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A Theological Anthropology of Self-Realization by Jennifer Slater O.P Pdf
The book addresses the intriguing problem of human self-realization precisely because of the diverse uses of the term, which ranges from abstract philosophical-theological theories to practical psychological-spiritual applications. Jennifer Slater draws the concept from Karl Rahner, the twentieth German theologian, who uses the term self-realization in his theology on freedom and symbolism, relating it to the basic free choice, which the human person makes to be for or against God/Divine. Jennifer Slater explores this fundamental free choice, which is at the same time a basic choice about oneself. She writes from the understanding that the human person is radically free to become the choices she or he makes and freedom is the capacity for definitive self-realization. In the book, she shows that in the exercising of freedom, humans, precisely as historical beings, are also transcendent beings. Jennifer grapples with the perception that since human self-realization involves the power to make decisions, which in reality actualizes a persons own reality, how then does this self-realization come about and where does the Divine fit into the process? If self-realization is related to the human self and to the Divine Self, she then questions what constitutes the self and self-realization? This struggle practically employs the woman in general and in particular the woman consecrated to a vowed life. The pervasive question throughout is: What constitutes the self-realization of a human/woman being?
Makes a significant contribution to theological anthropology done by and for a world Church. Important new insights about the fundamental identity of human persons and communities emerge as the author brings the writings of Karl Rahner and U.S. Hispanic theologians into a creative and mutually enriching conversation.
Ethnography as Christian Theology and Ethics by Christian Scharen,Aana Marie Vigen Pdf
This book is a primary resource in the new and growing field of Christian Ethnography. In response to a variety of critical intellectual currents (post-colonial, post-modern, and post-liberal), scholars in Christian theology and ethics are increasingly taking up the tools of ethnography as a means to ask fundamental moral questions and to make more compelling and credible moral claims. Privileging particularity, rather than the more traditional effort to achieve universal or at least generalizable norms in making claims regarding the Christian life, echoes the most fundamental insight of the Christian tradition - that God is known most fully in Jesus of Nazareth. Echoing this 'scandal of particularity' at the heart of the Christian tradition, theologians and ethicists involved in ethnographic research draw on the particular to seek out answers to core questions of their discipline: who God is and how we become the people we are, how to conceptualize moral agency in relation to God and the world, and how to flesh out the content of conceptual categories such as justice that help direct us in our daily decisions and guiding institutions.
A Theological Anthropology by Hans Urs von Balthasar Pdf
Originally published in 1967 (the German title of the original volume translates to The Whole in the Fragment), A Theological Anthropology is described by the author as "an essay." Indeed, it is man's history of theology, without firm conclusions, but brilliantly written by one of the foremost theologians of his time.
Using story and human experience as a springboard, this book explores creaturehood as a metaphor of identity and the basis for a theology of the person.
A Critique of Western Theological Anthropology by Bo-Myung Seo Pdf
This book attempts to articulate some of the inadequacies of the 20th century Western theological anthropologies and pursue the possibility of one that is more attentive to the conditions of life that still dictate the non-Western world. As professor Seo points out the question of theological and philosophical anthropology has characteristically been framed as the question of the self rather than the question of the other. The radicality and creativity of this project can be seen in the attempt to lay the groundwork for just such a reversal of the most basic and seemingly self-evident character of philosophical and theological anthropology. What would it mean if the most basic question were that of the other rather than that of the self?The impetus for raising this sort of fundamental question is the realization that the basic categories for reflection upon the self have also been implicated in the West's project of colonial expansion and domination in the modern period. The notions of subjectivity and responsibility, of freedom and temporality have all been bound up not only in the way of thinking about the subject but also in the global project of subjection. modernization not only an achievement, but also something done to others or to the other of the West, who become thereby what Professor Seo calls othered selves. What would it mean to think of the human, as human, from the position not of the triumphant self but that of the othered self, the one made other and constructed as other? This is the daring and provocative question which this treatise raises for the reader. One of the most remarkable features of this essay is that it does not begin with a simple repudiation of the Western tradition, or in simple characterizations of that tradition, or indulge in caricature. The author is one who is deeply steeped in the philosophical and theological traditions of the West. Indeed the breadth and depth of his sympathetic reading of this tradition is evident on every page. into his argument, Seo's discussions of thinkers as diverse as Hegel and Kant, Husserl and Heidegger, Sartre and Wittgenstein, Rahner and Pannenberg, Rosenzweig and Buber, reveals a generous and probing intelligence that goes to the heart of the positions and perspectives that are to be engaged. At the same time, positions with which he is deeply sympathetic like those of Anselm Min, Enrique Dussel, Walter Benjamin or, especially, Emmanuel Levinas, are not simply offered as models to be emulated but are carefully and critically engaged. The first chapters of the book offer what may be termed, following Foucault, a genealogy of several of the most basic concepts of philosophical and theological anthropology. The emphasis upon the freedom as constitutive of the subject opens the discussion. Moving from the theological perspective on the bondage of the will in Augustine and Luther Seo shows how the modern conception of the rational freedom of the will was