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The article "Priests of Creation: John Zizioulas on Discerning an Ecological Ethos" explores the intersection of theology and ecology through the work of John Zizioulas. Zizioulas argues for an Eastern perspective in theology to address the ecological crisis, critiquing Western anthropocentrism and proposing a more holistic approach to creation. He emphasizes the ontological value of creation, viewing humans as priests who mediate between the divine and creation. While Zizioulas presents compelling arguments, the article suggests that the West may have the resources to incorporate his insights into a broader theological framework. [Extracted from the article]

Copyright of Diacovensia is the property of Catholic Faculty of Theology, J. J. Strossmayer University of Osijek and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

As divergent as they seem to be, In God's Image; Marriage, Family and the Church; Restless Devices; and, Believing in Bits all have several overlapping themes that center on the embodied nature of the imago Dei. Each presents a set of questions that prompt consideration of how 'technology' influences, shapes, and informs our embodied practice of religion. In God's Image and Marriage, Family and the Church give us a broad vision of the human that helps situate and theologically engage the themes, concerns, and developing challenges in Restless Devices and Believing in Bits. The latter two gesture in the direction that aid us in thinking about the liturgical nature of what it means to be human. In God's Image offers a sampling of different proposals primarily from a Protestant perspective that open up questions for how one ought to unify the themes and teleological nature of the body. Through a brief interaction with all four works, I gesture toward Marriage, Family and the Church as providing A Boat with New Nets that might just help us to navigate our changing world of technological advancement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Richard Swinburne is a prominent defender of the soul, specifically a version rooted in the tradition of René Descartes. He argues that humans are composed of two distinct substances with different properties. Swinburne has written extensively on this topic, with two notable works being "The Evolution of the Soul" and "Mind, Brain, & Free Will." His latest book, "Are We Bodies or Souls?," further develops his argument and introduces the concept of informative designators. While the book is academic and dense, it offers valuable insights for religious and theological scholars interested in exploring the concept of the soul. [Extracted from the article]

"Sex, Tech & Faith: Ethics for a Digital Age" by Kate Ott is a thought-provoking exploration of the relationship between sexuality and technology. The author operates from a Western liberal democratic perspective, assuming that sexuality is good and technology is ethically neutral. The book raises important questions about the appropriate use of technology for sexuality and the impact of technology on our understanding of gender and sexual practice. While the book may not align with conservative or traditionalist views, it encourages readers to consider these perspectives and engage in thoughtful discussions about the topic. [Extracted from the article]

Purpose: To describe a novel metric to aid clinical decision making between shorter versus longer palliative radiotherapy (PRT) regimens using objective patient factors. Materials and Methods: Patients receiving PRT at a single institution between 2014 and 2018 were reviewed. The time between PRT start and finish was calculated and divided by overall survival (in days from start of PRT) to generate the percent of remaining life (PRL). This value was compared across various clinical factors using the Kruskal–Wallis test. Factors identified with a significance level p < 0.01 were included in a novel Palliative Appropriateness Criteria Score (PACS) and were included in an online risk assessment tool to assist clinicians in patient-specific fractionation decisions. Results: Totally 1027 courses of PRT were analyzed. Median age was 64 years; Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status was 3–4 in 22%. Primary malignancies included were lung (38%), breast (13.8%), prostate (9.3%), and other (39%). The indication for PRT was pain (61%), neurological (21%), or other (18%). Palliative regimens included 199 (19.4%) receiving single fraction, 176 (17.1%) receiving 2–5 fractions, and 652 (63.5%) receiving 10 fractions. Median follow-up was 83 days overall and 437 days for patients alive at last follow-up. Factors significantly associated with increased PRL (and included in the PACS) were male gender, ECOG 3–4, lung or "other" primary diagnosis (vs. breast or prostate), PRT indication (neurological dysfunction vs. pain/other), inpatient status, and extraosseous sites treatment. Death within 30 days was significantly associated with high-risk PACS categorization, regardless of fractionation scheme (p < 0.001). Conclusions: The PACS is a novel metric for evaluating the utility of PRT regimens to improve clinical decision making. Single fraction is associated with low PRL. When considering multifraction PRT regimens, the PACS identifies patients who may benefit from shorter courses of PRT and alternatively, low-risk patients for whom a more protracted course is reasonable. Prospective external validation is warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nature of familial identity is central to a growing number of theological works. The authors of the volumes here each represent a different set of issues, disciplines, and perspectives. The discussions, ironically, center around family. Made in the Image of God gives the readers a series of reflections on diverse theological topics oscillating around the image and identity. Forming Resilient Children is unlike Made in the Image of God in that it is not strictly speaking a theological reflection on diverse issues, but a work of developmental psychology focusing on the nature of the child and the familial context for the child. Married Priests in the Catholic Church offers the reader a series of ecclesial engagements on the topic of the vocation of priesthood as either married or celibate. Overlapping with the previous two volumes in content by touching on identity, the image of God, and the nature of creaturely relations to God, Married Priests is, in one sense, a sustained reflection on the meaning of familial and organic identity (as an image of God) to the Church. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: To describe intensity‐modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) with Gamma Knife Radiosurgery (GKRS) boost for locally advanced head and neck cancer (HNC) with disease near dose‐limiting structures. Methods: Patients with HNC treated with IMRT/GKRS as part of a combined modality approach between 2011 and 2021 were reviewed. Local control, overall survival and disease‐specific survival were estimated using the Kaplan Meier method. Results: Twenty patients were included. Nineteen patients had T3‐4 tumors. Median follow‐up was 26.3 months. GKRS site control was 95%. Two patients progressed at the treated primary site, one patient failed at the edge of the GKRS treatment volume, with no perineural or intracranial failure. 2‐year OS was 94.7% (95% CI: 85.2%–100%). Concurrent chemotherapy was given in nine patients (45%). One patient (5%) received induction/concurrent chemotherapy. Brain radionecrosis occurred in three patients, one of which was biopsy‐proven. Conclusions: IMRT plus GKRS boost results in excellent disease control near critical structures with minimal toxicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

