‘THE METAPHYSICS OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS: RADICAL ORTHODOXY AND THEOSIS’

Western theology struggles with the rise of secularism and postmodernism. The Radical Orthodoxy sensibility asserts that the ancient principles of methexis (participation) and theosis (deification) presents an alternative metaphysical narrative to the narrative of secularism and the onto‐theological tradition. This article addresses the problems of the onto‐theological metaphysical tradition in Western theology by analyzing Radical Orthodoxy's rediscovery of the philosophical and theological principles of participation and theosis as articulated in the patristic tradition and in the thought of Thomas Aquinas. Using historical and analytical methods, this article will survey the biblical and patristic literature on theosis, as well as John Milbank's understanding of methexis and theosis in Thomas Aquinas. The result of this study will be to offer theosis, rooted in participation in God, as not only a soteriological model to reclaim for the West, but also a core metaphysical principle for Christian ethics that contravenes both onto‐theology and the materialistic reduction of ontology in secularism.     

RADICAL ORTHODOXY AND THE NEW CULTURE OF OBSCURANTISM

Centering around a careful, sustained critique of John Milbank's polemic against Kant, this essay connects the growing anti‐philosophical sentiments in theology to a wider anti‐rational trend in the human sciences generally. What most visibly unifies these new obscurantist outlooks is their reliance on free‐floating, unapologetically self‐perpetuating ideological historiographies, which are advanced via a kind of “co‐opt‐and‐plunder” approach to historical texts. However, the rejection of rational integrity also entails a rejection of the traditional intellectual virtues—attentiveness, consistency, modesty, charity etc.—virtues which any theological claim to orthodoxy cannot do without. Radical Orthodoxy therefore risks a worrying slide into new forms of esoteric gnosticism.     

HEIDEGGER AND THE APPROPRIATION OF METAPHYSICS

Heidegger's deconstruction of the history of Western metaphysics has been a major influence behind poststructural critiques of modernity as well as more apologetic attempts to maintain a dialogue with historical sources, such as Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics. This bifurcation has intensified the ambiguity of Heidegger's project: was it an attempt to relinquish philosophical ties to the past or a call for a fundamental reinterpretation of them? In this article I argue the latter, focusing my analysis on Heidegger's notions of appropriation and historicity. On the one hand, appropriation is the hermeneutical event by which ontology is reinfused into a reading of historical sources. On the other hand, historicity is the self‐reflexive historical involvement by which we become aware of what contemporary, philosophical conditions necessitate this reengagement. In the end, Heidegger's critique of metaphysics arises from this self‐reflexivity. It deconstructs the prevailing misunderstandings of philosophical sources in order to allow for reinterpretation at a revivified ontological level constantly in view of the question of being.     

THE “RELATION” BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION IN THE PLURALISTIC LANDSCAPE OF TODAY'S WORLD

The attempt to expand the discourse of science and religion by considering the pluralistic landscape of today's world requires not only adding new voices from more religious traditions but a rethinking of the basic categories of the discourse, that is, “science,” “religion,” and the notion that the main issue to be investigated is the relationship between the two. Making use of historical studies of science and religion discourse and a case study from Indonesia, this article suggests a rethinking of the categories, including giving more attention to indigenous religions.     

HUMANISTIC APPROACH OF THE EARLY PROTESTANT MEDICAL MISSIONARIES IN NINETEENTH‐CENTURY CHINA

The efficacies of Western and Chinese medicine have been under debate for a long time, and the whole issue still raises questions for the contemporary world. The article emphasizes the humanistic approach as well as the scientific method of the early Protestant medical missionaries to China, so as to give a more comprehensive scope to understand their historical roles and practices in a cross‐cultural context. The authors also wish to call for a global readership to further discuss this historical legacy with regard to the reception of Christianity in contemporary China and other East Asian countries.     

REFLECTIONS ON THE FAILURE OF THE LOVERS OF ZION

This article considers the important role of archival photographs in the work of historians, artists and writers of the generation after the Holocaust. Powerful “points of memory” linking past and present, memory and postmemory, individual remembrance and cultural recall, photographs can offer evidence of past crimes and function as haunting specters that enable an affective visceral connection to the past. And yet, photographs may also be limited and flawed historical documents, promising more than they can actually reveal. The article argues that such ambiguous evidence may be a resource for historians seeking to grasp and transmit the past's emotional truth.     

