CONVENTIONAL AND ULTIMATE TRUTH: A KEY FOR FUNDAMENTAL THEOLOGY by Joseph Stephen O'Leary, [Thresholds in Philosophy and Theology], University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, Indiana, 2015, pp. xvii + 404, £47.95, pbk (original) (raw)
The Incarnate Word Journal, 2011
The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology is a collection of twenty-six essays or articles edited by Thomas Flint, professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, and Michael Rea, also a professor of philosophy at the same university. In the Introduction to this work, the editors give a definition of what they consider philosophical theology to be: “philosophical theology (as we understand it) is aimed primarily at theoretical understanding of the nature and attributes of God, and God’s relationship to the world and things in the world” (p. 1). With the publication of Alasdair Maclntyre and Anthony Flew’s New Essays in Philosophical Theology in 1955, there was a great revival of interest in the philosophy of religion in general and, in its wake, in philosophical theology in particular, especially in the latter half of the twentieth century. The topics presented in the book were like the agenda for subsequent work in philosophy of religion for the next two or three decades, such as the meaningfulness of religious discourse and questions about the rationality of religious belief. This present work, however, covers a new focus of attention apart from those concerning the nature, rationality, and meaningfulness of theistic belief. In the last twenty years, as the editors remark, “a great deal of attention has been devoted recently to philosophical problems arising out of the Christian doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Atonement; there has been an explosion of work on questions about the nature of divine providence and its implications for human freedom; and a fair bit of recent work has also been done on questions about the metaphysical possibility of the resurrection of the dead” (p. 4). At the same time, the authors note that there is a very small literature on the topic of divine revelation and the inspiration of Scripture, only a handful of works on the topics of prayer, original sin, and the nature of heaven and hell, and virtually nothing on the Christian doctrine of the Eucharist from a philosophical standpoint. The book is divided into five parts covering five general topics: I. Theological Prolegomena II. Divine Attributes III. God and Creation IV. Topics in Christian Philosophical Theology V. Non-Christian Philosophical Theology
Extended abstracts, Journal of Philosophical Theological Research, JPTR, 2023, 25(2)
Journal of Philosophical Theological Research, 2023
Publisher: University of Qom, Editor-in-Chief: Zahra Khazaei Editorial Board: Edward Wierenga (Emiritus Professor of Philosophy, Department of Philosophy, Rochester University, United States), Vincent Brümmer (Professor, University of Utrecht and Dean of the Theological Faculty, Netherland), Stephen R. Palmquist (Professor, Hong Kong Baptist University), Ahmad Beheshti (Professor, University of Tehran, Iran), Reinhard Hesse (Professor, University of Education Freiburg), Mohsen Javadi (Professor, University of Qom, Iran), Seyed Mostafa Mohaqeq Damad (Professor, Shahid Beheshti University, Iran), Nancey Murphy (Professor, PhD. Philosophy, ThD. Christian theology, Senior Professor of Christian Philosophy, Fuller Theological Seminary, USA), Mohammad Zabihi (Professor, Univerisity of Qom, Iran), Einollah Khademi (Professor, Shahid Rajaee Teacher Training University, Iran), Zahra Khazaei (Professor, University of Qom, Iran), Hamidreza Ayatollahy (Professor, Allameh Tabatabaii University, Iran), Jafar Shanazari (Associate professor, University of Isfahan, Iran), Robert Kane (Distinguished Professor, University of Texas, USA), Ishtiyaque Haji (Professor, University of Calgary, Canada), Charles Taliaferro (emeritus Distinguished Emiritus Professor of Philosophy, St. Olaf College, USA), Roger Crisp (Professor of Philosophy, University of Oxford, UK), Henk bakker (Professor of Religion and Theology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands) Journal of Philosophical Theological Research (JPTR) has been indexed in following databases: Scopus | Philosopher's Index | EBSCO | ProQuest | Ovid | PhilPapers | Atla | ISC | Index Copernicus | DOAJ | Ulrich | J-Gate | Advanced Sciences Index (ASI) | ROAD | Scientific Journal Impact Factor (SJIF) | DRJI | International Innovative Journal Impact Factor (IIJIF) | Universal Impact Factor | I2OR | General Impact Factor | Cosmos Impact Factor | Scientific World Index Journal (SWIJ) | Academic Resource Index | Google Scholar | WorldCat | Citefactor | ijifactor | Europub | esjindex (Eurasian scientific journal index) | Scientific indexing Services (SIS) | Academic Keys | Ricest | Magiran | SID | Noormags | Civilica. Journal of Philosophical Theological Research is a product of the joint activity of the University of Qom and The Iranian Association for Philosophy of Religion
