, requires metaphysical assumptions that cohere better within a theistic rather than naturalistic framework. More specifically, I argue that liberals should adopt agent-causal libertarianism (ACL) and favor what I will call an endowment account of equality (EAE). Both ACL and EAE are best supported by postulating theistic and theistic-friendly assumptions about the human nature.

The simulation argument acquires increased popularity in scientific and intellectual circles. Usually, it is approached from a perspective that examines the validity of the argument from the perspective of whether it can or cannot be accepted. Here I will accept that the argument is valid and that indeed we live in a simulation, and then argue that on this basis the future of humanity is a rather pessimistic one. The concern and eventually realization that we live in a simulation coincides with our cultural evolution as a species and with our intellectual advancement as humanity. Depending on how well-perfected this simulation that we live in is, it mirrors either a ¡°game over¡± or a ¡°frozen screen¡± stage, to borrow from the terminology of video games. In these cases, this calls for the intervention of the simulator that either needs to reset its simulation or to eliminate the factor that has caused the malfunction.

The traditional elimination view affirms that people with intellectual disabilities will be healed in heaven when God restores all things to what they were meant to be. Several contemporary scholars, however, have put forth a revisionist retention view claiming that people with intellectual disabilities will not be healed in heaven. While the elimination view has strong biblical and theological credentials, it faces a significant philosophical difficulty. Heaven must maintain identity so that individuals exist as the same people they were in life. But post-mortem healing appears to disrupt the identity of people with intellectual disabilities. In this paper I reject this charge. I argue that for individuals with mild or moderate intellectual disabilities heaven preserves personal identity, while for individuals with profound intellectual disabilities heaven creates personal identity. These conclusions rest on an emergentist anthropology which I describe.

This article contrasts Saint Augustine¡¯s role in the creation of the Church¡¯s theological dogma to Loyola¡¯s modern gesture of independence vis-¨¤-vis the Church. It then traces Loyola¡¯s method to the core that grounds Descartes¡¯ philosophical works. This core, I claim, is derived from Descartes¡¯ understanding and imitation of the Spiritual Exercises. The Exercises obviate the Church by making it redundant, unnecessary. From this disavowal and distancing, Loyola gives the exercitant the psychological tools to emerge from the Exercises with a strong, new sense of self that with time will transform the institution from within. In Descartes¡¯ case, the moral subject capable of responding to the question of what God wants (the product of the Exercises) is displaced by the epistemological certainty necessary to create a new ¡°Method¡± to study and understand the world.

Heidegger commentator J. L. Mehta includes in his book the following quote from Heidegger: ¡°Der Wanderschaft in der Wegrichtung zum Fragw¨¹rdigen ist nicht Abenteur sondern Heimkehr.¡± Adapting this idea to the purpose of my own project in this article, I propose: Wandering on the Footpath of Freedom is both an Adventure and a Homecoming! The aim of this article is to explore the idea of freedom as it is developed in the philosophy of Martin Heidegger. The strategy here is to examine the salient remarks of several commentators, including Mehta, William Richardson, Werner Brock, Charles Guignon, R¨¹diger Safransky, and others. Some of the ideas explored here are: transcendence, overtness, authenticity, poetry and resoluteness.

This article aims to provide a new ontological argument for the existence of God. A specific ¡®modal¡¯ version of the ontological argument¡ªtermed the Modal Realist Ontological Argument¡ªis formulated within the modal realist metaphysical framework of David K. Lewis, Kris McDaniel and Philip Bricker. Formulating this argument within this specific framework will enable the plausibility of its central premise (i.e., the ¡®Possibility Premise¡¯) to be established, and allow one to affirm the soundness of the argument¡ªwhilst warding off two oft-raised objections against this type of natural theological argument.

Professor William Lane Craig argues that a particular set of concerns about the Christian doctrine of penal substitution (namely, that Jesus of Nazareth was sacrificed for the sins of humanity) can be satisfied. This article provides rebuttals to said replies in an attempt to render plausible the claim that God exists to the extent that God is perfectly just, and that divine justice requires, among other things, that God never engage in the harming of innocents, consistent with any doctrine of retributivism worthy of the name. The doctrine of God, then, must remain consistent with unqualified negative retributivism. Any theism which might suggest otherwise violates such vital considerations of justice and fairness and must be rejected.