FROM DIVINE ORACLES TO THE HIGHER CRITICISM: ANDREW D. WHITE AND THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE WITH THEOLOGY IN CHRISTENDOM

Historians of science and religion have given little attention to how historical‐critical scholarship influenced perceptions of the relationship between science and religion in the nineteenth century. However, the so‐called “cofounders” of the “conflict thesis,” the idea that science and religion are fundamentally and irrevocable at odds, were greatly affected by this literature. Indeed, in his two‐volume magnum opus, A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1896), Andrew D. White, in his longest and final chapter of his masterpiece, traced the development of the “scientific interpretation” of the Bible. In this article, I argue that developments in biblical criticism had a direct impact on how White constructed his historical understanding of the relationship between science and religion. By examining more carefully how biblical criticism played a significant role in the thought of White and other alleged cofounders of the conflict thesis, this article hopes to relocate the origins, development, and meaning of the science–religion debate at the end of the nineteenth century.     

Book Review

Book reviewed in this article:
Hunter Brown, William James on Radical Empiricism and Religion     

Seeking after Theological Vision

Books reviewed in this article:
John Milbank, Catherine Pickstock and Graham Ward (eds), Radical Orthodoxy: A New Theology     

Norms,Rules and Steadfast Love: Towards an Inclusive Theology of Intimacy

Abstract

This article argues that defenders of the traditional view that marriage is the necessary condition for sexual experience generally make two important mistakes. First, they underestimate how open to emergent forms marriage actually is. And second, they confuse marriage as a norm for sexual expression with marriage as a rule. This article attempts a simple clarification of this basic distinction and, in so doing, is able to throw considerable fresh light on the place of marriage in the Christian understanding of sexuality. First, there will be some reminders about how adaptable the institution of marriage has actually been and may continue to be. Second, attempts will be made to explain the differences between a norm and a rule. Finally some possibilities and consequences arising from this distinction will be explored. These will provide some promptings towards what is called here ‘an inclusive theology of intimacy’. Radical Christians are cautioned regarding their peremptory search for alternatives to marriage. People inside and outside the churches who reject marriage may be rejecting versions of it which, while undoubtedly historical, simply do not bring to light the possibilities released by what might be called ‘the marital norm’.     

A SUDDEN SURPRISE OF THE SOUL: THE PASSION OF WONDER IN HOBBES AND DESCARTES

Philosophy begins in wonder, according to Plato and Aristotle. However, they did not expand a great deal on what precisely wonder is. Does this fact alone not raise curiosity in us as to why this passion is important? What is its role in our thinking except to end as soon as one begins conceptually delimiting its nature? The thinkers Thomas Hobbes and René Descartes both expanded upon earlier brief articulations of wonder in natural, supernatural and practical ways. By means of an historical and philosophical examination of these two early modern thinkers, this article hopes to begin to answer the question: ‘What is wonder?’     

Philosophy,Early Modern Intellectual History,and the History of Philosophy

Historians of philosophy are increasingly likely to emphasize the extent to which their work offers a pay‐off for philosophers of un‐historical or anti‐historical inclinations; but this defence is less familiar, and often seems less than self‐evident, to intellectual historians. This article examines this tendency, arguing that such arguments for the instrumental value of historical scholarship in philosophy are often more problematic than they at first appear. Using the relatively familiar case study of René Descartes' reading of his scholastic and Aristotelian contemporaries, the article attempts to problematize this notion of pay‐off from an historian's perspective.     

