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Metamorphoses of Religion and Spirituality in Central and Eastern Europe (Routledge Studies in Religion)
by Sławomir H. ZarębaThis book offers a range of contemporary sociological reflections on new manifestations of religion, religiosity, and spirituality in Central and Eastern Europe, a region that has seen significant social and political transformation. It explores the development of cultural and religious trends, including secularisation, new spiritualit,y and a resurgence of religiosity outside of traditional structures. The theoretical and empirical contributions by established and emerging scholars address topics including: the experiences and values of young people, the role and influence of media, the relationship between public and private religion, and the position of state and institutions. The book will be of particular interest to sociologists of religion and others focused on contemporary Central and Eastern European societies.
The Metamorphosis of Finitude: An Essay on Birth and Resurrection (Perspectives in Continental Philosophy)
by Emmanuel FalqueThis book starts off from a philosophical premise: nobody can be in the world unless they are born into the world. It examines this premise in the light of the theological belief that birth serves, or ought to serve, as a model for understanding what resurrection could signify for us today. After all, the modern Christian needs to find some way of understanding resurrection, and the dogma of the resurrection of the body is vacuous unless we can relate it philosophically to our own world of experience. Nicodemus first posed the question "How can anyone be born after having grown old?Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?" This book reads that problem in the context of contemporary philosophy (particularly the thought of Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, and Deleuze). A phenomenology of the body born "from below" is seen as a paradigm for a theology of spiritual rebirth, and for rebirth of the body from "on high." The Resurrection changes everything in Christianity—but it is also our own bodies that must be transformed in resurrection, as Christ is transfigured. And the way in which I hope to be resurrected bodily in God, in the future, depends upon the way in which I live bodily today.
Metanoia: Rhetoric, Authenticity, and the Transformation of the Self (G - Reference, Information And Interdisciplinary Subjects Ser.)
by Adam EllwangerWestern culture is in a moment when wholly new kinds of personal transformations are possible, but authentic transformation requires both personal testimony and public recognition. In this book, Adam Ellwanger takes a distinctly rhetorical approach to analyzing how the personal and the public relate to an individual’s transformation and develops a new vocabulary that enables a critical assessment of the concept of authenticity. The concept of metanoia is central to this project. Charting the history of metanoia from its original use in the classical tradition to its adoption by early Christians as a term for religious conversion, Ellwanger shows that metanoia involves a change within a person that results in a truer version of him- or herself—a change in character or ethos. He then applies this theory to our contemporary moment, finding that metanoia provides unique insight into modern forms of self-transformation. Drawing on ancient and medieval sources, including Thucydides, Plato, Paul the Apostle, and Augustine, as well as contemporary discourses of self-transformation, such as the public testimonies of Caitlyn Jenner and Rachel Dolezal, Ellwanger elucidates the role of language in signifying and authenticating identity. Timely and original, Ellwanger’s study formulates a transhistorical theory of personal transformation that will be of interest to scholars working in social theory, philosophy, rhetoric, and the history of Christianity.
Metanoia: Rhetoric, Authenticity, and the Transformation of the Self
by Adam EllwangerWestern culture is in a moment when wholly new kinds of personal transformations are possible, but authentic transformation requires both personal testimony and public recognition. In this book, Adam Ellwanger takes a distinctly rhetorical approach to analyzing how the personal and the public relate to an individual’s transformation and develops a new vocabulary that enables a critical assessment of the concept of authenticity. The concept of metanoia is central to this project. Charting the history of metanoia from its original use in the classical tradition to its adoption by early Christians as a term for religious conversion, Ellwanger shows that metanoia involves a change within a person that results in a truer version of him- or herself—a change in character or ethos. He then applies this theory to our contemporary moment, finding that metanoia provides unique insight into modern forms of self-transformation. Drawing on ancient and medieval sources, including Thucydides, Plato, Paul the Apostle, and Augustine, as well as contemporary discourses of self-transformation, such as the public testimonies of Caitlyn Jenner and Rachel Dolezal, Ellwanger elucidates the role of language in signifying and authenticating identity. Timely and original, Ellwanger’s study formulates a transhistorical theory of personal transformation that will be of interest to scholars working in social theory, philosophy, rhetoric, and the history of Christianity.
