Author: Vivienne Blackburn
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9783039102532
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 280
Book Description
The book is the first major study to bring together the two early twentieth-century theologians Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German Lutheran pastor, and Simone Weil, French philosopher and convert to Christianity. Both were victims of Nazi oppression, and neither survived the war. The book explores the two theologians' reflections on Christian responsiveness to God and neighbour, being the interdependence of the two great commandments of the Jewish Law reiterated by Jesus. It sets out the common ground and the differing emphases in their interpretations. For Bonhoeffer, responsiveness was the transformation of the whole person effected by faith (Gestaltung), and the responsibility (Verantwortung) for one's actions which it implies. For Weil, responsiveness was the hope and expectation of grace (attente) reflected in attention, the capacity to listen to, understand and help others. Both Bonhoeffer and Weil faced a world dominated by aggression and horrendous suffering. Both endeavoured to articulate their responses, as Christians, to that world. The relevance of their thought to the twenty-first century is explored, in relation to perspectives on grace and freedom, on aggression, suffering, and forgiveness, and on the role of the church in society. Conclusions are illustrated by reference to contemporary theologians including Rowan Williams, Daniel Hardy, Frances Young and David Tracy.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Simone Weil
Author: Vivienne Blackburn
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9783039102532
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 280
Book Description
The book is the first major study to bring together the two early twentieth-century theologians Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German Lutheran pastor, and Simone Weil, French philosopher and convert to Christianity. Both were victims of Nazi oppression, and neither survived the war. The book explores the two theologians' reflections on Christian responsiveness to God and neighbour, being the interdependence of the two great commandments of the Jewish Law reiterated by Jesus. It sets out the common ground and the differing emphases in their interpretations. For Bonhoeffer, responsiveness was the transformation of the whole person effected by faith (Gestaltung), and the responsibility (Verantwortung) for one's actions which it implies. For Weil, responsiveness was the hope and expectation of grace (attente) reflected in attention, the capacity to listen to, understand and help others. Both Bonhoeffer and Weil faced a world dominated by aggression and horrendous suffering. Both endeavoured to articulate their responses, as Christians, to that world. The relevance of their thought to the twenty-first century is explored, in relation to perspectives on grace and freedom, on aggression, suffering, and forgiveness, and on the role of the church in society. Conclusions are illustrated by reference to contemporary theologians including Rowan Williams, Daniel Hardy, Frances Young and David Tracy.
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9783039102532
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 280
Book Description
The book is the first major study to bring together the two early twentieth-century theologians Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German Lutheran pastor, and Simone Weil, French philosopher and convert to Christianity. Both were victims of Nazi oppression, and neither survived the war. The book explores the two theologians' reflections on Christian responsiveness to God and neighbour, being the interdependence of the two great commandments of the Jewish Law reiterated by Jesus. It sets out the common ground and the differing emphases in their interpretations. For Bonhoeffer, responsiveness was the transformation of the whole person effected by faith (Gestaltung), and the responsibility (Verantwortung) for one's actions which it implies. For Weil, responsiveness was the hope and expectation of grace (attente) reflected in attention, the capacity to listen to, understand and help others. Both Bonhoeffer and Weil faced a world dominated by aggression and horrendous suffering. Both endeavoured to articulate their responses, as Christians, to that world. The relevance of their thought to the twenty-first century is explored, in relation to perspectives on grace and freedom, on aggression, suffering, and forgiveness, and on the role of the church in society. Conclusions are illustrated by reference to contemporary theologians including Rowan Williams, Daniel Hardy, Frances Young and David Tracy.
Love in the Void
Author: Simone Weil
Publisher: Plough Spiritual Guides: Backp
ISBN: 9780874868302
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Simone Weil, the great mystic and philosopher for our age, shows where anyone can find God. Why is it that Simone Weil, with her short, troubled life and confounding insights into faith and doubt, continues to speak to today's spiritual seekers? Was it her social radicalism, which led her to renounce privilege? Her ambivalence toward institutional religion? Her combination of philosophical rigor with the ardor of a mystic? Albert Camus called Simone Weil "the only great spirit of our time." André Gide found her "the most truly spiritual writer of this century." Her intense life and profound writings have influenced people as diverse as T. S. Eliot, Charles De Gaulle, Pope Paul VI, and Adrienne Rich. The body of work she left--most of it published posthumously--is the fruit of an anguished but ultimately luminous spiritual journey. After her untimely death at age thirty-four, Simone Weil quickly achieved legendary status among a whole generation of thinkers. Her radical idealism offered a corrective to consumer culture. But more importantly, she pointed the way, especially for those outside institutional religion, to encounter the love of God - in love to neighbor, love of beauty, and even in suffering.
