Divine Character Research Articles

The Challenges of Realization in a Global Civilization

<div><p>The contemporary historical situation suggests fascinating parallels with that period of the 13th/7th century when the massive destruction of the Mongol invasions opened the way for popular new forms of Islamic life and practice that eventually spread Islam throughout Asia. Today, as in earlier periods of dramatic upheaval, we can witness those processes of inspiration and awakening that give rise to the spiritual pathways of future centuries, through each soul’s gradual discovery of its unique challenges and demands of ihsan.</p><p>One way of describing this transformation, to use the Qur’anic language adapted by Ibn ‘Arabi, is in the terms of the process of spiritual realization (tahqīq) by which people discover their guiding inner relationship to those divine qualities or “Names” that eventually come to define the meaning and purpose of their lives. Through our life long movement of service (‘ibda) to the “Lord” (rabb) constituted by each divine Name, the transformation of the soul follows a familiar, naturally ascending trajectory. It begins with a curiosity drawing us toward some particular dimension of the Real (al-Haqq); then a compelling striving leading to heightened discipline and awareness; and ultimately to the creative manifestation of that devotion through the appropriate means of teaching, communication, and new communities of fellow- seekers—the Qur’anic “servants of the All-Merciful”—that slowly emerge from this shared spiritual work of devotion, discovery and creative response. </p><p>Here we point to some ways this process of civilizational renewal is unfolding around the world, focusing on three of the most far-reaching of those divine Names: the “servants of the All-Wise” (al-Hakīm), in their exploring and deciphering the infinite Signs of God’s Wisdom “on the horizons”, in all of the sciences of nature and society; to those muhsinūn and “servants of the Beautiful” (al-Jamīl) whose creative acts of beauty help awaken that love and awe which mark the beginnings of each spiritual journey; or to those “servants of the Subtly-Gracious” (al-Latīf) whose lives are dedicated to deepening our understanding of the presence and meaning of each of the divine Signs “in our souls,” in the emerging science of spirituality. These “servants of the all- Merciful” and their communities are themselves the first seeds of an emerging global civilization.</p></div>

Communication and Control through Words and Power

Cognition and Communication are two processes that are interrelated through the sciences Noology and Electronics. Cybernetics is the art and science of understanding, which connects these two sciences together. In an age where human rights are inclusive of transformation of a human as a Cyborg, man and machine are closely working together, where machine intelligence means connecting machines with Noosphere. As we all know the basic difference between human beings and animals are with respect to thinking, where humans are more endowed with divine qualities and powers, which are controlled through the Words. Humans are also involved in the creation of the Words through their creative abilities. This paper aims to describe an idea about the communication and control through an invisible media known as Noosphere, where exchange of Words, generation of Words, rearrangement of Words, elimination of Words and modification of Words are done in the Heart and we inform the world about the invention of the Word. We use a methodology of analogous comparison with the communication through the Electromagnetic waves over a perfect conductor, where the media is a perfect conductor of words known as Holy Spirit. It also uses an analogy with electrons. This paper can be considered as a key paper related with Control, Cybernetics, Noology and Electronics, which gives the ultimate in all communication technologies and the ultimate status of Noosphere prophesied by intellectuals, through which Cybernetics can be raised to its original thought as the Science of Government, without any fear about unscrupulous Governments. This paper discusses how power is controlled through words and explains the weirdness in Control, Electronics, Computer Communications, and the Cyberspace communications. The communication system developed through this media can be called as Sky Mail or S-MAIL.

Sanctification, Stress, and Marital Quality

This article contributes to recent work investigating the role of religious sanctification, that is, the process via which one's spouse or marital relationship is perceived as having divine character or sacred significance. We outline a series of theoretical arguments linking marital sanctification with specific aspects of marital quality. A recent probability sample of Texas adults is used to gauge the links between general religiousness, marital sanctification, and marital quality and functioning. Key findings include the following: (1) General religiousness bears a weak link with marital outcomes; (2) sanctification strongly predicts desirable marital outcomes; and (3) sanctification appears to buffer the deleterious effects of financial and general stress on marital quality. Study limitations and practical implications are discussed, and promising directions for future research are identified.

