Divine Mind Research Articles

On the «Religion» of Morality: Reflections on the Normative Nature of Divine Law in the Concept of John Austin

Philosophical and legal thought knows a number of theoretical concepts devoted to a grandiose and organic ethical and legal synthesis — the supreme unity of ethics and jurisprudence or reasoning about what is essential for law, supplemented by reasoning about what law should be. The joint task of these disciplines is to find and theoretically describe the best criteria available to the human mind for evaluating human actions. This principle of practical reasonableness, despite its incompleteness and relativity (for everything derived from man bears the signature of its own creator), would serve as a possible foundation stone for humanity in determining and understanding the highest criterion for evaluating proper behavior that only exists in the world. These are divine laws and prescriptions of their norms, this highest link in any normative hierarchy. It is the divine mind, and not the mind of mortal beings, that is the true source of any duties, from the appeal to the content of which it is possible, resorting to a suitable ethical interpretation, to «deduce» (not directly, but from the «image» that the specified content acquired through human mental activity) all other forms of obligation in one or another normative system. A striking example of such a «normative» concept turns out to be the teaching of J. Austin, devoted, if we put aside the positivist or «command» theory of the author, to the basic principles of the relationship between law (including morality) and the laws of God, ultimately to the sphere of human moral forces and freedom.

Cosmopsychism and the Laws of Physics: A Hylomorphic Perspective

I outline a hylomorphic account of physical reality in which the cosmos as a whole has mental properties which explain its nomological order. According to this theory, the cosmos is directed in its temporal development toward certain ends or goals which it intends, and these ends are immanent to the cosmos rather than being imposed upon it. My object in doing so is to argue that, contrary to Sean Carroll (2021), a view of physical reality as having intrinsically mental aspects need not induce any modifications of the known laws of physics nor violate 'causal closure' under physical laws. Rather, this soft form of naturalism, which includes final causes within nature, provides a foundation for the laws of physics that is lacking in Carroll's hard form of naturalism, which excludes mind from fundamental reality. I propose a trilemma for Carroll in which he should either: abandon naturalism, by admitting that the laws of physics are imposed by a divine mind; abandon realism, by conceding that 'laws' are constructed by human minds; or embrace cosmopsychism, by acknowledging that the cosmos as a whole instantiates a mind. I argue that cosmic hylomorphism, which links consciousness with intentional cognition, is preferable to non-hylomorphic versions of cosmopsychism, which tend to prioritize consciousness over intentionality.

Countering Religious Violence with a Better Theory of Religion Following Nicholas of Cusa

Dissent within and among religions can provoke much violence. Nicholas of Cusa encountered this and countered it with a differentiated theory of religion, implicit in his De pace fidei from 1453. I propose four different levels of interpretation: the dominant philosophical approach, inspired by a high trust in the intellect and enlightened by a self-critical epistemology; the anthropological foundation of all religion in the desire for truth, goodness, salvation and peace, in conjunction with the character of the human mind as a living image of the divine mind; the rational hermeneutical interpretation of particular religious ideas and texts in view of a philosophical theology, and finally its reintegration in the perspective of a Christian. This is in line with Cusanus’s epistemological perspectivism and allows for interreligious dialogue from enlightened religious perspectives instead of violence.

Could Avicenna’s god remain within himself?: A reply to the Naṣīrian interpretation

Avicenna holds that since God has existed from all eternity and is immutable and impassible, he cannot come to have an attribute or feature that he has not had from all eternity. He also claims for the simultaneous causation. A puzzle arises when we consider God’s creating this world. If God is immutable and impassible, then his attributes associated with his creating this world are unchanging. So, God must have been creating the world from all eternity. But then God’s creative act, one might object, seems to be no different from a matter of natural necessity. This is a threat to divine freedom, for God would then have no choice concerning his creative action. Anthony Ruffus and Jon McGinnis argue that this puzzle can be solved in such a way that Avicenna can consistently affirm divine freedom along with divine simplicity. They suggest that Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī’s interpretation might help to show that it is false that Avicenna’s God cannot choose absolutely. For it is still open to him to choose either to create eternally or to refrain from creating anything at all. Ruffus and McGinnis argue that since creating or not creating anything at all do not correspond to two distinct concepts, Avicenna’s account of divine simplicity, which denies any multiplicity in divine mind, is safeguarded along with divine freedom. I claim that God’s omnirationality requiring that he always acts for reasons is a serious threat to such an interpretation.

