Understanding Of Creation Research Articles

Маятник осмысления созданного

Маятник осмысления созданного

Mupasi as cosmic s(S)pirit: The universe as a community of life

Mupasi recalls the belief that humans form part of the community of life within the realm of the cosmic spirit. The assertion seems like a truism that requires no further enunciation. However, belief in the Creator-Spirit, a pneuma-theological understanding of creation, is relatively young in the Christian tradition. In Colossians 1:15-20, Christ is presented as instrumental to creation. Christian tradition therefore tends to present creation in Christological terms. The foundational belief in Spirit-Creator-God has not historically undergirded Christian belief about creation. The Christian faith could therefore benefit from ‘companion’ views of creation in terms of the cosmic spirit. Mupasi is understood as cosmic spirit, the axis of the universe apprehended as an organic whole. The web of life was brought into being, is sustained by, and inhabited by Mupasi. This retrieval has continuities and discontinuities with Christian belief as Spirit-Creator-God. It is presented here as a notion that calls the Christian faith back to its originating intuitions about creation. Mupasi is appropriated within a pneuma-theological framework that addressed a pressing issue of our time, the global ecological crisis. Mupasi presents an ecological critique that is meaningful for a renewed appreciation of community beyond an anthropocentric focus. The cosmic relatedness brings a renewed vision of the universe as a cosmic community of the s(S)pirit. The cultural and intellectual milieu of Mupasi is undergirded by a relational conception of reality. It provides a critical lens with implications for ecclesiology that challenges the church’s self-understanding and ways of being.

The Holy Spirit, Eco-Justice, and an African Lutheran Response to Ecological Peril

In response to the environmental degradation that is taking place right now in much of Africa—and in light of a traditional African emphasis on interdependence—this article seeks to provide an African Lutheran “eco-pneumatological” contribution to the ongoing conversation about eco-justice. To do so, it draws on classic Lutheran understandings of creation and grace, even as it calls for a more expanded—and more deeply biblical—understanding of the Holy Spirit's presence and activity throughout all of creation.

In Search of Innovation: Operating with the Future as Working Imperative

This essay explores innovation as a socially and culturally embedded practice, coming to life in correlation between structural organizational conventions and entrepreneurial performances. With an empirical departure, it describes a rational understanding of creation, and it identifies innovation as a retrospective concept that entails a “re-development” process from the final product to the initial idea. Furthermore, it (re)locates innovation “in the (organizational) box”, and discusses the prototype as an enchanting artifact that entraps and transmits an innovative sensation. The essay concludes that innovation, although put forward as a strategic vision of a prosperous future, rather seems to serve as an inducted fundamental, a working imperative, from which employees are to manage and negotiate their everyday work. The essay emerges from ethnographic fieldwork that is consciously organized as a productive collaboration involving both applied and academic dimensions.

Theological Thinking and the Reading of Scripture: An Auseinandersetzung with Susannah Ticciati

ABSTRACT This article considers the relationship between the Bible and theology via the work of Susannah Ticciati, who works with the Bible from the perspective of theology. An exposition of Ticciati's account of election and divine jealousy in Rom 9–11 and Deut 32 highlights the role that a postbiblical understanding of creation ex nihilo plays in Ticciati's readings of Scripture. Questions are raised about criteria whereby this sort of theological perspective can be recognized to illuminate, or to skew, a reading of the biblical text. The understanding of clean and unclean in relation to Israel's election in Lev 20 and Acts 10 is proposed as an issue that may pose difficulties for Ticciati's reading of election. Ticciati's work is seen to pose issues of theological hermeneutics in an unusually clear and interesting form.

