This study presents Hans Urs von Balthasar's theology of the Eucharist and shows its significance for contemporary sacramental theology. Anyone who seeks to offer a systematic account of Hans Urs von Balthasar's theology of the Eucharist and the liturgy is confronted with at least two obstacles. First, his reflections on the Eucharist are scattered throughout an immense and complex corpus of writings. Second, the most distinctive feature of his theology of the Eucharist is the inseparability of his sacramental theology from his speculative account of the central mysteries of the Christian faith. In The Eucharistic Form of God, the first book-length study to explore Balthasar's eucharistic theology in English, Jonathan Martin Ciraulo brings together the fields of liturgical studies, sacramental theology, and systematic theology to examine both how the Eucharist functions in Balthasar's theology in general and how it is in fact generative of his most unique and consequential theological positions. He demonstrates that Balthasar is a eucharistic theologian of the highest caliber, and that his contributions to sacramental theology, although little acknowledged today, have enormous potential to reshape many discussions in the field. The chapters cover a range of themes not often included in sacramental theology, including the doctrine of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and soteriology. In addition to treating Balthasar's own sources-Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Pascal, Catherine of Siena, and Bernanos-Ciraulo brings Balthasar into conversation with contemporary Catholic sacramental theology, including the work of Louis-Marie Chauvet and Jean-Yves Lacoste. The overall result is a demanding but satisfying presentation of Balthasar's contribution to sacramental theology. The audience for this volume is students and scholars who are interested in Balthasar's thought as well as theologians who are working in the area of sacramental and liturgical theology.

Provides an overview of the complex history of the interaction of science and religion. Can science and religious belief co-exist? Many people - including many practicing scientists - insist that one can simultaneously follow the principles of the scientific method and believe in a particular spiritual tradition. But throughout history there have been people for whom science challenges the very validity of religious belief. Whether called atheists, agnostics, skeptics, or infidels, these individuals use the naturalism of modern science to deny the existence of any supernatural power. This book chronicles, in a balanced and accessible way, the long history of the battle between adherents of religious doctrines and the nonbelievers who adhere to the naturalism of modern science. Science and Nonbelief provides a nontechnical introduction to the leading questions that concern science and religion today: what place does evolution hold in the arguments of nonbelievers?; what does modern physics tell us about the place of humanity in the natural world?; how do modern neurosciences challenge traditional beliefs about mind and matter?; what can scientific research about religion tell us and psychics? The volume also addresses the political context of debates over science and nonbelief, and questions about the nature of morality. It includes a selection of provocative primary source documents that illustrate the complexity and varieties of nonbelief. Part of the Greenwood Guides to Science and Religion series, this book includes a discussion of scientific attitudes to pseudo-science and the paranormal. A primary source section illustrates views on the relationship between science and belief. It adopts a balanced approach to the questions raised.

This book challenges the widespread assumption that the ethical life and society must be moral in any objective sense. In his previous works, Marks has rejected both the existence of such a morality and the need to maintain verbal, attitudinal, practical, and institutional remnants of belief in it. This book develops these ideas further, with emphasis on constructing a positive alternative. Calling it "desirism", Marks illustrates what life and the world would be like if we lived in accordance with our rational desires rather than the dictates of any actual or pretend morality, neither overlaying our desires with moral sanction nor attempting to override them with moral strictures. Hard Atheism and the Ethics of Desire also argues that atheism thereby becomes more plausible than the so-called New Atheism that attempts to give up God and yet retain morality.

The phrase "Without Authority" is Soren Kierkegaard's way of designating his lack of clerical ordination and to raise the complex and central human issue of authority in human culture. Authors of the essays in IKC-18 demonstrate how Kierkegaard's literary genius, religious passion, and intellectual penetration handle with equal ease and acuity the lily of the field, the bird of the air, the sacrament of holy communion, and the concepts of martyr, witness, genius, prototype, and apostle to create a singular and 'authoritative' contribution to both theology and philosophy of religion.

The brilliant and ground-breaking mimetic theory of the French-American theorist Rene Girard (1923-2015)has gained wide-ranging recognition, yet its development has received less attention. This volume presents the important correspondence-conducted in French and as yet unpublished, let alone translated into English-between Girard and his major theological interlocutor Raymund Schwager SJ (1935-2004). It presents the personal relationship between two great thinkers that led to the development of a significant break-through in the humanities. In particular it reveals the theological development of Girard's thought in dialogue with Schwager, who was concerned to assist Girard in areas where he had little expertise and had encountered major criticism, such as the theological application of sacrifice. These issues in particular had placed major barriers to Girard's acceptance in theological circles. These letters reveal how Girard, with Schwager's help, entered the mainstream of theological debate.

