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The Human Person, Facing the Spiritual and the Social Crises

Author(s): Emilian Crisanul Nica / Language(s): English Issue: Suppl. 1/2021

The present study covers several aspects regarding the human person who has experienced and will experience diverse crises occurred in society, namely social and spiritual crises, and it also includes aspects related to families which suffer because of the crises which emerge in the world, in the country, and in the community. The spiritual (Christian) crisis is caused by man’s secularization, namely, by his desire to live without God, only through his own forces, and according to what his rationality dictates. In an extended statement, we notice that the social crisis is determined by other crises: economic, financial, military, political, the crisis of the family, etc. Nowadays, these crises are deepened by the Covid-19 pandemic, by the restrictive measures taken in order to stop the pandemic from spreading. Through the Holy Church, God offers solutions to the people in order to surpass the spiritual crises: faith, prayer, alms-giving, and love. The social crises can also be overcome through communion, sacrifice, trust, and wisdom. The Christian, the family, the Church, the School, and the community have experienced and will experience crises which thoroughly challenge our love of God and of people. If people are anchored in the imperishable values of life, this will create real possibilities for overcoming the crises emerging into the world.

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Ecofeminist Theology and Fundamentalisms within the Arabic Context

Author(s): Jihan Zakarriya / Language(s): English Issue: 16(45)/2023

The paper seeks to examine and redefine diverse forms of fundamentalisms within modern Arabic contexts employing an ecofeminist theology perspective. Ecofeminist theology analyses varied forms of domination, androcentrism and superiority over women and nature through deconstructing and challenging masculinist interpretations, understandings, and linguistic expressions of religions. Ecofeminist theologians relate religions and humanism as forces of unbiased, uncategorized liberation, equality, and freedom. Although the concept of fundamentalism is controversial for definers, modern and contemporary academia and media relate fundamentalism exclusively to Islam, particularly with the emergence of militant Islamist groups and global terrorist organizations. Fundamentalist movements are hierarchical, essentialist and sexist. Existing scholarship on Islamic fundamentalism lacks the feminist perspective and overlooks important forms of nonreligious fundamentalisms in Arab countries such as militarisms and semitribalisms that participate in the inferior position of women and nature. This paper examines the role of some Arab thinkers in relating women, politics, religion, and nature and specifically refers to Averroes, Fatima Mernissi, Zainab al Ghazali, and Nawal el Saadawi.

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THE MULTIPLICITY OF DIMENSIONS OF SAINT AUGUSTINE'S CONVERSION. HIS PATH TOWARDS BEAUTY

Author(s): Călin-Daniel Paţulea / Language(s): Italian Issue: 36/2024

Augustine belongs to a historical world that is no longer ours, we must strive to understand him in his historical context. His conversion is the first and foremost sign of a great gift even before being a call to the commitment to open ourselves to God's way of loving, to his way of effecting our conversion through the free gift of a strength that comes and heals. By converting to God, he renounced all human hopes, he no longer wanted anything else, he no longer sought anything other than God and God alone. It involves various stages, including obstacles that make the path difficult to face, requiring commitment and a strong will. In Augustine's path of conversion there is logic, there are steps and components that surpass personal experience and can become everyone's experience.

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STUDION MONASTERY: FROM ITS BEGINNINGS TO ITS GOLDEN AGE

Author(s): Stelian Gheorghiasa / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 36/2024

Studion Monastery or the Monastery of the Studites- along with other churches such as St. Sophia Cathedral and Vlaherne Church - is one of the most famous churches that Constantinople, the great capital of the Byzantine Empire, has raised. From a historical point of view, the monastery is still the most important in the city. Studion is a name known throughout the Christian world. Although Studion Monastery has been abandoned for more than half a millennium, its rules and worship have been taken as a model by the monks of Mount Athos, as well as many other Orthodox monasteries around the world.

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THE FORMATION OF YOUNG PEOPLE IN THE VISION OF THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS AND ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM

Author(s): Ioan Puiu / Language(s): English Issue: 36/2024

Since man created in the "image of God" has the duty to attain "likeness" to Him, which is possible only through constant care to enrich himself by cultivating the virtues under the guidance of a teacher, the Holy Fathers paid particular attention to the formation of man for eternity. In their works, the Holy Fathers spoke of the work of the educator, of the methods he must use, of the age appropriate for the polishing of the young person's character, of the mastery necessary to mould the human soul. St. John Chrysostom emphasized that the educator's concern is not only to raise children as citizens of the earth, but to "raise them as citizens for the heavenly King" and that the educator's life is the most powerful modeling word: "if the light in us is shining, we will make thousands of disciples and teachers, setting ourselves before them as a model; words are less thoughtfull than our life". This study aims to present the vision of the Apostolic Fathers and St. John Chrysostom on the formation of young people by answering the following questions: What do the Holy Fathers understand by education? When does education begin and end? What are the principles of a Christian formation of young people?

