JournalTOCs

Religija ir kultūra
Number of Followers: 4

This is an Open Access Journal

Open Access journal
ISSN (Print) 1822-4571 - ISSN (Online) 1822-4539
Published by Vilnius University

[41 journals]

Editorial Board and Table of Contents
- Authors: Religija ir kultūra
  Pages: 1 - 6
  Abstract: [text in Lithuanian]
  PubDate: 2019-01-07
Author Guidelines and Bibliographic Data
- Authors: Religija ir kultūra
  Pages: 162 - 165
  Abstract: [text in Lithuanian]
  PubDate: 2019-01-07
The mind which knows Itself – does it salute its own twin'
Augustine’s de Trinitate
- Authors: Gintarė Kurlavičiūtė
  Pages: 7 - 17
  Abstract: [full article and abstract in Lithuanian; abstract in English] This paper focuses on Augustine’s account of self-knowledge, with a particular reference to De Trinitate. One of its main peculiarities is that self-knowledge (notitia sui), self-love (amor sui) and the mind (mens) are constructed as a mental triad. It is claimed that this scheme revolves around some incompatible assumptions as fautes de mieux. Self-knowledge is brought into play as a separate ontological unit: not only as an accident but also as a substance. At the same time, mind and self-knowledge are considered as concepts that can be reduced into one ontological unit. It is suggested that the symbiosis of these different ways of consideration could be inspired by Augustine’s attempt to cancel via analogiae between the corporeal and intelligible realms of reality.
  PubDate: 2018-12-28
  DOI: 10.15388/Relig.2015.1
The Iconography of Saint Dominic: The Person, the Image and the Problem of
Expressing Holiness
- Authors: Birutė Valečkaitė
  Pages: 18 - 38
  Abstract: [full article and abstract in Lithuanian; abstract in English] In this article, the issue of the “disappearing” personality of St. Dominic (1170–1221) is analyzed through showing the main aspects of his portrayal and the expression of his holiness in biographical and iconographic sources. In these texts, he is called “holy” with a reference to a conscious imitation of Jesus Christ. In the iconography, the signs of his sanctity became the only signs of his personality, and his figure is used as an example of the adoration of God. If losing a vivid personality is connected with expressing holiness, this problem refers to a concept of the icon formulated by Jean-Luc Marion. It gives us an opportunity to call St. Dominic a typical icon, transferring the adoration and losing his own originality. The 13th century concept of sanctity, expressed in the texts of St. Thomas Aquinas, enables us to understand St. Dominic’s image as a continuation of the saint’s choice to become a reference to God.
  PubDate: 2018-12-28
  DOI: 10.15388/Relig.2015.2
After The Revelation of the Name of God: Two Ways of Speaking
- Authors: Ramūnas Boleslovas Malcius
  Pages: 39 - 50
  Abstract: [full article and abstract in Lithuanian; abstract in English] This article deals with the problem of speaking about God (Otherness). The author maintains that Revelation alone makes it possible to speak about God, but again, this speech manifests itself as a silence. The problem of talking about God is examined through the approach of philosophical theology, which also emphasizes the motive of Revelation. When God revealed His name, there was not one way to speak about God. With reference to the Revelation, philosophy gains the Christian motives that open new perspectives for speaking on God’s theme. On the basis of Thomism, speaking about God is not problematic – it is enough to highlight certain ontological differences, and it becomes clear what we should call God. However, such a speech does not avoid the aspect of speaking “about.” It is quite easy to adopt the onto-theological attitude, forgetting that the most meaningful way of talking about God rests on being silent. However, silence takes on a double meaning. On the one hand, silence is necessary for those who have not been given knowledge through Revelation and, on the other hand, silence is necessary when the secrets of the Kingdom of God are given by the very way of God’s Revelation.
  PubDate: 2018-12-28
  DOI: 10.15388/Relig.2015.3
Miguel de Unamuno’s Philosophy of Religion as a Bultmannian
Demythologization: The Problem of Transcendence
- Authors: Algirdas Fediajevas
  Pages: 51 - 63
  Abstract: [full article and abstract in Lithuanian; abstract in English] This article deals with Miguel de Unamuno’s religious thinking through the prism of Rudolf Bultmann’s demythologization. These authors, which are bound by a common philosophical and cultural context, ground and develop their ideas on the plane of a concrete human, who resides in a secularized world; Unamuno names such a subject as “the man of flesh and bones.” While understanding that the traditionalist, mythological and metaphysical elements of Christianity cannot satisfy a person living in a secularized world, Unamuno and Bultmann demythologize the Christian Message and underline in it that which is told, in the form of an appeal, about the human existence and that which applies to the main questions arising from its concern about itself. Unamuno considers that the core of the Christian Message is the promise of the immortality of every “man of flesh and bones,” which is possible because of Christ’s resurrection; Bultmann, on the other hand, believes this core to be in the call for a free and authentic existence. The main separation between the authors’ views is how they treat the relation between the concrete human and transcendence: for Unamuno, the relation with transcendence is an immanent need for “the man of flesh and bones,” the only possible way for its immanence (understood both in the existential and metaphysical senses) to be fulfilled; for Bultmann, the relation between the concrete human and transcendence is an eschatological event and the break of immanence both in the relation between the concrete human and the world as well as between the concrete human and itself.
