Theological Ones Research Articles

"ПО ТУ СТОРОНУ ПРАВОВОЙ НОРМЫ": ПОНЯТИЕ СУВЕРЕН С ПОЗИЦИИ ЮРИДИЧЕСКОГО ДЕЦИЗИОНИЗМА И ПОЛИТИЧЕСКОЙ ТЕОЛОГИИ КАРЛА ШМИТТА

The author of the article attempts to analyze the concept of sovereign according to Carl Schmitt’s legal decisionism and political theology. – the doctrines developed by the German philosopher and jurist Carl Schmitt (1888–1985). Decisionism is rightfully considered as one of the basic concepts of Schmitt’s political and legal discourse. In his voluminous treatise “Dictatorship” (1910), Schmitt initiates a detailed doctrine of decizionism, which is based on the adoption of a political decision justified by the relevant authority (and not the law). Later (in 1922), Schmitt publishes his “Political Theology”, which again takes into its optics decisionalism and those of its state-legal concepts that can be correlated with theological ones. Sovereign, sovereignty and state of emergency are the first to belong to them. And finally, in his work “On Three Types of Legal Thinking” (1934), he works out classification of legal thinking (in which it is permissible to assume the simultaneous existence of all three of its types), rejecting normativism and justifying his own inclination towards decisionism and thinking in terms of the specific order. Some researchers of Schmitt’s works – and in particular his “Political Theology” – believe that by correlating sovereign with God, state of emergency with a miracle, and political action with Way of the Cross, Schmitt tried to protect his doctrine of decisionism from any criticism, since being “passed” through the prism of the theological, not the critical politics, it became an object of faith, taking the form and expression of an indisputable dogma. In fact, such an “exploratory” vision of Schmitt’s analogies did not explain either the interpretatively complex theory of the sovereign or his political theology, but only simplified and sometimes vulgarized it. While researching the genealogy of political power, Schmitt attempted to establish a type of sovereign being characteristic for a particular era (the Pope – during the Early and Classical Middle Ages (V–XIV centuries); the Protestant reformer (represented by J. Calvin) – during the late Middle Ages (XVI century), the absolute monarch – during the period of European absolutism (XVI–XVIII centuries), the German people – during the existence of the Weimar Republic in Germany (1918–1933), the Reich president – during the birth of national socialism (the 30s of the XX century). The essential nature of each of them is revealed in the process of taking only those political decisions that the German Schmitt defines as decisions on introducing a state of emergency. At the same time, each epoch “sets” its own sovereign, what implies the obligatory subordination of its political decision to the spirit of the time in a particular historical period. Thus, with the progressive development of political theology, (legal) decisionism is also developing, resulted in the concepts of sovereign, sovereignty and emergency decision “acquiring” new semantic meanings

The curious case of the marginalized mystics

AbstractGiven that the more apophatic strand of mysticism resonates more with the way contemporary philosophers are apt to think about mystical experience, the fact that apophatic mysticism was a bit of a fringe enterprise in the Middle Ages calls for explanation. The explanations that are suggested within the pages of Christina Van Dyke's A Hidden Wisdom are not typically historical-contextual explanations, but theological ones. This article examines apophatic mysticism in terms of three of the standard theological loci: creation, Incarnation, and Trinity. In each case we will find that some of the characteristic claims of the apophatic mystics are so much at odds with the mainstream of Christian theology that the mystery is not so much their being marginalized but rather their being largely tolerated.

