Library: Philosophy, Religion, and Theology

Before Vatican II, marriage was often considered, or at least popularly expressed, as a union of bodies; that is to say, marriage was an exclusive contract by which a man and a woman mutually handed over their bodies for the purpose of acts which led to the procreation of children. Matrimonial jurisprudence was primarily focused on this marital contract. With the advent of Vatican II and its emphasis on the personalist notion of marriage, a new age dawned whereby canonists, especially auditors of the Roman Rota, were henceforth to view marriage as a union of persons. "Person" is more th...

THE ISSUE The immutable God and the God of Love? Are they compatible? Does God change? Does it matter? If God is the immutable God, as interpreted from Classical Christian Tradition, a God who remains unalterable, what is the point of prayer? Does prayer, or any of our actions in the world for that matter, have any effect on God? Can we move God? Is God simply a static Being? Is prayer of use if God is absolutely immutable? Does God respond to prayer or to our actions in the world? ...

The influence of Swami Vivekananda on the INDIAN Nationalist Movement is well-known. Swami Vivekananda was not only a visionary, or a monk but a nationalist and a reformer par excellence. Many in our own country think that religion and mysticism and social amelioration and political and economic reconstruction cannot unite and declare that the secular and spiritual ideals are polar opposites. Such a notion has been responsible for the gross misrepresentations of the spirit of Indian philosophy, religion and culture, but the mystics, the saints and the sages of India prove standing refutation...

This dissertation argues that conduct and behavior were believed essential for determining one's post-mortem fate from the earliest periods of both ancient Egypt and ancient Greece. Part one of this four-part study examines Plato's eschatological myths and provides a complete catalog and brief discussion of all references in them to conduct and behavior that affect one's fate in the afterlife. Part two traces the evolution of the concept of the afterlife from Homer to the Dramatists, also cataloging all references to the afterlife that mention conduct and behavior. This part of the study de...

This thesis seeks to demonstrate the authenticity (as dominical teaching) of the parable of the darnel (Mt 13:24-30) and its interpretation (Mt 13:36-43). The interpretation in particular is almost universally regarded as non-dominical, notably by J Jeremias and his followers. My thesis argues that the whole of Mt 13:36-43 (and Mt 13:24-30) should be seen as dominical. The 'introduction' gives a brief survey of parabolic studies, and outlines the case against the authenticity of Mt 13:24-30,36-43. Chapter AI defends the authenticity of the parable (Mt 13:24-30). The following chapters do t...

Benjamin's work has been classified either according to the principles of historical materialism, or according to the principles of metaphysics. This fragmentation of his ideas, however, obscures the real impetus of his oeuvre, particularly in the interpretation of his central notion of redemption. If instead one considers Benjamin as a critic of the everyday in search of a mechanism for change, influenced by the historical condition and his intellectual contemporaries, then we are able better to understand his narrative. The Weimar Republic was a period dominated by the dialectic between hope...

This dissertation seeks to establish that there is a renaissance of Thomistic Philosophy in the Post-Conciliar Catholic Church, specifically a reawakening of Scholasticism, as evidenced by Pope John Paul II in his encyclical Veritatis Splendor. The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) ushered in a new era for the Roman Catholic religion prompted by the desire of Pope John XXIII to have the 2,000 year old institution catch up with the modern world and address current problems as well as present the ancient faith in contemporary ways. Prior to Vatican II, there was a monolithic way to explain fait...

Since its inception in the early nineteenth century, the basic tenet of dispensationalism (a school of Protestant theology which holds that God deals with humankind in different ways in different periods of time called dispensations) has been that the church and Israel are two sharply distinct peoples of God. The distinction is theological in nature; specifically, anthropological (pertaining to humanity), soteriological (pertaining to salvation), and eschatological (pertaining to last things). The tenet of theological distinctiveness has always been the cornerstone for the dispensationalist's ...

The revision of Origen's philosophical theology by St. Maximus the Confessor resulted in an eschatology involving the replacement of the human ego by the divine presence. In this study, I will examine the theological developments that led to this loss of a sense of human freedom and creativity in the face of the divine, tracing the influence of Origen's eschatology through the Cappadocian Fathers, Evagrius Ponticus and others, up to Maximus. This will allow me to show the manner in which Origen's humanistic theology was misunderstood and misinterpreted throughout the Patristic era, culminati...

In 1904-1905 Max Weber published the sociological classic The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. In this book Weber argues that religion, specifically “ascetic Protestantism” provided the essential social and cultural infrastructure that led to modern capitalism. Weber’s suggests that Protestantism has “an affinity for capitalism.” Indeed, something within Protestantism—by accident or design—creates the necessary preconditions that lead to the flowering of a just, free, and prosperous society. At the same time, Weber wonders if the economic backwardness of certain societies and...