Sexuality and Christian Tradition

This essay aims to clarify the debate over same‐sex unions by comparing it to the fourth‐century conflict concerning the nature of Jesus Christ. Although some suppose that the council of Nicaea reiterated what Christians had always believed, the Nicene theology championed by Athanasius was a dramatic innovation that only won out through protracted struggle. Similarly, despite the widespread assumption that Christian tradition univocally condemns homosexuality, the concept of sexuality is a nineteenth‐century invention with no exact analogue in the ancient world. Neither heterosexuality nor homosexuality is addressed directly in Christian tradition; for this reason, the significance of older authorities for the modern debate is necessarily indirect. The dichotomy between progressive and conservative positions is therefore misguided: it is necessary neither to abandon tradition for the sake of progress nor to oppose innovation for the sake of fidelity.     

The Emotional Christ: Bonaventure and Deep Incarnation1

This article has the twofold aim of bringing the Christology of St. Bonaventure into dialogue with contemporary attempts to formulate an informational worldview, and with the recent theological proposal of deep incarnation. It is argued that even though Bonaventure is a pre‐modern theologian, he anticipates central aspects of a contemporary informational worldview based on differential information, structural information, and semantic information. Moreover, the article explores Bonaventure's unique combination of a “high” exemplarist Christology with a “low” Franciscan view of the humility of Christ. While Bonaventure shares seminal concerns of deep incarnation, his strong view of divine perfection prohibits him from assuming that the divinity of Christ embraces the full gamut of human emotions and anxieties related to the future.     

THE USE OF THE ANALYST AND THE SENSE OF BEING REAL: THE CLINICAL MEANING OF WINNICOTT'S “THE USE OF AN OBJECT”

“The Use of an Object and Relating through Identifications” (1968) represents Donald Winnicott's theoretical and clinical legacy. The author develops this concept from a clinical point of view, through the analysis of a woman with psychotic functioning. He reflects upon the dramatic quality of risks inherent in the processes linked to the use of the object with seriously disturbed patients. He explores different meanings of the analyst's survival, linking it to the analyst's response. The processes of the use of the object—that is, the encounter between the patient's potential destructiveness and the analyst's capacity to respond through his own judicious subjectivity—let the patient experience the analyst's capacity to keep his own subjectivity, authenticity, and creativity alive. It is starting from the traces of this live object that patients gradually form their own personal sense of being real.     

The Ministry of the Church to People with Disability

Jesus’ ministry on earth is meant to be a model of the ministry of the church. It affected all types of people regardless of their socio‐economic and religious status. Jesus regarded all to be made in the image of God and did everything possible to minister to everyone. He particularly went out of his way to reach those whom society marginalized, neglected, rejected, and deemed worthless. This study aims at generally critically evaluating the ministry of the church today. It specifically attempts to examine the ministry of the church to people with disabilities. While the study largely depends on existing literature, it also refers to observation of the status of people with disabilities in the church today, which on its own may not provide adequate information for solid, conclusive findings. In the church’s ministry to people with disabilities, dealing with barriers to their inclusion is core. The article not only examines the challenges faced by the church in addressing issues of inclusion, but identifies specific areas of improvement in the status of people with disabilities.     

Subjective well-being,social interpretation,and relationship thriving

Social interactions are open to a range of interpretations. We examine the associations among subjective well-being, social interpretations, and social thriving. In Study 1 (N = 276) positive affect (PA) was associated with positive interpretations of neutral faces. In Studies 2 and 3 (Ns = 295, 298) PA and life satisfaction were associated with positive interpretations of ambiguous and positive, but not negative, social interaction vignettes. In Study 4 (N = 501) there were indirect relationships of PA and life satisfaction on social thriving through interpretations. Subjective well-being’s association with social interpretations provides a critical base of support for conclusions from previous methodologically limited mood and social interpretation studies. This work also provides initial evidence for a role of social interpretation tendencies in social thriving.     

Genesis and profanation of the other world: The interpretation of dreams

This paper addresses Nietzsche's reflections on the phenomenon of dreams as a crucial precedent of Freud's Die Traumdeutung. The works of Nietzsche and Freud are scrutinized to establish and compare the most relevant aspects of their understanding of dreams. The philosophical impact of both accounts is assessed in terms of the transvaluation of religious and metaphysical values, which reveals three epistemological shifts: the replacement of Metaphysics by History/Genealogy (Nietzsche) and by Metapsychology (Freud), and the expansion of rationality beyond the limits of consciousness (Nietzsche and Freud). Both authors are shown to consider dreams as figurative expressions of a postponed desire – or, more specifically, as the imaginary fulfillment (compensation) and the evocation/awakening of desire. As captured by the phrase “Memento libidines”, dreams are portrayed in both accounts as the guardians of sleep and desire. Finally, and in contrast with Assoun, a new interpretation of Thus Spoke Zarathustra is proposed, as an interpretation of the prophet's dreams reveals the presence of individual desire within the Nietzschean understanding of the phenomenon.     

Mapping the interplay among cognitive biases,emotion regulation,and depressive symptoms

Cognitive biases and emotion regulation (ER) difficulties have been instrumental in understanding hallmark features of depression. However, little is known about the interplay among these important risk factors to depression. This cross-sectional study investigated how multiple cognitive biases modulate the habitual use of ER processes and how ER habits subsequently regulate depressive symptoms. All participants first executed a computerised version of the scrambled sentences test (interpretation bias measure) while their eye movements were registered (attention bias measure) and then completed questionnaires assessing positive reappraisal, brooding, and depressive symptoms. Path and bootstrapping analyses supported both direct effects of cognitive biases on depressive symptoms and indirect effects via the use of brooding and via the use of reappraisal that was in turn related to the use of brooding. These findings help to formulate a better understanding of how cognitive biases and ER habits interact to maintain depressive symptoms.     

Brandom and the Second Person

Brandom is one of the main advocators of the idea that meaning is instituted within basic linguistic practices through mutual exchanges. The aim of this paper is to show that such framework cannot do the required job if the dynamics of mutual exchanges is understood in interpretational terms. After arguing that the interpretational framework does not work, the paper presents an alternative second-personal conversational model capable of meeting the challenge.