"Personalist Bioethics" calls us to reflect on the intimate meaning of human existence and the social environment, going beyond any specific religious perspective and invoking human reason. It advances a metaphysics that is rationally grounded in philosophical anthropology and has a broad range of ethical applications for professors of bioethics, members of ethics committees, bioethics students, and those interested in the field in general, whether in medicine, law, or philosophy. Readers will find a presentation and discussion of the basic contours of personalist bioethics, comparisons of personalism with other philosophical positions, and ethical investigations of particular topics, ranging from genetic engineering to euthanasia. Translated by John A. Di Camillo and Michael J. Miller.

Why would a perfectly good and loving God consign anyone to eternal suffering in hell? In Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God, R. Zachary Manis examines in detail the various facets of the problem of hell, considers the reasons why the usual responses to the problem are unsatisfying, and suggests how an adequate solution to the problem can be constructed. Historically, there are four standard explanations of the nature and purpose of hell: traditionalism, annihilationism, the choice model, and universalism. In Manis's assessment, all are deficient in some crucial respect. The alternative view that he develops and defends, the divine presence model, stands within the tradition that understands hell to be a state of eternal conscious suffering, but, Manis contends, avoids the worst problems of its competitors. The key idea is that the suffering of hell is not the result of a divine act that aims to inflict it, but rather is the way in which a sinful creature necessarily experiences the unmitigated presence of a holy God. Heaven and hell are not two "places" to which the saved and damned are consigned, respectively, but rather are two radically different ways in which different persons will experience the same reality of God's omnipresence once the barrier of divine hiddenness is finally removed.

Using interdisciplinary methods, this book is a pioneering exploration of Asian understandings of human dignity and human rights. It encompasses rigorous scrutiny of dignity jurisprudence in major Asian apex courts, detailed philosophical analysis of dignity in religious traditions, and contextualized socio-political analysis of religious dignity discourse in several Asian societies. This is an innovative systematic survey of how human dignity is understood in Asia, demonstrating how those understandings converge and diverge with other parts of the world. Synthesising legal, philosophical, and sociological expertise, this volume furthers the dialogue between Asia and the West, and advances debates on whether human rights are universal or particular to any one region. As many of the world's liberal democracies are challenged by polarization and populism, this comparative study of human dignity broadens our horizons and offers a potential alternative to a rigidified social imagination.

In this book Tobias Hoffmann studies the medieval free will debate during its liveliest period, from the 1220s to the 1320s, and clarifies its background in Aristotle, Augustine, and earlier medieval thinkers. Among the wide range of authors he examines are not only well-known thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham, but also a number of authors who were just as important in their time and deserve to be rediscovered today. To shed further light on their theories of free will, Hoffmann also explores their competing philosophical explanations of the fall of the angels, that is, the hypothesis of an evil choice made by rational beings under optimal psychological conditions. As he shows, this test case imposed limits on tracing free choices to cognition. His book provides a comprehensive account of a debate that was central to medieval philosophy and continues to occupy philosophers today.

This book presents theological, cultural, ecclesial and hermeneutical explorations from a specific context-Australia-and invites reimagining of theology and hermeneutics. The horizons of contextuality explored in this book include indigeneity and sovereignty, contingencies of context, feminist theology, multiculturalism and intercultural theologies, sexual abuse and ecclesial coverups, suicide and worship, tradition(ing)s and betrayal, art and popular culture, climate effect and climate justice, disability theories, Islamic insights, migration and the images of home, and heaps of contextual matters in between. The chapters are organized into three sections: (1) Roots presents some of the starting points for contextual thinking in Australia and yonder; (2) Wounds attends to the demands of "bodies on the line" upon theological, biblical and ecclesial engagements; (3) Shifts pokes at thinkers and critics.

What do we do when a beloved comedian known as 'America's Dad' is convicted of sexual assault? Or when we discover that the man who wrote 'all men are created equal' also enslaved hundreds of people? Or when priests are exposed as pedophiles? From the popular to the political to the profound, each day brings new revelations that respected people, traditions, and institutions are not what we thought they were. Despite the shock that these disclosures produce, this state of affairs is anything but new. Facing the concrete task of living well when our best moral resources are not only contaminated but also potentially corrupting is an enduring feature of human experience. In this book, Karen V. Guth identifies 'tainted legacies' as a pressing contemporary moral problem and ethical challenge. Constructing a typology of responses to compromised thinkers, traditions, and institutions, she demonstrates the relevance of age-old debates in Christian theology for those who confront legacies tarnished by the traumas of slavery, racism, and sexual violence.

