Realm Of Gods Research Articles

Self-Portrait with Cephalopod by Kathryn Smith

Reviewed by: Self-Portrait with Cephalopod by Kathryn Smith Sean H Jenkins Kathryn Smith. Self-Portrait with Cephalopod. Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 2021. 72 p. The Hebrew Bible, particularly Psalms, is part of the seam of this little book of bespoke poetry, much as it was in Smith's previous The Book of Exodus. The two volumes differ radically in perspective, the earlier volume concentrating on the unlikely survival of a destitute family in the remote Russian taiga, while the latter is concerned with the (again, unlikely) survival of the planet. One finds another shift in perspective in the author's use of the Bible throughout. The Russian volume implores, celebrates and begs with a holy sincerity and lacks all trace of irony. Self-Portrait with Cephalopod uses fragments of scripture to power lines with the same load of seriousness, but also with (sometimes black) humor and even a trace of blasphemy: "An erroneous vision/of heaven and hell shall come to you/in books, and this will divide you.//Some will say it's possible for a child to die and come back [End Page 344] /from death having seen the realm of God. But some will say what/does it matter when earth is a lonely/chasm where children die unnoticed as/we sharpen our knives and whiten/our teeth and tighten our skin and/implore our screens to refresh." William Blake is much subtler, but the insufficiency of the sacred text, its need to pierce beyond, is an insight common to them both. In a mash-up of Paul and Psalms, Smith writes, "I am fearfully and wonderfully/made, made wonderfully/fearful. When I was a child, I acted/like a child./When I was afraid,/I acted afraid. Put these things/away. Surely goodness/will dog me all the days of my life." One finds a number of these transformations throughout. In my first journey through Self-Portrait with Cephalopod, I marked in pencil "R" for "rancid" next to some lines that offended my judgement of what a line of poetry should say and sound like. On my second read through, I erased a number of these, finally erasing them all on my third. "Why do mammograms make me//contemplate apocalypse?" Why indeed? I am a man, and the question scrambles me. And there are lines of arresting purity as when she writes, "I have recently, to hone/my objectivity, stopped observing. I don't remember/the sound of snowmelt dripping from a roof, the gleam of icicles'/sharp translucence." Smith's language is neither complicated nor particularly challenging, but it is taut, coherent and in parts enthralling. In the apocalyptic poems there is a discussion to be had about what sort of life deserves to survive, both the lives on which we feed and the lives which feed on us. Smith is willing to entertain fetal rights in the light of an ordinary breakfast: "I scramble the egg/until it does not resemble/egg—no longer the globe//a body bore into/the world for a purpose/entirely other. First I scraped//the blood-knot/from the albumen—trace/of its potential, of what//reminds me of me,/life force hidden/in the viscous clot." For Smith, this is the axial question: is the grandeur and simultaneous squalor of the life of earthly being, with all its chances and changes and transformations for good and evil—is such life worthy and fit for an open-ended existence, unconditionally? In what terms, by whose argument, do we frame the question? This question of questions, which bears down upon us in the form of legal pronouncements subject to change and climate catastrophe much less responsive to even the most vigorous efforts of the scientific elite, is one we no longer look to canonical [End Page 345] texts to answer. This is where Smith's earlier work parts company from Self-Portrait with Cephalopod. In this later poetry we ourselves become the question as incarnate in the all-encompassing world of internet calculations. In a poem whose title poses its own answer—"Photos of Pig That Appears to Have Blue Fat Beneath Skin Shared on Social Media"—she writes...