Kenosis or sovereignty? Christ Jesus and the disclosure of the divine mind

This article is the fruit of engagement with Bruce McCormack’s comprehensive The Humility of the Eternal Son: reformed kenoticism and the repair of Chalcedon (Cambridge University Press, 2021) and with Christoph Schwӧbel’s essay ‘The generosity of the Triune God and the humility of the Son’ in Paul Nimmo and Keith Johnson’s Kenosis: the self-emptying of Christ in Scripture and theology (Eerdmans, 2022), a collection of contemporary essays dedicated to McCormack. Drawing on research set out in Church, Gospel and Empire: how the politics of sovereignty impregnated the West (Wipf & Stock, 2011), it investigates the difficulty that theologians have with arguing directly from Jesus’ kenotic life to God’s. The article begins by considering McCormack’s attempt to resolve the inherent contradictions necessary for the repair of Chalcedon. Recognizing that the statements about the Incarnation found in Philippians 2.5–11 from which the word ‘kenosis’ derives are the earliest we have, the article investigates his treatment of these and the difficulties that arise. It suggests an underlying problem that is itself ongoing evidence of the assumption by theologians that God is a hierarchical sovereign power. McCormack’s extraordinary answer to the question of whether there is a kenosis of the Father and the Holy Spirit with an emphatic ‘No’ is cited as evidence of this. Finally, Schwӧbel’s suggestions for a conversation with McCormack in his essay are considered as a means to a sympathetic way forward.

Does God Think the Same Way We Do? On the Logical Apophatism of Michał Heller

Apophatic theology is an approach in theology that emphasizes the limitation of human language and concepts in describing the nature of the Divine. Rooted in ancient religious traditions, apophatic theology has gained attention in contemporary discourse for its potential convergence with the scientific method. This paper expands on a novel application of this approach in which the formal methods of science such as logic and mathematics are engaged to inquire into how God thinks and to what degree the modes of human reasoning can be projected on the nature of the Divine mind. This application has been proposed by Michał Heller and is referred to as the logical apophatism. In the course of the analysis carried out in this paper more in-depth understanding of the logical apophatism has been obtained by contrasting it with classical approaches to negative theology such as the Triplex Via and supplementing with recent advances within the cognitive sciences. It is concluded that Heller’s use of the apophatic approach is manifestly non-standard and its novelty consists in the shift of emphasis from the negative character of the language of theology to the logic of the Divine mind and the logic that underpins the workings of the Universe.

Reframing the Problem of Evil

The following consists of the final chapter of my book, The Divine Mind: Exploring the Psychological History of God’s Inner Journey, published by Prometheus Books in 2018. The book tells the story of God’s evolution as depicted in the three Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Needless to say, this parallels the evolution of human consciousness, as each reflects the other. This chapter picks up where an earlier one left off, namely, on the nature of Ein Sof (literally, “infinity” or “without end”). This is the name that the Kabbalists have assigned to the mystical Godhead or absolute nothingness that is beyond anthropomorphic projections and all other gods, including the biblical one. The book won a Nautilus Book Award in the category of “Religion/Spirituality of Western Thought.”

Philosophical Conversations about Music in Simple Language. Pythagoras: the Divine Number and World Musical Harmony