Overcoming the “objective” language of violence

In addition to the technical difficulties involved in the study of human violence, theoretical attempts at understanding it run into two major obstacles. One is the psychological problem of gaining distance from the human emotions involved. The other is the ideological problem of viewing violence in its historical and social context. This article points to the limitations of some of the current approaches to human violence, and presents one approach which offers a more realistic and more comprehensive way of looking at human violence. The objectivization and quantification of behavior aims at gaining a phenomenological and an ideological distance from it. In the case of human aggression, analogies from animal behavior may serve a similar function. The article advocates dealing with violence in its phenomenological, social, and historical context, and presents the contribution of Frantz Fanon to the understanding of one particular historical situation as a relevant model. Fanon analyzed violence in the Algerian war for independence from a phenomenological-psychohistorical viewpoint, and his analysis may serve as a model of working within the human context. Efforts in this direction should lead to a more humanistic and a more comprehensive view of human violence.     

Socialization of Social Anxiety in Adolescent Crowds

In this study, we looked at whether social anxiety is socialized, or influenced by peers’ social anxiety, more in some peer crowds than others. Adolescents in crowds with eye-catching appearances such as Goths and Punks (here termed Radical), were compared with three comparison groups. Using data from 796 adolescents (353 girls and 443 boys; M _age  = 13.36) at three timepoints, the results show that adolescents affiliating with the Radical crowd tended to select peers from the same crowd group. Being a member of a crowd in itself did not predict socialization of social anxiety, but adolescents in the Radical crowd were more influenced by their peers’ social anxiety than adolescents who did not affiliate with the Radical crowd group. The results suggest that through a bidirectional process, adolescents affiliating with Radical crowds may narrow their peer relationship ties in time, and in turn socialize each other’s social anxiety.     

HISTORICISM IN PRAGMATISM: LESSONS IN HISTORIOGRAPHY AND PHILOSOPHY

Abstract: Pragmatism involves simultaneous commitments to modes of inquiry that are philosophical and historical. This article begins by demonstrating this point as it is evidenced in the historicist pragmatisms of William James and John Dewey. Having shown that pragmatism focuses philosophical attention on concrete historical processes, the article turns to a discussion of the specific historiographical commitments consistent with this focus. This focus here is on a pragmatist version of historical inquiry in terms of the central historiographical categories of the object of historical inquiry and mode of historical periodization. After describing the basic historiographical consequences of pragmatism's historicism, the article moves to a discussion of the philosophical results of this historicism. The focus here is on the role that historical inquiry can play in the general philosophical perspective of pragmatism as well as on some recent texts that exemplify the dual pragmatist commitment to philosophy and history.     

THE IMPORTANCE OF INSTRUMENT MAKERS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY: THE CASE OF ALFRED BINET AT THE SORBONNE LABORATORY

The importance of instrument firms in the development of psychology, and science in general, should not be underestimated since it would not have been possible for various leading psychologists at the turn of the twentieth century to conduct certain experiments without the assistance of instrument makers, as is often the case today. To illustrate the historical perspective introduced here, the example of Alfred Binet is taken, as he is an interesting case of a psychologist working in close collaboration with various French instrument designers of the time. The objective of this article is twofold: (1) to show the considerable activity carried out by early psychologists to finalize new laboratory instruments in order to develop their research projects; (2) to reassess the work of a major figure in French psychology through his activity as a designer of precision instruments. The development of these new instruments would certainly have been difficult without the presence in Paris of numerous precision instrument manufacturers such as Charles Verdin, Otto Lund, Henri Collin, and Lucien Korsten, on whom Binet successively called in order to develop his projects in the field of experimental psychology.     

THE TURKISH SEPHARDIM OF SAN ANTONIO MARKET,BARCELONA, 1900–1945

The article offers an historical anthropological study of a little-known, mostly Turkish-Sephardi population that settled in Barcelona at the beginning of the twentieth century, attracted by the commercial dynamism of the area around the San Antonio Market. The complete disappearance of the community in the early 1940s has made it more difficult to reconstruct its history than is the case with some other Jewish communities in Spain. Through oral history testimonies and the location of several dispersed sources, this article provides new ethnographic and historical information that contributes to recovering the memory of this Jewish community. The study is also an attempt to explain the reasons behind the departure of most of the community's members in the early 1940s, after more than 20 years of settlement and integration in the city of Barcelona. It shows how the new conditions introduced by the Francoist authorities had a direct impact on the ability of community members to make a living. The restrictions forced them first to ask for help from the international organizations which were helping European refugees and ultimately to leave the country.     

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.