Download or read book The Concept of the Absurd and Its Theological Reception in Christian Monasticism written by Bernard Sawicki and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The goal of this study is to compare the theoretical vision of monasticism with some aspects of modern philosophical thought. Here the form of presentation is as important as the material presented, and their mutual dependence and correlation defines the character of the work. This is a study entirely out of the common run, yet in its own way attractive and approachable. It comes forth as an ardent challenge from a profound perspective that is profoundly unsettling: the absurdity of the world and the stance that sees it all as absurd may find their salvation in the still greater absurdity of Christianity, that is, in the abyss of its mysteries and the message of the Cross; in the mystical theology of penetrating perceptions and radically inverted insights; in the extravagant practices of an archetypal and anonymous monasticism that finds its model in the Desert Fathers and its realization in so many self-consciously marginal figures of twentieth century spirituality. But what is the absurd? Does it really exist and, if so, how does it manifest itself on the scene of our existence? disturbance, a ferment in the midst of human experience. The absurd, even at its most imposing, shows up in the futility and brokenness of life as lived. But how to get a hold on it? How to circumscribe it? In this context, the structures devised by our author are highly original and of great help. His table of categories, schematics and focal points serve to individuate the absurd against the background noise of existence: of human feeling, perception and language that situate the absurd in the structure of a cosmos lived in by persons. It is as if the categories invented by philosophers from Aristotle to Kant, and Husserl to provide a conceptual framework for human cognition are redeployed in the work of our author to the task of comprehending the incomprehensible: the absurd. His approach allows the absurd to be distinguished clearly from some experiences that approximate it, such as the tragic, the grotesque, madness, paradox, thus giving the absurd its own unmistakable physiognomy. What would the absurd, not to speak of faith, be without the flesh and spirit of the lived life? for their styles of living and writing, all of whom oscillate between the absurd experience of the absurd and the courageous attempt to insert it into theory and practice, into a commitment of belief and ethics, all the while haunted by doubt and often succumbing under burdens of the task. The chapters on Camus, Cioran, Schneider, Quinzio, Blondel, Weil, Hillesum and Bonhoeffer are profiles with remarkable efficacy for elucidating the individuality of each personage from the inside and out, giving each of them a unique physiognomy. There emerge the diverse strategies and attitudes that allowed these writers to confront the absurd in a fruitful way: the seriousness and ethical severity, irony and mysticism, blindly crossing the tragic abyss, the apocalyptic pull, hope in the eschaton, while demonstrating courage and the casual air that results from a genuine indifference toward oneself, a conscious self-forgetting that is open to the Absolute, to trust in a God who might save your and my freedom and dignity. figure and hidden filigree of existence: each one of us is and leads a life that is solitary and vulnerable, expropriated, that is situated in a deep sympathy with the lives of others, so to lay itself open to the word and prompting of the Absolute. With, as traveling companions, unconventional churchmen the likes of Merton, de Certeau, Panikkar, Dossetti we move closer to a new rereading of the Desert Fathers, discovering in them our allies in the experience of the absurd and in overcoming it with mirth, effort and courage, on behalf of a new intuition of the Christian faith which in our age needs to be rediscovered and re-explored. This is a study, yes, but still more a map of a journey in the infinite landscape of existence and of the mystery of living and believing.
Download or read book Exploring the Future of Christian Monasticisms written by Greg Peters and published by MDPI. This book was released on 2020-01-15 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The institution of monasticism in the Christian Church is in general decline, at least in so-called “first world” nations. Though there are many reasons for this, monastic leaders are confronted by the reality of fewer communities, monks, and nuns nonetheless. At the same time, many younger Christians are rediscovering the rich heritage of the monastic tradition. Though they themselves might not be called to join a traditional monastery, they are eager to appropriate monastic practices in their own lives. This had led to a movement known as the “new monasticism” or “secular monasticism.” Despite lacking a unified vision and any central organization, these new/secular monastics are attempting, in their own ways, to carry on the tradition and practices of Christian monasticism. As well, there is a movement within historical Christian monasteries to pour new wine into old wineskins. Traditional forms of monasticism are also generally flourishing in developing nations, breathing new life into monasticism. This volume looks at the current monastic landscape to assess where monasticism stands and to imagine ways in which it will grow in the future, leading not only to a renewed Christian monasticism but to new monasticisms.