The article is written on the basis of a conversation on the philosophy of music by Professor G.G. Kolomiets, author of the book Value of music: philosophical aspect, with a musician from France, Dmitry Rasul-Kareev, Clarinet solo of Orchestra de la Suisse Romande. The dialogue gives a detailed and simple understanding of the philosophical view of music on the example of the ancient philosopher Pythagoras. His cosmological teaching saw the kinship of music, mathematics and philosophy and stated that the divine perception of the world is contained in the divine Number permeating the entire cosmos and our life. Music is made of numerical proportions and acts as a substance that exists even without a person, yet this unchanging principle of divine harmony, can be felt, experienced and expressed in musical art. Cosmologists believed there is a comprehensive law, according to which objects obey the divine mind, the great Rhythm. Music seemed to be the embodiment of the rhythm of the universe and harmony. The essence of the harmony of the spheres is that the cosmos is a harmoniously arranged and musical-sounding body. The movement of the starry sky creates the music of the cosmic spheres, which is refracted when playing musical instruments, and this lends itself to precise mathematical calculations. The intervals between the cosmic spheres are mathematically correlated with each other like the intervals of tones in music. The Pythagorean understanding of the numerical harmony of the structure of the universe largely determined the path of development of music theory, forming the main musical categories: fret, rhythm, interval, modulation and others. The modern philosophy of music deepens the Pythagorean ideas of harmony of spheres, putting forward the principles of functionality and processivity as properties of music, and allows us to talk about the law of cyclicity on a global scale. For example, following Pythagoras, music outside of the actual musical art is interpreted as a reflection of the vibrations of a complex communicative system: man-society-nature-cosmos.

Трансформация понятия «метанойя» в религиозной традиции

The article analyzes the ancient concept of ‘metanoia’ in the religious and philosophical tradition, carries out a historical and philosophical reconstruction of the term. The author considers the concept of ‘metanoia’ in the context of the problem of the relationship between mind and body. Tracing the transformation of the concept, coming from Aristotle, the author of the article shows that the Eastern religious tradition understands repentance as the integration of the divine mind, which exists separately, into the human body and the beginning of its existence according to new laws. Western scholasticism, following Aristotle, separates the active divine and passive human minds, but denies their union in the body, endowing repentance with a supra-individual meaning, interpreting it as a kind of turn towards the Divine light that occurs outside the physical body and is not the result of a genuine experience of union with Christ. The author considers understanding of the concept of ‘metanoia’ by such theologians as Gregory Palamas, Clement of Alexandria, Thomas Aquinas. It is concluded that the problem of the bodily localization of the mind, the essence of the mind, is closely related to the problem of repentance and the historical transformation of the concept of ‘metanoia’.

Divine Action and Emergence: An Alternative to Panentheism

Divine Action and Emergence: An Alternative to Panentheism

Элементы теологической системы кумранской общины в корреляции с особенностями ее «гносеологии»

The article attempts to identify the specifics of the ways in which the Qumran authors “know” God, based on an analysis of a number of their key works. The Qumranites’ acquisition of “theological” Knowledge was mainly of direct intuitive “spiritual” comprehension, including elements of “noethics”. This cognitive phenomenon has sometimes been described directly as insight (cf., e. g., 1QHa 12:5-6, 27-29; 15:24-25). On the other hand, the Qumran teaching that God “formed understanding (bynh) for all who seek knowledge (d‘t)” and that “all reason (śkl) is from eternity” (4Q299, fr. 8, 7–8) suggests that human mind is initially a partaker of the eternal Mind of God. As one consequence of this, one has the potential gift of directly accessing the elements of Knowledge contained within the Divine Mind (śkl, bynh). There was also a mystical-“gnostic” way of knowing. Thus, the Qumranites probably practised some kind of mystical heavenly “voyages” in a kind of ecstatic state — in fact, probably implying mystical “death” and subsequent “rebirth”, involving the acquisition of heavenly Knowledge. The author has also tried to reconstruct elements of the Qumranite theological system and identify some features of the Qumran creationist doctrine and the closely related doctrine of predestination; views of history, eschatology and the creation of a new world; dualistic concepts in correlation with soteriology; the Qumran theology of Light and Darkness in ethical, gnoseological and soteriological aspects.

Philosophy as ‘Holy Religion’ (sancta religio). The Essence of Hermetic Philosophy in Asclepius, sive Dialogus Hermetis Trismegisti

The paper deals with the concept of Hermetic philosophy presented in Pseudo-Apuleius' dialogue Asclepius, sive dialogus Hermetis Trismegisti. The attempt is made to describe the special characteristic of this philosophy and its spiritual dimension. Hermetic philosophy is not about solving complicated theoretical problems. Hermetic philosophy only wants to inspire and arouse the natural spiritual sensibility of its adept and open his mind to receiving the divine Mind (God).

