scholarly journals Voorzienigheid en verantwoordelijkheid

2001 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Van de Beek

Providence and responsibility Providence is usually regarded as a theological concept that sets human hearts at rest. God rules our lives, and in particular those of Christians. Modern people often have problems with this idea. How can a good God rule a world with diseases and disasters? And can we actually imagine such an all-controlling power? Nevertheless, these are not the real issues concerning the concept of providence. The existential problem is that providence in the Bible has to do with responsibility: God takes responsibility for his world. This responsibility is total; it even implies responsibility and punishment for sin. Thus providence and atonement are not two separated fields of theology, but coincide. The chapter in the Bible to which the concept is originally related makes this plain: Genesis 22, and verse 8 in particular, states, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son”. (The Vulgate reads: “the victim for the holocaust”.) In Genesis 16-22 the word “to provide”, literally “to see” (r’h), turns out to be a key concept. Who sees? The Lord sees, Abraham sees and Hagar sees – and it is always in a situation of life and death in which they are called to responsibility to save lives. But actually these are lives that have already been sacrificed. Thus providence demands the ultimate from human beings, as it asks the ultimate from their God. Noordmans highlights this in a meditation on Matthew 6:34: “Jesus does not say this in order to lay worries to rest but in order to raise worries”. If you search for the kingship of God, all things that are needed will be given to you – such as feet to walk the second mile.

Author(s):  
James A. Diamond

This book challenges the widespread caricature of Judaism as a religion of law as opposed to theology. Broad swaths of rabbinic literature involve not just law but what could be best described as philosophical theology as well. Judaism has never been a dogmatic religion, insisting on a monolithic theology rooted in a uniform metaphysics that would exclude all others. The book engages in close readings of the Bible, classical rabbinic texts, Jewish philosophers, and mystics from the ancient, to the medieval, to the modern period, which communicate a profound Jewish philosophical theology on human nature, God, and the relationship between the two. It begins with an examination of questioning in the Hebrew Bible, demonstrating that what the Bible encourages is independent philosophical inquiry into how to situate oneself in the world ethically, spiritually, and teleologically. It then explores such themes as the nature of God through the various names by which God is known in the Jewish intellectual tradition, love of others and of God, death, martyrdom, freedom, angels, the philosophical quest, the Holocaust, and the State of Israel, all in light of the Hebrew Bible and the way it is filtered through the rabbinic, philosophical, and mystical traditions. For all intents and purposes the Torah no longer originates in heaven, but flows upstream, so to speak, from the earth, propelled by the interpretive genius of human beings.


Edupedia ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 73-83
Author(s):  
Ahmad Dahri

The real purpose of education is humanizing human beings. The most prominent thing in humanity is diversity, plurality or multiculturality. Indonesia is a country consisting of a plural society. This should be realized by all individuals in this nusantara society. Providing awareness of the existence of mulitikulturalitas or pluralism can be pursued in the educational process. For the sake of this interest, then in the educational process there must be some kind of integralization effort between forming the intellect and morality of learners. The function of integralization of moral and intellectual education is to know more about diversity then combine with knowledge and practice with morality then achieve the purposes of national education. The conclusions or findings of Freire’s and Ki Hadjar Dewantara’s analysis approach are the absence of differences in the educational portion, the absence of social classes as the limits of education, and the educator has a role as teacher not only as a facilitator but also as a identifierin diversity and be honest about the history, there is a link between learners and educators, mutual understanding, learners receive teaching, and educators learn to understand learners, and this function is summarized in education for freedom and ing ngarsho sung tuladha, ing madyo mangun karsha, tut wur handayani.


2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-20
Author(s):  
Domenico Chirchiglia ◽  
Pasquale Chirchiglia ◽  
Dorotea Pugliese ◽  
Rosa Marotta

Rita Levi-Montalcini was an extraordinary personality and with her profession she made a tremendous contribution to humanity. Doctor, Nobel laureate for medicine, neuroscientist, she contributed, thanks to her research, to improve the knowledge of the nervous system. She discovered the nerve growth factor, which is applied in various fields of neurology, concerning neurodegenerative diseases. She also studied, in relatively newer years, the mechanisms of neuroinflammation. This last is a research that has been developing in recent years and is based on the predominantly anti-inflammatory properties of endogenous substances that able to act not only on diseases of the nerves, neuropathies, on the nerve roots, and radiculopathies but also on migraine and other non-neurological diseases. Her long life was full of positive and negative events. Born in a Jewish family, she lived her life as a young woman through war, Nazi deportations, and the Holocaust. Despite the difficulties, she found time to do research in the medical field, organizing research laboratories with other scholars. She had a difficult life, interspread with pain, destruction, extermination of human beings but also rewarded by scientific discoveries. A “small” woman but a great neuroscientist.


2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 150-174
Author(s):  
Sebastian Selvén

Abstract This article investigates biblical reception in the works of two popular modern fantasy authors. It stages an intertextual dialogue between Genesis 22:1-19, “the binding of Isaac”, and two episodes, in Stephen King’s The Gunslinger and J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Return of the King. After presenting the dynamics of what happens to the biblical text in these two authors and the perspectives that come out, a hermeneutical reversal is then suggested, in which the modern stories are used to probe the biblical text. One can return to the Bible with questions culled from its later reception, in this case King and Tolkien. This article argues that the themes touched upon by the two authors are important and hermeneutically relevant ones, sometimes novel and sometimes contributions to exegetical debates that have been going on for centuries.