Контингентість – як спосіб буття світу: особливості теологічних інтерпретацій

The main objective of this article is to study the traditional Christian doctrine of the ontological balance of beings established by God, which is contingent and does not have a deep first reason for its own existence in itself, as well as the attempts of contemporary theologians to modernize this doctrine. The author's special attention is focused on the components of the theological doctrine of the "deeds of God", where the researchers examjning the topics of religion, considering the idea of direct divine causality, inevitably raise the question of its direct goal - maintaining the existence of the world and preventing it (the world) from sliding into the abyss of non-existence. The choice of theoretical and methodological approaches of the article is determined by the very subject of thought and the nature of the tasks. The providence of God and the miracle, as its special case, in accordance with fundamental Christian instructions, without significant disagreement, are clearly interpreted by theologians of all major Christian denominations in their theophanic perspective, as a permanent manifestation of God in the realm of God’s own creation. Almost all the main theological approaches to this issue aim justify and show the presence of God in the natural and human world through the terms of «preservation» and «management», and also, invariably, by highlighting over exstraordinary cases of direct creative acts of God in the world, through miracle. These means of God's interaction with the world, according to the theologians, are intended to preserve the ontological balance of the being, which was originally established by God, which is contingent, that is, is not the cause of itself. The ontological instability of the world, which lies in its contingency and the danger of its return to non-existence, is completely balanced by the activity of God; the latter is aimed not only at preserving the originality of the world, but also acts as the source of its formation, relies on its basis as an internal goal. The providence of God, without much disagreement, is shown by theologians of the main Christian movements as coherent processes, on the one hand, ordinary natural changes, as the objectification of the divine will in action, and on the other hand, as direct creative acts of God's interaction with the world in a miracle, when he does something surpassing the power of natural things. Common in the positions of theologians of different Christian denominations is also the fact that they unanimously emphasize the inadmissibility of a speculative interpretation of these concepts. All this, in the end, is aimed at introducing into the minds of believers the ontological image of God, who constantly indicates his presence in history and the indispensable ontologization of a miracle. Without this, faith is ultimately annihilated. In this case, the ideological opponents of religion get the opportunity to assert the thesis about providence and miracles as the results of ignorance or deliberate deceit. The main result of the study of the problem leads to the conclusion that for theologians who are in search of acceptable models for expressing the creative essence of God, modernizing the religious picture of the world and its main elements intends to reveal the essential in the doctrine by moving from the figurative-fantastic to the deep-true; all this, according to the theologians, should testify to the eternal values of the religious worldview in all the vicissitudes of epochs and cultures.

수운(최재우)의 불연기연(不然其然) 사상을 통한 장애인관의 코페르니쿠스적 전회(轉回)

This study discusses a new perspective on the disabled, based on Choi Suwun’s idea, “Bulyeon-Giyeon (不然其然)”. The method and contents of this study conceptualize the idea of the “Bulyeon-Giyeon (不然其然)” world, and establish a perspective on the disabled based on the idea of “we”. The study examines concepts through Suwun’s idea (“Bulyeon-Giyeon (不然其然)”) that disability is a natural form of human life, and not a special situation caused mainly by the realm of God, by critically approaching the Christian philosophy on the disabled originating from religious viewpoints and which have had a great influence on people’s general perspectives toward the disabled. In addition, based on a material-oriented system and its constancy, the Western view of the disabled has continued to repeat the meaningless and mechanical repetition of the integration and separation of the disabled in the world. In order to change such a Western traditional approach, this research suggests a new perspective, counteracting the point of view of Westerners toward the disabled, and focusing on Lao-tzu’s thinking and a traditional flow of Josen’s Confucianism.

The Key to the Bible: Bonhoeffer’s Approach to the Psalms as Theological Interpretation

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s approach to the Book of Psalms as the hermeneutical key to all of the Bible can help to combine historical and theological readings of the Bible. This article highlights four aspects of Bonhoeffer’s approach: (1) by reading the Psalms prayerfully and receptively, persons are drawn into the realm of God’s revelation; (2) Christ comes to the reader of the Psalms as the one who is already present, and the reader partakes of Christ’s righteousness; (3) because the Psalms are read in new contexts, Christ reshapes these contexts: life becomes open for God; (4) by definition, the Psalms are read in the community of the synagogue and the Church, since no single person has experienced all that the Psalms express. These four aspects together render reading the Psalms, and the Bible as a whole, a theological enterprise, in a hermeneutical situation defined by the living Christ. The situation of interpretation is reversed by a change of subject: God is the one reading, the interpreter is the one being interpreted. [Figure: see text]

State Sovereignty, God's Sovereignty, and Native Sovereignty : The Political Theology of Making New Borders

This critical review essay provides a substantive comparison for the struggles of indigenous peoples without their sovereignty by analyzing and critically comparing the political theology of George Tinker and Naim Ateek. By evaluating the theological reflection from Tinker and Ateek, in dealing with suffering from dislocation and occupation of the native peoples by Westerners and Zionists, this paper stresses the importance of the socio-political values of liberation theology for the expelled people from their own land, offering a new, politically sensitive approach to the notion of sovereignty. The ideas presented by Ateek and Tinker offer important resources for conceptualizing the sovereignty of indigenous communities. This comparative study considers two questions: First, what alternative notion of state sovereignty might engage, in context, religious values as an alternative to the modern system of nation-state (the Westphalian system) built on political realism and global power politics? Second, which political theology provides the notion of indigenous sovereignty critically evaluating today's nation-state system built on the notion of utipossedetis and ethnic inequalities. These questions are considered by a study of the theological meanings of modern state sovereignty systems, as compared to God's sovereignty for all people and an entire creation as the realm of God. The answers to both questions offer an alternative to current, modern nationalism.