L'éducation musicale dans les Lois

This paper investigates musical education in Magnesia, as it is proposed in Plato’s Laws. Its roleand nature are examined in its main parts. Musical education is supposed to begin before birth,in order to prepare the child as still a fetus to choral music. Such an effort has obviously apolitical aim, for choral music connects man to the cosmos, being thus the most appropriate wayto cement the constitution, and provides a justification for the divine and human character of theconstitution as well.

Jewish Virtue Ethics and Compassion for Animals: A Model from the Musar Movement

Jewish Virtue Ethics and Compassion for Animals: A Model from the Musar Movement Geoffrey Claussen The Musar movement was a nineteenth‐century Jewish pietistic movement focused on the cultivation of moral virtue. It emerged in Lithuania under the leadership of Rabbi Israel Lipkin Salanter (1810–1883), who built on a long‐standing Jewish tradition of focusing on “Musar,” the disciplined cultivation of moral virtue. Salanter sought to develop a mass movement focused on Musar, stressing the importance of practices that might help people to identify their moral weaknesses and improve their moral character. He gave particular attention to the ways in which irrational and generally selfish emotions and desires could be harnessed in service of reason. Drawing on a long‐standing tradition in Jewish thought, Salanter saw reason as what distinguished human beings from animals, but he saw reason as incredibly weak, in need of support from the more “animalistic” parts of the human soul. Salanter wrote that most people conducted themselves like animals, drawn after their desires without any rational, moral reflection,1 but he also held out the hope that the animal impulses within the human soul could be tamed and transformed. Just as animals can be tamed, he wrote, so that their natures are changed for the better, so too a person can change his nature from evil to good.2 This is the primary way in which animality is discussed in Salanter’s writings, and the theme of becoming less like an animal by harnessing one’s animal impulses continues in the writings of Salanter’s disciples. Discussions along these lines, as well as other reflections on animals and animality, are especially prominent in the writings of Salanter’s senior disciple, Rabbi Zissel Ziv (1824–1898). Zissel stresses that a human being must know “his own animal soul,” the often‐inhumane tendencies that pervade human nature; his proof text for this is a verse from the book of Proverbs (11:12) stating that a “righteous person knows the soul of his animal”—“his animal” here being his own animality.3 Along Aristotelian lines, and following the language of Maimonides, Zissel describes how that animality must be disciplined so that it is under the control of reason; if a human being does not properly employ his reason, he is merely “an animal in the form of a human being.”4 Above all, reason should direct people to display proper compassion in response to the suffering of others—to “share the burdens” of their fellows, as Zissel puts it—and human beings who lack such compassion are particularly animal‐like. For Zissel, people do not reflect the “image of God,” by which they should be distinguished from animals, if they do not reflect the divine qualities of compassionate love.5 Those who “do not feel the pain of their fellows” are, rather, “comparable to beasts.”6 Given this sort of language, Zissel would not seem to hold non‐human animals in high esteem. But it is worth noting that his judgments are leveled against human beings who act like animals, not against animals themselves. Indeed, in one of his discourses, he concludes that animals are on a higher level than people who act like animals. For the man who “has only an animal spirit in him,” Zissel writes, “the animal is better than him, for it fulfils its purpose,” whereas he does not.7 All of God’s creatures, in Zissel’s vision, are expected to serve God according to their capacities. Human beings are expected to serve God by acting with rationality and with love, but they generally resist their task. Zissel describes animals, on the other hand, as readily “surrendering themselves to be servants of God”8 and as possessing an intuitive understanding of God’s existence and power.9 Human nature leaves human beings as far less disposed to be dedicated to God. Zissel sees a particularly brutish sort of animality as characterizing human nature, as “man is born a wild ass” (Job 11:12).10 He would seem to share the judgment of Israel Salanter that most people act like untamed animals and are far from fulfilling their human purpose. Still, Zissel indicates that...

What do the heavens declare? On the Old Testament motif of God’s beauty in creation

The paradox in the famous declaration of Psalm 19 that the heavens ‘narrate’ the glory of God and that this message of nature is ‘inaudible’ prompts the question as to the sense of speaking about a striking divine appearance without words (pun intended). In the light of the equally paradoxical presence of the motif of not-seeing in Old Testament theophanies where God himself appears, it seems that wordless speaking and unseen beauty need to be examined in association with each other, especially because the theophanies of Exodus and 1 Kings associate the motifs of not-seeing and silence with both the appearance and the speaking of God. This article investigates the cluster of ideas in Psalm 19 in the light of the theophanies and other texts. It then proposes a way in which this may be understood, notably that God’s own beauty is visible in that which he has created beautifully, that is, nature. It is argued that, if this proclaims God’s [foreing font omitted; refere to PDF], the latter must be a divine quality observable in nature.

