Nainen, mies, rakkaus, seksi : Heterosuhteen kulku, kulttuurinen malli ja sitä selittävät diskurssit kahden omaelämäkerta-aineiston valossa

The subject matter of this study is the cultural knowledge concerning romantic male-female relationships in autobiographies written by so called ordinary Finnish men and women born between 1901 and 1965. The research data (98 autobiographies) is selected from two collections by the Finnish Literature Society s folklore archives in the early 1990 s. Autobiographies are cultural representations where negotiation of shared cultural models and personal meanings given to hetero-relationship is evident in an interesting manner. In this research I analyze autobiographies as a written folklore genre. Information concerning male-female relationships is being analyzed using theoretically informed close readings thematic analysis, intertextual reading and reflexive reading. Theoretical implications stem from cognitive anthropology (the idea of cultural models) and an adaptation of discourse theory inspired by Michel Foucault. The structure of the analysis follows the structure of the shared knowledge concerning romantic male-female relationship: the first phase of analysis presents the script of a hetero-relationship and then moves into the actual structure, the cultural model of a relationship. The components of the model of relationship are, as mentioned in the title of the research, woman, man, love and sex. The research shows that all the writers share this basic knowledge concerning a heterosexual relationship despite their age, background or gender. Also the conflicts described and experienced in the relationships of the writers were similar throughout the timespan of the early 1900 s to 1990 s: lack of love, inability to reconcile sexual desires, housework, sharing the responsibility of childcare and financial problems. The research claims that the conflicts in relationships are a major cause for the binary view on gender. When relationships are harmonious, there seems to be no need to see men and women as opposites. The research names five important discourses present in the meaning giving processes of autobiographers. In doing so, the stabile cultural model of male-female relationship widens to show the complexity and variation in data. In this way it is possible to detect some age and gender specific shifts and emphasis. The discourses give meaning to the components of the cultural model and determine the contents of womanhood, manhood, sexuality and love. The way these discourses are spread and their authority are different: the romantic discourse evident in the autobiographies appeal to the authority of love supreme love is the purpose of male-female relationship and it justifies sexuality. In this discourse sex can be the place for confluence of genders. The ideas of romantic love are widely spread in popular culture. Popular scientific discourse defines a relationship as a site to become a man and a woman either from a psychological or a biological point of view. Genders are seen as opposites. These ideas are often presented in media and their authority in science which is seen as infallible. The Christian discourse defines men and women: both should work for the benefit of the nuclear family under the undisputed authority of God. Marital love is based on Christian virtues and within marriage sexuality is acceptable. The discourse I ve named folk tradition defines women and men as guardians of home and offspring. The authority of folk tradition comes from universal truth based in experience and truths known to the mediators of this discourse grandparents, parents and other elders or peers. Societal discourse defines the hetero relationship as the mainstay of society. The authority in societal discourse stems from the laws and regulations that control relationship practices.