Metanoia: A Memoir of a Body, Born Again
by Anna McGahanPerhaps we have done to our bodies what we have so long done to God?We have demanded they conform to the image we find the most desirable.We have treated them as rubbish bins, weapons and punching bags.We have muted their wills until their voices have fallen silent.At 23, Anna McGahan was wrestling with the rest of the world for ownership of her femininity, sexuality and physicality. As a young actor thrust into the spotlight as a poster girl for sexual liberation – intent on exploring the next relationship, the lowest weight and the wildest high – her path pointed her to chaos, starvation and isolation.Until – unexpectedly – she met God.In this memoir, Anna shares the story of reconciling with her body, mapping its journey from another product in a marketplace, to a vessel of inherent power and worth.Metanoia is the cry of a body broken and resurrected, the song of a bird set free.
Metaphor and Imagination in Medieval Jewish Thought: Moses ibn Ezra, Judah Halevi, Moses Maimonides, and Shem Tov ibn Falaquera
by Dianna Lynn Roberts-ZaudererThis book reveals how Moses ibn Ezra, Judah Halevi, Moses Maimonides, and Shem Tov ibn Falaquera understood metaphor and imagination, and their role in the way human beings describe God. It demonstrates how these medieval Jewish thinkers engaged with Arabic-Aristotelian psychology, specifically with regard to imagination and its role in cognition. Dianna Lynn Roberts-Zauderer reconstructs the process by which metaphoric language is taken up by the imagination and the role of imagination in rational thought. If imagination is a necessary component of thinking, how is Maimonides’ idea of pure intellectual thought possible? An examination of select passages in the Guide, in both Judeo-Arabic and translation, shows how Maimonides’ attitude towards imagination develops, and how translations contribute to a bifurcation of reason and imagination that does not acknowledge the nuances of the original text. Finally, the author shows how Falaquera’s poetics forges a new direction for thinking about imagination.
Metaphor and Literalism in Buddhism: The Doctrinal History of Nirvana
by Soonil HwangSoonil Hwang studies the doctrinal development of nirvana in the Pali Nikaaya and subsequent tradition and compares it with the Chinese aagama and its traditional interpretation. He clarifies early doctrinal developments of Nirvana and traces the word and related terms back to their original metaphorical contexts, elucidating diverse interpretations and doctrinal and philosophical developments in the abhidharma exegeses and treatises of Southern and Northern Buddhist schools. The book finally examines which school, if any, kept the original meaning and reference of Nirvana.
Metaphor and Meaning: Thinking Through Early China with Sarah Allan (SUNY series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture)
by Constance A. Cook; Christopher J. Foster; Susan BladerIn Metaphor and Meaning, scholars from China, the United States, and Europe draw on Sarah Allan's groundbreaking application of conceptual metaphor theory to the study of early Chinese philosophy and material culture. Conceptual metaphor theory treats metaphors not just as linguistic expressions but as fundamental structures of thought that define one's conceptual system and perception of reality. To understand another culture's worldview, then, hinges upon identifying the right metaphors, through which it then becomes possible to navigate between shared and unshared experiences. The contributors pursue lines of argument that complement, enhance, or challenge Allan's prior investigations into these root metaphors of early Chinese philosophy, whether by explicitly engaging with conceptual metaphor theory or, more indirectly, by addressing meaning construction in a broader sense. Like Allan's interpretative works, Metaphor and Meaning interrogates both transmitted traditions and newly unearthed archaeological finds to understand how people in early China thought about the cosmos, society, and themselves.
Metaphor, Narrative, and Theology in the Synoptic Gospels: The Gospel in Parable
by John R. DonahueProfessor Donahue here argues that the parables of Jesus offer a Gospel in miniature, while at the same time giving shape, direction, and meaning to the Gospels in which they appear. To study the parables of the Gospels is to study the gospel in parable. After surveying recent discussions of parable, metaphor, and narrative, Donahue examines and interprets the parables of Mark, Matthew, and Luke as texts in the context of the theology of each of these Gospels. Finally, he outlines what The Gospel in Parable looks like and offers suggestions for the proclamation of parables today.
Metaphor, Ritual, and Order in John 12-13: Judas and the Prince (Routledge Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Biblical Criticism)
by Todd E. KlutzThis book offers new interpretative insight into the Gospel of John, applying a combination of critical discourse analysis, conceptual metaphor theory, and anthropological theories of ritual. Specifically it explores the meaning of the statement “Now the ruler of this world will be driven out” in John 12:31 and defends a widely overlooked alternative reading. The author proposes a prophecy-fulfilment scheme whereby this predictive utterance by Jesus’ is subsequently implied as fulfilled in the departure of the satanically-possessed Judas’ from the circle of Jesus’ disciples at the Last Supper in John 13:30. Addressing several major strands relating to purity, exorcism, and group identity, the analysis provides an important entry-point for a fresh examination of the Fourth Gospel as a whole. The book represents a significant contribution to Johannine scholarship and to New Testament studies and will be of interest to scholars of religion, theology and biblical studies.
