Search Results (81)

The following exposition examines the concept of phenomenology with respect to its gradual integration into Catholic philosophy. Phenomenology is an evolving field whose internal tensions inevitably give rise to phenomenologies of religious thought, including theological questions. This development is articulated by numerous prominent scholars of our era, such as Max Scheler, Emmanuel Lévinas, and Jean-Luc Marion. The concept of “phenomenology of revelation” represents a distinctive development within the broader framework of the subject. In Catholic philosophy, the phenomenological perspective gained significant traction in the last century, particularly under the influence of scholars such as Hans Urs von Balthasar and Karl Rahner. In the contemporary era, there is a diverse array of efforts to reinterpret Catholic philosophical thought through phenomenological methods. From the author’s standpoint, the issue of divine revelation, particularly natural revelation, has the potential to unveil novel possibilities for Catholic philosophy in the present and the future. Full article

Approaching the tension between critical thinking and religious conviction in a modern secular context, this study explores Paul Ricoeur’s theological hermeneutics as a potential metaphoric language for doing contemporary theology. Utilizing Ricoeur’s hermeneutic method of the “long route”—a patient detour through text, symbol, and narrative that refuses the direct existential decoding of myth—the research qualitatively analyzes his interdisciplinary insights across biblical interpretation, revelation, and narrative theory. The analysis reveals that Ricoeur’s integration of philosophical and biblical hermeneutics facilitates what he calls a “second naïveté”: a post-critical posture in which religious symbols can be inhabited again only after, and through, the labour of critique, never before or around it. Such a posture addresses the specifically modern difficulty of making Christian faith argumentatively responsible to contemporary readers, believers and reflective non-believers alike. Key findings highlight the poetic dimension of theological language—its capacity to disclose rather than merely describe—as essential for reconfiguring reality and for redefining revelation as an event that takes place between the “world of the text” (the possible world projected by a biblical text read as discourse) and the “world of the reader.” This reorientation does not dismiss dogmatic-theological formulation; it holds the systematic–speculative and the poetic–hermeneutic together rather than letting either collapse into the other. The study concludes that doing theology through metaphor—specifically through the dialectic between “being” and “being-as” of God—opens a generative hermeneutic perspective for articulating the divine in a post-critical age, where the category “post-critical” designates not a repudiation of critique but the reflective stance that remains possible only on the far side of it. Rather than providing a unified theological system, this perspective preserves the tensions—between philosophy and theology, critique and conviction, metaphor and its ontological reach—that Ricoeur deliberately leaves unresolved. Full article

Interpretations of the circumstances that formed the development of the Hermetic texts are still to be debated. However, these difficulties are not only philological in nature but also address the revelatory quality of the texts. The author of the sixteenth dialogue of the Corpus Hermeticum (CH) diminishes his work by claiming that the teachings contained in the treatise would actually only be understood properly if it were in the Egyptian language, not in its current form, Greek, because the Greek language is not able to reveal the truth conveyed by the divine power of the Egyptian language, but is only useful for logical debates and joking. The role of the written word, as well as its connection to oral initiation in Hermetism, is examined first in this paper. Second, we look at how the book and Egyptian writing mediating the teachings is portrayed as a sacred item in Hermetic initiation texts, as well as its importance in the initiation process. Finally, we examine the peculiar claim of the author of the sixteenth treatise of Corpus Hermeticum that, despite all this, it is possible to misuse Hermetic texts if they are translated, specifically, into the Greek language in which we can read most of them today. In studying CH XVI, I propose that Hermetic authors try to retain the famous character of the works by highlighting their Egyptian origin. They claim that Hermetic teachings can only lead to initiation in their original form but if they are translated into any language, they lose their divine power. Full article

This study analyses the theological debates surrounding the Servant Songs in the Book of Isaiah, with particular attention to the fourth song, as interpreted in medieval Jewish literature. These passages, fundamental to both Jewish and Christian tradition, became a central focus of controversial dialogue in medieval Spain. Through a systematic analysis of Hebrew commentaries, the article examines key theological issues that emerge in these debates: the universal mission of Israel, the meaning of suffering, the concept of kenosis in Pauline theology, and the doctrine of original sin. Jewish exegetes such as Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Moses Ha-Kohen of Tordesillas, and Abravanel offered critical responses to Christian claims, often proposing alternative readings based on Hebrew philology and rational anthropology. The study highlights how these exchanges contributed to a deeper understanding of divine justice, human action, and incarnation, while emphasising the importance of precise theological language in interreligious dialogue. Some anthropological and metaphysical questions briefly addressed here point to new lines of research. Ultimately, the Servant Songs reveal themselves as a privileged space for theological reflection and manifest the enduring resonance of prophetic revelation. Full article