Topeliaaninen usko : Kirjailija Sakari Topelius uskontokasvattajana

ABSTRACT The author Zacharias Topelius as a religious educator The present study concerns the author Zacharias Topelius (1818-98) as a religious educator. The study´s main questions are as follows: What is the theological and pedagogical content of Topelius books and how is his religious instruction linked with the history of his time. The primary sources are his educational books Naturens bok (The Book of the Nature, 1856), Boken om vårt land (The Book of our Land, 1875) and Evangelium för Barnen (Gospel for Children, 1893), as well as his storybooks Läsning för barn I-VIII (Reading for Children I-VIII, 1865-96). The dissertation concerns the his-tory of religious education. Its primary method is background-based systematic analy-sis. In Topelius children s books the view of God is characterised both as an omnipresent spirit and as Providence, who guides world history according to his plan. In addition to Lutheranism this view is also influenced by Nationalism and Romanticism. The theological content of the books emphasises instruction in Christian life that is natural to normative children s books. Topelius strongly expresses the importance of a personal relationship to God, an idealistic Christian view of one s fellow man and of one s own nation as well as the value of nature conservation. The books of Topelius were some of the first educational works on nature preservation in Finland. The didactic quality of Topelius children s books was high for 19th century Finland. Their main emphasis in terms of educational goals is on civilisation (Bildung), self-awareness, national solidarity and living idealism. The pedagogical argumentation is mostly based on theological, historical, social and rational reasoning. The primary principles in Topelius teaching are Christian nationalism, idealistic harmony and the agrarian bourgeois. Christian nationalism is the main element of Topelius religious education. He considers the fatherland as a God-given project and the taking care of it as a part of holy service. Idealistic harmony is seen as the comprehensive development of one s character in the sense of romantic idealism. The agrarian bourgeois principle combines the Finnish peasant tradition with the values of 19th century modern bourgeois culture. I have named Topelius vision of religious education the Christian national project of civilisation (Bildung). Its main theses are home, religion and fatherland. The author himself strongly believed in this vision and never questioned it despite its national chauvinism and theological inconsistency. The religious ideology represented in Topelius educational works and storybooks was popular among pedagogues during the whole era of the Finnish folk school. It fit per-fectly with the Christian national discourse stemming from 19th century ideological ten-dencies. Due to their appropriate content combined with their practical language and pedagogical methods, the books were popular both at school and in the home for a long period of time. Therefore the books of Topelius aptly symbolise the religious education of their time and manifest their author s pedagogical talent as a national religious educator and as a populariser of Christian nationalism. Topelius books have had a lasting influence on Finnish religiosity. Key words: Topelius, theology, religion, education, nationalism and national project

Paimen vailla hiippakuntaa : Kenttäpiispan viran synty ja vaikutus sotilaspapiston asemaan Suomen puolustusvoimissa ja kirkossa vuosina 1939 - 1944

The main purpose of this research is to shed light on the factors that gave rise to the office of Field Bishop in the years 1939-1944. How did military bishophood affect the status of the head of military pastoral care and military clergy during these years? The main sources of my research are the collections in the Finnish National Archives, and I use a historical-qualitative method. The position of the military clergy was debated within both the Church and the Defence Forces before 1939. At that stage, Church law did not yet recognize the office of the leading military priest, the Field Dean. There had been a motion in 1932 to introduce the office of a military bishop, but the bishops' synod blocked it. The concept of Field Bishop appeared for the first time in 1927 in a Finnish military document, which dealt with pastoral care in the Polish military. The Field Dean in Finland had regularly proposed improvements to the salary of the military clergy before the Winter War. After the Winter War, arguments were made for strengthening the position of the military clergy: these arguments were based on the increased respect shown towards this clergy, especially due to their role in the care of the fallen, which had become their task during the war. Younger members of the military clergy in particular supported the demands to improve their position within the Church and the army. The creation of a Field Bishop was perceived as strengthening the whole military clergy, as the Field Bishop was envisioned as a bishop within the Church and a general within the Defence Forces. During that time the Field Dean was still without any military rank. The idea of a Field Bishop was recommended to Mannerheim in June 1940, after which the Defence Forces lent their support to the cause. The status of the military clergy, in Church law, made it to the agenda of the Church council in January 1941, thanks largely to the younger priests' group influence and Mannerheim's leverage. The bishops opposed the notion of a Field Bishop mostly on theological grounds but were ready to concede that the position the Field Dean in Church law required further defining. The creation of the office of Field Bishop was blocked in the Church law committee report issued close to the beginning of the Continuation War. The onset of that war, however, changed the course of events, as the President of the Republic appointed Field Dean Johannes Björklund as Field Bishop. Speculation has abounded about Mannerheim's role in the appointment, but the truth of the matter is not clear. The title of Field Bishop was used to put pressure on the Church, and, at the same time, Mannerheim could remain detached from the matter. Later, in September 1941, the Church council approved the use of the Field Bishop title to denote the head of military pastoral care in Church law, and Field Bishops were assigned some of the duties formerly pertaining to bishops. Despite all expectations and hopes, the new office of Field Bishop did not affect the status of the military clergy within the Defence Forces, as no ranks were established for them, and their salary did not improve. However the office of the Field Bishop within Army HQ was transformed from a bureau into a department in the summer of 1942. At the beginning of the Continuation War, the Field Bishop was criticized by certain military and Church clergy for favouring Russian Orthodox Christians in Eastern Karelia. Björklund agreed in principle with most of the Lutheran clergy on the necessity of Lutheranizing East Karelia but had to take into account the realities at Army HQ. As well, at the same time the majority of the younger clergy were serving in the army, and there was a lack of parish priests on the home front. Bishop Lehtonen had actually expressed the wish that more priests could have been released from the front to serve in local parishes. In his notes Lehtonen accused Björklund of trying to achieve the position of Field Bishop by all possible means. However, research has revealed a varied group of people behind the creation of the office of Field Bishop, including in particular younger clergy and the Defence Forces.