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ESCHATOLOGY AND ITS SPIRITUAL DIMENSION

Author(s): Ilie Rareș Daniel / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 36/2024

As for the end of history and the world as we know it, this is usually reinforced by the idea of justice, but an eternal and absolute justice that can only be provided by Someone Almighty, not a corrupt and unsatisfactory human justice. This sense of justice is found in all human beings throughout the ages, as evidenced by the many codes of law that have been developed over the centuries in an attempt to imitate divine justice. In the texts of the Holy Gospels, the Saviour gives us a much deeper understanding of the meaning of life after death. He emphasises the individual destiny of each person after death, moving away from the collective idea of judgement (of the whole nation) and giving each person a special value. Man is called to appropriate the resurrection of Christ in order to reign with him "a thousand years". But this co-reign will not be fully realized until the Second Coming of Christ, when the whole world will be purified and transfigured, but after the Universal Judgment, when eternal justice will be established.

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AN ORTHODOX PERSPECTIVE ON EUTHANASIA

Author(s): Constantin Cătălin Cârloanță / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 36/2024

In the beginning, euthanasia signified the state of mind of the dying person to approach death and receive it with complete peace and serenity. Over time, she designated "the benevolent assistance that the doctor gave to the dying in order to relieve his pain" by reducing the feeling of fear and suppressing the pain. However, in the 20th century, this term was used to denote the act of causing the painless (early) death by doctors of a patient who, having no hope of recovery, wishes this kind of instant death. This article aims to give a theological response to the medical and social initiative to contribute to causing the death of a patient who has no chance of medical cure. The answer given is based on the view of Orthodox Christian teaching.

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Visual Communication Of Festive Shop Window Displays With Customers

Author(s): Daniela Kollárová,Eva Habiňáková,Andrea Tománková,Andrii Kushnarevych / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2024

The object of the authors’ research was the festive Christmas window displays of brick-and-mortar retail stores. The main objective of the research was to identify the dominant colours, symbols and signage of Christmas festive displays of retail brick-and-mortar stores across different product categories and countries around the world. A total of 229 retail Christmas window displays, from 14 countries around the world, across 11 assortment categories, ready for the Christmas season in 2020, 2021 and 2022, were examined. The theme of Christmas resonates in retail store windows from the beginning of November until 24 December. After this date, the issue of sales dominates the window displays. The main method of the research was the content analysis used to analyse the documents in order to determine the frequency of occurrence of the pre-given categories. Given that our interpretation of Christmas is based on its Christian foundation, it is not surprising that the main universal colours and symbols of interpretation identified are rooted in Christianity, while other, complementary ones (e.g. Santa Claus with a reindeer sleigh, a snowy landscape, or a gingerbread house) and the signage are the result of changes in popular culture over time.

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Błogosławiony ks. Jerzy Popiełuszko jako wzór osobowy w wychowaniu do chrześcijańskiej dojrzałości

Author(s): Weronika Juroszek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2023

The paper focuses on the personal model role in upbringing towards higher values. The objective of the text is to answer the following question: How can the example of Blessed Father Jerzy Popiełuszko be used in raising the youth to be mature Christians?To analyze the problem, the author uses Marian Nowak’s concept of Christian maturity. The method she uses is historical/pedagogi- cal biographic analysis. Selected studies and source texts prove that even at an early stage of his life, Popiełuszko fulfilled the Christian maturity criteria specified by Nowak: he envisioned a truly human life and permanently practiced features that facilitated its realization, such as scrupulousness, authenticity, and courage. He fulfilled these criteria as a Christian for whom the ultimate meaning of existence is salvation. It is worth remembering this role model and raising young people according to Nowak’s criteria. It may be helpful to show some dramatic events from Popiełuszko’s life, which may serve as inspira- tion on how to develop Christin maturity.

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Do We Really Exist? Eastern Inspirations in Thomas Metzinger’s Self-model Theory of Subjectivity

Author(s): Wojciech Kościuczyk / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2023

This paper is an analysis of Thomas Metzinger’s self-model theory of subjectivity (SMT). Metzinger claims that beyond the biological organism and its properties, there is no individual and distinct entity that can be regarded as “self”. What really exists is the phenomenal sense of being self, which creates the illusion of the existence of something permanent. Taking the concepts of David Hume and certain early Buddhists thinkers as his starting point, Metzinger claims that during introspection, which is a type of phenomenal experience, we find nothing stable, but only impermanent impressions. As he argues, this hypothesis is supported by empirical neuroscience research, which should be considered when studying human subjectivity. Drawing extensively from the results of science and philosophy of mind, he proposes a concept of a phenomenal self-model (PSM). The PSM integrates information about the whole biological organism and makes it available from the first-person perspective.The first part of the paper presents the key issues of the SMT and the four aspects of Metzinger’s critique of the concept of the substantial self. The paper also offers a critical analysis of some of Metzinger’s ideas. The second section discusses the common features as well as differences between the SMT and the Buddhist concept of non-self (s. anātman, p. anattā). It also aims to analyse certain problematic issues of the notion of anattā and demonstrate some of the challenges connected with the use of a comparative method.

