Epistemologies
Discerning Epistemic Worth for the Philosophical Theology of Aquinas in the Decolonial Academy
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Callum Scott
As the ideological constructor of the destruction of colonised peoples and knowledge, Western philosophy must bear its burden for complicity. Decoloniality is amid the discourses of critique contra Modernity and its denigration of the colonised. In the South African academy, for instance, much support has been validly rendered to decoloniality, consequently those employing “Western” frameworks - both philosophical and religious - should be challenged to constant re-evaluation. Here, the virtues and vices of decoloniality will not be considered. Rather a discernment will be undertaken of the “epistemic worth” of specifically mediaeval and Western philosophy/theology within the tradition of Saint Thomas Aquinas, amid societal calls for the decentring of Western epistemological dominance. The argument is proffered that Aquinas, as both pre-modern and pre-colonial, does have relevance to the decolonial society. The case is defended that Arabic philosophers importantly influence Aquinas’ work, thus, demonstrating his openness to non-Western thought. Furthermore, from an epistemological perspective, it is contended that Aquinas’ placing of the subject at the focal point of adequations to truth by credencing the situatedness of the perceiver, deconstructs Modern objectivity, which in itself has caused considerable damage to non-Western epistemologies. Aquinas’ epistemic relevance as a philosopher-theologian always centred upon God, it is argued, may contribute to a median between demonstrable science and the multi-layered context of the epistemic subject.
Back to the Future: Religious Thinking between Progress and Return
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Piotr Sawczynski
In my paper I would like to critically analyze the dispute between two prominent Jewish thinkers of the twentieth century – Leo Strauss and Gershom Scholem – over the religious meaning of progress and return. With reference to the messianic idea in Judaism, Strauss argued that the role of religious thinking is to “redeem” modern people of progress, bring them back to tradition and restitute the origins. Scholem accused Strauss of misreading Jewish messianism and accentuated its dialectical spin: the function of religion is neither restorative, nor progressive but restorative and progressive at the same time. In other words, the return in Judaism shall not be associated with restoration but with a utopian figure of “return to what has never been.” The aim of my paper is not only to reconstruct the debate (Strauss’s "Progress or Return?" and Scholem’s "Toward an Understanding of the Messianic Idea in Judaism" being of primary importance here) but also use it to deconstruct the apparent opposition of progress and return in the religious discourse.
Theological Elaboration of Missionary Catechesis from the Biblical Paul
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Mary Erika Bolanos
Theological Elaboration of Missionary Catechesis from the Biblical Paul Today mission Ad Gentes is pursued in a more complex and changing reality. John Paul II expanded and enriched the idea of mission and missionary activity by citing situations and circumstances to which mission is directed . Mission is also for those baptized but have lost a living sense of the faith or those who no longer consider themselves members of the Church and live a life far removed from Christ and his Gospel. Drawing inspiration from Acts 17:22-31, Redemptoris Missio describes St Paul in the Areopagus as an ancient metaphor for reaching out to this intermediate group. Paul had spoken without inhibition to a learned assembly in one of the great cultural centers of the ancient world. He proclaimed Christ to an audience that was intellectually and philosophically sophisticated – whose religious practices manifests a search for life’s meaning and so a special concern of the new age. And today it can be taken as a symbol of the new sectors in which the Gospel must be proclaimed. These situations clearly manifest an all-embracing point of missions as clearly seen in Paul’s missionary work of catechizing. It is the objective of the researcher to present the biblical Paul as model for the understanding and appreciation of Missionary Catechesis today.
Rupture and Continuity in Orthodox Christianity: The Construction of Religious Truth in Romanian Orthodox Christianity
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Eliza Lefter
The paper aims to discuss the topic of religious truthfulness within Orthodox Christianity. To understand the construction of Orthodox religious truth one needs to underline an ontological differentiation between politics of religious truth, as an indicator of religious continuity, and religious truthfulness, as an indicator for analysing rupture within the subjectivity formation. Much of the recent debates within Anthropology of Christianity concerned rupture vs. continuity. Rather than discussing the two from a dichotomy perspective, the paper will look at how a religious tradition associated by scholars with continuity, Orthodox Christianity, can offer ethnographic material to illustrate how both continuity and rupture (reflected in the theological term of “metanoia”) can coexist. The paper will present the case study of a Church congregation from a Romanian urban industrial landscape. Dealing with the diversity of religious commitment within a religious group, the paper will address how in post-socialist Romania, an Orthodox Christin becomes a particular type of Orthodox Christian, what are the prioritisation tools by which religious truths are claimed, forming different subjectivities within the same tradition. Within the ethnographic context, the believer harvests mystical experience, affects towards Saints and narratives of people with harisma, the historicity of martyrs of communism, and eschatological discourses. These elements are piled and folded into forming religious subjects in intimacy with the divine to create the sensation of truthfulness, determining rupture within the individual and transfer from one form of subjectivity to another, from “lukewarm Christian” towards a “true Christian.”
