Search

Publisher Copyright: © 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston. In this article, I investigate search for meaning in life and transcendence in spouses of people with mental illness. Research related to the topic is scant. I interviewed 16 Finnish spouses and partners in narrative, semi-structured interviews, and analyzed the data narratively. The interviewees perceived mental illness as a threat to meaning. In the search for meaning, transcendence referred to hope, humor, wishing, and imagining. The search for meaning and transcendence were connected through the fragile "sense of something else for me"as detachment from the spouse's illness reality. Implications for pastoral theology can be found above all in Christian hope.

This article examines early Jewish ideas of virtue that are usually ignored in presentations of the history of virtue discourse. We analyze the use of the Greek term ἀρετή in the Apocrypha of the Septuagint; all the occurrences of the term are in texts that were originally composed in Greek. We argue that the discussion on virtues – ideal human qualities and ways of living – in the Apocrypha has three thematic foci: (1) training, (2) courage, and (3) suffering and its postmortem rewards. Virtue prepares one to live well, encounter grave difficulties and even death with courage, and, finally, earn eternal life. We argue that it is implicit that virtuous Jews surpass, in ways that differ depending on the text, their more-or-less openly Greek antagonists who fail the virtue ideals that they would culturally be expected to uphold. Through their words and deeds, the exemplary Jews demonstrate that true virtue comes from a steadfast commitment to the Jewish tradition and the Mosaic law. Being a good Jew involves training that manifests itself in various desirable traits, but it also means acknowledging the divinity of the Jewish law as the basis of both the good life and the postmortem consequences of virtue.

Publisher Copyright: © 2021 Anna-Liisa Rafael, published by De Gruyter. This article employs Galit Hasan-Rokem's notions of vertical and horizontal axes of transmission for the study of biblical reception history, presenting the reception of the story of the mother and her seven sons in Origen's writings as a case study. I suggest that Hasan-Rokem's vertical axis of intergenerational transmission corresponds to reception history: it also involves us and thus demands our critical awareness. The horizontal axis of intergroup transmission, then, calls for our sensitivity toward the diverse interpersonal and intercultural exchanges that reception history presents less frequently as authoritative or even manifest. My analysis scrutinizes Origen's pronouncedly bookish relation to the story of the mother and her seven sons, and I provide a reading of this relation as entailing both (inter)personal and intercultural encounters. I use both Eusebius' biography of Origen and recent studies on late antique rabbinic discourse as means by which to broaden our perspective on Origen's horizon of expectation. In conclusion, I suggest that Origen's portrayal of the mother indicates some ambivalence toward this figure: her words of wisdom have undisputed authority over Origen, while her embodied wisdom makes him reserved. Thus, the reception of the story of the mother and her seven sons in Origen's writings could strengthen the prospect that the story was a living reality for Origen as well as for others in third-century Palestine.

Summary In this article, we will use contemporary analytic tools to make sense of the main arguments in the classic debate on free will between Erasmus of Rotterdam and the Reformer Martin Luther. Instead of offering another exegesis of these texts, we put forward an analysis that links this historical debate with contemporary discussions on free will and grace in philosophical theology. We argue that the debate was ultimately about how three theological core claims are related to one another: the Anti-Pelagian Constraint (humans are incapable of willing any good, in order to come to faith), the Responsibility Principle (humans are morally responsible in the eyes of God) and human free will. Erasmus attacks Luther by arguing that the Responsibility Principle cannot be maintained without free will, while Luther responds by arguing that Erasmus must reject free will, because it is in conflict with the Anti-Pelagian Constraint. Luther is then left with the dilemma of justifying the Responsibility Principle without free will – a task, which in our estimation, fails. In the concluding section of the article, we point out some continuities and discontinuities between the contemporary debate and that of Luther and Erasmus.

Summary This article considers the utility of a liturgical lens for locating and analyzing religion in the public sphere. Dominant paradigms in the study of religion tend to either dissolve the religious/secular distinction or base it on overly cognitive content. Drawing on the work of James K. A. Smith, the article outlines an approach which instead locates religion in embodied practices that shape human desire. I suggest the religious/secular binary is better conceptualized as a continuum in which liturgical intensity is the primary criterion of religiosity. A liturgical continuum better articulates the contested nature of public space and the religious aspects of political life.

Summary This paper explores pastoral care as a common task of all Christians in the light of theology and philosophy of love in contemporary Finnish Lutheran theology. Pastoral care is about taking care of one’s suffering neighbours, which theologically is about love. The so-called Finnish school of Luther studies considered Luther as a theologian of love. Finnish theological ethics has concentrated on interpretation of Luther’s theology. Luther’s concept of love has been reinterpreted by Risto Saarinen with the idea of gift and recognition. Following Saarinen, and Jaana Hallamaa’s ethical theory of agency, the paper illustrates how the Lutheran idea of love can be based on agency, gift giving and reciprocity and so be understood as praxis in terms of Christian life. To conclude, the question of what makes caring Christian in nature, or pastoral care in other words, is explored in the light of faith as trust.

