Abstract
Few these days are concerned about Pandora, Prometheus, and Epimetheus; more are concerned with recent theological and religious thought. The issues are perennial, the historical forms these issues take vary, and as the year 2000 approaches, concern in some quarters will increase.
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References
On desire in Vedanta and Buddhist thought, see, for example, Ernest Wood, Vedanta Dictionary (New York: Philosophical Library, 1964), p. 58;
S. G. F. Brandon, A Dictionary of Comparative Religion (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1970), pp. 214–215;
Nyanatiloka, Buddhist Dictionary: Manual of Buddhist Terms and Doctrines, third rev. and enlarged edition, ed. Nyanaponika (Colombo, Ceylon [Sri Lanka]: Frewin and Co., 1972), p. 198, s.v. “Vipassana”;
Christmas Humphreys, A Popular Dictionary of Buddhism (London: Curzon Press, 1984) p. 64, s.v. “Desire.”
Wayne A. Davis, “The Two Senses of Desire,” Philosophical Studies 45 (March 1984): 181–96.
Harry G. Frankfurt, “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person”, Journal of Philosophy 68 (1971): 5–20.
Ignatius also proposes that each particular individual not antecedently fix his or her desires on what is admittedly a good but perhaps erroneously assumed to be an embodying part of the ultimate good appropriately hoped for by that individual. As long as we are not bound by some obligation and have a choice, “we should not fix our desires on health or sickness, wealth or poverty, success or failure, a long life or a short one. For everything has the potential of calling forth in us a deeper response to our life in God” (number 23, Fleming translation-paraphrase). Such fixation seems a way of understanding the “craving” denounced in Buddhism and Hinduism. See also E. Edward Kinerk, S.J., Eliciting Great Desires: Their Place in the Spirituality of the Society of Jesus, Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits 16, No. 4 (St. Louis, Mo.: American Assistancy Seminar, 1984).
William F. Lynch, S.J., Images of Faith: An Exploration of the Ironic Imagination (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1973), pp. 136–40.
Thomas Aquinas. “Hope,” Summa Theologiae II–II, 17–22 (Black friars, with New York:McGraw-Hill, and London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1966), s.v. Presumption, Q. 21, a. 1, ad primum.
John Macquarrie, Christian Hope (New York: Seabury Press, 1978), p. 87.
Collective and individual eschatology are respectively surveyed and summarized in Zachary Hayes, O.F.M., What Are They Saying About the End of the World? (New York: Paulist, 1983)
Monika K. Hellwig, What are They Saying About Death and Christian Hope? (New York: Paulist, 1978).
As quoted by Henri Desroche in his The Sociology of Hope, transl. Carol Martin-Sperry (London, Boston, and Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979), p. 38.
Karl Rahner, S. J., “The Theology of Hope,” Theology Digest Sesquicentennial [of St. Louis University] Issue (February 1968): 81–82. This essay is also “Zur Theologie der Hoffnung,” in his Zur Theologie der Zukunft (München: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1971).
John Hick, Philosophy of Religion, third edition (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1983): 103–105.
Paul Ricoeur, “Freedom in the Light of Hope,” in his The Conflict of Interpretations: Essays in Hermeneutics, ed. Don Ihde (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1974): 404.
Substantial bibliographic and analytical surveys can be found in and through William P. Frost, “A Decade of Hope Theology in North America,” Theological Studies 39, No. 1 (March 1978): 139–153. Writings of Ladislaus Boros, more personal in tone, and those of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, more cosmic and scientific, can complement Frost’s bibliographical surveys.
Individual hope is addressed by: Ladislaus Boros, We Are Future (New York: Herder and Herder, 1970;
New York: Doubleday, 1973;
orig. Wir Sind Zukunft, Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald-Verlag, 1969), and Living in Hope: Future Perspectives in Christian Thought (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1973, orig. Aus der Hoffnung leben, Olten and Freiburg im Breisgau: Walter-Verlag, 1968);
Joseph Owens, C.Ss. R., Human Destiny: Some Problems for Catholic Philosophy (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1985);
and Monika K. Hellwig, What are They Saying About Death and Christian Hope? In addition to those listed in Frost, the more social view is addressed by Zachary Hayes. See note 9 above.
