We are living in an emerging technoculture. Machines and gadgets not only weave the fabric of daily life, but more importantly embody philosophical and religious values which shape the contemporary ...moral vision-a vision that is often at odds with Christian convictions. This book critically examines those values, and offers a framework for how Christian moral theology should be formed and lived-out within the emerging technoculture. Brent Waters argues that technology represents the principal cultural background against which contemporary Christian moral life is formed. Addressing contemporary ethical and religious issues, this book will be of particular interest to students and scholars exploring the ideas of Heidegger, Nietzsche, Grant, Arendt, and Borgmann.
Astrobiology is changing how we understand meaningful human existence. Living with Tiny Aliens seeks to imagine how an individuals' meaningful existence persists when we are planetary creatures ...situated in deep time-not only on a blue planet burgeoning with life, but in a cosmos pregnant with living-possibilities. In doing so, it works to articulate an astrobiological humanities. Working with a series of specific examples drawn from the study of extraterrestrial life, doctrinal reflection on the imago Dei, and reflections on the Anthropocene, Pryor reframes how human beings meaningfully dwell in the world and belong to it. To take seriously the geological significance of human agency is to understand the Earth as not only a living planet but an artful one. Consequently, Pryor reframes the imago Dei, rendering it a planetary system that opens up new possibilities for the flourishing of all creation by fostering technobiogeochemical cycles not subject to runaway, positive feedback. Such an account ensures the imago Dei is not something any one of us possesses, but that it is a symbol for what we live into together as a species in intra-action with the wider habitable environment. A work of theology that engages closely with scientific work in astrobiology to explore what discoveries about interplanetary life might do to Christian theology.The book explores our place in the Anthropocene, striking a balance between the responsibilities of human distinctiveness and an appreciation for a creatureliness we share with the planet's flows of energy and matter.
Muehlberger consistently demonstrates how Christian reflections on death in numerous genres contribute to the discourses and institutions that form and dominate Christian subjects—which is to say ...that she subjects late antique Christian literature to a broadly Foucauldian analysis, aimed at revealing the economies and inflections of power Christian thanatology inscribes in the experiences of individual Christians. Through readings of these, Muehlberger shows how imaginative discourses of divine judgment and the state of bodies after death were used to shape and delimit individual agency and capacity. ...Muehlberger treats Life of Antony 65 as a vision of death (160–62), despite there being no indications of this in the text and much reason to think it is a symbolic account of the ascetic life, while she ignores ch. 66, which explicitly concerns the “migration of souls after death.” Augustine becomes a case study showing that Christians, like other groups in late antiquity, were open to the use of force but that a peculiarly Christian characterization of death opened a peculiarly Christian kind of compulsion in the formation of individual agencies and subjectivities.
God is unfathomable and unknowable. This thought is deeply entrenched in the Jewish-Christian tradition. On the other hand, Biblical texts speak of the human being or Christ as having been created in ...God's image. How can these two things be conceived of together? These articles build bridges between East and West, between history and the present, bringing ancient and medieval writings into dialogue with contemporary theological positions.
This article introduces the concept of spiritual intelligence in terms of a natural human ability to take a different perspective on reality rather than an extraordinary ability to engage with a ...different/supernatural reality. From a cognitive perspective, spiritual intelligence entails a re‐balancing of the two main modes of human cognition, with a prioritization of the holistic‐intuitive mind over the conceptual one. From the psychological and phenomenological perspectives, it involves a different kind of engagement with information: slower, more participatory, less objectifying, and not focused entirely on problem solving. The article ends with a reflection on the theological implications of the proposed model and how such an account of spiritual intelligence as knowing differently might relate to theological anthropology and the theology of the spirit and the spiritual.
