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    Special Issue: : Celebrating 500 Years since the Reformation, 1517-2017. ‘On the Soul’ through the History of Ideas. Views of the Soul in Philosophy, Literature & Relivion by Ramona Simuț

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Perichoresis

Volume 21 (2023): Issue 2 (June 2023)

Volume 21 (2023): Issue 1 (March 2023)

Volume 21 (2023): Issue s1 (March 2023)

Volume 20 (2022): Issue 5 (December 2022)
Doctoral Supplement. Postgraduate Research in Contemporary Evangelical Higher Education: Academic Perspectives on Variegated Theological and Historical Topics. Issue Editor: Marcel V. Măcelaru

Volume 20 (2022): Issue 4 (December 2022)
Miscellaneous Theological Investigations. From Economy, Literature, and Hermeneutics to Christology, Exegesis, and Typology. Issue Editor: Corneliu C. Simuț

Volume 20 (2022): Issue 3 (July 2022)
A Multi-Angle Examination of C. S. Lewis's Till We Have Faces. Theological, Philosophical, Ethical, and Literary Insights from one of Lewis's Greatest Novels. Issue Editor: Zachary Breitenbach

Volume 20 (2022): Issue 2 (June 2022)
Reform according to Right Law: the Use of Legal Tradition in Reformation Theology. Issue Editor: André A. Gazal

Volume 20 (2022): Issue 1 (March 2022)
Confessing the Trinity. The Trinitarianism of Particular Baptists, 1640s-1840s. Issue Editor: Michael A. G. Haykin

Volume 19 (2021): Issue 4 (December 2021)
Miscellaneous Theological Studies: Biblical, Apologetic, Historical, Patristic, Theodicean, and Systematic. Issue Editor: Corneliu C. Simuţ

Volume 19 (2021): Issue 3 (July 2021)
Islam and Islamism. The Challenge for Modern Liberal Democracies. Issue Editors: Raphael Lataster, Rumy Hasan

Volume 19 (2021): Issue 2 (June 2021)
Fundamental Aspects of Christological Anthropology: Theological and Philosophical Perspectives in Contemporary Debates. Editor: Christopher G. Woznicki

Volume 19 (2021): Issue 1 (March 2021)
Revivalism in Central European Protestantism, 1840-1940: Hungarian Calvinists, British Evangelicals & German-Austrian Pietists during the Spiritual Renewal of Protestant Churches in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Editor: Ábraham Kovács

Volume 18 (2020): Issue 6 (December 2020)
The Catholic Reformation. Ecclesiology, Justification, Freedom, Sin, Grace & the Council of Trent. Editor: Eduardo J. Echeverria

Volume 18 (2020): Issue 5 (October 2020)
Roman Catholic, Reformed Catholic and Evangelical Protestant. Reformation Issues Five Hundred Years Later. Editor: Issue editor: Joshua R. Farris

Volume 18 (2020): Issue 4 (August 2020)
Issue 4 (Aug 2020): From Paris to Tortosa, via Barcelona (1240-1413), Characters, Issues and Problems in Medieval Jewish-Christian Disputations. Editor: Francesco Bianchi

Volume 18 (2020): Issue 3 (July 2020)
In the Footsteps of the Divine Artist. On the Religious and Spiritual Dimension in Art. Editors: Wessel Stoker and Frank G. Bosman

Volume 18 (2020): Issue 2 (June 2020)
De Corpore – ‘On the Body’ through the History of Idea, Views of the Body in Philosophy, Literature and Religion. Editor: Ramona Simuț

Volume 18 (2020): Issue 1 (March 2020)
Baptist and Reformed Theologies of Vision and Deification (2). Constructive Issues in Contemporary Research. Editors: Joshua R. Farris and Ryan A. Brandt

Volume 17 (2019): Issue 4 (December 2019)
Patristic Thought in Byzantine and Protestant Theology. From Gregory Palamas and George Pachymeres to Luther, Calvin, Anglicans, and Anabaptists. Editor: Andre A. Gazal

Volume 17 (2019): Issue 3 (July 2019)
Contemporary Evangelicals on Carl F. H. Henry’s Theology. From Philosophy, Evangelism, and Apologetics to Education, History, and Practice. Editor: Robert W. Talley