1966 ◽  
Vol 86 ◽  
pp. 41-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. J. Dover
Keyword(s):  
The Real ◽  

Aristophanes' encomium on Eros (Smp. 189c 2–193d 5) is a story with a moral. Once upon a time, all human beings were double creatures, each with two heads, two bodies and eight limbs. Then, by the command of Zeus, each double creature was cut in half, and so humans as we know them came into being. Every one of us ‘seeks his other half’, and this search is Eros. If we are pious, we may hope to be rewarded by success in the search; if we are impious, Zeus may cut us in two again, and each of us will be like a flat-fish or a figure in relief.The story is amusingly told, and the comedies of the real Aristophanes are also amusing; but when Sykutris says that the story ‘reminds us of the plot of a comedy’ and when Robin constructs a hypothetical comedy out of it, they are confounding essence and accident. The affinities of Aristophanes' story do not lie with his own comedies or with those of his contemporaries, but elsewhere.The extant plays of Aristophanes are firmly rooted in the present, and each of them explores the possibilities of a fantasy constructed out of the present. Mythology was exploited by the comic poets—rarely by Aristophanes himself, more extensively by some others—in order to present humorously distorted versions of the myths which were the traditional material of serious poetry. Some comic titles point to theogonic myths (e.g. Polyzelos, Birth of the Muses and Birth of Dionysos) or to myths about the era before the rule of Zeus (e.g. Phrynichos, Kronos, and the younger Kratinos, Giants and Titans).


Author(s):  
Stephen R. L. Clark

Both “animals” and “religion” are contentious concepts, with many possible meanings and associations. This chapter takes animals to be eukaryotes distinct from protists, plants and fungi, and “religion” as the attempt to “live a dream.” I describe four principal ways of dreaming animals: triumphalist humanism (for which only “human” beings are of any interest); traditional notions of good husbandry (which requires “human” beings to care for the non-human, within limits set by human interests); notions of metempsychosis and transformation (where “human” and “non-human” are constantly shifting characters); and awakening to the real presence of others, and so—paradoxically—evacuating them of merely “religious” meaning.


2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
David C Tollerton

This article focuses upon the manner in which the Book of Job’s dissonant messages of theological radicalism and conservatism have been utilised within discussion of two specific episodes of innocent suffering in the modern world – the murder of six million Jews during the Holocaust and the suffering of the oppressed in the developing world. Overlaying the discussion, the following model is proposed: that, firstly, Christian liberation theologians emphasise the more theologically conservative messages that can be drawn from Job while asserting radical political opposition to those who possess power. Conversely, Jewish Holocaust theologians empathise with Job’s more theologically radical elements, yet do so within outlooks committed to conservatively maintaining the security and power of the state of Israel after two thousand years of Jewish powerlessness. This model is tested by focusing upon seven treatments of Job associated with liberation or Holocaust theologies. It is concluded that, although there are significant complications, in broad terms the model largely holds ”“ offering a comparative insight into contextual Christian and Jewish interpretations of the Bible in which political radicalism and theological radicalism are found to be at odds with one another.


2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-33
Author(s):  
Fleur Houston

When Martin Luther mounted an attack on the industry of Indulgences, he affirmed key Reformation principles: human beings are saved by God’s grace alone and the priesthood of all the baptised gives all followers of Christ equal status. This was in conformity with an earlier generation of reformers who saw the Bible as ultimate authority and witnessed to biblical truth against corruption. The logical consequence of this should have been the enabling of women who were so disposed to exercise a theological vocation. In practice, the resulting rupture in religious and social life often affected women for the worse. Educational formation and leadership opportunities were restricted by the closure of convents. While the trade guilds, with their tightly regulated social systems, did not allow scope for women who transgressed normative expectations, their suppression was not necessarily liberating for women. The new social model of the home replaced that of convent and guild and marriage was exalted in place of celibacy. Changes in devotional practice involved loss and gain. Women who did not conform to the domestic norm were treated at best with misogyny and female prophets of the radical Reformation paid for their convictions with their lives. In education, leadership, piety and radical social challenge, women’s options were restricted. However, the key Reformation principles ultimately enabled the development of women’s ministry which was marked by the ordination of Constance Todd 400 years later.


Author(s):  
Yolanda Dreyer

The aim of the article is to argue that the sexual difference between female and male should be regarded as soteriologically indifferent. Though a biological reality of being human, sexuality is profoundly influenced by social constructs and the institution of marriage itself is a social construct. In this article the biological and social aspects are taken into account in a theological approach which on the one hand is interested in the relationship between God and human beings, and on the other in the way in which the Bible elucidates sexuality and marriage. The article indicates that the idea of sexual intercourse between a man and a woman as being equal to Godgiven “holy matrimony” has mythological origins. It focuses on these origins and on the multifarious forms of marital arrangements and models.


2015 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 21-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pramila Bakhati

Human beings are considered as the most intellectual living beings in this Universe because they are able to cope with all the natural resources for their personal needs and preserving the things as well. Due to the growing population and immense using of resources, the things which we get from the nature are being destroyed by using in improper way. Our common home: the Earth is now in crisis as a result of limited awareness, egotism and understanding about the real values of nature and natural resources. In this problematic situation, Sustainable Development (SD) is emerged as a window of hope and later Education for Sustainable Developed (ESD) is appeared to promote the SD. However, if the knowledge is not transformed into behavior and practical life, the knowledge will be nothing or the meaningless.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/jtd.v1i0.13086 Journal of Training and Development Vol.1 2015: 21-26


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