Search Results (19)

This paper examines the philosophy of language in The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch (六祖壇經), demonstrating its centrality to Zen Buddhism and Buddhist sinicization. The sutra emphasizes the ineffability of ultimate truth (至道無言) and the principle that words falter in encapsulating the Dao (言語道斷), framing language as a provisional “raft” (筏) that must be instrumentalized yet transcended through a dialectic of employing and abandoning (用離辯證). It ontologically grounds this view in Buddha-nature’s (佛性) pre-linguistic essence, advocating transcending reliance on words and letters (不假文字) while strategically deploying language to dismantle its own authority. Historically, this constituted a revolt against Tang scholasticism’s textual fetishism. The text adopts a dynamic dialectic, neither clinging to nor rejecting language, exemplified by Huineng’s awakening through the Diamond Sutra, where recitation catalyzes internal insight. Operationally, it utilizes negational discourse, the “Two Paths Mutually Condition” method (二道相因) embedded in the “Twelve Pairs of Dharmic Forms” (法相語言十二對) in particular, to systematically deconstruct dualisms, while promoting embodied unity of speech, mind, and action (口念心行) to critique empty recitation. Ultimately, the sutra orchestrates language as a self-subverting medium: balancing acknowledgment of its limitations with pragmatic instrumentality, it presents an Eastern paradigm where language actively disrupts conceptual fetters to facilitate direct insight into Buddha-nature, reframing it as a dynamic catalyst for “illuminating the mind and seeing one’s nature” (明心見性). Full article

Taking as its point of departure Pope Benedict XVI’s comment that ‘[e]ach of us is the result of a thought of God’, this article explores how the divine idea of the self bears promise for enabling a Catholic theological response to certain features of contemporary Western culture. This cultural setting is discussed first, using the interpretations of Philip Rieff and Carl R. Trueman, and their conceptualities of ‘psychological man’ and ‘expressive individualism’. The dominant contemporary view of human identity thus presented is markedly individualistic, being focused on an inward sense of self. The dominant approach to human meaning is similarly individualistic, being the satisfaction or expression of that sense of self. While both Rieff and Trueman point to a widespread loss of religious faith as pivotally important to for the emergence of these cultural paradigms, they mostly leave aside questions regarding the truth claims of specific religions in responding to them. Secondly, the scholastic doctrine of the divine ideas is discussed, with a view to presenting an alternative approach to human identity and meaning based on the contention that each human person ‘is the result of a thought of God’. Thirdly, the article concludes by drawing out the notions of identity and meaning implied by this doctrine, along with its inextricable relation to a specifically Catholic understanding of God. This understanding includes within it a distinct approach to human sociality in Christ, which answers directly to the individualism of contemporary culture, as outlined by Rieff and Trueman. Full article

In the early Buddhist discourses, distressing experiences like fear and disgust are evaluated in contradictory modes. These upsetting emotions are considered both a detriment and an advantage for those seeking liberation from suffering. This ambivalence is reflective of the classical Buddhist conception of distress. The earliest scholastic Buddhist texts (i.e., Abhidharma sources) have sought to resolve the ambivalence surrounding this conception. The Abhidharma texts thus explain precisely how, when, where and for whom distress can prove favorable. By tracing this intellectual endeavor, I examine in this article the systematic and philosophical treatments of distress (saṃvega) in early Buddhist scholasticism. I outline the reasons for considering the experience of distress to be beneficial, unveiling the religious framework within which distress is rendered positive and even essential. My central claim is that early Abhidharma sources conceive of distress as a potential source of energy that facilitates one’s progress on the religious path and determines how rapidly one can understand the truth. Full article

This paper suggests a “neoclassical” reading of Ernan McMullin’s thought on science and theology. McMullin’s Augustinian convictions on God and the God–world relation coincide with those of some prominent scholars from two renowned schools of neo-scholastic philosophy of the twentieth century in Louvain and Milan. The school of Milan, thanks to the work of some disciples of its leading figure, Amato Masnovo, developed a neoclassical version of neo-scholasticism, articulating a fundamental theory of knowledge, as well as an essential, rigorous path to God. We recall the main tenets of a neoclassical path to God, and we interpret this path as a possible contribution to the science–theology dialogue, in line with McMullin’s Augustinism. A neoclassical approach to science and theology, with its rediscovery and reactualization of some ideas of classic philosophy in an interdisciplinary context, grounds the intelligibility of the universe and safeguards its mystery. Full article