Философия религии Дж. Уиздома и философская теология в раннем витгенштейнианстве

The article deals with the question of whether and how the early Wittgensteinian philosophy of religion could be related to the idea of philosophical theology. Despite the bearing the Wittgensteinian tradition has had on a variety of theological developments, it remains unclear what from its philosophical practice and which of its philosophical hinges could be connected to theology in the first place. The argument proposed in the article is that philosophical theology within the early Wittgensteinian tradition (1930s–1940s) was concerned with the philosophical problems which were irrelevant to the theological ones. Outlining the context of the Wittgensteinian reasoning on religion and showing that it was crucial for a few of Wittgenstein’s followers, especially for John Wisdom (1904–1993), gives additional ground to this argument. It appears that the hinges Wisdom adopted from Wittgenstein – most importantly the descriptivist attitude and the idea of language as the only appropriate field for being observed philosophically – follow philosophical, rather than religious, commitments. One can see this by comparison of Wisdom’s views, esp. “the garden” argument, with those of Antony Flew, Richard Hare, and Basil Mitchell, who participated in the discussion, which can be regarded as the rise of the new philosophical theology. Whereas each of these philosophers developed one of Wisdom’s ideas – the discursive, the referential, and the contextualist aspects of God-talk – Wisdom had held the combination of these ideas. Paradoxically, this complexity came from Wisdom’s uncertainty as to the existence of a strict line between the analytic and the empirical propositions in real language. However, as a result, the philosopher understood the ontological dimension of God-talk, and yet could not make ontological verdicts, which makes this type of reasoning philosophically insightful yet theologically insignificant.

THEOLOGY AMONG THE HUMAN HUMANITIES

AbstractThis essay indicates how theology of a certain sort may contribute to the “human humanities” as Willem B. Drees understands them, but also that there is no single entirely satisfactory solution to the question of how to give due attention to the intensely self‐involving character of plural religions. The best we can do is to undertake theology, religious studies, and philosophy of religion in proximity to one another. This helps to maintain the sense that, in the humanities generally and the study of religion specifically, we not only develop comparative and disciplined reflections that aspire to a measure of neutrality, but also invite persons to undertake inherently self‐involving and reflexive inquiries, including theological ones.

The Obligated Self: Maternal Subjectivity and Jewish Thought

The Obligated Self: Maternal Subjectivity and Jewish Thought

СИМВОЛ И РЕАЛЬНОСТЬ У ВЯЧЕСЛАВА ИВАНОВА

The coincidence of the symbol with reality is an ancient question, which in Vyacheslav Ivanov’s symbolism is re-proposed as absolutely current, at the beginning of the 20th century and even more so today, in the third millennium. Ivanov’s reflection on “form” begins with the mystical search for the “inner form” that characterized the history of the Symbolist movement, and in general of the whole “silver century” of Russian culture. The common sentiment led to changing the cultural and social forms, and at the same time to the rediscovery of the sources and the authentic nature of the Russian soul and its poetic and literary expressions, but also theological and ecclesial ones. The union of soul and body, of being and essence, in the movement of reality is the encounter of the divine and the human, which gives meaning to the existence of the universe: it is the movement of the “Stars Nocchieri [Pilot Stars]”, title of the first collection of poems by Ivanov. Faith is not a denial of power, as Nietzsche argued, but it is the act in which the whole power of being manifests itself in the form of living beings. In the post-modern era, the Nietzschean objection is taken up in an even more radical and nihilistic form, for which there is no unity between form and matter, since the essence of both one and the other is excluded: the divine origin of every being is not denied, the being of every reality is denied. It is therefore more necessary than ever to rediscover the meaning of the existence of things, not to save the divine, but not to completely lose the human. Keywords: symbol, reality, form, material, energy, Silver

Anti-Shia Mass Mobilization in Indonesia’s Democracy: Godly Alliance, Militant Groups and the Politics of Exclusion