Religious Reformation and the Crisis of Providentialism in Cyril Tourneur’s The Atheist’s Tragedy (1611): A Cultural Materialist Reading

The early modern period in England is characterised by philosophical and moral debates over the meaning and pertinence of Christian beliefs and teachings. One of the most controversial topics in this epoch is God’s providence and its supposed impacts on man’s daily life. In the wake of the Reformation and emerging philosophical schools, particularly in the second half of the sixteenth century, Providentialism was seriously put into question and the meaning and influences of God’s providence were, therefore, investigated. Epicureans and Calvinists were two prominent groups of religious reformists who cast doubt upon the validity and pertinence of Christian Providentialism as it was taught during the medieval period. These intellectual and philosophical debates were reflected in the literary productions of the age in general, and in Elizabethan and Jacobean drama in particular. Cyril Tourneur is one of the early modern English playwrights who inquired into the meaning and relevance of Providentialism in his last play, The Atheist’s Tragedy (1611). Adhering to a cultural materialist mode of criticism, I will show in this paper that Tourneur is a dissident dramatist who separates the realm of God’s divinity from man’s rational capacity in his tragedy and anticipates, hence, the emergence and development of new religious and philosophical visions in the Renaissance.

“Family Values” in the Gospel Tradition

This article discusses the idea of “family values,” developed in modern Western Protestantism, within the horizon of family-related sayings in the Gospel tradition. In accord with general tendencies of the Hellenistic period, early Christianity opened up the possibility of a religious affiliation different from that suggested by ethnic, tribal, or familial tradition. A first challenge to traditional family obligations can be seen in the lifestyle of Jesus and his earliest disciples: In Mark, Jesus is depicted in a strong distance from his physical family. Common family obligations are questioned, and those who follow him and God’s word are called his real family. In Matthew and Luke, the distance is softened due to the idea that Jesus’ family is already aware of his mission and destiny. In John, his earthly mother is present under his cross, and also Joseph as his father is openly mentioned, but his true origins are in the realm of God, and for his Galilean contemporaries, knowledge of his earthly origins is rather an argument not to believe him. In John, finally, family aspects are transferred to the community which is the new family of God, shaped by the mutual love and support of the disciples. In a global context of theology, the various biblical views on family matters and also the different patterns of community structures have to be negotiated, and the challenge of the radical questioning of traditional values in Jesus’ ministry should not be ignored.

Humanity in Schillebeeckx’s Hermeneutic Phenomenology. Towards a Methodology

ABSTRACTThis paper offers an analysis of Edward Schillebeeckx’s insights on different perceptions of revelation as related to concepts like salvation, God, church, human experience and creation in the work Jesus in Our Western Culture. The incentive of Schillebeeckx’s hermeneutical method in nowadays Western phenomenology, upon which God “breathed his breath of life”, triggered our interest in meanings which Schillebeeckx ascribes to human history as the realm of God’s work for the benefit of men and women. This meaning is suggested in the very beginning of the book by its original Dutch title If Politics is not Everything. As stated in this work’s introduction, Schillebeeckx’s main theme is the origin of salvation in the humanum, from the Abba experience to nowadays revelatory events. Our attempt is to see how Schillebeeckx’s humanum, which is the embodiment of human experience of consciousness, becomes relevant for the Christian doctrines and why Schillebeeckx reckons that bringing them together would impact both his worldview and Western culture.

A Cord of Three Strands Is Not Easily Broken: The Transcendental Brocade of Unity, Truth, and Goodness in the Early Franciscan Intellectual Tradition