Summary It is usually supposed that biological design arguments (where biological complex order is seen as evidence of a Creator) are made obsolete by Darwinian evolutionary theory. However, philosopher Alvin Plantinga and others have defended the continued possibility of a rational “design discourse”, in which biological order is taken as a sign of God’s purposeful action. In this article, I consider two objections to design discourse: (1) a theological objection to biological design based on the problem of natural evil, and (2) the evolutionary objection, according to which evolutionary theory removes the justification for any biological design perception. Whereas Plantinga’s own response utilizes the arguments of the Intelligent Design movement, I argue in favor of utilizing “design discourse” as part of a theistic evolutionist view.

In this article, I examine the early history of Christian environmentalism (“ecotheology”) in the twentieth century. I delineate four strands of early ecotheology: agrarian ecotheology; social Christianity; British contributions; and “post-liberal” foundations for later ecotheological movements. I show that ecotheology was a slowly-rising movement, which had notable proponents. I argue that these early ecotheologians are significant for several reasons. First, these writings support the view that there are momentous roots of environmentalism in the late 19th and early 20th Century. Second, these texts reveal important information about the relation of Christian and other environmentalism. Third, early ecotheologians contributed to discussion about themes which would later form distinctive environmental disciplines, such as environmental aesthetics, education, ethics, history and philosophy. Their thoughts offer interesting reflections pointing to these fields. Fourth, the contributions by the early ecotheologians are not only historically interesting, but they have relevance for the current discussion. These theologians were in a special position to notice the major changes brought by technological development in the twentieth century and they provided important critical reflections about these issues. Because they developed their thought independently, they display creative thinking, although often in an unfinished manner.

Two opposing opinions about “the Maccabees” feature in the homily On Eleazar and the Seven Boys. According to the homilist, “the Maccabees” can be recognized as martyrs; yet, many others fail to see it. The construction of this conflict relies heavily on another confrontation identifiable in the same text: a dialogue between the homilist and “the Jew”, who thinks differently and, in the opinion of the homilist, incorrectly. These tensions in the source may be taken to reflect “identity-political” issues of the time and evaluated accordingly. My analysis challenges this view by emphasizing how difficult it is to reconstruct historical encounters between persons/groups based on such a source. I suggest, instead, that the conflict and dialogue should be considered parallel examples of how, in the context of late antiquity, a Christian intellectual mind conceptualizes “difference” (of opinions or between identities) and how it deals with it. The analysis shows that the homilist’s argumentation is built on seemingly commonsensical or authoritative fair-to-all “facts”. Yet, interactions with others provide the homilist with ways to govern and re-produce those very facts. Rather than social struggles, the interactions reflect and represent the level of otherness contained in the discourse of the homilist.

The last two decades have seen the (re)emergence of the concept of recognition in ethical and political theory. Oftentimes, recognition is seen as a deeper, more developed version of tolerance, without the problems that tolerance purportedly has. We should not “merely” tolerate different individuals, identities and cultures, but recognize them, or so the argument goes. This move from tolerance to recognition is not without its critics. We will outline some of these criticisms and address them with the resources provided by the theory of recognition. We will suggest that while some of the criticisms are unfounded, the move from tolerance to recognition has a number of problems that the critics have correctly pointed out. The relationship between tolerance and recognition is complex: both have their own aims and functions. We will suggest that there are cases–especially ones that involve deep moral disagreements–where tolerance is a more reasonable aim than recognition.

The contemporary discussion on the so-called linguistic understanding of doctrine, initiated by George Lindbeck in the 1980s, has largely come to the following conclusions: (a) although we may criticize a merely propositional understanding of doctrine, we cannot move beyond propositions. Propositions remain necessary but not sufficient constituents of linguistic utterances. (b) The speech-act theory, inspired by Wittgenstein and formulated by Austin and Searle, has permanent value for the understanding of religious doctrine. By means of this theory theologians can identify important aspects of those linguistic utterances which are considered to be doctrines. (c) The linguistic approaches to doctrine lead to postliberal theologies which emphasize and even justify the ecclesial and traditionalist nature of doctrinal formulations. 1

“Full recognition” has been the expressed goal of ecumenical endeavours since the beginning of modern ecumenism. This article investigates the development of the idea of “recognition” in the ecumenical movement as represented by the Commission on Faith and Order. The text introduces a theoretical framework for investigating the idea of recognition, with special attention paid to the theological impact of the Roman Catholic Church’s official entry into the ecumenical movement after the Second Vatican Council. The article notes that the idea of recognition has received little attention as an independent concept in ecumenical theology until recently. However, the notion of recognition could function as an overall concept, bringing together various aspects of the ecumenical movement.

This paper wants to bring about a "linguistic turn" in the current theological discussion on gifts and giving. It focuses on the linguistic constructions around "give" and their use in religious and theological texts. The linguistic approach is enriched with the help of Seneca's philosophy of gifts and services. Seneca's De beneficiis is not, however, interpreted as a handbook of anthropology and economic exchange, but as a guide to the proper use of the words "give" and "receive". In the last sections of this paper, some prominent themes of Reformation theology are discussed from the linguistic perspective of giving. In particular, the issue of receiving something purely passively is addressed.

Non