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Because no human being ever chose to be born, every human being is dependent upon at least one other human being, after the moment of conception until they reach a non-specifiable age of individual survivability. But that phase may not last until it collides with the involuntary boundary line called death. Individualism is therefore (at best) a fleeting possibility to be acquired during a non-impaired period of human life, and its construct thus voids any legitimate claim to it as a "natural" birthright. Most accurately, individualism may be explained in terms of "penumbras" and "emanations" once employed by U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas in writing the 1965 majority Opinion for Griswold v. Connecticut, (381 U.S. 479). Its 1973 maternal companion in Roe v. Wade (410 U.S. 113) presents a conundrum to dissenters, because their opposition requires atheists to concur that only a "god" has the power to give and take life. Clearly, the planned and unplanned fruits of conception belie a deistic source of life-giving power - while converse biological foes; planetary instability; national Armed Forces; terrorist warriors and self-motivated killers belie supernatural means as causation for the termination of human life. However, self-sustaining sectors within humanity continue to strive towards the idealism of individualism, which in reality only an immortal and almighty entity could possess bio-power, in Foucault's terminology, thus has both a natural and supra-natural source. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper argues that Sergej Bulgakov's sophiology was an attempt, via antinomism or the philosophy of antinomies, to overcome the rationalism, monism, and determinism (in a word, 'pantheism') of Vladimir Solov'ëv's philosophy of the Absolute understood as an abstract Trinitarianism. After detailing Solov'ëv's thought on the Trinity and Bulgakov's criticisms of it, the study then describes Bulgakov's antinomism and its application to the doctrine of God. However, it is contended that Bulgakov's antinomism ultimately falls into the same problems with pantheism found in Solov'ëv and so the last part of the paper tentatively proposes resources in his work, stated in the form of a suggested 'fourth (Bulgakovian) antinomy' between ousia (divine Being as such) and Sophia (the revelation in God and the world of the divine Being), that might help to avoid a collapse of God and the world by making the divine Being proper utterly transcendent and unknowable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

John Milbank contends that modernity's attempt to establish an autonomous and secular realm for finite reality derives from a theological error originating primarily in the thought of Duns Scotus. Here both divine and finite reality share in a transcendental univocal Being that understands the divine as merely an extrinsic presence. Addressing this error, Milbank seeks to return to a participatory orthodoxy. This article will argue that in such a return Milbank qualifies in important ways the classical understanding of God's relation to creation and the divine attributes, allowing for a panentheist reading of his work that is both asymmetrical and dipolar in character. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research into perception, the visual brain, and neuropsychology has important implications for understanding Upper Paleolithic art. The relevant aspects of this research and how it relates to the art produced will be described. It will also be shown that the depiction of animals in caves provides particularly important evidence in this regard. Specific natural features and environmental conditions of the cave will be shown to have interacted with the way the visual brain functions that led to the ability to produce animal depictions in particular ways over a period of 20,000 years. Some suggestions are offered demonstrating how the various insights gained may impact on sociocultural factors associated with such depictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This paper provides a general overview of emergence, and then examines the role emergence plays in different areas of science and theology, including big history or the evolutionary epic, religious and theistic naturalism. Critical remarks on the notions of time expressed in these discourses are also provided. The paper then assesses J.T. Fraser's hierarchical theory of time in relation to emergence, and adduces the position Fraser would take with respect to emergence. Finally, the paper concludes with a playful coda from the standpoint of a man of letters, for whom letters have an elemental importance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are several expositions to explain the correlation between God and Universe in the history of philosophy. However the most prominent one is the emanation theory. al-Hadâiq of Batalyevsî is one of the main causes of spread the emanation theory of new platonism in the Andalucía. Batalyevsî was an exceptional thinker of Islamic philosophy in the postİbn Sina era and influenced by Fârâbî and Ikhwân-ı Safâ greatly. He had remarkable effect on Jewish philosophy of religion after XII. century by promoting the concept of God as negative theology, emanation and First Cause. This article aims to approach to Batalyevsî's thought on the matter of emanation in his al-Hadâiq by comparison with the thoughts of Islamic philosopher on the classical era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author provides an analysis of whether the thought of medieval Muslim philosopher Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī contained in his Mabādi' ārā' ahl al-madīna al-fāḍila, principles of the opinion of citizens, is compatible with the Islamic tradition. Topics include discussion of al-Fārābī's epistemology, Neoplatonic idea of emanation, and analysis of al-Fārābī's proposed explanation for the creation of the universe.

