Theological Realism Research Articles

Tradition as ‘Formative Environment’: Congar and Christian Formation

AbstractAlthough the theology of Tradition of the Dominican Yves Congar was highly influential in drafting the Dogmatic Constitution Dei Verbum at the Second Vatican Council, postconciliar debates neglected some of the most original aspects of this theology. This article proposes a retrieval of the notion of Tradition as ‘milieu éducatif’, advanced by the theologian in Tradition and Traditions, as a valuable resource for contemporary discussions on Christian formation. It intends to highlight how Congar connected the theological realities of revelation and its transmission by the Church with the concrete practice of Christian life. This notion is, then, put in conversation with contemporary Christian thinkers who have reflected on the practical aspects of Christian formation, chiefly James K.A. Smith. This dialogue aims to show the relevance of Congar’s notion to current discussions. While the theology of Tradition exposed by the French Dominican can be completed and specified by current proposals, it can also offer a new theological depth to those proposals.

CELEBRATING THE SACRAMENT OF MARRIAGE DURING FAMILY LIFE. A CATHOLIC-DOGMATIC PERSPECTIVE

This paper presents the question of the dynamics of the sacrament of marriage arising from the wedding vows according to the rite celebrated in the Catholic liturgy. The aim of the paper is to explain what it means to celebrate the sacrament of marriage every day, not only on the wedding day. The theme is developed based on the concept of ritual as a phenomenon involving the activities of introducing a person to a new state of life in society. According to researchers, ritual perpetuates certain values in culture and human consciousness. In the light of theological sources, in Christian rituals, marriage is a theological reality. This means that the sacrament of marriage involves the rite of a man and a woman making four promises concerning their future life together and including their relationship with God. These pledges are a promise of fidelity, love, honesty and accompanying the other person for the rest of their lives, which means ‘dialogue of life’. Sacramentality, on the other hand, signifies a guarantee of access to God’s grace, which is necessary to build a family community according to the Gospel. The sacrament of marriage appears here as a Christian ritual celebrated that commemorates every moment of life together, with references to the grace given by God. Looking at the sacrament of marriage as a ritual makes it possible to see two dimensions of the dynamics of the marital relationship: a horizontal relationship, involving the dialogue between the spouses, and a vertical relationship, involving the dialogue of the spouses with God. Viewed in this way, Christian marriage is a reality unfolding in the individual lives of persons, as well as socially and ecclesiastically.

The Voice of the Chaplains in MCAST Concerning the Young, the Chaplains and the chaplaincy, and Groups

Little data exists on the work conducted by chaplaincies in the Maltese educational system, and less so about chaplaincy work occurring on campuses around post-secondary institutions. The declining numbers of churchgoers implies that less people are active in the pastoral work based around the same settings. It also highlights the need for chaplaincies to be more relevant to the needs of its members. This study highlights the need for using a multidimensional approach when working with students and to incorporate the social sciences as a path leading to pastoral praxis, to better respond to the fluid and dynamic theological realities found within a chaplaincy setting. A grounded theory approach was utilized since this is the preferred method for theory building. Since the aim was to listen to what the participants, based on their pastoral experiences both in MCAST and in other pastoral settings, had to say, a theoretical statement was then constructed that incorporated the salient points of the pastoral and educative work of the Salesians of Don Bosco at MCAST.

A tale of two Martins: Is Luther to blame for Heidegger's destruction of ontotheology?

AbstractMuch has been written about Heidegger's indebtedness to Luther in developing Being and Time. Recently Duane Armitage has claimed that since Heidegger is the “root to all continental philosophy of religion and postmodern theology,” and since his “disdain for onto‐theology is rooted in Luther, . . . essentially all postmodern theological thinking is fundamentally Lutheran.” Clearly, both Martins de‐emphasize theology's penchant for abstract metaphysics and look instead to recover the facticity of concrete lived Christian existence. But surface similarities should not occlude what profoundly differentiates the two, for the Martins depart radically in what they thought thinking did and what the truth‐conditions of their respective discourses were. Luther who assumed theological realism was concerned with how human beings really stand in relation to God, while Heidegger brackets such questions in favor of a description of the phenomenological shape of the Christian life. I employ elementary model theory in order to provide greater precision and accuracy in evaluating the stark semantic differences between their respective approaches.

