Three texts on the Kabbalah: More,Wachter, Leibniz,and the philosophy of the Hebrews

ABSTRACT

The article reconstructs a brief controversy between H. More, G. W. Leibniz and J. G. Wachter about the Kabbalah, or what they called ‘the philosophy of the Hebrews’. I study in particular the status of the proposition ‘nothing comes out of nothing’ in their exchanges - a proposition they all agreed was a fundamental kabbalist axiom while having differing views as to the prospects of reconciling that position with Christianity. I show how Wachter’s curious Kabbalistico-Spinozism provided the stage for an indirect philosophical encounter between Leibniz and More that highlights not only their respective positions on the Kabbalah, but also suggests some important philosophical agreement between them regarding divine transcendence and the nature of creation.     

Children’s spirituality and the practice of meditation in Irish primary schools

Abstract

This paper uses an interdisciplinary approach to explore the child’s experience of meditation in Irish primary schools and its impact on children’s spirituality. Using a phenomenological, hermeneutic, mystagogical methodology, it describes how children experience the practice of meditation, the benefits they consider they gain from it and the nature of its impact, if any, on their spirituality. Seventy children, aged 7 to 11, were interviewed. The study is original in that the interview protocol contained novel processes designed to elicit from children their experience, if any, of the transcendent in meditation and in its depth of analysis of the spiritual fruits of the practice. The study concludes that meditation does have the capacity to nourish the innate spirituality of the child. It offers a heuristic model outlining the key elements of the child’s experience of meditation, stresses the importance of personal spiritual experience and supports the introduction of meditation in primary schools.     

The ethics of belief and two conceptions of christian faith

This article deals with two types of Christian faith in the light of the challenges posed by the ethics of belief. It is proposed that the difficulties with Clifford’s formulation of that ethic can best be handled if the ethic is interpreted in terms of role-specific intellectual integrity. But the ethic still poses issues for the traditional interpretation of Christian faith when it is conceived as a series of discrete but related propositions, especially historical propositions. For as so conceived, the believer makes claims that fall within the province of an intellectual discipline, history, that requires evidence and rules of procedure for the adjudication of such claims. It is noteworthy how few Christian theologians and philosophers of religion deal with the issue in these terms. Alvin Plantinga is a noteworthy exception and his views are examined and criticized because, among other things, his conclusion is that any believer without having any training in biblical languages or historical studies can know that the New Testament narratives are true. The article then considers a second conception of Christian faith in which this conflict does not arise. One finds it in the works of Schleiermacher, Wittgenstein, and, surprisingly, in the conception of faith found in the early writings of Karl Barth.     

The Lost Voice: How Libertarianism and Consumerism Obliterate the Need for a Relational Ethics in the National Health Care Service

This article analyzes the contribution Christian ethics mightbe able to make to the ethical debate on policy and caregivingin health and social care in the United Kingdom. The articledeals particularly with the concepts of solidarity and subsidiaritywhich are essential in Christian social ethics and health careethics, and which may be relevant for the ethical debate onhealth and social caregiving in the United Kingdom. An importantargument in the article is that utilitarian and market-drivenpolicies in the National Health Service (NHS) and the socialcare system have marginalized the position of the elderly andhave seriously impoverished the quality of care for the elderly.The neglect of the elderly and other vulnerable groups is alsothe result of widespread consumerist attitudes among patientsand of libertarian models of noninterference which are affirmedby a public ethos of self-sufficiency and counter-dependency.Those who need care dare not make their need known to othersand ask for help, while simultaneously those who could helpare so intimidated by the public affirmation of privacy andnegative rights that they do not dare to offer help except ifthis is explicitly demanded. This distant and standoffish attitudeis in an important way responsible for the fact that the voiceof those in need is altogether lost to the public forum. Christianethics puts much emphasis on responsibility and solidarity withthe needy other but is not able to have much impact on the deliveryof care in a secularized society and health care system likethe NHS. Nonetheless, Christianity still has a powerful andrespected voice, by speaking up for those who cannot speak forthemselves, such as the elderly and the handicapped. Christianscan find allies in the ethics of care and other relational approachesin health care ethics in order to combat libertarianism, consumerism,and utilitarianism.     

Christian bioethics and the Church's political worship.

Christian bioethics springs from the worship that is the response of the Church to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Such worship is distinctively political in nature, in that it acknowledges Christ as Lord. Because it is a political worship, it can recognize no other lords and no other prior claims on its allegiance: these include the claims of an allegedly universal ethics and politics determined from outside the Church. However the Church is called not just to be a contrast society, but also to witness to the freeing of the world from salvific pretensions in order that it may embrace its proper temporality. The implications of this for the distinctiveness of Christian bioethics are brought out in three movements: first, the Church's itself learning how it is to conceive bioethics; second, the Church's role in unmasking the idols of secular bioethics; and third, the Church's witnessing to the freeing of medicine from idolatrous aspirations.     

Recognition and Social Justice: A Roman Catholic View of Christian Bioethics of Long-Term Care and Community Service

Contemporary Christian ethics encounters the challenge to communicategenuinely Christian normative orientations within the scientificdebate in such a way as to render these orientations comprehensible,and to maintain or enhance their plausibility even for non-Christians.This essay, therefore, proceeds from a biblical motif, takesup certain themes from the Christian tradition (in particularthe idea of social justice), and connects both with a compellingcontemporary approach to ethics by secular moral philosophy,i.e. with Axel Honneth's reception of Hegel, as based on Hegel'stheory of recognition. As a first step, elements of an ethicsof recognition are developed on the basis of an anthropologicalrecourse to the conditions of intersubjective encounters. Theseconditions are then brought to bear on the idea of social justice,as developed in the social-Catholic tradition, and as systematicallyexplored in the Pastoral Letter of the United States Conferenceof Catholic Bishops, Economic Justice For All (1986). Proceedingfrom this basis, aspects of a Christian ethics of communityservice with regard to long-term care can be defined.     

Why ecumenism fails: taking theological differences seriously.

Contemporary Christians are separated by foundationally disparate understandings of Christianity itself. Christians do not share one theology, much less a common understanding of the significance of sin, suffering, disease, and death. These foundational disagreements not only stand as impediments to an intellectually defensible ecumenism, but they also form the underpinnings of major disputes in the culture wars, particularly as these are expressed in healthcare. There is not one Christian bioethics of sin, suffering, sickness, and death. In this article, the character of the moral-theological visions separating the various Christianities and thus their bioethics is examined. Particular emphasis is placed on the differences that set contemporary Western theology at odds with the theology of the Christianity of the first millennium. As is shown, the ground for this gulf lies in the divide between traditional and post-traditional views of the appropriate role of philosophy in theology, a difference rooted in disparate understandings of the meaning of church and of the meaning of the logos, the Son of God.     

On the Legacy of Christian Ethics in Comparative Religious Ethics

This essay is an exploratory inquiry into possible Christian ethical residues in the field of comparative religious ethics (CRE), focusing particularly on the themes of tradition and canon, trajectories of ethical reflection, emancipatory criticism, common morality, and the notion of discipline. It is suggested that even if such traces exist, they may not be detrimental to the field as currently practiced.