The pope Benedict XVI in Apostolic Exhortation Verbum Domini (2010) has presented fruits of the work of the XII Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops which had as its theme: „The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church”. Nowadays, there is no greater priority for the mission of the Church than this: to enable the people of our time once more to encounter God, the God who speaks to us and shares his love so that we might have life in abundance (cf. Jn 10:10). The economy of Revelation has its Trinitarian dimension, so, God, who speaks to people, makes it always as the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Triune God goes toward people with the word of salvation, which is present in the work of creation and redemption, in the living Tradition and the sacred Scriptures. Since God “so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (Jn 3:16), the divine word, spoken in time, is bestowed and “consigned” to the Church in a definitive way, so that the proclamation of salvation can be communicated effectively in every time and place.
The pope Benedict XVI in Apostolic Exhortation Verbum Domini (2010) has presented fruits of the work of the XII Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops which had as its theme: „The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church”. Nowadays, there is no greater priority for the mission of the Church than this: to enable the people of our time once more to encounter God, the God who speaks to us and shares his love so that we might have life in abundance (cf. Jn 10:10). The economy of Revelation has its Trinitarian dimension, so, God, who speaks to people, makes it always as the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Triune God goes toward people with the word of salvation, which is present in the work of creation and redemption, in the living Tradition and the sacred Scriptures. Since God “so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (Jn 3:16), the divine word, spoken in time, is bestowed and “consigned” to the Church in a definitive way, so that the proclamation of salvation can be communicated effectively in every time and place.
Gottes Angesicht schauen heißt in vielen Texten des AT, besonders in den Psalmen: 11,7; 16,11; 17,15; 21,7; 27,13; 36,10; 42,3; 63,3; 140,14. Aber Gott zu sehen, hieß in Israel auch etwas anders als in seiner Umwelt: dazwischen steht das Bilderverbot. Wenn also der Gott Israels sein Angesicht verbirgt, dann bedeutet das unter den Bedingungen der Religion Israels grundsätzlich: es gibt nicht einmal mehr einen Anhalt für das Offenbarsein Gottes. Von Israel verbarg sich Jahwe nicht mutwillig, sondern unwillig, nicht von Anfang an, sondern im Gang der Geschichte. Das ist eine Reaktion auf die Taten des schuldig gewordenen Volkes, das durch Götzenverehrung ganz weit von einzigen wahren Gott entfernt wurde. Diese Schuld wurde vor allem von den Propheten des VIII Jahrhunderts eingeklagt. Seitdem nur der verborgene Gott ist der Retter. Ibn kann man begegnen nur auf dem Weg des Glaubens. Deshalb das Wort „Gottes Angesicht schauen“ heißt vielmehr Gott anbeten und durch Liturgie und Kultus verehren. Das geschieht im Tempel und in der Gemeinschaft der an den einen Gott gläubigen Bruder und Schwestern.
CEL NAUKOWY: Próba wykazania zmiany dokonanej w drugiej połowie II tysiąclecia przed Chr., gdy w miejsce kosmonomicznych ujęć dominujących uprzednio w myśli politycznej starożytnego Bliskiego Wschodu wkracza ujęcie teonomiczne znajdowane w szczególności w tekstach starotestamentowych. PROBLEM I METODY BADAWCZE: Statyczne ujęcie zakładające istnienie niezmiennego ładu kosmicznego, ewentualnie (i postulatywnie) odzwierciedlanego w porządku politycznym znającym władzę sprawowaną przez człowieka, zostaje skonfrontowane z ujęciem późniejszym, uwzględniającym istnienie jedynego Boga osobowego, który wolą swą określa treść ładu. Analiza tekstów dawnych, podawana w kontekście przemian kulturowych, jest główną metodą stosowaną w wywodzie. PROCES WYWODU: Autor przechodzi od prezentacji ujęć wcześniejszych do analizy ujęć późniejszych, zmieniających się, uwzględniających coraz więcej elementów typowych dla projektu teonomicznego, a także wiele zagadnień niesionych przez historię Izraela i Judei, od Wyjścia aż po ustanowienie typowej dla tradycji starotestamentowej „teokracji umiarkowanej”. WYNIKI ANALIZY NAUKOWEJ: Ukazanie istoty zmiany dokonującej się w dłuższym okresie, odchodzenia od ujęcia statycznego w kierunku ujęcia dynamicznego, uwzględniającego rolę osobowego Boga kształtującego treść ładu, w szczególności ładu normatywnego (prawa Bożego objawianego). WNIOSKI, INNOWACJE, REKOMENDACJE: Konieczność uwzględniania w dalszych badaniach zmiany wykazanej w tekście (również na podstawie najważniejszych opracowań traktujących o dziejach myśli politycznej Izraela i o dziejach kształtowania się koncepcji prawa Bożego).