The Suffering of the Impassible God provides a major reconsideration of the notion of divine impassibility in patristic thought. The question whether, in what sense, and under what circumstances suffering may be ascribed to God runs as a golden thread through such major controversies as Docetism, Patripassianism, Arianism, and Nestorianism. It is commonly claimed that in these debates patristic theology fell prey to the assumption of Hellenistic philosophy about the impassibility of God and departed from the allegedly biblical view, according to which God is passible. As a result, patristic theology is presented as claiming that only the human nature of Christ suffered, while the divine nature remained unaffected. Paul L. Gavrilyuk argues that this standard view misrepresents the tradition. In contrast, he construes the development of patristic thought as a series of dialectical turning points taken to safeguard the paradox of God's voluntary suffering in the flesh. For the Fathers the attribute of divine impassibility functioned in a restricted sense as an apophatic qualifier of all divine emotions and as an indicator of God's full and undiminished divinity. The Fathers at the same time admitted qualified divine passibility of the Son of God within the framework of the Incarnation. Gavrilyuk shows that the Docetic, Arian, and Nestorian alternatives represent different attempts at dissolving the paradox of the Incarnation. These three alternatives are alike in that they start with the presupposition of God's unrestricted impassibility: the Docetic view proposes to give up the reality of Christ's human experiences; the Arian position sacrifices Christ's undiminished divinity; while the Nestorian alternative isolates the experiences and sufferings of Christ's humanity from his Godhead. In contrast to these alternatives, the mind of the Church succeeded in keeping God's transcendence and undiminished divinity in tension with God's intimate involvement in human suffering. It is precisely because God's divinity and transcendence are never lost in suffering that the Incarnation becomes a genuine act of divine compassion, capable of transforming and healing the human condition.

Difference, diversity and disagreement are inevitable features of our ethical, social and political landscape. This collection of new essays investigates the ways that various ethical and religious traditions have dealt with intramural dissent; the volume covers nine separate traditions: Confucianism, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, liberalism, Marxism, South Asian religions and natural law. Each chapter lays out the distinctive features, history and challenges of intramural dissent within each tradition, enabling readers to identify similarities and differences between traditions. The book concludes with an Afterword by Michael Walzer, offering a synoptic overview of the challenge of intramural dissent and the responses to that challenge. Committed to dialogue across cultures and traditions, the collection begins that dialogue with the common challenges facing all traditions: how to maintain cohesion and core values in the face of pluralism, and how to do this in a way that is consistent with the internal ethical principles of the traditions.

It is widely claimed that notions of gods and religious beliefs are irrelevant or inconsequential to early Chinese ("Confucian") moral and political thought. Rejecting the claim that religious practice plays a minimal philosophical role, Kelly James Clark and Justin Winslett offer a textual study that maps the religious terrain of early Chinese texts. They analyze the pantheon of extrahumans, from high gods to ancestor spirits, discussing their various representations, as well as examining conceptions of the afterlife and religious ritual. Demonstrating that religious beliefs in early China are both textually endorsed and ritually embodied, this book goes on to show how gods, ancestors and afterlife are philosophically salient. The summative chapter on the role of religious ritual in moral formation shows how religion forms a complex philosophical system capable of informing moral, social, and political conditions.

This book examines the concept of Purgatory. However, in contradistinction to the many monographs and edited volumes published in the past 50 years devoted to historical, cultural, or theological treatments of Purgatory-especially in proportion to the voluminous output on Heaven and Hell-this collection features papers by philosophers and other scholars engaged specifically in philosophical argument, debate, and dialogue involving conceptions of Purgatory and related ideas. It exists to broaden the discussion beyond the prevailing trends in the academic literature and fills an important intellectual gap.

