Authors:Joanna Leidenhag, Benedikt Paul Göcke Pages: 1 - 4 Abstract: Analytic theology and Science-Engaged Theology are two of the most exciting movements within theology in recent years, and have much in common. Both are interdisciplinary endeavours that engage other sub-disciplines (analytic philosophy and the natural and behavioural sciences, respectively) in the service of theology. Many (although not all) of the same scholars actively contribute to both movements. Furthermore, analytic theology and science-engaged theology both maintain the primacy and integrity of the theological task, whilst simultaneously inviting other disciplines to enrich theological reflection, criticism, and confession. PubDate: 2023-05-01 DOI: 10.14428/thl.v7i1.77353 Issue No:Vol. 7, No. 1 (2023)
Authors:Meghan Page Pages: 5 - 26 Abstract: This paper explores the relationship between analytic theology and science-engaged theology through a historical lens, connecting contemporary disagreements between analytic metaphysicians and philosophers of science to a disagreement about philosophical method between Carnap and Quine. After discussing philosophical issues of meaning and verification in early positivism, the paper goes on to suggest that the analytic-synthetic distinction underlying much work in analytic theology is difficult to maintain when engaging with empirical methods of knowledge production such as science. To move forward, then, analytic theologians who wish to pursue science-engaged theology need a constructive methodology that embraces a blurring of the analytic-synthetic distinction. A rough sketch of one such research program, analytic-synthetic science-engaged theology, is offered as a potential ASSET for systematic theologians who wish to engage with natural and human sciences. PubDate: 2023-05-01 DOI: 10.14428/thl.v7i1.63153 Issue No:Vol. 7, No. 1 (2023)
Authors:Myron A. Penner, April M. Cordero, Amanda J. Nichols Pages: 27 - 55 Abstract: Abstract: For many species that reproduce sexually, how sex is expressed at different points across lifespan is highly contingent and dependent on various environmental factors. For example, in many species of fish, environmental cues can trigger a natural process of sex transition where a female transitions to male. For many species of turtle, incubation temperature influences the likelihood that turtle eggs will hatch males or females. What is the case for Homo sapiens' Is human sex expression influenced by contingent environmental factors like we see in fish and turtles, with whom we share common ancestry and DNA' Our paper explores the current biological science of sex determination and how it applies to philosophical and theological accounts of the human person. We argue that while human sex determination is not susceptible to environmental cues to the same degree we see in other species, there is sufficient variability among the pathways of human sex development to complicate simplistic biological categories of male and female. PubDate: 2023-05-01 DOI: 10.14428/thl.v7i1.65183 Issue No:Vol. 7, No. 1 (2023)
Authors:Kate Finley Pages: 56 - 101 Abstract: Meaning-making plays a central role in how we deal with experiences of suffering, including those due to mental disorder. And for many, religious beliefs, experiences, and practices (hereafter, religious engagement) play a central role in informing this meaning-making. However, a crucial facet of the relationship between experiences of mental disorder and religious engagement remains underexplored—namely the potentially positive effectsof mental disorder on religious engagement (e.g. experiences of bipolar disorder increasing sense of God’s presence). In what follows, I will present empirical findings fromtwo recent studies of mine which shed light on the extent to which participants experienced these positive effects, specific components of these effects, and how they fit into their understanding of their mental disorder and its relationship to their religious identity. In doing so, I will draw on and expand Tasia Scrutton’s Potentially Transformative view (2015a, 2015b, 2020)according to which mental disorders may provide opportunities for spiritual growth. My empirical results align with and help deepenan account according to which mental disorders are potentially spiritually transformative by providing further insight intosuch instances: specifically,which symptoms and internal and external factors are often involved, as well as which religious beliefs, experiences, and/or practices are often affected. After presenting these results and articulating their relevance for a potentially transformative view of mental disorder, I will then address some potential objections to the theoretical account as well as some limitations of the empirical work, before sketching possible promising directions for future research. PubDate: 2023-05-01 DOI: 10.14428/thl.v7i1.64203 Issue No:Vol. 7, No. 1 (2023)