Towards a Buddhist Theoretical Approach to the Study of Religion
Refutation of essentialist approaches found among Western scholars of religion. Essentialism in Occidental approaches to the study of religion von Harnack, Loisy and Troeltsch: the essence of Christianity. Modern theories concerning the 'essence' of religion Towards a Madhyamaka Historiography. A Nāgārjunan critique of essentialism.. The first leg of the tetralemma: negation of essence The second leg of the tetralemma: negation of 'no-essence' The third leg of the tetralemma: negation of 'there both is and is not an essence' Fourth leg of the tetralemma: negation of 'neither essence nor non-essence' Conventional essentialism relative to ultimate non-essentialism A MahĀyĀnist Methodology for the study of religion Occidental sympathizers: van der Leeuw and Bourdieu Proposal of a Mahayanist metatheory YogĀcĀrin insights into the relationship of religious praxis to non-essentialism The three natures and their implications for the relationship of theory to practice in the Mahāyāna tradition and for religious studies in general. The application of these for our study
Introduction: A Symposium on Kevin Schilbrack's _Philosophy and the Study of Religions: A Manifesto_
It is an exciting time to pursue philosophy of religion, not least because of an earnest and widening conversation about what philosophers of religion should be doing in the future. This conversation is driven by factors including the growing presence of philosophers who do not presume as normative the subject position of so-called western traditions of thought, the relentless historicization-especially along Foucaultian lines-of the modern study of religion (or 'religion') by critics working across the range of implicated disciplines, and by newly energized emphases in existing methods of the study of religion upon embodiment and upon materiality more generally.
Reading Religion [a publication of the American Academy of Religion], 2018
ABSTRACT: Robert Magliola, review of Joseph S. O’Leary’s _Buddhist Nonduality, Paschal Paradox: Christian Commentary on the Teaching of Vimalakīrti (Vimalakīrtinirdeśa)_ (Leuven: Belgium: Peeters Publishers, Feb. 2018). Magliola presents an overview of O’Leary’s impressive publishing career; describes the structural format of the book under review; and provides examples of O’Leary’s comparative methodology. O’Leary aims to demonstrate, in his words, the “supremely paradoxical conjunction: the nonduality of Buddhist wisdom and Christian faith.” Despite the “vast difference between the worlds of thought” (of Buddhism and Christianity), O’Leary argues that their equally persistent nonduality challenges both religions “to overcome their basic frameworks of understanding, as a deeper vision of reality begins to emerge.” This “deeper vision of reality” he calls “ultimate gracious reality.” Magliola argues that O’Leary thereby repeats one of the standard versions of pluralism, that which posits numinous mystery as “sucking in all religious articulations and in the face of which all religious articulations, including ‘nonduality’, must necessarily disappear.” Given that the teachings of both Catholicism and Buddhism (Theravada in one way, the “Big Vehicle” Buddhisms in other ways), affirm the transcendent as “unconditioned,” Magliola argues—evoking both Derrida and Luce Irigaray--that O’Leary’s formulation cryptically “grounds” or “frames” the “unconditioned” in an unjustified “holism,” and that his resort to mystical “paradox” signals this “male” drive towards a mystic “oneness.” Rather, Magliola goes on, since both Catholicism and Buddhism have definitive teachings that are “inclusivist,” and the two religions thus relate asymmetrically to each other, better that Buddhists and Catholics—unless there be some supernal intervention obliging their points-of-view to change in this life--persevere in their definitive beliefs. Religiously inspired “waiting” is preferential to an unfettered drive--using our merely human competencies—to solve at all costs the conundrums of interreligious dialogue. KEYWORDS: Buddhist-Christian Dialogue Nonduality Vimalakirti Paschal mystery Derrida Irigaray