Shifting Identities of Kashmiri Women

Secularism and Islamic Law are two of the most important factors in understanding the socio-religious aspects of Muslim society in non-Muslim nations. When it comes to Muslim Personal Laws, in India, a Muslim may choose to follow state law, which is based on religious law, which demonstrates that the state is trying to go in a more liberal manner. Half-widow has been a significant cause of discomfort in Kashmiri society, state and federal authorities, human rights, activists, and religious ulama for a long time, ever since the war began there. A search for their identity, survival, and safety was unnecessary as long as their spouses were part of mainstream society or culture. They are neither a married lady nor a widowed woman. Zoon's (one of the Half-widows from Jammu and Kashmir's district Srinagar) struggle that changeover her from wife to Half-widow and subsequently from Half-widows to widow would help us understand the crises of changing identities. Though the Half-widow problem is not easily comprehended, it may be grasped by examining the different societal ramifications that impact economic and theological reality. The purpose of this study is to examine how Islamic and State Laws are intricately woven together to ensure the operation of the Indian Muslim society.

“The True Kabbalah”: A Note on Martin Luther's Interpretation of Galatians 3:13

Luther's striking 1535 interpretation of Galatians 3:13 is not a theological effusion hung loosely on the text but a careful exegetical exercise in “Scripture interpreting Scripture” in which each key move is authorized by the pressure of other texts within the canon. For Luther, therefore, the “literal sense” of Galatians is not accessible apart from its entanglement in a canonical interpretive network. Further, the reality of which the text speaks is discovered only by entering into this complex intra-canonical web of hermeneutical interactions. Scripture's words therefore relate to theological reality not by extrinsic reference but quasi-sacramentally, following the pattern of Luther's theology of the means of grace.

The Gospel of Reconciliation and the Promise of a New Identity

AbstractReconciliation is a fundamentally theological reality grounded in the being, work, and aims of the triune God. In light of this, how ought the reconciling ministry of Jesus inform and shape the ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:17‐21) to which Christians are called? In this article, I argue that a sufficiently robust gospel of reconciliation has dynamic, identity‐shaping power, informing a rewarding mission and ministry of reconciliation. My classical theological approach will use “promise” to interrelate gospel, reconciliation, and identity, situating reconciliation within the overarching biblical narrative plot. In doing so, I will distinguish my proposal from a progressive Christian “alter‐globalism” approach, identifying and constructively critiquing the latter’s shortcomings. These include truncating the reconciliation and the flourishing life to an immanent vision, reducing reconciliation to concepts and tasks of justice work, insufficiently connecting reconciliation to its larger soteriological framework, and failing to use the gospel for identity formation.

Is There a Body without Flesh?

Abstract This paper investigates the theme of sense and nonsense as it pertains to the phenomenological problem of “flesh.” It raises two sets of questions: 1) What is the relation of flesh to body and body to flesh? It is possible to admit the materiality of the corporeal condition while maintaining the phenomenological privilege of flesh and life? Or must one deny the privilege of flesh in favor of a more moderate “balance” of flesh and body? 2) How does the phenomenality of flesh and body go together with the theological reality of the Incarnation of the Word? How is the passage into theology effected in phenomenology when it is a question of body and flesh? The article objects to Emmanuel Falque’s interpretation of Michel Henry, enters into recent scholarship relating phenomenology and cognitive science, and questions whether incarnation can be adequately described by a phenomenology in which perception is ultimate.

Evaluating Warfare Myths about Science and Christianity and How These Myths Promote Scientism

Many people assume that there has been ceaseless conflict between science and Christianity. I argue that the real conflict has been between scientism and religion. Scientism is the view that only the sciences generate knowledge or rational belief. Scientism, as typically articulated, entails the opinion that reliable belief about divinity (theological realism) is impossible. I debunk four historic science–Christianity conflict myths and show how they have promoted scientism. These four science–religion myths function as part of a larger warfare narrative about science and Christianity. This misleading warfare thesis often comes packaged with an alternative anti-theistic “myth” in the anthropological sense—in this case, a worldview-shaping narrative that awakens the imagination to interpret the world in scientistic and non-theistic ways. I call this the scientistic warfare myth and explore its major flaws.

