God-Pantocrator and God-Coordinator: The Status of a Miracle in the Scientific Revolution

Scientists and philosophers of the 17th century, with all the novelty of their ideas, at the same time were in no hurry to reject the concept of a miracle, although many of them, such as I. Newton, rejected the understanding of a miracle as a violation of the laws of nature, its “ordinary course”. On the whole, with regard to the Christian concept of the miracle in the natural philosophy of the early modern period, a very uncertain situation developed. On the one hand, in the era of the Scientific Revolution, there was a clear tendency to explain extraordinary phenomena by the action of natural causes, which in theology found its meaningful expression in the Protestant concept of the cessation of miracles (cessatio miraculorum) in post-apostolic times, and in philosophy (more precisely, in the philosophico-theological literature), especially in the teachings of B. Pascal, R. Descartes, B. Spinoza, D. Hume and other authors, in an effort to build a rational theology in which the status of a miracle turned out to be very uncertain. On the other hand, the difficulties that arose in science after I. Newton's discovery of the law of universal gravitation and associated with the problem of actio in distans, forced researchers to resort to theological concepts and images in natural-philosophical reasoning, in particular, to refer to the concept of a miracle. The latter circumstance required the development of a new understanding of miracles, namely the concept of “coincidence miracles”, which made it possible to preserve the apologetic functions of miracles and at the same time to neutralize the philosophical and theological criticism of the concept of miracle by B. Spinoza and D. Hume. My aim in this article is to demonstrate that the relationship between theological and scientific (more precisely, natural-philosophical) problems is by no means reduced to the use of theological concepts in the process of the formation of classical science in the mode of general reasoning by analogy or as general ideological statements. Theological concepts turned out to be included in the natural-philosophical discourse on a par with purely physical arguments, and, on the contrary, theological thought had to somehow react to natural-philosophical discoveries, which ultimately led to a mutual adjustment of both natural-philosophical and theological concepts.

The apodictic method and the dialogue between theology and science (I)

Many today’s scientists think that religion can never come to terms with science. In sharp contrast to the widespread opinion, the authors of this paper consider that historically scientific reasoning and religious belief joined hands in their effort to investigate and understand reality. In fact, the current divorce between science and religion is nothing else than the final outcome of a gradual long-term, and deliberately assumed process of science secularization of science. However, especially during the last decades, we have all been equally confronted with the advance of a new concern over the fact that contemporary scientists have been approaching an area of investigation that had been usually addressed by the theological thought. This recent development has generated an emerging new field of investigation of Science and Religion within modern scientific epistemology.Against this background, the purpose of this paper is three-fold: firstly, to briefly emphasize that one of the defining dimensions of the dialogue between science and religion is given by the discontinuity, in which, the knowledge acquired through scientific reasoning is placed in relation to the divinely revealed knowledge; secondly, to argue that another defining dimension of the dialogue consists in the hierarchical harmony mediating the encounter between the two, thus transgressing the discontinuity and making the dialogue between theology and science possible and viable; and thirdly, to advocate the idea that the apodictic method (based on antinomic logic) can successfully structure such a dialogue.

Postmodern Theology as a Methodological Resource of Understanding Modern Religiosity: Conceptual, Worldview and Important Social Dimensions

The article comprehends the potential of the current achievements of the new Christian theologians in interpreting of the phenomenon of religiosity, its life and value-conceptual core and contexts of functioning, taking into account the modification of the historical conditions of the existence of culture, society, spirituality. The author ponders the conceptual content of the ideas of J. Milbank, J.-L. Marion and J. Caputo. The ideas of these authors are highlighted in their methodological uniqueness and at the same time the general paradigmatic context of their focus for comprehending the postmodern anthropological situation and the effectiveness of Christian spirituality in the conditions of post-secularism is taken into account. The research is interdisciplinary, combining the history of theological thought with the possibilities of philosophical anthropology and philosophy of religion.

Existentialism and Theology. United route

The present paper concentrates on analyzing the types of existential philosophy, its current condition, aims, and perspectives of this process in the history of philosophy. The main task of the work was to prove and show the unity of this tradition, despite the artificial divisions and the unjustified disengagements in its “application”. The idea is substantiated that the concept of fundamental intention stands out as a unifying meaning. Research evidence that existential philosophy demonstrates an essential unity with theological thought. The key to this understanding is the doctrine of theological existentialism.