Between Schelling¡¯s ?ber Dante in philosophischer Beziehung (1803) and the Dantean drafts of die Weltalter (1811-1815) stand the transitional texts of his middle period, the Philosophie und Religion (1804) and Freiheitsschrift (1809). His short essay on Dante contrasts an ancient conception of the closed cosmos with the modern universe as dynamic and expanding, then claims to extract from the Divine Comedy its eternal, threefold form. This article considers these schemata as they relate to the Philosophie und Religion and the Freiheitsschrift, disclosing an enduring Dantean influence which first predicts, then persists throughout this stage of Schelling¡¯s philosophical development.

Thomas Williams maintains that the doctrine of analogy is unintelligible. In this paper, I scrutinize and reject Williams¡¯s argument for that claim insofar as it applies to Thomas Aquinas¡¯s particular version of the doctrine. After laying out Williams¡¯s critique, I present an account of Aquinas¡¯s conception of analogy. I identify three components of it: a semantic part, a metaphysical part, and a distinctive conception of inference. I briefly explain how all three of these components play a role in Aquinas¡¯s philosophical theology. On the basis of these ideas, I proceed to demonstrate how Williams¡¯s argument against analogy, understood as a set of reasons for rejecting Aquinas¡¯s version of it, fails completely. I end by pointing out how hard it appears for anyone who rejects the doctrine of analogy to keep faith with the idea of creation ex nihilo.

In a magisterial book-length study, Professor E. Christian Brugger concludes that the canons of the Council of Trent, given the beliefs and intentions of its participants, provide ¡°a dogmatic definition of the absolute indissolubility of marriage as a truth of divine revelation¡± (original italics). The present concern is whether Brugger¡¯s arguments support this conclusion. Also subject to scrutiny are the relevance, plausibility, and consistency of the conciliar thinking on which his arguments are premised. It will be argued that Brugger¡¯s conclusion is unwarranted, leaving the question of divorce and remarriage an open one.

In Karl Rahner¡¯s early writings we see that a search to understand the embodied experience of God motivated him to develop his understanding of the person as spirit-in-world. Along the way he developed a ¡°tectonic logic¡± that would shape his entire theology. This early attempt to wrestle with the paradoxes of bodily graced experience offers a hermeneutical key for both understanding Rahner¡¯s theology and thinking theologically about the body today.

The importance and influence of Karl Rahner¡¯s theology is due in great part to the number of excellent scholars who have elucidated his thinking over the years. This article assembles considerations of Rahner¡¯s idea of freedom as found in the rich secondary literature on Rahner. Rahner¡¯s ethics, and indeed much of his theology, rests upon the idea of discernment, his own spiritual experience, and the Ignatian practice of discernment of spirits. Discipleship with Jesus and the love of neighbor, all undergirded by the person¡¯s free response to God¡¯s grace and revelation, is the horizon that embraces all of what Rahner has to say. The idea of freedom rests at the basis of Rahner¡¯s understanding of the human person, our call to discipleship, and our fundamental choice to grow in God¡¯s grace.

Classically, Christians have professed the saving efficacy of the cross. Does Karl Rahner? Recent commentary on Foundations of Christian Faith has described Rahner as conflating ¡°atonement¡± generally with penal substitutionary theories of a changing God, as ruling out the redemptive significance of Christ¡¯s death, and as denigrating the normativity of Scripture in order to do so. This article responds to these claims, unfolding Rahner¡¯s soteriology and arguing that he advances a theology of the cross which affirms its saving efficacy, including in the last decade of his work.

Theology and literature, as the twentieth century progressed, increasingly treated religion not in terms of the objectifications of dogmas and devotions but as the unseen presence of the divine in an individual life. Readers and critics saw degrees of belief and modalities of sin in the novels of Graham Greene. The writer acknowledged the influence of European novelists and theologians on his narratives. Karl Rahner¡¯s theology of human existence within an atmosphere of grace along with a presentation of the transcendental and the categorical in expressions of faith and grace recall some modern novels like Greene¡¯s A Burnt-Out Case. Both theologian and novelist point to God¡¯s presence as silent, varied, mysterious, and real.

Hope for persons with disabilities is most often associated with the possibility of cure. When cure is not achievable, there remains a dire lack in our socio-cultural imagination around and construction of hopeful disabled futurity. This paper explores Karl Rahner¡¯s eschatology as a means of both deconstructing narrow visions of curative hope and affirming the presence of theological hope that already exists in the lives of disabled people. Ultimately, this paper argues that ¡°crip time¡±¡ªthe time embodied by persons with disabilities¡ªwitnesses to a prophetic relationship with time in its openness to the life-giving possibilities of the absolute future.