Volume 17 (2019): Issue s2 (July 2019)
Single Author Supplement 2: The Background and Nature of the Dissensions in 1 Corinthians 1-4. Apollos' Role and Paul's Response. Author: Corin Mihăilă

Volume 17 (2019): Issue 2 (June 2019)
Baptist and Reformed Theologies of Vision and Deification. Editors: Joshua R. Farris and Ryan A. Brandt

Volume 17 (2019): Issue s1 (January 2019)
Single Author Supplement 1: Theological Patterns in Reformation Thought. English, American, and Scottish Protestants on Christ, Revival, and the Covenant. Author: Dinu Moga

Volume 17 (2019): Issue 1 (March 2019)
The Father, Son, and Spirit in Early Christian Theology, Second Century Examples. Editor: Paul A. Hartog

Volume 16 (2018): Issue 4 (December 2018)
Tome huitième: Celebrating 500 Years since the Reformation, 1518-2018. Contemporary Perspectives on History and Theology in British Baptist Thought. Scottish and English Baptists on Salvation, Politics, and the End of Times. Issue editor: Alasdair Black

Volume 16 (2018): Issue 3 (July 2018)
Tome septieme: Celebrating 500 Years since the Reformation, 1518-2018. Teaching Leaders, Leading Teachers. Biblical and Historical Perspectives on Education and Leadership: Jeffrey M. Horner Issue editor: Jeffrey M. Horner

Volume 16 (2018): Issue 2 (June 2018)
Tome sixième: Celebrating 500 Years since the Reformation, 1518-2018. Contemporary Perspectives on Molinism. Theories, Responses to Objections, and Applications, Issue editor: Kirk R. MacGregor

Volume 16 (2018): Issue 1 (April 2018)
Tome cinquième: Celebrating 500 Years since the Reformation, 1518-2018. Insights into Contemporary Baptist Thought. Perspectives on European Baptist Theology and History, Issue editor: Toivo Pilli

Volume 15 (2017): Issue 4 (December 2017)
Special Issue: Tome quatrieme: Celebrating 500 Years since the Reformation, 1517-2017. Investigating the Magisterial Reformation and Its Radical Contenders. Contemporary Evangelicals on Reformation Research: from Lutheranism and Zwinglianism to Anabaptism and Baptism, Issue Editor: Marvin Jones

Volume 15 (2017): Issue 3 (October 2017)
Special Issue: Tome troisième: Celebrating 500 Years since the Reformation, 1517-2017. Theologizing about Spirituality, Pedagogy, and Soteriology. Miscellanea Antiqua, Medievalia, Reformatorica & Moderna by Corneliu Simuț

Volume 15 (2017): Issue 2 (July 2017)
Special Issue: : Celebrating 500 Years since the Reformation, 1517-2017. ‘On the Soul’ through the History of Ideas. Views of the Soul in Philosophy, Literature & Relivion by Ramona Simuț

Volume 15 (2017): Issue 1 (May 2017)
Issue title: Tome premier: Celebrating 500 Years since the Reformation: 1517-2017. Anthologizing History, the Bible, and Theology. Miscellanea Celtica, Humanistica & Reformatorica by Thomas O’Loughlin and Corneliu C. Simuț

Volume 14 (2016): Issue 3 (December 2016)
Avant-Premiere: Celebrating 500 Years since the Reformation, 1517-2017. Contemporary Perspectives on Reformed Orthodoxy. Reformed Confessions, Scholastic Thought, and Puritan Divinity in Post-Reformation Protestantism, Issue Editors: Gijsbert van den Brink, Aza Goudriaan

Volume 14 (2016): Issue 2 (October 2016)
Transformative Poetry and Its Role in Catholic Theology. Dutch Contributions to Contemporary Catholic Research. Issue Editors: Archibald L. H. M. van Wieringen, Marcel Sarot. Translator: Brian Heffernan

Volume 14 (2016): Issue 1 (June 2016)
African Hermeneutics in the Twenty-First Century. Social History and Indigenous Theologies in Contemporary African Research. Issue Editor: Zorodzai Dube

