Mysterium Christi: the Christologies of Maurice de la Taille and Karl Rahner

Abstract: This article argues that Maurice de la Taille's theology of created actuation by uncreated Act constructively develops Karl Rahner's Christology. The first part gives an account of de la Taille's theology of created actuation by uncreated Act through an examination of the three supernatural communications of the hypostatic union, beatific vision and sanctifying grace. The second part dialogically integrates the insights of de la Taille's theology with Rahner's Christology. The article demonstrates that de la Taille's theology could develop Rahner's Christology. This conclusion raises the question of the value of scholasticism as a method of theology.     

THE STRUCTURE OF CONSCIENTIOUSNESS: AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION BASED ON SEVEN MAJOR PERSONALITY QUESTIONNAIRES

The purpose of this study was to identify the underlying structure of the trait domain of Conscientiousness using scales drawn from 7 major personality inventories. Thirty-six scales conceptually related to Conscientiousness were administered to a large community sample ( N = 737); analyses of those scales revealed a hierarchical structure with 6 factors: industriousness, order, self-control, responsibility, traditionalism, and virtue. All 6 factors demonstrated excellent convergent validity. Three of the 6 factors, industriousness, order, and self-control, showed good discriminant validity. The remaining 3 factors—responsibility, traditionalism and virtue—appear to be interstitial constructs located equally between Conscientiousness and the remaining Big Five dimensions. In addition, the 6 underlying factors had both differential predictive validity and provided incremental validity beyond the general factor of Conscientiousness when used to predict a variety of criterion variables, including work dedication, drug use, and health behaviors.     

When similars do not attract: Tests of a prediction from the self‐expansion model

This study tested the hypothesis from the self‐expansion model that the usual effect of greater attraction to a similar (vs. dissimilar) stranger will be reduced or reversed when a person is given information that a relationship would be likely to develop (i.e., that they would be very likely to get along) with the other person. The study employed the “bogus stranger” paradigm and focused on similarity/dissimilarity of interests in the context of attraction to a same‐gender other. The effect for similarity under conditions in which no information is given about relationship likelihood replicated the usual pattern of greater attraction to similars. However, as predicted, a significant similarity by information interaction demonstrated that this effect was significantly reduced (and slightly reversed) when participants had been given information that the partner will like self. In analyses for each gender separately, both of these effects were significant only for men, suggesting that the focus on interest similarity may have been less relevant for women.