This comprehensive anthology of primary documents and materials explores the evolution and study of Christian ethical principles. It may be used independently, or alongside the accompanying textbook, Introducing Christian Ethics, for a complete overview of the field. * Represents the entire canon of Christian ethics, including first-hand accounts from major figures in the theological and ecclesial tradition * Introduces foundational figures such as Augustine, Aquinas, and Luther; contemporary theorists including J rgen Moltmann, Stanley Hauerwas, and Wendell Berry; in addition to work by work by non-theoretical figures, such as Ghandi and Martin Luther King * Features useful introductory material that demonstrates the significance of each extract and how they relate to each other * May be used independently or together with the accompanying textbook, Introducing Christian Ethics; both books share the same structure and are cross-referenced for ease of use

John Calvin lived in a divided world when past certainties were crumbling. Calvin claimed that his thought was completely based upon scripture, but he was mistaken. At several points in his thought and his ministry, he set his own foundations upon tradition. His efforts to make sense of his culture and its religious life mirror issues that modern Western cultures face, and that have contributed to our present situation. In this book, R. Ward Holder offers new insights into Calvin's successes and failures and suggests pathways for understanding some of the problems of contemporary Western culture such as the deep divergence about living in tradition, the modern capacity to agree on the foundations of thought, and even the roots of our deep political polarization. He traces Calvin's own critical engagement with the tradition that had formed him and analyzes the inherent divisions in modern heritage that affect our ability to agree, not only religiously or politically, but also about truth. An epilogue comparing biblical interpretation with Constitutional interpretation is illustrative of contemporary issues and demonstrates how historical understanding can offer solutions to tensions in modern culture.

Catholic social teaching (CST) refers to the corpus of authoritative ecclesiastical teaching, usually in the form of papal encyclicals, on social matters, beginning with Pope Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum (1891) and running through Pope Francis. CST is not a social science and its texts are not pragmatic primers for social activists. It is a normative exercise of Church teaching, a kind of comprehensive applied - although far from systematic - social moral theology. This volume is a scholarly engagement with this 130-year-old documentary tradition. Its twenty-three essays aim to provide a constructive, historically sophisticated, critical exegesis of all the major (and some of the minor) documents of CST. The volume's appeal is not limited to Catholics, or even just to those who embrace, or who are seriously interested in, Christianity. Its appeal is to any scholar interested in the history or content of modern CST.

This volume brings together a unique collection of legal, religious, ethical, and political perspectives to bear on debates concerning biotechnology patents, or 'patents on life'. The ever-increasing importance of biotechnologies has generated continual questions about how intellectual property law should treat such technologies, especially those raising ethical or social-justice concerns. Even after many years and court decisions, important contested issues remain concerning ownership of and rewards from biotechnology - from human genetic material to genetically engineered plants - and regarding the scope of moral or social-justice limitations on patents or licensing practices. This book explores a range of related issues, including questions concerning morality and patentability, biotechnology and human dignity, and what constitute fair rewards from genetic resources. It features high-level international, interfaith, and cross-disciplinary contributions from experts in law, religion, and ethics, including academics and practitioners, placing religious and secular perspectives into dialogue to examine the full implications of patenting life.

In this book, Victoria Lorrimar explores anthropologies of co-creation as a theological response to the questions posed by technologically enhanced humans, a prospect that is disturbing to some, but compelling for many. The centrality the imagination for moral reasoning, attested in recent scholarship on the imagination, offers a fruitful starting point for a theological engagement with these envisioned technological futures. Lorrimar approaches the topic under the purview of a doctrine of creation that affirms a relationship between human and divine creativity. Traditionally, theological treatments of creativity have been almost exclusively applied to artistic endeavours. Here, Lorrimar breaks new ground by extending such theological accounts to include technology, and uniting them with the strengths of scientific accounts of co-creation. She draws on metaphor studies, cognitive sciences, as well as literary studies, to develop an account of human creativity in relation to divine creativity, which is then applied to various enhancement scenarios.

WINNER, 2021 HTI BOOK PRIZE Resist! This exhortation animates a remarkable range of theological reflection on consumer culture in the United States. And for many theologians, the source and summit of Christian cultural resistance is the Eucharist. In Commodified Communion, Antonio Eduardo Alonso calls into question this dominant mode of theological reflection on contemporary consumerism. Reducing the work of theology to resistance and centering Christian hope in a Eucharist that might better support it, he argues, undermines our ability to talk about the activity of God within a consumer culture. By reframing the question in terms of God's activity in and in spite of consumer culture, this book offers a lived theological account of consumer culture that recognizes not only its deceptions but also traces of truth in its broken promises and fallen hopes.

A Compelling Defense of the Faith for Our Time

Addressing the central question facing the church today--Is the Gospel true?--Dallas Willard offers an impassioned argument that Christian spiritual ideals are a reliable source of wisdom that should be granted the same authority as other intellectual disciplines such as science or philosophy. He shows how faith and reason are complementary and confronts the difficult issues of Christian pluralism (the challenge of other faiths) and how we can know God exists.