A Cord of Three Strands Is Not Easily Broken:The Transcendental Brocade of Unity, Truth, and Goodness in the Early Franciscan Intellectual Tradition Boyd Taylor Coolman Introduction In his unjustly infamous "Regensburg Address," Pope Benedict XVI made this now famous observation: One must observe that in the late Middle Ages … there arose with Duns Scotus a voluntarism which, in its later developments, led to the claim that we can only know God's voluntas ordinata [ordained will]. Beyond this is the realm of God's freedom, in virtue of which he could have done the opposite of everything he has actually done. This gives rise to … the image of a capricious God, who is not even bound to truth and goodness. God's transcendence and otherness are so exalted that our reason, our sense of the true and good, are no longer an authentic mirror of God, whose deepest possibilities remain eternally unattainable and hidden behind his actual decisions.1 [End Page 561] Three features of this passage merit mention: (1) a concern about a conception of a deity whose nature is constituted by a will (voluntas) so radically free that it is constrained or determined by absolutely nothing; (2) a genealogy that locates the origins of this view in certain late medieval Franciscan thinkers, often dubbed "voluntarists"; and (3) an implied preference for a different God, whose will is in some sense "bound" by characteristics that human reason would recognize as truth and goodness. In short, the Pope explicitly worries about the pernicious legacy of a medieval Franciscan theology of "a capricious God" and implicitly invites speculation about what it might mean, alternatively, for God to be "bound to truth and goodness." The problem that worried the Pope is fairly well known. It begins with the concept, late medieval in origin, of a "voluntarist deity" whose nature it is to be absolutely free of everything, including any putative "divine nature," fettered by absolutely nothing, constituted as and by its sheer freedom to will.2 Entailed in this is the notion that a particular divine attribute, such as divine will (or power), could be conceived as in some sense primary, such that all other attributes could be relegated to a derivative status in relation to it. That is, one might conceive of truth and goodness as reducible to will, such that the true and the good could be "collapsed," as it were, or subsumed into it. In this case, "true" and "good" would be defined on no other basis than what in fact God wills or does, and in principle, God could at any time will true and good to be other than "our [current] sense of the true and good." This is a "capricious" deity, "unbound" by truth and goodness. This account of the divine that Pope Benedict summarizes is part of an oft-repeated genealogy of modernity that locates its deep source in a late medieval intellectual tradition often associated with certain Franciscan thinkers, especially John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham, and recently dubbed "nominalism-voluntarism."3 As of late, though, this "sinister genealogy" has come under critical scrutiny.4 Adjudicating this debate, however, is not the concern of this [End Page 562] essay. What follows, rather, is an act of ressourcement that hopes to uncover in a high medieval theological tradition a distinctive model for conceiving of a deity "bound by truth and goodness." The Pope's comments above provide a fitting point of departure for this task. For, truth and goodness are not random divine attributes, but rather members of a triad of philosophical notions, along with "one," or "unity," that are known today as the "transcendentals": universal properties of all of reality.5 A popular variation, "the good, the true, and the beautiful"—often mentioned in the promotional materials of liberal arts universities—is perhaps more familiar today. But "unity, truth, and goodness" is the original formula.6 And, as it turns out, these transcendentals figure centrally at a particularly important juncture in the development of medieval theology, a development that may provide inspiration, if not an actual framework, for conceiving of just such a God. Although philosophers have been thinking for millennia...

Book Review: If Only We Could See: Mystical Vision and Social Transformation

If Only We Could See: Mystical Vision and Social Transformation. By Gary Commins. Eugene, Ore.: Cascade Books, 2015. xiv + 502 pp. $59.00 (paper).Gary Commins has written a truly remarkable book. Like his earlier published writing, it is an exploration of the passions and assumptions that have shaped his career as a parish priest in challenging urban settings.Ten years ago, Commins published Becoming Bridges: The Spirit and Practice of Diversity (2007), reflecting on his own experience of ministry in congregations far more diverse than the average Episcopal parish. A decade earlier, he had written Spiritual People, Radical Lives (1995), a study of four Christians often identified as social activists-Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King, Thomas Merton, and A. J. Muste-to demonstrate that while all four had highly visible encounters with the social ills of their day, in each case their activity was undergirded by a profound faith more commonly identified with the tradition. But his intention in this work goes beyond the symbiotic relationship between the two. He insists that there is an intrinsic connection between prayer and social action because Christian spirituality is incamational, and that social transformation is always undergirded, encompassed, and made more urgent by transcendence (pp. 11-12). Furthermore, mystics and activists are deemed threatening because they are to every empire, every religious, political, and economic system, and every status quo of any kind, because no status quo is ever the realm of God. Their experiences of God and their faith in God make them all dangerous (p. 12). This is the premise that he has undertaken to describe and document in If Only We Could See.Unlike his earlier books, the present volume is a dense and scrupulously documented study of the relationship between what Commins calls mystical vision and social transformation-a belief that has obviously undergirded his own decades-long ministry. His investigations have taken him far and wide, and include fiction and poetry as well as twenty centuries of Christian experience and insights from Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, and Sufi Muslim voices. The Glossary of Names, which offers one-line biographical information for each of the persons cited, includes, by my count, 227 individuals plus four of Francis of Assisi's brothers and sixteen Desert Fathers and Mothers. Each chapter except the first (an introduction) and the last (which ends with a prayer) begins and ends with a brief meditation by Commins, drawing on his own experience as pastor and parent, and sometimes the connection between the two.The book is divided into ten chapters, each of which is loosely organized around a central theme: the importance of vision for both religious experience and activism, both of which he considers as rooted in the experience of God; the inevitable sorrow of really seeing the world as it is; the light of God; the hiddenness of the divine; the pain that customarily accompanies both the and the activist way; the challenge to see and share God's love for all human beings, and indeed the whole creation ; the holiness of the body and of human relationship (borrowing a phrase from the nineteenthcentury Anglican priest and Christian Socialist Charles Kingsley, Commins entitles this chapter Holy Communists); God's often hidden glory; and the peace of God, an inner peace that forever rests in restlessness (p. …