In this article, I explore how William Desmond recovers Thomas Aquinas's Five Ways by offering a new way for considering the relation of God to being. I do so in the context of Charles Taylor¡¯s reflections on the immanent frame and the possibility of thinking towards God in the secular age. Desmond renews Aquinas proofs by seeing in them a hermeneutic openness to God. Considering each of Aquinas¡¯s five ways through the lens of Desmond¡¯s philosophy, I argue that each proof reveals God¡¯s ways of being within being as a path to recovering an awareness of God¡¯s presence in the world.

Karl Rahner had a powerful influence on Vatican II for four well-known reasons: his fluency in Latin, his intellectual brilliance, his strenuous work ethic, and his wide knowledge of Catholic theology. Rahner¡¯s contribution as a peritus was surpassed only by G¨¦rard Philips and Yves Congar, all three of whom advised the key conciliar fathers such as Cardinals Suenens, K?nig, and Frings. This essay traces the influence of Rahner on the four Vatican II Constitutions, Sacrosanctum Concilium, Lumen Gentium, Dei Verbum, and Gaudium et Spes. It concludes with a reflection on the pastoral care that infused his work.

Sophiology has come to the fore over the past century due in large part to the Russian sophiologists and the rise of feminist hermeneutics. Nevertheless, sophiology remains suspect in many circles due to a lack of clarity as to the status Sophia, on the one hand, and a resistance to it due to its challenge to ¡®traditional¡¯ images of God as male, on the other hand. This article takes the theological ambiguities surrounding the ontological status of Sophia, the Wisdom of God, as a context for approaching a systematic clarification that may assist a broader reception of sophiology into mainstream theology.

Karl Rahner completed his in 1951 but did not receive permission to publish it from his Jesuit superiors. The work appeared in 2004, twenty years after Rahner¡¯s death. This essay examines his work on the Assumption and the censors¡¯ objections. Rahner¡¯s publication of 1947, ¡°On the Theology of Death,¡± was appended to the Marian treatise as an ¡°excursus¡± but laid the foundation for the later work. Rahner interpreted the Assumption as an anticipation of the resurrection of the dead. This essay focuses on three speculations by Rahner: on the relation of the soul to the body, on the maturation of the soul after death, and on the final resurrection as the world¡¯s transformation. The censors criticized Rahner¡¯s theology of death as too speculative and his Mariology as too minimal. Yet ¡¯s treatment of Mary as a sign of hope until the second coming vindicated Rahner.

This article describes the origin in 1991 of the Karl Rahner Society, which meets every year within the annual convention of the Catholic Theological Society of America. The Rahner Society¡¯s origins include the role of William M. Thompson-Uberuaga as Founding Coordinator, the contributions of the earliest members of the Coordinating Committee, and the relation between the KRS and the CTSA. Society members found a vehicle for publication in the Marquette University journal Philosophy & Theology whose founding editor was Andrew Tallon. The journal continues to publish the society¡¯s ¡°Rahner Papers¡± annually.

This essay traces the history of the Karl Rahner Society between the years 1998 and 2019. It lists the achievements of the society¡¯s coordinators, many of the books and articles about Rahner published by members of the society, and the role played in the society by Presidents of the Catholic Theological Society of America. The essay also identifies three persistent themes of the society: Rahner and his contemporaries, Rahner and the Catholic Church, and Rahner and ecumenism.

According to John Hare, a ¡°moral gap¡± exists between the authority of a moral demand and our inability to do the moral demand. Only the authority of the moral demander can bridge the gap, but that requires the demander experience the obligations of the demand. Christian ethics has a way to explain how to bridge of the gap. Through the doctrine of the perichoresis of triune relationships, we see how the mutual indwelling of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit incorporates the human spirit into the inner-work of the triune relations, and thereby closes the moral gap.

This article describes the presence of Karl Rahner in philosophical, theological, and propagandistic works published in the Soviet Union or published outside the USSR and distributed within it. Some references to Rahner appeared in self-published works without the approval of Soviet censors. These included the works of Orthodox theologians such as Sergej ?eludkov and Alexander Men¡¯. Other references to Rahner appeared in anti-religious propaganda and in works by Marxist-Leninist philosophers such as Bronislavas Juozas Kuzmickas. By 1992, the year following the collapse of the USSR, Rahner began to receive a more favorable reception in the writing of philosophers such as Elena B. Timerman.