The Discipline «Russian Patrology»: A Historical Review

В статье делается обзор становления дисциплины «русская патрология» в дореволюционной России, Советском Союзе, в западной науке (в том числе в среде русской эмиграции), а также в постсоветской России. Обозначается сравнительно малая изученность богословской составляющей русской литературы, что делает её исследование перспективным и актуальным. Недавнее выделение дисциплины русской патрологии из истории русской литературы соотносится с постепенным преобразованием патрологии в историю христианской литературы в западной науке, ставится вопрос о методе патрологии как науки. The article observes the history of patrology research in pre-revolutionary Russia, Soviet Union, in western science including russian emigrants and in post-soviet Russia. Author concludes that currently theological thought in Russian literature is insufficiently explored and that Russian patrology is a perspective direction in modern theology. Author correlates the recent separation of the discipline of Russian patrology from the history of Russian literature with the gradual transformation of patrology into the history of Christian literature in Western science. Article raises of the method of patrology as a science.

Theology in Latin American Context: A Look at Soteriology

The purpose of this article is to describe a contextual theology in Latin America in dialogue with its cultures, histories, and peoples. This contextual theology must build from a Latin American context. For this reason, dialogue begins with mestizaje to begin to describe some of the cultural, ethnic, racial, and religious experiences giving shape to Latin America. The article specifically looks at the intersection and confluence of African, Amerindian, and European origins of Latin American peoples and explores how his could inform theological thought. The essay also considers Liberation Theology as an important theological stream. Throughout this essay, Pentecostalism becomes a case study by which an emerging theology from this tradition can be faithful to both its tradition and the cultures in context. It becomes evident that an emerging Latin American theology is profoundly intersectional, containing issues of race, culture, ethnicity, and popular religions. Theologians must walk through contested spaces. This dialogue requires patience, listening, compassion, and understanding.

The Purpose of Evil Was to Survive It: Black and Womanist Rejecting the Cross for Salvation

Taking the Hagar story as the central biblical resource to address the particular plight of Black women—a plight that reckons with patriarchal and White supremacist forces that desire its enclosure—Delores Williams challenges both the traditional understanding of atonement theory which embraces the Cross as salvific and Black liberation theologies’ apocalyptical conceptions of a mighty liberating God. This article seeks to read Delores Williams closely to take seriously her theological development through literature more broadly and her soteriological critiques of the Cross specifically. A rereading of Williams will provide the grounds for continuing the debate of the Cross’s (in)significance within Black theological thought at large. Analyzing Williams’ soteriological critiques will allow me to offer a reading of the Cross that ultimately relies on Williams’ emphatic rejection. Such a rejection of the Cross is necessary for understanding how Black Christianity centers the Cross in order to reject it, as it is intended to be.

Theory of the Icon of Christos Yannaras

The article regards the phenomenon of the icon in the interpretation of Greek theologian and philosopher Christos Yannaras. His work Personality and Eros is taken as a basis, where the author describes this phenomenon, based on a thorough body of works of Orthodox thought.The icon is primarily considered not only as a model of reality, reflection or image of events and objects, or allegory-allegory; attention is focused on the icon as a category of cognition. The study traces the conditions of functioning of the iconological language, as well as its connection with apophatic and cataphatic theological thought. The specifics of the poetics of the iconological language are also revealed, aiming at both concealment and elucidation of the truth.An attempt is also made to transfer the theory of the icon to the anthropological plane, in accordance with the erotic gesture of self-denial. The focus is on the aesthetic component of the iconic perception not only of icons but also of other phenomena of art or the surrounding world. Thus, owing to the derivatives of the theory of the icon, the analysis of art in the anthropological plane is carried out.Possible types of reduction of the iconological language according to the function of the icon as a means of cognition are also revealed. In this regard, the significance of the so-called ‘theology of assimilation’ and its possible connection with the moralistic reduction in the interpretation of Ch. Yannaras are analyzed. On the other hand, aesthetic reduction is also described, which, in turn, has the ability to provoke iconoclastic resistance.Thus, the aim of the work is to study the phenomenon of the icon as a category of knowledge in the works of Ch. Yannaras, as well as to consider the icon and the iconological language in their connection with issues of the aesthetic and anthropological nature.

Revelation and Theology of the People

The Theology of the People (teología del pueblo) emerged in Argentina in the 1960s. It was conceived as Catholics awakened to the problem of poverty in the Global South. The immediate sources of inspiration can be seen in Vatican II’s Gaudium et spes, the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, and in Paul VI’s encyclical Populorum progressio and in his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii nuntiandi. Poverty has been a universal human phenomenon throughout history. But the phenomenon takes on new meaning in an age in which humanity has acquired the technical means to feed and shelter all its members decently. If poverty is not eradicated, there must be something wrong in the organization of human societies. Poverty becomes a moral problem and not only for individuals but for society at large. This will lead later to the concept of social sin or sinful social structures. The other source of the shift in theological thought is the acquisition in the Church of the logics of democracy. The Church has always addressed the problems of social injustice, but she had directed her teachings to the rulers of the nations. Now the Council addressed the peoples, who, in a democratic order, are supposed to be sovereign. The problem of social justice acquires a subjective dimension: that of the constitution of the subject of social change and of the liberation of the poor. The poor are called to become the subjects of their own liberation.