INTRODUCTION 1. R. Otto, 'The Idea of the Holy' (Oxford, 1917)
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Science and the Sacred Telescopes, Microscopes, and Hierophanies
Chapter 3 Science and the Sacred Telescopes, Microscopes, and Hierophanies The sacred is equivalent to a power and in the last analysis to reality. The sacred is saturated with Being. Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible. Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Grey For an instant I thought of Wre; the next, I knew that the Wre was within myself. R. M. Bucke, quoted in William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience It’s the fourth day of a weeklong conference on star formation. More than one hundred Wfty astronomers from around the world are packed into a lecture hall on the campus of the University of California, Santa Cruz. Outside the day is blinding in its perfection. If you face west you can see the PaciWc Ocean. Face east, and you stare into a redwood forest. The sunlight is sharp in the cloudless sky. It would all be won- derful if any of us actually went outside to admire it. While the day is warm and bright and graced with a mild paciWc 57 UUC-Frank-1st_pps.inddC-Frank-1st_pps.indd 5577 66/8/2008/8/2008 111:00:421:00:42 AAMM 58 / The Map breeze, we are hunkered down in a stuVy room with the lights turned oV. For the past four days we have all but lived in the dark lecture hall as one PowerPoint slide after another clicks by. The paradox of the beautiful day outside and the darkened room inside is not lost on us. -
Week 4: Jesus Christ and Human Existence • 1
Week 4: Jesus Christ and human existence • 1. Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976) • R.B., Jesus and the Word, 1926 (ET: 1952) • R.B., The Gospel of John. A Commentary, 1941 (ET: 1971) • D. Ford (ed.), Modern Theologians, ch. on Bultmann • J.F. Kay, Christus praesens. A Reconsideration of Bultmann’s Christology, Grand Rapids 1994 Bultmann II • At the same time NT scholar and systematic theologian. • Exegetically under the influence of Wrede’s ‘radical scepticism’: • Jesus existed historically, but we have no knowledge of his personality. • We do know his teaching, the kerygma. Bultmann III • ‘I never felt uncomfortable in my critical radicalism, indeed I have been quite comfortable with it. … I let it burn, for I see that what is burning are all the fanciful notions of the Life-of-Jesus theology, and that it is the Christos kata sarka himself.’ • Cf. Paul’s dichotomies: ‘according to the flesh’ – ‘according to the spirit’ etc. • Interest in ‘human’ Jesus is no more relevant than that in other human beings. Bultmann III • Important about Jesus is his Word which at once exposes the wrongness of our existence and points a way out of it (sin – forgiveness of sins). • This happens through faith which as in Kierkegaard is miraculous. • NT witnesses this faith of the early Christians → the one miracle that matters. Bultmann IV • Bultmann’ consequence from radical dichotomy God – World is radically different from Barth’s: • Theology can only study the human response to the Word of God. • For Barth this meant moving back to ‘liberal theology’. • Bultmann saw maintaining divine transcendence as central. -
Rudolf Bultmann's Demythologizing of the New Testament
RUDOLF BULTMANN'S DEMYTHOLOGIZING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT A theological debate of major importance was begun in 1941 by Rudolf Bultmann's conference "Neues Testament und Mythologie," and for almost twenty years it has been carried on by theologians, exegetes, and philosophers of the most diverse backgrounds and convictions. The five volumes edited by Hans Werner Bartsch under the title Kerygma und Mythos,1 a collection containing the conference of Bultmann, and many of the contributions to the debate from Bultmann himself and others, are evidence of the interest which has been aroused. It is gratifying that Catholic scholars have taken their part; the fifth volume of Kerygma und Mythos is made up of some of their discussions of the problem. One finds there the names of Karl Adam, R. Schnackenburg, J. de Fraine, and J. Hâmer, among others. The fullest treatments given thus far by Catholics are Leopold Malevez's Le Message Chrétien et le Mythe,2 and Rene Marlé's Bültmann et l'Interprétation du Nouveau Testament? Among the works in English which should be specially mentioned are Reginald Fuller's Kerygma and Myth? a translation of much of the first volume of Kerygma und Mythos, and a small part of the second, together with an essay by the Eng- lish theologian, Austin Farrer; also, Ian Henderson's Myth in the New Testament.B The essay of Amos Wilder, "Mythology and New Testament,"6 and that of Kendrick Grobel, "Bultmann's Problem of New Testament 'Mythology' " 7 are of interest, since both were 1 Hamburg: Vol. I, 2 ed., 19S1; II, 1952; III, 1954; IV, 1955; V, 1955. -
The Discourses of the Secular Sublime and the Concepts of the Numinous and Mysterium Tremendum in the Work of Rudolf Otto