This article examines the relationship between the Indonesian Ulama Council (MUI), a Muslim umbrella organisation, and the Indonesian state. It focuses on the dynamic role that MUI has played in public health issues and the national lottery. The two topics were chosen to focus on MUI’s partly contradictory role in its relationship with the state of Indonesia. While MUI has largely played along with the state on issues of public health and family planning, it has stood in opposition to and provided moral resistance to the state on issues of gambling and the national lottery. The analysis uses the theories of Bourdieu on symbolic capital and power, and the resource dependence theory as analytical tools. The article discusses how the state depends on the MUI’s religious legitimacy regarding policies like family planning and COVID vaccination. It has used its symbolic capital to mediate between divine revelation, public morality, and state authority. The MUI has played a paradoxical role through the dual processes of halalisation and haramisation. In contrast to halalisation in areas such as commerce, the MUI has stipulated the haramisation of gambling executed through a national lottery. Full article

This essay explores how sanctity at Helfta was defined not by the perfection of song but by its interruption. The Book of Special Grace and the Herald of Divine Love praise Mechthild of Hackeborn and Gertrude the Great as singers of surpassing sweetness yet linger on the migraines, collapses, and illnesses that silenced their voices in the choir. These moments of suspension disclose muteness as more than absence: they reveal it as the paradoxical condition through which divine presence most fully resounds. Bringing sound studies into dialogue with disability studies, I argue that faltering breath, broken chant, and enforced silence function as theological and literary form. At Helfta, impairment itself becomes a hermeneutic structure, the hinge through which sanctity is revealed and narrative meaning is generated. In this framework, muteness operates as a form of narrative prosthesis—an interruption that both structures the hagiographical imagination and unsettles it by refusing cure or closure. By highlighting the fragility of voice as the very medium of divine disclosure, these texts testify that the sweetest music of Helfta lies not in unbroken chant but in silence transfigured into revelation. Full article

This study explores the Qurʾānic portrayal of al-ḥūr al-ʿīn in relation to pre-Islamic poetic traditions, with a particular focus on Imruʾ al-Qays’s Muʿallaqa—a foundational text in Arabic love poetry. It aims to examine how the Qurʾān reconfigures familiar expressions of female beauty—such as al-luʾluʾ al-maknūn, qāṣirātu al-ṭarf, kawāʿib atrāban, ʿuruban, and abkāran—within a spiritual and eschatological framework. The research problem centers on understanding the rhetorical and semantic shift from the sensual, body-centered depictions of women found in Imruʾ al-Qays’s couplet to the morally elevated and symbolically charged representations presented in the Qurʾān. Using a comparative textual analysis method, the study draws on classical tafsīr literature and selected passages from Muʿallaqa to trace the semantic transformation of key terms and metaphors. The findings demonstrate that while the Qurʾān retains the linguistic forms and imagery familiar to its audience—including poetic conventions of beauty from Imruʾ al-Qays—it redirects them toward a higher moral and theological purpose. Female beauty becomes not a site of fleeting desire, but a symbol of divine reward, integrating physical perfection with spiritual purity. Ultimately, the research argues that the Qurʾān does not reject the aesthetic legacy of pre-Islamic poetry, but absorbs and elevates it, establishing a new rhetorical paradigm grounded in revelation and ethical transcendence. This study encourages further comparative research between Qurʾānic discourse and early Arabic poetry to illuminate the cultural and expressive transformations shaped by Islam. Full article

