Creatio Continua Research Articles

Aquinas on God’s Rest after Creation in Biblical Thomism Lens

In his commentary on the Letter to the Hebrews (cap. IV), St. Thomas considers the rest of God after the work of creation (see Gen 2:2), treating it not as a deistic withdrawal of the Creator, but a productive quiescence. According to the Biblical Thomism, God’s action is not something abstract for us, but constitutes the principle – exemplar – of Christian action. Therefore this paper will firstly present multiple senses of the rest (triplex requies) of created beings, then the correct understanding of God’s action during creatio continua, in order to reflect on what the Christian’s “restful” life consists in. St. Paul urged the disciples of Christ “to be restful” (ut quieti sitis, cf. 1 Thess 4:11).

Structure and Authorship of the KusumÀ·jali

This paper suggests that the classic of Indian theology, the Nyāya-kusumâñjali is in fact two texts: an earlier treatise in 65 ślokas, and Udayana’s (mostly prose) commentary on it. Internal evidence consists in: (a) the ślokas read as a continuous text; (b) there are extremely long prose passages without verses; (c) Udayana does not comment on his own verses, only on the ślokas; (d) the basic plan of the two texts are markedly different; (e) different content of some chapters: ch. 1 about karma vs. rituals to reach heaven, ch. 2 about creation vs. eternality of sound, and in ch. 5 Udayana doubles the arguments for God; (f) Udayana deals extensively with atoms and yogic perception and rejects the concept of śakti, in contrast to the verses; (g) there are a few manifest disagreements (on creatio continua and the sacredness of god-images). External evidence for the thesis: (a) there are mss. of the verses only; (b) there are many commentaries on the verses only; (c) these commentators—with a single exception—do not seem to take Udayana for the author of the verses; (d) the first commentary on Udayana names his own work a subcommentary; (e) in his other works, it is atypical of Udayana to insert ślokas in his text; (f) a legend of the Bhāduṙī Brahmins stating that Udayana “received” the Kusumâñjali.

Theology and Anthropology in the Book of Sirach ed. by Bonifatia Gesche et al.

Reviewed by: Theology and Anthropology in the Book of Sirach ed. by Bonifatia Gesche et al. David Skelton bonifatia gesche, christian lustig, and gabriel rabo (eds.), Theology and Anthropology in the Book of Sirach (SCS 73; Atlanta: SBL Press, 2020). Pp. x + 322. Paper $49. This is the second book of collected essays coming out of an international Ben Sira conference funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). Unlike the first volume (Gerhard Karner, Frank Ueberschaer, and Burkard M. Zapff [eds.], Text and Contexts of the Book of Sirach [SCS 66; Atlanta: SBL Press, 2017]), which concentrated on the textual history of the book, this volume emphasizes anthropology, cosmology, and pedagogy. The collection has twelve essays in total, half of which are in German. Among the authors, only four are women, which is odd since there is large pool of women to draw from in Europe in terms of Sirach scholarship. There may have been room for a more balanced publication in terms of gender if some of the same names did not appear in this volume as in the previous one. This is to say nothing about the quality of the essays. Reshuffling the same deck of voices is an issue with the proceedings volume format in general. Nevertheless, all the essays in this work are strong, which I will now review in turn thematically rather than in sequential order. The essays by Markus Witte ("Menschenbilder des Sirachbuches"), Franz Böhmisch, ("Anthropologie bei Ben Sira im Zusammenspiel von und "), and Burkard M. Zapff ("Anthropologische Konzepte der biblischen Urgeschichte bei Jesus Sirach") all emphasize the value of a synoptic approach to the study of Ben Sira. This is not surprising, considering their roles in editing a synoptic edition of the book for a DFG project. Witte elaborates how complicated and multivalent the picture of humanity is in Ben Sira, particularly when the different versions (Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, and Latin) are taken into account. The Syriac and especially the Latin have more direct allusions to the NT as well as direct references to humanity's eschatological fate, whereas the Hebrew and Greek have a more traditional view of death and reflect more clearly the importance of humanity imitating the image of God. Böhmisch uses the Syriac version and a medieval paraphrase of Sirach 22–23 to demonstrate that the term yeṣer is not demonic or polarized in Ben Sira but is always an inner psychological state overcome only with wisdom from God. Zapff outlines all the allusions to Genesis 1–3 and their differences among the versions. For example, in 17:3 the LXX emphasizes the image of God (so see Witte), whereas the Syriac sees God's clothing humanity as a metaphor for receiving strength and wisdom. In all versions, there is a "creatio continua" between humanity's recent struggles with sin, death, and creation. Rather than a "fall," knowledge of good and evil is a gift of God. Much of this reading is not new, and it is surprising that Zapff does not mention 4QInstruction or the excellent [End Page 344] examinations of Sirach 17 by some others. Zapff does helpfully suggest that, if one reads Sirach as having a consistent theology, then Sir 25:24 can refer to Eve only as a paradigm of sin and death rather than as the exact cause of it. In a similar vein, Anthony Forte ("Male and Female in Ben Sira: What the Text Does and Does Not Say [Sir 25:13–26:18]") argues that Ben Sira is not a misogynist but simply criticizes women from a male perspective in an attempt to protect the vulnerability of his male, scribal audience. There are many problems with this reading, not the least of which is that it does not engage in any meaningful way with the excellent feminist critique of Claudia Camp (Ben Sira and the Men Who Handle Books: Gender and the Rise of Canon-Consciousness [HBM 50; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2013]) regarding Ben Sira's hyper-sensitivity toward daughters and his desire to control their bodies. No feminist reading denies that Ben Sira views good women as those advantageous to men and bad women as those who threaten men...