Vanhurskautta, oikeutta vai uskollisuutta? : ṣdq -sanue vuoden 1992 Kirkkoraamatun Psalmien kirjassa

Righteousness, justice or faithfulness? The Hebrew Root ṣdq in the Psalter of the Finnish Church Bible of 1992 This study attempts to answer three questions. Firstly, what do the derivates of the root ṣdq mean in the Hebrew Psalter? Secondly, with which equivalents are these Hebrew words translated in the Psalter of the Finnish Church Bible of 1992 and why? And thirdly, how is the translation of the root ṣdq in the Psalter placed in comparison with the translations of the root ṣdq in certain ancient and modern Bible translations? The root ṣdq has a very wide semantic field in Biblical Hebrew. The basic meaning of the root ṣdq is ‘right’ or ‘to be in the right’. The traditional English equivalent of the root ṣdq is righteousness. In many European languages the equivalent of the root ṣdq has some connection with the word ‘right’, but this is not the case in Finnish. The Finnish word vanhurskaus has been present since the first Finnish Bible translation by Mikael Agricola in 1548. However, this word has nothing to do with the Finnish word for ‘right’. The word vanhurskaus has become a very specific religious and theological word in Finnish, and it can be a word that is not obvious or at all understandable even to a native Finnish speaker. In the Psalter of the earlier Finnish Church Bible of 1938 almost every derivate of the root ṣdq (132/139) was translated as vanhurskaus. In the Psalter of the Finnish Church Bible of 1992 less than half of these derivates (67/139) are translated as that. Translators have used 20 different equivalents of the Hebrew derivates of the root ṣdq. But this type of translation also has its own problems. The most disputed is the fact that in it the Bible reader finds no connections between many Bible verses that have obvious connections with each other in the Hebrew Bible. For example, in verse Ps. 118, 15 one finds a Finnish word for ‘saved’ and in verse Ps. 142, 8 one finds another Finnish word for ‘friends’, while in the Hebrew Bible the same word is used in both verses, ṣaddîqīm. My study will prove that it is very challenging to compare or fit together the semantics of these two quite different languages. The theoretical framework for the study consists of biblical semantic theories and Bible translation theories. Keywords: religious language, Bible translations, Book of Psalms.

