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This is a philosophic study of some aspects of spiritual
development, broadly defined. Professor Neville has been influenced
significantly by comparison between several of the world's great
spiritual traditions, and he has tried to be faithful to
experiences in those traditions. Readers whose interest in
spiritual development come out of non-Western traditions will find
this book congenial. But this is a philosophical study, and the
book puts forward a philosophical theory of spiritual development,
paying attention to personal, social, and metaphysical concerns,
and analyzing three central images of spiritual "heroism." The
central contribution attempted here is a way of understanding the
quest for spiritual liberation or perfection through the models of
the spiritual soldier, the sage, and the saint. At times the
argument aims, not just to understand, but to promote spiritual
liberation, and to do so through philosophic understanding.
This is the first volume of Robert Cumming Neville's magnum opus,
Theology as Symbolic Engagement. Neville is the premier American
systematic theologian of our time. His work is profoundly
influenced by Paul Tillich, Friedrich Schleiermacher, and the
American pragmatists John Dewey and Charles Sanders Pierce. From
Tillich he takes the notion of religion, art, and morality as
symbol, and the notion that religion is the substance of culture
and culture the form of religion. Thus, theology is symbolic
engagement with cultural forms, and Neville explores the ways that
such engagement occurs among various religious traditions. One of
the most important tasks in theology is to devise ways of testing,
correcting, or affirming claims that we had been unable to question
before. This book will argue that "system" in theology is not
merely correlating assertions, but rather building perspectives
from which we can render the various parts of theology vulnerable
for assessment. In fact, one of the unique features of this book is
its engagement with other religions. Such dialogue has been a
feature of Neville's work from the beginning. Theology as Symbolic
Engagement breaks the boundaries of systematic theology and moves
away from the static character that characterizes such enterprises
from Barth onward. Instead, Neville's book showcases the dynamic
character of all theology. The hallmark of this entire project is
its effort to show theology to be hypothetical and to make it
vulnerable to correction.
This is the first volume of Robert Cumming Neville's magnum opus,
Theology as Symbolic Engagement. Neville is the premier American
systematic theologian of our time. His work is profoundly
influenced by Paul Tillich, Friedrich Schleiermacher, and the
American pragmatists John Dewey and Charles Sanders Pierce. From
Tillich he takes the notion of religion, art, and morality as
symbol, and the notion that religion is the substance of culture
and culture the form of religion. Thus, theology is symbolic
engagement with cultural forms, and Neville explores the ways that
such engagement occurs among various religious traditions. One of
the most important tasks in theology is to devise ways of testing,
correcting, or affirming claims that we had been unable to question
before. This book will argue that "system" in theology is not
merely correlating assertions, but rather building perspectives
from which we can render the various parts of theology vulnerable
for assessment. In fact, one of the unique features of this book is
its engagement with other religions. Such dialogue has been a
feature of Neville's work from the beginning. Theology as Symbolic
Engagement breaks the boundaries of systematic theology and moves
away from the static character that characterizes such enterprises
from Barth onward. Instead, Neville's book showcases the dynamic
character of all theology. The hallmark of this entire project is
its effort to show theology to be hypothetical and to make it
vulnerable to correction.
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The Divine Matrix (Paperback)
Joseph a S J Bracken; Foreword by Robert Cummings Neville
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R723
R599
Discovery Miles 5 990
Save R124 (17%)
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Dialogue among religions has always been challenging. Today, the
questions are becoming more fundamental: are the various traditions
- Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Tao - even talking about the same
thing when they speak of Nature, or God, Emptiness or Brahman? The
Divine Matrix represents a bold scholarly attempt to provide a
framework for discussing theseand other - questions that will keep
the interreligious dialogue project from grinding to a halt. In The
Divine Matrix philosopher and theologian Joseph Bracken first
locates the Infinite as transcendent source and goal of human
activity as the notion common to virtually all the major world
religions. He suggests that the Infinite is prototypically
experienced not as an entity but as an ongoing activity - the
principle of activity for all beings (God included). This idea is
consistent with the notion of eternal and continuous motion in
Aristotle, with the "act of being" (actus essendi) in the theology
of Thomas Aquinas and Meister Eckert, and with the ground of being
of Shelling and Heidegger, as well as with Whitehead's definition
of "creativity". Bracken goes on to show that this idea is implicit
in descriptions of Brahman in the Hindu Upanishads, in the
experience of pratitya-samutpada ("dependent co-arising") in
classical Buddhism, and in descriptions of the Tao in Tao Te Ching
and Chuang Tzu.
Religion in Late Modernity runs against the grain of common
suppositions of contemporary theology and philosophy of religion.