Emerging Religious Consciousness—A Cosmotheandric Understanding of Reality in the Light of Sophiology of Some Russian Theologians towards an Eco-Theology

Intercultural theology is increasingly a major subject matter of 21st-century scholarly inquiry. This results in an interreligious discourse and encounter at different levels. However, gone are the days when the aim is to identify or even to fuse certain overlapping magisteria. A linguistic-cultural approach takes us beyond mergers or grand unified theories. To speak of reality as a whole is not to talk about the whole of reality. Creatio continua, the radical newness of each moment and phase unfolds in unpredictable ways. The ecological crisis of planet earth has forced all responsible researchers to engage with the Anthropocene by establishing space for a common earth religion. Through ressourcement, it appears that the sophiology of theologians of the Russian Silver Age (e.g., Solovyov, Bulgakov, and Florensky) can open up a vista in the spirit of aggiornamento to a meta-religious approach recognising the infinite capacity of humanity to transcend particularised religious identities and so belong in different ways too, with, and in God. In the end, sophiology is a form of progressive Christianity that puts together philosophy and faith by promoting an ecological public theology that is concerned about raising society’s awareness about creation as material nature.

"Continuous Creation": two Perspectives in the Cartesian Нhorizon

The article argues that V. Podoroga and M. Mamardashvili's understanding of the concept of “continuous creation” is noticeably different in a number of aspects. Descartes breathed new life into the old idea of creatio continua, which thus fell into the Modern times arsenal of ideas; Mamardashvili and Podoroga, in turn, gave it today's reading, in which there are both areas of intersection and characteristic differences. V. Podoroga questions the Cartesian connection between freedom and duration in Mamardashvili's version. In the interpretation of Cartesian freedom, he believes, Mamardashvili follows Sartre: in this case, man takes on the function of God and becomes a necessary condition for his own existence. However, an analysis of classical texts shows that Mamardashvili's interpretation is quite correct: Descartes (and Mamardashvili) proceed from the discreteness of the moments in time, which require special efforts to assemble. The effort of God maintains the existence of the world; the effort of the cogito maintains the being of thought. Mamardashvili draws attention, as Descartes advises, precisely to the causes of being (secundum esse) and to the intuition of discreteness of moments of time, which is important for Descartes. It is also clear that the one who performs the act of cogito does not at all assume the function of God: on the contrary, he discovers in himself dependence on the higher being, which gives the power of creation. The roll-overs and dissonances of these interpretations show that Podoroga's thesis about the absence of "new" in Mamardashvili's ideas, replaced by the creative energy of his "Voice" in the act of thought, needs correction and clarification. It can be said that the transfer of a number of functions from the Logos to the Voice, carried out by V. Podoroga, led to a certain preponderance of corporality in understanding the peculiar method of Mamardashvili. But still, this does not depreciate the significance of the deciphering of the phenomenon of Mamardashvili, which is unique in its versatility, undertaken by him.

