EVOLUTION AND THEODICY: HOW (NOT) TO DO SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY

This article uses Christopher Southgate's work and engagement with other scholars on the topic of evolutionary theodicy as a case study in the dialogue of science and Christian theology. A typology is outlined of ways in which the voices of science and the Christian tradition may be related in a science–theology dialogue, and examples of each position on the typology are given from the literature on evolution and natural evil. The main focus is on Southgate's evolutionary theodicy and the alternative proposal by Neil Messer. By bringing these two accounts into dialogue, some key methodological issues are brought into focus, enabling some conclusions to be drawn about the range and limits of fruitful methodological possibilities for dialogues between science and Christian theology.     

Reclaiming alterity: strangeness and the queering of Islam in medieval and early modern Spain

ABSTRACT

This essay argues for the reclamation of radical alterity or the intentional embracing of difference/otherness/strangeness by Muslims as a location of solidarity with marginalized communities, who have been historically ostracized due to sexuality. As the initial social location of Islam vis-á-vis medieval and early modern Christendom, the rehabilitation of Muslim alterity/otherness today serves as a location for solidarity with other marginalized groups such as members of the LGBTQ community. The chosen historical timeframe of medieval and early modern Spain helps to situate this conversation both inside and on the fringes of European Christendom. This essay seeks to accomplish this by mining both Muslim and Christian sources in medieval and early modern Iberia with special attention being paid to discourses located at the intersections of Islamophobia and sexuality. The texts discussed allow for a more thorough investigation of Muslim alterity in the Iberian context, while serving as a launch point for deeper discussions of contemporary religious and sexual hierarchies.     

The enduring significance of Christos Yannaras: some further works in translation

The Greek philosopher and theologian Christos Yannaras is becoming better known in the English-speaking world with the publication of an increasing number of his works in English translation. With the help of Wittgenstein and Heidegger, Yannaras articulates an ontological (as opposed to an ontic) version of Being based on relation. Beings exist not as ontic entities but only with reference to the person. Relation actually constitutes existents. Our fulfilment as human beings lies in our ascending from the mode of nature, which is bound by necessity, to a mode of existence characterised by self-transcending referentiality or love. Two obstacles are considered: the problem of evil and the ‘religionisation’ of Christianity. The fundamental problem of evil is that it renders human life without meaning. There are, however, no rational explanations of evil. The only reply lies beyond language, in faith/trust, self-transcendence and self-offering. A religionised version of Christianity transforms faith into an ideology which holds out salvation as a reward for the individual. The Church – the ecclesial event – is not a collection of individuals seeking their own salvation but a community of people called to struggle together to attain true existence, to pass from the finite mode of nature to that mode which knows no limitations of decay and death. An intellectualist approach to philosophy does not help us to achieve this goal. For philosophy is not simply an exercise in thinking but the struggle to attain existential freedom. Such freedom is transformatory, referential and ek-static.     

Jung and White and the God of terrible double aspect

This paper discusses theoretical, historical and personal issues in the ill-fated friendship and intellectual collaboration between C.G. Jung and the Dominican scholar Victor White, O.P., based on primary documents in their correspondence, 1945 to 1960. The collaboration of Jung and White began with high expectations but fell into painful disagreements about the nature of God, the problem of evil, and shadow aspects of the Self. They made a rapid commitment to their working alliance based on personal and professional hopes, but paying scant attention to their divergent underlying assumptions. White hoped to build theoretical and practical connections between Jungian psychology and Catholic theology for the sake of modern Catholics. Jung needed learned theological support as he explored the psychological meanings of Christian symbols, including the central symbol of Christ. At the grandest level, they both hoped to transform the Christian West, after the moral disaster of World War II. Their collaboration was risky for both men, especially for White in his career as a Dominican, and it led to considerable suffering. The Self is prominent in the relationship, symbolically present in the text of the correspondence and consciously forming their major topic of debate. From the start, the Self is an archetypal field, drawing the friends into their visionary task at the risk of unconscious inflation. Later the Self is revealed with its shadow as a burden, a puzzle, and a basis for estrangement. Finally, with the intervention of feminine wisdom, mortal suffering is transformed by an attitude of conscious sacrifice.     