This paper explores the function of miracles in classical and modern Islamic theology, focusing particularly on Fethullah Gülen’s interpretation and its relevance to contemporary discussions on revelation, rationality, and science. Traditionally, miracles are viewed as divine signs confirming prophethood by surpassing natural laws and serving as challenges to disbelievers. While classical scholars upheld their evidentiary role, modern thinkers—under the influence of positivism and rationalism—have sought to reinterpret or dismiss their validity, particularly sensory or physical miracles. In this context, Gülen presents a distinctive perspective that reframes miracles not merely as supernatural phenomena, but as signs pointing to both spiritual truths and technological inspiration. Drawing from the insights of Said Nursi, Gülen highlights how prophetic miracles have anticipated and guided scientific advancements, thereby integrating material progress with spiritual wisdom. Gülen’s holistic understanding of human nature and prophetic guidance, rooted in the concept of human beings as the most refined creation (ahsani taqwīm), positions prophets as leaders of both spiritual and intellectual advancement. This dual role challenges the perceived conflict between revelation and reason, asserting that rationality reaches its full potential only when informed by prophetic insight. The paper also situates Gülen’s thought within broader modern theological discourses, particularly in response to critiques that Islam is incompatible with science. Gülen affirms the necessity of revelation not as a hindrance to rational inquiry but as its essential guide, likening prophets to expert physicians who administer the elixir of revelation to protect and elevate the human mind. By analysing Gülen’s approach to miracles and prophetic intellect (fatānah), this paper argues that his theology offers a balanced framework for reconciling religion and science, and contributes a meaningful response to contemporary debates surrounding the rationality of faith and the enduring relevance of prophethood. Full article

This article explores the philosophical foundations of religion in Ibn Rushd’s thought, with particular attention to his treatment of miracles. It argues that Ibn Rushd relocates the discussion of miracles from the domain of natural philosophy to that of practical philosophy, where religion fulfills a civic and ethical function by shaping public belief and encouraging virtuous action. The study begins by examining Ibn Rushd’s critical engagement with the Ashʿarī theologians, focusing on his deconstruction of their arguments on miracles and his rejection of al-Ghazālī’s occasionalism in the debate over causality and the proof of miracles. It then turns to Ibn Rushd’s constructive position, which rests on three central elements: first, belief in miracles is fundamental to religious faith and not open to philosophical dispute; second, the miracle that validates prophethood consists in the establishment of divine laws that regulate thought and conduct; and third, this conception is grounded in the Qurʾān, representing the most authentic understanding of revelation. While the primary aim of the article is to clarify Ibn Rushd’s philosophical account of miracles and his reorientation of the debate toward practical philosophy, it also highlights his broader concern with the role of Sharīʿa in guiding communal beliefs and moral practices. This study also brings to light Ibn Rushd’s reliance on tawātur as a form of self-evident knowledge that secures certainty without the need for rational proof. Full article

This essay unfolds a phenomenology of revelation in sixteenth-century Italy and elucidates its undergirding concepts of faith, truth, and divine darkness. Analyzing visual and verbal works by Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) and poetry by Vittoria Colonna (1490–1547) and Muzio Sforza (1542–1597), this study offers a portrait of faith as embodied experience. Darkness emerges from these analyses as a condition of faith, a place or space beyond the senses and a state of emptiness achieved through closing them, a precondition for spiritual visions or divine union, and the only proportional means for approaching the transcendent divine. Full article

This study critically examines the civil–religious influence of Korean conservative Protestantism, which mobilizes heteronormative strategies to oppose anti-discrimination and family rights legislation, through the lens of Christian normativity. These movements justify heteronormative values by appealing to the immutability of the “creation order” in Genesis. Yet such literalist interpretations disregard contemporary findings in evolutionary biology and animal behavior that document same-sex phenomena across species, thereby framing creation and evolution in rigid opposition. Imported from American fundamentalism, “creation science” has further fueled an anti-intellectual public sentiment that naturalizes heterosexuality as divine law. The absolutism of the creation order and special revelation exposes deep theological contradictions when confronted with the existence of diverse sexual and gender identities. In response, this study turns to process theology, which reimagines creation as open-ended, dynamic, and co-creative. Engaging Catherine Keller’s apophatic theology to reopen theological space for sexual minorities, it further develops Justin Sabia-Tanis’s interpretation of transgender transformation as a process of co-evolution, in dialogue with Donna Haraway’s notion of cyborg hybridity. Moreover, drawing on John B. Cobb Jr.’s “persuasive political theology,” it argues that participation in divine co-creation must be expanded into the socio-political sphere. Ultimately, this study seeks to resist anti-intellectualism and advocate for a transformative Christian civil religion in Korea—one oriented toward justice, inclusion, and continual co-creation. Full article

