Search Results (521)

This article addresses the theological implications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) within the broader Catholic theology of technology. The emergence of AI challenges the traditional theological accounts of technicity and human action and demands a renewed reflection capable of engaging current technological developments and transformations. The study first examines artificial intelligence through the point of view of postphenomenology, highlighting the mediating role of technology in human perception, agency, and world-formation. It then revisits the theological concept of the imago Dei, central to Christian reflections on human activity and technology, by placing in dialogue different theological interpretations of the image of God and their anthropological implications. Offering a brief bibliographic and interdisciplinary review, the article analyses how current debates on AI and the imago Dei reshape questions concerning human uniqueness, creativity, embodiment, and moral responsibility. A renewed theological interpretation of the image of God, integrated with contemporary philosophies of technology, offers valuable insights into the nature of human action and human nature within technologically mediated contexts. The article concludes that Catholic theology can contribute a distinctive and critically constructive perspective to current discussions on artificial intelligence by articulating a more dynamic and relational understanding of humanity, human activity and technological mediation. Full article

This article examines the orientation that emerges during worship in the Abrahamic religions through the interrelation of bodily experience and architectural space. Drawing jointly on Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of the “lived body” and Mircea Eliade’s theory of sacred space, the study discusses how the directionality of worship in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam produces distinct spatial theologies. Methodologically, the research is based on a hermeneutic reading of selected sacred texts, rabbinic and liturgical sources, and on a comparative analysis of synagogue, church, and mosque spaces according to the criteria of orientation, architectural focus, bodily posture, congregational alignment, light, axis, threshold, and ritual surface. The proposed tripartite schema distinguishes between the horizontal covenantal orientation toward Jerusalem in Judaism, the vertical/transcendent axis associated with the cross, resurrection, and ascension in Christianity, and the downward orientation intensified around prostration in Islam. These orientations are not merely ritual prescriptions; rather, they constitute intentional structures through which the body is situated in relation to God, others, and the world. In the synagogue, the Torah ark and the direction of Jerusalem; in the church, the apse, cross, and luminous order; and in the mosque, the qibla wall, the alignment of prayer rows, and the surface of prostration are examined as architectural foci that materialize these intentional structures. The study brings together three domains that are often treated separately in literature: the phenomenology of religion, Eliadean cosmology, and architectural spatial analysis. In doing so, it proposes a comparative model of “spatial theology” among the Abrahamic traditions, articulated through the relationship between body, text, and worship structures. Ultimately, sacred space is interpreted as a dynamic order that is reconstituted in every act of worship through the convergence of bodily orientation, historical memory, and cosmic reference. Full article

This study redefines Christian spirituality as an ontological transformation realized through participation in the divine speech acts of God, articulated as the perlocutionary presence of Christ. Moving beyond dominant approaches that emphasize moral formation, psychological experience, or ritual practice, the article situates spirituality within the linguistic and ontological dynamics attested in Scripture and early Christian tradition. Drawing on speech act theory as developed by J. L. Austin and John Searle, alongside theological interpretations by Nicholas Wolterstorff and Kevin Vanhoozer, the study argues that divine speech operates as a performative event that effects real transformation. Methodologically, it examines biblical narratives of naming, revelation, forgiveness, and healing as instances of performative divine discourse, and engages patristic and monastic sources—including Athanasius, Augustine, and early monastic rules—to demonstrate how early Christian spirituality was understood as participatory formation through the Word. The article proposes an interpretive framework structured by language, action, and being, in which the presence of Christ is understood not as a static metaphysical state but as a transformative event enacted through divine speech. It concludes that this ontological reconfiguration offers a constructive bridge between ancient Christian spirituality and contemporary theological reflection. Full article

This paper examines the Christian Reformed Church’s (CRC) ministry in Harlem under the leadership of Rev. Dr. Eugene Callender, the denomination’s first Black minister. Drawing on archival materials and theological analysis, it traces the formation of the Mid-Harlem Community Parish and situates it within the broader historical and cultural dynamics of 1950s New York. Central to the study is the Reformed theological framework of the “already, but not yet” kingdom—a vision that shaped Callender’s integrated approach to evangelism, justice, and community-building. By holding together spiritual renewal and social engagement, Callender’s ministry offered a compelling model of faithful Christian witness in a fractured world. Full article

Theology and science has, for traditional sciences, been a two way street. It should be no surprise then that foundational issues in semantic information theory and AI may provide insights into religious dogmas: in this case, the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. In the early days of information theory and AI, Donald M. Mackay developed two particular theories based on his research in these domains: complementarityand logical indeterminism. Each of these gives insight to the nature and behaviour of agents (artificial and natural). He also applied these theories to provide further understanding of different aspects of the Trinity. In this paper, we will see how extended and corrected versions of these can provide an understanding of why the Godhead must be multi-personal. Complementarity gives an illustrative model of the Godhead given that He is triune, whereas modal indeterminism shows why incarnation requires multi-personality (the economic Trinity). Here, we also extend the analysis to the ontological Trinity and argue that modal indeterminism also necessitates that each individual person of the Godhead cannot be absolutely omniscient (but only omniscient after their Person): only the Godhead can be absolutely omniscient. This has implications for the general relation between the persons of the Trinity, and suggests that absolute omniscience requires the unity of classical theism. Full article

