Evolution has become the standard way of understanding the world process. Theology has to express traditional faith in the context of the contemporary world. Since the common world view has profoundly changed, from a static world of being into a dynamic world of becoming, theology needs to change its language and its understanding of the universe as God's creation. This understanding of an evolving world is to be used as a theological source. Such a change of perspective necessitates a fundamental (...) reconstructing of theology; for theology, such reconstructing means a renewed understanding of the Creator and of the Incarnation. (shrink)

The impossibility of predicting the future allows us only to indicate which theological developments seem to be needed. These developments concern our changing perception of the world, which requires a reversal in our understanding of God's Creation, from its most imperfect beginnings to its unforeseeable future. The passing of evolution from the biological to the human level has opened moral dimensions that must be explored. Rather than return to the beginnings of the church, theology needs to try to understand Christian (...) faith within evolution, to reinterpret the past in the light of the new. In evolution, no final doctrine is possible. The necessity for doctrine creates a constant tension with the necessity of its revision. New truth must be paid for by suffering. The need is for a coherent theological vision of Creation, Redemption, and God's action in the world. Teilhard's metaphysics of union may be the key to it. In this view love becomes the central force of creation, which in Teilhard's view opens into an eternal future in God: in its final stage, evolution becomes Christogenesis. (shrink)

The age–old dilemma of free will and determinism is attacked by proving that both sides are flawed with contingencies, that the notion of eternal law is a theologically tainted projection rather than a reality of the real world that is understood to be evolutionary. Determinism is dissolved into conditionalism. This excludes materialistic scientific explanation of the deterministic style. As it brings forth freedom, evolutionary reality transcends essentially the explanatory possibilities of statistically structured natural laws. The dilemma of determinism and free (...) will based on a logic of contradiction is replaced by an ontology of polarity. (shrink)

Karl Schmitz‐Moormann's thought as expressed in his last book exemplifies Catholic theology based on realism, flow, evolution, and free will. Categories of creation are reviewed: from nothing, continuous, called forth, informed, and free.

The aim of this thematic literature review is to explore nurses' perceptions of ethical issues in the care of older people. Electronic databases were searched from September 1997 to September 2007 using specific key words with tight inclusion criteria, which revealed 17 primary research reports. The data analysis involved repeated reading of the findings and sorting of those findings into four themes. These themes are: sources of ethical issues for nurses; differences in perceptions between nurses and patients/relatives; nurses' personal responses (...) to ethical issues; and the patient—nurse relationship. The findings reveal that ageism is one of the major sources of the ethical issues that arise for nurses caring for older people. Education and organizational change can combat ageist attitudes. Wider training is required in the care of older people, workplace skills, palliative care and pain management for older people. The demands of a changing global demography will necessitate further research in this field. (shrink)

Constitutional review was the most original idea stemming from the Austrian Federal Constitution of 1920. It is argued that the politician Karl Renner gave birth to the idea of a constitutional court. Hans Kelsen played the predominant role in the drafting of constitutional provisions. The new Constitutional Court provided for a centralized system of review, with an eye to a number of politically important issues. Owing to the pressure that stemmed from various discussions between and among the politicians of (...) the national state and the Länder, Kelsen was obliged to depart from the German model of the federal state and to develop in its place a new theory. (shrink)

En este artículo exponemos las intuiciones del teólogo y biólogo alemán Karl Schmitz-Moormann sobre la evolución. Como leitmotiv subyacente en toda su obra, Schmitz-Moormann tiene a Teilhard de Chardin. Inspirado por Teilhard y su metafísica de la unión, introduce un nuevo concepto, a saber, la uni-totalidad. Veremos aquí cómo Schmitz-Moormann observa diversas uni-totalidades a lo largo del progreso evolutivo, desde las partículas subatómicas hasta las agrupaciones humanas. Esas diversas uni-totalidades implican, a la vez, diversidad de unión, (...) que puede ser explicada por causas que van desde la interacción nuclear hasta el amor interpersonal. Análogamente, Schmitz-Moormann ve nuestro Dios tri-uno como la Uni-totalidad suprema unida por amor, a la que se acercan las uni-totalidades creadas. (shrink)