SOME ASPECTS OF THE CONTROVERSIAL NEXUS BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION

The present paper takes into consideration a few aspects related to the relation between the two disputed domains of knowledge: science and religion. After having pointed out the main eight warfare and nonwarfare models of interaction between science and religion, the study focuses on the motives of Eastern and Western Christianity breach, which resides on the very different attitude to Science and Nature. The main part of depicting the nexus between the two fields of research is focusing on the doctrine of creation, the one Christian theology truly revolutionized. The Christian Weltanschauung was so new in comparison with Greek cosmology that it had to raise new questions and make radical modifications, especially regarding the understanding of space and time. The Fathers of the Orthodox Church were happy to use the science and philosophy of their time in their theological thinking. However, they did not pursue a natural theology in the sense the term is often now understood based on scholastic theology. According to the Orthodox understanding, the intellect provides not knowledge about the creation but rather a direct apprehension or spiritual perception of the divine Logos (Word) incarnate in Christ, and of the inner essences or principles (logoi) of the cosmos components created by that Logos. The arguments of Orthodox Christian theology proof that the quantum universe was created out of nothing and that it is kept in existence only by God's relationship with creation through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. In relation to itself, the universe is reduced to nothing, because God is in Himself, while any other created thing is dependent upon Him, into an indissoluble connection with Him. According to creation theology, God gives the world its rational, intelligible structure as described by the laws of nature through the transcendent and eternal act of bringing the world into existence ex nihilo. As immanent creator, God also continues to create (creatio continua) and providentially direct processes and events towards their consummation in the eschaton. Overall, there is a poignant reason for keeping science and religion together once “science without religion is lame and religion without science is blind” (Einstein).

Nietzsches Wiederholung Spinozas. Ein problemgeschichtlicher Bezug der Konzepte des conatus und des Willens zur Macht

AbstractTo what extent does Nietzsche’s concept of Will to Power succeed Spinoza’s concept of conatus? In our approach, based on the history of problems, concepts are viewed as an answer to certain philosophically relevant issues. The concept of conatus is an attempt to solve, among others, the problems of creatio continua, teleology, the will as a faculty, and normativity. Nietzsche reconsiders them, explicitly or implicitly, in a conceptual setting that has much changed over the subsequent two hundred years, and reacts on them with his concept of Will to Power. Such a reconsideration of problems can be conceived as a repetition in the sense of Deleuze, i. e. a repetition that comprises temporal shifts and differences. It is required if problems are considered still as unsolved, or if their former solution seems no longer plausible. The concept of conatus appears therefore in a particular way as an impulse and stimulus for Nietzsche’s own philosophy of Will to Power which is discussed here mainly by recurring to Boscovich. The above mentioned problems arise from ontological concerns, but are ethically oriented in the end, according to Spinoza’s main work The Ethics. A special focus is put on understanding affects as expressions of the conatus on the one hand, and the Will to Power on the other.

The Subject of Creatio Continua and Its Ecclesial Aspect

It is God who is the subject of creatio continua ; in Christianity it is a triune God. Fundamentally divine nature, Divine Persons: God the Father, God the Son and the Holy Spirit, who in the logic of the internal life of the Trinity is third and in relation to the world the most direct. The personal specificity of the Third Divine Person predestines it to activity, creativity, to stirring creative power and action in created beings. The Holy Spirit develops and unites, creates the interior of the beings, combines them and strengthens the link with the Creator. This ongoing creation is encoded in the act of creation and is in keeping with the workings of Providence, which also is a creation of the Trinity, and indirectly a creation of people: individuals and societies. Participation in the act of creation stands in proportion to the growth in holiness, which means it is proportional to becoming a person. Created beings personalize themselves through participation in creatio continua , and by participating in this act, they personalize themselves. All this is implemented though the activity of the intellect, will and emotions. It is Jesus Christ in his capacity of God and man who occupies the centre stage of the ongoing creation.