This article examines violence against religious minorities, especially Shia groups in the democracy of Indonesia, focusing particularly on the case of the 2016 anti-Milad Fatimah (Fatimah Birth Commemoration) mass mobilization performed by IJABI (The all-Indonesia Assembly of Ahlul Bait Associations) in Bondowoso, East Java, Indonesia. This article finds that the anti-Milad Fatimah mass mobilization involved alliances and conspiracy between Godly Muslim groups with a varied agenda. Sunni militant groups from the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), FPI (Islamic Defenders Front), Wahabi/Salafi, and Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI) groups, which merged into FOKUS (Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jama'ah Communication Forum), were the main protagonists who played a key role in driving mass mobilization. Unlike previous studies that understood the anti-Shia movement merely as a form of affirming Islamic orthodoxy, this study finds evidence that there were wider agendas than the theological ones. Excluding the Shia from capturing Islamic public space, and challenging religious authority and local power which was dominated by moderate Muslim groups, were the socio-political agendas which contributed to the anti-Milad Fatimah mass mobilization. The involvement of radical Islamist groups such as the activists of the Tarbiyah and HTI is a sign that there is a strong political agenda behind mass mobilization. However, the ultimate goal of applying Islamic Sharia will never fade from the religious movements of Islamist groups.

Marsilius von Inghen. Christliche Ethik für das Leben in der Welt

Marsilius of Inghen develops his concept of Christian ethics in his Commentary on the Sentences. He bases his teaching on the fundament of Aristotle’s philosophy: all human beings are able to act rationally, and therefore they are able to act morally. Against contemporary philosophical rationalisms Marsilius contends that criterion of what is good was settled by God in such an infallible way that any competitive concepts of the good and evil would be vane speculations of no real value for theology. God wants virtues so decisively that they are obligatory and natural for all humans. In accordance with the spirit of his times Marsilius distinguishes common virtues from the theological ones. Faith, hope and love differ from common virtues as they refer directly to God but they cooperate with them in that they direct man’s natural life. Marsilius focuses on the question of how love to God determines the true goodness of virtues as contrasted to the goodness of the natural virtues that can be seen in actions of Pagans; those were perceived by St Augustine as seeming virtues. Marsilius choses the middle way and he acknowledges that virtues of men who do not know and love God, are virtues with God’s aid. All that can be classified as moral depends on God. Nonetheless, those and only those natural actions that provide us with authentic knowledge of God and love to Him, can be called salutary. Marsilius was a disciple of John Buridan and knew his thesis that the will and reason, without God’s influence, can produce moral actions. Marsilius did not mention Buridan but he, though evaluating his thoughts as profound and acceptable, rejected his principal thesis: nature is not able to self-realization because sins have not left it untouched. True morality requires relation to God and it becomes actual by the love of God. The space, in which this realization takes place, is natural human life. Marsilius upholds St Augustine’s notion of ordo caritatis – its direct source is probably Peter Lombard. The love of God develops in society. Marsilius defends his concept of God’s love acting within the world against the variety of objections. Christian ethics realizes within particular social structures and necessary compromises. Ordo caritatis does not pass by the world, by contrast it establishes its order. Marsilius is not a monk like theologian, instead he is a secular theologian; and this can be perceived above all in his concept of Christian ethics that is worldly biased.

Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception. Vol. 15: Kalam–Lectio Divina

<i>Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception.</i> Vol. 15: <i>Kalam–Lectio Divina</i>

El cuerpo de Eva en Tomás de Aquino

The body of Eva in Thomas Aquinas The constitution of the first female body or the body of Eva presents several physical and metaphysical problems, problems that have gone through the centuries and reach the present, generating social and cultural consequences for women. The non-existence of parents demands from Aquino answers that go beyond the anthropological and biological and lead to the search of philosophical answers intertwined with the theological ones. Thomas Aquinas provides rational answers although the background is of faith, and even, with literal interpretations of the Sacred Scriptures now abandoned. The Aquinate makes an intellectual effort to find answers in a rational field because the matter of the body of the first woman brings difficulties for its elucidation and understanding. As in other parts of his extensive work, Thomas Aquinas, follows the biological and physical works of Aristotle. Although the Aristotelian background is in line with Christian thought, Aquinas shows his extraordinary capacity for synthesis between the faith received and reason argued, between revelation (and especially the Holy Scriptures in this case) and the principles of reason.