This article diagnoses the problem of plagiarism in academic books and articles in the disciplines of philosophy and theology. It identifies three impediments to institutional reform. They are: (1) a misplaced desire to preserve personal and institutional reputations; (2) a failure to recognize that attribution in academic writing admits of degrees; and (3) a disproportionate emphasis on the so-called ¡°intention to plagiarize.¡± A detailed case study provides an illustration of the need for institutional reform in the post-publication processes in the disciplines of philosophy and theology.

Back in the early 1960s, Karl Rahner acknowledged that ¡®religious agnosticism¡¯ (¡®religi?se Agnostizismus¡¯) did have ¡°some truth¡± in it [meint etwas Richtiges] (Rahner and Vorgrimler, Kleines Theologisches W?rterbuch, 13; Theological Dictionary, 16). On the Hegelian assumption that a thing being defined involves as much what it is not, as what it is, this paper will explore in what sense Rahner thought that religious agnosticism does contain an element of truth, by contrasting his interpretation of its component parts to that of the nineteenth century agnostic trio of Herbert Spencer, Thomas H. Huxley, and John Tyndall.

This article concerns Aquinas¡¯s practical doctrine on two philosophical difficulties underlying much contemporary ethical debate. One is Hume¡¯s Is-ought thesis and the other is its radical consequence, Moore¡¯s Open-question argument. These ethical paradoxes appear to have their roots in epistemological scepticism and in a deficient anthropology. Possible response to them can be found in that Aquinas¡¯s human intellect (essentially theoretical and practical at the same time) naturally performs three main operations: 1?) To apprehend the intellecta and universal notions ens, verum and bonum. 2?) To formulate the first theoretical and practical principles. 3?) To order that the intellectum and universal good be done and the opposite avoided. Thomistic philosophical response to both predicaments will not be exclusively ethical, but will harmonically embrace ontology, anthropology and epistemology.

The topics related to the creation of man and to the death of human being are, undoubtedly, the most interesting issues facing the human mind. In explaining them, Christian Philosophy is strongly supported by the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, but there is also an attempt of explanation with referring to the process of evolution. In this article we present such an attitude elaborated by Polish Philosopher Fr. Tadeusz S. Wojciechowski. According to him the resurrection of Human Body takes place in the moment of one¡¯s death. The death is the highest degree of biological evolution in which Man reaches the eternal life. Achieving the aim of biological evolution is not equal with the reaching spiritual evolution; at least not in case of every human being. Thus, the Purgatory helps to accomplish the task of spiritual self-fulfillment, unless one¡¯s life led him to the eternal condemnation.

The central thesis of this essay is that the relation imagined to hold between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit corresponds quite closely with the triadic relationship that holds between object, sign, and interpretant, respectively, within C. S. Peirce¡¯s conception of semiosis. Section 1 introduces Peirce¡¯s conception of semiosis. Section 2 supports the main thesis through examination of descriptions of the Trinitarian relations in two classic Christian texts: The New Testament and The Catechism of the Catholic Church. Section 3 reviews two alternative explanations of this surprising correlation: Andrew Robinson¡¯s vestigia Trinitatis explanation and a naturalistic alternative.

Martin Luther has given little explicit influence on philosophy, and in 1950 Jaroslav Pelikan called for further work into investigating a ¡®Lutheran philosophy.¡¯ The beginning of this work lies in Luther¡¯s Heidelberg Disputations, in which he attacks the method of scholasticism and counters with the method of truly Christian theology, a theologia crucis. Such counter, this article argues, entails a shift in Christian philosophizing, a shift that sharply distinguishes between God and man and yet, through this distinction, as Luther asserts, allows one to ¡°call the thing what it actually is¡±¡ªand thus leads to a truly Christian philosophy.

Computational functionalism assumes a synonymy between abstract functional processes in the central processing unit of a typical digital computer and the human brain, hence the conclusion that an appropriately programmed computer is a mind. Arguably, the point is that neural firings are synonymous with the transfer of electrical currents. Both are accountable and susceptible to a physicalist¡¯s explanation. But, the reason they both worked is ultimately premised upon a causal relationship with nature. However, to understand why nature works raises some problems. Nature is either a self-propelled machine or is propelled by another force. The paper submits that, much as the discourse implies some form of ¡°theism,¡± the only consistent construal is functional-theism. This, again, raises further problems.

