Christian Platonism

Christian Platonism PDF Author: Alexander J. B. Hampton
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108676472
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 875

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Book Description
Platonism has played a central role in Christianity and is essential to a deep understanding of the Christian theological tradition. At times, Platonism has constituted an essential philosophical and theological resource, furnishing Christianity with an intellectual framework that has played a key role in its early development, and in subsequent periods of renewal. Alternatively, it has been considered a compromising influence, conflicting with the faith's revelatory foundations and distorting its inherent message. In both cases the fundamental importance of Platonism, as a force which Christianity defined itself by and against, is clear. Written by an international team of scholars, this landmark volume examines the history of Christian Platonism from antiquity to the present day, covers key concepts, and engages issues such as the environment, natural science and materialism.

Christian Platonism

Christian Platonism PDF Author: Alexander J. B. Hampton
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108676472
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 875

Get Book

Book Description
Platonism has played a central role in Christianity and is essential to a deep understanding of the Christian theological tradition. At times, Platonism has constituted an essential philosophical and theological resource, furnishing Christianity with an intellectual framework that has played a key role in its early development, and in subsequent periods of renewal. Alternatively, it has been considered a compromising influence, conflicting with the faith's revelatory foundations and distorting its inherent message. In both cases the fundamental importance of Platonism, as a force which Christianity defined itself by and against, is clear. Written by an international team of scholars, this landmark volume examines the history of Christian Platonism from antiquity to the present day, covers key concepts, and engages issues such as the environment, natural science and materialism.

The History of Religious Imagination in Christian Platonism

The History of Religious Imagination in Christian Platonism PDF Author: Christian Hengstermann
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350172987
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
This collection provides the first in-depth introduction to the theory of the religious imagination put forward by renowned philosopher Douglas Hedley, from his earliest essays to his principal writings. Featuring Hedley's inaugural lecture delivered at Cambridge University in 2018, the book sheds light on his robust concept of religious imagination as the chief power of the soul's knowledge of the Divine and reveals its importance in contemporary metaphysics, ethics and politics. Chapters trace the development of the religious imagination in Christian Platonism from Late Antiquity to British Romanticism, drawing on Origen, Henry More and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, before providing a survey of alternative contemporary versions of the concept as outlined by Karl Rahner, René Girard and William P. Alston, as well as within Indian philosophy. By bringing Christian Platonist thought into dialogue with contemporary philosophy and theology, the volume systematically reveals the relevance of Hedley's work to current debates in religious epistemology and metaphysics. It offers a comprehensive appraisal of the historical contribution of imagination to religious understanding and, as such, will be of great interest to philosophers, theologians and historians alike.

The Christian Element in Plato and the Platonic Philosophy

The Christian Element in Plato and the Platonic Philosophy PDF Author: Constantin Ackermann
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Christian ethics
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description


The Christian Platonism of Simone Weil

The Christian Platonism of Simone Weil PDF Author: E. Jane Doering
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
In this book, a group of renowned international scholars seek to discern the ways in which Simone Weil was indebted to Plato, and how her provocative readings of his work offer challenges to contemporary philosophy, theology, and spirituality. This is the first book in twenty years to systematically investigate Weil's Christian Platonism. The opening essays explore what actually constitutes Weil's Platonism. Louis Dupre addresses the Platonic and Gnostic elements of her thought with respect to her negative theology, and the Christian Platonism of her positive theology as found in her reflections on beauty and the Good. degree to which her teacher Alain influenced her Platonism. Michael Ross contends that Weil's interest in Plato is in ethical Platonism. Essays by Robert Chenavier and by Patrick Patterson and Lawrence Schmidt consider the importance of matter and materialism in Weil's Platonism and argue that it is key to understanding her political thought. A middle group of essays addresses more classically metaphysical themes in Weil's thought. Vance G. Morgan examines her use of Greek mathematics. Florence de Lussy analyzes Weil's distinctive, mystical Platonic reflections on Being in the last notebooks from Marseilles. Emmauel Gabellieri discusses Weil's metaxology, that is, the mediation and relatedness of Being, shown in her speculative thought. set of essays considers Weil's relevance for contemporary spirituality and moral theology. Cyril O'Regan examines her thinking on violence and evil. Eric Springsted looks at the conceptual links that exist between Weil and Augustine. Finally, David Tracy contends that Weil is the foremost predecessor of recent attempts to reunite the mystical and prophetic. Drawing together some of the top Weil scholars in the world, this collection offers important new insights into her thought, and will be appreciated by philosophers and theologians.