Volume 13 (2015): Issue 2 (October 2015)
Issue title: The Long History of Lutheranism in Scandinavia. Contemporary Voices in Finnish Historical Research. Issue Editor: Pirjo Markkola

Volume 13 (2015): Issue 1 (June 2015)
Issue Title: The Value of Controversy. Defining Early Modern Religion through Ritual and Writing. Issue Editor: Angela Ranson

Volume 12 (2014): Issue 2 (October 2014)
Special issue title: Exploring the Contours of Patristic Thought. Studies on Exegesis, Christology, and Soteriology in the Early Church

Volume 12 (2014): Issue 1 (June 2014)
Established and Emerging Voices in Richard Hooker Research, Issue Editor: Paul A. Dominiak

Volume 11 (2013): Issue 2 (December 2013)

Volume 11 (2013): Issue 1 (June 2013)

Volume 10 (2012): Issue 2 (June 2012)

Volume 10 (2012): Issue 1 (January 2012)

Journal Details
Format
Journal
eISSN
2284-7308
First Published
20 Sep 2012
Publication timeframe
3 times per year
Languages
English

Search

Volume 15 (2017): Issue 2 (July 2017)
Special Issue: : Celebrating 500 Years since the Reformation, 1517-2017. ‘On the Soul’ through the History of Ideas. Views of the Soul in Philosophy, Literature & Relivion by Ramona Simuț

Journal Details
Format
Journal
eISSN
2284-7308
First Published
20 Sep 2012
Publication timeframe
3 times per year
Languages
English

Search

6 Articles
Open Access

The Soul and Personal Identity. Derek Parfit’s Arguments in the Substance Dualist Perspective

Dmytro Sepetyi
Dmytro Sepetyi
Published Online: 09 Sep 2017
Page range: 3 - 23

Abstract

Abstract

This paper re-evaluates Derek Parfit’s attack on the commonly held view that personal identity is necessarily determinate and that it is what matters. In the first part we first argue against the Humean view of personal identity; secondly, we classify the remaining alternatives into three kinds: the body theory and the brain theory, the quasi-Humean theory, and the soul theory, and thirdly we deploy Parfit’s arguments and related considerations to the point that none of the materialistic alternatives is consistent with the commonly held view. This leaves us with the alternative: either we accept the radical and highly implausible materialistic view Parfit calls ‘Reductionism’, or we accept the view that we are nonphysical indivisible entities—Cartesian egos, or souls. The second part of the paper discusses Parfit’s objections against the Cartesian view: that there is no reason to believe in the existence of such nonphysical entities; that if such entities exist, there is no evidence that they are enduring (to span a human life); that even if they exist and are enduring, they are irrelevant for the psychological profile and temporal continuity of a person; that experiments with ‘brain-splitted’ patients provide strong evidence against the Cartesian view. We argue that these objections are in part mistaken, and that the remaining (sound) part is not strong enough to make the Cartesian view less plausible than Reductionism.

Keywords

  • personal identity
  • soul
  • materialism
  • dualism
  • substance
Open Access

Jacques Derrida’s (Art)Work of Mourning

Eva Antal
Eva Antal
Published Online: 09 Sep 2017
Page range: 25 - 39

Abstract

Abstract

Derrida’s highly personal mourning texts are collected and published in a unique book under the title The Work of Mourning edited by Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas, two outstanding translators of Derrida’s works. The English collection is published in 2001, while the French edition came out later in 2003 titled Chaque fois unique, la fin du monde (Each Time Unique, the End of the World). In his deconstructed eulogies, Derrida, being in accordance with ‘the mission impossible’ of deconstruction, namely, ‘to allow the coming of the entirely other’ in its otherness, seems to find his own voice. In my paper, I will focus on this special segment of Derrida’s death-work (cf. life-work); namely, on his mourning texts written for his dead friends, paying special attention to the rhetoric ‘circling around’ fidelity, friendship, and the other in his textual mourning.

