Rhizomatic thinking and the Bible

2018

This dissertation studies the persistence within modern Anglicanism of (a) a classical "high view" of Scripture as the exemplar of creation, (b) the apologetic and phenomenological advantages of this view in the wake of Joseph Butler (1692-1752) due to (c) the kind of theodicy the Bible displays in contrast to more rationalistic proposals from deism to panentheism. (d) Finally, the view of theodicy and Scripture one takes influences whether or not one reads the two books of Scripture and nature figurally. The "high view" was undercut by nineteenth-century sectarian polemics between Protestants and Tractarians. Yet a minority kept this tradition alive. Lionel Thornton (1884-1960) is important to this project because he escaped from Tractarian and Protestant dead ends. The dissertation lays out this broader Anglican story and then focuses on Thornton, for whose work I provide historical context and a detailed examination. I first analyze his early, philosophical-theological period where he defended an incarnational theodicy over against the panentheistic-monist alternative: the "soul-making" theodicy. Thornton's theodicy led him to take up a realist ("Platonist") metaphysic and phenomenology in order to resist the monist tendency to smooth over antinomies in Scripture and nature, especially the problem of evil. Next, I look at the theodical alternatives through the lens of Thornton and his mentor, John Neville Figgis (1866-1919). In contrast to the Modernist monism of Charles Raven and others, Figgis and Thornton resisted the temptation to offer an etiology of evil. They concluded that grace overcame evil by reordering the past. The last chapter, therefore, looks at Thornton’s view of the temporal and cosmic reach of Christ's reordering work of "recapitulation", and the hermeneutical consequences that follow: namely, that having reunited creation by rescuing it from the dispersive power of evil, every trivial detail of creation came to reflect Christ. I argue that this way of handling the Bible follows consistently from a biblical, non-monist, theodicy. Furthermore, I believe Thornton's project shared a family resemblance to Butler's, for, like the latter's, it indicated that the rejection of figural reading implied methodological atheism. This larger argument touches on contemporary hermeneutical debates within the Church. Keywords: Scripture; natural and supernatural; two books; creation; theodicy; analogy; skepticism; fideism; biblical ontology; figural reading; revelation; antinomy; accommodation; divine pedagogy; intellectual probation; the alphabet of nature; synechdoche; science and religion; forgiveness; fall; atonement; recapitulation; Christian Platonism; monism; emergentism; deism; Joseph Butler; Jones of Nayland; John Henry Newman; John Keble; H. L. Mansel; John Hannah; Charles Gore; Charles Raven; John Neville Figgis; L. S. Thornton.

logos_i_ethos_2013_1_(34), s. 109-X Balázs M. Mezei Demythologizing Christian Philosophy: An Outline 7 Raphael's typology nevertheless follows Aristotle's classification of the sciences into theoretical and practical in the Metaphysics (1025 a ff.).

This study explores the ontology of God as revealed in the biblical narrative, engaging both classical theological frameworks and modern philosophical discourse. Moving beyond Greek metaphysical traditions, which often define being in static, essentialist terms, and existentialist perspectives, which emphasize contingency and human subjectivity, this paper argues that the biblical conception of God’s being is dynamic, relational, and self-revealing. The paper begins by examining God’s self-disclosure to Moses in Exodus 3:14 (Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh, "I AM WHO I AM"), analyzing whether this declaration aligns with classical theism’s immutable essence or a more existential, unfolding presence. It then explores the creation accounts in Genesis 1-2, where divine being is revealed not as an abstract ontological necessity but as a speech-act of world-making (dabar theology). Through the prophets’ encounters with God, particularly in Isaiah and Jeremiah, the study highlights how divine being is not a mere concept but an existential call that confronts human history. The New Testament reconfigures divine ontology through Christology, particularly in John 1:1-14 (the Logos as divine being) and Philippians 2:6-11 (kenosis and self-emptying love), revealing a God whose being is fully realized in incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. The paper engages with Martin Heidegger’s critique of onto-theology, Karl Barth’s theology of divine self-revelation, Wolfhart Pannenberg’s eschatological ontology, and Paul Tillich’s concept of God as the ground of being. Ultimately, it argues that the fullness of divine being is not static but eschatological, culminating in the resurrection as the definitive revelation of God’s reality. This study challenges both classical metaphysical essentialism and existentialist reductionism, advocating for a biblical ontology of divine being as historical, relational, and redemptive. God’s being is neither a timeless abstraction nor an existential projection but a self-revealing presence that is known through covenant, incarnation, and eschatological fulfillment. The conclusion posits that the biblical answer to the ontological question is not simply "Being-itself" but "Being-in-relationship", a God who was, who is, and who will be (Revelation 22:13). Key Themes: 1. Biblical Ontology vs. Classical Metaphysics 2. God’s Being as Relational, Dynamic, and Historical 3. Theological Engagement with Heidegger, Barth, Pannenberg, and Tillich 4. Incarnation and Resurrection as the Fullness of Divine Being