Theology and Neuroscience Nancey Murphy; Warren S. Brown
St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology,
08/2023
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Neuroscience, the fastest growing scientific discipline for decades, has affected numerous aspects of Western culture. Thus, one should expect it to have influences on religion as well. This article ...treats one of the points of intersection with Christianity, the basic metaphysical makeup of humans. The two most prevalent views in the tradition are body-soul dualism and holism or physicalism. This article describes four developments in neuroscience that have consequences for Christian practice and understanding: (1) agenesis of the corpus callosum (the millions of neurons connecting the right and left cerebral hemispheres); (2) the large frontal lobes of the cerebral cortex, which have massive connections with other regions of the brain; (3) somatic markers, which provide subtle emotional reactions to contemplated actions; and (4) mirror neurons, which have been found to subserve both the performance of an action and understanding of the actions of others. Because various forms of physicalism are more compatible with the ever tightening connections between neural processes and beliefs and practices, the article begins with biblical and theological considerations showing that some forms of physicalism are acceptable options for Christians. However, in the philosophical world a number of physicalists are content with simply reducing to mere brain processes the higher mental capacities that enable understanding and practice of Christian life. So the article attempts to show why physicalism need not entail this sort of reductionism.
Abstract
Taking a cue from Teilhard de Chardin's Christologically inflected speculation, the key question in this issue is whether the project of transhumanism is compatible with Christianity and the ...Incarnation of Christ. Two articles focus on theological anthropology and the limits, if any, of human perfection in light of Christ's perfection. Another article examines the ontological claims about human nature in transhumanism and its incompatibility with a Christian ontology. The last two turn from more abstract concerns to consider how the use of technology can inhibit or help human moral and spiritual development.
This book demonstrates the influence that the philosophical and theological anthropology of Saint Thomas Aquinas had on Nicholas of Cusa’s (Cusanus) view of human nature. While Rudolf Haubst ...suggested that Aquinas had, in fact, influenced several factors of Cusanus’ theology, Haubst did not explore the topic of anthropology. Since the philosophy of man is supposed to be one of the determining characteristics of the Renaissance, and because there is a prevailing opinion that Cusanus was not only a Renaissance philosopher but indeed one of the founders of Renaissance humanism, I demonstrate that his view of the place of man in the universe is remarkably similar to the view of Aquinas. A close examination of the texts of both thinkers when compared to some of the leading Renaissance writers indicates that it is not entirely true that Cusanus is Renaissance in his analysis of the human condition. Because Cusanus’ copies of some of the works of Aquinas are still intact and his marginal comments in these manuscripts indicate not only that he read Aquinas carefully, but also actually reacted to texts in Aquinas, it is possible to conduct a study of Cusanus’ use of Aquinas based directly on the text of Aquinas. It is also possible to explore similarities by studying the formulae that both writers used in expressing their respective positions. The present study appeals to students and scholars of late medieval theology and philosophy in its unique examination of the impact of Aquinas’ thought upon Cusanus.
The Complementarity of Women and Men provides a Catholic
Christian case that men and women are in certain respects quite
different but also have a positive, synergistic complementary
relationship. ...Although differences and their mutually supporting
relationships are focused on throughout the volume, men and women
are assumed to have equal dignity and value. This underlying
interpretation comes from the familiar, basic theological position
in Genesis that both sexes were made in the image of God. After a
cogent philosophical introduction to complementary differences by
J. Budziszewski, this position is developed from theological,
philosophical, and historical perspectives by Sr. Prudence Allen.
Next Deborah Savage, building upon the writings of St. John Paul
II, gives a strong theological basis for complementarity. This is
followed by Elizabeth Lev's chapter presenting new and surprising
art history evidence from the paintings of Michelangelo in the
Sistine Chapel supporting the complementarity interpretation. A
final chapter by Paul Vitz documents and summarizes the scientific
evidence supporting sexual difference and complementarity in the
disciplines of psychology and neuroscience. As a consequence of
both the individual chapters and the integrated understanding they
present The Complementarity of Women and Men is a
significant contribution to the important, complex, contemporary
debate about men, women, sex, and gender.