Publisher: Plough Spiritual Guides: Backp
ISBN: 9780874868302
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Simone Weil, the great mystic and philosopher for our age, shows where anyone can find God. Why is it that Simone Weil, with her short, troubled life and confounding insights into faith and doubt, continues to speak to today's spiritual seekers? Was it her social radicalism, which led her to renounce privilege? Her ambivalence toward institutional religion? Her combination of philosophical rigor with the ardor of a mystic? Albert Camus called Simone Weil "the only great spirit of our time." André Gide found her "the most truly spiritual writer of this century." Her intense life and profound writings have influenced people as diverse as T. S. Eliot, Charles De Gaulle, Pope Paul VI, and Adrienne Rich. The body of work she left--most of it published posthumously--is the fruit of an anguished but ultimately luminous spiritual journey. After her untimely death at age thirty-four, Simone Weil quickly achieved legendary status among a whole generation of thinkers. Her radical idealism offered a corrective to consumer culture. But more importantly, she pointed the way, especially for those outside institutional religion, to encounter the love of God - in love to neighbor, love of beauty, and even in suffering.
Three Outsiders
Author: Diogenes Allen
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1597525790
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 153
Book Description
The three outsiders are Blaise Pascal, Soren Kierkegaard, and Simone Weil. They were outsiders because they distanced themselves from the institutional church and also the societies around them in their respective eras. They believed that the church failed to take seriously the profound and disturbing relationship with God which is in Jesus Christ. From their position Òoutside they questioned the assumptions, practices, and understandings of their church and secular contemporaries. Each produced profoundly original but difficult writings (often in uncompleted fragments), which Professor Allen has organized and interpreted for anyone who asks the question, ÒHow am I to be a Christian?
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1597525790
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 153
Book Description
The three outsiders are Blaise Pascal, Soren Kierkegaard, and Simone Weil. They were outsiders because they distanced themselves from the institutional church and also the societies around them in their respective eras. They believed that the church failed to take seriously the profound and disturbing relationship with God which is in Jesus Christ. From their position Òoutside they questioned the assumptions, practices, and understandings of their church and secular contemporaries. Each produced profoundly original but difficult writings (often in uncompleted fragments), which Professor Allen has organized and interpreted for anyone who asks the question, ÒHow am I to be a Christian?
The Mystical and Prophetic Thought of Simone Weil and Gustavo Gutiérrez
Author: Alexander Nava
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791451786
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 228
Book Description
Brings together the thought of liberation theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez and Christian philosopher Simone Weil to present a unique vision that can speak of both the reality of suffering and the desire for mystical experience.
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791451786
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 228
Book Description
Brings together the thought of liberation theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez and Christian philosopher Simone Weil to present a unique vision that can speak of both the reality of suffering and the desire for mystical experience.
The Year of Our Lord 1943
Author: Alan Jacobs
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190864672
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 281
Book Description
By early 1943, it had become increasingly clear that the Allies would win the Second World War. Around the same time, it also became increasingly clear to many Christian intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic that the soon-to-be-victorious nations were not culturally or morally prepared for their success. A war won by technological superiority merely laid the groundwork for a post-war society governed by technocrats. These Christian intellectuals-Jacques Maritain, T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, W. H. Auden, and Simone Weil, among others-sought both to articulate a sober and reflective critique of their own culture and to outline a plan for the moral and spiritual regeneration of their countries in the post-war world. In this book, Alan Jacobs explores the poems, novels, essays, reviews, and lectures of these five central figures, in which they presented, with great imaginative energy and force, pictures of the very different paths now set before the Western democracies. Working mostly separately and in ignorance of one another's ideas, the five developed a strikingly consistent argument that the only means by which democratic societies could be prepared for their world-wide economic and political dominance was through a renewal of education that was grounded in a Christian understanding of the power and limitations of human beings. The Year of Our Lord 1943 is the first book to weave together the ideas of these five intellectuals and shows why, in a time of unprecedented total war, they all thought it vital to restore Christianity to a leading role in the renewal of the Western democracies.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190864672
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 281
Book Description
By early 1943, it had become increasingly clear that the Allies would win the Second World War. Around the same time, it also became increasingly clear to many Christian intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic that the soon-to-be-victorious nations were not culturally or morally prepared for their success. A war won by technological superiority merely laid the groundwork for a post-war society governed by technocrats. These Christian intellectuals-Jacques Maritain, T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, W. H. Auden, and Simone Weil, among others-sought both to articulate a sober and reflective critique of their own culture and to outline a plan for the moral and spiritual regeneration of their countries in the post-war world. In this book, Alan Jacobs explores the poems, novels, essays, reviews, and lectures of these five central figures, in which they presented, with great imaginative energy and force, pictures of the very different paths now set before the Western democracies. Working mostly separately and in ignorance of one another's ideas, the five developed a strikingly consistent argument that the only means by which democratic societies could be prepared for their world-wide economic and political dominance was through a renewal of education that was grounded in a Christian understanding of the power and limitations of human beings. The Year of Our Lord 1943 is the first book to weave together the ideas of these five intellectuals and shows why, in a time of unprecedented total war, they all thought it vital to restore Christianity to a leading role in the renewal of the Western democracies.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Ethical Self
