Uniqueness and the Image of God: A Theological and Philosophical Justification of the Value of Diversity

In Christian education, cultural diversity is valued. But what is the theological basis for that value? While our commonality as human persons is rooted in the image of God, what about the diversity of human beings and the cultural diversity flowing from it? This essays argues that although the image of God is common to us all, there is an account of the image of God that provides for uniqueness as well and that individual uniqueness is at the core of human being as we participate in our cultural forms of life

Transparency and Ontology of Love (Chapter 14 of To Know as I Am Known: The Communion of the Saints and the Ontology of Love)

Excerpt: In his book The Path of Perfect Love, Diogenes Allen suggests that it is because of our inability to perceive the reality of other people and things that we don’t grasp what brings out the fundamental feature of love, viz. the recognition or perception of things beside one’s self. The reader may recall that both Badhwar and Royce made reference, the latter extensively, to the importance of recognizing the reality of the other person if one is to love. Allen focuses deeply on this theme. I will briefly present Allen’s position in section I and turn to a sermon given by Meister Eckhart in section II. These reflections allow us to pursue, in section III, the notion of transparency. Section IV summarizes the various things we have learned along the way, putting them into the broader context of transparency. Section V proposes an account of the human individual that links the individual through transparency to the community. Providing an ontology of the heavenly individual in turn provides for the ontology of love for, as it turns out, love is an enduring component of the individual properly understood

Can Belief in God Be Confirmed?

A basic thrust behind Alvin Plantinga\u27s position that belief in God is properly basic is an analogy between certain non-religious (and presumably justified) beliefs such as \u27 I see a tree\u27 and theistic beliefs such as \u27God made this flower\u27.1 Each kind of belief is justified for a believer, argues Plantinga, when she finds herself in a certain set of conditions. Richard Grigg challenges this claim by arguing that while the non-religious beliefs are confirmed, beliefs about God are not. I wish to explore this challenge, clarify it and suggest that on one understanding it is irrelevant and on another it is false