What difference does a worldview make? These eclectic essays from twenty scholars show how embodying a biblical Christian worldview helps transform mere existence into fullness of life. Read them to discover . . . How Genesis answers the four most important human questions of pre-modern and post-modern times (W. Brouwer); Why the concept "Christian worldview" fits the unique experience of reality Christianity affords, despite recent criticisms of the term and concept (R. Kurka); How worldview competition in the global South differs from the West (D. Button); How Western civilization lost its Christian mind and can find it again (M. E. Roberts); How well the reasons celebrity scholar Bart Ehrman gives for his "deconversion" stack up (E. Meadors); How higher education has abandoned its own source by expelling "religion of the heart" (R. Wenyika & W. Adrian); How an "engineering mindset" helps evaluate worldviews and how a Christian worldview fares (D. Halsmer); Christian Humanism as an exodus from the cultural wasteland for today's youth (R. Williams); The worldview John Grisham's fiction expresses (J. Han & M. Bagley); How Intelligent Design strengthens its status as science by using the concept of "design" in a new way (D. Leonard); In the spirit of "The Screwtape Letters," a new epistle to Wormwood that praises compartmentalized Christianity (D. K. Naugle); How an orphaned Japanese girl experienced "the American dream," God's way (K. Takeuchi); How words, grammar, and style embody one's worldview, for good or ill (S. Robbins); What happens to preaching-and the church-when emotional response to visual stimuli preempts thought (W. Wilson II); . . . and much more. "That which God has created and sin has divided Christ is reuniting . . ., and this includes the divisions generated by our . . . compartmentalizations. Our gracious, redeeming God is putting Humpty Dumpty back together again For Christian scholars and teachers, this magnificent truth is fraught with implications for us . . . personally and professionally." - David K. Naugle, "Squashing Screwtape: Debunking Dualism and Restoring Integrity in Christian Educational Thought and Practice"

Michael P. Berman's Merleau-Ponty and God: Hallowing the Hollow examines issues in the philosophy of religion through the phenomenological and existential writings of the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961). Merleau-Ponty addressed issues like the nature of faith, the problem of evil, and the love and judgment of God. Throughout the book Berman explains and critically interrogates the religious perspectives articulated in Merleau-Ponty's thought. Merleau-Ponty challenges us to think through these issues but always with an eye to our embodiment and perceptual experience. In this vein, Merleau-Ponty and God fleshes out the French philosopher's treatment of God in his writings. Merleau-Ponty and God will appeal to those interested in the philosophy of religion (inside and outside the academy), as well as scholars and students of Merleau-Ponty, continental philosophy, phenomenology, or existentialism.

Molinism, named after the sixteenth-century Spanish Jesuit Luis de Molina, re-emerged in the 1970s after it was unwittingly assumed in versions of Alvin Plantinga's Free Will Defense against the Logical Argument from Evil. The Molinist notion of middle knowledge--and especially its main objects, so-called counterfactuals of (creaturely) freedom--have been the subject of vigorous debate in analytical philosophy of religion ever since. Is middle knowledge logically coherent? Is it a benefit or a liability overall for a satisfying account of divine providence? The essays in this collection examine the status, defensibility, and application of Molinism. Friends and foes of Molinism are well represented, and there are some lively exchanges between them. The collection provides a snap-shot of the current state of the Molinism Wars, along with some discussion of where we've been and where we might go in the future. More battles surely lie ahead; the essays and ideas in this collection are likely to have a major impact on future directions. The essays are specially written by a line-up of established and respected philosophers of religion, metaphysicians, and logicians. There is a substantive Introduction and an extensive Bibliography to assist both students and professionals.

Beatific Enjoyment in Medieval Scholastic Debates examines the religious concept of enjoyment as discussed by scholastic theologians in the Latin Middle Ages. Severin Kitanov argues that central to the concept of beatific enjoyment (fruitio beatifica) is the distinction between the terms enjoyment and use (frui et uti) found in Saint Augustine's treatise On Christian Learning. Peter Lombard, a twelfth-century Italian theologian, chose the enjoyment of God to serve as an opening topic of his Sentences and thereby set in motion an enduring scholastic discourse. Kitanov examines the nature of volition and the relationship between volition and cognition. He also explores theological debates on the definition of enjoyment: whether there are different kinds and degrees of enjoyment, whether natural reason unassisted by divine revelation can demonstrate that beatific enjoyment is possible, whether beatific enjoyment is the same as pleasure, whether it has an intrinsic cognitive character, and whether the enjoyment of God in heaven is a free or un-free act. Even though the concept of beatific enjoyment is essentially religious and theological, medieval scholastic authors discussed this concept by means of Aristotle's logical and scientific apparatus and through the lens of metaphysics, physics, psychology, and virtue ethics. Bringing together Christian theological and Aristotelian scientific and philosophical approaches to enjoyment, Kitanov exposes the intricacy of the discourse and makes it intelligible for both students and scholars.

