HOW SCIENCE CAN HELP RELIGION BENEFIT SOCIETY

Abstract. Modern science has given us a revolutionary new understanding of the close interrelationship and interdependence of humans not only with all other humans but with all other living species and with the nonliving elements of the geosphere and the rest of the universe. This new understanding can provide a basis for new understandings of (1) the basic nature of religion, (2) the basic principles of major world religious traditions, and (3) the basic principles of religious ethics. The new understanding of religious ethics will involve a better understanding of our rights and responsibilities, as individuals and groups, with respect to other individuals and groups of humans, other living species, and the nonliving universe. This improved understanding will benefit not only human individuals and human societies, local and global, but also local and global ecosystems.     

Analysis of the factor structure of the Sociocultural Attitudes Towards Appearance Questionnaire (SATAQ-3) in Spanish secondary-school students through exploratory structural equation modeling

The aims of the present study were: (1) to assess the factor structure of the SATAQ-3 in Spanish secondary-school students by means of exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM) models; and (2) to study its invariance by sex and school grade. ESEM is a technique that has been proposed for the analysis of internal structure that overcomes some of the limitations of EFA and CFA. Participants were 1559 boys and girls in grades seventh to tenth. The results support the four-factor solution of the original version, and reveal that the best fit was obtained with ESEM, excluding Item 20 and with correlated uniqueness between reverse-keyed items. Our version shows invariance by sex and grade. The differences between scores of different groups are in the expected direction, and support the validity of the questionnaire. We recommend a version excluding Item 20 and without reverse-keyed items.     

Essentialist theory of ‘hybrids’: From animal kinds to ethnic categories and race

This article presents a theory of the perception of hybrids, resulting from cross‐breeding natural animals that pertain to different species and of children parented by couples with a mixed ethnic or racial background. The theory states that natural living beings, including humans, are perceived as possessing a deeply ingrained characteristic that is called ‘essence’ or ‘blood’ or ‘genes’ in everyday discourse and that uniquely determines their category membership. If, by whatever means, the genes or essences of two animals of different species are combined in a hybrid, the two incompatible essences collapse, leaving the hybrid in a state of non‐identity and non‐belonging. People despise this state and reject the hybrid (Study 1). This devaluation effect holds with cross‐kind hybrids and with hybrids that arise from genetically combining animals from incompatible habitats across three cultures: Austria, India and Japan (Study 2). In the social world, groups and ethnic or racial categories frequently are essentialized in an analogue way. When people with an essentialist mindset judge ethnically or racially mixed offspring, they perceive a collapse of ethnic or racial essence and, consequently, denigrate these children, as compared to children from ‘pure’ in‐group or out‐group parents (Study 3). The findings are discussed in terms of the widespread ‘yuck factor’ against genetically modified animals, in terms of the cultural concepts of monstrosity and of racism and prejudice.     

HIERARCHIES: THE CORE ARGUMENT FOR A NATURALISTIC CHRISTIAN FAITH

This article takes on a perhaps impossible task: not only to reconstruct the core argument of Arthur Peacocke's program in science and religion but also to evaluate it in two major areas where it would seem to be vulnerable, namely, more recent developments in systems biology and the philosophy of mind. If his theory of hierarchies is to be successful, it must stand up to developments in these two areas and then be able to apply the results in a productive way to Christian theological reflection. Peacocke recognized that one's model of the mind‐body relation is crucial for one's position on the God‐world relation and divine action. Of the three models that he constructed, it turns out that only the third can serve as a viable model for theology if it is to be more than purely deistic or metaphorical.     

Sleeping beauty and the dynamics of de se beliefs

This paper examines three accounts of the sleeping beauty case: an account proposed by Adam Elga, an account proposed by David Lewis, and a third account defended in this paper. It provides two reasons for preferring the third account. First, this account does a good job of capturing the temporal continuity of our beliefs, while the accounts favored by Elga and Lewis do not. Second, Elga’s and Lewis’ treatments of the sleeping beauty case lead to highly counterintuitive consequences. The proposed account also leads to counterintuitive consequences, but they’re not as bad as those of Elga’s account, and no worse than those of Lewis’ account.