Returning to Reality

Returning to Reality PDF Author: Paul Tyson
Publisher: Lutterworth Press
ISBN: 0718843541
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
Could it be that we have lost touch with some basic human realities in our day of high-tech efficiency, frenetic competition, and ceaseless consumption? Have we turned from the moral, the spiritual, and even the physical realities that make our lives meaningful? These are metaphysical questions -questions about the nature of reality- but they are not abstract questions. These are very down to earth questions that concern power and the collective frameworks of belief and action governing our daily lives. This book is an introduction to the history, theory, and application of Christian metaphysics. Yet this book is not just an introduction, it is also a passionately argued call for a profound change in the contemporary Christian mind. Paul Tyson argues that as Western culture's Christian Platonist understanding of reality was replaced by modern pragmatic realism, we turned not just from one outlook on reality to another, but away from reality itself. This book seeks to show that if we can recover this ancient Christian outlook on reality, reframed for our day, then we will be able to recover a way of life that is in harmony with human and divine truth.

Platonism and Christian Thought in Late Antiquity

Platonism and Christian Thought in Late Antiquity PDF Author: Panagiotis G. Pavlos
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429803095
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 391

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Book Description
Platonism and Christian Thought in Late Antiquity examines the various ways in which Christian intellectuals engaged with Platonism both as a pagan competitor and as a source of philosophical material useful to the Christian faith. The chapters are united in their goal to explore transformations that took place in the reception and interaction process between Platonism and Christianity in this period. The contributions in this volume explore the reception of Platonic material in Christian thought, showing that the transmission of cultural content is always mediated, and ought to be studied as a transformative process by way of selection and interpretation. Some chapters also deal with various aspects of the wider discussion on how Platonic, and Hellenic, philosophy and early Christian thought related to each other, examining the differences and common ground between these traditions. Platonism and Christian Thought in Late Antiquity offers an insightful and broad ranging study on the subject, which will be of interest to students of both philosophy and theology in the Late Antique period, as well as anyone working on the reception and history of Platonic thought, and the development of Christian thought.

Platonism and Christianity in Late Ancient Cosmology

Platonism and Christianity in Late Ancient Cosmology PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004518460
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
The book breaks new ground by examining ideas about the cosmos, its shape, and its origin in late antiquity. Leading international experts discuss key texts and situate them in their historical environment. Les articles innovants de ce volume examinent les idées sur le cosmos, sa forme et son origine dans l'Antiquité tardive. Des spécialistes internationaux de premier plan présentent des éditions inédites de nouveaux fragments, en approfondissant les textes clés, les situant dans leur cadre historique complexe.

A Threat to Public Piety

A Threat to Public Piety PDF Author: Elizabeth DePalma Digeser
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801463963
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
In A Threat to Public Piety, Elizabeth DePalma Digeser reexamines the origins of the Great Persecution (AD 303–313), the last eruption of pagan violence against Christians before Constantine enforced the toleration of Christianity within the Empire. Challenging the widely accepted view that the persecution enacted by Emperor Diocletian was largely inevitable, she points out that in the forty years leading up to the Great Persecution Christians lived largely in peace with their fellow Roman citizens. Why, Digeser asks, did pagans and Christians, who had intermingled cordially and productively for decades, become so sharply divided by the turn of the century? Making use of evidence that has only recently been dated to this period, Digeser shows that a falling out between Neoplatonist philosophers, specifically Iamblichus and Porphyry, lit the spark that fueled the Great Persecution. In the aftermath of this falling out, a group of influential pagan priests and philosophers began writing and speaking against Christians, urging them to forsake Jesus-worship and to rejoin traditional cults while Porphyry used his access to Diocletian to advocate persecution of Christians on the grounds that they were a source of impurity and impiety within the empire. The first book to explore in depth the intellectual social milieu of the late third century, A Threat to Public Piety revises our understanding of the period by revealing the extent to which Platonist philosophers (Ammonius, Plotinus, Porphyry, and Iamblichus) and Christian theologians (Origen, Eusebius) came from a common educational tradition, often studying and teaching side by side in heterogeneous groups.

The Great Forerunner

The Great Forerunner PDF Author: John Somervell Hoyland
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Christianity
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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Book Description


Christians and Platonists

Christians and Platonists PDF Author: Theodore Sabo
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443888354
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 120

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Book Description
The Christians, Gnostics, and Platonists of late antiquity all shared that era’s dislike of matter and the body. The first part of this book looks at key words like ethos, aiōn, and saeculum. The second part investigates the Neoplatonists, the Platonists of late antiquity. In the writings of Plotinus and Porphyry, Iamblichus and Proclus, the dislike of matter and the body was boldly expressed. The third part shows that Gnosticism was second to none in its insistence that matter and the body were evil. It was elitist, suspicious of the political world, and often filled with an interest in magic and immorality. Simon Magus, Carpocrates, and Valentinus are only a few of the Gnostics who are considered. The last part discovers dislike of matter and the body in the early Christians, although with less consistency to their worldview. It was especially notable in the attempt of Origen and Arius to place God the Son at a lower metaphysical level than God the Father in order to protect God from the evil entity of matter. The desert fathers, the Arians, Ambrose, and Augustine are all included.