The literary approach used in the Gospel according to John expresses a unique way of thinking which also expresses or grasps the deep essence of Christian spiritual life. The present essay describes some typical shapes of Johannine literary expression as they are related to what may be called "union with God" in the sense of "mutual immanence" (Dodd). The examined textual structures, such as chiasm, concentric scheme, or "I am" sentences, reflect not only Christ’s divine being and his descent/ascent, but also – and most importantly – the disciple’s participation in such realties. The main contribution offered in the paper is, however, an exploration of the form of "double comparison" (e.g. "as I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me", 6:57) in the context of the "spiral" pattern of Johannine speeches – and a further application of this depicted union to the topic of communitarian agape.
Partial compatibilism says that there are basically two kinds of freedom of the will: some free volition cannot be determined, while others can. My methodological choice is to examine what assumptions will appear necessary if we want to take seriously—and make understandable—our ordinary moral life. Sometimes, typically when we feel guilty about a choice of ours, we are sure enough that we, at the considered moment, actually could have taken a different option. At other times, however, typically when we are aware of some unquestionable moral reasons for a certain choice, we may perceive our choice as voluntary and free in spite of the fact that it is, in the given situation, unthinkable for us to choose otherwise than we actually do (there are situations when responsible agents, because of their strong moral reasons/motives, cannot choose differently). The assumption that experiences of the first kind are not always mistaken excludes our world being deterministic. Yet free will and determinism go together in some of those possible worlds which contain only the second kind of free volitions. Partial compatibilism represents a ‘third way’ between standard compatibilism and incompatibilism, a way to solve that old dilemma.
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