Contemplating the Unthinkable: A Critique of Laudato Si’

본고는 두 부분으로 구성되어 있다. 서두에서는 「찬미받으소서」에 대한 개괄을 한다. 이 개괄에서, 오늘의 생태 위기에 대한 신학적이며, 전 세계적인 대담에 관한 프란치스코 교황 회칙의 혁명적 관심과 관여를 밝히고 있다. 본고의 첫 부분에서는, 찬미의 소명에 대한 개념과 인류 공동의 집이 갖고 있는 상호 연관성에 초점을 맞춘다. 이어서 생태적 회심의 개념과 종의 멸종에 대한 보다 면밀한 관찰을 소개한다. 이들 두 개념은 사실 근본적으로 연관되어 있지만, 회칙에서는 그러한 연관성이 온전히 개진된 것 같지는 않다는 것이 본고의 논지다. 그렇다면 생태적 회심은 현 시대에 적절한 영성일 뿐이다. 사도 바오로와 성 토마스의 성서적 예시에 근거해서 본다면, 이러한 회심의 첫 번째 단계는 생명의 사라짐을 눈으로 보고 손으로 직접 만지면서, 도저히 있을 수 없는 일을 적극적으로 숙고하는 일이다. 두 번째 부분은 첫 번째 부분보다 더 길며, 생태적 회심을 진지하게 받아들이려 시도하고 있다. 종교적 세계관을 확장하여, 우리의 신학적 고려에서 대개는 빠져 있는 사실, 즉, 이 세계의 70퍼센트는 바다로 덮여 있다는 사실을 누락시키지 않고 포함시키는 일이다. 이 두 번째 부분은 해양에 대한 개괄로 시작하는데, 해수면 상승에 초점을 맞춘 IPCC(Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 기후변화에 대한 정부 간 패널)의 보고서를 근거로 한다. 이러한 분석은 신학적 고찰로 이어지는데, 창세기와 창조의 이해에 대한 통찰을 제시한다. 이러한 통찰은 노아의 이야기를 이해하는 근거를 제공하고, 노아의 홍수와 현대의 해수면 상승에 대한 상대적 비교를 가능하게 하는 근거를 제공한다. 인간중심적 비(非)창조(un-creation)의 거대한 행위 앞에서, 현대의 노아나 이에 상응하는 기술적 ‘개량’(방주)은, 지구 생명체이든 해양 생명체이든 두 가지 모두를 무자비하게 파괴하는 현대의 홍수로부터 우리를 구조하기에는 충분하지 않을 것이다. 심각한 그리고 긴박한 생태적 회심이 부족하다면, 그 어떤 것도 충분한 정당성을 확보할 수 없을 것이다.This paper, which is divided into two sections, begins with an overview of Laudato Si’ which highlights the encyclical’s revolutionary engagement with both theology and the global dialogue on the contemporary ecological crisis. In the initial part of the essay, the ideas of the vocation to praise and the interconnectivity of our common home are emphasised. These points are followed by a closer look at the concept of ecological conversion and species extinction. It is the paper’s contention that these two concepts are fundamentally linked and somewhat underdeveloped in the encyclical. The ecological conversion is then just an appropriate spirituality for the present age. Building on the biblical exemplars of St. Paul and St. Thomas, the first step in this conversion is the active contemplation of the unthinkable, seeing and touching the extinction (execution?) of life. The second, and larger section of the paper, attempts to take the ecological conversion seriously by widening the religious worldview to include what is usually absent from our theological reflections: the seventy percent of the world covered by the oceans. This section starts with an overview of the oceans as seen in the documentation from the IPCC, with a focus on sea level rise. This analysis leads to a theological reflection which begins by employing the insights of the book of Genesis and its understanding of creation. These insights provide the basis for understanding the Noah narrative and making a relative comparison between the flood and contemporary sea level rise. The argument is made that in front of this great act of anthropocentric un-creation, neither a modern day Noah nor an equivalent technological fix (the ark) is going to be enough to save us from the contemporary flood which is inexorably destroying both terrestrial and aquatic life alike. Nothing short of a profound and urgent ecological conversion will suffice.