Author: Clark J. Elliston
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 1506418945
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 236
Book Description
Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s work has persistently challenged Christian consciousness due to both his death at the hands of the Nazis and his provocative prison musings about Christian faithfulness in late modernity. Although understandable given the popularity of both narrative trajectories, such selective focus obscures the depth and fecundity of his overall corpus. Bonhoeffer’s early work, and particularly his Christocentric anthropology, grounds his later expressed commitments to responsibility and faithfulness in a “world come of age.” While much debate accompanies claims regarding the continuity of Bonhoeffer’s thought, there are central motifs which pervade his work from his doctoral dissertation to the prison writings. This book suggests that a concern for otherness permeates all of Bonhoeffer’s work. Furthermore, Clark Elliston articulates, drawing on Bonhoeffer, a Christian self-defined by its orientation towards otherness. Taking Bonhoeffer as both the origin and point of return, the text engages Emmanuel Levinas and Simone Weil as dialogue partners who likewise stress the role of the other for self-understanding, albeit in diverse ways. By reading Bonhoeffer “through” their voices, one enhances Bonhoeffer’s already fertile understanding of responsibility.
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 1506418945
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 236
Book Description
Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s work has persistently challenged Christian consciousness due to both his death at the hands of the Nazis and his provocative prison musings about Christian faithfulness in late modernity. Although understandable given the popularity of both narrative trajectories, such selective focus obscures the depth and fecundity of his overall corpus. Bonhoeffer’s early work, and particularly his Christocentric anthropology, grounds his later expressed commitments to responsibility and faithfulness in a “world come of age.” While much debate accompanies claims regarding the continuity of Bonhoeffer’s thought, there are central motifs which pervade his work from his doctoral dissertation to the prison writings. This book suggests that a concern for otherness permeates all of Bonhoeffer’s work. Furthermore, Clark Elliston articulates, drawing on Bonhoeffer, a Christian self-defined by its orientation towards otherness. Taking Bonhoeffer as both the origin and point of return, the text engages Emmanuel Levinas and Simone Weil as dialogue partners who likewise stress the role of the other for self-understanding, albeit in diverse ways. By reading Bonhoeffer “through” their voices, one enhances Bonhoeffer’s already fertile understanding of responsibility.
My Bright Abyss
Author: Christian Wiman
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0374216789
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 194
Book Description
A passionate meditation on the consolations and disappointments of religion and poetry
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0374216789
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 194
Book Description
A passionate meditation on the consolations and disappointments of religion and poetry
Acting for Others
Author: Michaela Kusnierikova
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 1506409016
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 227
Book Description
This book explores why the metaphor of the church as a family is insufficient. In this, Arendt’s concept of action and her criticism of privatizing the public political space by viewing it as a family are engaged through Bonhoeffer’s ecclesiology and political theology and Stăniloae’s triadology and theology of the world. The roots of the different views of Arendt and Bonhoeffer on family symbolism are traced to their distinct notions of acting. Human action becomes the central theme of the debate—particularly influenced by the Eastern Orthodox ecumenist Stăniloae and his vision of the communal relationship and interactivity of human subjects, and their place in the world. Synthesizing Bonhoeffer and Stăniloae, Christian calling is unfolded not only as acting for others, but also with others as Trinitarian participatory response—response to the words and deeds of the three divine Persons acting in communion. In being drawn into these unique relations, human beings are empowered for communal and common acting of equals participating in public-political issues. Since the family metaphor fails to articulate such acting, this study complements this symbolism with the metaphor of the church as a political community of solidarity.
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 1506409016
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 227
Book Description
This book explores why the metaphor of the church as a family is insufficient. In this, Arendt’s concept of action and her criticism of privatizing the public political space by viewing it as a family are engaged through Bonhoeffer’s ecclesiology and political theology and Stăniloae’s triadology and theology of the world. The roots of the different views of Arendt and Bonhoeffer on family symbolism are traced to their distinct notions of acting. Human action becomes the central theme of the debate—particularly influenced by the Eastern Orthodox ecumenist Stăniloae and his vision of the communal relationship and interactivity of human subjects, and their place in the world. Synthesizing Bonhoeffer and Stăniloae, Christian calling is unfolded not only as acting for others, but also with others as Trinitarian participatory response—response to the words and deeds of the three divine Persons acting in communion. In being drawn into these unique relations, human beings are empowered for communal and common acting of equals participating in public-political issues. Since the family metaphor fails to articulate such acting, this study complements this symbolism with the metaphor of the church as a political community of solidarity.