Book Review: Postcolonial Theology of Religions: Particularity and Pluralism in World Christianity

Postcolonial Theology of Religions: Particularity and Pluralism in World Christianity. By Jenny Daggers. New York: Routledge, 2013.,x + 236 pp. $44.95 (paper).Postcolonial critique has been constructively applied to an increasing number of theological areas in the past few decades, with great success. This volume by Jenny Daggers is a timely contribution, as her book is one of the first to critique and offer a reconstruction of Christian theologies of religion from a postcolonial framework. Whether one immersed in the Eurocentric theological tradition can be successful in constructing such a work remains to be seen.Daggers seeks to develop a particularist Christian theology of religions founded on feminist and Asian Christian interpretations of postcolonial theology that remains within the orthodox realm as defined by its adherence to trinitarianism. This is no simple goal. Her book arises from a desire to resist the Eurocentric roots of theologies of religious pluralism, which guides her summary and critique of the last six hundred years of Christian engagement with other religions. To construct a new approach that acknowledges the particularity and equality of every religion while still remaining firmly grounded within mainstream theology, she appeals to Asian liberation theologians. These theologians, both male and female, serve to prove that EuroAmerican Christians may borrow understandings of religious co-existence from non-Christians without either succumbing to colonialism or abandoning orthodox Christian theology.The contributions of this book rest in Daggers's introductory critical survey of modern attempts at theologies of religious pluralism and in her argument that a comparative religion methodology is most productive for avoiding colonialism and for valuing the particularity of each religion. She also offers a survey of male and female Asian and Asian-American perspectives on Christianity's co-existence with other religions that is missing from contemporary Euro-American theological endeavors.Unfortunately, Daggers s work falls short of its postcolonial goal on several fronts. First, she does not engage the deeper problems of interreligious dialogue or theologies of religious pluralism: namely, the barrier that soteriology erects when differences are finally recognized. The Christian soteriological claim that Christ saves the world, or even that the realm of God is globally healing and restorative, must be evaluated as a colonial claim on theologies of religious pluralism. Daggers's failure to address soteriology, assuming it rather under the umbrella of trinitarian theology, means that her proposal contains remnants of unrecognized colonial overtones, as when she uncritically adopts Mark S. Heim's proposal that all religions ultimately find their commonality in a single divine ultimate reality that is implicitly, if not explicitly, triune (p. …

<em>Spirited Away</em>: Negotiation between Capitalism and Reminiscent Environmental Ethics

“Enchanting,” “magical,” and “interconnecting” are words casually fitted to describe Spirited Away, the animation film about a mysterious world and childhood by the Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli. With charming features, this film has successfully captured attention from audiences around the globe. In the Wall Street Journal, Joe Morgenstern praised the film as bringing a profound pleasure as well as a sense of loss when the film was over (2002). Peter Bradshaw reviewed this film, in the Guardian, as something that left him feeling lighter than air (2003). In Thailand the film has been considered as one of the greatest Japanese animations at all time. In Siamzone the film has been admired for mirroring morality and commitment to family and friendship (2012). Spirited Away deserves all these compliments and much more. The film’s narration follows the adventure of a tenyearold girl named Chihiro Ogino, who steps into the realm of gods and spirits, which humans are not supposed to enter, with her parents when they are moving to their new home. In this dimension, her parents break the rules and are punished by being cursed and turned into pigs. In order to rescue her parents, Chihiro has to stay in this dimension and work at the steaming bathhouse run by the witch named Yubaba. Facing a number of challenging circumstances in this mysterious setting and with assistance from her spirit friends and coworkers, who appear in anthropomorphic form, Chihiro grows up from being a spoiled kid to being an understanding and responsible young woman.