On Roger Pouivet’s Religious Exclusivism

In the contemporary discussion of religious diversity, religious exclusivism is a minority theory but well defended by some leading philosophers of religion like Alvin Plantinga. Recently, in his article, The Right to Believe that Only One Religion is True, published recently in “Philosophy of Religion: Analytic Researches”, Roger Pouivet has defended a version of religious exclusivism based on the assumption of theological realism. In this article, I discuss Pouivet’s religious exclusivism with a dual purpose. On the one hand, accepting the premises of theological realism, I agree with Pouivet’s view that religious exclusivism is not a blatant expression of arrogance about religious diversity but a plausible theory that can be justified in the light of the contemporary debate on epistemology of religious disagreement. On the other hand, I sustain that theological realism supports religious exclusivism as well as religious inclusivism, but the latter is a more consistent theory, capable of avoiding the soteriological problems raised by the first. In this perspective, I suggest that religious inclusivism is properly supported by natural theology insofar as the latter relates to divine attributes which are common to various religious traditions. Accordingly, natural theology must not be reduced, like Pouivet thinks, to a philosophical theology that assumes the immediate rationality of religious beliefs, guaranteed by the way they are formed. On the contrary, I suggest that natural and philosophical theology can work together, in their distinction, to rationally justify theistic faith and the belief that only one religion is true. In the light of the aforesaid one can believe that the issue of the correlation between philosophical theology and natural theology has sound methodological significance in various contexts of studies in philosophy of religion.

Arguments Against Realism and the Transcendence of Science

Realism is questioned from two sides, the philosophy of science and religion. First, the “underdetermination of theories by data” and the revision of the “miracle argument” make it necessary to revise scientific realism. Second, the claim that a realistic interpretation of belief contradicts its religious character questions the consistency of theological realism. Both discussions show that we have to further develop realism. I propose to consider truth, meaning, experience, and transcendence as creative characteristics of a realistic thought. They enable us to make and receive meaning for facts.

O catolicismo entre a tradição e a reinvenção: novas comunidades, leigos consagrados e vida eremítica na Arquidiocese de Belo Horizonte

O presente artigo tem como objetivo pensar a diversidade das expressões de consagração que ocorrem no catolicismo romano contemporaneamente e na Arquidiocese de Belo Horizonte, e que se encontram no compartilhamento dos espaços eclesiais entre formas novas de consagração, como as Novas Comunidades, e as antigas formas de consagração atualizadas na contemporaneidade, como a consagração laical e a vida eremítica. Apontam para expressões diferentes da ação apostólica e de compreensão do catolicismo, assim como da organização institucional. Assim sendo, discutir-se-á, inicialmente, a diversidade que compõe o catolicismo hodierno; em seguida, tecer-se-á considerações sobre o estatuto das novas formas de consagração, sobretudo, as Novas Comunidades, diferenciando-as de outras formas de consagração. Por fim, apresentar-se-ão algumas destas expressões de maneira concreta, expondo, brevemente, sua história, carisma e ação apostólica. A conclusão aponta para a percepção de uma lógica construtiva das experiências religiosas na relação entre catolicismo e realidades culturais/religiosas/filosóficas/teológicas circundantes, presentes nas diferentes formas de consagração, assim como para a existência de certa porosidade entre diferentes grupos contemporâneos, que constroem sentidos por meio de ressignificações. Para esta pesquisa, trabalhou-se a partir da fenomenologia da religião, com técnicas de coleta de informações pautadas em referenciais bibliográficos e digitais, além de entrevistas não estruturadas.

Quine’s Ontology and the Islamic Tradition

Analytic theologians seem to unreservedly prioritise a realist view in the way they approach theological dogmas. I have previously argued that this particular type of realist methodological approach that is adopted by most analytic theologians is inconsistent with the Islamic tradition. I demonstrated that this inconsistency lies between two primary theses which constitute realism and an absolutely transcendent and ineffable God of the Islamic tradition. I had established how each of these theses proved responsible, in different ways, for divesting the Islamic God of His absolute transcendence. In this paper I determine why this is the case. I primarily seek to explicate the underlying reason for why metaphysical (theological) realism proves to be responsible for stripping the Islamic God of His absolute transcendence. This would involve being able to stipulate, somewhat accurately, the precise source of the accentuated inconsistency between metaphysical (theological) realism and the Islamic understanding of an absolutely transcendent and ineffable God. The exact source of this inconsistency, I shall argue, is grounded in Quine’s ontological theses which underlie much of what metaphysical realism imports into the domain of analytic theology.