Keywords

  • mourning
  • eulogy
  • friendship
  • other
  • fidelity
  • survival
Open Access

Marilynne Robinson, Gilead, and the Battle for the Soul

Annette Aronowicz
Annette Aronowicz
Published Online: 09 Sep 2017
Page range: 41 - 58

Abstract

Abstract

A widespread view among contemporary philosophers and scientists is that the soul is a mystification. For Marilynne Robinson, American essayist and novelist, the crux of the matter is not the existence of the soul in itself, since this cannot be settled by debate. Rather, she challenges the sort of evidence that her opponents—mostly basing themselves on the work of neuroscientists, and evolutionary biologists—deem to be decisive in determining the question. The soul, she claims, does not appear at the level of our genes and neurons. Rather it is encountered in the many works of art and reflection that human beings have produced from the earliest times. This paper will focus on one such document, Robinson’s novel Gilead (2004), in which she proposes a vision of the soul closely allied to the notion of blessing. Blessing, in turn, is inseparable from metaphor, pointing us to mystery, an elusive reality whose presence we experience only intermittently, although it is always there. Although Robinson’s several collections of essays provide needed context for the view of the soul displayed in the novel, it is our claim that it is the novel that truly turns the tables in the debate, inviting the reader to affirm or deny the soul’s reality not on the basis of the pronouncement of experts but on the basis of the way a given language aligns with experience. The internalization that such a process requires reveals the soul in action. This paper is thus a reading of Robinson’s writings on the soul.

Keywords

  • blessing
  • metaphor
  • soul
  • mystery
  • reductionist science
Open Access

Soul Death and the Legacy of Total War

David T. Lohrey
David T. Lohrey
Published Online: 09 Sep 2017
Page range: 59 - 81

Abstract

Abstract

Following the lead of Hannah Arendt and others, I want to argue that the imperial mystique seen in the British Empire found its way into Germany’s expansionist ambitions. I am concerned with the emotional costs of oppression, or what I call soul death. I focus on three key writers of the 20th century: Doris Lessing, Nadine Gordimer, and J. M. Coetzee, placing their writings in the context of war trauma and the barbarities associated with 20th century totalitarianism. My argument seeks to elucidate the relationship between postcoloniality and the wars that shaped that century. These narratives of distress will be juxtaposed with novels by Imre Kertész and Arnošt Lustig whose writings of the Holocaust and the war atmosphere on the Eastern Front illuminate scenes of trauma and personal anguish. Here my study draws on the work of recent psychologists whose term soul murder is made much of. These writers’ works can be more fully understood to reveal patterns of personal destruction that are part of living under imperialism. They bring to the forefront behaviours that expose the debasement and hardening witnessed in the early decades of the century.

Keywords

  • Holocaust
  • imperialism
  • trauma
  • war
  • soul
Open Access

Christian Materialism and the Quest for Human Personhood

Mikael Leidenhag
Mikael Leidenhag
Published Online: 09 Sep 2017
Page range: 83 - 100

Abstract

Abstract

This paper offers a critical exploration of philosopher Kevin Corcoran’s proposed Christian Materialism. Corcoran’s constitution view claims that we human persons are constituted by our bodies without being identical with the bodies that constitute us. I will critically evaluate this view and argue that Corcoran has not successfully managed to ground a first-person perspective and intentional states in materialism. Moreover, Corcoran’s property dualism about mental states and the idea of the causally efficacy of such states seem incompatible with materialism. Corcoran’s view of imago Dei is also explored and evaluated. Towards the end of the paper I put forward a brief defense of dualism in light of Corcoran’s critique.

Keywords

  • Christian Materialism
  • constitution view
  • Kevin Corcoran
  • reductionism
  • dualism
Open Access

