Ontological religion (original) (raw)
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Ontological Proof and the Critique of Religious Experience
Journal For the Study of Religions and Ideologies, 2010
Focusing mainly on a number of unpublished texts by Collingwood, especially his "Lectures on the Ontological Proof of the Existence of God," the study examines the English philosopher's innovative interpretation of the Anselm's main contribution to the philosophical-theological tradition. Collingwood insightfully shows how the ontological argument can be used in analyzing and discussing the religious experience, not in trying to formulate a logical proof of God's existence. When abstracted from the individual's practical religious life, that is, from the experience of prayer, worship, and the like, mind's awareness of God cannot be understood. Resorting mainly to Anselm, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Descartes, Collingwood argues that the externality of the Platonic absolute is that of an absolute transcendent whereas the Christian God is not only conceived as the transcendent cause of all things, but also as the immanent spirit in them. By asserting the unity of the mind-regarded as identical with its acts-this interpretation is meant to serve both as a means towards self-knowledge, and as a starting point for a future conceptual unification of religion and philosophy.
Towards A Personal Ontology Of The Church - Doctoral Thesis
The primary identity of the Church as ‘Body of Christ’ in her relation with God is questioned. Understood somatically, since the Logos is the hypostasis of Christ, it fails to give the necessary ontological space for Creation to respond to God’s love. Congar’s ecclesial ontology, formulated as Body of Christ, is investigated. His hierarchical interpretation of the relation between church structure, whose ontos as visible Body derives apneumatically from the incarnate Logos, and the Spirit, which vivifies the mystical Body through faith and the sacraments, is drawn from the filioque, subordinating the Spirit to the Institution. Souls united with God are eschatological ‘brides’, the reality for which the institution temporarily exists. Christ, or the Spirit, is the ‘I’ of the Church, which is not a ‘person’. Ultimately, souls are to be catholic, transparent to each other and God’s love. There is no explicit relation of Church to Creation. Bulgakov identifies humanity as the hypostatic centre of Creation. In creating, God kenotically gives away his own being (Sophia) establishing temporality and otherness. Humanity is spirit-embodied earth, hypostasising created Sophia, drawn, through deification by the Spirit, into communion with God. The Trinitarian communion of the Godhead is imaged in Creation as the kenotic, hypostatic transparency of the Church. The Incarnation is a synergism between the Logos and Mary, who thereby participates in the salvific activity of the Son and the Spirit, as Spirit-bearer. She is the ‘Bride’ in whom all others participate. Congar’s eschatology and Bulgakov’s kenotically hypostasised Creation proffer an understanding of the Church as the invited ‘yes’ of the personalised cosmos, reborn from Christ through the Cross, eschatologically irradiated by the Spirit with the glory of God, unified in kenotic love, whose communion with the Trinity as the ‘fourth’ hypostasis, ‘the Bride,’ proceeds through her nuptial union with the Son.
Christian Doctrine as Ontological Commitment to a Narrative.pdf
The Task of Dogmatics (Zondervan; eds. Oliver Crisp and Fred Sanders), 2017
This is the fifth volume in a series published by Zondervan Academic. It is the proceedings of the Los Angeles Theology Conference held under the auspices of Biola University, in January 2017. The conference is an attempt to do several things. First, it provides a regional forum in which scholars, students, and clergy can come together to discuss and ref lect upon central doctrinal claims of the Christian faith. It is also an ecumenical endeavor. Bringing together theologians from a number of different schools and confessions, the LATC seeks to foster serious engagement with Scripture and tradition in a spirit of collegial dialogue (and disagreement), looking to retrieve the best of the Christian past in order to forge theology for the future. Finally, each volume in the series focuses on a central topic in dogmatic theology. It is hoped that this endeavor will continue to fructify contemporary systematic theology and foster a greater understanding of the historic Christian faith amongst the members of its different communions.
AUC Theologica 2/2021: Trinitarian Ontology
AUC Theologica, 2021
In recent decades, theological discussion has been characterized by a great return of the Trinity. According to the authors associated with this Trinitarian renaissance, the mystery of the Triune God provides an organizing perspective of the whole theology, not an isolated or marginal truth of Christian faith. From within this new Trinitarian awareness both theological and philosophical question of the so-called "Trinitarian ontology" has emerged, which attempts to express the meaning of being in the face of the Christologically mediated Trinitarian mystery. This endeavour is not entirely new, it builds on the patristic, medieval and renaissance theology, and also critically engages with the modern separation of the theology and philosophy. This new issue of AUC Theologica aims to introduce various forms of Trinitarian ontology, and especially the 20th-century discussion concerning the Trinitarian ontology of the human person.
