Temporality and Trinity argues that there is deep homology between the roles of temporal problematic in Augustine’s On Trinity and Heidegger’s Being and Time. Although Heidegger was aware of On Trinity, the claim is not that he writes under its influence. Rather, Manchester moves from the temporal problematic of Being and Time to the psychological explication of the human image of God in On Trinity, schematized as memory, understanding, and will. Formal and phenomenological parallels allow interpretation of that psychological triad as a temporal problematic in the manner of Being and Time. In a sense, this is to read Augustine as influenced by Heidegger. But the aim is more constructive than that. Establishing a link between trinitarian theology and Being and Time opens a more direct way of benefiting from it in theology than Heidegger’s own assumptions. It puts philosophy in a position to confront New Testament theology directly, in its own historicality, without digression into anything like philosophy of religion.
Editor Gregory Ganssle calls on four Christian philosophers to present and defend their views on the place of God in a time-bound universe. The positions taken up here include divine timeless eternity, eternity as relative timelessness, timelessness and omnitemporality, and unqualified divine temporality.
In this highly original and ground-breaking work, the author brings together discussions in the philosophy of time and space, philosophy of language, phenomenology, philosophy of science, Special and General Relativity, classical cosmology, quantum mechanics, and so forth, with the concerns of philosophy of religion and theology, in order to craft a philosophically informed and scientifically tenable doctrine of divine eternity and God's relationship to time.
Is time a creation of God? How can God be considered eternal, if he is responsible for the existence of time? Is God temporal or is he timeless? The relationship between God and time has been an object of inquiry in philosophical and theological traditions around the world for centuries. This volume takes up these and other questions, presenting a range of answers not only as brought forth in European philosophical traditions and in early Christianity, Judaism and Islam, but also positions taken by mediaeval Indian theologians and in the influential traditions of early Buddhism. Traditionally, discussions have focused on questions such as whether time is a necessary concomitant of God’s existence, or whether time should be identified with God. But there is a further question: did these traditions develop their own unrelated and independent view of God and time? Or are there similarities in their reflections? This volume, with contributions of scholars from various relevant fields, offers a novel approach to these inquiries. When taken as a whole, it provides new momentum to contemplation on an age-old enigma.
Icons in Time, Persons in Eternity presents a critical, interdisciplinary examination of contemporary theological and philosophical studies of the Christian image and redefines this within the Orthodox tradition by exploring the ontological and aesthetic implications of Orthodox ascetic and mystical theology. It finds Modernist interest in the aesthetic peculiarity of icons significant, and essential for re-evaluating their relationship to non-representational art. Drawing on classical Greek art criticism, Byzantine ekphraseis and hymnography, and the theologies of St. Maximus the Confessor, St. Symeon the New Theologian and St. Gregory Palamas, the author argues that the ancient Greek concept of enargeia best conveys the expression of theophany and theosis in art. The qualities that define enargeia - inherent liveliness, expressive autonomy and self-subsisting form - are identified in exemplary Greek and Russian icons and considered in the context of the hesychastic theology that lies at the heart of Orthodox Christianity. An Orthodox aesthetics is thus outlined that recognizes the transcendent being of art and is open to dialogue with diverse pictorial and iconographic traditions. An examination of Ch’an (Zen) art theory and a comparison of icons with paintings by Wassily Kandinsky, Pablo Picasso, Mark Rothko and Marc Chagall, and by Japanese artists influenced by Zen Buddhism, reveal intriguing points of convergence and difference. The reader will find in these pages reasons to reconcile Modernism with the Christian image and Orthodox tradition with creative form in art.
Eternal God offers a powerful defence of the view that God exists in timeless eternity. This classical Christian view is claimed by many theologians and philosophers to be incoherent but Helm rebuts this charge.
Time is integral to human culture. Over the last two centuries people's relationship with time has been transformed through industrialisation, trade and technology. But the first such life-changing transformation – under Christianity's influence – happened in late antiquity. It was then that time began to be conceptualised in new ways, with discussion of eternity, life after death and the end of days. Individuals also began to experience time differently: from the seven-day week to the order of daily prayer and the festal calendar of Christmas and Easter. With trademark flair and versatility, world-renowned classicist Simon Goldhill uncovers this change in thinking. He explores how it took shape in the literary writing of late antiquity and how it resonates even today. His bold new cultural history will appeal to scholars and students of classics, cultural history, literary studies, and early Christianity alike.
Time and eternity are concepts that have occupied an important place within Jewish mystical thought. This present volume gives pride of place to these concepts, and is one of the first works to bring together diverse voices on the subject. It offers a multivalent picture of the topic of time and eternity, not only by including contributions from an array of academics who are leaders in their fields, but by proposing six diverse approaches to time and eternity in Jewish mysticism: the theoretical approach to temporality, philosophical definitions, the idea of time and pre-existence, the idea of historical time, the idea of experiential time, and finally, the idea of eternity beyond time. This multivocal treatment of Jewish mysticism and time as based on variant academic approaches is novel, and it should lay the groundwork for further discussion and exploration.
This book is a critical analysis of how key philosophers in the European tradition have responded to the emergence of a modern conception of temporality. Espen Hammer suggests that it is a feature of Western modernity that time has been forcibly separated from the natural cycles and processes with which it used to be associated. In a discussion that ranges over Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Heidegger and Adorno, he examines the forms of dissatisfaction which result from this, together with narrative modes of configuring time, the relationship between agency and temporality, and possible challenges to the modern world's linear and homogenous experience of time. His study is a rich exploration of an enduring philosophical theme: the role of temporality in shaping and reshaping modern human affairs.