Karl Rahner is not usually thought of as a feminist. Though feminist theology has often made recurs to his theological anthropology, Rahner is assumed to offer feminist theology little in terms of an analysis of sex, gender, and human nature. While Rahner¡¯s explicit writings on women appear fragmentary and ambivalent, an investiga?tion of the philosophical and theological underpinnings of Rahner¡¯s theological anthropology shows that Karl Rahner¡¯s understanding of human nature is imbued with a conception of sex and gender that constitutes an important contribution to an understanding of sex, gender, and human nature in theological anthropology in general and feminist theology in particular.

The theology of the (Hebrew) Bible, as set out in the Torah¡¯s foundational parts, answers the question ¡°What am I?¡± not the question ¡°Why is there a world?¡± So the principle that the Bible¡¯s deity, God, represents, the principle of a category of being not recognized in the pagan thinking whose basic elements Greek philosophy systematizes, first enters ¡°In the day that .?.?. the Lord God formed [the] man,¡± not ¡°In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth.¡± The admonition to place God first doesn¡¯t therefore exclude the impersonal principles of being with which the other gods are associated, only denies their adequacy to making sense of your being and of mine, of his being and of hers.

The aim of this article is to contrast Hegelian insights about the secret with Derrida¡¯s literary account of the secret in the story of Abraham. Derrida outlines two kinds of secret in ¡°Literature in Secret,¡± one revealable and the other apophatic. I propose that the first kind of secret is Hegelian in nature because a productive concept of contradiction underlies it. On the other hand, the second kind of secret is Derridean because it withdraws from all revelation. Through an analysis of the role of contradiction in Hegel¡¯s Logic and Derrida¡¯s distinction between revealable and unrevealable secrets, I aim to explore the logical and structural components of the concept of the secret.

Habermas argues that religious reasons can enter the public sphere so long as they undergo a translation that meets the standards of public reason. I argue that such a translation may be either unnecessary or impossible. Habermas does not sufficiently consider the possibility that religious reasons are already publicly accessible such that there no translation is required. Moreover, Habermas entirely fails to consider the possibility that, if he is right about religious reasons not being publicly accessible, these reasons may be of a kind such that they cannot be translated into a publicly accessible idiom as he supposes they can be.

Sophocles¡¯s Oedipus Tyrannus shows that humans' problems do not appear when they listen to the gods, but when they listen to themselves imagining that they follow the gods. Instead of placing themselves in the service of the god, as Socrates does in Plato¡¯s Apology, they only think that they follow the divinity, while they actually act according to their own understanding. If Sophocles¡¯s play is a synopsis of this danger, Plato¡¯s dialogue proposes a different attitude before divinity: instead of interpreting the gods and acting on this interpretation, you would need to enter into their service by studying the meaning of their communication.

In this article, I focus on the circular relationship that, in his 1998 encyclical, Jean Paul II argued there is between faith and reason. I first note that this image of circularity needs some explaining, because it is not clear where exactly the circular process begins and ends. I then argue that an explanation can be found in Aquinas¡¯s reflection on the gift of understanding. Aquinas referred to the virtue of faith as caused by God, which promotes human reason, and this in turn strengthens the certainty of faith.

Christian thinkers in the patristic era were not reluctant to integrate classical philosophy with biblical theology as they addressed the seeming incompatibility of free will and determinism (fate). This paper compares and contrasts Tertullian and the Stoics as they explain three issues relating to freedom and fate: 1) The operation of the Logos, 2) Theological Anthropology, and 3) Teleology. While in agreement with the Stoics on several key points, Tertullian crucially departs from them as he argues it is not by necessity¡ªbut rather by voluntary collaboration between humanity and the Logos¡ªthat the Creation arrives at its determinate end.

This essay explores Karl Rahner¡¯s use of silence throughout his writings in relation to central themes of his theology. First, in his reflections about encountering the silent mystery of God in prayer, Rahner discovers that this painful silence may indeed be sacramental of God¡¯s abiding nearness, inviting us to greater faith, hope, and love. Second, Rahner engages the transcendental character of this relationship between grace and freedom through the silence that permeates the existential divine-human dialogue. Third, Rahner¡¯s meditations on Jesus, the silent Word, reveal how Jesus¡¯s surrender in freedom to God¡¯s silence enables our own response to God and participation in Jesus¡¯s salvific ¡°death-into-resurrection.¡± Fourth, Rahner elucidates the role of silence in ordinary mysticism; patient forbearance, bold proclamation, and love of neighbor are all opportunities for experiencing the grace of the Holy Spirit in everyday life. Finally, these themes converge in Rahner¡¯s thoughts about the importance of silence in the spirituality of the theologian.