Mahdi Elmandjra and the Future of the Muslim World

Mahdi Elmandjra, a prominent sociologist and futurist, is one of the Muslim scholars who consistently discuss about the future of the Muslims and the Muslim world. Elmandjra was born in Rabat in 1933. He graduated from Cornell University and obtained his doctorate from the London School of Economics. He was the Director General of the Moroccan Broadcasting Service and Counselor of the Moroccan Mission to the United Nation. Between 1961 to 1981, he occupied various functions in the United Nation System including the Assistant Director General of UNESCO for Social Sciences, Human Sciences and Culture and the Coordinator of the Conference on Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries (UNDP) (http://www.elmandjra.org/summary.htm). He was also the President of the World Future Studies Federation and of Futuribles International of Paris as well as the Founding President of the Moroccan Association of Futures Studies and the Moroccan Organization for Human Rights. He has been a Visiting Professor of Tokyo University (1998) and a Visiting Scholar of the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) at the Tokyo Keizai University (1999) (http://www.elmandjra.org/summary.htm).Elmandjra has published over 400 articles in the fields of the human and social sciences. He is a co-author of No Limits to Learning (Report to the Club of Rome 1979) and the author of several books including The United Nations System, Maghreb et Francophonie, Premiere Guerre Civilisationnelle, Retrospective des Futurs, Nord-Sud, Prelude a l'Ere Postcoloniale, Cultural Diversity Key to Survival, Dialogue about Communication, Decolonisation Culturelle: Defimajeur du 21e Siele, Al-Quds Al-Arabi, Path of a Mind, Reglobalization of Globalization, and Intifadate, to name a few (http://www.elmandjra.org/summary.htm).Throughout his intellectual and professional life, he has been designated to various important positions for his outstanding scholarship, such as the President of the World Future Studies Federation (WFSF) (1977-1981), the President of the Futuribles International (1981-1990), and the President of the Club of Rome (resigned in 1988). He was also members of various institutions such as the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco, the World Academy of Art and Science, the World Academy of Social Prospective, the Moroccan Association of Economists, the Moroccan Association of Philosophy, and the Moroccan Association of Historians. He was also the Founding President of the Moroccan Association of Futures Studies, the Moroccan Organization for Human Rights and the Founding Member and the Vice President of the Morocco-Japan Association. He was also the Executive Committee of the African Academy of Sciences and the Pugwash Movement and Council for the Society for International Development between 1982 to 1988 and its Executive Committee between 1985 until 1988. With all these significant contributions to the world society, he was chosen by the International Biographical Center as one of the 2000 Outstanding Scholars of the 20th Century (http://www.elmandjra.org/summary.htm).Islam and the FutureThe source of Elmandjra's thought derived from the Islamic sources when he refers to the Quranic verses2 and conception of future in claiming the importance of futures thinking. He emphasizes that in Islamic discourse on the future, there are a few concepts that should be understood correctly. Such concepts, as he discusses them briefly, is the concept of 'al-ghayb' (unknown) which he believes within the realm of God and 'mustaqbal' (future) which for him implies the anticipation of developments arising from people's action or inaction. He also asserts the difference between the concept of 'bid'ah' (heresy) and 'ibdaa' (innovation) in which, ...the first is an opinion or attitude which is in violation of the basic tenets of Islam..., whereas ...the second is, on the contrary, an invitation to introduce changes and innovations in order to stimulate the community's development and vitality (Elmandjra 1990: 3). …

Is God a Myth?

Man has made giant strides in understanding the world around him. There was a time when even physical world was a mystery. We did not know what caused rain and wind, day and night, what caused disease and deaths. Everything that was unknown was explained as work of god. Rain? Rain god. Wind? Wind god, and so on. Science helped us bust most of the myths of the physical world, and god was no longer required to explain most of the physical phenomena. Even today, as before, we find the concept of god handy to explain all that is unknown. Whereas the world of Matter or the Physical World has been more or less explained by physics and mathematics, the world of Human Mind still remains in the realm of the unknown, and hence in the realm of god. If a new language of Mathematics had to be discovered to explain most of the once-unknown phenomena of the physical world like rain and wind, will a new language 'Mentomatics' explain today's unknown mind phenomena? Is it only a matter of time before the realm of the unknown becomes the realm of the known, and god will have no role to play in explaining what is unknown today?

