Cosmology, Cosmic Evolution, and Sacramental Reality: A Christian Contribution

From the Christian perspective, creation exists through the Word of God. The Word of God does not create God again but brings forth the absolute "otherness" of God: creation. The nature of God is to exist. God is existence as unity in the diversity of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The gift of created existence reflects the triune nature of the Word of God. It is synthesis of diversity into unity that creates. Nature brings forth new existence by unifying what it already brought forth previously. Therefore, the creative process of nature is self-similar and nonlinear: self-similar because at all levels it is synthesis that brings forth novelty; nonlinear because the properties of the new unities are not present in their (isolated) elements. The new properties of the wholes, however, do not destroy the properties of the parts. Rather, the elements integrated into new wholes become creatively transformed. This is because the parts become carriers of the whole, which transforms the parts through its presence. The parts become and express the qualities of the whole, qualities that the parts do not possess in isolation. Synthesis, therefore, transforms the parts creatively, because synthesis is creative. The qualities of the parts become "elevated" because the whole becomes present in and through the parts. The understanding of creation as the result of sequential, creative transformations offers a glance into the mystery of the Word of God present in the Eucharist. Here, too, the elements of bread and wine are not destroyed but elevated, creatively transformed into the Word of God. The elements (bread and wine) become the carrier of a transcendent "quality," the Word of God. From this perspective, creation and the sacrament of the Eucharist illuminate each other. This is because the Word of God that creates the otherness of creation and the Word of God present in the Eucharist is the same.     

Desiring to Know through Intuition

The major part of this paper is devoted to the task of showing that Husserl's account of knowledge and truth in terms of a synthesis of fulfilment falls prey neither to a form of “metaphysics of presence” nor to a “myth of interiority” or mentalism. Husserl's presentation of the desire to know, his awareness of irreducible forms of absence at the heart of the intuitive presence of the object of knowledge and his formulation of general rules concerning the possible accomplishment of a synthesis of fulfilment are therefore carefully examined. Special attention is also given to the fact that the determination of knowledge and truth provided by the Sixth Logical Investigation rests on an account of an original interweaving between the thing, consciousness, and language. Unlike in Husserl's earlier and later works, no attempt is thereby made to subordinate any of these three elements involved in all knowledge to one of the others. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The Distillation of “VISCI”: Towards a Better Identification of Suicidal Inmates

The “Viennese Instrument for Suicidality in Correctional Institutions” (VISCI) presented here is based on the results of a large case‐control study and on research on literature examining suicide prevention in general and in the prison population in particular. The aim of this study was to validate the properties of the VISCI to differentiate between suicides and nonsuicides. The sensitivity and specificity of the VISCI was tested in the files of 55 correctional suicides, and 110 controls. VISCI differentiated well between suicides and nonsuicides. The routine administration of the VISCI may help to direct the existing professional attention to inmates with the highest need.     

Unsere Schwierigkeiten Mit Dem Geistigen

Theorizing about something we tend to conceive of it as objective and admitting, in principle, of a clear-cut distinction between what it is in its own right and what we believe about it. Obviously this tendency gets us into trouble if we theorize about the mental, and it is the tenet of this paper that the temptation to objectify the mental is the main source of our notorious difficulties with it. Evidence is presented from a variety of fields, from set theory, semantics and epistemology to doxastic logic. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.