What would it mean to imagine Islam as an immanent critique of the West? Sayyid Ahmad Khan lived in a time of great tribulation for Muslim India under British rule. By examining Khan's work as a critical expression of modernity rooted in the Muslim experience of it, Islam as Critique argues that Khan is essential to understanding the problematics of modern Islam and its relationship to the West. The book re-imagines Islam as an interpretive strategy for investigating the modern condition, and as an engaged alternative to mainstream Western thought. Using the life and work of nineteenth-century Indian Muslim polymath Khan (1817-1898), it identifies Muslims as a viable resource for both critical intervention in important ethical debates of our times and as legitimate participants in humanistic discourses that underpin a just global order. Islam as Critique locates Khan within a broader strain in modern Islamic thought that is neither a rejection of the West, nor a wholesale acceptance of it. The author calls this "Critical Islam". By bringing Khan's critical engagement with modernity into conversation with similar critical analyses of the modern by Reinhold Niebuhr, Hannah Arendt, and Alasdair MacIntyre, the author shows how Islam can be read as critique.

The aim of the book is to contribute to the development of Christian bioethics. Particularly, it constitutes a Christian critique of the sovereign bioethics - he kind of bioethics that shapes the relevant discussions in the public arena, and unjustifiably imposes particular values, boundaries and conditions on the discussion relevant to bioethical dilemmas - with special reference to the issues surrounding euthanasia. This critique is made, firstly, on the ground of the assumption that all theories of human existence, including sovereign bioethics share a common ground - all theories serve their own needs of self-presentation through presenting their subjective principles as objective and therefore as appropriate for power claims over human life. This is exemplified through a thorough analysis of the current discussion on euthanasia. Such a procedure is an innovative way on how current bioethics should be examined and evaluated. Such a critique of the sovereign bioethics is further developed on the ground of the patristic tradition and particularly the works of John Damascene and Symeon the New Theologian. Within such a context, the fundamental elements of a Christian anthropology regarding the constitution of man, the character of pain and death as well as the importance of the free will in man are discussed. This discussion is culminated in the presentation of the character of the Christian voluntary death along with its implications from a bioethical point of view.

In a time of climate change, environmental degradation, and social injustice, the question of the value and purpose of human life has become urgent. What are the grounds for hope in a wounded world? This Sacred Life gives a deep philosophical and religious articulation of humanity's identity and vocation by rooting people in a symbiotic, meshwork world that is saturated with sacred gifts. The benefits of artificial intelligence and genetic enhancement notwithstanding, Norman Wirzba shows how an account of humans as interdependent and vulnerable creatures orients people to be a creative, healing presence in a world punctuated by wounds. He argues that the commodification of places and creatures needs to be resisted so that all life can be cherished and celebrated. Humanity's fundamental vocation is to bear witness to God's love for creaturely life, and to commit to the construction of a hospitable and beautiful world.

In a time of climate change, environmental degradation, and social injustice, the question of the value and purpose of human life has become urgent. What are the grounds for hope in a wounded world? This Sacred Life gives a deep philosophical and religious articulation of humanity's identity and vocation by rooting people in a symbiotic, meshwork world that is saturated with sacred gifts. The benefits of artificial intelligence and genetic enhancement notwithstanding, Norman Wirzba shows how an account of humans as interdependent and vulnerable creatures orients people to be a creative, healing presence in a world punctuated by wounds. He argues that the commodification of places and creatures needs to be resisted so that all life can be cherished and celebrated. Humanity's fundamental vocation is to bear witness to God's love for creaturely life, and to commit to the construction of a hospitable and beautiful world.

The environmental crisis has prompted religious leaders and lay people to look to their traditions for resources to respond to environmental degradation. In this book, Mari Joerstad contributes to this effort by examining an ignored feature of the Hebrew Bible: its attribution of activity and affect to trees, fields, soil, and mountains. The Bible presents a social cosmos, in which humans are one kind of person among many. Using a combination of the tools of biblical studies and anthropological writings on animism, Joerstad traces the activity of non-animal nature through the canon. She shows how biblical writers go beyond sustainable development, asking us to be good neighbors to mountains and trees, and to be generous to our fields and vineyards. They envision human communities that are sources of joy to plants and animals. The Biblical writers' attention to inhabited spaces is particularly salient for contemporary environmental ethics in their insistence that our cities, suburbs, and villages contribute to flourishing landscapes.

