Mindfulness,Christian Devotion Meditation,surrender, and worry

This article will present an approach for accommodating the benefits of mindfulness into therapy with Christians struggling with worry. Given the psychological benefits of mindfulness and its connection to spirituality, it is not surprising that both therapists and Christian clients are attempting to incorporate it into counselling. Centering prayer, which is a form of Christian Devotion Meditation, provides an accommodative approach to managing worry for Christian clients. The results of this study indicate that surrender, a key component of centering prayer, provides an empirical link for incorporating the benefits of mindfulness for Christians.     

Open-mindedness and Religious Devotion

To be open-minded is to be willing to revise or entertain doubts about one’s beliefs. Commonly regarded as an intellectual virtue, and often too as a moral virtue, open-mindedness is a trait that is generally desirable for a person to have. However, in the major theistic traditions, absolute commitment to one’s religious beliefs is regarded as virtuous or ideal. But one cannot be completely resolved about an issue and at the same time be open to revising one’s beliefs about it. It appears, then, that religious devotion is inconsistent with open-mindedness. The more religiously devout a person is, the more firmly she will hold to her convictions. And the stronger her belief commitments, the less open-minded she will be regarding these beliefs. So there appears to be a paradox here, where from the standpoint of religious devotion, it is virtuous to display an intellectual vice, namely closed-mindedness. I discuss this problem and explore some potential routes of escape from the paradox.     

Religious Diversity, Christian Doctrine and Karl Barth

Abstract:   The recognition of the heterogeneity of the goals of the world's religions has led to a greater alertness to the doctrinal questions raised by the presence of truth and rectitude which Christians might recognize in the other religions. In this article J.A. DiNoia's proposals for the recognition of subordinate and non-oppositional truths in the other religions, and his more recent defence of Barth's account of the religions in Church Dogmatics §17, are brought into dialogue with Karl Barth's account of truth extra muros ecclesiae in CD §69. It is argued that the latter raises a number of crucial doctrinal questions for DiNoia's own proposal for the recognition of subordinate and non-oppositional truth, and that it is a more important resource for contemporary discussions than is the controversial CD §17.     

Bhakti and Power: Exploring the Rhetorics,Publics, and Politics of South Asian Devotion

International Journal of Hindu Studies -     

佛教义理与因明逻辑

佛学与因明的关系问题是学术界尚未涉足又不可回避的重要课题。本文通过对三法印说与因明量论、三自性说与因三相、缘起说与三支论式等这些主要方面的比较分析，认为佛学对因明有着极为深刻的影响，彼此间诸多的相息相通之处是不可置疑的；以此阐明佛学与因明之间存在着相当密切的内在因缘关系。不过，佛学与因明在一些关键之点上有其根本区别，表明佛学本身固有的浓郁的宗教伦理体系色彩，而因明在本质上是一个不断趋向合理性、科学性、有效性的逻辑体系。     

王、霸的时序性--试析由王道向霸道转变的原因

王道政治作为一种理想化的为政方式,由于其独特的伦理政治一体化的体系,在道德观念上占有先人为主的优越性。但是到了春秋战国时期,王道政治由于自身体系内部的矛盾,即人性善的理论与人性的本质的矛盾、理想化的为政理念可望而不可及、过于内倾的文化导致的软弱性,使王道政治已经很难适应拨乱反正的需要;霸道正好克治了王道的不足,是对王道的批判继承。     

Charles S. Peirce and the Medieval Doctrine of consequentiae

In 1898 C. S. Peirce declares that the medieval doctrine of consequences had been the starting point of his logical investigations in the 1860s. This paper shows that Peirce studied the scholastic theory of consequentiae as early as 1866–67, that he adopted the scholastics’ terminology, and that that theory constituted a source of logical doctrine that sustained Peirce for a lifetime of creative and original work.     

John Henry Newman,Infallibility, and the Development of Christian Doctrine

This essay charts the parallel growth of Newman's theory of doctrinal development, and infallibility within that doctrinal development, with its author's movement from a via media in Anglicanism to recognition of the truth in the Roman Church. This essay analyzes the theological need for a theory of doctrinal development, the failure of Newman's via media project, and his role as a creative theologian. Then this essay examines in detailed Newman's 1845 Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, looking specifically at the second section of the second chapter, ‘On the Probability of a Developing Authority in Christianity.’ The main body of the paper treats the expansion of the scope and feasibility of infallibility in Newman's 1845 Essay.     

Divine Transcendence, Religious Pluralism and Barth's Doctrine of God

Abstract:  Pluralists such as John Hick frequently argue that the transcendence, mystery and ineffability of 'God' provide the grounds on which a pluralistic interpretation of religion should be embraced. In this article the author explores the possibility that certain contemporary accounts of divine transcendence, consciously indebted to Karl Barth, may implicitly open the door to Hick's line of argument. After identifying four reasons why Barth's own account of transcendence ( Church Dogmatics II/1) resists a pluralist appropriation, the author examines two contemporary proposals: William Placher's The Domestication of Transcendence and Stacy Johnson's The Mystery of God . He contends that, unlike Barth, the accounts of God's transcendence proposed by these two theologians implicitly open the door to Hick's line of argument.     

Toward an Anatomy of Mourning: Discipline,Devotion and Liberation in a Freudian-Buddhist Framework

In this essay I first articulate what I take to be an influential and for the most part persuasive model in the western psychoanalytic tradition that is a response to tragic loss, namely, the one that we find in Freud’s little essay entitled ‘Mourning and Melancholia’ (1917). I then use a well-known Buddhist folk tale about the plight of a young woman named Kisagotami to underscore central elements from Buddhist psychology on the subject of suffering that is a consequence of the loss of a young mother’s only child. Fortified by both traditions, I gather together the ingredients for a cross-cultural mental model that serves to explain and to justify as healthy a specific kind of response to a specific form of suffering, namely, the loss of ones’ loved one. I arrive at this model by asking a number of specific questions of both traditions. For instance, what constitutes a non-pathological response to this kind of suffering? What state of mind represents the cessation of such suffering? Is preoccupation with the dead beloved a way of escaping the fact that the person is dead? Is this a form of ignorance that needs to be removed? Is it a form of moral deficiency? Might certain forms and contexts of ignorance, in effect, put one on a path to enlightenment?