Chapter 4: Neurotheological Epistemology and the Narrative Solution 4.1 Epistemological Frameworks for Neurotheology………………………..……213 4.1a The Augustinian-NeoPlatonic Framework………………………..………. 215 4.1a1 Augustine's Platonic and Aristotelian Foundations……………….……221 4.1a2 Faith Seeking Understanding……………………………………………225 4.1a3 Corporeal Knowledge and the Internal Sense…………………………229 4.1a4 Divine Illumination……………………………………………………….. 235 4.1a5 Memory and Time…………………………………………………………237 4.1a6 Trinitarian Epistemological Considerations…………………………….245 4.1b The Thomistic-Aristotelian Framework……………………..………………247 4.1b1 Hylomorphic Cognition………………………………………………….. 251 4.1b2 The Human Soul's Powers………………………………………………253 4.1b3 Passive and Active Intellect…………………………………………….. 255 4.1b4 Corporeal Knowledge and Abstraction……………….…………………257 4.1b5 Thomism: Genuine vs Pseudo Spiritual Experiences…………………261 4.2 The Narrative Solution for Neurotheology………………………..……..…….269 4.2a A Narrative Example: Pieper's "God Speaks"………………………….….273 4.2b Narrative: Quid est Veritas? ……………………………………………..….277 4.2b1 Narrative Truth and its Qualities……………………………………..… 281 4.2c Metaphysical Realism and Narrative…………………………………….…285 4.2c1 Augustine and Aquinas' Narrative Metaphysical Realism……..…..…289 4.2d Narrative Polarity and Transcendence…………………………..…..…….295 4.2d1 The Analogy of Being and Narrative…………………………..…..……299 4.2d2 Narrative Transcendentals and the Beautiful………………..……..….301 4.3 Conclusion: A Narrative for Neurotheology……………………………………307 General Conclusion………………………………………………………………….…309 Appendix……………………………………………………………………………….

Reviews in Religion & Theology, 2008

ISBN 0-232-52676-1), 246 pp., pb £12.95 James Alison, a British Roman Catholic priest and theologian, is known primarily for two preoccupations. First, he appropriates theologically the insights of René Girard on violence and mimetic rivalry, making them available to a broader, nonspecialist audience. Second, he is gay and has worked for full inclusion of gays and lesbians in Catholicism, a move which has been rather costly for him, relegating him to 'the long-term unemployed' as he puts it (p. 13). He returns to these two concerns in this, his most recent work.

privately published, 2023

In this paper I seek to show that the christian's experience of God is unique. By virtue of being possessed by the Holy Spirit every christian is in an immanent relationship with the Triune God. This is the result of believing the Gospel and is not a further stage in christian experience: it is the content of the New Covenant. It is from this unique that christian living, behaviour and ethics flows.