The 'Metaphysica' of Avicenna: A critical translation-commentary and analysis of the fundamental arguments in Avicenna's 'Metaphysica' in the 'Dānish Nāma-i 'alā'ī' ('The Book of Scientific Knowledge') (Routledge Library Editions: Islamic Thought in the Middle Ages)
by Parviz MorewedgeIn this book, first published in 1973, Professor Parviz Morewedge, an expert on Islamic philosophy and mysticism, provides a critical exposition of one text of ibn Sina (Avicenna), the great Persian philosopher who lived from 980 to 1037. The text is his Metaphysica in the Danish Nama-I ‘ala’I (The Book of Scientific Knowledge). In addition to a translation of the text from Persian into English, this edition includes a critical commentary on the major arguments found in the text, and notes and references to other texts of ibn Sina as well as to relevant texts of Greek philosophers, particularly Aristotle, Plotinus and Proclus. There is also a glossary of the key terms used in the Metaphysica, with their Persian, Arabic, Greek and Latin equivalents where necessary. This book is concerned primarily to show that although in the text ibn Sina resorts to the Aristotelian vocabulary and Neo-Platonic themes, and appears to be in accord with the Islamic tradition, there is evidence that many doctrines expressed by him may be considered non-Greek and non-Islamic. These include his peculiar doctrine of Self (nafs) and the doctrine of the Necessary Existent (wajib al-wujud). The author attempts to clarify the extent to which salient features of ibn Sina’s position are in agreement with what may be regarded as Sufic doctrines.
Metaphysical Africa: Truth and Blackness in the Ansaru Allah Community (Africana Religions #4)
by Michael Muhammad KnightThe Ansaru Allah Community, also known as the Nubian Islamic Hebrews (AAC/NIH) and later the Nuwaubians, is a deeply significant and controversial African American Muslim movement. Founded in Brooklyn in the 1960s, it spread through the prolific production and dissemination of literature and lecture tapes and became famous for continuously reinventing its belief system. In this book, Michael Muhammad Knight studies the development of AAC/NIH discourse over a period of thirty years, tracing a surprising consistency behind a facade of serial reinvention.It is popularly believed that the AAC/NIH community abandoned Islam for Black Israelite religion, UFO religion, and Egyptosophy. However, Knight sees coherence in AAC/NIH media, explaining how, in reality, the community taught that the Prophet Muhammad was a Hebrew who adhered to Israelite law; Muhammad’s heavenly ascension took place on a spaceship; and Abraham enlisted the help of a pharaonic regime to genetically engineer pigs as food for white people. Against narratives that treat the AAC/NIH community as a postmodernist deconstruction of religious categories, Knight demonstrates that AAC/NIH discourse is most productively framed within a broader African American metaphysical history in which boundaries between traditions remain quite permeable.Unexpected and engrossing, Metaphysical Africa brings to light points of intersection between communities and traditions often regarded as separate and distinct. In doing so, it helps move the field of religious studies beyond conventional categories of "orthodoxy" and "heterodoxy," challenging assumptions that inform not only the study of this particular religious community but also the field at large.
Metaphysical Africa: Truth and Blackness in the Ansaru Allah Community (Africana Religions)
by Michael Muhammad KnightThe Ansaru Allah Community, also known as the Nubian Islamic Hebrews (AAC/NIH) and later the Nuwaubians, is a deeply significant and controversial African American Muslim movement. Founded in Brooklyn in the 1960s, it spread through the prolific production and dissemination of literature and lecture tapes and became famous for continuously reinventing its belief system. In this book, Michael Muhammad Knight studies the development of AAC/NIH discourse over a period of thirty years, tracing a surprising consistency behind a facade of serial reinvention.It is popularly believed that the AAC/NIH community abandoned Islam for Black Israelite religion, UFO religion, and Egyptosophy. However, Knight sees coherence in AAC/NIH media, explaining how, in reality, the community taught that the Prophet Muhammad was a Hebrew who adhered to Israelite law; Muhammad’s heavenly ascension took place on a spaceship; and Abraham enlisted the help of a pharaonic regime to genetically engineer pigs as food for white people. Against narratives that treat the AAC/NIH community as a postmodernist deconstruction of religious categories, Knight demonstrates that AAC/NIH discourse is most productively framed within a broader African American metaphysical history in which boundaries between traditions remain quite permeable.Unexpected and engrossing, Metaphysical Africa brings to light points of intersection between communities and traditions often regarded as separate and distinct. In doing so, it helps move the field of religious studies beyond conventional categories of “orthodoxy” and “heterodoxy,” challenging assumptions that inform not only the study of this particular religious community but also the field at large.