constructed in the work of Kant and Hegel. that can make reason the instrument of genocide. The theological tradition has taken up, in Rahner and Pannenberg, the idea of freedom as an essential openness to the world, or in Tillich and Niebuhr the idea of a finite freedom. But what has not been fundamentally interrogated is the very character of this supposedly self-grounded freedom, a freedom that strains against the limits posed by the other and regards the world to which it is open as the field of its own expansive operation. Similarly the idea of history or of the subject as embedded in and as productive of history is subjected to a close genealogical investigation. These investigations are not unrelated since the openness to the world is at the same time openness to the future, and history becomes the name of the extension of control over both space and time. One of the most remarkable of the insights of this chapter is the recognition that the idea of history is itself determined by a certain privileged location in the present and toward the future. backward looking, or bound to the past. The Western self is, in contrast, turned confidently toward a future that extends its own control of the present. Theology, for its part has taken the notion of eschatology as itself a kind of orientation toward the future as the goal toward which our efforts approximate. Yet professor Seo shows that the biblical eschatology seems to entail not a continuation but a radical disruption of the present, a reversal with which Western notions of progress and openness to the future can scarcely contend. He finds the perspectives of Walter Benjamin helpful in suggesting what this might mean within the domain of thought. What has been shown to this point is that the philosophical and theological anthropologies of the West have both exalted the human subject and also served to legitimate or at least acquiesce in the Western project of domination. Thus it is important to ask what a liberative anthropology might look like. Here he will argue both for the importance as well as the limitations of liberation theology. upon the very categories that have served as foundational for the Western privileging of the subject. He proposes that a third world perspective might better begin with what it means to be third in the sense of marginal and with the reality of pain, as that which seems least amenable to rational analysis and notions of freedom but which may more concretely anchor thought in the bodily reality of those who are othered. He will return to this suggestion at the end of the essay. The last half of the book is an engagement with the idea or the question of the other as this has been developed in 20th century Western thought. The point here is to uncover both the main impediments to a thinking of the other and the resources available for rethinking this theme. Seo first points to the challenge faced by thinking in coming to terms with the other, whether in terms of Husserl's alter ego, Heidegger's mitten or even Sartre's reflections on the gaze of the other. He does not simply reference the philosophical tradition however. theological attempts to think the other, whether in Brunner and Gogarten or in the Jewish reflections of Buber and Rosenzweig. The thinker who offers the most promise for breaking out of the Western fixation on the self, however, is Emmanuel Levinas. As the thinker par excellence of the other Levinas is the thinker who is most helpful to Seo's project of thinking through the question of the other. Among the many useful insights of his discussion of Levinas is the suggestion that Levinas has recourse to quasi religious categories (face, infinite, height, widows and orphans, and so on) precisely because the philosophical tradition has so occluded the question of the other as to make recourse to the alien traditions of biblical thought necessary to break out of the impasses in which this tradition finds itself. Yet, as Seo points out, with help from Enrique Dussel, Levinas does not yet think from the standpoint of the other. This is the result of attempting to remain faithful to the phenomenological method which Levinas also seeks to overturn. moving toward a consideration that goes beyond the self-other dichotomy to embrace a sense of the we. Can this be thought in such a way as not to fall back into what Levinas has rightly characterized as the tendency to think the other as the same with the self? Can the common sense of being made other open up a new form of thinking that begins with solidarity rather than the assimilation of the other to the self? What role might attention to the experience of pain, the other's and one's own play in such a turn to the other, as the other?It is with provocative questions such as these that the reader is left to ponder the magnitude of the revolution in thought that is opened up by the question of the other. This is an essay in philosophical theology that takes seriously the best features of what might be termed a post-modern style. Deeply immersed in the literature of what has often called itself the theological and philosophical tradition, it nonetheless clearly underlines the particularity of this tradition as decidedly implicated in the specific cultural and political projects of the West.
Anthropology in Theological Perspective by Wolfhart Pannenberg Pdf
In this comprehensive study, a renowned theologian examines the anthropological disciplines-human biology, psychology, cultural anthropology, sociology and history-for their religious implications. The result is a theological anthropology that does not derive from dogma or prejudice, but critically evaluates the findings of the disciplines. Pannenberg begins with a consideration of human beings as part of nature; moves on to focus on the human person; and then considers the social world: its culture, history and institutions. All the elements of this multi-faceted study unite in the final chapter on the relation of human beings to their history.
This work by a leading figure in the field offers one of the first attempts to formulate a complete theory of practical theology for scholars, teachers, students, and those directly involved in pastoral ministry.. "Designed to serve as a reference tool, this volume provides the necessary theoretical discussion for work in the entire discipline of practical theology. Gerben Heitink first surveys the historical development of practical theology from the thought of Schleiermacher to the present. He then outlines the theoretical aspects of practical theology, looking especially at the hermeneutical, empirical, and strategic points of view. Finally Heitink discusses the various contexts in which practical theology takes place.