THE DISCOURSES OF THE SECULAR SUBLIME AND THE CONCEPTS OF THE NUMINOUS AND MYSTERIUM TREMENDUM IN THE WORK OF RUDOLF OTTO Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Leicester by Mary Catherine Theresa Bridget Jones Department of English University of Leicester July 2017 The Discourses of the Secular Sublime and the Concepts of the Numinous and Mysterium Tremendum in the Work of Rudolf Otto Mary Catherine Theresa Bridget Jones Abstract This thesis explores historical and postmodern ideas of the sublime and the numinous, and finds similarities and differences between the two concepts. Consideration is given to notions of the sublime, from its appearance in Longinus’s treatise Peri Hypsous, through to its historical development and reception by philosophers, theologians, and eighteenth- century theorists. The thesis discusses how the sublime is conceived in contemporary thought. Alongside this concept, and in order to examine similarities and differences between that and the numinous, Rudolf Otto’s work Das Heilige is used, in which the author argues for consideration of a non-rational element in religion and pleads for an original understanding of the holy. He shows how traditional representations of the deity lead to restrictions and limitations, and introduces his understanding of the mysterium tremendum et fascinans which, like the sublime, leads to awe and dread. Further analysing the sublime, the thesis discusses critical theories presented by John Dennis, Joseph Addison, John Baillie, Immanuel Kant, and Edmund Burke. I show how Otto was influenced by these writers, and how Friedrich Schleiermacher’s ideas on the essence of religion and the sensus numinis paved the way for Otto’s thinking. -
The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Social Science
c hapter 16 MODELS OF CULTURE Mark Risjord 16.1. Introduction Th e concept of culture is one of anthropology’s most signifi cant contributions to contemporary thought. What might be now called a “classical” conception of cul- ture developed in the mid-twentieth century. It treated cultures as homogeneous and systematic entities, something shared by individuals within a given social group. Descriptions of culture were thought to be abstracted from individual ac- tions, and appeal to culture was taken as explanatory, both of patterns of action within social groups and of diff erences among groups. Th e culture concept infl u- enced philosophers of language who relied on the idea that linguistic communities have relatively clear boundaries. Philosophical work on language and meaning, in turn, infl uenced both the anthropologists who developed the classical conception and their critics. Contemporary anthropological models of culture continue to be infl uenced by, and have deep relevance for, philosophical understanding of language, thought, and human nature. While the anthropological concept of culture is little more than one hun- dred years old, there have been many ways of conceptualizing it. In a famous survey, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn ([1952] 1963 ) identifi ed 164 defi ni- tions of culture. At the risk of losing some of the texture of anthropological thought, this chapter will sort these defi nitions into a much smaller number of models. Th e earliest models treated cultures as collections of traits: a grab bag of ideas, material objects, habits, and texts. By the middle of the twentieth century, one of the dominant models came to emphasize norms, values, and beliefs as the central elements of culture, and this semiotic model is probably the notion most familiar to nonanthropologists. -
Schleiermacher and Otto
Jacqueline Mariña 1 Friedrich Schleiermacher and Rudolf Otto Two names often grouped together in the study of religion are Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1884) and Rudolf Otto (1869-1937). Central to their understanding of religion is the idea that religious experience, characterized in terms of feeling, lies at the heart of all genuine religion. In his book On Religion Schleiermacher speaks of religion as a “sense and taste for the Infinite.”1 It is “the immediate consciousness of the universal existence of all finite things, in and through the infinite” and is “to know and to have life in immediate feeling” (OR, p. 36). In The Christian Faith Schleiermacher grounds religion in the immediate self-consciousness and the “feeling of absolute dependence.”2 Influenced by Schleiermacher, Otto too grounds religion in an original experience of what he calls “the numinous,” which “completely eludes apprehension in terms of concepts” and is as such “ineffable;” it can only be grasped through states of feeling. (The Idea of the Holy, p. 5). In this paper I will critically examine their views on religion as feeling. The first part of the paper will be devoted to understanding how both men conceived of feeling and the reasons why they believed that religion had to be understood in its terms. In the second and third parts of the paper I will develop the views of each thinker individually, contrast them with one another, and discuss the peculiar problems that arise in relation to the thought of each. Common Elements in Schleiermacher and Otto Both Schleiermacher and Otto insist that religion cannot be reduced to ethics, aesthetics or metaphysics. -
Philosophy Emerging from Culture