This presentation examines B. P. Bowne’s view of God. God is an active and self-determining being. Nature is understood by Bowne as activated by the intellect and will of God. Bowne stated that each person has the attributes of awareness and self-awareness, freedom and the ability to act, and self-control – in a perfect way possessed only by God. Bowne’s theistic personalism shows the human person to be a spiritual being, ultimately deriving from God, the Most-High Person.
The main aim of this article is to describe and analyze St. Anselm concept of eternity to present a non-obvious dimension of this idea. Because his philosophical andtheological notion of eternity does not involve only – as common sense suggests – the idea of time but also the very concept of necessity. However, this time, it goes far beyond the understanding of the necessity only in logical terms like it was in case of his ontologicalproof for the existence of God.
The foregoing article constitutes an attempt at analyzing the principal idea of Boris Poplavskij’s artistic output, i.e. the so-called “romance with God”. The subject of our scientific investigations is mainly the contents of that talented poet’sdiaries, as well as of his critical articles and letters, on the basis of which we tried to outline the spiritual silhouette of the author of Флаги (Flags), showing his attitude to God and religion. Analysis of the listed sources revealed the poet’s internal – spiritual and existential drama, mainly resulting from his religious syncretism (the Orthodox faith, esotericism, mysticism). It was established that the writer, after his Gnostic mentors, rejects the principle of the good God, who, in his consciousness undergoes a sort of involution – transferring from the object of desire into a bad demiurge, responsible for the evil and its spreading around the world.
The Fathers of the Church from the beginning of the Christian thought were under a strong influence of the Greek philosophy which was in this time understood mainly as the path to unity with the Supreme Being. Christian Apologists tried to convince in their apologies that Christianity is the true philosophy because it allows to reach its goal in the best and the most certain way. Apologists commonly claimed that thanks to the biblical revelation Christians have the knowledge of God which is the most perfect and accurate. We can observe such claims also in the writings of Alexandrian Fathers for whom God is somehow known even at the highest mystical experiences. The Christian doctrine of the knowledge of God changed radically in the fourth century AD in the writings of Cappadocian Fathers who defended the orthodox faith against the Arians. The most famous of them - Eunomius claimed that the essence of God is to be unbegotten. Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa answered him that we cannot know the essence of God and none of his attributes can be understood as his essence. The Cappadocian Fathers were the founders of the Christian doctrine of unknowability of God, and they formulated it in the precise philosophical language. They also made a great contribution to the further development of this doctrine. Dialectic arguments showed only one aspect of unknowability of God; another one was the darkness in the ultimate mystical experience. Gregory of Nyssa explained it well in his Life of Moses, but this teaching reached its ultimate figure in writings of Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagite - unknown author from the end of the fifth century AD. Pseudo-Dionysius claimed that the best knowledge which we can have of God is ignorance. The man can reach this knowledge only at the highest stage of mystical life at the apophatic way. The conclusion of this brief analysis of unknowability of God in the Patristic tradition is the statement that there were two main stimulants of its evolution: theoretical and mystical. For both of them the key role played the Greek philosophy which was an inspiration in creative explanation of the Holy Scripture made by the Fathers of the Church.
Pavel Florensky is well-know Russian religious philosopher, famous above all for his works on orthodox icon, though his thought is considerably more extensive as it contains original reflections on theology, philosophy, philology and natural science. God was situated in the centre of all his deliberations. Therefore the theme of an article seems to be well-founded. I divided my analysis into three parts according to three fields of Florensky’s interests: orthodox christianity, sophiology and Greek philosophy. I will focus my attention on each of them respectively and then try to answer what Florensky understood by the term of God.
The article shows that popular understanding of Eckhart’s God as a personal God is not confirmed by the analysis of Eckhart’s texts, but adopted from the most common concept of God. The article presents three of such interpretations.
No doubt, freedom is the main topic in the works of Dostoevsky. There is probably no other artist and thinker who would say about freedom more - broadly and profoundly describing all its complexity. Freedom constitutes the humanity and at the same time it is the greatest threat to mankind. Man gets freedom as a gift from God, as a key element of his ontic structure. This gift can be a curse, the engine of destruction, ballast, which one need to quickly dump on someone's shoulders. According to Dostoevsky, a man bows his head humbly before the miracle, authority and wealth. He gives his freedom to those who will show him even a semblance of a miracle, will gain an advantage over him, or provide material prosperity. Freedom becomes ill when used arbitrary, enslaves the other, leads to violence and dehumanization.