Life is not user-friendly, we all need some instructions along the way. But Self-Care is not just another self-help book. This is a book about the self, first of all, and then how that self, endowed by God with a divine image, can experience self-worth, emotional health, and a strong and vital faith in the face of life's inevitable and irrational pain and suffering. Self-Care goes beyond recovery from abuse and dysfunction. It is the realization of God's gift of personal empowerment and spiritual healing. The most difficult textbook is life itself, one that none of us can avoid reading and interpreting. This book will serve as a guide to interpret the text of life given to each of us and lead to more effective and creative living.
Theological Anthropology in the Anthropocene by Jan-Olav Henriksen Pdf
The Anthropocene presents theology, and especially theological anthropology, with unprecedented challenges. There are no immediately available resources in the theological tradition that reflect directly on such experiences. Accordingly, the situation calls for contextually based theological reflection of what it means to be human under such circumstances. This book discusses the main elements in theological anthropology in light of the fundamental points: a) that theological anthropology needs to be articulated with reference to, and informed by, the concrete historical circumstances in which humanity presently finds itself, and b) that the notion of the Anthropocene can be used as a heuristic tool to describe important traits and conditions that call for a response by humanity, and which entail the need for a renewal of what a Christian self-understanding means. Jan-Olav Henriksen explores what such a response entails from the point of view of contemporary theological anthropology and discusses selected topics that can contribute to a contextually based position.
Hegel by Laurence Dickey,Laurence Winant Dickey Pdf
This major study of Hegel's intellectual development up to the writing of The Phenomonology of Spirit argues that his work is best understood in the context of the liberalisation of German Protestantism in the eighteenth century.
Self-Actualization and the Radical Gospel by Louis Roy Pdf
Can today’s Christians reconcile a belief in self-actualization with the extreme ethical demands of the New Testament? The author argues that they can, although not easily, and that the felt uneasiness between two concerns—self-fulfillment and self-gift—may generate a healthy tension. There is then an apparent mismatch between two views of ethics. On the one hand, psychological humanism is based on self-affirmation, acceptance of one’s limitations, moderation, and the search for a quality of life in the midst of globalization. On the other hand, the radicalism of the gospel emphasizes passion (in the two senses of this word), self-transcendence towards the infinite, and generosity for God and others. Nonetheless, these two tendencies are neither incompatible nor easily reconcilable. The book uncovers both the pitfalls of self-actualization and the misleading interpretations that have disfigured the radical gospel. It highlights the developmental factors, views of human life, successes, and failures which play a considerable role in a person’s journey. It brings psychological, biblical, philosophical, theological, and pastoral clarifications to bear on the issues. This book will help its readers to grasp what a psychologically informed Christian ethic can be, both intellectually and practically.
Theology, Psychology and the Plural Self by Léon Turner Pdf
Is the human self singular and unified or essentially plural? This book explores the seemingly disparate ways that Christian theology and the secular human sciences have approached this complex question. The latter have largely embraced the idea of the plural self as an inescapable, even adaptive feature of psychological life. Contemporary Christian theology, by contrast, has largely neglected recent psychological accounts of the naturalness of self-plurality, and has sought to reaffirm the self's unity in opposition to those postmodern theorists who would dismantle it. Through an original analysis of recent theological and secular accounts of self and personhood, this book examines the extent of the intertheoretical disparity and its broader implications for theology's dialogue with the human sciences in general, and psychology in particular. It explains why theologians ought to take questions about the plurality of self very seriously, and how they overlap with many of the central concerns of contemporary theological anthropology, including the notions of relationality, particularity and human sinfulness. Introducing a novel psychological framework to distinguish various understandings of self-disunity, the author argues that contemporary theology's blanket condemnation of self-multiplicity is misconceived, and identifies a possible means of reconciling theological and human scientific accounts.
Formation and the Person by Alessandro Manenti,Stefano Guarinelli,Hans Zollner Pdf
This book gathers the foundational concepts which characterise the approach to the person, as human and as Christian, which has been developed at the Institute of Psychology of the Pontifical Gregorian University during its more than 35 years of activity. The book directs these concepts towards further paths for investigation and puts them in dialogue with sister schools of depth psychology and with other areas of scholarship (in particular philosophy and theology) which are equally interested in exploring the human mystery. Hence the variety of authors - psychologists, philosophers and theologians - brought together by a common interest in understanding and forming the human person in better ways. The reflections contained in this book gain concrete expression in an educative-therapeutic practice, and they review the nodal points which are part of every journey of growth and of psychotherapy: personal identity, interaction with the external world and the attainment of personal truth, inner imagination, desires and affections, conflicts. Instruments are offered to enable the formator and the psychotherapist to make the best possible use of the great energies which are made available by their application: how to identify the real problem, where to concentrate one's attention, what to listen to, how to handle the relationship, on what element to act in order to promote improvement/cure, what kind of change to propose. While accompaniment and psychotherapy are different procedures, they nevertheless have many similarities and points of contact. The dynamic relations and the factors involved in growth which this book describes are valid for both modalities of intervention and will be of interest to anyone who wishes to help others in a more enlightened educative dialogue.