The Innocent Pleasure : A Study on Luther's theology of music

The aim of the study is to examine Luther s theology of music from the standpoint of pleasure. The theological assessment of musical pleasure is related to two further questions: the role of emotions in Christianity and the apprehension of beauty. The medieval discussion of these themes is portrayed in the background chapter. Significant traits were: the suspicion felt towards sensuous gratification in music, music as a mathematical discipline, the medieval theory of emotions informed by Stoic apatheia and Platonic-Aristotelian metriopatheia, the notion of beauty as an attribute of God, medieval aesthetics as the aesthetic of proportion and the aesthetic of light and the emergence of the Aristotelian view of science that is based on experience rather than speculation. The treatment of Luther s theology of music is initiated with the notion of gift. Luther says that music is the excellent (or even the best) gift of God. This has sometimes been understood as a mere music-lover s enthusiasm. Luther is, however, not likely to use the word gift loosely. His theology can be depicted as a theology of gift. The Triune God is categorically giving. The notion of gift also includes reciprocity. When we receive the gifts of God, it evokes praise in us. Praising God is predominantly a musical phenomenon. The particular benefit of music in Luther s thought is that it can move human emotions. This emphasis is connected to the overall affectivity of Luther s theology. In contrast to the medieval discussion, Luther ascribes to saints not just emotions but particularly warm and tender affections. The power of music is related to the auditory and vocal character of the Word. Faith comes through hearing the Word that is at once musical and affective perception. Faith is not a mere opinion but the affective trust of the heart. Music can touch the human heart and persuade with its sweetness, like the good news of the Gospel. Music allows us to perceive Luther s theology as a theology of joy and pleasure. Joy is for Luther a gift of the Holy Spirit that fills the heart and bursts out in voice and gestures. Pleasure appears to be a central aspect to Luther s theology. The problem of the Bondage of the Will is precisely the human inability to feel pleasure in God s will. To be pleased in the visible and tangible creation is not something a Christian should avoid. On the contrary, if one is not pleased with the world that God has created, it is a sign of unbelief and ingratitude. The pleasure of music is aesthetic perception. This in turn necessitates the investigation of Luther s aesthetics. Aesthetic evaluation is not just a part of Luther s thought. Eventually his theology as a whole could be portrayed in aesthetic terms. Luther s extremely positive appreciation of music illutrates his theology as an affective acknowledgement of the goodness of the Creation and faith as an aesthetic contentment.

Pietismin kuva - ikkuna yksityiseen hengellisyyteen : Johann Arndtin opetukset pietistisen embleemin perustana

The image of Pietism a window to personal spirituality. The teachings of Johann Arndt as the basis of Pietist emblems The Pietist effect on spiritual images has to be scrutinised as a continuum initiating from the teachings of Johann Arndt who created a protestant iconography that defended the status of pictures and images as the foundation of divine revelation. Pietist artworks reveal Arndtian part of secret, eternal world, and God. Even though modern scholars do not regarded him as a founding father of Pietism anymore, his works have been essential for the development of iconography, and the themes of the Pietist images are linked with his works. For Arndt, the starting point is in the affecting love for Christ who suffered for the humankind. The reading experience is personal and the words point directly at the reader and thus appear as evidence of the guilt of the reader as well as of the love of God. Arndt uses bounteous and descriptive language which has partially affected promoting and picturing of many themes. Like Arndt, Philipp Jakob Spener also emphasised the heart that believes. The Pietist movement was born to oppose detached faith and the lack of the Holy Ghost. Christians touched by the teachings of Arndt and Spener began to create images out of metaphors presented by Arndt. As those people were part of the intelligentsia, it was natural that the fashionable emblematics of the 17th century was moulded for the personal needs. For Arndt, the human heart is manifested as a symbol of soul, personal faith or unbelief as well as an allegory of the burning love for Jesus. Due to this fact, heart emblems were gradually widely used and linked with the love of Christ. In the Nordic countries, the introduction of emblems emanated from the gentry s connections to the Central Europe where emblems were exploited in order to decorate books, artefacts, interiors, and buildings as well as visual/literal trademarks of the intelligentsia. Emblematic paintings in the churches of the castles of Venngarn (1665) and Läckö (1668), owned by Magnus Gabriel De la Gardie, are one of the most central interior paintings preserved in the Nordic countries, and they emphasise personal righteous life. Nonetheless, it was the books by Arndt and the Poet s Society in Nurnberg that bound the Swedish gentry and the scholars of the Pietist movement together. The Finnish gentry had no castles or castle churches so they supported county churches, both in building and in maintenance. As the churches were not private, their iconography could not be private either. Instead, people used Pietist symbols such as Agnus Dei, Cor ardens, an open book, beams, king David, frankincense, wood themes and Virtues. In the Pietist images made for public spaces, the attention is focused on pedagogical, metaphorical, and meaningful presentation as well as concealed statements.