This book takes religion as an entry point for a deeper exploration into why practices of gender-based violence continue and what possible actions might help to contribute to their eradication. International donors are committed to reducing and ending gender-related harm, particularly violence against women, but clear answers as to why harmful practices persist are often slow to emerge. Theological research struggles to find strong links, yet religion is often referred to by local people as the reason for practices such as female cutting, male circumcision, early and forced marriage, nutritional taboos and birth practices, mandatory (un)veiling, harmful spiritual practices, polygamy, gender unequal marital and inheritance rights and so-called honour crimes. This book presents empirical cases of religious, non-religious and secular actors, including local and international governmental and non-governmental agencies in the fields of development, health and equality policies. Tracing their different understandings of how religion is entangled with gender-based violence both contextually as well as historically, the book sheds light on helpful and unhelpful as well as erroneous and harmful understandings of such practices in local and global perspectives. Centralising the perspectives of women themselves, this book will be an important read for development practitioners and policy makers, as well as for researchers across religious studies, gender studies, and global development.

Generally neglected for their rhetorical power, animated cartoons provide a treasure chest of provocative and comic gems that teach about the seven deadly sins. After a brief history of parables and fables, icons and visual communication, this book explores each of the seven deadly sins as represented in short animated films from Disney, Pixar, the Warner Brothers, and foreign animators. Terry Lindvall argues that attending to the tropes of the cartoons leads to exemplary and revelatory discoveries, to seeing more of what pride, envy, wrath, sloth, avarice, gluttony, and lust mean across cultures and historical eras.

While ethical issues are being raised with new urgency, Christians are increasingly unfamiliar with the moral grammar of their faith. The need to reengage the deep-down things of the Christian moral tradition has seldom been more urgent. Moral theology has a long history in the Catholic and Anglican traditions. The tradition of theological ethics, influenced by Aristotle by way of Aquinas, offers a distinct emphasis on the virtues and character formation. Now Daniel Westberg infuses this venerable ethical tradition with a biblical confidence in the centrality of the gospel and the role of the Holy Spirit in forming character, while also laying down a sound moral psychology for practical reason and ethical living. Christians-whether of Anglican, Catholic or of other traditions-interested in vigorously retrieving a great moral heritage, will find here common ground for ethical reflection and discipleship.

In public debates over biotechnology, theologians, philosophers, and political theorists have proposed that biotechnology could have significant implications for human nature. They argue that ethical evaluations of biotechnologies that might affect human nature must take these implications into account. In this book, Gerald McKenny examines these important yet controversial arguments, which have in turn been criticized by many moral philosophers and professional bioethicists. He argues that Christian ethics is, in principle, committed to some version of the claim that human nature has normative status in relation to biotechnology. Showing how both criticisms and defences of this claim have often been facile, he identifies, develops, and critically evaluates three versions of the claim, and contributes a fourth, distinctively Christian version to the debate. Focusing on Christian ethics in conversation with secular ethics, McKenny's book is the first thorough analysis of a controversial contemporary issue.

Augustine--for all of his influence on Western culture and politics--was hardly a liberal. Drawing from theology, feminist theory, and political philosophy, Eric Gregory offers here a liberal ethics of citizenship, one less susceptible to anti-liberal critics because it is informed by the Augustinian tradition. The result is a book that expands Augustinian imaginations for liberalism and liberal imaginations for Augustinianism.
Gregory examines a broad range of Augustine's texts and their reception in different disciplines and identifies two classical themes which have analogues in secular political theory: love--and related notions of care, solidarity, and sympathy--and sin--as well as related notions of cruelty, evil, and narrow self-interest. From an Augustinian point of view, Gregory argues, love and sin constrain each other in ways that yield a distinctive vision of the limits and possibilities of politics.
In providing a constructive argument for Christian participation in liberal democratic societies, Gregory advances efforts to revive a political theology in which love's relation to justice is prominent. "Politics and the Order of Love "will provoke new conversations for those interested in Christian ethics, moral psychology, and the role of religion in a liberal society.

Planning and architecture have to be understood in relation to climate change and peak oil, and the concept of the common good is key to understanding how important this is. Leading on from his previous book, A Theology of the Built Environment, T. J. Gorringe provides a theoretical and political framework of the common good, applying this to the built environment. This framework is used to discuss and highlight issues regarding place, transport, food and farming, and as such, explains the relation of Christianity to the built world in which we live. Exploring new themes in the context of the concern about climate change and resource depletion, Gorringe provides an innovative account, covering a wide range of source matter and illustrating the connections in modern theology and ethics.

Conscience has long been a foundational theme in Christian ethics, but it is a notoriously slippery and contested term. This volume works to define conscience and reveal the similarities and differences between different Christian traditions' thinking on the subject. In a thorough and scholarly manner, the authors explore Christian theological, legal, constitutional, historical, and philosophical meanings of conscience. Covering a range of historical periods, major figures in the development of conscience, and contemporary applications, this book is a vital source for scholars from a wide variety of disciplines seeking to understand conscience from a range of perspectives.