Rembrandt’s Etched Angels: Traces of the Divine

This paper considers the paradoxes inherent in Rembrandt’s treatment of angels in his etched works where his choice of subject and medium directly addresses the fraught relation between the material and the spiritual, between reason and imagination, issues at the heart of Rembrandt’s artistic enterprise and central as well to the long reformation. Rembrandt’s etchings with angels draw particular attention to his craft, especially the distinction between the etching (on the plate) and the print (on paper) whereby the paper (as opposed to the plate) provides an unstable and fragile surface particularly suited to convey unsteadiness of all earthly things. Rembrandt’s attention to surface and to tonal effects beyond the etching needle becomes more pronounced after 1647 when he discovered Japanese paper. Two prints — Abraham and the Angels Eating (1656) and the so-called Dr. Faustus (1653) — exemplify what this increasingly experimental attitude and play of imagination meant for the artist’s understanding of Creation in general and angels in particular.

Was White Right? Biblical Interpretation, Theological Stance and Environmental Attitudes among a Sample of uk Churchgoers

Lynn White’s controversial hypothesis, that Judaeo-Christian belief led to attitudes towards the environment that have spawned an ecological crisis, has received much attention from sociologists of religion, notably in the United States. Surveys of the general population show negative correlations between biblical literalism and environmentalism, but these seem to be due to the particular nature of religion and politics in the usa. This study uses more nuanced measures of biblical interpretation and theological stance to examine the issue among a sample of 537 committed churchgoers from a range of mainly conservative Protestant denominations in the United Kingdom. Literal interpretation of Genesis was directly negatively correlated with concern for the environment, after allowing for indirect effects through dominion and stewardship theologies. The effect of symbolic interpretation was mediated by sacramental understanding of creation and stewardship. Stewardship was a key belief that mediated the effects of symbolic interpretation and theological stance on concern for the environment. Biblical interpretation, dominion and sacramentalism were uncorrelated with willingness to sacrifice to protect the environment, but stewardship was indirectly positively correlated through its effect on environmental concern.

Teaching creation: ancient belief meets modern science

Teaching about creation today requires careful consideration of biblical insight and scientific discoveries. Based upon the author’s professional teaching experience and several external research studies, a dialogical means of teaching brings life to the topic. The paper begins by explaining changes in biblical studies that re-established the theological importance of creation. It next clarifies differences between religious and scientific knowledge in order to avoid common misconceptions and establish a possible dialogue for deeper understanding of human reality. The article concludes by offering practical suggestions for teaching about creation in light of the dialogue between faith and science: What is the origin of the universe? What is the origin of human beings? What will be the universe’s end? Why should I care about the Earth? In shaping learning around some of life’s big questions, students discover a more tangible understanding of creation within a modern scientific world.

Trynitarno-komunijna teologia stworzenia

Creator of the world is the Triune God – the transcendent and immanent at the same time. Science reveals the universe evolving at all levels and the most important costitutive reason for theology is the relation of constant creation. Reflection of God's Communion in creation and communional sacramentality of created world are the foundation of Trynitarian-communional theology of creation. Theology distinguishes three models of interpreting the action of God in the world: through direct intervention, through the established order and through the active presence. The last model shows that the creation was accomplished not so much through the God's omnipotence and wisdom, but by the God's love. An important element of the Trinitarian understanding of creation is its Christological aspect and the theiosis of the universe opens the prospect of the final dimensions of this vision.

The Embodied World: Creation Metaphors in the Ancient Near East

An insight from anthropology is that the human body may serve as a symbol of society. In the ancient Near East, including in Israel, the body mediated symbolic relationship between of people's experience of their physical and social worlds. This essay will argue that that this complex symbolic relationship between the body and the world formed the basis of the ancient Near Eastern understanding of creation. Because the body functioned as a model for the world, the procreation of the human body (microcosm) offered an appropriate analogy for understanding the creation of the world and society (macrocosm). The essay will focus on a variety of creation metaphors from Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Israel to construct a heuristic model of creation that will delineate the symbolic relationship between the body and the world.