Hyveiden harjoittaminen : edellytykset ja esteet

In the first half of the 20th century, most moral philosophers took the concept of virtue to be secondary to moral principles or emotions, though in various and mutually conflicting ways. In the early 1960s interest in the virtues was restored by the analytic philosophers Elizabeth Anscombe and Georg Henrik von Wright, the younger colleagues and friends of the late Wittgenstein. Later, Alasdair MacIntyre became a leading virtue ethicist. In 1981, MacIntyre introduced in After Virtue the concept of practices, which he based on the Aristotelian distinction between praxis and poiesis. This dissertation examines MacIntyre s characterization of the interconnectedness between practices and virtues, especially in relation to skills, education, and certain emotions. The primary position of the virtues is defended against the tendency in modern moral philosophy to overemphasize the role either of principles and rules or of emotions. The view according to which rational action and acting according to the virtues is best conceptualized as following rules or principles is criticized by arguments that are grounded by some Wittgensteinian observations, and that can be characterized as transcendental. Even if the virtues cannot be defined by, and are not based entirely on, emotions, the role of certain emotions on the learning and education of skills and virtues are studied more carefully than by MacIntyre. In the cases of resentment, indignation, and shame, the analysis of Peter Strawson is utilized, and in the case of regret, the analysis of Bernard Williams. Williams analysis of regret and moral conflict concludes in a kind of antirealism, which this study criticizes. Where education of practices and skills and the related reactive emotions are examined as conditions of learning and practicing the virtues, institutions and ideologies are examined as obstacles and threats to the virtues. This theme is studied through Karl Marx s conception of alienation and Karl Polanyi s historical and sociological research concerning the great transformation . The study includes six Finnish-published articles carrying the titles Our negative attitudes towards other persons , Authority and upbringing , Moral conflicts, regret and ethical realism , Practices and institutions , Doing justice as condition to communal action: a transcendental argument for justice as virtue , and Alienation from practices in capitalist society: Alasdair MacIntyre s Marxist Aristotelianism . The introductory essay sums up the themes of the articles and presents some central issues of virtue ethics by relating the classical Socratic questions to Aristotelian practical philosophy, as well as to current controversies in metaethics and moral psychology.

Paradigms in Statistical Inference for Finite Populations; Up to the 1950s

Modern sample surveys started to spread after statistician at the U.S. Bureau of the Census in the 1940s had developed a sampling design for the Current Population Survey (CPS). A significant factor was also that digital computers became available for statisticians. In the beginning of 1950s, the theory was documented in textbooks on survey sampling. This thesis is about the development of the statistical inference for sample surveys. For the first time the idea of statistical inference was enunciated by a French scientist, P. S. Laplace. In 1781, he published a plan for a partial investigation in which he determined the sample size needed to reach the desired accuracy in estimation. The plan was based on Laplace s Principle of Inverse Probability and on his derivation of the Central Limit Theorem. They were published in a memoir in 1774 which is one of the origins of statistical inference. Laplace s inference model was based on Bernoulli trials and binominal probabilities. He assumed that populations were changing constantly. It was depicted by assuming a priori distributions for parameters. Laplace s inference model dominated statistical thinking for a century. Sample selection in Laplace s investigations was purposive. In 1894 in the International Statistical Institute meeting, Norwegian Anders Kiaer presented the idea of the Representative Method to draw samples. Its idea was that the sample would be a miniature of the population. It is still prevailing. The virtues of random sampling were known but practical problems of sample selection and data collection hindered its use. Arhtur Bowley realized the potentials of Kiaer s method and in the beginning of the 20th century carried out several surveys in the UK. He also developed the theory of statistical inference for finite populations. It was based on Laplace s inference model. R. A. Fisher contributions in the 1920 s constitute a watershed in the statistical science He revolutionized the theory of statistics. In addition, he introduced a new statistical inference model which is still the prevailing paradigm. The essential idea is to draw repeatedly samples from the same population and the assumption that population parameters are constants. Fisher s theory did not include a priori probabilities. Jerzy Neyman adopted Fisher s inference model and applied it to finite populations with the difference that Neyman s inference model does not include any assumptions of the distributions of the study variables. Applying Fisher s fiducial argument he developed the theory for confidence intervals. Neyman s last contribution to survey sampling presented a theory for double sampling. This gave the central idea for statisticians at the U.S. Census Bureau to develop the complex survey design for the CPS. Important criterion was to have a method in which the costs of data collection were acceptable, and which provided approximately equal interviewer workloads, besides sufficient accuracy in estimation.