This article explores Karl Rahner¡¯s conception of the ¡°Liturgy of the World¡± in light of the theme for the 2019 Annual Convention of the Catholic Theological Society of America, ¡°Another World is Possible: Violence, Resistance and Transformation.¡± Employing Rahner¡¯s hermeneutics of worship, violence can be conceived as a denial of this cosmic liturgy, transformation as conversion to it, and resistance as the stance opposing the denial. Resistance entails solidarity with all humanity in liturgical participation and in action for social justice. Metz¡¯s political-theological critique of Rahner, with assistance from Bruce Morrill¡¯s analysis of Metz¡¯s work for liturgical theology, and Rahner¡¯s reference to Teilhard¡¯s ¡°Cosmic Mass,¡± taken today in light of contemporary cosmology with assistance from Roger Haight¡¯s non-dualistic approach to models of God, are among the implications to be considered for engaging Rahner¡¯s vision in ongoing efforts at liturgical renewal.

Contemporary Roman Catholic considerations of church reform are often impeded by the worry that any acknowledgment of systematic or properly ecclesial failure calls Jesus¡¯s promise of the church¡¯s indefectibility into question. This makes honesty about such failure, and therefore true reform, impossible. At best, in this way of thinking, blame can be shifted onto a few ¡°bad apples.¡± Karl Rahner¡¯s engagement with a quite different problem¡ªhow Roman Catholics can account for the fruits of the Spirit in Protestant Ministries¡ªcan provide tools for a renewed ecclesiology capable of honestly reckoning with sin in and by the church.

Bernhard Deister¡¯s book Anthropologie im Dialog is a comparison of aspects of Karl Rahner¡¯s theology with the psychology of Carl Rogers. Here the dialogue partner of the German philosophical theologian is an American psychologist of influence. The author begins: ¡°These pages present two exemplary pictures of the human person, from theology and psychology. They unfold their approaches in an interdisciplinary dialogue.¡± The following pages summarize this comparison. Both thinkers see the human being as an active subject living in the tensions between individuality and relation?ship, and then between immanence and transcendence. Building on this, Rogers¡¯ psychology centers on the dynamics and emotions accompanying life with social groups, while Rahner is frequently involved in drawing particular theological disciplines like moral theology or ecclesiology forward into creative reflections on tradi?tion, spirituality, and praxis amid church and society.

Although not ignored, Rahner¡¯s theology has not played a significant influence on the interdisciplinary scholarship between Catholic theology and literature, perhaps because Rahner¡¯s thought is often considered to lack a theological aesthetics. This article encourages a reevaluation of this impression by bringing Rahner¡¯s theology of symbol and his argument for the anonymous Christian into dialogue with the last novel of the acclaimed Japanese Catholic Shusaku Endo, Deep River (1994). Endo¡¯s novel challenges theologians to consider Rahner¡¯s insights in concrete, multi-cultural, and non-Christian contexts, and demonstrates the importance of thinking about Rahner¡¯s theology of symbol in terms of narrative. At the same time, Endo¡¯s novel prompts a reconsideration of Rahner¡¯s controversial argument for the anonymous Christian, for Rahner¡¯s thought and Endo¡¯s novel present two different approaches to the issue of religious pluralism. In this dialogue between novelist and theologian, the Incarnational foundation of Rahner¡¯s argument for the anonymous Christian emerges more clearly, a foundation that can be easily missed amidst his abstract rhetoric.

The mere difference view, endorsed by some philosophers and Christian scholars, claims that disability by itself does not make a person worse off on balance¡ªany negative impacts on overall welfare are due to social injustice. This article defends the bad difference view¡ªsome disability is bad not simply because of social arrangements but because of biological deficits that, by themselves, make a person worse off. It argues that the mere difference view contradicts core doctrines of Christian faith. The analysis focuses on intellectual rather than physical or sensory disabilities.

The commandment to ¡°love your neighbor as yourself¡± (Matthew 25:39) is central to Christian discipleship. How does the concrete way that we express love enhance or diminish our ability to love? This paper brings Karl Rahner¡¯s theology of neighbor love into dialogue with a description of altruism and compassion provided by social psychologist, C. Daniel Batson, and neuroscientists Tania Singer and Olga Klimecki. For Rahner, grace enables and sustains love. In addition, a mutually reciprocal relationship of unity exists between human love for God, neighbor, and self. Furthermore, Rahner contends prayer as one way to cultivate compassion for another. The scientific research presented here examines aspects of the relationship between self and other known as empathy and compassion. The research of Batson, Singer, and Klimecki shed light on the role of self-love in compassion as well as the ways our capacity to empathize conditions our potential for altruism.