When we wait for a significant other, it is not as if we are waiting for someone who looks like her, talks like her, or even walks like her. Instead, what we want is her. And, the same goes for the afterlife: if there is an afterlife, we long to see our loved ones. Not those who look like our loved ones, who sound like them, or even smell like them, but we actually want them. In the study of human nature, this is, arguably, one of the modern insights on humanity. The question of the "particularity" of human beings matters. In technical philosophical studies, the question of "particularity" is a question of thisness (i.e., the fact that objects are countable as discrete in virtue of some property or feature that makes an object what it is). What makes one person this person rather than that person? By showing how the concept of thisness is important in modern and contemporary theology, I will argue for a specific view as that which accurately captures both the historical consensus and the modern emphasis of personhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What may seem astonishing is the near dismissal of the beatific vision doctrine in the last 50+ years of biblical and theological scholarship in contrast to the emphasis given to it throughout church history. The state of theological scholarship is changing. In what follows, we set forth a short survey of a theology of the beatific vision, while also introducing the rest of the volume on the beatific vision and theosis, of which we take to have an intimate and overlapping relationship. The editorial article has four parts: it begins by (1) introducing some of the relevant biblical material on the vision, proceeding to (2) develop a theological interpretation of those passages, and then (3) offer a short historical survey of the doctrine, focusing on the relevant medieval and Reformed developments. It finally (4) introduces the articles of the issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Professor of Theology at Loyola University of Maryland, Frederick Bauerschmidt has given us a gift for soulful meditation. For Barth and Bauerschmidt, the task of the theologian, and the preacher (for both they are generally the same role) is to bring revelation to the world, which it so desperately needs. All in all, the present collection is an artful and poetic collection of sermons that deserve the Christian's time and reflection. [Extracted from the article]

Following on the heels of work done in particular by Justin Barrett and other cognitive scientists of religion, Kelly Clark does not so much advance the discussion, but he does make an appealing and readable case for the benefits found in cognitive science for religious studies. In this way, he offers the theologian and religious scholar unfamiliar with cognitive science an introduction, as it were, to the subject and its implications for a wide set of issues already thoughtfully developed in the literature. In I God and the Brain, i Clark gives an overview for how religiously inclined philosophers and theologians can use the resources in cognitive science within a reliabilist epistemology. [Extracted from the article]