The Church and Its Boundaries : A Study of the Special Commission on Orthodox Participation in the WCC

The relationship between the Orthodox Churches and the World Council of Churches (WCC) became a crisis just before the 8th Assembly of the WCC in Harare, Zimbabwe in 1998. The Special Commission on Orthodox Participation in the WCC (SC), inaugurated in Harare, worked during the period 1999 2002 to solve the crisis and to secure the Orthodox participation in the WCC. The purpose of this study is: 1) to clarify the theological motives for the inauguration of the SC and the theological argumentation of the Orthodox criticism; 2) to write a reliable history and analysis of the SC; 3) to outline the theological argumentation, which structures the debate, and 4) to investigate the ecclesiological questions that arise from the SC material. The study spans the years 1998 to 2006, from the WCC Harare Assembly to the Porto Alegre Assembly. Hence, the initiation and immediate reception of the Special Commission are included in the study. The sources of this study are all the material produced by and for the SC. The method employed is systematic analysis. The focus of the study is on theological argumentation; the historical context and political motives that played a part in the Orthodox-WCC relations are not discussed in detail. The study shows how the initial, specific and individual Orthodox concerns developed into a profound ecclesiological discussion and also led to concrete changes in WCC practices, the best known of which is the change to decision-making by consensus. The Final Report of the SC contains five main themes, namely, ecclesiology, decision-making, worship/common prayer, membership and representation, and social and ethical issues. The main achievement of the SC was that it secured the Orthodox membership in the WCC. The ecclesiological conclusions made in the Final Report are twofold. On the one hand, it confirms that the very act of belonging to the WCC means the commitment to discuss the relationship between a church and churches. The SC recommended that baptism should be added as a criterion for membership in the WCC, and the member churches should continue to work towards the mutual recognition of each other s baptism. These elements strengthen the ecclesiological character of the WCC. On the other hand, when the Final Report discusses common prayer, the ecclesiological conclusions are much more cautious, and the ecclesiological neutrality of the WCC is emphasized several times. The SC repeatedly emphasized that the WCC is a fellowship of churches. The concept of koinonia, which has otherwise been important in recent ecclesiological questions, was not much applied by the SC. The comparison of the results of the SC to parallel ecclesiological documents of the WCC (Nature and Mission of the Church, Called to Be the One Church) shows that they all acknowledge the different ecclesiological starting points of the member churches, and, following that, a variety of legitimate views on the relation of the Church to the churches. Despite the change from preserving the koinonia to promises of eschatological koinonia, all the documents affirm that the goal of the ecumenical movement is still full, visible unity.

Factors affecting perceptions of corporate social responsibility implementation: an emphasis on values

This dissertation is a broad study of factors affecting perceptions of CSR issues in multiple stakeholder realms, the main purpose being to determine the effects of the values of individuals on their perceptions regarding CSR. It examines perceptions of CSR both at the emic (observing individuals and stakeholders) and etic levels (conducting cross-cultural comparison) through a descriptive-empirical research strategy. The dissertation is based on quantitative interview data among Chinese, Finnish and US stakeholder groups of industry companies (with an emphasis on the forest industries) and consists of four published articles and two submitted manuscripts. Theoretically, this dissertation provides a valuable and unique philosophical and intellectual perspective on the contemporary study of CSR `The Harmony Approach to CSR'. Empirically, this dissertation does values assessment and CSR evaluation of a wide variety of business activities covering CSR reporting, business ethics, and three dimensions of CSR performance. From the multi-stakeholder perspective, this dissertation use survey methods to examine the perceptions and stakeholder salience in the context of CSR by describing, comparing the differences between demographic factors as well as hypothetical drivers behind perceptions. The results of study suggest that the CSR objective of a corporation's top management should be to manage the divergent and conflicting interests of multiple stakeholders, taking others than key stakeholders into account as well. The importance of values as a driver of ethical behaviour and decision-making has been generally recognized. This dissertation provides more empirical proof of this theory by highlighting the effects of values on CSR perceptions. It suggests that since the way to encourage responsible behaviour and develop CSR is to develop individual values and cultivate their virtues, it is time to invoke the critical role of moral (ethics) education. The specific studies of China and comparison between Finland and the US contribute to a common understanding of the emerging CSR issues, problems and opportunities for the future of sustainability. The similarities among these countries can enhance international cooperation, while the differences will open up opportunities and diversified solutions for CSR in local conditions.