In the realm of gods and kings: arts of India

Each work is fully illustrated and most of these works have not been previously published. The book also includes short background essays describing aspects of Indian life related to the works. This book accompanies an exhibiton of selections from the Polsky Collection and the Metropolitan Museum at the Asia Society, New York. This volume celebrates the wealth and diversity of the arts of India created for the life of courts and temples from 1000 BC to the twentieth century. Paintings, objects and photographs, ranging in date from the second century BC to the late twentieth century, reflect the variety and continuity of India's aesthetic traditions. Andrew Topsfield, the editor, has contributed background essays describing aspects of Indian life related to the themes explored in the book: The Sacred Realm: Nature, Temple, Gods, Goddesses, Saint and Sadhus; The Court: Courtly Life, The Hunt, Royal Portraits, Couples and Women, Courtly Manuscripts. Catalogue entries by experts in the field comment on narrative episodes from the epics, iconographic symbolism, religious, as well as social and contextual references related to the works shown. An extensive and authoritative essay by Dr. Vishakha Desai, 'The Experience of Creativity in Indian Art', is included as well as an essay by Cynthia Hazen Polsky, 'To Beckon the Modern Eye'.

GM food and crops: what went wrong in the UK? Many of the public's concerns have little to do with science.

Genetically modified (GM) crops are now being grown extensively in North and South America and China, although not in Europe. Food produced from these crops has become a part of the normal diet in North and South America and in China, but not in Europe, where contention continues despite the fact that millions of US citizens eat GM soya without any ill effects in a very litigious society, and many Europeans have eaten GM soya while in the US without any adverse consequences. > Why has the British public, who normally so pragmatically welcome scientific advances, resisted the introduction of genetically modified crops? European consumers' continuous and ardent opposition to GM crops and foods has had serious repercussions for plant research, for the commercial development of new crops and, most importantly, for developing countries that could benefit most from GM crops. Several countries in Africa and elsewhere have resisted growing such crops, mainly for fear of being unable to export them to the European market ( The Economist , 2002). It is therefore worthwhile to investigate what actually went wrong in the debate about GM food and crops in Europe and how these foods have earned such a bad name. Such an analysis could not only help to overcome public fears of this technology, but also help scientists and policy makers to address similar concerns in the future, such as the growing debate over nanotechnology. The concerns of European consumers about the potential health and environmental threats of GM crops have resulted in an unprecedented effort to investigate those anxieties and communicate with the wider public, particularly in the UK, where the use of public consultation has been extensively developed. The first of these initiatives was the extensive Farm Scale Evaluations of three GM crops (herbicide‐resistant beet, oil seed rape and maize), whose …

Psychosis and the Law: Legal Responsibility and Law of Symbolisation

This paper argues for the practical importance ofpsychoanalysis for criminology, an importancewhich finds its raison d'etre in thenecessity that a subject be response-able for there tobe full legal responsibility. In recognising therequirement for a certain linguistic constellation tobe in evidence – namely that there be a subject ofenunciation who is able to answer for what hearticulates at the level of his statement – thecorrespondence between legal responsibility and thelaw of symbolisation, Lacan's term for theOedipus complex, is addressed. Starting from thefictitious structure of truth and its corollary, thefact that `truth is grounded on the fact that itspeaks', the unconscious emerges as a grammaticalapparatus for the production of meaning. The logic ofexception, indexed on the signifier of theName-of-the-Father, is exposed as the mechanism forthe operation of this grammatical apparatus as it isbrought to bear on the trace of subjective division.I then demonstrate the importance of division for thesubject of law by presenting the deleterious effectsof the dysfunctional grammar of psychosisthrough a study of President Schreber's Memoirs and his use of grammatical devices in orderto institute a constitutional democracy in the realmof God – and thus submit the Father to his Name.