Berkeley on religious truths: a reply to Keota Fields

ABSTRACT Berkeley admits that certain religious utterances involve words that do not stand for ideas. Nevertheless, he maintains, these utterances may express true beliefs. According to the use theory interpretation of Berkeley, these true beliefs consist in dispositions to follow certain rules. Keota Fields has objected that this interpretation is inconsistent with Berkeley’s commitment to the universal truth of the Christian revelation. On Fields’ alternative interpretation, the meanings of these utterances are ideas in the mind of God, and we assent to these sentences ‘at secondhand’, deferring to God for the content of our belief. While Fields’ criticisms of the use theory are illuminating, and his alternative proposal is ingenious, neither of them ultimately works. In this paper, I reply to three of Fields’ criticisms of the use theory, then press two objections against his alternative proposal. I argue that, although Berkeley is committed to the universal truth of the Christian revelation, this truth is not constituted by ideas in either human or divine minds, but rather by God’s universal commands which order the life of the Christian community toward the good.

Feuerbach, religion and post-theism

How subject and object relate is perceived differently. This has been identified and discussed by philosophers. Hegel built on Plato’s notion that true reality only exists in ideas and is, therefore, objectively true. Hegel argued that the world we encounter is the objectification of the divine mind. Empiricists argue that material things can be engaged through the senses and are, therefore, real. But how do we know that spiritual things are real since they cannot be engaged through the senses? Feuerbach reacted against the Enlightenment thoughts of his time by postulating that god is not real since it is a projection of human qualities. Feuerbach inverted Hegel’s theory by stating that the divine is an abstraction and reification of human thought. With this theory, Feuerbach stated that religion is human-made and redundant. Feuerbach’s theory of the non-existence of god was created during the 19th century and corresponds with post-theism. De Botton also denies the existence of god, but declared that religion has many valuable functions for society. Feuerbach, from a philosophical and De Botton, from a sociological perspective, both deny the existence of god, but differ on the role religion play in society. Feuerbach’s theories proves to have relevance to current studies of religion.Contribution: This contribution investigates the position of Ludwig Feuerbach and tries to indicate the influence his ideas had on current post-theistic theories, such as that by Allan de Botton.

Through Him All Things Were Made

The medieval theological worldview was a synthesis of grace and nature that allowed theology and science to act together in a sacred and salvific pursuit of knowledge. This synthesis is beautifully expressed in the Divine Ideas tradition. In this tradition, the tapestry upon which ancient and medieval theology was written, created things existed by reflecting God’s eternal ideas of them. This gave all natural knowledge a Trinitarian dimension because the generation of ideas in the Divine Mind and of created things in the world was isomorphic with the generation of the Son, the uncreated Logos. In my paper, I will argue that just as all things exist as a primordial sacrifice of the Creator offered and known outside Godself through the Son-Logos, so we participate in that primordial gift (in beatitude) when we, recognizing the divine profundity of nature, come to a knowing of God-in-things—to use Meister Eckhart’s phrase. In this tradition, humans, made in God’s image, are ordained to participate in God’s knowing of all things, and to offer creation back up into Divine life by knowing and worshiping God through theology, science, and liturgy. The Divine Ideas model, then, would restore to the sciences a contemplative, salvific power in recognizing the mystical depth of creatures. I will examine theologians like Maximus the Confessor, the Victorines, and modern theologian Mark McIntosh as they see both scientific and theological knowing as a deifying participation in Divine life. I will look at the poetry of St. John the Divine and Thomas Traherne as it lifts the human imagination, illumined by nature and consecrated through liturgy into the life of the world to come. I will close by saying that this tradition becomes especially important in a world confronting the climate crisis. By recognizing the Divine dimensions of creatures, we see how the waste and pollution of the integrity and beauty of the wilderness blemishes the sacrifice of knowing and love that humanity is called to offer to God through theology, the sciences, and the eucharist.