Among these are, besides authors mentioned earlier, Vincent J. Genovesi, S.J., Expectant Creativity: The Action of Hope in Christian Ethics (Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1982);
Langdon Gilkey, Reaping the Whirlwind: A Christian Interpretation of History (New York: Seabury Press, A Crossroad Book, 1976);
and Philip J. Rossi, S.J., Together Toward Hope: A Journey to Moral Theology (Notre Dame and London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983).
Haight, Roger, S.J. “The Suppositions of Liberation Theology,” Thought, Vol. 58, No. 229 (June 1983): 158–169;
this essay is also the first chapter in his An Alternative Vision: An Interpretation of Liberation Theology (New York, and Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist, 1985), in which he takes the themes of liberation theology especially as found in Latin America and forms them into a general approach to theology that is transcultural, indeed, universal.
Frederick Crowe, S.J., “Complacency and Concern in the Thought of St. Thomas,” Theological Studies 20 (1959): 1–39, 198–230, 343–395. Crowe’s magisterial study includes comparisons with eros and agape in Nygren, as well as with the thought of existentialists. He also discusses whether Aquinas conceptually integrated these two kinds of love.
Berry puts it well: “The contention is that the way of mutuality is inapplicable to social and political structures since only one person can speak “Thou” to one other person. This objection, however, as natural as it may appear, rests upon a fundamental error. It confuses principle with procedures, confuses the idea of applying the concept of mutuality to the larger social situations with the manner or mode(s) of such an application. Reinhold Niebuhr’s influential view about the relation of religious understanding to social ethics was noted for its realistic analysis of the possibilities of human community in the light of a particular view of human nature that recognized continuing human sinfulness, especially in societies. For Niebuhr, when the philosophy of dialogue is extended to organized groups or nations, it becomes Utopian romanticism… Now there is no question that it is much easier to see the relevance of the way of mutuality to the sphere of the interhuman when only two individuals are involved, than to any other sphere. But there is no necessary contradiction in making such a move. Just as there are ‘degrees’ of mutuality, real if not full, that are possible in the sphere of nature, so there are ‘degrees’ of mutuality, real if not full, that are possible when groups of human beings move toward each other. These possibilities are diminished when that encounter is prefaced or its future prejudged by a theology of original sin (Niebuhr) or by bondage to a prior history of distrust, suspicion, and animosity. “The communal realm, the realm of the polis, the coming-to-be-of community, is precisely the realm in which the renewal of human life is to occur for Buber.” Berry, 92–93.
Macquarrie, Christian Hope, 111.
Macquarrie, 112.
Macquarrie, 117.
Macquarrie, 118.
Macquarrie, 118.
Macquarrie, 120–121.
Macquarrie, 120.
Macquarrie, 120.
Berry, “The Helper,” Chapter 2 of Mutuality: The Vision of Martin Buber, 39–68.
I and Thou, Kaufmann translation (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1970), 59.
Divination is episterne elpistike in Aristotle’s De Memoria. Memory, sensation, and hope are reviewed in Gauthier, René Antoine, O.P., and Jolif, Jean Yves, O.P. L’Éthique à Nicomaque: introduction, traduction, et commentaire, 2ème edition, (Louvain: Publications Universitaires de Louvain, and Paris: Éditions Béatrice-Nauwelaerts: 1959; 2ème edition 1970), p. 233.
Hans Küng, Does God Exist? An Answer for Today (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, 1980; orig. Existiert Gott?, München: R. Piper & Co. Verlag, 1978).
Küng, 445.
Küng, 445–6.
Küng, 451.
J. L. Mackie, The Miracle of Theism: Arguments For and Against the Existence of God (Oxford: Clarendon, 1982), 250–51.
Donald Evans, Struggle and Fulfillment: The Inner Dynamics of Religion and Morality (Cleveland: Collins, 1979; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981), 180. His Faith, Authenticity, and Morality (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980) has other major treatments of both attitudes implying beliefs and attitudes enabling discernment; see pp. 67–72, 238–40, and 253–263.
Berry, p. 64, here drawing on Smith’s translation of I and Thou, p. 34.
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© 1987 Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Dordrecht
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Godfrey, J.J. (1987). Epilogue on Some Religious and Theological Thought. In: Godfrey, J.J. (eds) A Philosophy of Human Hope. Studies in Philosophy and Religion, vol 9. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3499-3_21
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