The primary goal of this article is to provide both a descriptive and comparative analysis of two representative models of systematic theology. The findings of this study show each model to be capable of processing biblical facts, packaging them into a systematic whole, and exhibiting the facts. Yet, inescapably, the conclusions inextricably connect authorial purpose to operational structure, suggesting it is necessary to reevaluate the contemporary stigmas accompanying authorial presuppositions. There is also, however, the uncovering of a potential danger area within systematic theology, namely: the scientific-rational classification system, driven by cause and effect, which engenders classifications removed from Scripture.

Andreas Battlogg, S.J., one of the supervising editors, discusses the conclusion of the publication of Karl Rahner's S?mtliche Werke in over thirty volumes along with its impact on the study of theology now and in the future.

This paper presents a model for the human experience of eternity based upon an integration of the known properties of the infinities and the creation centered spirituality of Meister Eckhart. The model presents man¡¯s movement through eternity as an ascent of ever greater infinite ontological increases that is asymptotic to God. It implies that time is part of the experience of eternity but to an ever decreasing degree. It also implies that death as a transforming event is recurring but that fear of death is only associated with its first occurrence.

The idea that the mind, i.e., common sense, is not an inherent human structure but a cultural system, has become a general assumption taken for granted by many. Richard Rorty¡¯s post-Philosophical culture serves as an illustrative example. One of the most renowned representatives of the radical critique of the mind, i.e., of common sense, is the cultural anthropologist Clifford Geertz. He believes that we are in need of an ethnography based on the ¡°thick description¡±. Geertz¡¯s insights have strongly influenced the postliberal theologians. Consequently, the centre of the theology¡ªthe faith¡ªhas once again been obscured. Therefore, this article seeks to emphasize the importance of faith, based on Josef Pieper¡¯s sagacious insights.

This paper extends Jean-Luc Nancy¡¯s engagement with St. Anselm. Specifically, while Nancy is primarily concerned with Anselm¡¯s Proslogion, this paper brings Nancy¡¯s deconstructive protocols to bear on Anselm¡¯s Cur Deus Homo. Of particular interest is Nancy¡¯s treatment of the semiological association of economics and metaphysics. Ultimately, the ¡°supplemental logic¡± developed here allows us to read Anselm¡¯s dependence on the category of debt in the context of prayer. Finally, by stressing Nancy¡¯s reception of French literary theory and poststructuralism, this paper offers an intervention into the burgeoning theological reception of Nancy, which generally sees him as a basically anti-Christian philosopher of Heideggerian, not Derridean, immanence.

This paper will survey the most prominent contemporary analyses of causation, and evaluate their compatibility, or otherwise, with the doctrine of Occasionalism, with the ultimate aim of formulating an occasionalist analysis of causation. Though reductive analyses of causation are incompatible with Occasionalism, it seems that the denial of reductionism is as well. I will suggest a solution to the problem, involving an analysis of causation as the relation of extensional identity, between God¡¯s will that an event actually occur, and the intensionally distinct event itself.

Philosophy experienced a turning point at the time of Ludwig Witt?genstein. Likewise, religion (Judaism) encountered transformation during the time of the apostle Paul. Wittgenstein¡¯s metaphor of the ¡®River-bed¡¯ that was later subsumed in the language-game theory is a concept that challenged the then status quo of philosophy known as rationalistic foundationalism. This philosophical predisposi?tion is analogous to the religious situation when Paul began his Christian ministry. Paul¡¯s passionate emphasis on ¡®justification by faith¡¯ rather than legalistic or ritualistic observance of the law, was a shockwave to the Judaist religious establishment. Wittgenstein and Paul could as well be regarded as ¡®radicals¡¯ or rebels in their respective disciplines. Wittgenstein introduced a paradigm shift into philosophy while Paul did it in the Christian religion. Their unconventional outlooks were, however, met with a lot of resistance especially from the diehard philosophers and/or religionists of the day. This paper, therefore, is a comparative work on Wittgenstein (Philosophy) and Paul (Religion) in order to demonstrate sustained revolutionary tendencies toward human innovations and the need to strive for excellence.

Where does value come from? How does it continue in existence? Can it disappear? In this paper I argue, in a direction suggested by Sartre and Heidegger, that value is an objective feature of reality which exists because of choices made by conscious beings. Specifically, I argue that both the existence of correctness (what ought to or must be done, would be the right or correct thing to do) and the existence of goodness rest on types of choosing¡ªchoosing to do and choosing to care, respectively.