The God at the End of the Story: Are Biblical Theology and Narrative Character Development Compatible?

AbstractIf the end goal of theology of the Hebrew Scriptures is a description of God and God’s relationship to the world, then the Hebrew Scriptures present us with a dilemma. It is increasingly apparent that the Tanak provides a wide variety of portraits of the divine being. There are two basic possibilities for making use of all of these portraits. The first option is to lay all of them out on a level surface and allow them be in dialogue and tension with one another. The second option is to place these portrayals on a trajectory which gives a position of privilege to those which are at some particular point along the path. Of course there are three choices of trajectory: Historical, canonical, or narrative. The last two differ far more for the Christian Old Testament than for the Tanak. A strictly narrative approach, which reads the biblical story from Genesis to Nehemiah, presents a divine being who is changing and developing as a character, a process which has been well demonstrated over the past decade by Jack Miles, Richard Elliot Friedman, W. Lee Humphreys, Meir Sternberg, Jerome M. Segal, and others. There is general agreement that the divine character portrayed at the end of this narrative trajectory is the one which matches the religious experience of those who were putting the literature, both the individual books and the canon, into its final form. This conclusion would seem to point toward a narrative method of doing theology which gives this endpoint a place of privilege, an observation which raises two questions. First, does this match the actual use of texts by those who are attempting narrative approaches to biblical theology? Second, what role do those portrayals which present earlier stages in the divine character development play in a narrative approach to a theology of the Hebrew Scriptures?

전쟁 포로의 소설적 형상화 - <劒僧傳> = Fictional Depiction of Prisoners of War in the Sword-Monk Story (劒僧傳)

Wars have long been important literary subjects. The war depicted in this work dealt with the historical transition of Korea in terms of its significant and overall influence on politics, economics, and culture. War experiences have been major literary topics throughout pre-modern and modern Korean literature. The Sword-monk Story, written by Shin Kwang-soo (1712–1775) is a work of war literature that deals with reminiscences by two Japanese survivors of a defeated army that had participated in the Japanese invasion of Korea from 1592–1598. The work describes the humane relationship between a Korean sword-monk and two Japanese soldiers who once fought against the monk in the war. The characters attempt to overcome hostility, establish amity, and reach peaceful harmony. Despite their attempts, however, they fail to overcome all of their conflicts, and the residual conflicts lead to a tragic result in the end. The writer, Shin, describes how war can destroy people’s lives and their divine character as well. Shin tells of the Korean sword master who makes an attempt to establish mutual understanding beyond national barriers between himself and the Japanese soldiers, who agree to serve him as master and live humane lives. The story can be understood as a significant work of war literature in that mutual understanding and humane affection are depicted as ways of overcoming the calamity of war and moving forward to a better future.

The Livingness of God; or, the Place of Substance and Dynamism in a Theology of the Divine Perfections

AbstractTheological reflection on the divine character is serviceable to the extent that it prevents the livingness of the triune God – and so the subject matter of theology – from disappearing behind rigorous consideration of the perfections themselves. The topic of God's livingness, in other words, informs the locus de Deo as a whole. The present article begins with a biblical‐dogmatic proposal for the form and content of this livingness: God's life in and for the world, it is proposed, is at every point rooted in the life which God has from himself as Father, Son and Spirit. Two clarifications are subsequently offered. An appeal to the livingness of God should be distinguished both from an abstract rejection of ‘substance’ language and from a conceptualization of reality under a general theory of the forward advancement of the world process.