Béatrice Acklin Zimmermann Barbara Schmitz An der GrenzeTheologische Erkundungen zum BösenUnter dem Eindruck der schrecklichen Ereignisse vom 11. September 2001, von Beslan, Abu Ghraib und Kana ist das Interesse "am Bösen"wiedererwacht. Dabei fällt auf, dass die in Politik und Gesellschaft erfolgten Deutungen des Bösen geprägt sind durch klare Grenzziehungen zwischen "gut"und "böse", die zunehmend auch auf religiöse Kategorien wie Licht-Finsternis, gerecht-sündig, Tod-Leben rekurrieren. Dies provoziert die Frage nach der Trennschärfe von "gut"und "böse": Wo genau verläuft die Grenze zwischen "gut"und (...) "böse"und wer zieht diese Grenze? Ist "das Böse"eine unabhängige Größe oder tritt es vielmehr in Vermischung mit "dem Guten"auf? Und was bedeutet die Grenzziehung zwischen "gut"und böse"im Blick auf Genderkonfigurationen?In ökumenischer Aufgeschlossenheit und aus verschiedenen theologischen Blickwinkeln erkunden die Autoren und Autorinnen dieses Bandes "das Böse"unter dem Gesichtspunkt von Grenzziehungen. Zur Debatte stehen dabei ebenso die Grenzziehung zwischen "gut"und "böse"und die damit verbundenen Dualisierungen wie die Frage nach dem Verhältnis von "Gender"und den Konstruktionen des "Bösen". In kritischer Abgrenzung zur gegenwärtigen gesellschaftlich-politischen Tendenz, das Böse primär beim Anderen, einer bestimmten Nation, Kultur, Gesellschaftsschicht oder Weltanschauung zu verorten, wird in den verschiedenen Beiträge gezeigt, dass eine strenge Grenzziehung zwischen dem "Bösen"und dem "Guten"der Komplexität der Wirklichkeit nicht standhält. Mit Beiträgen von Béatrice Acklin Zimmermann, Ruth Albrecht, Pierre Bühler, Barbara Henze, Ralph Kunz und Ute Nürnberg, Walter Lesch, Karl Matthias Schmidt und Barbara Schmitz. Die HerausgeberinnenBéatrice Acklin Zimmermannist Privatdozentin für Systematische Theologie an der Theologischen Fakultät der Universität Freiburg/Schweiz und Leiterin des Bereiches Theologie und Philosophie an der Paulus-Akademie Zürich. Barbara Schmitzist Studienrätin im Hochschuldienst für den Bereich Altes Testament und Sprachen an der Universität Duisburg-Essen. (shrink)

Karl Schmitz‐Moormann argues that the doctrines of God and Creation, usually explicated in Roman Catholic theology by using the analogy of being, must rather be conceived in light of evolution and an analogy of becoming. God the Trinity, characterized by unity, information, and freedom, provides the image toward which the creation tends in its evolutionary processes. Informed by Teilhard and others, the author hereby provides more of a new research program for theology's engagement with natural science than a (...) fully developed theology. (shrink)

Interactions between corporations and nonprofits are on the rise, frequently driven by a corporate interest in establishing credentials for corporate social responsibility (CSR). In this article, we show how increasing demands for accountability directed at both businesses and NGOs can have the unintended effect of compromising the autonomy of nonprofits and fostering their co-optation. Greater scrutiny of NGO spending driven by self-appointed watchdogs of the nonprofit sector and a prevalence of strategic notions of CSR advanced by corporate actors weaken the (...) ability of civil society actors to change the business practices of their partners in the commercial sector. To counter this trend, we argue that corporations should embrace a political notion of CSR and should actively encourage NGOs to strengthen “downward accountability” mechanisms, even if this creates more tensions in corporate–NGO partnerships. Rather than seeing NGOs as tools in a competition for a comparative advantage in the market place, corporations should actively support NGO independence and critical capacity. (shrink)

The goal of the present study was to examine the hypothesis that the ability to construct vivid mental images of the future involves sampling the contents of memory. In two experiments, participants envisioned future scenarios occurring in contextual settings that were represented in memory in varying degrees of perceptual detail. In both experiments, detailed contextual settings were associated with more detailed images of the future and a stronger subjective experience. Our findings suggest that the contents of memory are routinely sampled (...) during the construction of personal future scenarios. (shrink)

This commentary takes a closer look at how “constructive models of subjective perception,” referred to by Collerton et al. (sect. 2), might contribute to the Perception and Attention Deficit (PAD) model. It focuses on the neuronal mechanisms that could mediate hallucinations, or false inference – in particular, the role of cholinergic systems in encoding uncertainty in the context of hierarchical Bayesian models of perceptual inference (Friston 2002b; Yu & Dayan 2002).

Providing a gateway to a new history of modern aesthetics, this book challenges conventional views of how art's significance developed in society. -/- The 18th century is often said to have involved a radical transformation in the concept of art: from the understanding that it has a practical purpose to the modern belief that it is intrinsically valuable. By exploring the ground between these notions of art's function, Karl Axelsson reveals how scholars of culture made taste, morals and a (...) politically stable society integral to their claims about the experience of nature and art. -/- Focusing on writings by two of the most prolific men of letters in the 18th century, Joseph Addison (1672–1719) and the third Earl of Shaftesbury (1671–1713), Axelsson contests the conviction that modern aesthetic autonomy reoriented the criticism and philosophy originally prompted by these two key figures in the history of aesthetics. -/- By re-examining the political relevance of Addison and Shaftesbury's theories of taste, Axelsson shows that first and foremost they sought to fortify a natural link between aesthetic experience and modern political society. (shrink)