The Desire for God, the Ordering Principle of Nature

This essay is an enquiry into the relation of the medieval understanding of creation and the mystical knowledge of God. Drawing upon the theology and epistemology of Aquinas and Meister Eckhart, a distinction is made between the medieval notion of ‘truth’ and the modern empirical notion of truth. It is proposed that this difference involves a quite distinct contrast in orientation towards reality or nature and a different understanding of the proper end of the act of knowing. From this it will be argued that the inherent desire in all things to unite with God is the ordering principle of nature, and that it is this ordering principle that opens the way to mystical knowledge of God and of the creation.

A New Sociobiology: Immunity, Alterity, and the Social Repertoire

The relation between biological processes and social practices has given rise to a sociobiology heavily defined through experimental, cause-and-effect theorizing, applying biology to society, culture, and individual action. Human behaviour is largely understood as the outcome of biological processes, with individual autonomy and survival, and social order and stability, prioritized. Building on an argument first made about selfhood in 1986, and about immunology from 1992 onwards, this article argues that advances in science reframe our understanding of the boundaries between self and other ('non-self'), and thereby also our awareness of the importance of risk and danger, and the social contexts that encourage or discourage social risks. Because the assimilation of difference is not only crucial to survival, but critical for creation, the argument here for 'a new sociobiology' is for a less biologically determined sociobiology. Difference can destroy, but it is necessary for adaptation and creation. A new sociobiology, therefore, must prioritize organic relatedness over organic autonomy, attraction to 'other' over concern with 'self', if the field is to advance our understanding of creation, survival, and growth.

From Homo Faber to Homo Creator? A Theological-Ethical Expedition into the Anthropological Depths of Synthetic Biology

Synthetic Biology is supposed to evoke new challenges for science and society. Yet it is a controversial point, up to which extend ethical as well as societal challenges will reach. This paper examines the question as to how a theological-ethical perspective can speak of an anthropological change in the understanding of human beings―as supposed by some philosophers―due to the successes and visions of synthetic biology. Regarding this, the metaphors appearing in the field of synthetic biology (playing God; living machine) will be briefly looked at as possible indicators of such an anthropological change. Based on this the particular theological understanding of creation will be questioned in order to finally examine the results in regard to its consequences for the discourse of the human being as homo creator.

Natura Naturata: Shelley’s Philosophy of the Mind in Creation

The place of Percy Shelley’s Mont Blanc in the nineteenth-century philosophical and theological debate about creation and man’s place within it has been the subject of great critical debate. Although previous criticism (such as by Earl R. Wasserman) has assumed Shelley’s use of the terms ‘things’ and ‘human thought’ as synonymous, this essay illuminates their difference. It hopes to provide an insight into Shelley’s understanding of creation and the Creator. In Mont Blanc Shelley credits the human mind, rather than the divine creator, as the infinite source of creative power. This essay reads Shelley’s Mont Blanc against William Paley’s Natural Theology, suggesting that, whilst Shelley does not defy the possibility of a designer (God), he renders Man’s role in creation as greater than God’s. Man in Mont Blanc does not create once, but creates in his every moment. The natural universe is a product of human consciousness; a consciousness formed and shaped by the way in which the mind receives, perceives, and reinterprets the universe.

Evolução versus criação: falso dilema

A evolução cósmica e biológica é hoje um fato universalmente admitido pela comunidade científica. Muitos julgam que essa posição científica é incompatível com a aceitação de um Deus criador do mundo, seja que neguem a criação em nome da evolução, seja que rejeitem a evolução em nome da fé. O artigo pretende apontar a inconsistência do dilema “evolução ou criação”, mostrando, mediante uma reflexão filosófica, que ele deriva de uma falsa compreensão do método e do alcance tanto das ciências positivas como da teologia. Defende, além disso, que compete aos cientistas verificar se o neodarwinismo da teoria sintética é ou não uma explicação científica satisfatória dos fenômenos. Afirma, porém, que também essa teoria seria compatível com uma ideia adequada de criação, mesmo que não recorra, para explicar a evolução, nem à intervenção de uma causa eficiente trans-empírica, nem a uma inteligência superior que oriente o processo evolutivo para determinados fins. Com efeito, a ação criadora de Deus que confere o ser e agir a toda a realidade natural e a orienta, de algum modo, para seus fins, tem um caráter transcendente, e, por princípio, não pode ser detectada pela investigação científica, mas, tão somente, pela reflexão filosófica.