  PubDate: 2018-12-28
  DOI: 10.15388/Relig.2015.4
Modernity and Nature: Where did Rousseau Seek to Return'
- Authors: Vaiva Daraškevičiūtė
  Pages: 64 - 77
  Abstract: [full article and abstract in Lithuanian; abstract in English] This article focuses on the nostalgic approach to nature represented in the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The position of Rousseau is treated as a model that reveals a correlation between a critical attitude toward becoming modern and a nostalgic approach to nature. With an analysis based on the interpretations of Jacques Derrida, Bernard Stiegler, Tracy B. Strong and other authors, this paper emphasizes the contradictoriness of Rousseau intention. The article comes to the conclusion that Rousseau’s intention of the return to nature belongs to a metaphorical dimension rather than to a practical one, and this supposes a paradoxical course of nostalgia in itself – the return to nature should be understood not as a nostalgia for the past, but as a nostalgia for the future and for a new, alternative human model. Finally, the article discusses the Lithuanian feast of Rasos, which came from an archaic, agriculture-centered world but is still celebrated in our times. It demonstrates a common background for both the feast and for Rousseau’s vision of return, which are related not only by a nostalgic approach to nature but also by the concept of nature as a substitute (in the sense of fiction). As in Rousseau’s thought, so in the feast of Rasos nature manifests itself through lack and absence – by losing its ontological dimension, nature becomes not an essential necessity but rather represents an aesthetical experience in the form of tradition and symbols.
  PubDate: 2018-12-28
  DOI: 10.15388/Relig.2015.5
The (Im)Possibility of Religious Reasoning in the Formal Public Sphere
- Authors: Vaida Kalkauskaitė
  Pages: 78 - 88
  Abstract: [full article and abstract in Lithuanian; abstract in English] This article focuses on the debate between Jürgen Habermas and Charles Taylor on the place of religious argumentation in the formal public sphere. Habermas’s position, which arises from his critique of John Rawls’s position and is also its continuation, is based on the principle of common reason. In order to use their arguments in the public sphere, religious people must translate them into secular language, which is supposedly understood by every rational person. Taylor opposes this position by stating that the division between religious and secular arguments is not well enough reasoned. The aim of this article is to find out whether the views of Hebarmas, as well as the core presuppositions that they are based on, can stand their ground and whether they are capable of reflecting the current geopolitical and sociocultural situation and help in understanding it. This is done by using the points made by Taylor and other authors who support his views and trying to find a satisfactory alternative solution.
  PubDate: 2018-12-28
  DOI: 10.15388/Relig.2015.6
Hegel’s Book of Sand, Or on the Beginning of the Beginning and Its
Impossibility
- Authors: Brigita Gelžinytė
  Pages: 89 - 99
  Abstract: [full article and abstract in Lithuanian; abstract in English] This paper addresses the still-prevailing problem of the beginning in Hegel’s Science of Logic by focusing on the major arguments of Schelling’s critique, which basically laid the foundation for the subsequent reception of Hegel. According to Schelling, Hegel’s concept of the beginning as pure being can only be understood as either a pure tautology or a negative determination, i.e., indicating only the realm of the possible. Contrary to the prevailing strategies, it is argued that the paradox of the beginning, which is present in the Science of Logic, should be maintained instead of resolved. The paper attempts to demonstrate how the dynamic structure of the unity of being and nothing, and the impossibility of (the principle of ) the beginning, appear to be precisely what allow this thinking to proceed and ground the identity of form and content. Thus, by relying on the suggested alternative, which emphasizes the performative aspect of the paradox, the paper seeks to answer Schelling and to bring closer the apparently contradicting positions of both authors.
  PubDate: 2018-12-28
  DOI: 10.15388/Relig.2015.7
Heidegger’s πóλεμοσ
- Authors: Tomas Sodeika
  Pages: 100 - 123
  Abstract: [full article and abstract in Lithuanian; abstract in English] This article deals with the problem of the relationship between Martin Heidegger’s philosophy and Daseinanalysis – a trend of psychotherapy that was founded by Medard Boss in Switzerland in the mid-twentieth century. It is generally believed that, in collaboration with Boss, Heidegger was looking for ways in which his developed theory could be applied in practice. The article questions this view and suggests that the seminars, which were held by Heidegger in Boss’s house in Zollikon, were important to Heidegger as a situation, in which during the confrontation between the philosophical and psychotherapeutic discourses occurs the Heraclitean πόλεμος – a tension in which a person may experience the openness of presence.
  PubDate: 2018-12-28
  DOI: 10.15388/Relig.2015.8