Rombach, H. Die Gegenwart der Philosophie.--Möller, J. Philosophie als Antihumanismus?--Schaeffler, R. Zum Verhältnis von transzendentaler und historischer Reflexion.--Balmer, H. P. Produktivität und Rezeptivität.--Marx, W. Das Bedürfnis der Philosophie.--Mader, J. Philosophie als Kritik.--Hommes, U. Sein und Sinn.--Sobrevilla, D. Ortega und der deutsche Idealismus.--Kohlenberger, H. Robert Musils philosophischer Anspruch.--Schwartländer, J. Die Menschenrechte und die Notwendigkeit einer praktischen Weltorientierung.--Heintel, E. Vom Sinn der Freundschaft.--Oeser, E. Die wissenschaftstheoretische Wende der Philosophie.--Simon, J. Zu einem philosophischen Begriff der Kausalität.--Schäfer, L. Der wissenschaftstheoretische Status synthetischer Urteile a (...) priori.--Lütterfelds, W. Das kategoriale Apriori des Erfahrungsfortschritts. (shrink)

No aConsiders the question of how far the different ‘closeness’ relations, indexed by worlds, in a given model for counterfactual conditionals may be derived from a common source. Counterbalancing some well-known negative observations, we show that there is also a strong positive answer.

Der Wissenschaftskonzeption der "kritischen Theorie" der zu verändernden Gesellschaft wird im wesentlichen zugestimmt. Sie wird verteidigt insbesondere gegen ein Selbstverständnis der Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften, das sich im Namen der "Freiheit von Forschung und Lehre" auf einen Begriff "der" interesse- bzw. wertfreien Wissenschaft zurückzieht. Andererseits will der Autor die genannte Konzeption ergänzen bzw. präzisieren: Zwar stellt die Einheit von Theorie und Praxis ein Postulat philosophischer Reflexion dar, letztere erweist aber auf ihrer höchsten Stufe das politisch interessierte Engagement und das wissenschaftliche Interesse (...) an entdogmatisierender Reflexion jedes Engagements unter den Bedingungen menschlicher Endlichkeit als polar-entgegengesetzte, auseinandertretende Momente. (shrink)

Named one of Church Times's Best Christian Books This volume provides a much-needed English translation of the sixth edition of what is considered the fundamental text for fully understanding Barthianism. Barth--who remains a powerful influence on European and American theology--argues that the modern Christian preacher and theologian face the same basic problems that confronted Paul. Assessing the whole Protestant argument in relation to modern attitudes and problems, he focuses on topics such as Biblical exegesis; the interrelationship between theology, the Church, (...) and religious experience; the relevance of the truth of the Bible to culture; and what preachers should preach. (shrink)

This volume provides a detailed resume of current knowledge about the classical Indian Philosophical systems of Nyaya and Vaisesika in their earlier stages, i.e ...

Provides a thorough background study of the postmodern assault on the standpoint of the subject as a foundation for philosophy, and assesses what remains today of the philosophy of subjectivity.

Die Frage nach dem Phänomen „Zeit“ ist nicht ohne das mensch-liche Begreifen als sich-selbst-erfahrendes Bewusstsein und den Horizont der sich unablässig ändernden Naturwirklichkeit möglich. Die Frage nach der Zeit ist sehr komplex und deswe-gen ist sicher ratsam sie aus verschiedenen Gesichtspunkten zu behandeln. Zum Beispiel aus der Perspektive der Literatur und Philosophie der Antike. Oder aus den tiefen psychologi-schen Analysen von Augustinus. Immanuel Kant nahm auch die Zeitfrage in den Horizont seinem erkenntnistheoretischen System hinein und will sie mit seinem Wage (...) zu wissenbeantworten. Es ist auch von Interesse auf die Typologie biblischer Motive und Strukturen über die Zeit acht zu geben. Den irritierenden Rätselcharakter der Zeit bringt Augustinus in seinen Confessiones auf prägnante Weise zum Ausdruck: “Was ist also Zeit? Wenn nie-mand mich fragt, so weiß ich ́s; will ich ́s einem Fragenden erklären, so weiß ich ́s nicht“. Wie ein nicht weichender Schatten begleitet die Zeit den Menschen. Versucht er aber sie zu bestimmen, so entzieht sie sich ihm wie ein grosses Geheimnis – allmächtig und wesenlos. (shrink)

Der heftige Streit um Hannah Arendts 'Eichmann in Jerusalem' stiess 1963 Karl Jaspers' Versuch über Sinn und grenzen unabhängigen Denkens an. Die Fragment gebliebenen Texte bezeugen ein zentrales, jedoch bislang wenig bekanntes Anliegen seines gesamten Philosophierens im Spannungsfeld zwischen Metaphysik, Existenzphilosophie und politischer Philosophie. Gerade in seiner Unabgeschlossenheit spiegelt sich der offene und prekäre Übungscharakter eines Ringens um Freiheit an den Grenzen einer stets bedrohten Solidarität, das sich nicht zuletzt in philosophischer Polemik aussert."--Dust jacket.

A primer of the often overlooked yet significant writings of Marx on religion.