The article focuses on the Sarugian kabbalah, a field of kabbalistic discourse which originated during the late 16th and early 17th centuries and was based from the teachings of Isaac Luria as presented by R. Israel Sarug. It states that the Sarugian kabbalah received little scholarly attention because many doubt Sarug's authorship, originality, and contact with Luria. Furthermore, Sarug's alternative conception of the emanation could address central Cordoverian theo-philosophical concerns.

Charles S. Peirce believed that his pragmatic philosophy could reconcile religion and science and that this reconciliation involves a religious ethics creating a real community with the cosmos and God. After some rival pragmatic approaches to God and religious belief inconsistent with Peirce's philosophy are set aside, his metaphysical plan for a reconciliation of religion and science is outlined. A panentheistic God makes the best match with his desired conclusions from the Neglected Argument for the reality of God, and this God is also capable of fulfilling the pragmatic role demanded by Peirce's ethical expectations for the intelligent functioning of religion. The discussion proceeds to an elaboration of the aesthetic, metaphysical, and ethical elements of Peirce's philosophical system, which indicate why Peirce's religious ethics is best categorized as akin to Stoicism, with some Christian elements. For Peirce, religious ethics proceeds from the (potentially universal) agapic community's cooperation with God's loving creativity of the universe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing Connolly's work into a conversation with Christian theology of a feminist and process persuasion, this article explores and builds upon the way in which Connolly offers a third way between the theistic certainties of George Bush's "Christian America" and the crass secularism of those who are and were appalled by the latter's religious fundamentalism. Discerning a secret Trinitarian structure in Connolly's immanent naturalism, though not the Father, Son and Ghost, the article explores the potentials for developing a counter-apocalyptic strategy for political theology that can counter fundamentalist drives and lay the basis for releasing new energies of earthly becoming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this response to David Fergusson’s review of his Christianity and Creation and Jesus of Nazareth, James Mackey considers three apparently contrasting ideas: creation-out-of-nothing and emanation; transcendence and immanence; and absolute idealism and absolute realism. The relationship of each to the possibility of seeing a divine, loving personhood rather than God as an impersonal ground of being is discussed, and it is argued that these are not contrasting but co-ordinate ideas. The meaning of resurrection is then considered, from the perspective of Jesus’ own understanding, and the purpose of the resurrection appearances is explored: as demonstrating the possibility of encountering the real and full presence of the risen Christ, particularly in the fellowship of the Eucharistic meal; and that the true way of the Messiah is a path of service and suffering rather than power and might. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article offers the author's insights on the depiction of emanation in the treatise "Gates of Justice," by Rabbi Joseph ben Abraham Gikatilla. He says that the use of terms including shepha, atsilut, and hitpashtut to describe emanation allows Gikatilla to compare emanation to water metaphor; thus, conceiving irrigation to the lower world. He adds that linguistic and semantic analysis for the treatise shows that Gikatilla perceives emanation as the process of pouring down of divine essence.