Edward Schillebeeckx's Creation Theology as a Resource for Ecological Ethics

ABSTRACTAs the global community becomes increasingly attuned to the disastrous consequences of our long-standing environmental prodigality, Christians and Christian theologians are cultivating theological and ethical responses to the ecological crisis with the goal of fostering life-giving understandings of creation and ecophilic lifestyles. While many theologians and ethicists have heeded this call to read the signs of the environmental times, Schillebeeckx's creation theology remains an underutilized resource for developing an ethical response to this contemporary crisis. This article seeks to offer Schillebeeckx's theology of creation as fertile soil for nurturing an ecological ethic. This article highlights Schillebeeckx's growing ecological concerns, illustrates the connection between Schillebeeckx's theology of creation and his ecological consciousness, and transposes Schillebeeckx's emerging ecological themes into the register of environmental ethics. This ecological ethics emphasizes co-creativity with God in creation, ecological asceticism, following Christ's creational praxis, and actualizing the present practice of the coming kingdom of God.

Godly Sex, a Queer Quest of Holiness

Drawing from sources as varied as the Catholic Catechism, feminist theologies and queer studies, this work offers a Creation-centered anthropological exposition of sexuality that is embedded in God's originating act of Eros in Creation. Recovering an understanding of sexuality that is both sacramental and erotic opens theological conversation into an understanding of Creation as portraits of erotic relationality, capable of wedding justice to sexuality. Within this theological portrait of human sexuality as an expression of God's own self-revelation in Creation, a new articulation of queer sexuality emerges, providing distinct insights into the holiness of sex. Working from multi-denominational Christian sources of queer narrative and theology, the author poses four distinct contributions or queer insights into sexuality. These contributions not only deepen our understanding of Eros and God but also sex and the common good.

Creation and Science in the Middle Ages

AbstractThe reception of Greek learning in mediaeval Islam, Judaism, and Christianity was the occasion for a profound analysis of many theological doctrines. In particular, Neoplatonism and Aristotelian philosophy led to renewed thinking about what it means for God to be the Creator of all that is. In the Latin West, Thomas Aquinas benefited from the works of Avicenna, Averroes, and Maimonides as he fashioned his understanding of creation, understood both philosophically and theologically. The recognition that creation is not a change and as a metaphysical dependence in the order of being does not challenge claims in the natural sciences (e.g., that something cannot come from absolutely nothing) are crucial features of the mediaeval heritage on the relationship between creation and the natural sciences. Indeed, Thomas Aquinas argued that an eternal, created universe was intelligible.

The Problem of a Transcendent God for the Well‐Being of Continuous Creation

Abstract:This year marks the 30th Anniversary of Lynn White's critique of Christianity, which set off the field of eco‐theology. At that time, apologetic theologians responded to the White critique, that the Genesis “dominion” command is largely responsible for the contemporary ecological crisis, through reformulating Christian doctrines to address ecological issues. These pioneers have brought us a long way in terms of addressing both how Christianity has been responsible in supporting harmful human‐earth relations and what resources within the tradition might be useful for addressing the contemporary ecological crisis. Building on this work, this article suggests that Christian theology (whether eco or not) will continue to support an understanding of the human being as rooted “outside of creation” as long as the concept of a transcendent, Omni, Creator‐God is left intact. In place of this theological discourse of transcendence which secularizes the natural realm, I suggest a “radical materialist” (Val Plumwood) understanding of Christianity that moves between idealism and reductive materialism (both are forms of transcendence) through a “planetary” (Spivak) understanding of Creation and a “bio‐historical” (Gordon Kaufman) understanding of anthropology.