Pope Leo XIII’s publication of Aeterni Patris (1879) was a major factor in the great revival of Thomistic thought in the late 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries. Among the authors that took up the challenge implicit in the Pope’s document of bringing Aquinas and his thought into the intellectual debates of the times we find two interesting proposals. The first is that of Juan González Arintero, a Spanish Dominican, and the second one is that of Josef Donat, a Jesuit born and raised in the Austrian Empire. Arintero is mostly known in Catholic circles for his influential works on mysticism, but in fact he devoted much of his early work to the subject of evolution, and how it could interact with the Catholic faith in general, and with Thomism in particular. Donat is the author of a Summa Philosophiae Christianae, a collection that was widely read in Catholic seminaries well into the 20th century. In this paper we will focus on the differing ways in which these authors tackled the problems and questions presented by Darwinian evolutionism to the post-Aeterni Patris Thomism. Full article

Lingyan lishao 靈言蠡勺 [LYLS] (Humble Attempt to Discuss the Soul, 1624) by the Calabrian Jesuit Francesco Sambiasi (1582–1649) and the Chinese mandarin Xu Guangqi 徐光啓 (1562–1633) was the first Chinese-language treatise on the scholastic Aristotelian soul and a pioneering work in Sino–Western intellectual exchanges. Until now, the dominant assumption has been that the first volume (juan) of this work is simply an adaptation of the Coimbra commentaries on De Anima [DA] and Parva Naturalia [PN]. This article demonstrates, however, that while most of the first juan is based on these Coimbra commentaries, its treatise on the substance of the soul was likely derived from another source, namely the Enchiridion, a 16th century confessional manual by the Spanish Augustinian Martín de Azpilcueta (1492–1586), or Doctor Navarrus. Through a close textual comparison, this article shows how LYLS adopts the same structure, content, and citations of the Enchiridion to construct an accessible and concise theological definition of the soul that was better suited for the Chinese missionary context than the dense philosophic definitions of the Coimbra commentaries. Full article

The paper explores the historical and philosophical roots of economic thought, drawing connections between the entrepreneurial mindset and the scholastic traditions that have shaped the conceptual landscape of free markets. Through a multidisciplinary approach, the paper examines how religious and scholastic influences have contributed to the development of economic ideas, providing a nuanced understanding of the ethical dimensions inherent in entrepreneurial endeavors. By unraveling the threads that connect entrepreneurship, prayer, and scholasticism, this paper also seeks to illuminate the symbiotic relationship between faith, intellectual heritage, and the principles that underpin free-market economies. Full article

Among the important tasks of Trinitarian theology today is the need to rethink its basic conceptual coordinates. This contribution is a proposal for a phenomenological and existential approach to Trinitarian theology. The starting point is the analysis of three essential existential operators, by means of which the depth of the filial experience of Jesus is expressed. These operators are: being, having, and entering into relations. Their analysis in light of the data of the Gospel narrative allows us to create an interesting conceptual framework for a new articulation of the Trinitarian discourse. The article builds on the conviction that the concrete shapes and modalities of Jesus’ life are essential moments of the revelation of the Trinity. Before it is simultaneously closed and opened in concrete historical forms of discourse and in concrete metaphysical concepts, it is accomplished in the categorical decisions, actions, and words of Jesus, in which his filial consciousness is revealed. The ambition of the text is to reintroduce metaphysics into theology, however, from a different perspective than was conducted, for example, by classical scholasticism. It is about the existential recovery of metaphysical potential in theology. Revelation takes place in history and in the concrete of life. The metaphysics that theology needs must realize this and, above all, be up to the task of pointing to the living, historical center of Revelation and all theology. The article argues that such an existential deepening of metaphysics for Trinitarian theology can be conducted through collaboration with phenomenology. In such a perspective, the fragments of Jesus’ life, especially his way of being, having, and entering into relations, are ways in which the Trinity reveals itself in history. In this way, Trinitarian theology ceases to be a mere intellectual puzzle, becoming an existential paradigm, and the fragments of Revelation reveal an impressive structure in which speculation and life become integral paths toward the Mystery. On the formal side, the text argues for the integration and use of both metaphysics and phenomenology in Trinitarian theology to enhance its existential impact. This in turn implies a rethinking of how metaphysics, phenomenology, and theology itself are usually understood as well. Full article

