‘Theology on Its Knees’: The Arts as Religion

Books reviewed in this article: Paul Corby Finney (ed.), Seeing Beyond the Word: Visual Arts and the Calvinist Tradition David Morgan, Protestants and Pictures: Religion, Visual Culture, and the Age of American Mass Production Richard Viladesau, Theological Aesthetics: God in Imagination, Beauty, and Art     

A Lesson in ‘Psycholese,’ or How to ‘Get a Feel For’ Where Your ‘Helper’ Is ‘Coming From’

Oftentimes/frequently the consumers/clients/patients of community/private mental health agencies/facilities experience/encounter difficulty communicating with the mental health professionals/paraprofessionals. Presented is a glossary that should aid novice clients to better communicate with their helpers/therapists/counselors/ caregivers. On the other hand (at the same time), it might just confuse the clients further. This is clearly a risk with counseling.     

Rethinking ‘Enthusiasm’: Christoph Blumhardt on the Discernment of the Spirit

This article uses resources from the theology of Christoph Blumhardt to argue that Luther was mistaken in identifying a necessary theological connection between ‘enthusiastic’ views of the Spirit and naive anthropology. It demonstrates that Blumhardt successfully combined an abiding concern over the problem of spiritual self‐deception together with a pneumatology that affirmed the importance of affective experience of the Spirit not mediated exclusively by the proclaimed Word of Scripture, through a conviction that the most reliable sign of the Spirit's activity is ‘negative’, in suffering and visceral encounter with divine judgement, in the first instance. This critical ‘enthusiasm’ helps explain Blumhardt's singular critique of the nationalistic ‘Spirit of August’ from the start of World War I.     

The Eternal ‘Spirit of the Son’: Barth,Florovsky and Torrance on the Filioque

This article offers an Orthodox response to Barth's defense of the filioque. Florovsky's theology exemplifies how Orthodoxy addresses the concerns underlying Barth's filioque without resort to the filioque. Entailed in the elaboration of Florovsky's Christocentric pneumatology is a critique of other currents in modern Orthodox theology (Florensky, Lossky). Common emphases are noted between Florovsky and T.F. Torrance regarding the consubstantiality and propriety of the Spirit to the Son and the significance of this doctrine for ecclesial life, suggesting a basis for further ecumenical reintegration.     

Heidegger’s Destruktion of Theology: ‘Primordial Faith’ and ‘Recognition’ of the Messiah

Heidegger’s phenomenology of religious life offers important insights by engaging Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians, where he distinguishes ‘Paul the Pharisee’ from ‘Paul the Christian’ in order to explicate the nature of faith in contrast to systematic theology. Neither certitude in God’s existence is primordial to Christian faith, according to Heidegger, nor is rabbinic nor theological disputation concerning God’s existence or God’s nature. Instead, what is essential to Heidegger’s phenomenology of religious life are: (1) faith as lived experience and (2) recognition of ‘the Christ’ (ho christos/ha ma?ía?). This ‘recognition’, however, requires phenomenological clarification and not philosophy of religion as traditionally construed.     

Uncertainty and preference for ‘ambiguous’ figures, ‘impossible’ figures and the drawings of M. C. Escher1

With regard to two kinds of dependent response measures, number of one s exposures and verbal ratings of interestingness and pleasingness, preference was greater for unaltered ‘ambiguous’ figures, drawings of M. C. Escher and ‘impossible’ figures, characterized by greater complexity and uncertainty, than for altered versions of these stimuli. Furthermore, preference increased over the three types of unaltered slides while remaining fairly constant across altered ones. Lastly, number of exposures and ratings of interestingness diminished for unaltered pictures when preceded by their altered versions. The findings were interpreted using Berlyne's notions regarding aesthetic preference, uncertainty, and response conflict.