Effort and Grace
Author: Simone Kotva
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350113662
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 249
Book Description
Philosophy and theology have long harboured contradictory views on spiritual practice. While philosophy advocates the therapeutic benefits of daily meditation, the theology of grace promotes an ideal of happiness bestowed with little effort. As such, the historical juxtaposition of effort and grace grounding modern spiritual exercise can be seen as the essential tension between the secular and sacred. In Effort and Grace, Simone Kotva explores an exciting new theory of spiritual endeavour from the tradition of French spiritualist philosophy. Spiritual exercise has largely been studied in relation to ancient philosophy and the Ignatian tradition, yet Kotva's new engagement with its more recent forms has alerted her to an understanding of contemplative practice as rife with critical potential. Here, she offers an interdisciplinary text tracing the narrative of spiritual exertion through the work of seminal French thinkers such as Maine de Biran, Félix Ravaisson, Henri Bergson, Alain (Émile Chartier), Simone Weil and Gilles Deleuze. Her findings allow both secular philosophers and theologians to understand how the spiritual life can participate in the contemporary philosophical conversation.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350113662
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 249
Book Description
Philosophy and theology have long harboured contradictory views on spiritual practice. While philosophy advocates the therapeutic benefits of daily meditation, the theology of grace promotes an ideal of happiness bestowed with little effort. As such, the historical juxtaposition of effort and grace grounding modern spiritual exercise can be seen as the essential tension between the secular and sacred. In Effort and Grace, Simone Kotva explores an exciting new theory of spiritual endeavour from the tradition of French spiritualist philosophy. Spiritual exercise has largely been studied in relation to ancient philosophy and the Ignatian tradition, yet Kotva's new engagement with its more recent forms has alerted her to an understanding of contemplative practice as rife with critical potential. Here, she offers an interdisciplinary text tracing the narrative of spiritual exertion through the work of seminal French thinkers such as Maine de Biran, Félix Ravaisson, Henri Bergson, Alain (Émile Chartier), Simone Weil and Gilles Deleuze. Her findings allow both secular philosophers and theologians to understand how the spiritual life can participate in the contemporary philosophical conversation.
Peace and Violence in the Ethics of Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Author: Trey Palmisano
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1498287735
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 157
Book Description
Not many theologians have had as great an impact on the study of peace and violence as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was labeled an Enemy of the State and eventually executed in April 1945. In this book, Trey Palmisano examines the theological connection between peace and violence across a range of Bonhoeffer's writings, sermons, and letters. Despite the challenges Bonhoeffer experienced in his personal life and in the life of his country, Palmisano asserts that a strong consistency emerges in Bonhoeffer's approach to ethics that resonates in the positing of Christ as the center of all ethical discourse and orients one to the ever-present challenges of a changing world. Palmisano creates distance from former studies that sought to define Bonhoeffer as a committed pacifist, a situational pacifist, or one who compromised his values to accommodate an exception for violence. By prioritizing methodology as the key to interpreting Bonhoeffer's thought, Palmisano argues that the ethical dilemma thought to be caused by Bonhoeffer's actions is avoided. The result is one that creates an authentic ethical openness by responsiveness to Christ rather than Christian virtue, and frees the individual from redundancies of action derived from deeply embedded patterns of theological engagement.
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1498287735
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 157
Book Description
Not many theologians have had as great an impact on the study of peace and violence as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was labeled an Enemy of the State and eventually executed in April 1945. In this book, Trey Palmisano examines the theological connection between peace and violence across a range of Bonhoeffer's writings, sermons, and letters. Despite the challenges Bonhoeffer experienced in his personal life and in the life of his country, Palmisano asserts that a strong consistency emerges in Bonhoeffer's approach to ethics that resonates in the positing of Christ as the center of all ethical discourse and orients one to the ever-present challenges of a changing world. Palmisano creates distance from former studies that sought to define Bonhoeffer as a committed pacifist, a situational pacifist, or one who compromised his values to accommodate an exception for violence. By prioritizing methodology as the key to interpreting Bonhoeffer's thought, Palmisano argues that the ethical dilemma thought to be caused by Bonhoeffer's actions is avoided. The result is one that creates an authentic ethical openness by responsiveness to Christ rather than Christian virtue, and frees the individual from redundancies of action derived from deeply embedded patterns of theological engagement.