创造与伸展:奥古斯丁时间观的两个向度

奥古斯丁《忏悔录》中的“时间之间”受到后世哲学家们的广泛关注和高度评价,但往往只重视其中“心灵的伸展”这一向度．而忽视上帝的创造这一向度,忽视了永恒之维。事实上,上帝的创造和心灵的伸展这两个向度不可分割．前者规定后者,阐明时间的起源;后者反映前者,说明时间的存在和本质。后者受前者的制约。也就是说,心灵的伸展有一个界限,是不可超越的。当文德尔班强调奥古斯丁的形而上学是“内在经验的形而上学”时,他确认了奥古斯丁时间观的心灵向度;当吉尔松称之为“皈依的形而上学”时,则是强调“心灵伸展的界限”,即永恒上帝的创造。     

Does God Play Dice? A Response to Niels H. Gregersen, “The Idea of Creation and the Theory of Autopoietic Processes”

The idea that the Creator has a plan for creation is deeply rooted in the Christian notion of Providence. This notion seems to suggest that the history of creation must be the execution of the providential plan of God. Such an understanding of divine providence expects science to confirm that cosmic history is under supernatural guidance, that evolution is therefore oriented toward a goal—to bring forth human beings, for example. The problem is, however, that science finds evidence for neither supernatural guidance nor teleology in nature. To address this problem, I understand Niels H. Gregersen to suggest that God is involved in the creative process. The reason science cannot demonstrate God's supernatural guidance of evolution is that the Creator structures the process from within. Gregersen argues that God is involved in the process of creation by changing the overall probability pattern of evolving systems.
In my view, such a model of how God interacts with creation is supported neither by orthodox Christianity nor by modern science. After a critique of Gregersen's argument and a brief history of the relationship between Christianity and science, I shall suggest an alternative. It is that the freedom of creation to create itself is implicit in the fundamental dogma of Christianity that God is love.     

Langdon Gilkey: In Memoriam

Langdon Gilkey died on 19 November 2004. This article reviews his career and examines elements in his systematic theology such as: (1) fallenness in human nature; (2) the transcendence and graciousness of God; (3) the Neo-Orthodox agenda; (4) creation and the dialogue with science; and (5) inter-religious dialogue. Gilkey's theological method of responding to human experience with the Christian message through a process of interpreting symbols is critically evaluated. This article is simultaneously published in Dialog and Theology and Science.     

Prolepsis and the Physics of Retrocausality

Ted Peters has emphasized the theological concept of prolepsis and a “retroactive ontology” in which God creates from the future. We consider here possible connections between prolepsis and scientific theories about transmission of signals backwards in time. After considering objections to time travel, we discuss putative means of achieving it—tachyons, “time machine” solutions of Einstein's equations, waves in dark energy, and advanced solutions of wave equations. We then reflect on ways those theoretical constructs, if realized, might be of theological interest. Applications to the resurrection of Jesus, predictive prophecy and the creation of the universe will be discussed.     

Gerard Manley Hopkins on Planet Earth

Nineteenth-century Jesuit priest and poet, Gerd Manley Hopkins (1844–89), produced poems on natural themes which were not only revolutionary for their structure and style but also disctinctive and forward-looking for their treatment of the environment. In these poems, he presents nature as intrinsically (rather than instrumentally) valuable, God as concerned with the salvation not only of humans but of the environment, and humankind as responsible noy only for polluting the Earth but for participating in its salvation. Christian poets of the twenty-first century need to hees and follow Hopkin's example.     

The Theology of the Cross and God's Work in the World

Ian Barbour has distinguished eight theologies of God's role in nature, together with corresponding models of divine activity. This essay examines these ideas in the light of a theology of the cross. Three of Barbour's approaches—the neo-Thomist, the kenotic, and the existentialist—are able to provide different aspects of a theology of divine action that is consistent with belief that God's definitive revelation takes place in the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. These approaches encourage attention to a part of traditional doctrines of Providence, the idea that God acts by "cooperation" with natural processes. The kenotic character of divine involvement in the world means that the regularities of the basic interactions of physics are maintained. The idea of cooperation can be extrapolated into the past, to give some insight into ways of understanding God's activity in originating the universe.     

Reasons for Randomness: A Solution to the Axiological Problem for Theists

Abstract

In this paper we bring to light several ways randomness—i.e., undetermined and unintended events—may contribute to our understanding of God's providence and personality. We begin by making clearer a certain problem that randomness has been thought to pose to theism. We then discuss recent criticisms of certain contemporary solutions to this problem that emphasize the value of an autonomous creation. From there, we propose a fresh way of understanding the value of a semi-autonomous creation that does not succumb to these recent critiques. Our end goal is to explore new reasons God might have to value randomness. In particular, we highlight two plausible, interrelated candidate values: (1) There are certain aesthetic properties that a partially random, self-forming creation enjoys; and (2) Such a creation grants God and creatures certain pleasures, such as wonder, anticipation, curiosity, surprise, and appreciation. In articulating our version of the autonomy defense, we position it within two opposing accounts of divine providence, specifically open theism and simple foreknowledge.     

The Universe as a Saturated Phenomenon: The Christian Concept of Creation in View of Modern Philosophical and Scientific Developments

Abstract

The article develops an argument that the Christian concept of creation of the world, being an issue of the modern dialogue between theology and science, must be rethought and reformulated along the lines of recent advancements in cosmology and philosophy. It is argued that the prevailing natural attitude to the issue of the creation of the universe (whether based on Biblical hermeneutics or scientific theories) is philosophically inadequate because it does not account for the facticity of the articulating consciousness, which itself is the modality of the created. Correspondingly, the issue of creation receives a different interpretation: it is the coming into existence of personal life in the Divine image, capable of recognizing its createdness, and articulating creation as hypostatically distant from the comprehending subjectivity. Creation as inseparable from the life of subjectivity thus acquires the status of a saturated phenomenon to which neither successive quantitative, nor qualitative synthesis, nor temporal synthesis can be applied; it also escapes a rubric of relation. The created world, or the universe as a whole, gives itself to us from its own “self” to such an extent that it affects us, changes us and almost constitutes us, and stages us out of its own giving itself to us. The universe is present in the background of our existence through relationship and communion in such a way that we can express this presence ecstatically—through music, painting, poetry etc.—that presence which cannot be formalized in definitions of physics and mathematics. It is the living humanity that is the only and ultimate manifestation of God through its creation.     

Cosmic Alienation and the Origin of Evil: Rejecting the “Only Way” Option

Abstract

For many contemporary theologians, God could not have created the universe in any other way than leading inevitably to evil. First, this essay will argue that non-human evil represents genuine evil. Second, it will argue that if contingency leads inevitably to evil, then God is too closely implicated in the creation of evil. Finally, I will re-explore the occurrence of a primordial deviation from God's original plan logically prior to creation as the best explanation for the origin of evil, thereby placing the origin of evil back in the context of freedom rather than implicating the nature of contingent reality.