“Meditation on a Page”: Address to New Members of Phi Beta Kappa (Theta of Minnesota), May 1, 2012

The liberal arts, just like the disciplines of awareness and meditation, are a vital pathway to the boundless nature of reality. It is appropriate for us to take out a few moments to think about what ‘liberal arts’ means — not in terms of curriculum and distribution requirements, but in terms of the vision of the human person it wishes to promote

The philosophy of Michael Polanyi: from the discoveries of science to the contemplation of God

Human uniqueness revolves around our knowing. All knowing is tacit (Michael Polanyi) and leads to indwelling of mind in reality, as of reality in mind. This is why we always know more than we can tell, which corresponds with another old adage, the whole is more than the sum of the parts. This presentation will try to show that the vast spectrum of knowing is continuous, running from discoveries of the inanimate world, through biology and the humanities and arts, and even to the face of God

Mismeasuring Humanity: Dangers of The Contemporary Orthodoxy

The various unjust discriminations (racism, sexism, xenophobia, etc.) that plague society are tied to the larger question of how human lives and minds are regarded in society as a whole. Humans have always had a problem of mismeasuring the “other,” but this problem is compounded by promotion, from powerful voices, of the view that humans are just so much physics and chemistry, that the mind is the brain, and that humans are deluded about the power of consciousness and freedom. Daniel Dennett refers to the latter as “the contemporary orthodoxy,” as though it is the view of humanity that all educated people should take for granted (many do). On the other hand, there has been something of a growing flood of protests against this “orthodoxy,” and it is by no means coming only from theologians. This article will review some studies that protest what they see as the mismeasuring of humanity, and will aim to show that such re-evaluation is essential as an aspect of the battle not only against racism and sexism, but also for our amazing capacities for love, justice, and peace

The Gospel and the Law in Galatia: Paul\u27s Response to Jewish-Christian Separatism and the Threat of Galatian Apostasy

From the Inside Flap Among Paul\u27s letters, Galatians is outstanding for the depths of its emotion, for its unrelenting attack on the law of Israel (while appealing to that law as the sacred witness of the Gospel\u27s truth) and for the historical information it provides about Paul\u27s conversion, his opponents and his relationship with the pillar apostles. It offers a penetrating view into some of early Christianity\u27s important personalities and difficult controversies. In The Gospel and the Law in Galatia, Vincent Smiles delves into the Galatian situation to understand it from Paul\u27s perspective. Why was he being attacked? Why were the Galatians being persuaded by his opponents? What part, if any, did the leading apostles have in the controversy? And, above all, how could Paul persuade the Galatians that they were not bound by the dictates of Jewish law? Smiles examines these questions by detailed analysis of the text of the letter. After an initial chapter introducing the method and debate with some modern scholarship, chapter two examines Paul\u27s response to the attack on his apostolate. Chapter three tackles the issue of the other gospel which Paul combatted in Galatia and which had also made its presence felt in Jerusalem and Antioch. Chapter four is a detailed examination of Galatians 2:15-21 in light of recent scholarship. The final chapter summarizes the major insights of the study and applies them in a comparison of Galatians with Romans. The Gospel and the Law in Galatia is for a scholarly as well as a professional audience and for those with an interest in the earliest history of the Church. Most of the finer points of scholarly debate are confined to the footnotes; the major line of argument can be followed in the text without recourse to the notes. Chapters are Introduction, Paul\u27s Defense of His Apostolate, The Gospel Versus the Other Gospel in Galatia, Jerusalem and Antioch, Paul\u27s Response to Jewish Christian Separatism and the Threat of Galatian Apostasy, and Summation and Further Issues. Students and scholars alike will find much to discover by revisiting the epistle under tutelage. Stephen Westerholm Chair Department of Religious Studies McMaster University Dr. Smiles combines an expository style of unusual clarity and elegance with penetrating exegetical insight into the circumstance and argument of the Galatian letter. . . . His work will be a beacon for future Pauline and Galatians scholarship. Richard J. Dillon, S.S.D. Ordinary Professor of Theology Fordham Universityhttps://digitalcommons.csbsju.edu/theology_books/1020/thumbnail.jp

Letter from a Birmingham Jail

Focus will be on why MLK wrote the letter in his time, and why it remains relevant for understanding racism and the needs of the marginalized in our time

The Blessing of Israel and “the Curse of the Law” : A Study of Galatians 3:10-14

By the time he wrote Galatians, Paul was convinced that conservative Jewish-Christians were not the primary problem in the difficult debate they occasioned by their opposition to his gospel; the main problem was the Law itself and its power to require obedience to its own prescriptions. In Galatians, therefore, he turned his attack on the Law, portraying it as a “curse” on both Jews and Gentiles, the obedient and the disobedient. Paul’s critique of the Law has convinced some that Paul rejected the Jewish covenant, but the letters do not sustain that view. Paul separated the Law from the covenant, and though he abrogated the former, he never abandoned the ongoing value of the latter for both Gentiles and Jews

The search for truth as a response to naturalism: are science and theology joined at the hip?

Naturalism is the claim that the natural sciences alone produce genuine knowledge or, at the very least, the only knowledge worth having. This notion pervades much of modern thinking and marginalizes religious experience, theology and much of philosophy. What responses can be made that both honor the achievements of modern science and respect the type of knowledge claimed by religion and theology? This session will briefly examine the claims of the naturalists (e.g. Richard Dawkins, Loyal Rue) and the responses of philosophers and theologians (e.g. A. N. Whitehead, John Haught), and invite discussion on the significance of human consciousness and its interminable search for truth