On Judaism and genes: a response to Paul Root Wolpe

The following comments on Paul Root Wolpe's article "If I Am Only My Genes, What Am I? Genetic Essentialism and a Jewish Response" address (1) his presentation of the relationship between science and culture or religion as unimodal; (2) his misconception of the Jewish view of the physical corpus; and (3) his essential question of genetic determinism by examining the traditional Jewish view of the spiritual aspects of the human.     

A Response to Paul Griffiths’ Annihilationist Proposal

In his recent influential theological work, Paul Griffiths, the esteemed Buddhism scholar and Anglican convert to Catholicism, proposes, among other things, that annihilationism is a viable option for Christians, including Catholics, despite apparent magisterial prohibition. He argues, in effect, that every creature must be naturally mortal because bodily, including the angels. Therefore, de facto immortal creatures are not immortal by nature, but by a positive act of God in addition to the creative act. Accordingly, it makes no sense to assert the existence of an eternal hell. Rather, since sin is fundamentally corrosive, those who opt to continue down the rabbit's hole of sin literally become nothing. Hell, then, is a no‐place and a no‐time. Hence, as long as the damned continue to exist, they have the opportunity for eventual redemption as for eventual self‐annihilation. Griffiths attempts to defend this thesis in dialogue with Augustine, in particular, to the neglect of Aquinas, except to argue that Aquinas’ own arguments for the natural immortality of the human soul are incoherent. I will argue instead that spiritual being exists, that it is naturally immortal, that Aquinas demonstrates both, and that even an Augustinian such as Joseph Ratzinger recognizes Aquinas’ theological insights and builds on them.     

巴兰的发展经济学评析

巴兰在《增长的政治经济学》中认为马克思的发展观实际上是一种"线性发展观"。巴兰立足于全球视角,以经济剩余为核心,创立了自己的发展经济学,这在依附理论和不发达国家理论的发展史上都是有其独创性的。但是,他的这种发展经济学也存在重大的缺陷,首先,他严重误解了马克思发展观的真实内涵;其次,他将不发达国家落后的原因仅仅归咎于发达国家对落后国家的掠夺,完全忽视了不发达国家自身的内在因素;再次,他只是一味地从道德立场上谴责资本原始积累过程,并没有对资本原始积累的历史意义做出科学的评价。     

A Muslim response to Harnack

Mohamed Ali, an Indian Muslim political activist of the 1920s, hoped to articulate an empowering perspective for his generation of Indian Muslims. He found Harnack's critique of the history of Christian dogma a suggestive basis for a new image of the relation of Islam to the religious life of the centuries before the Prophet Muhammad. He wanted to create a scheme for a ‘Federation of Faiths’ which would enable Indian Muslims to co‐operate in the new India with persons of other traditions. The article explains the context of Mohamed Ali's thought. Although his perspective lost momentum in India after the collapse of the non‐cooperation and Khilaft movements, it may be that a reconsideration of his ideas would be useful in the context of inter‐religious dialogue.