Why Even a Believer Should Not Believe That God Answers Prayers

Recent studies provide some support for the idea that prayer has curative powers. It is argued that even if prayers are effective in these kinds of cases it cannot be because God is answering them. While many have challenged theological explanations for the efficacy of prayer on epistemic grounds, the argument presented here concludes that the theological explanation conflicts with the standard conception of God. In particular, if God answers prayers in these kinds of cases then God is immoral.

Missed Opportunities: Speculation on What Japanese Psychology Could Have Been

Takasuna (Integr. Physiol. Behav. Sci. 41, 2007) mentioned the ease with which evolutionary theory was accepted by Japanese psychologists, and certainly this is admirable. He also mentioned the stubborn force which had to be used to gain an understanding of the (thoroughly Western) subjective–objective distinction. Alas, during the formative years of Japanese psychology, there was much philosophical work afoot attempting to destroy that distinction. It is speculated that only a small change of which books were translated, or with which Americans early Japanese psychologists trained under, would have made Japan into a haven for these still underdog theories.     

Systemic Evil and Christian Discipleship

Although the churches have focused much of their attention on the individual's encounter with evil, it is urgent and essential that this focus be expanded to consider communal systemic evil. Rediscovering this emphasis in ancient sources – biblical and Indigenous – we begin to see that engagement with systemic evils like racism and colonialism is a central aspect of Christian discipleship. There is a preliminary and important anticipation and realization of this rediscovery in The Arusha Call to Discipleship document of the World Council of Churches. In an age that is beset by the deadly intersection of multiple forms of systemic evil, it is urgent that discipleship confront the principalities and powers that corrupt and destroy life.     

邪恶的两张面孔:根本的邪恶和平庸的邪恶——汉娜·阿伦特对极权主义制度下的邪恶现象的批判

汉娜.阿伦特对极权主义制度下的邪恶现象有两种表述方式,即“根本的邪恶”和“平庸的邪恶”。前者的根本特征表现为破坏了人类发展和和进步的概念,致力于把人变成多余的人的事业,以及消灭了人的法律人格、道德人格以及作为个体的人;后者的特征体现为无思想和肤浅性。阿伦特为思考极权主义专制制度下邪恶现象产生的根源以及个人应该担负何种道德责任提供了一种全新的视角,从而为建立一种以思想为核心的个人责任伦理提供了理论上的可能。     

KIERKEGAARD AND EVANS ON THE PROBLEM OF ABRAHAM

A significant challenge faces any ethic that endorses the view that divine commands are sufficient to impose moral obligations; in this paper, I focus on Kierkegaard's ethic, in particular. The challenge to be addressed is the “modernized” problem of Abraham, popularized especially by Fear and Trembling: the dilemma that an agent faces when a being claiming to be God issues a command to the agent that, by the agent's own lights, seems not to be the kind of command that a loving God would issue. Against a solution to this problem proposed by C. Stephen Evans in Kierkegaard's Ethic of Love, I argue that Kierkegaard regards this scenario as never actually resulting in a fully responsible agent's performance of some horrendous action on account of her non‐culpable misinterpretation of God's will and/or failure to discern correctly whether a perceived moral imperative truly is divine in origin.     

Hannah Arendt,evil and the eradication of thought

Evil deeds may be committed intentionally or out of madness, but it is those who follow orders that present us with the most complex moral, philosophical and psychological questions. In writing about the banality of evil, Hannah Arendt argues that “in granting pardon, it is the person and not the crime that is forgiven; in rootless evil there is no person left whom one could ever forgive.” Arendt postulates that “being a person” necessarily entails the acts of memory and thought. This paper explores Arendt’s ideas on memory and thought and how these processes can become subverted in the service of a higher order. Clinical material illustrates Whitmer’s idea of dissociation as an “impairment of subjectivity” as distinct from Freud’s view of dissociation as a form of repression. This shift in theoretical perspective sheds new light on our understanding of the totalitarian state of mind, i.e. of the mind of a “nobody”, and the conditions within which evil is committed.