Interrogating the themes of non-existence and detachment, this article demonstrates a theological consistency underlying the composition of selected logical and mystical writings of Meister Eckhart. This is performed through a thorough consideration of Eckhart¡¯s logical position on understanding and existence in relation to the existence (or non-existence) of God; and the implications of retracing this position in his earlier sermons which evoke the necessity of detachment. In this, it is argued that Eckhart (largely influenced by Augustine¡¯s hierarchy of visual experience) placed logic within a broader programme of Beguine theology, in which logic exposes its own limitations, and detachment from corporeality enables a turning toward Divine incorporeality.

One of the most intuitive concepts of truth is the classical correspondence theory of truth. Aside from the theoretical cogency and plausibility, this truth theory has two fundamental problems. I shall explore both of these problems. This will not be to reveal the problematic nature of the classical correspondence theory of truth itself, but to demonstrate the implications it has on Islam. I shall establish that the problems of this truth theory contribute in the failure to determine the truth of a particular notion of an Islamic God. Consequently this truth theory would prove inconsistent with a particular notion of God within the Islamic tradition.

Two tasks are pursued here. One is to display the difference (and its significance) between hermeneutic commitments in commenting on Aristotle¡¯s difficult metaphysical texts. The other is to begin rethinking an Aristotelian account of medical healing by considering in detail the connection between matter and the form of health in Metaphysics VII. This is carried out through the examination of two puzzles: one about the relation of parts to causes, the other about the relation of matter to articulation (logos).

This article presents the ethical and moral changes traditional Christianity and Islam face regarding the developing technology of cloning. Using dystopian literature and film as discussion points, this article argues that there is conflict regarding the idea of the sanctity of all human life within Christian and Muslim doctrine and what value the life of a cloned human would retain. These issues are examined through the joint lenses of natural theology and natural knowledge.

Modern comprehension of religion and violence, particularly modern attitudes toward religious violence, is the main topic of this paper. Mainstream secularization theory states that religion triggers conflict, tension, oppression, violence, and even war. As a continuation of this theory, the ¡°myth of religious violence¡± assumes that religion is intrinsically connected with terror. These two narratives provide no sufficient proof for their claim about the irrelevance of religion; nonetheless, these narratives are expressions of the human agent¡¯s struggle in his/her search for meaning. Referring to Gianni Vattimo¡¯s idea of weak thought (pensiero debole), this writing proposes a narrative that treats religious and spiritual dimensions of human identity as essential for human life, as a source of remarkable consolation and hope in enduring the terror of violence, and as an opening to the new transcendental dimension of the ultimate meaning of human life.

Charles Taylor indicates in A Secular Age his admiration for Henri de Lubac, Yves Congar, and other Catholic theologians associated with la nouvelle th¨¦ologie. This essay reads de Lubac and Taylor on the secular, analyzing convergences as well as key differences. In particular, it argues that both underestimate the possibilities of political and liberation theologies. The concluding section puts de Lubac and Taylor in dialogue with forms of political theology that have been in dialogue with their work. The author argues that a stronger political theology can be drawn out of the approach of de Lubac and Taylor despite the trepidations of each toward such a project.

The reader will find a proposal of anthropological conception derived from philosophically assuming nothingness. The intention of this article is to express nineteen concrete consequences derived from being a committed nihilist in the contemporary world. Among other things, the anthropological conception proposed along these lines is congruent with the fact that man is because of his own nothingness and can only believe that he knows, that he is hurled into the world, that his will is imaginary, and that he is un-created, finite, contingent, timely, and light, without certainties and without sense. The article likewise explains the human need of creating gods and what man lives after knowing himself to be mobile in a world that is inserted simultaneously into chaos and the cosmos.

This essay pursues the development of Charles Taylor¡¯s concept of ¡°strong evaluation¡± from his first publications on this topic until his most recent uses of the concept. Because Taylor employs strong evaluation in discussions of philosophical anthropology, ethics, phenomenology, and ontology all in one, it has been (mis)understood in a variety of ways. To clarify his strategy, the analysis gradually progresses beyond strong evaluation to the more fundamental question of the relation between philosophical anthropology, ethics, phenomenology, and ontology in Taylor¡¯s writings. It concludes that Taylor¡¯s reasoning especially deserves further investigation with regard to the ontological implications of strong evaluation.