Paul Ricoeur and Robert Kegan in Unlikely Dialogue: Towards A “Narrative-Developmental” Approach to Human Identity and Its Value for Christian Religious Education

The following essay, albeit centered upon the theories of philosopher Paul Ricoeur and psychologist Robert Kegan, ultimately sets out to articulate specifically how the ways that people narrate meaning throughout their lives can be a source of theological and pedagogical insight. By making explicit the interconnections between Kegan’s and Ricoeur’s seemingly disparate theses, a so-called narrative-developmental view of human identity is presented and outlined. Resulting reflections consider: the importance of valuing individual persons in religious education, identity-formation as creatio continua, consciousness-raising in adults as the expansion of identity towards greater authenticity and compassion; etc.

It’s Child’s Play: Contemplative Anthropocosmic Creativity

The implicate or quantum connectivity of the coevolving phenomena of the cosmos, the ontohermeneutic complementarity relations between ourselves and the vast and minute systems we coconstitutingly participate, observe, prolong, and contextualize, and the eco-reciprocities among all forms of life afford us an understanding of ourselves as fractal or microcosmic embodiments and performances of what is irreducibly nondual anthropo-cosmogenesis. And if cosmogenesis is a self-referential process having nothing external to itself from which to obtain gain or satisfaction, we may analogously interpret our noninstrumentalizing contemplative experiences in complete attentiveness without regard to external payoffs as the fractal play of its creatively emergent self-delighting anthropocosmic self-awareness in the human dimensionality. Our attentive, noninstrumentalizing, and nonobjectifying contemplativity aconceptually presences connectivity and reciprocity in an aperspectivally transparent enactment of anthropocosmic ongoing-wholing whose meaning is the being of its own self-delighting. The sustainability of cocreative anthropocosmogenesis on Earth flourishes where our conduct and intrinsically rewarding contemplativity are consonant with and recreate the spontaneous coevolutionary play of intrinsically rewarding creatio continua unreduced, unobstructed, unfragmented, and uneclipsed by partial, excessively dualizing perspectives and related efforts for extrinsic gain.

The Starry Night Sky

This is a brief intellectual autobiography telling of how I came to be captivated by evolutionary theories of a self-organizing universe and their meaningful connections with intercultural lore from other settings, notably Daoist and NeoConfucian traditions. This marriage of themes led me to thinking about a universe system of nonlocal connectivity irreducible to subjects and objects. Herein, or hereas, our self-awareness appears as a fractal of the complementarity, mutual coproduction and coinherence of mind and/as cosmic nature the nondualizing (self)experience of which is conducive to extreme long-term ecosocial sustainability. Understanding ourselves in contemplative attentiveness to embody the evolutionary self-organization of cosmogenesis as expressed in the conduct of life and our relations with the natural world we simultaneously experience ourselves as a (co)conscious dimensionality of creatio continua. The intrinsic delight of this outshines the extrinsic gains we seek through excessively utilitarian orientations to the world and results in a reduced demand on the natural environment.

Karla Rahnera koncepcja duszy ludzkiej. Poglądy - kontrowersje – kontynuacje.

