Messianism and Kingship in the Gospel of John: A Comparison Between the Fourth Gospel and the Royal Psalms 2, 72, and 110

The article shows that messianism and kingship in the Gospel of John are involved in the royal psalms, such as Psalms 2, 72, and 110. Although these psalms were never quoted in the Gospel of John, there is a strong likelihood that the royal psalms have been alluded in the Gospel of John. This article examines the similarities and differences between the royal psalms and the Gospel of John, and, thus, shows how each present the messiah as the ideal king, concentrating on the terms “the Son of God,” “the Son of man,” and “the kingdom of God” that John shares with the royal psalms in terms of the messianic views. It appears that John uses the terms, in a unique way to emphasize the divine aspect of the messiah, by putting weight on the main characteristics of the messiah as the ideal king who was pre-existent before creation.     

Forgiveness,the Gift,and Ecclesiology

Abstract: This article responds to the work of George Lindbeck and John Milbank while putting forth a new position on the theology of gift and forgiveness. Saarinen constructs a rudimentary theological anthropology, focusing on God and human beings as givers. As an example of applying this “giver‐oriented perspective” he outlines a fourfold typology of forgiveness as (1) negative giving, forgetting; (2) negative and positive giving, forgetting; (3) negative giving, forgetting and remembering; (4) negative and positive giving, forgetting and remembering.     

Mary, the Reformation and some Scots!In Memory of John Macquarrie (1919–2007)

Since Vatican II great progress has been made towards an ecumenical understanding and appreciation of our Blessed Lady, even as there has been a certain development in Catholic understanding. This essay looks briefly at Reformation mariologies, those of Luther, Calvin and Zwingli before moving on to consider three Scots: John Knox, Edwin Muir and John Macquarrie. Arguably, John Macquarrie has shown one of the most careful retrievals of Marian theology, not least in his  Principles of Christian Theology  and  Mary for All Christians.  His final mariological sounding took him back to his Celtic roots, and is summarized here. John Macquarrie died in 2007, and this essay is dedicated to his memory.     

The Heart of the Reformation Faith

Abstract: This historical and theological study of Reformation theologians, principally Martin Luther and John Calvin, examines three dimensions of faith: (1) faith as belief; (2) faith as trust; and (3) faith as the indwelling presence of Christ. To the question, “how does faith justify?,” the answer is found in the third, the indwelling of Christ, wherein the justness of Christ is present in the sinful person.     

RELIGIOUS REASONS AND POLITICAL ARGUMENTATION

In Evangelium Vitae Pope John Paul II calls for a renewal of culture to combat the culture of death. He criticizes various aspects of a pluralistic, liberal society—a type of society that he claims is based on moral relativism and a view of democracy that becomes a substitute for moral law. He maintains that such a view trivializes moral choice. In this essay I argue that John Rawls's notion of a liberal society as an overlapping consensus of comprehensive doctrines can avoid relativism while allowing for reasonable debate among opposed positions. While Rawls maintains that comprehensive doctrines, including religions, should employ a form of public reason that is not a unique feature of any one comprehensive doctrine, I argue that this requirement is too strong. One is often justified in appealing to features of comprehensive doctrines other than one's own, features that are unique to the doctrines themselves. Such an appeal does not pretend to be neutral as public reason would seem to be. In the final section of the paper I discuss some suggestions made by the Pope regarding actions in civil society that are independent of debates about legal change and suggest some ways in which they might contribute to desired cultural transformation.     

Natural Realism or Transactionalism: On the Relationships between Putnam and Two Pragmatists,James and Dewey

The relationships between Hilary Putnam and the pragmatists (especially William James and John Dewey) are obvious but subtle.To shed some light on this issue,the author will explore a key issue that not only stands as Putnam's main inheritance from the pragmatists,but that also illuminates the relationships between them more clearly than any other issues.This key issue is the understanding of perception and the philosophical position that arises from this understanding.The author argues that in adopting Dewey's transactionalism (or interactionalism),Putnam advances from James' insight to Dewey's,a shift that is particularly manifest in Putnam's attempt to add another layer of meaning to what he refers to as the second na(i)veté that he detects and appreciates in James' natural realism.     