This article examines the way in which the theology of Jonathan Edwards can contribute to the construction of a Christian approach to ecological ethics that maintains crucial elements of the Christian theological tradition. By way of comparison, the article begins with an examination of the work of Rosemary Radford Ruether, whose approach to dealing with the ecological implications of the Christian tradition diverges sharply from the perspective offered by Edwards, and provides a useful contrast to his approach. The article then turns to an extensive discussion of Edwards' view of nature and the theology of creation, particularly the relationship between creation and the triune nature of God. The final sections examine an application of Edwards' theology of creation to the development of a Christian environmental ethic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theology of God in the scholarship of John Haught exemplifies rigor, resourcefulness, and creativity in response to ever-evolving worldviews. Haught presents insightful and plausible ways in which to speak about the mystery of God in a variety of contexts while remaining steadfastly grounded in the Christian tradition. This essay explores Haught's proposals through three of his selected lenses-human experience, the informed universe, and evolutionary cosmology-and highlights two areas for further theological development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1996, John Polkinghorne published Scientists as Theologians: A Comparison of the Writings of Ian Barbour, Arthur Peacocke and John Polkinghorne. Responding to this book and his subsequent writing, I first summarize four topics on which we all agree: (1) critical realism; (2) holism, emergence, and levels of organization; (3) human nature; and (4) limitations in God's power. I then discuss our differences concerning: (1) classification schemes; (2) concepts of God; (3) laws of nature; (4) divine action; and (5) Christology. I then explore the contexts in which we were writing: our differing scientific disciplines, theological traditions, and academic institutions. Some concluding reflections concern our place in the interdisciplinary field of “science and religion.” [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the one hand, arguably, I am neither this nor that. Arguably, neither is God this or that – so, am I God? Otherwise it seems that I must be this and God must be that. On the other hand, the being of the universe is not something of which I could plausibly be construed as the ultimate cause. That is God's creative act. Because I do not create the universe, I am not God. So I am God and I am not God. Here's a solution: God is One but also Three, I am but one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Friedrich Meinecke's Die Idee der Staatsräson (1924) is generally seen as the study in which he replaced his monistic-idealistic philosophy of history – as articulated in Weltbürgertum und Nationalstaat – by a dualistic worldview. In this article I will argue against this view. I will do so on the basis of a brief analysis of Meinecke's Staatsräson-study. I will show that Meinecke succeeded in combining his monism and his dualism within a so-called (harmonious) 'panentheistic' philosophy. Next, when discussing Meinecke's position in the crisis of historicism, critics generally refer to Meinecke's Die Entstehung des Historismus (1936) or his essays from around the 1920s, but refer rarely to Die Idee der Staatsräson. Yet it is precisely this study – dealing with the theory and practice of statesmanship – that gives us a good grasp of Meinecke's reponse to the crisis of historicism, since it is in the state where idea and reality collide most brutally. Questions of ethical relativism, of the relationship between power and ethics, and of that between politics and history are nowhere more pressing than in the practice of statesmanship. It will become clear that, according to Meinecke, the statesman's (or the historian's) conscience moves him to a sphere of panentheistic harmony enabling him (and the historian) to overcome the aporias of historicism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This appreciative response to David Rutledge's review of my book, Radical Embodiment, deals with the nature of categorization/generalization with respect to and in light of postmodernism, with the issue of the articulation of tacit knowledge, with Mark C. Taylor's current a/theological stance regarding the concept of God, and finally with my model of divine embodiment that rejects special providence and revelation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review essay describes David Nikkel's broad conception of embodiment as a remedy for the insanity of modern mind/body dualism. He employs Polanyian themes, supplemented by the insights of cognitive scientists and neuroscientists, to show that all knowing is bodily, that tradition functions in knowing in a way similar to the body, and that thinking metaphorically of the world as God's body leads to a new appreciation of panentheism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

James B. Ashbrook's “new natural theology in an empirical mode” pursued an integrated understanding of the spiritual, psychological, and neurological dimensions of spiritual life. Knowledge of neuroscience and personality theory was central to his quest, and his understandings were necessarily revised and amplified as scientific findings emerged. As a result, Ashbrook's legacy may serve as a case example of how to do religion-and-science in a milieu of scientific change. The constant in the quest was Ashbrook's core belief in the basic holism of brain, mind, personality, the nature of reality, and the underlying reality of God. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I argue that a metaphysical controversy, comparable with the ‘pantheism controversy’ of the late 18th century, is being played out today in the world-wide clash between religion and science, in which one side adheres to a strict materialism and the other admits phenomena of inspiritment as having a place in ontology. Just as the pantheism controversy was resolved, to some degree, via the concept of panentheism, so the solution to the contest between science and religion today might be pointing us in a panentheist direction. Taking into account (a) the empirical evidence of science, (b) the widespread evidence of spirit phenomena from different religions and spirit traditions, and (c) that the experience of spirit phenomena varies according to cultural frame of reference, I conclude that spirit phenomena must emanate from something that is common across cultures. The only thing that could be common across cultures is matter: it must be matter itself then that is imbued with spirit. While this position has affinities with panentheism, I argue that ‘panentheism’ is not in fact an appropriate name for it in the 21st century, as this name excludes the experience of many cultures for whom phenomena of inspiritment are not describable in any kind of theistic terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hartshorne and Reese thought that in the Timaeus Plato wasn’t quite a panentheist—though he would have been if he’d been consistent. More recently, Cooper has argued that while Plato’s World Soul may have inspired panentheists, Plato’s text does not itself describe a form of panenetheism. In this paper, I will reconsider this question not only by examining closely the Timaeus but by thinking about which features of current characterizations of panentheism are historically accidental and how the core of the doctrine might most fruitfully be understood. I’ll argue that there is a polytheistic view that deserves to be called panentheistic and that Plato’s Timaeus describes such a view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the West panentheism is known as the view that the world is contained within the divine, though God is also more than the world. I trace the history of this school of philosophy in both Eastern and Western traditions. Although the term is not widely known, the position in fact draws together a broad range of important positions in 20th and 21st century metaphysics, theology, and philosophy of religion. I conclude with some reflections on the practical importance of this position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this discussion, we ponder the discourse about the ‘body of the Divine’ in the Indian tradition. Beginning with the Vedas, we survey the major eras and thinkers of that tradition, considering various notions of the Supreme Divine Being it produced. For each, we ask: is the Divine embodied? If so, then in what way? What is the nature of the body of the Divine, and what is its relationship to human bodies? What is the value of the body of the Divine to the spiritual aspirant? We consider, where relevant, which views are pantheistic and which might be considered panentheistic. Panentheism is connected with discourse on the world as the body of God. It has origins in medieval Christian theology with anticipatory traces in Plato’s Timeaus. Under pantheism, were the world to end—were it to collapse or disappear irreversibly, perhaps, into a huge black hole—then God would disintegrate without a remainder as well; for in this view the Divine Spirit is the universe. The same is not true under panentheism which posits a more complex relationship between the Divine and the world. According to panentheism, God pervades the world—God is in the world—and at the same time, God sustains the world—the world is in God. This allows that God be greater than, transcendent of and independent of the world. In our conclusion we remark on how the views we have surveyed link to, resonate with, or dis-compare with the current—should one say revivified—interest in intellectual quarters with panentheism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay attempts to present Hegel as a secular theologian and to argue that the theological dimension of Hegel’s thought is central to his entire philosophy and is, in fact, the leitmotif that draws together all of his work. The task of overcoming the dualism between the sacred and the secular provides the driving spirit of all Hegel’s endeavors, from his juvenilia to the mature thought of his Heidelberg and Berlin periods. A secular theology demonstrates its commitment to secularity through three main affirmations: (1) the full reality and significance of this world, (2) the autonomy of the different fields of culture and knowledge besides that of religion, and (3) the epistemological authority of reason and shared experience in determining the real and the true. Hegel’s secular theology, however, has an ambiguous relationship with most forms of theism, including panentheism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If Panentheism’s core thesis, that God is in the world, is to animate a spiritual approach to life, then we have to account for the way in which God is in the destructive or thanative dimensions of life. From the perspective of evolutionary ecology the universe is imbued with creative and destructive energies. The creative drive can be termed eros as creation occurs through the expansion of relational unities, holons. The destructive drive is termed thanatos and is the drive to sever connection. An argument is developed from the perspective of evolutionary ecology to show how thanatos serves eros, serves the evolutionary unfolding of higher orders of communion. I suggest there are healthy and pathological expressions of the thanative drive. God within the thanative invites us to embrace the transformative potentials of suffering by integrating thanatos-in-eros. God as eros invites us to develop expanded modes of connection, inter-subjectivity and communion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses Rāmānuja, panentheism, and divine transcendence. It notes that Rāmānuja's formulation of panenthism can be emphasized through a notion that has been focused in much of Christian theologizing on divine transcendence. It ends that even Christian theologians of a more orthodox inclination who merely propose panentheistic notions of the divine but ought to develop theologies in which God and the world are linked together in various types.

The article discusses Rāmānuja, panentheism, and divine transcendence. It notes that Rāmānuja's formulation of panenthism can be emphasized through a notion that has been focused in much of Christian theologizing on divine transcendence. It ends that even Christian theologians of a more orthodox inclination who merely propose panentheistic notions of the divine but ought to develop theologies in which God and the world are linked together in various types.