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FUNKCIONALNA DIMENZIJA MEKTEPSKE POUKE – ZNANJE I VRIJEDNOSTI

Author(s): Amir Mahić / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 96/2023

The article presents a dual aspect of the role of maktab class, comprised of the learning content that provides students with basic knowledge sufficient for living their lives in Islamic fate, and the other is the upbringing that helps to form positive character traits in maktab students. To present the former aspect, the article offers a brief analysis of the content of the Teaching Plan and Programme for the maktab class, whereas the upbringing aspect is analyzed within several theses based on the perceived experience of the actual impact of maktab class in forming students’ character. However, the potential negative impact of any of the two aspects of the maktab class is not analysed here.

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ODNOS RELIGIOZNOSTI UČENIKA I MOTIVACIJE ZA ŠKOLSKIM UČENJEM

Author(s): Fikret Čančar,Izet Pehlić / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 97/2024

The subject of this article is the correlation between religiousness of students and their motivation for learning in school. The research aimed to establish, based on the attitude of primary and secondary school students, whether or not and to what degree the faith of students impacts their motivation for school learning. The method of theoretical analysis and descriptive-analytical survey method was used, and the questionnaire was employed as a research tool in this particular research, whereas, the Questionnaire on religiousness (Isić, Perić, Neimarlija, 2014) and a questionnaire on school motivation, namely – The Inventory of School Motivation – ISM (Ali, Mc Inerney, 2005). The results of this research showed that religiousness has a statistically positive effect on motivation for learning in school. Faith encourages students to fulfil their tasks, and make efforts in learning, it inspires group learning activities, and competition as well as it develops a tendency to help others in completing school tasks and obligations. It also showed that there is no qualitative difference in the religiousness of primary and secondary school students and that there is no difference between genders in this regard. Finally, in conclusion, it is stated that religious studies as a school subject as well as other religious factors have a higher degree of educational and a lesser upbringing impact which aims at religious practice. This can be seen as an indicator that the upbringing elements should be enhanced in future.

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Marifetullah’ın Vücûbiyetine İlişkin Yaklaşımlara İnsanın Psikolojik, Genetik ve Nörobiyolojik Doğası Bağlamında Bir Çözümleme

Author(s): Seyithan Can / Language(s): Turkish Issue: 2/2023

Discussions on the concept of Marifatullah as the foundation of belief hold a significant place in theology. There are different opinions among schools of theology regarding whether those who do not receive divine messages must know God. The majority of scholars belonging to the Mu'tazila and Māturīdī schools, including Imam Māturīdī, state that human beings must know God. Although al-Ashʿarī accepts that the most prominent obligatory duties are the methods of reasoning that lead to marifatullah, he states that responsibility in this matter is formed by transmission. However, we can say that whether the human mind is sufficient to reach the knowledge of God, the method of reasoning has reached a different dimension today from the sciences of psychology, genetics, and neurobiology. This study explored whether individuals can achieve marifatullah from a holistic perspective. Whether human beings can be held responsible for this issue has been evaluated through the sciences of psychology, genetics, and neurobiology, and the opinions of schools of theology on this issue have been criticized. When we think in terms of Marifatullah, we can say that man’s psychological sense of obligation to adapt to society leaves him intellectually under the influence of society. In terms of genetic determinism, human personality, behavior, and intellectual adventure are completely determined by genes. Therefore, it is impossible for men to reach marifatullah in the context of their mental abilities. From an epigenetic perspective, we see that human thought structure, behavior, and personality are formed as a result of interactions with the environment. Serious hesitation arises in this idea in terms of intellect being a source of responsibility. Humans are genetically influenced by the environment and society, and they have a suitable nature for this, revealing that their genetic structure is open to environmental influences. In terms of brain plasticity, factors such as the society, environment, and family in which people live can change their brains and enable them to live accordingly. Although life adventures appear to be within the framework of social harmony, there must also be intellectual and religious harmony within social harmony. This reinforces the idea that individuals tend to align more with the thoughts and beliefs instilled by culture given the adaptable nature of the human brain influenced by cultural factors. When the views of the schools of theology are considered considering these evaluations, it becomes clear that the Mu'tazilites and Māturīdīs' belief that the source of the wujūb of marifatullah is intellect is at a point that needs to be reconsidered in terms of human biology and psychology. Although the Asharites emphasize human beings attaining knowledge of God through intellect, their focus on prophethood indicates that a revelation offer appears more accurate concerning human nature in the context of Marifatullah.