At the heart of Karl Rahner's theological thought lies the relationship between spirit and matter, and his reflection on the soul should be read in this broad context. Since both spirit and matter have their origins in the same Creator, they are both mutually subjected to each other in such a way that matter is directed towards spirit. The qualitative elevation of matter is possible thanks to its active self-transcendence. Though this self-transcendence of matter results from its own dynamic activity, by no means does it happen by the power of its own nature. The driving force behind it, working 'from within it', comes from the creative power of God, who alone is the primal cause of every being. By constructing this concept, Rahner hopes to avert a danger of falling into a trap of anthropological dualism, in which the substantial unity of man gives way to a blend of two distinct elements. He also avoids the anthropomorphism of the Creator's acts, which would mean a reduction of God to a mythological demiurg, who merely perfects those beings that had already been created. Rahner's concept was widely discussed in academic circles, and criticised by some scholars. Despite his unambiguous declarations of adherence to classical metaphysics and the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, some ascribe him the idea of spiritualization of the matter; an idea which would be tantamount to a kind of ontological monism. Moreover, Rahner appears to combine the activities of the primal cause with the secondary ones. Some alternative concepts, while taking into account Rahner's basic proposals, seek to avoid the above mentioned problems by reducing the time gap between the fundamental teachings about the Creation: creatio originalis and creatio continua. Thus the acceptance of the theory of God's direct activity does not necessarily lead to his unacceptable anthropomorphism.

Dismantling the Deconstruction of Job

(ProQuest: ... denotes formulae omitted.) In a recent article, Andre LaCocque argues that the discourse in 38-41 does as much to reveal flaws in the created universe as to celebrate the wisdom of the Creator.1 In a previous article on the same subject, LaCocque considered that the restoration of Job's fortune in the epilogue adds perhaps little to the book. It merely returns to popular lore and builds a nice inclusio with the prologue.2 In the recent article, LaCocque is less dismissive and refers to the epilogue in the body of the article. The epilogue is now deemed post-tragic, valuable because it is regarding God as much as Job. Both articles are built around the notion that chs. 38-41 are a rejection of divine omnipotence and a break with the sapiential frame. LaCocque's reading strategy is straightforward: it contests divine omnipotence and Job's innocence. God must be less than omnipotent in order to be innocent of Job's sufferings. The theophany is an admission of weakness that clears YHWH of any taint of injustice. Consequently, must be guilty in order to repent when YHWH faces him. The entire plot is resolved by Job's repentant answer to YHWH. At that point, realizes how wrong he was in blaming a God whom he thought omnipotent and understands that the moment God became creator he divested himself of his omnipotence. Divine weakness then serves several purposes. A weak YHWH is not liable for Job's suffering. Divine weakness allows evil to persist and invites to step in, engage evil, and participate in perfecting creation. LaCocque redeems Job's restoration by shifting the focus away from and reading 42:7-17 as God's triumph, which reaffirms experiential reality by four times mentioning his servant Job. LaCocque's ability to wrap up many loose ends into one coherent reading of is impressive. It is more satisfying than presenting the book of as an anthology of a variety of perspectives that does not resolve the tensions among them.3 The problem is that LaCocque's reading is too good to be true. The reader's pain is indeed alleviated, but at the cost of the betrayal of the text of at several key points.4 In the following, I challenge three elements of LaCocque's demonstration: divine weakness, Job's repentance, and his restoration. I. GLORIOUS RESTORATION? In his 1996 article, LaCocque concluded that the book of closes with the curtain, once raised on human tragedy, falling on comedy. All is accomplished; all is well for the just.5 LaCocque's new article concludes that Job's glorious restoration is also God's triumph (p. 97).6 The idea behind the divine triumph is that YHWH desperately needs as viceroy since YHWH is afraid that upon discovering that YHWH'S weakness implies the persistence of evil, may refuse to get involved in engaging evil alongside of God (p. 88). If God is not the pantocrator of religious ideology, the question arises: Is it still worthwhile to fear God? (p. 93). Quoting his earlier article, LaCocque goes so far as to depict God as being unsure of his covenantal partner, making God insecure. Since YHWH would be the first one to lose if refused to become a partner to defeat evil, YHWH will find himself alone with his unfinished creational task (p. 92). It is certainly nice to be needed-all the better if it is God who needs mortals and if people are able to reassure even God. Yet, for all the beauty of synergism, the whole notion has little textual support, apart from the four mentions of my servant Job (42:7-8). YHWH indeed orders to intercede on behalf of his friends (42:8), but that does not turn into a partner in creatio continua or put God in a begging position (p. 93). Job's position as intercessor is considered below, but first I focus on Job's restoration. With twice as many animals (compare 1:3 and 42:12) and twice as many sons, surrounded by family and acquaintances, could indeed consider himself a happy man. …