The Surety of God's Promises: A Theological Interpretation of Genesis 22

The account in Genesis 22 of Abraham's binding and near sacrifice of his son Isaac is one of the best known passages in all of the Old Testament and presents the reader with a perfect example of the difficulty of achieving the “correct” interpretation of a given text. This essay attempts to offer a fresh interpretation of Genesis 22 that closely attends to the text, moves beyond purely descriptive objectives, wrestles with the questions that the text itself raises, and is motivated by theological concerns. This process begins by placing this text within the Abrahamic narrative of Genesis. In the final assessment, it is argued that when theological concerns are given a voice, this text depicts at least three theological realities. First, this text shows that Yhwh is a God who allows his servants to experience trials. Second, it demonstrates the nature of true faith through the example of Abraham. The faith that Abraham demonstrated is exemplary precisely because of the challenges that he faced. And third, it displays—perhaps surprisingly to the modern reader—the faithfulness of God, for this episode shows that God's choice of Abraham is not arbitrary. Moreover, Genesis 22 demonstrates that when God makes promises, he must be faithful to keep those promises.

From Whom Was Humanity Saved? The Ransom Soteriology of Origen's Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans

AbstractThis work examines the soteriology of Origen's Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, with special focus upon the way that he uses ‘ransom’ imagery to explain the saving death of Christ. Origen did not assert any ‘rights’ of the devil, and his use of ‘devil's ransom’ imagery was meant to be interpreted metaphorically, and not in a strictly literal fashion. This becomes evident when the ransom texts are interpreted alongside of Origen's surrounding discussion of evil and Christ's saving activity. Such a reading shows that Origen's soteriology employed both dramatic symbols and rationally grounded analysis in order to convey the mystery of Christ's saving work. Despite its metaphorical nature, however, Origen's presentation of the ‘devil's ransom’ abounds in theological realism and contains enduring soteriological truth.

To Be Cared For: The Power of Conversion and Foreignness of Belonging in an Indian Slum, by Nathaniel Roberts

What does it mean for Dalits living in India’s urban slums to convert to Pentecostal Christianity today? The literature on Dalit conversions generally ranges from vicious denunciation from majoritarian nationalists to an ambivalent disapproving tolerance from elite secular and even scholarly circles. Whether religious conversions are understood to be a result of dangerous foreign influence or as violent irreparable rupture from an authentic cultural selfhood, the realities and perspectives of the converts themselves, who are overwhelmingly from among the poorest in Indian society, are often ignored. Eschewing these dominant representations of conversions as external agency or internal rupture and exposing the common assumptions that undergird them, Nathaniel Roberts argues in this timely, Chennai-based ethnography that the main draw of Christianity in the slum was its “ability to mediate endogenous moral contradictions . . . that covertly pitted slum dwellers against one another.” As such, “slum Christianity integrated the slum community as a whole irrespective of religious affiliation” (11).The main moral contradiction internal to the slum that Roberts focuses on involves an idealized moral discourse on belonging and those excluded from it. For the slum residents, being human and belonging meant mutuality: to care for others and to be cared for (78). The social difference between the “rich” outsiders and the “poor” residents—the preferred vocabulary of difference by the residents of the nearly homogenous Dalit slum—results from the consistent lack of care shown by the outsiders. Roberts argues that this deliberate usage of class idiom “is not merely a euphemism for caste [but] a theoretical challenge to it” (63). This explanation of the predicament of those suffering was, however, not extended to women in the slum who either faced marital strife or were debt ridden—both devastating situations for the women who were dependent economically on their husbands and socially on networks of lending/borrowing with other women (109). It was these women isolated from care who primarily converted to Pentecostal Christianity, whose god Jesus was known in Anbu Nagar to specialize in issues faced by women. Moving through the concentric circles of dispossession, from the dalit slum to its women residents, Roberts sets the frame to draw out the micropolitical significance of conversion and turns his attention to the assumptions—scholarly and popular—that make it otherwise invisible.Roberts argues that a standard view that conversion involving mutually exclusive identities leads to violent social conflict—the bedrock view behind India’s anticonversion laws fiercely advocated by Hindu nationalists and upheld by the Supreme court—ultimately rests on “secular modern understanding of religion as culture” with its functionalist Durkheimian echoes (9, 116). The residents of Anbu Nagar understood religion not in this reified sense of cultural identity or social function but in terms of the reality of deities and their ability to provide this-worldly benefits. It is this difference between the theological realism of slum residents—Christian and Hindu—and the nominalism of the anthropologist, Roberts argues, that explains the discrepancy between the expected communal strife of the elite national imagination and the lack thereof in Anbu Nagar (160).For the women of Anbu Nagar caught in its moral fault lines, Pentecostalism provided two sources of power, one in the form of pastoral care sensitized to their concerns, and a new social network of their own making, a prayer network. With this account of slum Christianity suturing internal moral contradictions on its own terms Roberts challenges existing accounts of Pentecostalism, arguing that in this context it was marked not by discontinuity but rather a message that “intensified slum dwellers’ existing moral understanding and radicalized it” (243). The final chapter identifies elements in the slum that are unique to its Christian residents: a rhetoric of future millennial revolutionary justice for all humanity that was seamlessly connected to a discourse of divine alleviation of everyday suffering. These two sections stand in an interesting contrast next to each other. Counterintuitively, Roberts notes that the uniquely Christian elements do not feature in the converts’ own accounts as to what drew them to Christianity, and he warns against “resorting to the explanatory deus exmachina of ‘hidden motives’” (241). A fair warning, but some readers might find the tension between these continuities and discontinuities unresolved. Positively, this can lead the reader to reflect on other possibilities left unexplored in the book.To Be Cared For is a brilliant synthesis that will challenge scholars on religion and culture and caste. It makes visible the thought, hopes, and actions of the dispossessed among the dispossessed while simultaneously mounting a devastating critique of the hopelessly stale yet hegemonic assumptions that have served to obscure and reproduce caste/class inequalities.

