FROM THE SENSES TO SENSE: THE HERMENEUTICS OF LOVE

Abstract. Drawing on philosophy, theology, comparative religion, spirituality, Holocaust studies, physics, biology, psychology, and personal experience, I argue that continued human existence depends on our willingness to reject nihilism–not as an expedient "noble lie" but because faith in a meaningful cosmos and the power of love is at least as validly grounded in human experience as insistence on cosmic indifference and ultimate futility. I maintain that hope will free us to develop nonimperialistic methods of bridging cultural differences by forming a mutually intelligible vocabulary that celebrates diversity, enters the worlds of others in respectful dialogue, and fosters a postmechanistic, organic, ecological, holistic, dynamic, interactive, open-ended model of reality. I lay the foundation for a "hermeneutics of love" to complement Paul Ricoeur's "hermeneutics of suspicion" and invite speculation on the ways science, technology, and society would be transformed if those "glasses of friendship" were widely applied.     

THE THEOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY OF RALPH WENDELL BURHOE

Abstract. A central aim of Ralph Wendell Burhoe's scientific theology is to define and interpret the meaning of human existence in relation to “ultimate reality.” As such, it can be understood as an exercise in theological anthropology. For Burhoe, this ultimate reality is “nature,” understood as the total reality system which is studied by the sciences and which the sciences are showing to be the sole determiner of the way things are. This article discusses various aspects of Burhoe's theological anthropology, as well as its value and credibility, and raises questions concerning his understanding of the value of the individual and the problems of evil and human sinfulness.     

MODESTY BIAS IN SELF-RATINGS OF PERFORMANCE: A TEST OF THE CULTURAL RELATIVITY HYPOTHESIS

Although self-ratings of performance are usually higher than ratings obtained from supervisors, Farh, Dobbins, and Cheng (1991) found that Taiwanese workers exhibited modesty bias (i.e., self-ratings that were lower than supervisory ratings). They explained their findings in terms of broad cultural differences between Taiwanese and Western workers. To test this cultural relativity hypothesis, we replicated their study using data from several organizations in mainland China. As is typically found in Western research, Chinese workers showed leniency in self-ratings (i.e., self-ratings that were higher than supervisor or peer ratings), which suggests that broad cultural factors do not explain the modesty bias reported by Farh et al.     

THE ENCHANTMENTS OF MAMMON: NOTES TOWARD A THEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF CAPITALISM

Tales of “disenchantment” dominate modern intellectual life, and especially accounts of the cultural history of capitalism. Yet Weberian sociology, and especially Marxist notions of “commodity fetishism”, point to the persistence of “enchantment” in the capitalist imagination. If we reformulate these notions of “enchantment” and “disenchantment” in theological terms of sacrament, then we can write new histories of capitalism, as well as articulate new forms of political and cultural criticism. Borrowing from “radical orthodoxy”, the author takes a Cook's Tour of “disenchantment”, explores the possibilities afforded by “sacramental” conceptions of materialism, and gestures toward an account of American cultural history shaped by a sacramental materialism.     

DIVINE CAUSALITY AND THE NATURE OF THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONING

To be alive as embodied human beings in the world means to be both conceptually or ratiocinatively aware, and sensibly or causally aware. However, under a still powerful influence of idealism, theology over the past two centuries has virtually abandoned the causal and sensibly‐embodied attentiveness to its subject‐matter (revelation) as demanded by the incarnation. It has instead often come to comport itself one‐sidedly, in essentially analytical or linguistically self‐guaranteeing ways, and has thereby lost its contingent and genuinely vulnerable incarnational “edge” at the center of life. This essay tries to restore a properly twofold attentiveness through a reinvigoration of the traditional view of revelation as the divinely causal reality of God in the world.