Against the common supposition that basic religious terms have no
real reference but are mere functions of human need, the book
presents a pragmatic theory of religious symbolism in terms of
which the cognitive engagement of the Ultimate is of a piece with
the cognitive engagement of nature and persons. Throughout this
discussion, Neville develops a late-modern conception of God that
is defensible in a global theological public.
Against the common supposition that religion is on the retreat
in late modernity except in fundamentalist forms, the author argues
that religion in our time is a stimulus to religiously oriented
scholarship, a civilizing force among world societies, a foundation
for obligation in politics, a source for healthy social
experimentation, and the most important mover of soul.
In this new book, Ms. Delza, the leading proponent in the United
States of the Wu Style, offers succinct and illuminating comments
from her viewpoint as both teacher and practitioner.
This book provides a cross-cultural analysis of how religious
symbols function from a theological and philosophical perspective.
Showing how religious symbols can be true in various qualified
senses, Neville presents a theory of religious symbolism in the
American pragmatic tradition extending and elaborating Tillich's
claim that religious symbols participate in the divine realities to
which they refer and yet must be broken in order not to be
idolatrous or demonic.
A Philosophy of Sacred Nature introduces Robert Corrington's
philosophical thought, "ecstatic naturalism," which seeks to
recognize nature's self-transforming potential. Ecstatic naturalism
is a philosophical-theological perspective, deeply seated in a
semiotic cosmology and psychosemiosis, and it radically and
profoundly probes into the mystery of nature's perennial
self-fissuring of nature natured and nature naturing. Edited by
Leon Niemoczynski and Nam T. Nguyen, this collection aims to allow
readers to see what can be done with ecstatic naturalism, and what
directions, interpretations, and creative uses that doing can take.
A thorough exploration of the prospects of ecstatic naturalism,
this book will appeal to scholars of Continental philosophy,
religious naturalism, and American pragmatism.
Focusing on what makes Jesus important in Christianity, Robert Cummings Neville, a leading philosophical theologian, presents and illustrates a theory of religious symbols wherein God is directly engaged in symbolically shaped thinking and practice. Moreover, Christian symbolism is shown to be entirely compatible with a late-modern scientific world view. This major work may affect belief in Jesus, and will be of value to students, academics, clergy with theological training, and others grappling with the meaning and importance of religious symbols in our age.
Focusing on what makes Jesus important in Christianity, Robert Cummings Neville, a leading philosophical theologian, presents and illustrates a theory of religious symbols wherein God is directly engaged in symbolically shaped thinking and practice. Moreover, Christian symbolism is shown to be entirely compatible with a late-modern scientific world view. This major work may affect belief in Jesus, and will be of value to students, academics, clergy with theological training, and others grappling with the meaning and importance of religious symbols in our age.
Process theism, in a variety of manifestations and modifications
stemming from Whitehead's original suggestions, dominates
discussions of philosophical and natural theology in Europe and
America. In Transforming Process Theism Ford argues that subsequent
modifications of Whitehead's original line of thought mask a
fundamental and unresolved aporia in that original proposal: since
only past or "objectified" determinate events can influence present
experiences and since God, as conceived by Whitehead, is never
fully determinate or objectifiable as a "past event", it is
difficult to see how this divine persuasive power can have any
influence on the present as a source of creativity and genuinely
new possibilities for enactment.
Ford meticulously reconstructs and evaluates Whitehead's own
versions of theism, and he critically appraises the most
influential subsequent modifications of these unrecognized variants
by other process thinkers. He recovers the original trajectory of
Whitehead's continuous revision of his conception of God, and
forges an appropriate solution to this central aporia. He concludes
that -- consistent with Whitehead's overarching metaphysical
principles, there is another kind of causal influence that does not
require objectification, and is the opposite of past
determinateness. The future, conceived as active, offers an account
of subjectivity which is both universal and transcendent. God,
according to Ford's revisions, must be understood as this
particular but indefinite creativity or universal activity of the
future, bestowing subjectivity on each present occasion of
experience without ever becoming determinate.
The Comparative Religious Ideas Project is a groundbreaking
three-year collaboration among well-known scholars of world
religious traditions as well as philosophers, historians,
sociologists of religion, and theologians who view religion in more
general terms. These resulting three volumes offer an exciting look
at important comparisons among major world religions and develop
and test a theory of comparison employing the collaborative method.
The idea of ultimacy as a comparative category that cuts across
major religious traditions and cultures is discussed in Ultimate
Realities, a multi-authored collaborative work. In this light,
Chinese religion, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, and
Islam are examined by distinguished specialist historians. Two
senses of ultimacy emerged in the Cross-Cultural Comparative
Religious Ideas Project from which this volume came. One is the
ultimacy of ontological matters such as God, the Dao, or Brahman.
The other is the anthropological ultimacy of religious quests such
as the Buddhist journey to enlightenment which does not stress any
ontological ultimate, and indeed in some forms considers
ontological ultimates to be problematic.
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