Reclaiming “Natural Partnership and Communication”

The massive scale of forced displacement across the globe discloses the fractured state of the modern international order. Francisco de Vitoria’s theological approach to the law of nations, in the context of the Spanish conquest of the Americas, had a significant influence on this order’s development. This paper argues that recovering his innovative insights today can help refurbish a collective sense of international responsibility for refugees. Vitoria’s bold assertion of indigenous Americans’ dominion affirmed all human beings as members of a world commonwealth with equal claims to basic rights. The “right to travel” he articulated, by its orientation to “natural partnership and communication,” can promote refugee rights and global fraternity.     

A Response to G. Scott Davis

This defense of my essay on Vitoria and Suárez argues that my use of the term “religious war” is based on religious authority at least as much as religious cause, and that Davis’s decision to discuss only Vitoria limits his ability to come to terms with my thesis. To Davis’s argument that for Vitoria war was justified against the Indians only as a necessity of simple justice and to protect the innocent, I argue that his disjunction between simple justice and religious cause is a false one that fails to come to term with the church’s primary reason for approaching Indians, with the Thomistic understanding of the relation between nature and grace and between reason and revelation, and with the distinction between what justice requires in relation to the church and Christians and what it requires for others. I explain finally that my claim is not that the Catholic political rulers readily responded to papal calls for war except when it was in their interest, but that papal war was central to the normative just‐war tradition of the church in canon law and among major theologians like Vitoria and Suárez.     

GOD AND NATURAL LAW: REFLECTIONS ON GENESIS 22

This essay first explores Immanuel Kant's reading of Genesis 22, which Kant identifies as a preeminent case of the irrationality of biblical religion. After comparing Kant's assurance about the norms of rationality with the postmodern work of John Thiel, which finds the world of disorder and death to be outside God's ordering and therefore unintelligible, the essay argues that one finds in Thomas Aquinas's and Duns Scotus's contrasting accounts of Genesis 22 the beginnings of the breakdown of the theocentric understanding of the natural law as a participation in God's wise ordering of created realities to their fulfillment. Modern and postmodern thinkers operate within the context of this anthropocentric shift.     

Deliberating Just War

This essay responds to James Turner Johnson's critiques of my argument in “‘Never Again War’: Recent Shifts in the Roman Catholic Just War Tradition and the Question of ‘Functional Pacifism.’” (2014). It attends specifically to three of Johnson's objections and offers accounts of the meaning and use of the term “functional pacifism,” an understanding of classic just war thought as a tradition, and the concepts of peace and authority within just war and pacifist thought. It argues that my analysis of the Catholic Church's movement toward pacifism but ultimate theological inability to embrace a functional pacifism still stands in spite of Johnson's critiques. In addition, it suggests that Johnson offers a thin pacifistic conception of peace and promotes a restricted notion of ecclesial authority and democratic government.     

WAYS OF DISCOURSE AND WAYS OF LIFE

In book X of the Republic, Plato famously reports “a quarrel between poetry and philosophy.” The present essay examines this quarrel in book X, along with other relevant parts of the Republic, by understanding “philosophy” and “poetry” as rival ways of life and rival ways of discourse. The essay first explains why, in Plato’s view, poetic discourse weakens one’s power to reason and is at odds with philosophic discourse. Then it shows how poetic discourse is bound up with a way of life that champions the value of freedom. Such a life forms a contrast with the philosophic life, which is marked more by stability and unity than by freedom. The quarrel, however, is not a simple antagonism. The essay hence concludes by discussing why, despite the opposition between the two, philosophy cannot do without poetry.     

CONSTRUCTING THE LAW OF PEOPLES

In this paper I shall argue that due to the constructivist procedure which John Rawls employs in “The Law of Peoples,” he is unable to justify his claim that there is a relationship between limiting the internal and external sovereignty of states. An alternative constructivist procedure is viable, but it extends the ideal theory of international justice to include liberal democratic and egalitarian principles. The procedure and principles have significant implications for non-ideal theory as well, insofar as they justify a principle of international resource redistribution and weaken general prohibitions against intervention.     

WISING UP: THE EVOLUTION OF NATURAL THEOLOGY

Abstract This essay is in response to Professor Celia Deane‐Drummond's 2012 Boyle lectures. The first part calls attention to the value and significance of her “sophianic theo‐drama hypothesis” for the contemporary engagement between Christian theology and evolutionary science. In a sense, her proposal itself is a religious “adaptation” to changes within an international, interdisciplinary academic environment. The second part of the essay explores the rapidly shrinking “niche” of Christian natural theology and briefly summarizes an alternative set of hypotheses from the biocultural sciences of religion.     

THE AUSTERITY POLICY AND THE RULE OF LAW: RELATIONS BETWEEN GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC IN FLEDGLING ISRAEL 1

This article examines the concept of the rule of law as perceived by the Israeli public and decision‐makers during Israel’s early years. The purpose of the article is to examine the relationship between policy‐makers and the general public in the early stages of Israeli statehood. The “rule of law” is employed to facilitate greater understanding of the weaknesses or even failures of the austerity policy and to unveil some of the mechanisms leading to public disobedience, during times of nation‐building fervour. The roles of the public, policy‐makers, law enforcement apparatus and adjudicators in shaping the social order and economic reality is addressed.     