Semën Frank (1877–1950) considered the Universe as the “all-unity.” According to him, everything is a part of the all-unity, which has a divine character. God is present in the world, but his nature is incomprehensible. In this article I analyze two consequences of Frank’s panentheistic view of the relation between science and theology. Firstly, the limits of scientific knowledge allow recognition of the mystery of the world and the transcendence of God. Secondly, Frank claimed that nature is a “trace” of God and the manifestation of the absolute reality, i.e. the all-unity. As a result, both science and theology lead to the knowledge of God, although we cannot understand His essence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hegel's True Infinite is "well known" but there is little consensus concerning its meaning. The true infinite is introduced in Hegel's deconstruction of traditional conceptions of quality, determinacy and reality as wholly positive and from which negation, limitation and determinacy are excluded. Everything is other than and unrelated to everything else. These assumptions yield the stubborn category of finitude as an absolute limit, and of God as abstract unknowable Beyond. But Hegel claims that every attempt to separate the infinite from the finite makes the infinite itself finite--the spurious infinite, the "ought." The true infinite is the negation/correction of the spurious infinite; it reinstates the relations suppressed by the understanding. The true infinite is an ontotheological conception of a social infinite: it is both absolute--in and for itself--and related--being for an other--to wit, an articulated, inclusive whole. It is not an acosmic pantheism like Spinoza's that defrauds difference and finitude of their due. The true infinite presupposes as its corollary the ideality of the finite. The latter articulates the ontological status of the finite as sublated in the true infinite, i.e. as a member both distinct from and related to (dependent on) the true infinite. The true infinite is the whole present in its members. The true infinite is neither traditional theism (the assertion of abstract transcendence), nor atheism (the denial of abstract transcendence) nor pantheism (that eliminates finitude), nor a projection of finitude (Feuerbach). It is best understood as panentheism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Four ages of understanding, John Deely identifies four stages of progress toward a science of semiotics. The first of these ages is “preliminaries to the notion of sign.” This is the age of ancient classical and Hellenistic philosophy (600 BC–400 AD). A prominent figure in this age is Plotinus (205–270), the founder of the Neoplatonic school. A laconic description of Plotinus' philosophy is that it is a mystical monism. For a monist, to be real is to be one. A mystic, Plotinus asserts, is someone who knows ultimate reality in a way that is beyond being and intelligence. Central to unfolding Plotinus' mystical monism is the way he adopts the act (energeia)/potency (dynamis) distinction from Aristotle. This distinction explains that Plotinus is not an ontologist, because reality (unity) transcends being (unity-in-plurality). Ennead II, 5 (25) is Plotinus' definitive work on act and potency. Once one explains how these principles operate in Plotinus' metaphysics, one can suggest what a philosophy of signs or “semiotics” looks like in Neoplatonism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although naturalistic perspectives are an important component of their accounts of divine action, most participants in the current dialogue between science and theology eschew a purely naturalistic model. They believe that certain events of divine providence require a special mode of divine action, over and above that inherent in naturalistic processes. The analogy of human providential action suggests, however, that a strong theistic naturalism can account for these events. This model does not depend on a particular notion of God's relationship to time and is not inherently implausible from a scientific perspective. Although it can be interpreted deistically, the model also is consonant with a nondeistic theology that may be described as involving a pansacramental or incarnational naturalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many contemporary thinkers seeking to integrate theistic belief and scientific thought reject what they regard as two extremes. They disavow deism in which God is understood simply to uphold the existence of the physical universe, and they exclude any view of divine influence that suggests the performance of physical work through an immaterial cause. Deism is viewed as theologically inadequate, and acceptance of direct immaterial causation of physical events is viewed as scientifically illegitimate. This desire to avoid both deism and any positing of God as directly intervening in the physical order has led to models of divine agency that seek to defend the reality of divine causal power yet affirm the causal closure of the physical. I argue, negatively, that such models are unsuccessful in their attempts to affirm both the reality of divine causal power acting in the created world and the causal closure of the physical and, positively, that the assumption that underlies these models, namely that any genuine integration of theistic and scientific belief must posit the causal closure of the physical on pain of violating well-established conservation principles, is mistaken. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiple dimensions and textures of transcendence are evoked not just by reflection on humans in their relationship with God and community but also by encounter with bonobos—primates that are very close genetic kin with humans. The promise for theological reflection is rooted in bonobo social adaptation as a highly cooperative species. Bonobo sexual behavior accompanies and expresses a high level of social intelligence. The point of my project is not a scientific one intended to argue persuasively for individual self-awareness or self-transcendence in bonobos. Instead, it emphasizes connectedness, interdependence, and sociality as windows on transcendence. Such a view does not require consciousness or intellectual recognition of self-in-relation, but it certainly presumes embodiment of self-in-relation. Various textures of transcendence reflect multidirectional relationships among Pan paniscus (bonobos), Homo sapiens, and the Sacred. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author's insight on Bernard Lonergan's understanding of Thomas Aquinas' use of "intelligible emanations" as an analogy of God's Trinity. The author argues that some of the views of Lonergan regarding consciousness, phronesis, and judgment are similar to views expressed in "Truth and Method" by Hans-Georg Gadamer and "An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent" by John Henry Newman. It states that Lonergan wanted to answer his question regarding human knowing.