This paper draws on a late medieval example to show that images of nature can also be images of the human body. It presents the Anthropologium de hominis dignitate by the Leipzig magister Magnus Hundt (1449–1519). The Anthropologium is a text that prominently integrates the human body into its conception of man and its account of human dignity. The body is not presented as a prison of the soul, but as a perfectly balanced physical counterpart to the soul. The paper shows how Hundt’s reflections were influenced by his commitment to the Thomistic school. Moreover, it reveals how the elevated Imago Dei thesis provides a justification for the study of the human body. Hundt is shown to offer nothing less than a theological–philosophical legitimation for practising medicine. In doing so, he also incorporates images of nature in a literal sense, insofar as he includes images of the human body in his book. Full article

Western New Atheism is witnessing a resurgence in the Arab world which has provoked a strong Islamic counter-atheism reaction. The present essay seeks to: 1—briefly describe the cultural resurgence of both opposing camps, 2—illuminate a philosophical Qur’ānic approach to atheism, 3—present a peculiar defense of atheism by Muḥammad li-Mzūghī utilizing classical Arab-Islamic scholasticism and literature, 4—examine an attempt to counter atheism by utilizing modern philosophy as articulated by ʻAbd al-Jalīl al-Kūr, 5—expand the theoretical debate by highlighting the current social magnitude of the atheistic-Islamic strife, 6—reveal an inner camp schism between the higher and lower intellectual levels of both Islamic and atheistic camps, an inner camp rivalry, and a cross camp alliance, and finally, 7—propose some epistemic solutions that can reduce the magnitude of this socio-cosmological debate. Full article

During the last decade, the curation of Islamic art and artifacts has been crossed by tensions at both the theoretical and practical level. Not only has it been continuously grappling with the Orientalist legacy, but it has also been operating in a global contemporaneity affected by multiple conflicts engendering a misperception of Muslims and Islam by non-Muslims. With this heavy background, this curation has been pursuing three main objectives: educating the public, decolonizing the museum, and reaching out to the Muslim communities and refugees living in non-Muslim societies. However, in the West, which remains worldly influential in the domain of heritage management, the first two objectives drove curators to engage in problematic practices, most notably the suppression of what we may call the “religious plot” in the exhibits’ narrative. Moreover, while the educational impulse led to a secular didactic scholasticism erected as the supreme exhibitory norm, the decolonizing enterprise took on an ideological turn in the form of a neo-postcolonial discourse at odds with a reality that has considerably changed since the seventies. Contesting the “being Islamic” of the material curated, this discourse separates religion from culture, thus relegating the faith to a theme among other multiple themes in the museum displays. That this state of affairs is problematic appears in crude light as, in the last decade, a new Muslim-led curatorship has been challenging this secularist curatorial politics. Re-centering Islam in the representational emplotment regarding Islamic culture in the exhibitory space and experimenting in the installations’ design to this effect, this curatorship, this essay’s author believes, holds the future of Islamic museology. Full article

This article presents an analysis of the Sino-Christian philosophy of history created by Archbishop Stanislaus Lo Kuang (1911–2004), whose comprehensive view of historiography and the historical process situates him amongst very few contemporary thinkers interested in developing a distinctively Christian yet strictly philosophical outlook of human history. It is shown that for Lo, an inquiry into the structure of historical facts leads to uncovering their meaning, which is identical with the meaning of human life, namely the search for happiness. Humans, driven by their nature and led by heroes, move freely towards what they consider greater happiness, realizing that this requires ever greater freedom and equality. God is introduced in this approach only as a guarantee of the fulfillment of the deepest desires and the One who inscribed them into human hearts. Importantly, in his discussion of God’s relation to history, Lo Kuang refers to the Confucian conceptions of human nature, Heaven, and destiny, offering a cross-cultural synthesis at the intersection of the theology and philosophy of history. It is argued that despite its inconsistencies, Lo Kuang’s contribution is original and could still be relevant for global society today. Full article