DIONYSIUS,PAUL AND THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PSEUDONYM

This essay interprets the CD through the lens of the pseudonym, Dionysius the Areopagite, and the corresponding influence of Paul. First, this essay argues that the author of the CD writes under the name of Dionysius the Areopagite in order to suggest that, following Paul, he will effect a new rapprochement between the wisdom of pagan Athens and the revelation of God in Christ. Second, this essay demonstrates how crucial Paul is for Dionysius' own “apophatic anthropology,” that is, his view of how the human self that would solicit union with the “unknown God” must also become somehow “unknown.” Finally, this essay hazards a final hypothesis regarding the significance of the pseudonym: that the practice of pseudonymous writing is itself an ecstatic devotional practice in the service of “unknowing” both God and self.     

Theology and the Crisis in Darwinism

In the past decade, the scientific challenges to “orthodox Darwinism” have multiplied rapidly, such that it is no longer unthinkable that natural selection’s days as a universal law are numbered. But if this is the case, theologians have their work cut out for them. If Darwin’s law proves to be historically and scientifically false, a new horizon appears for the discourse between theology and natural science. What will orthodox Christianity make of the crisis in Darwinism? This article, which follows the methodological imperative of “Radical Orthodoxy”, employs Aquinas and contemporary “post‐Darwinian” science to trace a space for a theological discourse beyond both natural selection and natural theology.     

THE ATHENS/JERUSALEM TEMPLATE AND THE TECHNO‐SECULARISM THESIS—KICKING THE CAN DOWN THE ROAD

Abstract. The publication of my article “Athens, Jerusalem, and the Arrival of Techno‐secularism” (2005) in Zygon was followed by twenty‐one responses, most of them critical. In this essay I reply by clarifying the earlier one, separating out its two major theses: the Athens/Jerusalem template and the techno‐secularism thesis. The Athens/Jerusalem template is a typology that provides a historical basis for understanding why religion/science conflicts persist by showing that the contrasts between intellectual knowledge and revealed knowledge are permanent features of Western cultural history. Postmodern criticisms often have a negative edge, rejecting “canonical” accounts but not presenting alternative explanations. Historical context is helpful in understanding religion/science conflicts, which continue to exist. The present cultural situation is that technology is replacing religion—and science—as the dominant condition and theory of our culture. Evidence for the techno‐secularism thesis can be seen in the nature of electronic entertainment, which invades the silence required for religious contemplation and obscures the scientific laws that are the basis for the new technology.     

THE VARIETIES AND REVISIONS OF ATHEISM

Abstract. The philosopher Antony Flew has argued for decades that theistic arguments cannot meet criteria of truth. In this essay I respond to Flew's recent announcement that research into the emergence of DNA provides grounds for rational belief in an intelligent orderer, a “God.” Flew's theistic turn is important for philosophers of religion and the wider science‐and‐religion dialogue. It becomes apparent, however, that Flew's “conversion” is not as decisive as one might imagine. While he admits growth in scientific and philosophical understanding, he rejects the idea of growth in religious understanding. Further, he endorses a version of “theoretical theism” while denying the practical importance of belief. Such denial of practical conviction is part of a modernist mindset that separates freedom from the embeddedness of human beings in the natural world. I conclude by noting that the entanglement of human action and wider physical processes, an entanglement seen emblematically in the environmental crisis, requires not only considering the importance of intelligence and order in the emergence of life but also the significance of human agency in claims about the divine and the natural world.     

FREEDOM AND THE SOURCE OF VALUE: KORSGAARD AND WOOD ON KANT'S FORMULA OF HUMANITY

Abstract: This essay examines two interpretations of Kant's argument for the formula of humanity. Christine M. Korsgaard defends a constructivist reading of Kant's argument, maintaining that humans must view themselves as having absolute value because their power for rational choice confers value on their ends. Allen Wood, however, defends a realist interpretation of Kant's argument, maintaining that humans actually are absolutely valuable and that their choices do not confer value but rather reflect their understanding of how the objects of their choices fulfill their needs and wants and contribute to their flourishing. Though Korsgaard's reading is more consistent with Kant's prioritizing of the right over the good, this essay raises a metaethical question regarding her constructivist position, namely, “What is meant by her claim that rational choice ‘confers’ value on objects?” In developing this question, it presents a realist account of goodness that is taken from Peter Geach's “Good and Evil.”     