Cultural Heritage and Contemporary Change Series I. Culture and Values, Volume 42 General Editor: George F. McLean Associate General Editor: William Sweet Philosophy Emerging from Culture Edited by William Sweet George F. McLean Oliva Blanchette Wonbin Park The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy Copyright © 2013 by The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy Box 261 Cardinal Station Washington, D.C. 20064 All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Philosophy emerging from culture / edited by William Sweet, George F. McLean, Oliva Blanchette. -- 1st [edition]. pages cm. -- (Cultural heritage and contemporary change. Series I, Culture and values ; Volume 42) 1. Philosophy and civilization. 2. Philosophy. 3. Culture. I. Sweet, William, editor of compilation. B59.P57 2013 2013015164 100--dc23 CIP ISBN 978-1-56518-285-1 (pbk.) TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: Philosophy Emerging From Culture 1 William Sweet and George F. McLean Part I: The Dynamics of Change Chapter I. What Remains of Modernity? Philosophy and 25 Culture in the Transition to a Global Era William Sweet Chapter II. Principles of Western Bioethics and 43 the HIV/AIDS Epidemic in Africa Workineh Kelbessa Chapter III. Rationality in Islamic Peripatetic and 71 Enlightenment Philosophies Sayyed Hassan Houssaini Chapter IV. Theanthropy and Culture According to Karol Wojtyla 87 Andrew N. Woznicki Chapter V. Al-Fārābī’s Approach to Aristotle’s Eudaimonia 99 Mostafa Younesie Part II: The Nature of Culture and its Potential as a Philosophical Source Chapter VI. A Realistic Interpretation of Culture 121 Jeu-Jenq Yuann Chapter VII. Rehabilitating Value: Questions of 145 Meaning and Adequacy Karim Crow Chapter VIII. -
APA NEWSLETTER on Asian and Asian-American Philosophers and Philosophies
NEWSLETTER | The American Philosophical Association Asian and Asian-American Philosophers and Philosophies SPRING 2020 VOLUME 19 | NUMBER 2 FROM THE GUEST EDITOR Ben Hammer The Timeliness of Translating Chinese Philosophy: An Introduction to the APA Newsletter Special Issue on Translating Chinese Philosophy ARTICLES Roger T. Ames Preparing a New Sourcebook in Classical Confucian Philosophy Tian Chenshan The Impossibility of Literal Translation of Chinese Philosophical Texts into English Dimitra Amarantidou, Daniel Sarafinas, and Paul J. D’Ambrosio Translating Today’s Chinese Masters Edward L. Shaughnessy Three Thoughts on Translating Classical Chinese Philosophical Texts Carl Gene Fordham Introducing Premodern Text Translation: A New Field at the Crossroads of Sinology and Translation Studies SUBMISSION GUIDELINES AND INFORMATION VOLUME 19 | NUMBER 2 SPRING 2020 © 2020 BY THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION ISSN 2155-9708 APA NEWSLETTER ON Asian and Asian-American Philosophers and Philosophies BEN HAMMER, GUEST EDITOR VOLUME 19 | NUMBER 2 | SPRING 2020 Since most of us reading this newsletter have at least a FROM THE GUEST EDITOR vague idea of what Western philosophy is, we must understand that to then learn Chinese philosophy is truly The Timeliness of Translating Chinese to reinvent the wheel. It is necessary to start from the most basic notions of what philosophy is to be able to understand Philosophy: An Introduction to the APA what Chinese philosophy is. Newsletter Special Issue on Translating In the West, religion is religion and philosophy is Chinese Philosophy philosophy. In China, this line does not exist. For China and its close East Asian neighbors, Confucianism has guided Ben Hammer the social and spiritual lives of people for thousands of EDITOR, JOURNAL OF CHINESE HUMANITIES years in the same way the Judeo-Christian tradition has [email protected] guided people in the West. -
Theological Criticism of the Bible
Currents FOCUS Reformation Heritage and the Question of Sachkritik: Theological Criticism of the Bible Paul E. Capetz Professor of Historical Theology United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities New Brighton, Minnesota new era in Protestant theology was inaugurated with the publication of Karl Barth’s ground-breaking commentary ince Bultmann was a Lutheran on Paul’s Epistle to the Romans (1919, 1922).1 This his- Atorical judgment is in keeping with the impact that Barth himself Swhereas Barth was a Calvinist, their hoped the book would have on his contemporaries. Negatively, debate in the matter of Sachkritik can he intended it to signal a break with the regnant historical-critical method of biblical exegesis (“historicism”) that had characterized be viewed as a modern reprise of the liberal Protestant theology in the nineteenth century. Positively, he aspired to recover the sort of “theological exegesis” of Scrip- earlier difference between Luther and ture exemplified by Luther and Calvin in the sixteenth century. Calvin. Distinctively twentieth-century Protestant theology thus began with Barth’s critique of one approach to biblical exegesis coupled with his call for retrieval of another approach. Both critique and mann perceived an inconsistency in Barth’s practice, since Barth retrieval stood in the service of his overriding concern to make had opened the door to Sachkritik in his Romans commentary the Bible central again to the preaching and theology of his own (even if he himself refused to walk through it, a point to which day much as it had been to that of the Reformers. Bultmann drew attention in his review). -