Impossibilità di pensare Dio non esistente : il Proslogion di Anselmo d'Aosta come applicazione implicita dei moderni procedimenti di logica aletica

Resumen: La vera intenzione teologica di Anselmo d’Aosta nello scrivere il Proslogion e il vero significato del suo celebre unum argumentum vanno visti nella funzione che la ragione svolge necessariamente all’interno della vita di fede del cristiano. Anselmo, come Tommaso d’Aquino, non sostiene che l’esistenza di Dio sia un “articulus fidei” ma piuttosto uno dei “praeambula fidei”. La ragione naturale ha la certezza che Dio esiste, ancora prima della dimostrazione metafisica, e questo non fa che confermare l’assurdità di pensare che non esista il fondamento reale di tutte le cose esistenti.

La teología ante la física moderna : cuestiones fundamentales para un diálogo posible : 2ª parte: la teología de la creación ante la cosmología científica

Resumen: El descubrimiento de la verdadera naturaleza evolutiva y mutable de este universo en que vivimos ha dado origen a la moderna cosmología científica, que con sus modelos del nacimiento y evolución del cosmos plantea estimulantes cuestiones teológicas como la relación entre creación e inicio del universo, la acción divina en el mundo o la teleología y finalidad última de la Creación.

El Concilio Vaticano II : remembranza y actualización

Resumen: Retomando la propuesta de su libro del año 2002, Vaticano II: Remembranza y Actualización y poniendo la mirada sobre el tema del Congreso del Centenario, que es abordar la cuestión del Concilio desde la memoria, el presente y las perspectivas que se abren para el futuro de la Iglesia, el profesor Madrigal nos propone en esta conferencia un ejercicio de memoria, un intento de respuesta a los temas que se deben actualizar y, a la vez, una mirada sobre el desafío a la pregunta del papa Francisco “¿cómo seguir adelante?”. En cuatro momentos desplegará esas cuestiones: 1) la realidad teológica de la institución conciliar; 2) una sistematización o lectura esencial de la doctrina conciliar; 3) el significado histórico del Vaticano II como movimiento de renovación; 4) líneas de actualización para un relanzamiento de la recepción del Vaticano II

Arcipreste de Talavera, parte I : las paremias en el esquema de los pecados capitales

Integran este número de la revista ponencias presentadas en Studia Hispanica Medievalia VIII: Actas de las IX Jornadas Internacionales de Literatura Española Medieval, 2008, y de Homenaje al Quinto Centenario de Amadis de Gaula.

Ley natural, diálogo social y convicciones creyentes

Resumen: El artículo plantea una lectura transversal del Documento de la Comisión Teológica Internacional, titulado “En busca de una ética universal: una nueva mirada sobre la ley natural” de tal manera que, a partir del reconocimiento de una ley natural que subyace a toda norma, se procura mostrar cómo esa convicción no impide la participación de los cristianos en el diálogo social. El autor señala las paradojas a las que conduce la ética de la discusión y el lugar de la discusión pública como estímulo para alcanzar la verdad. Enfatiza la importancia del amor a la verdad como condición necesaria para que una sociedad sea noble y respetable. Considera el lugar del diálogo y el consenso y la existencia de una verdad última que la inteligencia puede captar en el marco de un sano pluralismo. También aborda la relación entre este pluralismo y las religiones y su contribución al debate público.