It is becoming increasingly more common in Christian theism to conclude that the classical predication of a necessary God who interacts with contingent creation is logical inconsistency. This criticism is especially made by Process theists, but joining with them have been proponents of Open theism as well as others who seek to more closely unite God with the contingency in creation. It is feared that a God who is the transcendent cause of all that exists is unable to relate to creation without necessarily determining it. Yet Thomas Aquinas was not unaware of the potential difficulty in maintaining both a necessary God and created contingency and postulated a solution to the dialectic that fits comfortably within the classical synthesis. This paper examines Aquinas' solution against the charge of incoherence and finds that far from being inconsistent, it coherently succeeds in reconciling the dialectic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intention here is to explore the "implicit spirituality" of socks as a component of the religious wardrobe in relation to the larger theological themes of panen-theism, sacramentalism and related mystical orientations. The early nineteenth-century case of the Marist socks is employed to demonstrate the fecundity and utility of "implicit religion" as a concept and category that helps "make sense" of the Marist Founder's valorization of this otherwise relatively insignificant item of male dress. In the grander theological and sociological scheme of things, Marist socks assume religious significance as a salutary sartorial symbol. Drawing on the Marist archives, the sock history of the Little Brothers of Mary is uncovered to reveal how, in religion, even the most neglected and least important of things in the eyes of the world can assume extraordinary spiritual and political significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Prometheus Unbound, the empire of Jupiter is a mythic figuration of monotheism and its corresponding hegemonies, broadly conceived in both instances as the domain of supreme oppressive governance. The ties of governance are reified by paternalism—hence the use of Jupiter (Gk. Zeu + pater) as the master embodiment of the Father, combining the role of God-the-Father in Judeo-Christianity, of the Trinity, of pope or monarch, and that of paterfamilias, such that, in Shelley's unifying vision, one becomes indistinguishable from the other: all emanations of the Law of the Father, the symbolic order of “rationality” which represses primordial desire, associated with Prometheus and Asia. The overthrow of Jupiter in Prometheus Unbound is an implicit rejection of European rationalist hegemony, embodied in the conception of a manic, autocratic sky God, uniting sacred and secular aspects, and a reinstatement of an extra, or at least more profound and enduring identity that is consistent with re-ascendant primeval forces, paradoxically embodied in the shadowy figure of Demogorgon, but repressed as long as Jupiter reigns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the recent literature there have been several accounts of Jonathan Edwards's doctrine of God (Theology Proper). In this paper, I offer a rather different interpretation of Edwards, showing that his understanding of the divine nature is much more in keeping with the Reformed scholastic tradition in which he was educated, despite the fact that he ends up embracing a version of panentheism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines William James' view that pragmatic philosophy allows for theistic belief and compares it to Richard Rorty's argument that theistic belief is fundamentally incompatible with pragmatic philosophy. Theism is permissible for James because it is commensurate with his view of philosophy as inquiry. Theism is impermissible for Rorty because it incommensurate with his view of philosophy as conversation. James' arguments are shown to be too generic in their conception of the God in whom theistic belief may be placed, and Rorty's arguments against the desirability of theistic belief are shown to run afoul of his own philosophical program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plotinos who was famed with emanation idea, affected a lot of philosophers deeply that came after him about existence and universe in East and West. Plotinos expressed ideas of emanation by metaphor in his books. Plotinos revealed emanative relation among One, Nous, Spirit and Matter by metaphor easily. In this article it is emphasized on how expressed cosmological and ontological idea of Plotinos by metaphor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polanyi's and Tillich's unique dialogue of February 1963 is systematically exegeted, its provenance and aftermath traced and its disappointing but challenging outcome inventoried. Mutual lack of preparation flawed the Berkeley meeting along with Tillich's severe preoccupation. Polanyi had valued Tillich's basic theology but never delved into the latter's important conceptualization