Jewels Set in Stone: Hindu Temple Recipes in Medieval Cōḻa Epigraphy

Scholarship abounds on contemporary Hindu food offerings, yet there is scant literature treating the history of food in Hinduism beyond topics of food restrictions, purity, and food as medicine. A virtually unexplored archive is Hindu temple epigraphy from the time that was perhaps the theological height of embodied temple ritual practices, i.e., the Cōḻa period (ninth-thirteenth centuries CE). The vast archive of South Indian temple inscriptions allows a surprising glimpse into lived Hinduism as it was enacted daily, monthly, and annually through food offerings cooked in temple kitchens and served to gods residing in those temples. Through analyzing thousands of Tamiḻ inscriptions from the tenth through the fourteenth centuries CE, I have gleaned information concerning two distinct material cultural facets. (1) The practice of writing these rare but remarkable recipes which themselves are culinary textual artifacts has allowed us to access (2) Hindu food offerings of the past, also complex, sensory historical artifacts. In exploring these medieval religious recipes for the first time, I aim to show: the importance that food preparation held for temple devotees, the theological reality of feeding the actual bodies of the gods held in these temples, and the originality of the Cōḻa inscriptional corpus in bringing about a novel culinary writing practice that would be adopted more extensively in the Vijayanagara period (fourteenth-seventeenth centuries CE). This study, a radical new attempt at using historical sources inscribed in stone, sheds new light on medieval Hindu devotees’ priorities of serving and feeding god. The examination of this under-explored archive can help us move our academic analysis of Hindu food offerings beyond the hitherto utilized lenses of economics, sociology, and anthropology. Further, it contributes to our understanding of medieval temple worship, early culinary studies, and the history of food in India.

An ontology of universals and the convergence of theological and scientific realisms: a Peircean pragmatist approach

Contemporary and classical Theological realism seems to converge with an ontology that worries about how to describe the world in terms of formal structures, or, to connect with the philosophical tradition, universals. When it comes to the question whether the objects of a faith have an ontological consistency (and how it does so) a structuralist wonders how a feasible account can be achieved by the means of our possible inquiries, as for example, it is in the case of mathematical structures who lack phenomenical character. The realist, though, faces the problem of accounting for the entities beyond the phenomenical character and still pervasive to our conceptual ammunition. A universal, thus, lacks phenomenical character and nonetheless is necessary in order to make sense of our best scientific theories in the extent of accounting a One-over-many behaviour that is necessary if induction truly works. Universals then, are real in the sense that they are independent of our idiosyncratic ways of conceive reality, they reflect elements of recalcitrant experience. Drawing on the work of the pragmatistic realism of Charles Sanders Peirce, I want to point out a similar explanation of universals with regards to faith and the description of the ontological furniture of the elements of religious experience. They indeed appear to claim for fundamental human experiences that eventually can crop out even from common sense and instinct, they will appear if we inquire well enough and long enough in the quest for understanding the reality of God and the elements of philosophical theology. Scepticism about philosophical theology along with theological anti-realism and nominalism relinquish to engage with the metaphysical aspects of a faith. As opposed to that trend, I aim in this essay to address some fundamental premisses necessary to tackle the debate properly.