The Metaphysical Anthropology of Julián Marías (Palgrave Frontiers in Philosophy of Religion)
by Alberto OyaThis book provides a detailed account of Julián Marías’s metaphysical anthropology with the ultimate aim of offering a coherent and systematic analysis of Marías’s argumentation for claiming that the conscious hope for Christian salvation through resurrection — and with it the hope that Jesus Christ did actually resurrect, and more generally the hope that Christian revelation is true — is justified not because the certainty or the likelihood that this salvation will, as a matter of fact, actually occur, but because this hope amounts to a self-affirming exercise, a conscious endorsement of human reality, and as such a sign of authenticity.
Metaphysical Bible Dictionary
by Charles FillmoreThe Metaphysical Bible Dictionary was Charles Fillmore's crowning achievement. No where else will you find such thorough and complete compilation of the metaphysical aspects of the bible. More than 700 pages of insights, definitions, and expert analysis of the most important book ever written.
Metaphysical Bible Dictionary (Dover Empower Your Life Ser.)
by Charles FillmoreA notable product of the 19th-century New Thought revolution, Charles Fillmore's Unity movement combined esoteric and metaphysical principles with traditional Christian elements. This key to Fillmore's original form of religious expression, a core text of the Unity movement, interprets the hidden meanings of the Bible's myriad names, places, and events.
Metaphysical Healing
by Joel S. GoldsmithRare early pamphlet by the creator of the "Infinite Way". This is a guidebook to instruct those seeking inner peace and joy. Goldsmith instructs on how the mind can transcend its apparent limitations and become what it is intended to be, an instrument for the free flowing of the Spirit. This is a work for persons who are seeking a way to live the contemplative life in the midst of the world. Parenthetically, Goldsmith was one of Elvis' favorite authors.-Print ed.
Metaphysical Institutions: Islam and the Modern Project (SUNY series in Islam)
by Caner K. DagliIn Metaphysical Institutions, Caner K. Dagli explores the ultimate nature of the realities we call religions, cultures, civilizations, and traditions through the lens of a particular question often limited to religious studies, history, and anthropology, namely: "What is Islam?" The book is both a philosophical treatise about the nature of shared thinking that uses the encounter between the Modern Project and Islam as an illustrative example, and an exploration of the conceptualization of Islam in light of the metaphysics of consciousness and meaning.Dagli first develops a comprehensive theory of the institution and then expands its meaning to include a new category called "metaphysical institutions," with the goal of establishing both necessary and empirically variable features of all institutions, including those that deal with ultimate questions. The new model is then used to analyze questions of authority and autonomy, rationality and imitation, the universal and the particular, and other enduring questions.
The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas
by John F. WippelThis volume offers a presentation of Aquinas's metaphysical thought. It is based upon an examination of his texts organized according to the philosophical order as he himself described it, rather than according to the theological order.
The Metaphysical World of Isaac Newton: Alchemy, Prophecy, and the Search for Lost Knowledge
by John ChambersNewton’s heretical yet equation-incisive writings on theology, spirituality, alchemy, and prophecy, written in secret alongside his Principia Mathematica • Shows how Newton’s brilliance extended far beyond math and science into alchemy, spirituality, prophecy, and the search for lost continents such as Atlantis • Explains how he was seeking to rediscover the one true religion that existed prior to the Flood of Noah, when science and spirituality were one • Examines Newton’s alternate timeline of prehistory and his study of prophecy through the Book of Revelations, including his prediction of Apocalypse in the year 2060 Isaac Newton (1643-1727) is still regarded by the world as the greatest scientist who ever lived. He invented calculus, discovered the binomial theorem, explained the rainbow, built the first reflecting telescope, and explained the force of gravity. In his famous masterpiece, Principia Mathematica, he described the mechanics of the physical universe with unimagined precision, proving the cosmos was put together according to laws. The perfection of these laws implied a perfect legislator. To Newton, they were proof that God existed. At the same time Newton was writing Principia Mathematica, he was writing a twin volume that he might have called, had it been completed, Principia Theologia--Principles of Theology. This other masterpiece of Newton, kept secret because of the heresies it contained, consists of thousands of essays providing equation-incisive answers to the spiritual questions that have plagued mankind through the ages. Examining Newton’s secret writings, John Chambers shows how his brilliance extended into alchemy, spirituality, the search for lost continents such as Atlantis, and a quest to uncover the “corrupted texts” that were rife in the Bibles of his time. Although he was a devout Christian, Newton’s work on the Bible was focused not on restoring the original Jewish and Christian texts but on rediscovering the one true religion that existed prior to the Flood of Noah, when science and spirituality were one. The author shows that a single thread runs through Newton’s metaphysical explorations: He is attempting to chart the descent of man’s soul from perfection to the present day. The author also examines Newton’s alternate timeline of ancient history and his study of prophecy through the Book of Revelations, including his prediction of an Apocalypse in the year 2060 followed by a radically transformed world. He shows that Newton’s great hope was that these writings would provide a moral compass for humanity as it embarked upon the great enterprise that became our technological world.