Exploring Soul, Nature, and God. A Triad in Bhagavad gita

Yadav Sumati
Yadav Sumati
Published Online: 09 Sep 2017
Page range: 101 - 118

Abstract

Abstract

Humans have always been and still are fascinated by the elusive phenomenon of soul and have devised various approaches to interpret it and attribute different names to it; depending on which part, which religion, which tribe and which sect of the world they belong to. Theologians to philosophers to spiritual thinkers to literary authors and critics to scientists—all seem to be researching and explaining its nature and place in the universal scheme of things. Interestingly, there is a unanimity among all, regarding the eternity and indestructibility of soul. The ancient Hindu scripture, Bhagavad Gita establishes soul (Jivatma) as a triad of Self, Nature (Prakriti: material reality) and God (Parmeshvara). The inner self is Soul which bears reflections of both, the physical nature and God. Malleable in ignorance, it identifies with the sense-perception dominated body but once realising its true nature, it is capable of governing the body and its actions. With the support mechanisms and persistence, it traverses across individual body consciousness to universal consciousness. This article strives to make a hermeneutic study of this metaphysical text; inquiring how awareness of the duality of nature; transient and permanent, triggers a gradual process of evolution, leading to a complete transformation when a soul resides within a body as a unifying factor; not for exploiting it or others or vice versa but for bringing about universal harmony.

Keywords

  • soul
  • nature
  • God
  • spirituality
  • self-actualization
6 Articles
Open Access

The Soul and Personal Identity. Derek Parfit’s Arguments in the Substance Dualist Perspective

Dmytro Sepetyi
Dmytro Sepetyi
Published Online: 09 Sep 2017
Page range: 3 - 23

Abstract

Abstract

This paper re-evaluates Derek Parfit’s attack on the commonly held view that personal identity is necessarily determinate and that it is what matters. In the first part we first argue against the Humean view of personal identity; secondly, we classify the remaining alternatives into three kinds: the body theory and the brain theory, the quasi-Humean theory, and the soul theory, and thirdly we deploy Parfit’s arguments and related considerations to the point that none of the materialistic alternatives is consistent with the commonly held view. This leaves us with the alternative: either we accept the radical and highly implausible materialistic view Parfit calls ‘Reductionism’, or we accept the view that we are nonphysical indivisible entities—Cartesian egos, or souls. The second part of the paper discusses Parfit’s objections against the Cartesian view: that there is no reason to believe in the existence of such nonphysical entities; that if such entities exist, there is no evidence that they are enduring (to span a human life); that even if they exist and are enduring, they are irrelevant for the psychological profile and temporal continuity of a person; that experiments with ‘brain-splitted’ patients provide strong evidence against the Cartesian view. We argue that these objections are in part mistaken, and that the remaining (sound) part is not strong enough to make the Cartesian view less plausible than Reductionism.

Keywords

  • personal identity
  • soul
  • materialism
  • dualism
  • substance
Open Access

Jacques Derrida’s (Art)Work of Mourning

Eva Antal
Eva Antal
Published Online: 09 Sep 2017
Page range: 25 - 39

Abstract

Abstract

Derrida’s highly personal mourning texts are collected and published in a unique book under the title The Work of Mourning edited by Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas, two outstanding translators of Derrida’s works. The English collection is published in 2001, while the French edition came out later in 2003 titled Chaque fois unique, la fin du monde (Each Time Unique, the End of the World). In his deconstructed eulogies, Derrida, being in accordance with ‘the mission impossible’ of deconstruction, namely, ‘to allow the coming of the entirely other’ in its otherness, seems to find his own voice. In my paper, I will focus on this special segment of Derrida’s death-work (cf. life-work); namely, on his mourning texts written for his dead friends, paying special attention to the rhetoric ‘circling around’ fidelity, friendship, and the other in his textual mourning.

Keywords

  • mourning
  • eulogy
  • friendship
  • other
  • fidelity
  • survival
Open Access

Marilynne Robinson, Gilead, and the Battle for the Soul

Annette Aronowicz
Annette Aronowicz
Published Online: 09 Sep 2017
Page range: 41 - 58

Abstract

Abstract

A widespread view among contemporary philosophers and scientists is that the soul is a mystification. For Marilynne Robinson, American essayist and novelist, the crux of the matter is not the existence of the soul in itself, since this cannot be settled by debate. Rather, she challenges the sort of evidence that her opponents—mostly basing themselves on the work of neuroscientists, and evolutionary biologists—deem to be decisive in determining the question. The soul, she claims, does not appear at the level of our genes and neurons. Rather it is encountered in the many works of art and reflection that human beings have produced from the earliest times. This paper will focus on one such document, Robinson’s novel Gilead (2004), in which she proposes a vision of the soul closely allied to the notion of blessing. Blessing, in turn, is inseparable from metaphor, pointing us to mystery, an elusive reality whose presence we experience only intermittently, although it is always there. Although Robinson’s several collections of essays provide needed context for the view of the soul displayed in the novel, it is our claim that it is the novel that truly turns the tables in the debate, inviting the reader to affirm or deny the soul’s reality not on the basis of the pronouncement of experts but on the basis of the way a given language aligns with experience. The internalization that such a process requires reveals the soul in action. This paper is thus a reading of Robinson’s writings on the soul.