The representation of Sophia – personified God’s Wisdom, based on the text of old-testament Sapiental Books, took quite an important place in the spiritual culture of Byzantium. What should be noted is the Empire inhabitants’ striving to identify Wisdom with one of the persons of Trinity. A vast majority of the Church Fathers and later East Christian thinkers inclined towards christological interpretation of Sophian images. The Second Hypostasis – the Word Incarnate, was identified with Sophia by Justin Martyr, Athenagoras of Athens, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Methodius of Olympus, Eusebius of Caesarea, Cyril of Jerusalem, Athanasius of Alexandria, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, Cyril of Alexandria, Theodoret of Cyrus, Anastasius of Sinai, Patriarch Germanus of Constantinople, St. Theodore of Stoudios, Symeon the Metaphrast, St. Simeon the New Theologian, and Philotheos Kokkinos – author of three extensive educational works devoted to Sapiental metaphors, presented in the Book of Proverbs. Several other apologists preferred to identify God’s Wisdom with the Holy Spirit (Theophilus of Antioch, Irenaeus of Lyons, Paul of Samosata). At the same time in the Byzantine theology emerged a completely abstract interpretation of Sophia, based on the views of Saint Basil the Great, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and Maximus the Confessor. Its highlight was to be a theory, proposed by Gregory Palamas in the fourteenth century, according to which Sophia should be understood primarily as one of the uncreated energies of God.
Czy Bóg posiada ciało w sensie materialnym? Odpowiedź jest oczywista. Bóg nie posiada ciała podobnego do tego, które mają istoty znane nam z codziennego doświadczenia; nie posiada ciała, które można dotknąć, zobaczyć, wymierzyć, poddać badaniu i ocenie. Można jednak mówić o tym, że w sensie analogicznym dane nam są jakieś ślady jego cielesności, szczególnie wówczas gdy dochodzi do czegoś, co określić można aktem religijnym. Bez nich staje się on niemożliwy do jakiegokolwiek ujęcia, uchwycenia, wreszcie, co chyba najważniejsze, wejścia w relację. „Ciało” to jest też dla samego Boga czymś w rodzaju pomostu, bądź inaczej: sposobu komunikowania się ze światem. Autor artykułu próbuje zanalizować postawiony problem.
Celem artykułu jest ustalenie, jakie stanowisko w kwestii dobroci Boga zajmuje David Hume w Dialogach o religii naturalnej. Omawiam przede wszystkim problem wynikania i związane z nim argumenty dotyczące relacji dobra do zła oraz cztery okoliczności występowania zła w świecie. Na zakończenie poddaję analizie hipotezę moralnej obojętności jako sceptyczny głos Hume’a w debacie nad możliwością wykazania moralnych atrybutów Boga na podstawie doświadczenia.
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The article is devoted to an analysis of David Hume’s position on God’s benevolence in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. The focal point is the problem of inference and the accompanying arguments concerning the relations between good and evil, as well as the four circumstances in which evil enters the world. In the conclusion, I discuss the hypothesis of moral indifference as Hume’s skeptical voice in the debate on the possibility of inferring the moral attributes of God on the basis of experience.
This article discusses two events from Jesus Christ’s life: incarnation and resurrection. They constitute a problem in philosophy. These events in the light of Christian faith do not require the type of epistemological reasons, because it is the mystery of faith. In philosophy, however, up to this day they are analyzed by many philosophers and are getting rationalization. These events are a scandal for the modern philosophy, in the words of Pope Benedict XVI in his book Jesus of Nazareth, and counterpoint to the contemporary, as Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi said.
The Star of Redemption, thinker Franz Rosenzweig’s life’s work, has beenanalysed and interpreted across a variety of disciplines and perspectives for almosta hundred years. Future generations will continue to use and appreciate this text for itsenduring variety and multiplicity of ideas. This article aims to provide a hermeneutical insight into Rosenzweig’s idea of the anticipation of the Kingdom. Rosenzweig deriveshis ideas from the Tanakh. Eternity, according to Rosenzweig, is neither an infinite nor an indeterminately long period of time, but ‘a Tomorrow that could as well be Today’. Redemption occurs as eternity projected in time. The author understands time not only as a sequence of moments as occurrence in history. For him history will be newly decided inevery moment of encounter between the Other and the Self. History moves forward only because of the individual, who decides. Rosenzweig therefore considersprayer as the constitutive element of the human world order, which can anticipate and accelerate the coming of the Kingdom. Rosenzweig’s conception of prayer is fully developed in the third part of the Star, especially in the introduction, titled On the Possibility of Soliciting (erbeten) the Kingdom by Prayer. Here the author introduces different types of prayers andasks the most crucial question of the last part of the Star: Can a human being tempt Godsimply by praying? Subsequently, we must recognize the significance of Rosenzweig’scontribution to the interpretation of prayer as the anticipation of the Kingdom. His analysisremains current and a precious resource for further reflection.
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