Authors:Preston Hill Pages: 102 - 120 Abstract: Recent findings in neuroscience and psychology indicate that “the body keeps the score” of PTSD. Concurrently, trauma-informed theology to date has deployed pneumatology to explain how God experiences trauma in the Christian narrative of salvation. Yet, in Christian theology the divine person of the Holy Spirit has no assumed human body. This raises an important question as to whether a body is needed for God to keep the score of posttraumatic stress in a manner consistent with neuroscience and how this might shape one’s account of trauma in Christian soteriology. In this article, I take an analytic science-engaged approach to assess the viability of dominant proposals in trauma-informed theology which deploy trauma theory to assert God’s experience of trauma and explain this experience with exclusive reference to pneumatology. After reviewing clinical and scientific research on the neuroscience of PTSD which has been neglected in these approaches, I argue that Christology is a more obviously fitting locus for suggesting God’s experience of trauma within Christian soteriology than the person of the Holy Spirit. I conclude that since the body keeps the score of trauma from a scientific perspective, Christ’s body keeps the score of trauma from a science-engaged theology perspective. PubDate: 2023-05-01 DOI: 10.14428/thl.v7i1.64223 Issue No:Vol. 7, No. 1 (2023)
Authors:D. T. Everhart Pages: 121 - 147 Abstract: In this paper, I argue for an extension of relational accounts of the imago Dei which includes a kind of priestly relation to the created order. In this relation, humanity is intended to ensure the independent flourishing of creation in a way reflective of the kind of communion we ought to have with one another. Through an analysis of the brokenness of these relationships, I argue human oppression of other humans and ravaging of creation are born of the same brokenness in such a way that they contribute to one another as distortions of human teleological communion. By drawing on Social Identity Approach in group psychology, I can offer an account of shared human identity out of which humanity acts in distorted ways as a group. By describing oppression and ravaging in terms of broken communal telos and group action, I offer a way forward for relating humanity to the created order in a way that neither instrumentalizes creation, nor flattens the distinctiveness of human creation in the image of God. PubDate: 2023-05-01 DOI: 10.14428/thl.v7i1.63363 Issue No:Vol. 7, No. 1 (2023)
Authors:Timothy J. Pawl Pages: 148 - 167 Abstract: In this paper, I provide an overview of the Christian moral wisdom with respect to virtue formation and character cultivation. I focus in particular on some warnings issued by the great teachers on these topics with respect to the motivations one ought to have in the Christian life. I then discuss some findings of contemporary psychology on habit formation which seem to be at odds with the warnings in Christian moral wisdom. I argue that while there is surface discord between the contemporary psychology of habit formation and Christian moral wisdom, there is in fact a deep concord between them. PubDate: 2023-05-01 DOI: 10.14428/thl.v7i1.64333 Issue No:Vol. 7, No. 1 (2023)
Authors:Harvey Cawdron Pages: 168 - 193 Abstract: In this paper, I shall argue that Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), a disorder in which seemingly independent identities (alters) arise within the same individual, can have considerable consequences in Christian theology. I shall focus on traditional Christian understandings of the afterlife. I shall begin by outlining DID, and shall argue that in some DID cases, alters appear to be different persons according to some definitions of personhood in Christian theology. I shall then illustrate the difficulty this raises for two influential ideas in the Christian tradition: the heaven and hell understanding of the afterlife, and the idea of the resurrection of the body. Finally, I shall consider some objections to the problem, and shall highlight which responses are the most plausible. PubDate: 2023-05-01 DOI: 10.14428/thl.v7i1.64093 Issue No:Vol. 7, No. 1 (2023)
Authors:Lucas Prieto Pages: 194 - 211 Abstract: La dependencia necesaria de la criatura respecto de Dios ha sido una posición común dentro del teísmo clásico. En los últimos años, sin embargo, se ha contestado dicha posición desde la hipótesis de la inercia existencial. Según esta última teoría, no haría falta recurrir a una causa trascendente para explicar la permanencia en el ser de las cosas. Tomás de Aquino, por el contrario, desde la constatación de una composición en todo ente finito, postula el recurso necesario a algo simple que dé razón de ella. PubDate: 2023-05-01 DOI: 10.14428/thl.v7i1.66723 Issue No:Vol. 7, No. 1 (2023)
Authors:Joshua Sijuwade Pages: 212 - 248 Abstract: This article aims to provide an explication of the doctrine of the Incarnation. A ‘Transformational Model’ of the doctrine is formulated within the metaphysical and ontological framework of Jonathan Lowe (i.e. his Non-Cartesian Substance Dualism and Four-Category Ontology). Formulating this model within this specific framework will enable the doctrine of the Incarnation to be explicated in a clear and consistent manner, and the oft-raised objections against it can be answered. PubDate: 2023-05-01 DOI: 10.14428/thl.v7i1.64663 Issue No:Vol. 7, No. 1 (2023)
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