The Deconstruction of Job's Fundamentalism

(ProQuest-CSA LLC: ... denotes non-USASCII text omitted.) The book of Job deals compromise with the universal problem of human suffering. Remarkable is its ability to give to all of its characters their own voices with integrity. Such plurivocity in a work of fiction will be fully represented again only in very rare occurrences until Dostoevsky s mastership, more than two thousand years after Job's composition. The last chapters of the book, however, although relaxation in the literary genius of the author, come as a surprise. YHWH, at long last, responds to Job's complaint-with appears to be a crushing demonstration of power through a divine display of the creation's wonders. Job, already overburdened by bereavement, malady, deprivation, and despair, seems to be exposed to yet more aggravation. God appears more cruel even than the tormenting friends in the dialogical part. Job was able to refute their arguments, yet he is reduced to silence before God (40:4-5, what shall I answer to you?). My thesis is that this firework of the divine discourse in Job 38-41 does as much to reveal flaws in the created universe as to celebrate the wisdom of the Creator. Such wisdom is actually subversive to wisdom.1 That is why the sapiential framework of these chapters is broken-already by presenting the speech as a theophany-and allows for the untrue-to-form acknowledgment of an uncanny divine weakness. In this article, I argue that the grand divine demonstration is highly ambiguous. It reveals-to the extent that the creation does mirror the Creator's design-an originally all-powerful God who has chosen to struggle and suffer with the creation over against Job's expectations that God is fully in control and thus guilty of allowing evil to proliferate in the world. Job's rigid assessment of the divine is thereby challenged, and his ultimate response is appropriately one of repentance (42:6). From out of a faulty theological construct, Job is now invited to realize that God is not the omnipotent cosmocrator who manipulates at will the fate of creation as a whole, and the fate of Job in particular. A divine pathos permeates the promenade in the garden. Creation is unfinished, in the sense that this creatio continua is striving toward perfection by elimination of all manifestations of evil-whose presence in the world, by the way, is the very condition for divine nonmanipulation and human freedom. Room for a divine-human synergism is secured to fight against the persistent evil. YHWH s response to Job and his suffering is most relevant and universal after all. The reader of Job 38-41 is time and again struck by the apparent irrelevance of the divine discourse in response to Job's predicament. The taxonomic cortege of creatures, from the inanimate to the familiar animal world, and eventually to the more or less mythical monsters, seems to marginalize the suffering of the human, is the display of YHWHS creation merely ostentatious and vain? If it is just that, then it can be said that the poet suddenly has lost much of his poetic ingenuity after reaching a literary summit in the dialogical part of the book.2 Although such a stylistic or ideological failure remains within the range of possibilities, a closer reading of those enigmatic chapters may shed some light on God's retort that, I argue, has nothing to do with either divine ostentation or thematic irrelevance. Although the dialogical part of the book is clearly sapiential, Job 38-41 constitutes a literary genre sui generis as it distances itself from the customary pattern of wisdom literature. True, God's address is also akin to wisdom but only partially so, if only because we are dealing with a theophany and, with Dermot Cox, we must stress that theophanies have no real function in wisdom literature, where reason and experience, not revelation, are normative.3 In this respect, the divine discourse is framed with the same report that the dialogical deployment of sapience on the part of Job (and a fortiori the friends) has been without knowledge, that is, real wisdom. …

Creatio Continua

Sometimes in the third-person and sometimes in the first of creativity itself, this transdisciplinary and intercultural essay performs the premise that creativity everywhere is the creatio continua of a cosmopoiesis fully reducible neither to any sum of supposed parts, nor to any terminate, finished totum of viewpoint, event, or objectifiable what. It suggests that in experiencing an ethic of releasement from fixed ego-perspectives in this holism of self-organizingly creative creatio, the contemplative temperament sustainingly embodies the paradoxical ecology of contrasting orientations and their integrated mutual coevolution.