Childhood as continuity and newness: generational succession understood according to the theological logic of the gift

This article seeks to understand, in a speculative way, the relationship between a new generation and the one preceding it. After having identified two opposite extremes – the ‘continuity thesis’ and the ‘discontinuity thesis’ – the article appropriates the logic of gift exchange to map out a mediating position. The fact that the practice of gift exchange is susceptible to criticism is subsequently noted, and two major lines of philosophical criticism are considered and related to the continuity thesis and the discontinuity thesis, respectively. The article then makes use of the work done by John Milbank to show that a purified notion of gift exchange is possibly from the vantage point of Christian theology, and finally seeks to apply this notion to the relationship between generations.     

Poverty and Wealth in the Orthodox Spirituality (with special reference to St. John Chrysostom)

Abstract : This essay deals with the right relation we should have to material wealth in modern society, a society often marked by rank consumerism. Material goods are given to humans only to be managed for the benefit of all people, regardless of faith or race. This ethical stance does not attack or seek to abolish the right to private property, but restores it to its proper place. Specifically, patristic spirituality, such as that articulated by St. John Chrysostom, does not invalidate the principle of individual ownership, but corrects it, meaning that, while owners are owners in relation to the poor, they are only managers of wealth in relation to God.     

Finding a Locus for Dialogue between Genetics and Theology

Christoph Schönborn, Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna, has dismissed Pope John Paul II's position on theology and science as “rather vague and unimportant.” I believe that the Cardinal's analysis of John Paul II's views on evolution and Christian faith deserves a careful and detailed response from all those concerned with the constructive dialogue between science and theology that John Paul II so strongly supported for decades. My ‘bottom line’ is twofold. First, Cardinal Schönborn's concern over evolution is unnecessary: What scientists view as chance in nature Christians can see as God's ongoing and purposeful action in the creation of life and humanity. Second, the Cardinal's concern is also misplaced. When evolutionary theory is co-opted by atheists to serve their agenda the Cardinal should challenge the atheists, not the science they falsely claim proves their views.     

On the general argument against internalism

I respond to John Greco’s argument that all forms of internalism in epistemology are either false or uninteresting. The paper divides into two sections. First, I explain precisely what internalists and externalists in epistemology disagree over. This puts us in a position to assess whether Greco’s argument succeeds. Second, I present Greco’s argument and offer two objections.     

Reasons-Responsive Compatibilism and the Consequences of Belief

John Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza offer a theory of moral responsibility which makes responsibility dependent upon the way in which moral agents view themselves. According to the theory, agents are responsible for their actions only if they think of themselves as apt candidates for praise and blame; if they come to believe they are not apt candidates for praise and blame, they are ipso facto not morally responsible. In what follows, I show that Fischer and Ravizza’s account of responsibility for consequences is inconsistent with this subjective element of their theory, and that the subjective element may be retained only if they are willing to implausibly restrict their account of responsibility for consequences. I end by discussing the broad significance of the failure of the subjective element for their overall approach to moral responsibility.     

Oikonomia,Incarnation and Immediacy: The Figure of the Jew in St John of Damascus

Abstract

This paper investigates the role of oikonomia in the writings of St John of Damascus and how that role is integral to the construction of the figure of the Jew.     

Social Dominance Orientation and John Henryism at the Intersection of Race and Class

Three studies were conducted to explore the relationship between social dominance orientation (SDO) and John Henryism (JH). Each study was framed using an intersectionality perspective which predicted that specific combinations of social identities would impact endorsement of SDO and JH in unique ways. We hypothesized that upper‐class non‐Whites would be higher in SDO and lower in JH than any other class/race identity combination. As predicted, a Class × Race interaction emerged for both SDO and JH in Study 1 (N = 387), with upper‐class non‐Whites displaying the highest levels of SDO and the lowest levels of JH. Study 2 (N = 340) replicated these findings and also explored the impact of context‐level class on SDO and JH. Using a qualitative method, in Study 3 (N = 23) we found that upper‐class non‐Whites described their social class positions in ways highly consistent with SDO, whereas middle/working‐class non‐Whites described their experiences in ways consistent with JH.     

FORTY YEARS LATER: WHAT HAVE WE ACCOMPLISHED?