Simmel Studies
Document généré le 2 oct. 2021 03:11 Simmel Studies Philosophy, Cultural Philosophy and Sociology Patrick Watier, Matthieu Amat et Emanuela Mora Georg Simmel's Living Heritage Résumé de l'article Volume 22, numéro 1, 2018 Every sociology rests on representations that are not explicitly thematised, and are in concordance with an atmosphere and cultural formations. These URI : https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1051008ar representations correspond to what Panofsky called a mental habit. which is DOI : https://doi.org/10.7202/1051008ar transferable from one field of activity or thought to another. The essay shows how both the themes of individuality and of Bildung play back on G. Simmel's Aller au sommaire du numéro conception and place of the "social" and, consequently, on his sociological view. Éditeur(s) Georg Simmel Gesellschaft ISSN 1616-2552 (imprimé) 2512-1022 (numérique) Découvrir la revue Citer cet article Watier, P., Amat, M. & Mora, E. (2018). Philosophy, Cultural Philosophy and Sociology. Simmel Studies, 22(1), 97–134. https://doi.org/10.7202/1051008ar Copyright © Patrick Watier, Matthieu Amat and Emanuela Mora, 2018 Ce document est protégé par la loi sur le droit d’auteur. L’utilisation des services d’Érudit (y compris la reproduction) est assujettie à sa politique d’utilisation que vous pouvez consulter en ligne. https://apropos.erudit.org/fr/usagers/politique-dutilisation/ Cet article est diffusé et préservé par Érudit. Érudit est un consortium interuniversitaire sans but lucratif composé de l’Université de Montréal, l’Université Laval et l’Université du Québec à Montréal. Il a pour mission la promotion et la valorisation de la recherche. -
Luther and Beauty MARK MATTES
Word & World Volume 39, Number 1 Winter 2019 Luther and Beauty MARK MATTES heological aesthetics is not a pressing concern for most working pastors. But given that theological aesthetics is the theory of beauty in relation to God and howT the senses contribute to matters of faith, we see that working pastors, in their decisions about worship, do aesthetics far more than they may realize. Choices about music, images, worship space, and other artistic and liturgical matters quickly involve worship leaders in matters of beauty. Such decisions are important. Many who come to faith do so because faith is often something that is more caught than taught. That is, many find themselves attracted to the Christian faith, at least initially, less because it rings true to the intellect or fosters just social relations, and more because it grabs one’s attention, puzzles or strikes one with awe and wonder, and even leaves one speechless with how its story is presented in music, architec- ture, and passionate worship and preaching. Luther as Resource for Aesthetics? Most Lutherans are aware that they have a rich heritage in music and architecture. But it would seem that this heritage has developed almost in spite of Lutheran theologians, many of whom often assume that Protestantism has little to offer for a theory of beauty. This is because Protestants seem to favor words but not images, Following some twentieth-century scholars, it is often held that Martin Luther’s theology eliminates concerns about aesthetics and beauty from the Christian life and theology. But a detailed reading of Luther’s writings suggest that this is certainly not true, and that he in fact has a robust appreciation for how these elements are crucial to the Christian faith. -
Humanities the Issue of the Religious Dimension Of
PERIODYK NAUKOWY AKADEMII POLONIJNEJ 37 (2019) nr 6 HUMANITIES THE ISSUE OF THE RELIGIOUS DIMENSION OF HUMAN NATURE Jan Mazur Prof. PhD, Pontifical University of John Paul II in Kraków, e-mail: [email protected], http://orcid.org/0000-0002- 0548-0205, Poland Abraham Kome PhD, John Paul II International University of Bafang, e-mail: [email protected], orcid.org/0000-0001-7326-227X, Cameroon Abstract. This text is an attempt to answer the question of whether human nature needs religion. The author begins by presenting two concepts that are key in this discourse. These are the terms: religion and human nature. Then he undertakes an analysis of the problem, referring to the thoughts of religious experts: Rudolf Otto and Mircea Eliade and the philosopher Max Scheler. The subject of reflection is the definition of man as 'homo religiosus'. Questioning God's existence has a negative effect on human nature. This situation is illustrated by the views of two known philosophers, existentialists - Friedrich Nietzsche and Jean-Paul Sartre. Their vision of the world was marked by unbelief in God. Life experience teaches that human nature strives for transcendent reality, longs for God. Any departure from this tendency does not, however, invalidate the religious nature of man, but certainly falsifies it. It results in the conversion of an authentic sacrum into its substitutes. In conclusion, the author draws attention to the mystery of man and God, which should be recognized. It is only in this perspective that the problem indicated in the title can be considered. The inspiration for such thinking is the famous phrase of Saint Augustine of Hippo: 'The human soul is restless until it rests in God'.