Download or read book A Visual Approach to the Study of Religious Orders written by Marcin Jewdokimow and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-05-01 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Visual Approach to the Study of Religious Orders applies visual methods to the exploration of various facets of religious life, such as everyday lived experience, contemporary monastic identity or monastic architecture. Presenting a series of visual essays, it treats images not as simple illustrations but as an autonomous form of expression, capable of unveiling vital and developmental layers of experience, while inviting readers to examine and interpret the data themselves. The first book of its kind, it brings together case studies from various locations across Europe to demonstrate what the use of visual methodologies can contribute to social scientific research on religious orders. As such, it will appeal to scholars and students of sociology, religious studies and theology and anyone with interests in religious orders.
Download or read book Trees in Literatures and the Arts written by Carmen Concilio and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-04-21 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Embracing the intersectional methodological outlook of the environmental humanities, the contributors to this edited collection explore the entanglements of cultures, ecologies, and socio-ethical issues in the roles of trees and their relationships with humans through narratives in literature and art.
Download or read book The American Benedictine Review written by and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 502 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Problem of God Yesterday and Today written by John Courtney Murray and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1964-01-01 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In an urbane and persuasive tract for our time, the distinguished Catholic theologian combines a comprehensive metaphysics with a sensitivity to contemporary existentialist thought. Father Murray traces the “problem of God” from its origins in the Old Testament, through its development in the Christian Fathers and the definitive statement by Aquinas, to its denial by modern materialism. Students and nonspecialist intellectuals may both benefit by the book, which illuminates the problem of development of doctrine that is now, even more than in the days of Newman, a fundamental issue between Roman Catholic and Protestant, theologians and nonspecialst intellectuals alike will find the subject of vital interest. As a challenge to the ecumenical dialogue, the question is raised whether, in the course of its development through different phases, the problem of God has come back to its original position. Father Murray is Ordinary professor of theology at Woodstock College, Woodstock, Maryland. St. Thomas More Lectures, 1. "A gem of a book—lucid, illuminating, brilliantly written. A fine contribution to the current Catholic theological renaissance."—Paul Weiss.
Download or read book The British National Bibliography written by Arthur James Wells and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 2492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Prospective Review written by and published by . This book was released on 1851 with total page 518 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Origen written by Ronald E. Heine and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022-02-17 with total page 625 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This interrogation of Origen's legacy for the 21st Century returns to old questions built upon each other over eighteen centuries of Origen scholarship-problems of translation and transmission, positioning Origen in the histories of philosophy, theology, and orthodoxy, and defining his philological and exegetical programmes. The essays probe the more reliable sources for Origen's thought by those who received his legacy and built on it. They focus on understanding how Origen's legacy was adopted, transformed and transmitted looking at key figures from the fourth century through the Reformation. A section on modern contributions to the understanding of Origen embraces the foundational contributions of Huet, the twentieth century movement to rehabilitate Origen from his status as a heterodox teacher, and finally, the identification in 2012 of twenty-nine anonymous homilies on the Psalms in a codex in Munich as homilies of Origen. Equally important has been the investigation of Origen's historical, cultural, and intellectual context. These studies track the processes of appropriation, assimilation and transformation in the formation and transmission of Origen's legacy. Origen worked at interpreting Scripture throughout his life. There are essays addressing general issues of hermeneutics and his treatment of groups of books from the Biblical canon in commentaries and homilies. Key points of his theology are also addressed in essays that give attention to the fluid environment in which Origen developed his theology. These essays open important paths for students of Origen in the 21st century.
Download or read book Cur Deus Homo written by Saint Anselm (Archbishop of Canterbury) and published by . This book was released on 1909 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Spiritual Theology written by Jordan Aumann and published by Bloomsbury Continuum. This book was released on 2019-11-12 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first part of Prof Jordan Aumann's magisterialSpiritual Theology is concerned with the theological principles of Christian holiness, while the second and major part derives from those principles' practical directives for the individual Christian's 'growth in holiness'. Based firmly on the work of three classical masters - St Thomas Aquinas, St John of the Cross, and St Teresa of Avila - this text has already proved of great benefit to contemporary students and general readers seeking to inform and develop their own spiritual lives.
Download or read book God s Babies written by John McKeown and published by Open Book Publishers. This book was released on 2014-12-17 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The human population's annual total consumption is not sustainable by one planet. This unprecedented situation calls for a reform of religious cultures that promote a large ideal family size. Many observers assume that Christianity is inevitably part of this problem because it promotes "family values" and statistically, in America and elsewhere, has a higher birthrate than nonreligious people. This book explores diverse ideas about human reproduction in the church past and present. It investigates an extreme fringe of U.S. Protestantism, including the Quiverfull movement, that use Old Testament "fruitful" verses to support natalist ideas explicitly promoting higher fecundity. It also challenges the claim by some natalists that Martin Luther in the 16th century advocated similar ideas. This book argues that natalism is inappropriate as a Christian application of Scripture, especially since rich populations’ total footprints are detrimental to biodiversity and to human welfare. It explores the ancient cultural context of the Bible verses quoted by natalists. Challenging the assumption that religion normally promotes fecundity, the book finds surprising exceptions among early Christians (with a special focus on Saint Augustine) since they advocated spiritual fecundity in preference to biological fecundity. Finally the book uses a hermeneutic lens derived from Genesis 1, and prioritising the modern problem of biodiversity, to provide ecological interpretations of the Bible's "fruitful" verses.
