Online Lightning Talks
The Origins and the Struggles of Catholic Ecotheology
Online Lightning Talk Renan dos Santos
In order to find a place in public discussions about the environment, usually dominated by bureaucrats and technical agents submitted to national governments, Catholic Church leaders have been formulating their own environmentalist religious ethics (or Ecotheology) since the papacy of Paul VI. Starting in 1970, this Catholic Ecotheology was based on the connection between the physical aspects of the environmental crisis and the diagnosis of a worldwide moral degradation. The “corruption” of nature, in this perspective, is happening not only “outside” but also “inside” the human being. Based on different diagnoses and meanings, this Catholic Ecotheology ends up colliding, in many aspects, with traditional postulates and concepts of secular environmentalist movements. This paper aims to map the formation of this ecological vision following the trail of the Catholic official nucleus, that is, the pontifical discourses and discussions, analyzing sociologically its points of tension with other environmentalist conceptions.
Eschatology and Eco-theology: How our View of the End Impacts our View of the Present
Online Lightning Talk Eric Snader
Our view of the endpoint of history greatly affects how we view our present context in the created world. In my Master's Level Thesis, I explore how, through the lens of eschatology, not only do we gain a broader view of creation and its integral place in the beloved community, but we also gain deep insights on how to best practice creation care. In this paper, I explore eschatology, eco-theology, and practical steps that we can all take in aiding and supporting fellow community members in the created world.
The Concept of Body in the Psycology of Evagrius Ponticus
Online Lightning Talk Maksim Prikhodko
The report is considered the teaching of Evagrius of Pontius (345 - 399) on the main principles of cognition, “from things” and “from God”, which are carried out by Evagrius in close relation with human psychology. The empirical optimism of the concept of Evagrius is emphasized as specific development of the doctrine of the soul of Aristotle regarding its key points: the concept of the soul as the entelechy of the organic body, the theory of mental operations, etc. The anagogical potential of sensory cognition, according to the teachings of Evagrius, and the specificity of this approach in the general framework of the Christian worldview is revealed. An attempt is made to connect the empirical and spiritualistic lines of Evagrius’s epistemology, based on the problem of the correlation of the active and the passive mind, posed by Aristotle in the third book of the treatise “On the Soul”. As a result, a conclusion is drawn about the special dialectic relationship of mind and matter in the psychology of Evagrius.