Life as Relatio: Classical Metaphysics and Trinitarian Ontology
Theological Research. The Journal of Systematic Theology, 2014
Life is a theological and metaphysical problem, because it constitutes the apex of the realm of being. The Aristotelian Unmoved Mover was identified with Life as the act of thinking. Christian doctrine affirms that God is triune just as Life, but here identified both with Logos and Love. The ontology of the First Principle is different in Classical metaphysics and in Trinitarian theology. The question discussed in the paper is how this difference affects the understanding of the relationship between God and the world. Having recourse to the theological framework developed by the Cappadocian Fathers in the discussions that lead to the formulation of the Trinitarian dogma in the 4 th century, free and mutual relation is presented as the key concept that was used in theology to overcome the limitations of the metaphysics of the time and to extend it in order to develop a new ontology that is an ontology of life. Trinitarian ontology may also aid our understanding of created life, because it is not simply meta-physics, i.e. a description of man and God according to the category of necessity, but is ana-physics: life is understood from above with suitable categories for free beings.
Florin Lobonţ Ontological Proof and the Critique of Religious Experience
2016
Abstract: Focusing mainly on a number of unpublished texts by Collingwood, especially his “Lectures on the Ontological Proof of the Existence of God, ” the study examines the English philosopher’s innovative interpretation of the Anselm’s main contribution to the philosophical-theological tradition. Collingwood insightfully shows how the ontological argument can be used in analyzing and discussing the religious experience, not in trying to formulate a logical proof of God’s existence. When abstracted from the individual’s practical religious life, that is, from the experience of prayer, worship, and the like, mind’s awareness of God cannot be understood. Resorting mainly to Anselm, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Descartes, Collingwood argues that the externality of the Platonic absolute is that of an absolute transcendent whereas the Christian God is not only conceived as the transcendent cause of all things, but also as the immanent spirit in them. By asserting the unity of the min...
This dissertation examines the relationship of ontology and soteriology - the classic problem of nature and grace. Paul Tillich and Arnold van Ruler have been chosen as the best representatives of the classical tradition of the reformation. It is seen that although there is a significant formal difference between the theologies of these two theologians, there is a material identity. The combination of these two perspectives, Tillich’s philosophical theology with Van Ruler’s more traditional Calvinistic theology, helps to shed more light on the subject. The first subject to be considered is the ontological background for understanding reality as a whole. This is discussed as the trinitarian-predestinarian-eschatological framework of ontology. Everything finds its possibility in the trinitarian being of God, its reality in the eternal decrees and its purpose in the eschatological will of God. Creation has become (morally, not ontologically) separated from God in the fall and therefore salvation is needed. Christology is a function of soteriology and is to be understood in terms of substitution. This salvation, gained in Christ, is expressed in us by the outpoured Holy Spirit according to the eschatological will of God. Pneumatology is to be related to, and distinguished from christology. We are not replaced by the Spirit, but taken into a relationship with God. This is to be understood in terms of the struggle of the Spirit with the flesh. The presence of the Spirit is kerygmatic, paradoxical, anticipatory and miraculous. There is an ambiguous and fragmentary realization of salvation in the Spirit. Protologically and eschatologically there is an identity between culture (i.e. creation and history) and the kingdom of God. But in time and space there is a duality (not a dualism). This finds expression in the duality of church and state. The state is the kernel of culture and the church is the representative of the kingdom. The state is essentially the servant of God, and insofar as it orders life it is serving God. But it is separated from God and needs the church to call it back to its proper function. Where there is the duality of church and state in a nation, there is a theocratic situation. This leads to the Bible. That is a state where the Word is proclaimed and the state, because of its essential relationship to God, can understand this proclamation. In a theocracy there is a partial union of creation and salvation. Theocracy is a Spiritual reality. It is kerygmatic and paradoxical. It is not an ideal or an ethical system imposed on life. It has a conservative character as it stands in opposition to the demonic. As the document of God’s struggle with the religious nationalism of Israel, the Old Testament provides the paradigm for a theocracy. In this sense a christianized state is an incidental repetition - mutatis mutandis - of the nation of Israel. Eschatologically, the particularity of salvation is completely done away with. The incarnation and the outpouring are undone. Then there is only the triune God and the naked existence of creation.
The Holy Trinity and the Ontology of Relations
Sophia, 2021
I reconsider in this article the problem of the Holy Trinity from the standpoint of some recent theories of the ontology of relations. After having presented the problem and after having introduced some basic ontological concepts (i.e., substance, modes, person), I shall briefly dwell on the ontology of non-symmetrical relations and on the O-Roles theory suggested by Francesco Orilia. Afterwards, I shall develop my own solution to the problem of the Holy Trinity by exploring the status of Intratrinitarian relations and of divine Persons. Among other things, I shall defend the thesis that divine Persons are not substances, but peculiar modes of God. I shall also ground the distinction between the properties attributed to God himself and the ones attributed to specific divine Persons. Finally, I shall anticipate and face some objections against my account (e.g., the one of modalism) and argue that it is legitimate to maintain that there is no kind of persons in general - which is a consequence of my view.