The Apokatastasis Essays in Context: Leibniz and Thomas Burnet on the Kingdom of Grace and the Stoic/Platonic Revolutions

One of Leibniz’s more unusual philosophical projects is his presentation (in a series of unpublished drafts) of an argument for the conclusion that a time will necessarily come when “nothing would happen that had not happened before." Leibniz’s presentations of the argument for such a cyclical cosmology are all too brief, and his discussion of its implications is obscure. Moreover, the conclusion itself seems to be at odds with the main thrust of Leibniz’s own metaphysics. Despite this, we can discern a serious and important point to Leibniz’s consideration of the doctrine, namely in what it suggests about the proper boundary between metaphysics and theology, on the one hand, and ordinary history (whether human or natural), on the other. And we can get a better sense of Leibniz purpose in the essays by considering them in the context of Leibniz's response to Thomas Burnet's "Telluris theoria sacra" (1681-89). Leibniz praises Burnet's history of earth for presenting a harmony between the principles of nature and grace, a harmony absent in the cosmogonies of Descartes and the Newtonians. But Leibniz also complains that Burnet misconceives the boundary between natural explanation and reflections on divine wisdom. And Leibniz's essays on cyclical cosmology suggest the alternative to Burnet's account: a natural history of the earth and its inhabitants should be radically autonomous from, even if ultimately harmonious with, theological principles

Seeing the World Through Ramist Eyes: The Richardsonian Ramism of Thomas Hooker and Samuel Stone

Using as examples the writings of Thomas Hooker and Samuel Stone, founding ministers of the First Church of Hartford, Connecticut, this article shows how influential thinkers in early seventeenth-century England and New England saw the world around them through the filters of the Ramist philosophy of Alexander Richardson. It argues that Richardsonian Ramism produced theology and preaching that was less “biblical” and more “Calvinist” than has been conventionally thought

Does God Have a Body? Rāmānuja’s Challenge to the Christian Tradition

The Christian tradition’s core theological assertion is the embodiment of God in the person of Jesus Christ. Yet, even while asserting God’s incarnation in space and time, the tradition has usually denied embodiment unto the Godhead itself. Theologians have based this denial on Jewish iconoclasm, Greek idealism, and inferences from God’s omnipresence, transcendence, and infinity. This speculative essay will argue that Hindu Śrīvaiṣṇava theologian Rāmānuja successfully addresses these concerns. He argues for the embodiment of an omnipresent, transcendent, and infinite personal God. Rāmānuja largely derives his arguments from the Hindu scriptures. Nevertheless, their rational explication and internal coherence render divine embodiment a legitimate theological option for the Christian tradition, whose scriptures present both anthropomorphic and iconoclastic concepts of God. Since Godhead embodiment is ontologically coherent and rationally defensible, Christians must accept or reject it based on axiological grounds, by evaluating the felt consequences of the doctrine in Christian life. For embodied beings, any pastoral theology should commend embodiment within the Godhead

The use of grammatically annotated corpora for the display of textual patterns

This paper looks at how meanings unfold across the genre of Contemporary Slovenian Sermons under the application of tools developed within the fields of systemic functional linguistics and corpus linguistics. The theoretical construct for the analysis is provided by Hasan\u27;s (1984) concept of genre and Cloran\u27;s (1994) concept of message semantics. To determine consistency of textual patterns for the genre of sermons, lexico-grammatical patterns in sermons are examined. It is argued that genre analysis, supported by visual presentation of lexico-grammatical patterns (as suggested by Biber et al. 1998) extracted from a grammatically annotated corpus of Slovenian sermons, provides a fuller picture of crucial properties of genre

Mistranslations and Misinterpretations of Biblical Verses in English and Modern Greek Versions of the Holy Scriptures

This paper is part of a project dealing with the mistranslations and misinterpretations that are found in English and Modern Greek versions of the Holy Scriptures in comparison with the prototype Greek text (New Testament) and the Greek text of the Old Testament (Septuagint). In this paper only three examples (from the New Testament) will be given, representative of the numerous ones that exist in the examined English and Modern Greek translations

Friends are a Church

This subject is presented for consideration in view of the fact that a very general misunderstanding exists as to what Friends are from an organization view-point. This is because there is not a unity of thought among the various groups which use the name Friends, as to what we n.re and what we stand for. The situation is brought prominently into view through the fact that it has, in an unfortunate manner, been introduced in the public press; this has been to our confusion before the public generally. An outstanding instance (though not the first by any means) is of recent occurrence. An article appeared in the Liberty Magazine of October 30, 1943, under the heading, They Call Themselves Friends - And Mean It.https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/quakerbooks/1068/thumbnail.jp