"气":一种古老的刚美意蕴

“刚美”是张玉能先生近几年提出的一个美学范畴。本文对中国古典美学范畴“气”的历史渊流、审美特质等进行了比较详细的探讨和总结,指出了自从“气”取得美学上的主体意义之始,就已经显示出一种标举阳刚之美的审美倾向,或者说,阳刚就成为“气”范畴的美学特征;从而证明了“气”范畴充满了刚美的特质,具有丰富的刚美意蕴,因此它属于刚美范畴。     

A CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY OF EVOLUTION AND PARTICIPATION

Recent controversies surrounding the discernment of design in the natural world are an indication of a pervasive disquiet among believers. Can God as creator/sustainer of creation be reconcilable with the belief that God's work is indiscernible behind secondary evolutionary causes? Christian piety requires that the order experienced in the natural world be evidence of God's love and existence. Theistic evolutionary models rarely examine this matter, assuming that God is indiscernible in the processes and order of the world because only secondary causes can be examined. This leaves antievolutionary perspectives to interpret and address the problem of seeing God in the world. I examine these issues in order to gain more credibility for the religious longing to discern God in nature while at the same time affirming the indubitable truth of an evolutionary history. I argue that God's trinitarian nature, hiddenness, and incarnation give us reason to believe that God's presence in the natural world will be discernible, but only within the natural processes, and thereby only in an obscured fashion. I also argue that newer understandings of evolutionary mechanisms are more consistent with theological appropriation than are strictly Darwinian ones.     

进化发展心理学：发展中的人类本性

进化发展心理学研究社会能力与认知能力发展背后的基因与环境机制,以及基因与环境机制在特定社会文化中的表现。进化发展心理学探讨的主要问题与设计到的主要概念包括：（1）自然选择在毕生发展的早期阶段发挥作用;（2）进化发展心理学特别重视适应在婴儿期及儿童期发展中的作用;（3）儿童期的延长有助于儿童学习人类社会的复杂性;（4）发展背景的方法可以用来理解成人外显行为的进化起源;（5）基因与环境因素相互影响约束个体发展;（6）认知能力与行为活动敏感于早期环境,但二者发展也具有可塑性     

SCIENCE AND RELIGION IN THE THEOLOGY OF DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

The German theologian and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer is not widely known for engaging with scientific thought, having been heavily influenced by Karl Barth's celebrated stance against natural theology. However, during the period of his maturing theology in prison Bonhoeffer read a significant scientific work, Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker's The World View of Physics. From this he gained two major insights for his theological outlook. First, he realized that the notion of a "God of the gaps" is futile, not just in science but in other areas of human inquiry. Second, he felt that an infinite universe, as considered by science, would be self-subsistent and could exist as if there were no God. Bonhoeffer replaced Barth's radical critique of religion with the even more extreme view that it is a mere passing phase in history that grown-up humanity can dispense with. At the same time Bonhoeffer began an important critique of Barth's reaction, namely, the latter's retreat to a "positivism of revelation." While Bonhoeffer did not go quite as far as one might like, his approach opened up hopeful avenues for an answer to "the liberal question" and even a revived place for some kind of natural theology.     

自由主义:伦理内涵的嬗变与困境

任何完整的政治理论都有其特定的价值结构,为其现实政治主张、制度结构、政策机制的提供伦理支持,并随着时代政治、经济、文化条件的发展而变换其内涵。西方自由主义政治理论的发展分为启蒙时期、功利主义、现代自由主义等重要阶段,自然权利、功利原则和社会公正分别是其不同时代的核心价值要求。阐释和分析自由主义的伦理内涵变换及其理论和现实困境,为了解当代西方自由主义的价值变换及政策走向提供了一个有益的理论视角。