Victor Hugo's Paris : Reviving Palingenesis

Victor Hugo's Paris:Reviving Palingenesis Skyler Artes After reading Victor Hugo's Contemplations, Jules Michelet wrote to the exiled poet. The historian criticized the text's apparent attachment to Christianity. In an epistolary response to the Michelet, Hugo refutes this claim. He declares that his true ambition is to detach Christ from institutional and ornamental distractions: "Je ne puis oublier que Jésus a été une incarnation saignante du progrès; je le retire au prêtre; je détache le martyre du crucifix et je décloue le Christ du christianisme."1 Once rid of preacher, crucifix, and dogma, the tortured figure of Christ represents pure progress. Though, for Hugo, the Christ narrative was not the only story of progress to feature immaculate conception, crucifixion, and resurrection. In the commissioned introduction to Paris-Guide, the city guide for the 1867 Universal Exhibition, Hugo offers an elegiac portrait of Christ's modern successor: Paris.2 The rarely studied Paris stands midway between differing views of a supreme Paris in the voluminous Les Misérables (1862) and Qua-trevingt-treize (1874).3 In Les Misérables, Hugo writes that Paris is "un total. . . . Qui voit Paris croit voir le dessous de toute l'histoire" (I: 748). Besides offering a lens through which to view the entirety of history, the capital produced both liberty and progress: "Il est superbe; il a un prodigieux 14 juillet qui délivre le globe; il fait faire le serment du Jeu de Paume à toutes les nations; sa nuit du 4 août dissout en trois heures mille ans de féodalité; il fait de sa logique le muscle de la volonté" (I: 752). Creating and guaranteeing revolutionary rights in France and aboard, the city becomes "le héros de tous les peuples" (I: 753). Whilst containing all of the past and instigating a grand revolution, Paris also promises a progressive future. Investing the capital with divine qualities, Hugo writes that the revelation of Paris spreads [End Page 1] because of its language, a language that becomes "le Verbe; il construit dans tous les esprits l'idée du progrès" (I: 752). Where logic and language are the means of spreading the Word of Paris in Les Misérables, Parisian progress becomes militant twelve years later in Hugo's final work of prose, Quatrevingt-treize (1874). Written in the years following the end of the Franco-Prussian war and the Paris Commune, this historical novel offers a view of the city during the Convention. In spite of the date in question, the Paris of 1793 takes on shades of the Paris of the Commune. This overlap brings into view Hugo's meditation upon the perpetuation of domestic turmoil. While still a source of progress, the Paris of Quatrevingt-treize is far more muscular and violent. It is the gleam of the guillotine, not the language of Parisians, which extends light and progress beyond Paris. Hugo speaks of piercing the dark and primitive Vendée with "les flèches de la lumière" (288-289). Only by puncturing the "ombre bretonne" could the Paris of the Convention hope to unify the new nation under the banner of universal revolutionary progress: "Les catastrophes ont une sombre façon d'arranger les choses" (288-289). Hugo does not seek to conceal the violence that the pursuit of unity demanded. He apologetically explains that "[u]n chirurgien ressemble à un boucher; un guérisseur peut faire l'effet d'un bourreau. La révolution se dévoue à son oeuvre fatale. Elle mutile, mais elle sauve" (332-333). In the wake of the Commune, Paris's light becomes surgical and unyielding when facing dissident voices. Hugo, who quickly returned to his exile home on Guernsey after only the briefest return to Paris in the early 1870s, appears to be fully aware that a universal Paris implicated violence. Published in between Les Misérables and Quatrevingt-treize, Paris demonstrates Hugo's continued devotion to writing about the beloved city from which he was exiled. It also suggests that Hugo remained an authoritative voice of the city. More importantly, this overlooked text signals a transitional moment in Hugo's late-career descriptions of...

Negative theology and science in the thought of Semyon Frank

Semen Frank (1877–1950) considered the Universe as the “all-unity.” According to him, everything is a part of the all-unity, which has a divine character. God is present in the world, but his nature is incomprehensible. In this article I analyze two consequences of Frank’s panentheistic view of the relation between science and theology. Firstly, the limits of scientific knowledge allow recognition of the mystery of the world and the transcendence of God. Secondly, Frank claimed that nature is a “trace” of God and the manifestation of the absolute reality, i.e. the all-unity. As a result, both science and theology lead to the knowledge of God, although we cannot understand His essence.