Abstract. I examine the responses to John Caiazza's “Athens, Jerusalem, and the Arrival of Techno‐Secularism” as part of Zygon's forty‐year anniversary symposium. The responses reveal that issues of modernism and postmodernism are central to understanding the dynamic of the current science‐religion/theology dialogue and that the resistance of many of the participants to the influences of postmodernism is a sign not of its backwardness but rather of some of the weaknesses inherent in the postmodern project. This does not mean that the many insights of postmodernism should be rejected. Rather, the science‐religion/theology dialogue may be in an intellectually opportune place to construct successors to the worn label of postmodernism.     

What We Owe to the Global Poor

This essay defends an account of the duties to the global poor that is informed by the empirical question of what makes countries rich or poor, and that tends to be broadly in agreement with John Rawlss account in The Law of Peoples. I begin by introducing the debate about the sources of growth and explore its implications for duties towards the poor. Next I explore whether (and deny that) there are any further-reaching duties towards the poor. Finally, I ask about the moral foundations for the duties to the poor of the sort that earlier parts argue there are.     

Holy Movement and Holy Place: Christian Pilgrimage and the Hajj

Abstract : This article uses a comparative theological model to explore the concept of pilgrimage—holy movement and holy place. It examines Christian pilgrimage exemplified by John Paul II's pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 2000 and Islamic pilgrimage exemplified by the Hajj. It then re‐visions Christian pilgrimage by suggesting how three features of the Hajj (danger and hardship, ritual nature, and gathering) can be used to deepen the Christian experience and understanding of pilgrimage.     

Justice as the Practice of Non-Coercive Action: A Study of John Dewey and Classical Daoism

In this essay, I will argue for an understanding of justice that is grounded in our imperfect world by drawing upon the works of John Dewey and the Classical Daoist philosophers. It will require a reconstructed understanding of persons as a field/continuum of interrelations and an updated understanding of human action and agency. This understanding of justice takes the form of non-coercive action, interaction that respects the particularity of each lived situation. The practice culminates in an ability to respond to the environment considered to be ziran (自然) or ‘self-so’ by the Daoist Philosophers. As described in the Dao De Jing, it is the cultivation of the ‘Three Jewels of the Dao’, the most central of them being compassion making, this practice of justice as non-coercive action also understandable as the practice of compassion as described by the Classical Daoist philosophers.     

Celebrity and Political Psychology: Remembering Lennon

This article is a contribution toward the task of constructing a distinctive political psychology and social theory of celebrity. The article begins by noting some recent approaches to the analysis of mass communications in political theory, and moves to consider what these theories mean for the conceptual analysis of celebrity. A substantive example of the political construction of celebrity is given in a case study of the ex-Beatle, John Lennon—specifically, the social drama surrounding his death in 1980. A number of issues, ranging from the denial of death in modernity to the multiplex modes of cultural remembering, are discussed as they relate to celebrity.     

Stout,Rawls, and the Idea of Public Reason

Jeffrey Stout claims that John Rawls's idea of public reason (IPR) has contributed to a Christian backlash against liberalism. This essay argues that those whom Stout calls “antiliberal traditionalists” have misunderstood Rawls in important ways, and goes on to consider Stout's own critiques of the IPR. While Rawls's idea is often interpreted as a blanket prohibition on religious reasoning outside church and home, the essay will show that the very viability of the IPR depends upon a rich culture of deliberation in which all forms of reasoning can be put forth for consideration. This clarification addresses the perception that the IPR imposes an “asymmetrical burden” upon believers. In fact, the essay suggests that there are good reasons why believers, qua believers, might endorse the IPR.     

The Authority of Competence and Quality as Extrinsic

John Stuart Mill's hedonism is notoriously ambiguous. The most important ambiguity concerns his reliance on an axiologically significant notion of quality of pleasure. In this paper, I seek to explore one corner of the higher pleasures doctrine, in particular, what sort of property quality is. I argue that the only acceptable interpretation of the higher pleasures doctrine treats quality as a property that is (a) independent of the preferences of competent judges, (b) non-phenomenal and (c) extrinsic to individual higher quality pleasures. My argument for this view will focus on an interpretation of Mill's competent judges test: only such an interpretation of pleasurable quality can explain the peculiar trust Mill imparts in these judges when it comes to the nature of human well-being.