The prophetic texts from Mari represent the earliest written testimony of the prophetic phenomenon in the Ancient Near East. Approximately sixty-five clay tablets—out of the more than eighteen thousand unearthed at Tell Hariri (Syria)—attest to the prophetic activity of various men and women who received divine revelations primarily intended for the king. However, a detailed reading of the texts reveals that there is no single term used to identify prophetic agents, inviting reflection on the diversity of roles and functions within this phenomenon. Why, then, do scholars refer to them collectively as “prophetic agents” (a term that, moreover, carries a strong biblical resonance)? Can we discern in their actions the counterpart or the very essence of the prophets of Israel? This article explores, based on the original Akkadian texts, the multiple identities of the prophets of Mari through an analysis of the terms employed, their etymology, and their occurrence in Old Babylonian sources. Furthermore, since these individuals are recipients of divine revelation, the study also includes those men and women who bear witness to revelatory dreams. Finally, it raises the question of whether these prophets and their practices can be regarded as precursors to the biblical prophets, given the striking similarities in their behavior and message. This study thus provides grounds to speak of a continuum of prophetic phenomena throughout the biblical Near East. Full article

Exploring the reality of women with cancer involves acknowledging the pressures of conformity and loneliness that often lead to silence. It is a silence that hides women’s experiences, emotions, and reflections on suffering, death, and despair, undermining the process of self-revelation and community support that could develop on their journey with cancer. The article aims to analyze Audre Lorde’s reflections in The Cancer Journals in dialogue with Julian of Norwich’s Revelations of Divine Love and The Book of Margery Kempe, to articulate aspects of an eschatology from a woman’s perspective that are pastorally beneficial for discourse on suffering, death, and hope. The cornerstones of this eschatology can motivate the sufferer to stand at the crossroads of accepting suffering as a reality while actively resisting it, creating a space to determine whether one’s suffering has meaning in their life. Full article

This study examines al-Mufaḍḍaliyyāt anthology as a foundational corpus wherein pre-Islamic and early Islamic Arabic poetry emerged not only as a cultural artifact but as a generative locus for theological reflection. Through a close reading of selected poems and nuanced engagement with the figurative language specifically metaphor, personification, and symbolic narrative, the research situates poetry as a mode of epistemic inquiry that articulates religious meaning alongside Qurʾānic revelation. Drawing on ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī’s theory of semantic structure and metaphor, in dialogue with Paul Ricoeur’s conception of metaphor as imaginative cognition, the study proposes that poetic discourse operates as a site of “imaginative theology”, i.e., a space wherein the abstract is rendered sensorially legible and metaphysical concepts are dramatized in affective and embodied terms. The analysis reveals how key Qurʾānic themes including divine will, mortality, ethical restraint are anticipated, echoed, and reconfigured through poetic imagery. Thus, al-Mufaḍḍaliyyāt is not merely a literary corpus vis-à-vis Islamic scripture but also functions as an active interlocutor in the formation of early Islamic moral and theological imagination. This interdisciplinary inquiry contributes to broader discussions on the interpenetration of poetics and theology as well as on the cognitive capacities of literature to shape religious consciousness. Full article

This article utilizes canonical interpretation to reassess Paul’s eulogy in Ephesians 1:3–14 by situating it within the Bible’s overarching narrative of placemaking—from Genesis to Revelation. Rejecting purely historical-grammatical approaches, the study treats the Protestant canon as a unified literary and theological whole with both divine and human authorship. Drawing on intertextual methods, especially the work of NT Wright and David Larsen, the author frames Paul’s eulogy as a theological “mini narrative” nested within the grand canonical mission: God’s purpose to create and dwell with His family in a holy place (God’s house as God’s home with His family in God’s homeland). The article argues that this placial mission undergirds themes of election, redemption, sonship, administration, and land inheritance within the eulogy, connecting creation’s foundation with eschatological summation in Christ. The analysis incorporates spatial theory and narratology to illuminate Paul’s understanding of the world as contested territory where the church advances God’s mission. In doing so, it reveals the eulogy as a densely intertextual and theologically coherent passage that situates believers within God’s cosmic, administrative plan for new creation and divine habitation. The implication for resurrection and new creation, based on this grand canonical mission and on God’s all-encompassing master plan, is asserted as part of this unified plan. Full article