Three Korean Graphic Novelists Reimagine the Genre

Three Korean Graphic Novelists Reimagine the Genre

:Divine Qualities: Cult and Community in Republican Rome

:<i>Divine Qualities: Cult and Community in Republican Rome</i>

More Than Just Money: The Faith Gospel and Occult Economies in Contemporary Tanzania

This article examines the relationship between the Faith Gospel in a Tanzanian prosperity ministry and "occult economies," described as discourses and practices relating the means of generating wealth to an occult and morally ambiguous dimension. The author argues that in addition to offering miraculous means of attaining material ends, the Faith Gospel provides ways of dealing with moral and perceived dangerous aspects of wealth and accumulation. This argument is pursued through a focus on ritualized offerings, seen as a "gift economy" along the lines described by Marcel Mauss. In offerings, coins and bills are purified and invested with complex human and divine qualities, turning them into personalized gifts rather than neutral mediums of exchange. Finally the author discusses how born-again Christians come to terms with the absence of immediate divine countergifts, in part by emphasizing the cultural value of slowness and transparency.

South Africa's Newest "Jews": The Moemedi Pentecostal Church and the Construction of Jewish Identity

This article examines the Moemedi Pentecostal Church, a small, recently established group outside of Johannesburg, South Africa. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, it reviews the origins and theology of the church with particular emphasis on members' assertion of Jewish identity. The Moemedi Pentecostal Church (MPC) emphasizes the Old Testament and biblical Jews in a manner common to many Zionist churches in Africa. While it is common among Zionist churches for congregants to believe they are God's "new chosen people," MPC members take the additional step toward self-identification as Jews, even while claiming no historical Jewish identity. The Moemedi Pentecostal Church broke off from the International Pentecostal Church (IPC) after its founder, Frederick Modise, died in 1998. While continuing to embrace Modise's teachings, members of the new group eschew the divine messianic qualities many in the IPC attribute to him. The result is a complex blend of Zionist and Jewish elements in the MPC. This article suggests that the claim to be Jewish made by the members of the Moemedi Pentecostal Church is related to their assertion that they have a true understanding of Moemedi's function as a human messiah, as opposed to the divinity attributed to Moemedi by members of the IPC.

Knidia Karakteri Üzerine Bir Analiz -Görünenden Görünmeyene-

Tarih boyunca sanata konu olan çıplaklık farklı kültürlerde farklı anlamlar ifade etmiştir. Bu anlamlar kimi zaman aşk ve cinsellik, kimi zaman saflık ve temizlik, kimi zaman da güç ve verimliliktir. Söz konusu, antik çağın tanrıça figürlerindeki çıplaklık olunca -ki bunun en güzel örneklerini İştar, Afrodite ve Venüs sergilemektedir- antik Helen sanatının ünlü heykeltraşlarından Praxiteles'in İ.Ö. 4. yüzyıl eseri Knidia, hayli özel bir yere sahiptir. Üç boyutlu, anıtsal çıplak bir kadın heykeli olması nedeniyle antik sanat tarihinde yeni bir temanın ilk örneği olan bu eser, dünyevi güzelliğin çok ötesine taşan, idealize edilmiş ilahi bir güzelliğin eşsiz örneği ve antik çağ sanatında bir övünç sebebi olarak görülmüştür(1).

:Divine Qualities: Cult and Community in Republican Rome.(Oxford Classical Monographs.)

:Divine Qualities: Cult and Community in Republican Rome.<i>(Oxford Classical Monographs.)</i>

Torture and the Christian conscience: a response to Jeremy Waldron

AbstractIn remarks offered in 2006 at a conference at Princeton Theological Seminary, inaugurating a National Religious Campaign against Torture, the legal philosopher Jeremy Waldron observed that Christian leaders have contributed relatively little to the recent debate over the use of torture. This is regrettable, in his view, because secular morality does not have resources sufficient to address the question of torture, and a Christian perspective emphasising the absoluteness and divine character of the relevant moral norms would represent an important contribution to our reflections on this question. This article offers a response to Waldron's timely and important challenge, setting forth a Christian theological argument that the practice of torture is categorically prohibited. The basis for this prohibition does not rest, however, on the absoluteness of moral norms as such – rather, it rests on the distinctive character of torture as an egregious assault on the human person regarded as image of God.