A THERMODYNAMIC THEORY OF THE ORIGIN AND HIERARCHICAL EVOLUTION OF LIVING SYSTEMS

Growing interest in the origin of life, the physical foundations of biological theory, and the evolution of animal social systems has led to increasing efforts to understand the processes by which elements or living systems at one level of organizational complexity combine to form stable systems of higher order. J. Bronowski saw the need to extend or reformulate evolutionary theory to deal with the hierarchy problem and to account for the evolution of systems of “stratified stability.” The hierarchy problem has become a matter of great interest also in nonequilibrium thermodynamic theory. An effort is made here to develop an abstract, phenomenological model, based on the laws of thermodynamics, to account for the origin and hierarchical evolution of living systems. It is argued that the principle of minimum entropy production, developed by I. Prigogine, applies generally to all thermodynamic systems and processes and is implicit in an extended and more complete formulation of the second law of thermodynamics. From this are derived a thermodynamic criterion and a principle of thermodynamic selection governing the formation of stable systems of “elements” of various levels of organization. Thermodynamic selection gives rise to the creation of “elements” having increasingly “open” characteristic structures which may combine spontaneously to form “social” or crystalline systems capable of growing and reproducing themselves through processes of fissioning or budding. Such simple, self-reproducing systems are capable of evolving by natural selection, which is seen to be a special case of the more general process of thermodynamic selection. The principle of natural selection, thus formulated, has the character of a fundamental physical law. Self-reproducing systems with suitably open hereditary programs may combine to form stable social systems, which may grow and reproduce as a unit. In this way self-reproducing systems of increasing hierarchical order, size, and organizational complexity may evolve through processes of thermodynamic (natural) selection. Some implications of this open-ended model and opportunities for testing its empirical and theoretical utility are explored.     

Religion,Violence, and Human Rights

Beginning with the support given by religious groups to humanitarian intervention for the protection of basic human rights in the debates of the 1990s, this essay examines the use of the human rights idea in relation to international law on armed conflict, the “Responsibility To Protect” doctrine, and the development of the idea of sovereignty associated with the “Westphalian system” of international order, identifying a dilemma: that the idea of human rights undergirds both the principle of non‐intervention in the internal affairs of states and the idea of an international responsibility for humanitarian intervention in cases of oppression. The pre‐Westphalian conception of sovereignty as moral responsibility for the common good is then examined as an alternative that avoids this dilemma, and the essay concludes by suggesting that religious ethics also has other resources that, if used, may shed useful light on resolving this problem.     

Revisiting <Emphasis Type="Italic">Orbis Sensualium Pictus</Emphasis>: An Iconographical Reading in Light of the Pampaedia of J. A. Comenius

Orbis Sensualium Pictus by Comenius is historical evidence of the revolutionary development of language didactic in the seventeenth century. However, this book is not only a simple encyclopedic Latin study book with pictures, but a little theology work containing Christian cosmological universalism as well as a pedagogy which provides principles for educational practice and social realizations of a theological ideal in a very new and creative form of iconography. While studying Latin seems to be the main purpose of his work, the authentic intention of the author lies in a panpedagogical call to a religious-educational mission for rebuilding humanity and society during and after the 30 Years War. In this article, we will show the historical and pedagogical meaning of this book through component analysis, framework analysis and iconographical interpretation. In addition, we will also approach Comenius’ concept of Pampaedia through an iconographical shortcut, highlighting a picture in “Invitatio” and “Clausula”, which is presented twice in this book.     

IPSEITY,ALTERITY, AND COMMUNITY: THE TRI‐UNITY OF MAYA THERAPEUTIC HEALING

Taking K'iche’ Maya therapeutic consultations in Guatemala as its focus, this essay explores some astonishing indigenous accounts of “healing‐at‐a‐distance” and “pain passing” between healers and wellness‐seekers. Rather than exoticizing or dismissing such reports, we attempt to understand what it means to conceive of the bodily boundaries of healers and wellness‐seekers (self and other) as sympathetically defiable and transgressable in healing. Within the moral space of K'iche’ healing, when one cares to feel, if one dares to feel with another or others, the experiential space between healer and wellness‐seeker is transformed as the alterity (otherness) of what is felt and who feels becomes (through a sympathy in ipseity) but one thing. I argue that Maya therapeutic healing may be seen as a tri‐unity, involving a movement from an enfolded illness experience (alterity) to an unfolding sickness experience (ipseity), passing through empathy until participants together arrive at sympathy (community) to experience healing.     

THE RETURN OF THE DEAD SOULS: THE GERMAN STUDENTS' MOVEMENT AND THE GHOSTS OF AUSCHWITZ

The intellectual history determined by the 1968 students' revolt sometimes appears as a ghost scene, emerging from the strong identification of the radical students with Jews and Judaism. This essay wishes to demonstrate the inner connection between the messianic political theology of the movement and the psychological effects of this over-identification, leading to a leftist anti-Semitism. While the revolutionary students saw themselves as the true successors of Jewish revolutionary messianism, they accused the real Jew, the one who settled in Israel, of being an imperialist traitor. The essay reconstructs the metamorphosis of these ghosts in a “phenomenology of the spirits” as a “Geistergeschichte” behind the official “Geistesgeschichte.” Against this pathological path the essay presents Jürgen Habermas's reflections on the ethics of memory as its best therapy.