1. Introduction This paper is threefold. It is positioned against the background of a philosophical problem that refers to the human ability of knowing oneself and God as One. In the philosophical literature the positive answer to this problematic is usually delegated to the mystical realm; in the realm of concrete practical experiences the answer…
Introduction Almost all of the Pre-Socratic philosophers began to speculate from the level of phusis or kosmos and define the ethical, artistic and political concepts according to the dynamics and principles of the whole (ta panta). This was an attempt to explain the place and role of microcosmic human existence within a macrocosmic picture. Heraclitus,…
Man, because he is Mind, should and must deem himself worthyof the highest; he cannot think too highly of the greatness andthe power of his mind, and, with this belief, nothing will be sodifficult and hard that it will not reveal itself to him. The Being of the universe, at first hidden and concealed, has…
Dawn Adrian is founder of Tapestry Institute on science and native wisdom. The following is from her opening plenary address at the 2009 Metanexus conference, “Cosmos, Nature, Culture,” held in Phoenix, AZ. The vision of “Cosmos, Nature, and Culture” I share with you this evening is multidisciplinary, as suits the nature of this meeting and…
Life-like machines are beginning to appear. During a panel discussion in the year 2000, John McCarthy, the computer science pioneer typically credited with having coined the term “artificial intelligence,” offered the following response to a prior speaker’s mention of “robots that walk and talk like people and have emotions”: In my opinion, the robots need…
Introduction to Theme This paper presents two claims: (1) Attachment is a universal thread that holds the fabric of life together and (2) Anabaptist theology theorizes Christian community and relationship with God in ways that identify attachment for human flourishing and social peace. We expand the first claim by describing the necessary biological bases for…
Introduction There is considerable research evidence that spirituality affects physical and psychological health (e.g. Larson & Larson, 2003). From the many spiritual indicators of health and flourishing it is now important to discern what are the foundational, or core aspects of spirituality that must be present for positive outcomes. Once the necessary foundations are evident…
The first scholarly work to cite Saint Augustine as a proponent of evolutionary theory was George Mivart’s The Genesis of the Species.1 Opposing visions of Augustine’s theory were immediately advanced in response to Mivart, but it was only until Michael J. McKeough’s The Meaning of Rationes Seminales in Saint Augustine that the debate was stabilized.2 …
1. A Quick Sketch Of Relevant Features From The Current Standard Picture of the Universe and its Evolution. There is general agreement on a picture of an expanding universe, cooling as it goes. In the expansion process, we have a picture of phase transitions, leading to ‘matter’, or baryons. Then follows a process of hierarchy…
In this paper I examine neuroimaging studies on meditation and its effect on the brain and I offer this as one of the areas which cannot be explained by the “mind = brain” equation. Besides meditation we will also briefly examine other scientific research that also puts into question a wholly materialist understanding of the…