Theōsis: Deification in Christian Theology (review)

Reviewed by: Theōsis: Deification in Christian Theology Daniel Keating Stephen Finlan and Vladimir Kharlamov, editors Theōsis: Deification in Christian TheologyPrinceton Theological Monograph SeriesEugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2006 Pp. ix + 185. $22. The topic of deification continues to be popular since there is a freshness to the subject and the sense of unexplored territory that invites research and inquiry. This series of essays, edited by Stephen Finlan and Vladimir Kharlamov, advances the exploration of the theme of deification (theōsis) and provides at the same time a valuable resource for students. The editors begin with a general description of theōsis—"the transformation of believers into the likeness of God" (1)—but emphasize the imprecision of the term and the difficulty in defining it exactly. Instead of seeking a precise definition, they point to biblical texts and to other biblical doctrines (transformation, indwelling, sanctification, etc.) that together help us grasp what theōsis means. Then, following a brief account of the loss of the idea of deification in the West during the past millennium, they stake out their own position between what they identify as the two polarized views of theōsis that have for too long dominated the field. The first position, popularized by Adolph Harnack, rejects theōsis as the Hellenization of early Christianity. The second, promoted by Eastern Orthodox theologians such as Vladimir Lossky, makes theōsis to be all-important in Christian theology and claims that the Eastern church has a "copyright" on the doctrine (9). The editors wish to promote a more historically-grounded, moderate view and so offer this volume as a means of shedding light "on the divinization concept" (12) across the Christian tradition. The historical summary they offer on the fate of deification certainly has merit, but the presentation suffers a bit from its brevity and lack of nuance. It seems too strong to say that Western churches have simply dropped the idea or that theōsis has nearly disappeared over the past millennium [End Page 122] in the West (8). The explicit references to deification in Aquinas as well as the development of the concept in Scheeben, Newman, and Mascall would modify the stark disjunction proposed between the first and second millennia in the West. Nonetheless, the stated goal of recapturing an historically-grounded, balanced understanding of deification is praiseworthy and capably carried out in the articles that follow. For the sake of summary, the ten articles can be grouped into four categories (biblical, early patristic, mature patristic, contemporary). The first pair of articles lays a biblical foundation in both the Old and New Testaments. Greg Glazov defends the importance of seeking a foundation for Christian doctrine in the Old Testament and argues that the paternal-filial categories informing the divine-human covenant in Israel, as well as a sapiential anthropology from the Wisdom literature, "provide many bases for a biblical theōsis theology" (29). Stephan Finlan then explores the philosophical climate surrounding 2 Peter, concluding that the phrase "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Pet 1.4) means in context taking on the divine character, the knowledge of Christ, and proper ethical behavior (45). The second pair of articles (both by Vladimir Kharlamov) on the apostolic fathers and apologists respectively provides, in a sense, the bridge between the biblical testimony and the full flowering of the theōsis concept. The terminology of deification does not appear in these early writers, but Kharlamov shows that many of the themes emerge that will later develop into an explicit notion of theōsis. The third and largest grouping of articles considers theōsis in four leading patristic figures: Irenaeus, Athanasius, Augustine, and Maximus. In two fine studies, Jeffrey Finch shows the christological basis for human divinization in Irenaeus and the deifying work of the redeemer in Athanasius. Robert Puchniak revisits deification in Augustine, building on the findings of Gerald Bonner through an analysis of a recently discovered sermon (Dolbeau 6), and proposes reasons for why Augustine so rarely employs the deification concept in his vast corpus. Elena Vishnevskaya concludes the patristic studies with an overview of deification in the rich theological thought of Maximus the Confessor. The final pair of articles...

The Recovering God of Hosea

AbstractThis paper addresses the question of the character of God as sketched in the poetry of Hosea. It considers the broad and rich spectrum of images and metaphors that are employed to give expression to that divine character in poetic idiom. It is clear that the range and spectrum of metaphors cannot be systematized, but one can nonetheless identify among them usages that bespeak divine judgment, usages that articulate a positive concern, and usages that are neutral or ambiguous. After that survey, the discussion focuses upon the two provocative texts if Hosea 2:2-23 and 11:11-9. Attention is given, in each of these cases, to the movement from judgment to positive possibility. The two governing metaphors of husband-wife and parent-child are taken to be indispensable for a relationship that persists, even in the face of harsh judgment and alienation. The flow of drama in these two texts suggests that YHWH has been an agent of violence, but is "in recovery" from that propensity to violence.