1,721,061 research outputs found
Knowledge through narrative:philosophical and theological explorations of biblical stories
No full textOne of the most wide-reaching and generative developments in recent analytic philosophy has been the upsurge of interest in social cognition and second-person knowledge. In philosophy of mind, an explosion of research has illuminated what philosophers call ‘mind-reading’, or an intuitive, non-propositional understanding of the mental states of other people, especially in contexts of shared attention. In epistemology, a wide range of work has examined the social character of knowledge and of the transmission of knowledge. In philosophy of religion and philosophical theology, a growing number of studies have highlighted the centrality of second-personal knowledge and empathy for understanding some long-standing problems, such as the problem of evil
The Saving Work of Christ
No full textThe article outlines Aquinas's soteriology by examining the many themes that include the saving significance of the passion of Christ, the body of Christ, and the role of the Eucharist. Aquinas could argue that every aspect of Christ's life, death, and resurrection has a sacramental meaning and power. Aquinas pointed out that there are two major differences between punishment and making satisfaction. The first difference is that punishment is inflicted upon the sinner against his will, while making satisfaction is something human beings freely undertake to restore a broken relationship with somebody. The second major difference between punishment and making satisfaction is that one person can make satisfaction for another if the two are united in charity. Aquinas argued that Christ's saving activity benefits all the faithful. He argued that in the divine self-gift that is the life and death of Christ the divine mercy and justice are in perfect harmony with one another. The key presupposition governing Aquinas's soteriology is the intimate union between Christ and his faithful. Aquinas pointed out that Christ, was both priest and offering. A priest is a mediator between God and the people, somebody who bestows divine things upon the people. Christ freely offers himself to suffer on the behalf of human beings
Identifying the risen Christ: some reflections on the epistemology and theology of the Road to Emmaus story
No full textIn this chapter, I consider what spiritual significance we might find in the fact that people who knew Jesus very well ante-mortem seem, in some cases, to struggle to recognize him in his resurrected state. I explore this question with reference to the Road to Emmaus story (Luke 24). I develop two lines of reflection, by proposing that the story points, arguably, to the importance of bodily demeanor in constituting and communicating spiritual authority, and that it invites us to see Jesus's identity in terms of his role in revealing and realizing the divine purposes. These readings offer, I suggest, a way of expounding what seems to be a fundamental proposal of the Emmaus text: that the risen Jesus is made known not on account simply of his bodily appearance, but in what he does, and indeed in how he does it
Teologia i wiedza o osobach
No full textThe aim of the paper is to discern between philosophy and theology. A philosopher is looking after impersonal wisdom, a theologian searches for a personal God. This differentiation is fundamental because knowledge of persons differs from knowledge that. The author shows how taking into account the fact that theology is based on the second-person knowledge changes the way one should approach the hiddenness argument.Celem artykułu jest ukazanie różnicy między filozofią a teologią. Filozof szuka mądrości bezosobowej, teolog zaś szuka Boga osobowego. To zróżnicowanie jest fundamentalne, ponieważ wiedza o osobach różni się od wiedzy o przedmiotach. Autorka pokazuje, jak uwzględnienie faktu, że teologia opiera się na wiedzy drugoosobowej, zmienia podejście do argumentu z ukrytości
A narrative and apocalyptic philosophy of prayer:being towards God
No full textBiblical accounts of prayer often attend to the personal and communal narratives that shape the human need and desire to address God. The Book of Daniel offers a particularly vivid narrative context of prayer, telling the story of a young Israelite who cultivates a persistent practice of prayer in circumstances that are unusually challenging and have uncommonly high stakes. In narrating these prayers, the Book of Daniel unveils dimensions of prayer that are not philosophically predictable but can be philosophically interpreted. This essay attempts such an interpretation, identifying two central dimensions of Daniel's prayers: the eschatological and the hermeneutic. Prayer is eschatological because it seeks the discernment of our final end and the means of its attainment as we make ourselves present to God. Prayer is hermeneutical because it is a task of reading the signs of our lives, interpreting our needs and desires in relation to the divine will and to our final end. The essay begins with a reading of Daniel's prayers in their narrative context, drawing on a range of contemporary interpretations – historical, political, and philosophical – to achieve a better understanding of their qualities and functions. The essay continues with a reading of Aquinas's account of prayer informed by this textual work and with an outlook on contemporary philosophical questions surrounding prayer, particularly the phenomenology of prayer offered by Jean-Louis Chrétien and the analysis of desire of Henri de Lubac. Across both parts, the essay draws attention to the eschatological orientation of prayer, its intimate connection to the theological virtue of hope, and the place of grace in drawing the human spirit, through prayer, to a final consummation
Infused virtues, gifts, and fruits
Full text linkAquinas’s writings on normative ethics are vast, with 1,004 articles on virtue ethics and related matters in the Summa theologiae (ST) alone. These writings constitute an extraordinarily intricate picture of the kind of human life that Aquinas considers normative, but they also contain plenty of surprises, especially for those who assume that Aquinas is guided principally by the virtue ethics of Aristotle. Arguably the greatest of these surprises is that Aquinas’s writings on virtue ethics are not, in fact, simply about virtues. Instead, Aquinas’s virtues in the ST are integrated into a fourfold system of perfective attributes, namely virtues, gifts, beatitudes, and fruits (VGBF). In this chapter, I present a brief summary of this system and my interpretation of its meaning in the light of recent research
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