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Abstract
This article explores the contingency of the encounter between Jesus of Nazareth as representative of YHWH and Mary Magdalene that occurs at Jesus’s tomb. It interprets two important passages from the Gospel of Mark (Mk 16:1–8) and the Gospel of John (Jn 20:11–18) in order to reflect upon the Absolute which arises from this encounter. In Mark’s Gospel, the result of the encounter is the reference to a never-derivable and unrepresentable beginning, on which the text of Mark is built. The Gospel of John, which refers to Mark, concretizes this as the beginning of love and the covenant partnership between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. It is a contingent encounter because there is no external necessity for it. The crucial point is that the event of God only manifests itself in unforeseen encounters. Therefore the experience of an encounter which sets a new beginning in motion and the existence of God are inextricably linked.
Abstract
Shīʿī mujtahids (mujtahidun) and thinkers often try to adopt the norms of Islamic law to contemporary conditions, and usually it is hampered by the absolute authority of the ‘letter’ of the Qurʾān, Sunna, and sometimes the opinions of authoritative theologians of the past, which leads to an understanding of Islamic law as dogmatic. However, some scholars attempt to revise this approach, appealing to the principles and ‘spirit’ of the Qurʾānic verses and the need for the Islamic legal norms to meet the conditions of the time and place of their application. This paper analyses the case studies with approaches of contemporary Shīʿī mujtahids Yousef Saanei and Mohammad Ebrahim Jannaati and their views on this issue.
Abstract
More than any other biblical book, the Song of Songs has over the centuries generated a tumultuous conflict of interpretations, which divide between an overly sacred allegorism and an excessive profane materialism of the text. This article addresses the hermeneutical question of the Canticle and considers the corporeality of its language, in which the question of meaning cannot be separated from the question of the body and its affections. The philosophical categories of Platonic chora in Julia Kristeva’s reception and Lacanian lalangue will be examined, each of which stands at the crossroads between biology and sense, libido and signifiers, and affect and meaning. Within this horizon, the woman who is the speaking subject of this biblical text becomes a witness to the powerful yet ambivalent experience of eros, of a desire characterised by a dialectic of presence and absence, but above all of a word inhabited by the body.
Abstract
Benjamin’s essay Toward the Critique of Violence has often irritated readers. This is even more true of his concept of divine violence, which is defined as “law-annihilating” and goes against legally sanctioned state sovereignty. In this paper, I present a new reading of both Benjamin’s essay and divine violence. Against an apocalyptic tendency of Benjamin, I argue that divine violence can only be an instrument of justice if it is understood as violence suffered rather than perpetrated. This is especially the case where people suffer persecution – imprisonment, torture, death – as a result of nonviolent resistance to an oppressive political regime. Only where such resistant suffering occurs, can violence properly be called divine. Only then does it offer a perspective beyond the never-ending atrocities of human history.
Abstract
What is it about Michel de Certeau’s thinking and approach to the crisis of Catholicism in the (post-) conciliar years that gives it a particular capacity to inspire the advent of a synodal Church? The contribution attempts to answer this question by outlining the main features of de Certeau’s theological gesture. It will then clarify his perspective of the Christian community, which he approaches from the angle of a “missionary” itinerancy, or even an “exit” or “alteration” provoked by the encounter with the stranger, giving rise to linguistic creativity and requiring a new practice of authority. In the end, it is this “way of doing things” according to Certeau, which can be found in the Scriptures and is constantly being reinvented in very different cultural spaces that can enable ecclesial communities, and the Church as a whole, to embark on the “uncharted path” of synodalization.
Abstract
The thought of the French Jesuit Michel de Certeau revolves around the figure of the absent Other. This article is dedicated to this enigmatic figure and its elusive appearance. The account of the disciples on the road to Emmaus and their encounter with a stranger serves as a point of departure for an examination of the interplay between absence and presence of this Other. The article thus analyzes the nature of the relationship that can be established with the stranger, who, upon closer inspection, emerges as the risen Christ in the narrative. In this manner, the article draws upon psychoanalytic theory of mourning developed by Freud to identify the concept of incorporation as a crucial tool to elucidating the relationship between the self and the Other and its significance for the question of discipleship.
Abstract
For the novelty, the research fields of Artificial Intelligence and Theological Anthropology are creatively confronted with each other, especially the emerging ideas of perfection, salvation, mind and corporeality in comparison with the verbatim meaning of theos and logos. For this purpose, both fields of research, which – historically marked – became virulent at about the same time in (ca. 1960s), are theoretically framed, systematically introduced, and classified. Afterwards, a text-critical appraisal is made based on current European institutional publications on Artificial Intelligence regarding concepts, representations and ways of speaking about the hu_man, about der mensch being beyond neuronal networks. Commonalities and challenges through the juxtaposition and found synergies are not only making a valuable contribution to subjecting concepts of hu_mankind for a sustainable relecture. Furthermore, it provides relevant insights and findings about the positioning of the new technology within (ethical) discourses about human dignity and rights, as well philosophical debates about freedom.
Abstract
This article argues that the lack of comprehensive scholarly treatments of how the OT speaks about God’s knowability has to do with the complexity of the topic and the diversity of how the OT addresses it. It shows the diverse ways of how previous scholars have approached the OT statements and assumptions about God’s knowability (and the knowledge of God), clarifies how these statements and assumptions are related to each other, and gives some ideas about possible directions of future research.