of science, wherein Polanyi's own concerns are significantly broached. Tillich had barely heard of Polanyi, while under the surface was wide disparity in the meaning of faith. Afterwards, having meaninglessly blandished, they ignored each other, though the late Tillich espoused freedom in faith in a way that would have opened him to Polanyi's help and the latter desiderated a panentheistic endorsement of human creativity as part of his Pauline envisagement of satisfying and open ended faith — which was just what Tillich became intent upon in the denoument of his system. Destined lovers who tragically fail to connect, they leave their respective societies with a truly proactive heritage, since the cultural crisis they combatted has if anything worsened. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports on the works of Annie Dillard and the gender politics of American transcendentalism. It states that the writings of Dillard shows pantheism functions as a discourse of exclusively male merger with nature. The author notes that Dillard seeks knowledge, inspiration, and even identity from an impersonal nature tagged predominantly as male. Dillard won a Pulitzer Prize for the non-fiction "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek." Dillard's work is to construct human meaning in mute nature. Her transcendentalism represents a literary theory.

An essay is presented on Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazālī's philosophical dissertation of metaphysical creationism and Neoplatonic emanationism. It examines the predication by Ghazālī in the "Third Discussion of the Tahāfut al-Falāsifa. It is argued that the "Third Discussion" is an example of metaphorical predication and a proof of ethical discourse.

This paper proposes a sacramental vision of the world as both an expression of and an impetus for Christian mission in the face of the current ecological crisis. This is an outworking of Panentheist turns in recent theology and spirituality, although there is much variety in forms of Panetheism and also such emphases have a long Christian history. The paper examines a particular form of sacramental Panentheism as found in two pieces of writing by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: e Priest and e Mass on the World. In both of these Teilhard de Chardin considers the world around him through the lens of the pattern of the eucharistic liturgy and the role of the priest. The world is offered; the Holy Spirit is invoked; and divine transformation is celebrated. These almost poetic meditations stress the divine compassion for and connection with the material world. Teilhard de Chardin's "eucharistic extensions" suggest seeing the cosmos as both a signifier of the Divine and a location of divine action and energy. Christian mission in this perspective demands: that we discover the truth of where we are; that we experience our location in nature deeply, even spiritually; that we seek the advancement of the world; in particular that it may be fashioned according to its destiny in God. The frame of the Eucharist shapes our perception of the world and utilises the worldly as a vehicle of divine transformation. Our attitudes to the world must be the inspiration for our activity in the world. The sacramental vision demands missional and ecological action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The dominant culture in India in the Buddha''s day, Brahmanical culture, took as axiomatic the existence of a supernatural creator deity. This deity, termed ‘Brahmā’, was conceived as being ‘the all-seeing, the all-powerful, the Lord, the maker and creator, ruler, appointer and orderer, father of all that have been and will be’. Although the Buddha completely rejected such apparent metaphysical speculation as a ‘thicket of views’, he nowhere formulated a systematic repudiation of theism. In one canonical text, however, the Buddha, encountering a young Brahmin espousing theistic beliefs, gives a series of analogies and similes that help to illuminate his views on the matter. In short, the Buddha saw such a belief as being dangerously reflexive, and hence as a symptom of a debilitating conceptual and affective disorder. Thus, in the dialogue, the Buddha aims to ease this ailment of his interlocutor through a threefold strategy: (1) displaying the language usage that under girds the problem; (2) reorienting the interlocutor towards the primacy of his conceptual apparatus as the proper locus of concern; and (3) providing a practice through which the interlocutor may develop the skills necessary for conceptual and affective health. The parameters of the discussion in this sutta are wide enough to render it of relevance to contemporary debates on theism. That is, the issue at stake in the sutta may be read as being not only about a restricted local notion of deity, but about God, broadly conceived. The article contains fresh translations from the text under consideration, the Tevijjasutta of the Dīghanikāya (13). [Copyright &y& Elsevier]