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A może z tej strony łodzi już nie ma ryb? Rzecz o duszpasterskiej frustracji

Author(s): Andrzej Draguła / Language(s): Polish Issue: 696/2024

Kapłaństwo znakomitej większości dzisiejszych księży zrodziło się w świecie, który właśnie odchodzi. Jeśli nie dostosują się do nowych okoliczności, sami skażą się na duszpasterską frustrację, eklezjalną depresję i – w konsekwencji – nieuchronny konflikt z wiernymi.

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Kościół w depresji Spojrzenie psychoterapeutki

Author(s): Agata Kulczycka / Language(s): Polish Issue: 696/2024

Według Viktora Frankla sensu szukać należy w świecie zewnętrznym, poza sobą. Może zatem w perspektywie egzystencjalnej Kościół w depresji to Kościół istniejący sam dla siebie, wspólnota, która porzuciła swój cel i sens w wyniku niepowodzeń lub kiepskich priorytetów?

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Czy Bóg zna język migowy?

Author(s): Tośka Szewczyk / Language(s): Polish Issue: 696/2024

Język migowy nie używa metafor. Nie ma w nim lania wody, gładkich słów – doświadczyłam tego, próbując opowiedzieć Głuchym o swoim spotkaniu z Bogiem, nie odwołując się do pojęć abstrakcyjnych. Poszło mi żałośnie.

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Refrakcija religije u mediju psihoanalize (crtice uz credo Ericha Fromma)

Author(s): Darko Kovačić / Language(s): Croatian Issue: 25/2024

When in philosophy, psychoanalytic theory or the Eastern wisdom tradition, one speaks of ‘self-realization’ (or ‘self-actualization’, Maslow 1982), the entity ‘ego’ (from where we usually derive ‘egoism’ and all its negative connotations) is considered as something that, if we want to progress in the „freedom from-freedom to“ dialectics (Fromm 1941), it is necessary to either, philosophicaly speaking, ‘overcome’ or, through the means of available ‘spiritual practices’, annihilate (in the sense of ‘nirvana’; sanskr.: ‘extinction’). In this way, due to the ambiguity of the term ‘ego’ and linguistic poverty caused synonymization with ‘self’, we inevitably end up in a mental contradiction and, as a result, we give up on praxis. In this paper (which is part of a wider research on philosophical anthropology of Erich Fromm), some of the possible exit directions from one of the ‘aporias of the psyche’, are sketched only.

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The Restoration of Hope and Dignity in the Context of the Sexual Abuse Crisis in the Church

Author(s): Peter De Mey / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2024

This article looks at the sexual abuse crises that have hit churches around the world, especially the Roman Catholic Church, and asks if it is possible to talk of hope in such circumstances. It asks whether theology has a role to play or a responsibility for the crisis, and what sort of church is called for in the light of it. The article ends by suggesting possible places of hope that do not seek to impose on the survivors.

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Hope and Imagination: Theological Aspirations for Overcoming Violence

Author(s): Sara Gehlin / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2024

This article highlights the imperative of building defences of peace in the human mind, articulated in the Constitution of UNESCO. Pursuing the question of how such defences can be built in contexts of religious antagonism, the article explores the work of ecumenical theologians who seek to find ways of building defences of peace in the minds of believers. The exploration involves intersecting ecumenical theology with the fields of religious education, cognitive science, and peace studies. In this way, the article brings introductory perspectives to interdisciplinary research that considers pressing questions of how to overcome violence and build peaceful communities. Throughout the investigation, hope and imagination serve as guiding concepts. Hope is discussed with regard to memory, change of perceptions, and the building of trust and peace. However, the article also considers the tendency towards constructing imagined enemies. Elucidating how empathetic imagination can provide resistance to this tendency, it discusses the way dialogue might break destructive habits of imagining the religious other as an enemy. With a view to this capacity of dialogue, the article considers the role of longstanding endeavours of ecumenical exchange in processes towards overcoming violence and constructing defences of peace in human minds.

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PAULINE CHRISTOLOGY IN THE EPISTLES TO THE ROMANS AND JEWS

Author(s): Mihai Cîrțan / Language(s): English Issue: 38/2024

The Epistles of the Holy Apostle Paul represent a treasure in which the Christological doctrine is expressed in the most chosen terms. Among these epistles, the epistle to the Romans and Hebrews stands out, these being the ones that present the deification of human nature in the person of Christ the Savior through the sacrifice and resurrection of the incarnate Son of God "in the fullness of time" (Galatians 4:4). The doctrine of these epistles emphasizes that Christ the Savior is the Son of God, Who, out of love for humanity, becomes our brother by assuming human nature and becomes the supreme sacrifice offered to God for reconciliation between the Uncreated and the created.

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