The Hypostatic Union as Normative over the Relation of God’s Self-Revelation and Human Cognition in the Thought of T.F. Torrance

T.F. Torrance held the hypostatic union to be the normative instance of divine–human relationship. The structure of the relation between the divine nature and the human nature as delineated in the hypostatic union is the archetype to which all other theological loci must correspond. This essay argues that Torrance applied this Christocentric approach to formulate his own theological realism in which God’s self-revelation through the Son and by the Spirit both shapes and is cognized by the rational structure of human understanding, preserving the distinct integrity of human cognition and divine revelation in theological knowledge. This constitutes a conscious attempt on the part of Torrance to reverse the synthesis of rational structure and material content in Immanuel Kant’s transcendental idealism.

Third-Generation Holocaust Representation: Trauma, History, and Memory by Victoria Aarons, Alan L. Berger

BOOK REVIEWS 215 transcendence in sacramental theology, questions that might give some readers pause. Nevertheless, despite this tension, Potts achieves his aim of emphasizing the profound significance of moral decisions and ethical acts, the things we do and say in the here and now, as theological realities. In doing so, he further adds to the conversation about McCarthy’s achievements as a writer, and also calls upon Christianity to rethink its understanding of suffering and salvation, its posture toward others, and ultimately, its identity as the body of Christ. Todd Edmondson Milligan College Third-Generation Holocaust Representation: Trauma, History, and Memory Victoria Aarons and Alan L. Berger Northwestern University Press, 2017. ix + 263 pp. $99.95 cloth, $34.95 paperback. Victoria Aarons and Alan L. Berger’s Third-Generation Holocaust Representation : Trauma, History, and Memory joins a growing body of studies that critically engages with third-generation Holocaust writing, a field that is becoming an increasingly important area of inquiry, not only due to the number of literary accounts published by this generation but also with the disappearance of the last Holocaust witnesses. While the main focus of this book is on writers who are the grandchildren of either Holocaust survivors or refugees from the Holocaust, the authors also offer a carefully historicized situation of these writers in relation to the literature of the first and second generations. One of the key challenges of third generation writers, such as Nicole Krauss, Jonathan Safran Foer, Daniel Mendelsohn, and Julie Orringer, is to “attempt to capture memory and fill the ever-widening gap between those who directly suffered the events of the Holocaust and lived to recount their experiences and those for whom the particular history can only be imaginatively reconstructed from an approximation of that time and place” (4). In trying to bridge the gap between the past and the present, Marianne Hirsch’s well-known distinction between postmemory as familial and affiliative is crucial for the third generation, and as Aarons and Berger show, they exemplify both of these aspects of postmemory in their writing as they engage with a memory that Religion & Literature 216 has been passed down from previous generations at the same time that they share it with their own generation. Although the Holocaust remains hard to understand for the third generation , it nevertheless plays a significant role in the ways in which they define their identity. This tension between historical distance and cultural proximity also manifests itself in the literary productions of these writers, as they have to become “literary detectives,” who “must go in active search of the stories from the past and the challenges to personal agency that they present” (15). Storytelling is important in this process, not only in imaginatively reconstructing a distant past, but also due to its centrality in Jewish religious and literary traditions. Midrash and lamentation often provided the first generation with narrative tropes to “enact rupture, disjunction, incoherence, confusion, ellipsis, and disintegration as a means of filling in the gaps in perception” (48). For third-generation novelists, however, theological concerns, including the Holocaust as a challenge for “traditional Jewish theological responses to catastrophe, such as the promise of a World to Come and the belief that God intervenes in history” (111), have increasingly been transformed into ethical concerns. This also raises important questions about appropriate ways of representing the Holocaust and its horrors and mediating this experience for increasingly distant audiences. The third generation is not only invested in considering the past in their literary accounts but often engaged in the present as well, demonstrating, as Aarons and Berger put it, “an almost obsessive pattern of contemporizing the Holocaust, of negotiating the Holocaust as a parallel event to other, more contemporary tragedies” (35). The authors examine the reasons underlying the creation of these comparative contexts and conclude that this “is less to match or to join recent historical events with the brutalities and atrocities of the Holocaust but rather to create fitting conditions to return to the moral baseline, both the point of departure and the final measure of suffering” (36). This constitutes a significant rhetorical move as it suggests that rather than the Holocaust serving as a comparison...