This article addresses the problem of the truth of religion from a personalist perspective, moving beyond classical propositional conceptions of truth. The starting point is the claim that, in Christianity, truth has a personal character and is fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ, which leads to a shift from truth understood as the correspondence of judgment and reality to truthfulness as the existential integrity of the human person. Methodologically, the study is located at the intersection of fundamental and systematic theology. It employs conceptual analysis, theological hermeneutics, and systematic argumentation in order to reconstruct, from within Christian personalism, a criterion of religious truthfulness. It is argued that the truth of religion cannot be reduced to doctrinal coherence, but is manifested in the degree to which religion fosters personal integration, relational capacity, and participation in communion. Particular attention is given to the role of the liturgy, especially the Eucharist, understood as a space of personal integration and transformation, in which the human person is drawn into relationship with God and the ecclesial community. The analysis further suggests that this criterion may have heuristic value in comparative theology, provided that the distinction between Christian claims to fullness and analogical participation in truthfulness is carefully maintained. In conclusion, a religion is true insofar as it makes the human person true, that is, integrated, relational, and capable of participation in communion. Such truthfulness has an ontological and personalist character, rather than being merely functional or pragmatic. Full article

This essay examines how traditional Christian accounts of divinization can be refined to address those whose sacrality has been systematically stripped away through racialized and gendered violence, specifically Black women in the U.S. context. The analysis draws on Maximus the Confessor’s relational ontology of divine love and Aristotle Papanikolaou’s “askesis of learning how to love” for survivors of violence, and Alice Walker’s novel The Color Purple as a womanist theological text, to construct a womanist theology of divinization that underscores the concept of the “kenosis of unworthiness.” Where traditional understandings of theosis presume a subject with an inflated will that requires a journey into humiliation, this essay argues that many desacralized persons begin divinization from a position of imposed self-negation that requires instead the relinquishment of internalized unworthiness before participation in divine life becomes possible. The essay traces Celie’s transformation through a disrupted god-image, encounter and embrace of divine omnipresence and her recovery of self-determination to demonstrate that divinization for the desacralized first materializes as healing. The essay concludes that a responsible theology of divinization must account for modernity and the impact of imperial lust for dominative power. In doing so, the doctrine can affirm that self-movement and self-determination both constitutive of the divine image and can be restored through the Spirit’s relational and regenerative work even amid historical, cultural, and structural violence. Full article

This article argues that contemporary theological and transnational justice discourse has undergone a structural shift from future-oriented emancipation to retroactive moral accounting. While liberation theology originally understood justice eschatologically, as an opening toward transformed relations and shared future life, contemporary discourse increasingly organizes justice around categorical identity, historical suffering, and immediate verdict. I call this condition “all justice, no peace”: multiple claims to justice remain internally coherent yet become mutually incommensurable, making coexistence harder rather than easier. The article traces three dynamics behind this shift: the global circulation of solidarity frameworks that stabilize rather than pluralize moral categories; the closure of the hermeneutical circle around fixed identities; and digital mediation, which privileges verdict over witness. These dynamics are examined through the Israeli–Palestinian conflict after 7 October 2023, where post-Holocaust Christian theology and Palestinian liberation theology each generate powerful but structurally non-relational claims to suffering and justice. The article concludes by proposing a move from retroactive to prospective justice as the only framework capable of sustaining future-oriented political and theological life. Full article

This article examines the impact of the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) on human formation from the perspective of Christian theological anthropology. Although recent scholarship highlights the advantages of AI for personalised learning and educational efficiency t frequently neglects the ontological and spiritual dimensions of human development. This study argues that the widespread use of AI in education risks externalising interior processes such as reflection, discernment, and memory. In contrast, the Christian theological tradition—as articulated by Augustine of Hippo (Confessions), Dumitru Stăniloae (Orthodox Dogmatic Theology), John Zizioulas (Being as Communion), and Christos Yannaras (The Freedom of Morality)—conceives of education as an inner transformation rooted in communion and participation in divine life. Drawing on interdisciplinary dialogue among theology, the philosophy of technology, and AI studies, this article introduces the Integrative Theological Formation Model (ITFM), comprising three dimensions: functional, reflexive, and contemplative–relational. The model seeks to integrate technology into education while safeguarding interiority and the spiritual dimension of the person. The article concludes that, while AI can support educational processes, it cannot generate communion, interiority, or ontological transformation. Full article

The study of sobriety in fashion can be understood as a form of spiritual exercise within a Christian ecological framework. This article argues that sobriety, understood as a virtue that shapes desire and moderates consumption, offers a theological response to the environmental and social consequences of contemporary fashion. Drawing on biblical sources, patristic and medieval theology, and early modern reflections, it traces the evolution of sobriety from a principle of bodily moderation to a broader philosophy of life. Through a theological analysis of fashion consumption, the article shows how sobriety can function as an ethical and spiritual practice capable of resisting hyperconsumerism and fostering ecological responsibility. The shift from modesty to sobriety thus provides a renewed framework for linking Christian virtue ethics, fashion consumption, and care for the planet. Full article