Road to Rapture: Thomas Merton's Itinerarium Mentis in Deum

ROAD TO RAPTURE: THOMAS MERTON'S ITINERARIUM MENTIS IN DEUM INTRODUCTION The presence and patronage of St. Bonaventure in the life of Thomas Merton may be as profound as it seems subtle. Yet the Seraphic Doctor holds a key to locating Merton in the rich panorama of Franciscan spirituality, and the Itinerarium mirrors the route of Merton's soul's journey into God. Of the several ways Merton's soul was influenced by the Franciscan tradition, this one in particular invites closer attention, namely the impression made by Bonaventure and his guide to the contemplative ascent, and the dramatic affect it would have on Merton's own mystical path. The encounter between one of the most celebrated spiritual seekers of our time and one of the great spiritual directors of all time is an interesting perspective from which to consider Merton's "Franciscanism", for as we shall see, the engagement would orient the itinerant profoundly and perduringly. Although Merton was selective and experimental with Bonaventure's map, it nevertheless inspired and encouraged him to set out on the mystical quest and find his own road to rapture. The Itinerarium mentis in Deum is a comprehensive scheme which sets before the spiritual seeker a vast terrain of variegated landscapes for traversal into God, and a design of the journey itself in various stages and phases. Bonaventure's masterplan is elegantly proposed, a veritable summa of Christian spirituality and the work of a highly developed and well rehearsed systamatician. The infrastructure upon which his spiritual roadways are constructed include a vivid and pervasive understanding of the Trinity buttressed by a coherent neo-Platonic metaphysics. Upon this theological foundation, Bonaventure delineates multiple and successive routes which lead toward the junction of communion with God at the summit of the metaphorical mountain of ecstasy. A six-winged seraph, emblem of Franciscan transformation, is the pilgrim's guide in the labor of ascent and discloser of the six dimensions of the journey which Bonaventure envisions and articulates in the theo281 Franciscan Studies, 55 (1998) 282KATHLEEN DEIGNAN, CND poetics of his rich medieval sensibility. In a highly defined and deliberate order of stages of ascent evocative of Platonic patterns and Dionysian designs for spiritual progress, Bonaventure executes a comprehensive typology of essentially Christian routes into God. Indeed, the Itinerarium mentis in Deum proposes not one journey, but several, depending on the temperament, qualifications, locations, and intentions of the journeymakers as they seek a road to rapture. "FIND YOUR OWN ROAD" Thomas Merton was one such journeyman who set out in his early years of conversion to find his own road to rapture with Bonaventure's itinerary in hand. At times he rambles randomly through landscapes Bonaventure painstakingly delineates, at others he is sure-footed as he explores aspects of the way with remarkable traction. How does this twentieth-century itinerant, lacking the cogent metaphysical, systematizing impulse, and qualifications of Bonaventure, find his way into the sacred geography to which the Itinerarium points? These curiosities inspire this reflection on the Bonaventuran features of Merton's Franciscanism and focus it on those elements of Bonaventure's Itinerarium which Merton pursues in his own forays into the realm of God. Though he did not traverse the whole scope of Bonaventure's mystical terrain, still Merton seemed to travel far toward certain frontiers described in the Itinerarium, and found his own way to speak of them. The search for a road, a pathway to God, was ever Merton's quest, as sensed in the prayer that would eventually whisper itself in his Thoughls in Solitude: My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end...But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you...I hope I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road.1 Merton's desire for that right road into God was the passport qualifying him for the sacred expedition, for as the great orienteer Bonaventure charged: "In order to embark on this journey, make 'Thomas...

Beyond Stewardship? Dietrich Bonhoeffer on Nature

This article questions whether the model of stewardship is helpful in considering Christian responsibility towards non‐human nature and proposes a different way of treating the issue of care of the environment. In an extended engagement with the theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the article argues that human relations to non‐human nature are best understood by seeing humanity as historical, political and natural. In theological formulation, humanity must be understood asimago dei, imago civitatis andimago mundi. Therefore the place of humanity cannot properly be understood without reference to both God and nature. Humanity, nature and God thereby constitute a ‘common realm’. A new test of Christian responsibility towards non‐human nature is introduced: of primary interest is how historical, political and natural humanity acts in ways which either reveal or obscure the ‘common realm of God, nature and humanity’. At this point, theological self‐understanding moves beyond the model of stewardship.

El condenado por presumido: The Rhetoric of Death and Damnation in El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra

An examination of the rhetoric of death and damnation in Tirso's Burlador reveals that the play can be read as a dramatized homily about the natural and supernatural realms of God's justice, reflected in the work's natural and supernatural realms of action. Concerning the rhetoric of damnation, much traditional criticism about the Burlador has centered on whether Tirso adopts either a "Thomist" or "Molinist" position concerning the De auxiliis controversy; and on why, or even whether, Don Juan is consigned to hell. Such hermeneutic disputes can be resolved by recognizing that the protagonist is damned for presumption, which all orthodox theology of the period considered to be, like despair, a sin against the theological virtue of hope and, hence, an "unpardonable" sin against the Holy Spirit. As spelled out most systematically in Aquinas's Summa Theologiae , the theology of presumption acts as a referential code for the mechanism of Don Juan's damnation, and thus for Tirso's rendering of the supernatural (eternal) realm of God's justice. In the natural (temporal) realm of God's justice, the matching of "punishment" and "crime" holds equally for the protagonist and his victims. After discussing the crime and punishment of each victim in turn, this study examines how both realms of divine justice converge in the character of the protagonist. His sentence of death for his crimes against other human beings, together with his sentence of damnation for his sin against hope and the Holy Spirit, jointly dramatize the the play's central, "anagogical" theme: that a God who is at once just and merciful exacts from any infraction of either the temporal or eternal order a terrible, fitting price. Lastly, the theological position put forth in Tirso's homiletic play is shown to stand outside the academic debate between "Thomists" and "Molinists" about grace and free will.