“Ni dieux ni maitre”. Anarquismo y teología política

Partiendo de una sugerencia de Carl Schmitt, el artículo quiere investigar la ambigua relación entre teología y pensamiento político libertario. De hecho, si, por un lado, los anarquistas estuvieron entre los primeros en denunciar la analogía entre los modernos conceptos jurídico-políticos y los conceptos teológicos, por el otro, no consiguieron desmarcarse del todo del legado de la teología. Se enseñará, pues, cómo los teóricos libertarios quedan presos en las mallas de la teología, que re-proponen como creencia iluminista en el Hombre y en el progreso de la humanidad. En este panorama, la figura de Max Stirner es excepcional. Este no solo desvela la faceta cristiana del liberalismo moderno, sino que pone en entredicho la subjetividad del creyente en tanto base del proceso de secularización. Así se examinará la propuesta stirneriana de una política de la profanación para una salida de la teología política.

Otra vuelta de tuerca. Notas para un refinamiento de los conceptos y discursos críticos sobre “terrorismo islámico” y violencia política

El conflicto actual entre mundo occidental y el “terrorismo islamista” es algo que va mucho más allá del problema que supone la violencia —trágica y dolorosa— que ejercen y en la que se basan estos grupos. Efectivamente, la brecha que divide a estos grupos de nuestras sociedades es civilizatoria: se sustenta en diferentes y antagónicas propuestas sobre cómo debe organizarse la vida social. En este sentido, el choque es entre una modernidad occidental y un modelo de organización social —también moderno— que no separa lo político, lo religioso, o social, etc. Sin embargo, los conceptos políticos occidentales “secularizados” siguen siendo de corte teológico: de aquí un choque de “civilizaciones”, entendidas como diferentes modelos de organización de lo social y de lo político­.

The Metatheoretical Study of the Tourism System of the Volgograd Region and the Study of Preferences of Consumers of Regional Tourism Products

The metatheoretical study of the tourism system of the Volgograd Region of the Russian Federation made it possible to determine the system characteristics of tourist relations of the region. Currently, an excursion type of tourism, in particular, war-historical and theological ones, is the main one in the region; this type is organized by two types of tourism products: tours (overnight) and excursions (without staying for the night). The focused interview with an expert group revealed the components and elements of the tourism product "excursion tour", which were grouped and listed in a questionnaire to assess the importance of each component and each element of the tourism product among consumers. 332 people divided into 6 age-sex groups took part in the survey. The survey results enable to form a methodology for the integrated assessment of regional tourism products: average estimates of the importance of each component and element of the tourism product for each group of respondents have been calculated; all the elements of the tourism product have been divided into two types (impression-forming and consumption-covering), to which essentially different evaluation scales are applicable.

El hombre "bajo todo aspecto pensable". La antropología de Josef Pieper

Pieper’s originality and interest in contemporary thought are to be found above all in his having revitalized precious insights about the true being of man contained in classical wisdom. The structure of the philosophical act and the human spirit share a fundamental characteristic, that both are open to the whole of being. Thus, Pieper suggests that authentic philosohizing must consider all aspects of a question, including theological ones.

LAJBNIC O MEMORIJI I RAZUMU

This paper is intended to give an account of the problem of memory as presented in the philosophy of G. W. Leibniz. Leibniz’s understanding of memory is here analyzed with respect to the problem of knowledge, that is, to the way in which memory can have an impact on workings of reason. The analysis is followed by a comparison of Leibniz’s and Descartes’s accounts of memory, with a focus on the scope in which Leibniz was influenced by Descartes. I conclude that for Leibniz, as opposed to Descartes, memory is a necessary and integral part of knowledge, and therefore of the methodology of sciences as well. In this respect, the analysis also presents Leibniz’s understanding of two possible formalizations of memory: one given with the art of memory, and the other being the part of the philosophical language. In both cases memory is considered close to logic and connected with it. I argue that the second formalization, the one given in philosophical language, is more useful for the interpretation of how Leibniz understands memory, while the project of formal and symbolic language is a kind of precondition for the formal account of process of thinking in general – in terms of validating knowledge as certain and reliable, as well as in terms of acquiring new knowledge. Such findings, in turn, prove that the problem of memory in Leibniz’s philosophy is primarily to be seen as a problem of methodology and epistemology. In other words, they prove that other aspects of Leibniz’s concept of memory, such as metaphysical or theological ones, are to be interpreted on the basis of methodological meaning of this concept.