This article proposes Migratory Theology as a framework that emerges from the lived experience of displacement and reconfigures how ecclesial life is understood. Drawing on twelve qualitative interviews conducted with migrant women engaged in catechetical and pastoral ministry in Southern California, as well as on practices of pastoral accompaniment, the study argues that migration is not merely a social phenomenon but a constitutive epistemological condition through which faith and belonging are reinterpreted. By placing these experiences in dialogue with biblical narratives—particularly the Book of Ruth—and with the itinerant character of early Christianity, the article shows that migrant communities generate relational forms of ecclesial life that extend beyond territorial structures. Migrant women emerge not only as agents of pastoral care, but as epistemological subjects whose lived experiences generate theological insight concerning belonging, accompaniment, and ecclesial identity. The study concludes that migration reveals dimensions of ecclesial life that have long been present but insufficiently recognized, offering a reconfiguration of ecclesiology in which the Church is understood as a relational communion continually formed through movement, vulnerability, and reconstructed belonging. Full article

This article is structured in two parts. The first presents an overview of late-medieval female Marian devotion and spirituality, outlining the principal interpretative approaches developed in recent scholarship. The second examines Book VII of the Revelationes of Bridget of Sweden, which is constructed as a true “Gospel of Mary.” Through the visionary reconstruction of Christ’s life and Passion, narrated in the first person by the Virgin, Bridget reshapes the apocryphal tradition and transfers authority from apostolic memory to contemporary revelation. The narrative transforms the pilgrimage to the Holy Land into a Eucharistic and prophetic space, develops an innovative and politically charged Mariology, and presents Mary as both witness of the Incarnation and guardian of a Church in crisis. By integrating theology, narrative, and embodied visionary experience, the article argues that Bridget’s Marian Gospel represents one of the most daring and enduring expressions of female spiritual authority in the transmission of Christian truth. Full article

The biblical commentaries of Cyril of Alexandria (c. 376–444) represent a major contribution to the development of patristic exegesis. His Commentary on the Gospel of John demonstrates the close interaction between Christological theology, allegorical interpretation, and ecclesial polemic within late antique biblical interpretation. While Cyril’s exegesis has often been praised for its theological sophistication, modern scholarship increasingly recognizes that his interpretive framework also contains a pronounced anti-Judaic dimension. This study examines several key passages from Cyril’s Commentary on the Gospel of John in order to analyse how typology, supersessionist theology, and polemical rhetoric function together in his interpretation. Particular attention is given to Cyril’s portrayal of Jewish ignorance, his attribution of responsibility for the death of Christ, and his typological reinterpretation of Jewish law and history. The analysis demonstrates that Cyril integrates anti-Jewish rhetoric into a broader theological system in which the Mosaic law is presented as a provisional anticipation fulfilled in Christ and realized in the Christian Church. Full article

The Neo-Calvinist Johan Herman Bavinck was one of the most significant missionaries of the mid-twentieth century in the Reformed tradition. Bavinck considered the question of the status of non-Christian religion and religious consciousness the most pressing issue for missionary thought and practice. This article offers a text-driven account of Johan Herman Bavinck’s theology of religions. It argues that Bavinck treated non-Christian religion as a culpable yet always partial suppression of God’s universal self-disclosure, in which religious systems cohere around what he calls vague truths while lacking the determinate knowledge of God given in special revelation. Attention to his distinction between systems and persons clarifies how he believed missionary encounter could combine judgement with humility, as the Christian confronts unbelief while recognising the church’s own tendency toward pseudo-religion. The article situates Bavinck’s account within Reformed Augustinianism and eclecticism, such as in the use of Freudian psychology in exegesis. It then provides a preliminary application of Bavinck’s thought to select issues in Chinese Christianity as part of recent scholarly attention to the prospects of Sino-Reformed theology. Full article

Zhu Zongyuan’s short treatise Jiao she zhi li suoyi shi Shangdi ye (郊社之禮所以事上帝也, The rites of the suburban and earth-altar sacrifices are for serving Shangdi, the Supreme Lord) introduces the strictly monotheistic concept of God from Catholicism, shaping the Shangdi of the Confucian classics into a supreme and unique sovereign who commands all spirits. Through this theoretical construction, he convincingly argues that although the rituals of Jiao and She differ in form, their object of worship is ultimately the same, thereby resolving the long-standing Confucian debate between separate sacrifices and joint sacrifice at an ontological level. This interpretive approach elevates this treatise beyond mere proselytizing literature, establishing it as a representative work that engages with Confucian classical scholarship through Catholic theology. It signifies the emergence of an independent intellectual lineage within the Chinese scholarly tradition, characterized by a synthesis of Christianity and Confucianism. Full article