The last of his kind? Gottfried Ploucquet’s occasionalism and the grounding of sense-perception

ABSTRACT Sufficiently grounding the origin of sense-perceptions in the mind is an issue that has concerned philosophers for a long time, and remains an issue even today. In eighteenth-century Germany prior to the publication of Kant’s Critical philosophy, the two main competing theories to causally ground sense-perceptions were pre-established harmony and physical influx, the latter of which ultimately carried the day. A third option had been around in the seventeenth century: occasionalism. However, historians of philosophy believe this option to have entirely disappeared in the eighteenth century. I will show that this is not the case. In this paper, I focus on one influential German occasionalist: Gottfried Ploucquet (1716–90). Ploucquet not only criticizes Leibniz’s theory of pre-established harmony for providing an ultimately ungrounded, subjective, and arbitrary account of the origin of sense-perceptions, but also presents his own daring alternative: a representationalist-occasionalist theory that locates the objective ground of sense-perceptions in the divine mind.

Re-thinking Truth: Assessing Heidegger's critique of Aquinas in light of Vallicella's critique of Heidegger

AbstractIn this paper I argue that Heidegger's critique of Aquinas on truth must be seen in light of Vallicella's critique of Heidegger. Heidegger criticized Aquinas for allegedly placing truth in the ‘subjectivity’ of the human mind via correspondence (adequatio). While the accuracy of this reading of Aquinas is highly contested, the criticism itself has sometimes been turned back upon Heidegger. In three forgotten articles in the 1980s, William Vallicella contended that Heidegger reduces Being to truth, and truth to the alleged ‘subjectivity’ of Dasein. Though Vallicella garnered some minimal attention at the time, his argument was soon forgotten, along with its potential implications for Heidegger's criticism of Aquinas. This paper will first establish the nature of Heidegger's critique of Aquinas, followed by Vallicella's critique of Heidegger, evaluating the former in light of the latter. It will be shown that Heidegger critiques Thomas for a mistake he does not make, then makes that same mistake himself, only to retreat to a position similar to what Thomas actually holds, but in a way that solves nothing, for he lacks Thomas’ anchor in a divine mind. These points will coalesce in the ultimate conclusion that Vallicella can be used to both undermine Heidegger's critique and undergird the value of Aquinas’ position on truth.

Mind, Value, and Cosmos: On the Relational Nature of Ultimacy

Mind, Value, and Cosmos: On the Relational Nature of Ultimacy

Mathematics declaring the glory of God

This article discussed the question ‘Does God speak through the language of mathematics?’ For centuries, mathematicians with different religious backgrounds would have answered this question in the affirmative. Due to changes in mathematics from the 19th century onwards, this question cannot be answered as easily as it used to be. If one regards mathematical concepts as creations of the human mind, it is difficult to argue that mathematical formulae exist in a divine mind. The article argued that there were traces of the divine in mathematics. Six kinds of traces were explained: (1) the existence of indisputable truth, (2) the existence of beauty, (3) the importance of community, (4) rational speaking about infinity, (5) the discovery that speaking about unseen and abstract objects is reasonable and (6) the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics. In practice, traces (1), (2) and (6) are probably the most convincing.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article is very much interdisciplinary as it combines mathematics and theology, especially the philosophy of mathematics and systematic theology.

GIORDANO BRUNO, HIS PLACE IN THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY AND IDEAS

The aim of this paper is to present the Renaissance philosopher Giordano Bruno. According to Giordano Bruno, a human being is threefold composed of a body (soma), soul (psyche) and spirit (nous). Bruno’s philosophical theory on the harmonization of the soul with the mind (nous) and the body focuses mainly on the shaping of the psychological world through the development of imagination and memory. Bruno’s works deal with the “Art of Memory”, which elevates and gradually extends the consciousness of the disciple of wisdom from the earthly world to the extending boundaries of the starry sky. Bruno supports that humans who process the images of ideas through their imagination can approach the same archetypical ideas found within the divine mind and then embody them without distortions to the material world. These images constitute the best guides to the soul, because they elevate consciousness and facilitate its entry and access to the archetypical ideas found in the universal intellect. As these images dim the light, they prepare the eyes of the soul which are still wrapped in fog to gradually face the very same ideas.