Christ the Key

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Abstract: Preface Introduction 1. From pondering Scripture to the first principles of Christian theology 2. From cosmology to doxology: reading Genesis alongside Plato and Darwin 3. From creation to re-creation: nature and the naked ape 4. From image to likeness: Incarnation and theosis 5. From Adam and Eve to Mary and Christ: sin, redemption, atonement 6. From inspiration to sanctification: discerning the work of the Holy Spirit 7. From the Church to Mary: towards a critical ecumenism 8. From dogma to theoria: the Christian God Epilogue.

Abstract: This book provides a comprehensive theological framework for assessing the significance of eating. Drawing on diverse theological, philosophical, and anthropological insights, it offers fresh ways to evaluate food production and consumption practices as they are being worked out in today's industrial food economy. Unlike books that focus primarily on vegetarianism and hunger-related concerns, this book broadens the scope of consideration to include the sacramental character of eating, the deep significance of hospitality, the meaning of death and sacrifice, the Eucharist as the place of inspiration and orientation, the importance of saying grace, and the possibility of eating in heaven. Throughout, eating is presented as a way of enacting fidelity between persons, between people and fellow creatures, and between people and Earth. Food and Faith demonstrates that eating is of profound economic, moral, and spiritual significance. Revised throughout, this edition includes a new introduction and two chapters, as well as updated bibliography. The additions add significantly to the core idea of creaturely membership and hospitality through discussion of the microbiome revolution in science, and the daunting challenge of the Anthropocene.

Abstract: Beyond Public and Private: A Theological Transfiguration by Sean Larsen Graduate Program in Religion Duke University Date:_______________________

Abstract: Some view the spiritual path as a journey that involves coming to terms with the meaning of life and the universe. Others think of spirituality in terms of their relationship to the divine. This relationship is explored in many ways and involves unseen elements beyond our day-to-day reality such as: transcendent purpose, universal force, God, field of love or creative spirit. For others, wonder is central to their spirituality; First Nation’s People speak about “The Great Mystery.” Still others emphasize the emptiness of the concepts that are used to describe the transcendent; words and concepts are depicted as fingers pointing to the moon but not the moon itself. We are diverse in our spiritual orientations and some of us have a well-defined story about what spirituality is; some of us do not. Some receive guidance from a particular spiritual perspective and may be pretty clear about the importance of God or Jesus in their lives, and some of us are scared by these very words themselves. There is a structure to the course that will guide us as we explore and learn together. The first area of emphasis is called: Having the Conversation. Many people we work with find that spirituality is a great source of strength, hope, healing, inner peace and life wisdom. On the macro level, spirituality may be a primary force in the forging of community action or the development of services. As responsible social workers, we need to have the conversation with people about the role that spirituality may or may not be playing in their lives as well as the role that it could possibly play. This conversation is scary for many of us and we have probably received little preparation to engage in this way. Some of us are alienated from our parents’ spiritual traditions. This alienation perhaps stems from religious rituals that seemed empty. Some of us are deeply spiritual and religious and we are afraid of imposing our beliefs – so we keep our mouths shut about anything spiritual. Some of us are of a minority religious tradition and feel too ignorant or intimidated to engage with someone who, for example, may be Christian. Some of us may be comfortable and effective with the whole matter and those classmates can lead us.

Abstract: How do we come to trust our knowledge of the world? What are the means by which we distinguish true from false accounts? Why do we credit one observational statement over another? This study engages these universal questions through a recreation of a crucial period in the history of early modern science: the social world of gentlemen-philosophers in 17th-century England. The author paints a picture of the relations between gentlemanly culture and scientific practice. He argues that problems of credibility in science were practically solved through the codes and conventions of genteel conduct: trust, civility, honour, and integrity. These codes formed, and arguably still form, an important basis for securing reliable knowledge about the natural world. Shapin uses detailed historical narrative to argue about the establishment of factual knowledge both in science and in everyday practice. Accounts of the mores and manners of gentlemen-philosophers are used to illustrate Shapin's broad claim that trust is imperative for constituting every kind of knowledge. Knowledge-making is always a collective enterprise: people have to know whom to trust in order to know something about the natural world.

Abstract: Moral thinking pervades our practical lives, but where did this way of thinking come from, and what purpose does it serve? Is it to be explained by environmental pressures on our ancestors a million years ago, or is it a cultural invention of more recent origin? In The Evolution of Morality, Richard Joyce takes up these controversial questions, finding that the evidence supports an innate basis to human morality. As a moral philosopher, Joyce is interested in whether any implications follow from this hypothesis. Might the fact that the human brain has been biologically prepared by natural selection to engage in moral judgment serve in some sense to vindicate this way of thinking -- staving off the threat of moral skepticism, or even undergirding some version of moral realism? Or if morality has an adaptive explanation in genetic terms -- if it is, as Joyce writes, "just something that helped our ancestors make more babies" -- might such an explanation actually undermine morality's central role in our lives? He carefully examines both the evolutionary "vindication of morality" and the evolutionary "debunking of morality," considering the skeptical view more seriously than have others who have treated the subject. Interdisciplinary and combining the latest results from the empirical sciences with philosophical discussion, The Evolution of Morality is one of the few books in this area written from the perspective of moral philosophy. Concise and without technical jargon, the arguments are rigorous but accessible to readers from different academic backgrounds. Joyce discusses complex issues in plain language while advocating subtle and sometimes radical views. The Evolution of Morality lays the philosophical foundations for further research into the biological understanding of human morality.

Abstract: Well over a millennium and a half ago, Augustine distinguished between two cities: the Heavenly City and the Earthly City. While one was the site of all that was holy and spiritual, the place of faith, the other was foul and wicked, the realm of the flesh. Such dichotomies, expanded into a full‐fledged binary logic, persist in the way that we think about cities today. But as Bulent Diken shows in these reflections on Joao Fernando Meirelles' film—entitled, appropriately enough—City of God, cities today are bound up with the very things they try to exclude: ghettos, slums, and shanty‐towns. Binary urban logics in fact produce more grey than they do black and white. The notorious favela outside of Rio that is the subject of Meirelles' film is simultaneously included and excluded from all that Rio represents. It is at once a dumping ground for the city's byproducts—the (human) waste generated by its own development—and its products. It is a zone beyond the civilized city, which, as the city's inverted, carni...

Abstract: The Summa Contra Gentiles is not merely the only complete summary of Christian doctrine that St. Thomas has written, but also a creative and even revolutionary work of Christian apologetics composed at the precise moment when Christian thought needed to be intellectually creative in order to master and assimilate the intelligence and wisdom of the Greeks and the Arabs. In the Summa Aquinas works to save and purify the thought of the Greeks and the Arabs in the higher light of Christian Revelation, confident that all that had been rational in the ancient philosophers and their followers would become more rational within Christianity. This exposition and defense of divine truth has two main parts: the consideration of that truth that faith professes and reason investigates, and the consideration of the truth that faith professes and reason is not competent to investigate. The exposition of truths accessible to natural reason occupies Aquinas in the first three books of the Summa. His method is to bring forward demonstrative and probable arguments, some of which are drawn from the philosophers, to convince the skeptic. In the fourth book of the Summa St. Thomas appeals to the authority of the Sacred Scripture for those divine truths that surpass the capacity of reason. The present volume is the second part of a treatise on the hierarchy of creation, the divine providence over all things, and man's relation to God. Book 1 of the Summa deals with God; Book 2, Creation; and Book 4, Salvation.

Abstract: One The Question: "How Should We Live?" 1 Two On Love,and Its Reasons 33 Three The Dear Self 69 Acknowledgment 101