Download or read book Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood Revised Edition written by John Piper and published by Crossway. This book was released on 2021-01-11 with total page 632 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Guide to Navigate Evangelical Feminism In a society where gender roles are a hot-button topic, the church is not immune to the controversy. In fact, the church has wrestled with varying degrees of evangelical feminism for decades. As evangelical feminism has crept into the church, time-trusted resources like Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood help remind Christians of what the Bible has to say. In this edition of the award-winning best seller, more than 20 influential men and women such as John Piper, Wayne Grudem, D. A. Carson, and Elisabeth Elliot offer thought-provoking essays responding to the challenge egalitarianism poses to life in the church and in the home. Covering topics like role distinctions in the church, how biblical manhood and womanhood should work out in practice, and women in the history of the church, this helpful resource will help readers learn to orient their beliefs with God's unchanging word in an ever-changing culture.
Download or read book Before Religion written by Brent Nongbri and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2013-01-22 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examining a wide array of ancient writings, Brent Nongbri dispels the commonly held idea that there is such a thing as ancient religion. Nongbri shows how misleading it is to speak as though religion was a concept native to pre-modern cultures.
Download or read book The Beauty of the Cross written by Richard Viladesau and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2005-12-01 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the earliest period of its existence, Christianity has been recognized as the "religion of the cross." Some of the great monuments of Western art are representations of the brutal torture and execution of Christ. Despite the horror of crucifixion, we often find such images beautiful. The beauty of the cross expresses the central paradox of Christian faith: the cross of Christ's execution is the symbol of God's victory over death and sin. The cross as an aesthetic object and as a means of devotion corresponds to the mystery of God's wisdom and power manifest in suffering and apparent failure. In this volume, Richard Viladesau seeks to understand the beauty of the cross as it developed in both theology and art from their beginnings until the eve of the renaissance. He argues that art and symbolism functioned as an alternative strand of theological expression -- sometimes parallel to, sometimes interwoven with, and sometimes in tension with formal theological reflection on the meaning of the Crucifixion and its role insalvation history. Using specific works of art to epitomize particular artistic and theological paradigms, Viladesau then explores the contours of each paradigm through the works of representative theologians as well as liturgical, poetic, artistic, and musical sources. The beauty of the cross is examined from Patristic theology and the earliest representations of the Logos on the cross, to the monastic theology of victory and the Romanesque crucified "majesty," to the Anselmian "revolution" that centered theological and artistic attention on the suffering humanity of Jesus, and finally to the breakdown of the high scholastic theology of the redemption in empirically concentrated nominalism and the beginnings of naturalism in art. By examining the relationship between aesthetic and conceptual theology, Viladesau deepens our understanding of the foremost symbol of Christianity. This volume makes an important contribution to an emerging field, breaking new ground in theological aesthetics. The Beauty of the Cross is a valuable resource for scholars, students, and anyone interested in the passion of Christ and its representation.
Download or read book The Varieties of Religious Experience written by William James and published by The Floating Press. This book was released on 2009-01-01 with total page 824 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Harvard psychologist and philosopher William James' The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature explores the nature of religion and, in James' observation, its divorce from science when studied academically. After publication in 1902 it quickly became a canonical text of philosophy and psychology, remaining in print through the entire century. "Scientific theories are organically conditioned just as much as religious emotions are; and if we only knew the facts intimately enough, we should doubtless see 'the liver' determining the dicta of the sturdy atheist as decisively as it does those of the Methodist under conviction anxious about his soul. When it alters in one way the blood that percolates it, we get the Methodist, when in another way, we get the atheist form of mind."
Download or read book Six Ways of Being Religious written by Dale S. Cannon and published by Wadsworth Publishing Company. This book was released on 1996 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book proposes the hypothesis that six generic ways of being religious may be found in any large-scale religious tradition such as Christianity or Buddhism or Islam or Hinduism: sacred rite, right action, devotion, shamanic mediation, mystical quest, and reasoned inquiry. These are recurrent ways in which, socially and individually, devout members of these traditions take up and appropriate their stories and symbols in order to draw near to, and come into right relationship with, what the traditions attest to be the ultimate reality.