“My Conscience is Clear” (1 Cor 4:4). The Potential Relevance of Paul’s Understanding of Conscience for Today’s Fundamental Moral Theology

The objective of this paper is to examine the Pauline understanding of conscience, with the view of gaining an inspiration from it for the contemporary discussion on the foundations of the Christian ethics. The meaning Paul attaches to it depends on the context (mainly in Rom and 1 and 2 Cor), ranging from the personal to the communal one. Conscience holds the secrets of human hearts, evaluates concrete circumstances, and discerns right from wrong. It enjoys special relationship with the Holy Spirit, who gives it credibility. Paul’s teaching on conscience extends beyond the personal to the communal. One of the most important inspirations we can draw from him is the one concerning the proper relationship between various members of the ecclesia: those appointed to hold authority, and those supposed to submit to it. How should we balance the communal demands and personal freedom of every baptized member of the community? What is common and what is personal? Despite a multitude of cultural differences and real-life problems in the world of Saint Paul and our own, a careful lecture of his writings may stimulate our debates on the foundations of Christian ethics in a positive way and ensure that they do remain the theological ones.

Muḥajababes. Meet the new fashionable, attractive and extrovert Muslim woman. A study of the ḥijābpractice among individualized young Muslim women in Denmark

This paper examines how individualization changes young Muslims women’s interpretation of the headscarf as a religious tradition in their everyday life. Based on observation and indepth interviews this paper studies the reflections and considerations that underlie the women's choice to wear the headscarf (ḥijāb), the message they want to send about themselves as a fashionable and attractive headscarf-wearing woman living in Denmark, and last but not least how their interpretations of the headscarf as a religious tradition differ from the theological ones. This study concludes that the individualization changes young Muslim women's interpretation of the ḥijāb by that their choice of wearing a ḥijāb arises not only from their willingness to commit to Islam, but to a greater degree from a desire to express beauty, maturity and individuality as a woman. The hijab gives them the ability to express their beauty as Muslim women, giving them the ability to signal openness, which, according to their beliefs, provides them with easier access to the majority society. Last but not least the ḥijāb becomes a matter of interpretation, not based on the traditional Islamic understandings of the ḥijāb, but on individual reflections and considerations that are largely influenced by contextual conditions characterized among other things by choice, personal autonomy, and authenticity

Las fábulas de Garcilaso: ¿alegoría, historia o ficción en los Comentarios reales?

El trabajo explora la inclusión de relatos—a modo de ejemplos, parábolas y fábulas—en el tejido histórico-narrativo de los Comentarios reales del cronista mestizo Garcilaso de la Vega. Propone, en tal sentido, la deuda con la filosofía neoplatónica que busca verdades escondidas en las fábulas de los gentiles, es decir, los mitos greco-latinos, en los que cree encontrar verdades o sentidos escondidos, de distinto calibre, sea este el sentido literal, moral o teologal que estos relatos incrustados entrañen. Así, en un contrapunto entre las dos partes de los Comentarios reales, los mitos incaicos y otras historias son analizadas como fábulas clásicas y neoplatónicas, es decir, preñadas de diversos sentidos, sugeridos por su autor a sus lectores de todos los tiempos.