Becoming god was an ideal of many ancient Greek philosophers, as was the life of reason, which they equated with divinity. This book argues that their rival accounts of this equation depended on their divergent attitudes toward time. Affirming it, Heraclitus developed a paradoxical style of reasoning--"chiasmus"--that was the activity of his becoming god. Denying it as contradictory, Parmenides sought to purify thinking of all contradiction, offering eternity to those who would follow him. Plato did, fusing this pure style of reasoning--consistency--with a Pythagorean program of purification and divinization that would then influence philosophers from Aristotle to Kant. Those interested in Greek philosophical and religious thought will find fresh interpretations of its early figures, as well as a lucid presentation of the first and most influential attempts to link together divinity, rationality, and selfhood.

This book provides a comprehensive view of the aesthetic realm, placing the various major artforms within the setting of nature and the built environment as they arise within the field of experience. Each chapter displays the regional ontology of the form considered: the comprehensive set of eidetic features that limn the space of the art. It draws upon artists' statements, writings of key figures in the history of philosophy--including Plato, Hegel, Dewey, and Heidegger-and writings from various commentators on art. This volume is unique in its systematic and phenomenological approach, and in how it addresses aesthetics writ large.

This comprehensive, psychological, and naturalistic analysis of prayer offers an alternative to William James's model of prayer, represented in his work "The Varieties of Religious Experience," which links supplication to the divine or supernatural realm. Through his examination of prayer, and its connection to faith, Faber also analyzes religious faith psychologically and anthropologically, concluding that subjective prayer is finally an instance of homeopathic magical conduct. It ritualistically conjures up, according to the author, a version of the first, primal, biological situation, in which the dependent little one cries out to a parental big one for physical and emotional nourishment. Eventually, religion...and its expression of faith through prayer, provides us with a magical protective presence that is natural in its return to the primal, rather than supernatural, as James argues, in its presence and existence.

The very instructional details of individual prayer, Faber argues, are unconsciously designed to recreate the magical alliance through which our existence on the planet commences and goes forward. Over and over again, dozens of times each day, thousands of times each year, the little one asks and the big one sees to it that the little one receives. Such asking and receiving is the central feature of a child's existence. As we internalize this reality and seek to re-create it in our adult lives, religious conviction and faith--as it comes through prayer--helps us to achieve a sense of security and a psychic return to the parental alliance. Faber's compelling arguments will challenge readers to consider prayer and faith as a magical circle of religious belief and to examine afresh the underlying nature of supplication.

Scepticism has been the driving force in the development of Greco-Roman culture in the past, and the impetus for far-reaching scientific achievements and philosophical investigation. Early Jewish culture, in contrast, avoided creating consistent representations of its philosophical doctrines. Sceptical notions can nevertheless be found in some early Jewish literature such as the Book of Ecclesiastes. One encounters there expressions of doubt with respect to Divine justice or even Divine involvement in earthly affairs. During the first centuries of the common era, however, Jewish thought, as reflected in rabbinic works, was engaged in persistent intellectual activity devoted to the laws, norms, regulations, exegesis and other traditional areas of Jewish religious knowledge. An effort to detect sceptical ideas in ancient Judaism, therefore, requires a closer analysis of this literary heritage and its cultural context. This volume of collected essays seeks to tackle the question of scepticism in an Early Jewish context, including Ecclesiastes and other Jewish Second Temple works, rabbinic midrashic and talmudic literature, and reflections of Jewish thought in early Christian and patristic writings. Contributors are: Tali Artman, Geoffrey Herman, Reuven Kiperwasser, Serge Ruzer, Cana Werman, and Carsten Wilke.

This book is an interdisciplinary study of the cultural representations of Jesus in the context of contemporary religious theory and continental philosophy. It looks at Jesus in view of an updated Derridean hauntology and spectrality, with an emphasis on the inherent plasticity of the Christian heritage. While the work engages with the recent Jesus-centered writings of Slavoj Zizek, Francois Laruelle, and Giorgio Agamben, it places a greater and much needed emphasis on the philosophical, theological, and cultural links between a plastic, hauntological Christian heritage and Jesus's historically evolving plural subjectivity, with the latter explored in texts of popular culture. It is a multidisciplinary study of Jesus, as well as a dynamic Christian heritage that simultaneously constructs and deconstructs Jesus's philosophical, political, and cultural centrality.

Rory Fox challenges the traditional understanding that Thomas Aquinas believed that God exists totally outside of time. His study investigates the work of several mid-thirteenth-century writers, including Albert the Great and Bonaventure as well as Aquinas, examining their understanding of the topological and metrical properties of time. Fox thus provides access to a wealth of material on medieval concepts of time and eternity, while using the conceptual tools of modern analytic philosophy to express his conclusions.