Metaphysics: Constructing A World View (Contours of Christian Philosophy)
by William HaskerWhat is ultimately real? What is God like? Do human beings have minds and souls or only brains in bodies? Are humans free agents or are all human acts determined by prior circumstances? Through insightful analysis and careful evaluation, William Hasker helps readers answer these questions and thereby construct a world view to make sense of the universe and the people in it.
Metaphysics and God: Essays in Honor of Eleonore Stump (Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Religion)
by Kevin TimpeThis volume focuses on contemporary issues in the philosophy of religion through an engagement with Eleonore Stump’s seminal work in the field. Topics covered include: the metaphysics of the divine nature (e.g., divine simplicity and eternity); the nature of love and God’s relation to human happiness; and the issue of human agency (e.g., the nature of the human soul and hell).
The Metaphysics and Theology of the Eucharist: A Historical-Analytical Survey of the Problems of the Sacrament (Historical-Analytical Studies on Nature, Mind and Action #10)
by Gyula KlimaThis volume is about the most mind-boggling sacrament of the Christian faith, also referred to as the Sacrament of the Altar, the Eucharist: in its Roman Catholic interpretation, the conversion of the substance of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ for Holy Communion. The challenge of providing a rational interpretation of this doctrine of faith proved to be one of the most contentious issues in the Western history of ideas, apparently going against self-evident metaphysical principles (requiring accidents existing without a substance, and a body in several places at the same time, etc.), and dividing schools of thought, indeed, eventually, warring religious factions. The volume addresses both the metaphysical, theoretical issues involved in this challenge and the historical, theological developments of how meeting this challenge played out first in the schools and even later in religious schisms, leading to the paradigmatic shift from medieval to modern forms of thought. The essays of the volume derive from the lectures of an eponymous international conference held in Budapest, Hungary, which was also the occasion of founding the Society for the History of European Ideas (SEHI); accordingly, the book is the first volume of the annual Proceedings of the SEHI. This book is aimed just as much at laymen and religious scholars seeking a better understanding of their faith as at anyone seeking this understanding with a non-religious attitude.
Metaphysics and Transcendence (Routledge Studies in Religion)
by Arthur GibsonMetaphysics and Transcendence takes up this story for the future. Arthur Gibson presents a new metaphysics with a genealogy based on counter-intuition and locates counter-intuition and complexity at the foundations of truth. Having devised fresh concepts on the basis of the new frontiers of science and philosophy, the author presents original explanations of transcendence arguing that just as we need revolutionary and original ways of depicting the physical world, so it is with such topics as God, miracles, the resurrection, the source and identity of consciousness and reason itself.
Metaphysics as Christology: An Odyssey of the Self from Kant and Hegel to Steiner (Routledge New Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology and Biblical Studies)
by Jonael Schickler Fraser WattsIn Metaphysics as Christology, Jonael Schickler presents a major contribution to both philosophy and theology. First he examines the key philosophical problems with which Kant and Hegel grappled, and finds in the work of Rudolf Steiner the essence of a solution to them; he claims that Steiner returned to Hegel's philosophical problems but was better able to solve them. Schickler uses these philosophical debates about knowledge and truth to understand the significance of Christ. Building on the work of Hegel, Schickler argues that Christ has made possible the developments in human consciousness that restore humanity's relationship to the surrounding world. This is a bold and rigorous work that opens up new directions in both philosophy and theology. Fraser Watts contributes the Foreword and George Pattison an extensive Preface.