What has been called " the pneumatology " of the Hebrew Bible is generally held to be an unsolved problem. To this day, available research operates on the assumption of a " missing link " between theological, cosmological, and anthropological domains distinguished within the metalanguage. This is indeed evident from a comparative-philosophical perspective in that the conceptual background for ‫-רוח‬type entities as encountered in scholarly discourse comes across as ontologically disjointed and metaphysically fragmented. In the present article, the author argues that the riddle of " The One and the Many " is a pseudo-problem generated by anachronistic Platonic dualism supervening on inquiries into the assumed nature of ‫רוח‬ as " Ursubstanz " and the mereology of ‫-רוח‬type entities in the world of the text. In addition, a unified theory is put forward with reference to the problem of part-whole relations as can be reconstructed from the perspective of more monistic conceptions of spirit in the associated history and philosophy of religion.

2021

The purpose of the present work is to put forth a phenomenological investigation of the act of reading the Bible as Scripture for the sake of a constructive-theological proposal regarding the nature and interrelations of Scripture, Tradition, and Church as sources and authorities for Christian theology. It is intended as the first work of its kind: a proper phenomenology of Scripture in the objective genitive sense. The second chapter addresses two paradigmatic responses to the question of the relation between philosophy and theology. The third chapter introduces phenomenology as a method for engaging in philosophy. The fourth chapter identifies three proto- phenomenological insights into the Scripture-Tradition-Church triad found in the writings of Origen of Alexandria. The phenomenological investigations of this work further develop these three fundamental insights through a careful consideration of the act of scriptural reading, insights which have not yet fully been appreciated in the phenomenological literature on religion and which are relevant for this essential problem in the area of Christian theological method. The first insight is that there is a phenomenological distinction to be made between the biblical text, an artifact which can be held in the hands, and Scripture in the proper sense, i.e. the biblical text intended as containing and communicating the Word of God. The second insight is that that there is a relation of reciprocal or mutual priority which obtains between Scripture and the Tradition of the Church. Ecclesial Tradition is formally or phenomenologically prior to Scripture in the sense that it is what makes Scripture initially accessible to the reader. But Scripture is methodologically or theologically prior in the sense that the goal of the scriptural reader is not simply to impose some traditional perspective upon the text in an act of hermeneutical play but to attain to an understanding of what the text says as Word of God. The third insight is that the distinctly divine quality of the text is revealed in an experience of the phenomenon of the Third Voice, in which a meaning or sense suggests itself to the reader which cannot be identified with the literal sense of the text as intended by the human author, nor predicted on the basis of the habits of interpretation of the human reader. The fifth chapter elaborates on the first two insights. The sixth chapter develops the third insight by responding to the specific question of whether and how there is an experience of the Word of God in the words of Scripture. This is the most essential question of a phenomenology of Scripture, and yet one which has gone untreated by phenomenologists until now. The seventh chapter addresses the theological question about how properly to understand the nature of the Church in light of the inevitable fallibility of theological knowledge. The dissertation concludes in the eighth chapter with some reflections about the possibility of theology without anathemas in light of the phenomenology of Scripture.

New Blackfriars, 2006

Teología y Vida , 2019

The term 'apophaticism' (ἀποφατισμός) is one of the fundamental concepts for theological thinking in Christian East nowadays. In fact, it defines a fundamental gnoseological premise that directly affects the way in which thinking progresses in this tradition. In this article, we present the term's interpretation by the contemporary Greek philosopher and theologian Christos Yannaras and the association suggested by this author regarding the contemporary Western philosophical enquiries, in particular regarding 'nihilism'. Yannaras, in his work, drafts an epistemology of the sensorial experience, based on what he calls 'relational ontology' (ὀντολογία τῆς σχέσης), in the context of which the language of art takes on a genuine ontological statute. Resumen: El término "apofatismo" (ἀποφατισμός) es uno de los conceptos fundamentales del pensamiento cristiano oriental en nuestros días. De hecho, este término define una premisa gnoseológica fundamental para el desarrollo del pensamiento en esta tradición. En este artículo, presentamos la interpretación que Christos Yannaras, teólogo y filósofo griego contemporáneo, hace de dicho término y la relación que establece con la tradición filosófica occidental, en particular con respecto al nihilismo. En su obra, Yannaras plantea una epistemología de la experiencia sensible, basada en lo que él llama "ontología de la relación" (ὀντολογία τῆς σχέσης), en cuyo contexto el discurso del arte asume un auténtico estatuto ontológico.