By the Grace of God: Francoist Spain and the Sacred Roots of Political Imagination by William Viestenz

Reviewed by: By the Grace of God: Francoist Spain and the Sacred Roots of Political Imagination by William Viestenz Nathan Richardson Viestenz, William. By the Grace of God: Francoist Spain and the Sacred Roots of Political Imagination. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2014. 223 pp. Franco’s recourse to the symbology of rule by divine right is familiar. Viestenz’s investigation into this mechanic via a series of sophisticated close readings of the work of five canonical Spanish and Catalan novelists and poets examines the mechanisms and effects of this recourse to make a case for the role of the sacred in the very logic of political order, be it fascist, nationalist, or otherwise. Viestenz begins with a brief review of the Franco regime’s consolidation of sovereignty by way of a sacred symbolism founded in creative historiography. He traces the roots of this historiography to nineteenth century (Balmes, Cortés, Clarín) and Generation of ‘98 thinkers who employ rationalist discourse to wrest religion from the exclusive realm of the sacred and then attach it to political machinations. In their writings political questions become theological ones. More insidiously, dissenters become outsiders (anti-Spain) and a threat to eternal essences (sacred Spain) which then demand violence via scapegoating for sustenance. The sacred, thereby, is converted into a potent tool of political organization long before Franco appropriates it to forge divergent Nationalist groups into what Viestenz calls a “single sacred communion” (30). By the late 1940s, the aftermath of the Second World War seals the fate of fascism and makes an embrace of Catholicism and recourse to the sacred the only viable discursive option for preserving Francoism. At the same time, the regime never relinquishes its monopoly on frequent and “nearly incomprehensible displays of violence” (32). In Viestenz’s extensive use of Rene Girard’s theory of violence and the sacred, the two means are inseparable. Viestenz turns early to Girard in his first literary analysis of his study, a reading of Catalán author Joan Sales’s novel Incerta gloria. Like those to follow, Viestenz’s reading is close, challenging, and tightly intertwined with likewise carefully and deeply considered theoretical work. Over the course of the study Viestenz will engage with the ideas of Giorgio Agamben, Jacques Lacan, Henri Bergson, Rudolf Otto, Nietzsche, Hegel, and Heidegger among many others. His are not mere passing references but extensive reviews and analysis of their theories which can challenge the reader to keep up. Lengthy untranslated passages in Castilian, Catalán, and even Galician, moreover, demand an audience engaged in a broader understanding of the literature of Spain proposed by Joan Ramon Resina and championed by Viestenz as Iberian Studies. In the case of Sales’s Incerta gloria, a novel begun in 1948 and retouched by the author over the course of the Franco dictatorship, Viestenz understands it as registering the need during the dictatorship for consecrated symbols that can mobilize political will in [End Page 552] order to establish and sustain the logic of regime continuity. Such symbols, however, rely on violence, which in Sales’s novel manifests itself in the multipronged destruction of Catalonia and the Second Republic enacted by actions both fascist and anarchist, both groups driven by a similar obsession with returning Spain to some mythical holy state. In the face of such violence, the novel’s protagonists turn to religion as a “result of an ontological aporia that requires metaphysical truth” (46). Religion is not rational, merely necessary—like the violence it produces and requires. Juan Goytisolo’s Reivindicación del Conde don Julián continues this exploration of the dark consequences of a state’s need to turn to exclusionary violence for sustenance. Rather than succumbing to violence, in Goytisolo’s novel the protagonist wrests the very principle of violence from the regime he so despises. Over the course of the novel he becomes the sovereign, symbolically infecting, invading, and desecrating the homeland previously defiled by the enemy. Together with Sales’s novel, these works show “that sovereignty based on a victimary mechanism functions like a mathematical formula of recursion where immolation and exclusion are programmed into the very reiteration of power” (75). The process reveals the...

General system of human knowledge in The Encyclopedia of Diderot and D’Alembert as a model of a systematic organization in the Enlightenment

The article describes the classification schemes of the main sections of The Encyclopédie (Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers edited by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert). A detailed analysis of the structure and content of classification schemes has been made, which gives reason to conclude that The Encyclopédie has begun to count on the development of the organization of knowledge systems other than the earlier theological ones.