This paper focuses on one specific theological tool regarding some Christian ritual practices, i.e., the character indelebilis or indelible mark. Though the notion existed in some patristic sources, the theologoumenon was reframed in early scholasticism. Theologians of the 12th–13th century used the restricted code of Aristotelian psychology in order to better control theological predication and moved from baptismal theology to the theology of priesthood. Since Thomas Aquinas is the main theological reference in the development of the theologoumenon, special attention will be paid to his proposal. Revisiting the metaphorical nature of some of his statements and the iconic value he assigns to the indelible mark may contribute to a better understanding of the current theological debate. Full article

From the late thirteenth through late seventeenth centuries, a single three-word Latin phrase—sapiens dominabitur astris, or “the wise man will be master of the stars”—proliferated in astrological, theological, philosophical, and literary texts. It became a convenient marker denoting orthodox positions on free will and defining the boundaries of the scientifically and morally legitimate practice of astrology. By combining the methodology of a diachronic historical survey with a microhistorical focus on evolving phraseology, this study argues that closely examining the use of this phrase reveals how debates about the meanings of wisdom, free will, determinism, and the interpretation of stellar influence on human events changed radically across four centuries of Western European cultural and intellectual history. The first half of this article charts the scholastic response to theological criticisms of astrology and the reconciliation of Aristotelian-Ptolemaic cosmology with Catholic theology, paying special attention to its implications for astrology as viewed through scholarly uses of the phrase. The second half of the article shows how the phrase developed a multitude of idiosyncratic meanings in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, fracturing its late medieval scholastic unity, as new forms of philosophical, socio-political, religious, and scientific critiques upended astrological beliefs and practices. Ultimately, this paper argues that examining the theory and praxis of astrology through the changing phraseological meanings of “sapiens dominabitur astris” allows historians and cultural anthropologists to better discern the dialectical (as opposed to binary) relationships between free will and determinism in the West. Full article

The purpose of this study was to characterize early Donghak thought as the fusion of two horizons, one Confucian and the other Catholic. In particular, the study divided the Donghak founder Su-un Choe Je-u’s view of divinity into three stages, and showed how the evolution of his thought through these stages can be explained as the product of a dialogue between the Confucian monist tradition based on qi or vital energy and the Catholic dualist tradition based on Thomistic scholasticism. The study adopted a comparative and historical methodology, whereby comparison was limited to similarities and differences between Su-un’s works and sources in the Confucian or Catholic tradition that we can reasonably assume to have been available to Su-un. It was found that Su-un’s thought in the early stage was marked by theistic features similar to the scholastic view of God, and that in the middle stage Su-un sought to accommodate this theism within a pantheistic framework based on the Confucian monist tradition. For convenience’ sake, this theism-within-pantheism can be referred to as Su-un’s “panentheism”. It is suggested that the creative tension within this panentheism motivated Su-un to introduce innovations in his thought. First, in the middle stage, Su-un rejected the monism of li or pattern that was prevalent in the Neo-Confucian orthodoxy of his day, reverting to the older tradition of qi-monism. Second, in the late stage of his thought, he appears to have rehabilitated li as intelligent pattern that is the source of all signs of intelligence in the natural and moral order. As for the value of the approach adopted in this study, it enables us to make better sense of obscure details in Su-un’s works by placing them in their proper historical context, as evinced by the reading of Su-un’s late stage work “Buryeon Giyeon” presented herein. It is hoped that this approach will be applied more rigorously in future studies to deepen our understanding of the intellectual history of Donghak and Cheondogyo, along with various other new religions that emerged in Korea’s modern history. Full article