Keywords

  • blessing
  • metaphor
  • soul
  • mystery
  • reductionist science
Open Access

Soul Death and the Legacy of Total War

David T. Lohrey
David T. Lohrey
Published Online: 09 Sep 2017
Page range: 59 - 81

Abstract

Abstract

Following the lead of Hannah Arendt and others, I want to argue that the imperial mystique seen in the British Empire found its way into Germany’s expansionist ambitions. I am concerned with the emotional costs of oppression, or what I call soul death. I focus on three key writers of the 20th century: Doris Lessing, Nadine Gordimer, and J. M. Coetzee, placing their writings in the context of war trauma and the barbarities associated with 20th century totalitarianism. My argument seeks to elucidate the relationship between postcoloniality and the wars that shaped that century. These narratives of distress will be juxtaposed with novels by Imre Kertész and Arnošt Lustig whose writings of the Holocaust and the war atmosphere on the Eastern Front illuminate scenes of trauma and personal anguish. Here my study draws on the work of recent psychologists whose term soul murder is made much of. These writers’ works can be more fully understood to reveal patterns of personal destruction that are part of living under imperialism. They bring to the forefront behaviours that expose the debasement and hardening witnessed in the early decades of the century.

Keywords

  • Holocaust
  • imperialism
  • trauma
  • war
  • soul
Open Access

Christian Materialism and the Quest for Human Personhood

Mikael Leidenhag
Mikael Leidenhag
Published Online: 09 Sep 2017
Page range: 83 - 100

Abstract

Abstract

This paper offers a critical exploration of philosopher Kevin Corcoran’s proposed Christian Materialism. Corcoran’s constitution view claims that we human persons are constituted by our bodies without being identical with the bodies that constitute us. I will critically evaluate this view and argue that Corcoran has not successfully managed to ground a first-person perspective and intentional states in materialism. Moreover, Corcoran’s property dualism about mental states and the idea of the causally efficacy of such states seem incompatible with materialism. Corcoran’s view of imago Dei is also explored and evaluated. Towards the end of the paper I put forward a brief defense of dualism in light of Corcoran’s critique.

Keywords

  • Christian Materialism
  • constitution view
  • Kevin Corcoran
  • reductionism
  • dualism
Open Access

Exploring Soul, Nature, and God. A Triad in Bhagavad gita

Yadav Sumati
Yadav Sumati
Published Online: 09 Sep 2017
Page range: 101 - 118

Abstract

Abstract

Humans have always been and still are fascinated by the elusive phenomenon of soul and have devised various approaches to interpret it and attribute different names to it; depending on which part, which religion, which tribe and which sect of the world they belong to. Theologians to philosophers to spiritual thinkers to literary authors and critics to scientists—all seem to be researching and explaining its nature and place in the universal scheme of things. Interestingly, there is a unanimity among all, regarding the eternity and indestructibility of soul. The ancient Hindu scripture, Bhagavad Gita establishes soul (Jivatma) as a triad of Self, Nature (Prakriti: material reality) and God (Parmeshvara). The inner self is Soul which bears reflections of both, the physical nature and God. Malleable in ignorance, it identifies with the sense-perception dominated body but once realising its true nature, it is capable of governing the body and its actions. With the support mechanisms and persistence, it traverses across individual body consciousness to universal consciousness. This article strives to make a hermeneutic study of this metaphysical text; inquiring how awareness of the duality of nature; transient and permanent, triggers a gradual process of evolution, leading to a complete transformation when a soul resides within a body as a unifying factor; not for exploiting it or others or vice versa but for bringing about universal harmony.

Keywords

  • soul
  • nature
  • God
  • spirituality
  • self-actualization