Copyright of Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The doctrine of Christ’s atonement is a subject of recurrent interest to contemporary philosophical-theologians. The Penal Substitution theory of atonement, in particular, has precipitated a great deal of interest. In this article, we offer several reasons—reasons related to the nature of divine justice and somatic death—for thinking that a version of Anselm’s Satisfaction theory of atonement is not only a viable, but preferable, Protestant theory of atonement to penal substitution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scholastic character of theological education in New England during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries is reflected in part by a variety of surviving lists of theological questions. These lists--varying in content, length, and intent and most of them missing their corresponding answers--offer insight into the program of theological education in New England before and during its institutionalization, beginning with Andover Seminary (c. 1808).1 Representing the dissemination of New England theology, in 1882, Bibliotheca Sacra published 2 lists of questions entitled, "The Theological Questions of President Edwards, Senior, and Dr Edwards, His Son."2 The first list is ascribed to President Jonathan Edwards and consists of 90 questions, the order and nature of which resemble a concise systematic account of doctrine. The second list, ascribed to Dr Jonathan Edwards Jr., consists of a formidable 313 questions, some appropriated from his father's list, the bulk of which however, reflect later and distinct New Divinity sensibilities.3 These lists provide unique insight into the transmission of those theological sensibilities distinct to 'the single most brilliant and most continuous indigenous theological tradition that America has produced'. For all its brilliance, however, the collected works of most of Edwards' successors, including such well-known figures as Joseph Bellamy, Samuel Hopkins, Jonathan Edwards Jr., Nathaniel Emmons, as others, rank amongst the most ignored body of theological literature in the history of theology.5 However, in the most recent decade, interest in Edwards and his successors has gained some new ground, particularly with respect to the reception of Edwards' ideas, has accelerated.6 It is in the wake of this renewed momentum that we offer up the following biographical sketch of the Reverend Maltby Gelston (1766-1856), a little-known theologian in the New England tradition, whose hitherto private notebook, entitled, A Systematic Collection of Questions and Answers in Divinity provides insight into the development(s) of New England theology that compare in significance with such early seminal works as Joseph Bellamy's True Religion Delineated (1750) and Samuel Hopkins' System of Doctrines Contained in Divine Revelation (1793). There may be no other document that provides as thorough, as wonderfully concise and as accessible a summary of scores of philosophical and theological concerns of both President Edwards' and his son's intellectual tradition as this one.7 Following this biographical sketch of Gelston's life, as a means of previewing the value of Gelston's work for contemporary scholarship, we offer up for the first time a selection of Dr Edwards' 313 questions coupled with Gelston's answers. Gelston's significance to the New England theological tradition is certainly and inimitably bound up with the appearance of this manuscript. His place among the New England theologians is a point of some significance too. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The doctrine of the atonement is a subject of perpetual curiosity for a number of contemporary theologians. The penal substitution theory of atonement in particular has precipitated a great deal of recent interest, being held up by many (mostly evangelical) Protestants as 'the' doctrine of atonement. In this essay, we make a defense against the objection to the Anselmian theory of atonement that is often leveled against it by exponents of the Penal Substitution theory, namely, that Christ's work does not accomplish anything for those whom it appears he undertakes his atoning work, but merely makes provision for salvation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The beatific vision is a subject of considerable importance both in the Christian Scriptures and in the history of Christian dogmatics. In it, humans experience and see the perfect immaterial God, which represents the final end for the saints. However, this doctrine has received less attention in the contemporary theological literature, arguably, due in part to the growing trend toward materialism and the sole emphasis on bodily resurrection in Reformed eschatology. As a piece of retrieval by drawing from the Scriptures, Medieval Christianity, and Reformed Christianity, we motivate a case for the Reformed emphasis on the immaterial and intellectual aspects of human personal eschatology and offer some constructive thoughts on how to link it to the contemporary emphasis of the body. We draw a link between the soul and the body in the vision with the help of Christology as reflected in the theology of John Calvin, and, to a greater extent, the theology of both John Owen and Jonathan Edwards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses imago Dei characterizing person as simple, independent with souls capable of change. He is critical of the scripture's narration on human persons and investigated holistic empiricism or phenomenal conservatism with fundamental intuitions. He overviewed interface between God's special revelation and one's intuitions.

Copyright of Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Lynne Rudder Baker makes a significant contribution to theological anthropology by constructively drawing from her constitutional view of human persons (hereafter CV). In a recent article, “Persons and the Natural Order”, Baker defends CV and argues that it more satisfactorily accounts for the philosophical and theological desiderata. I am especially interested in the theological desiderata given by Baker, which at its core seems to depend upon personal agency. I argue that substance dualism offers a superior accounting for the psychology persons have of themselves as personal agents. In fact, Baker’s CV encounters a significant problem concerning the ability to pick out definite content regarding the ‘I’ that entails other problematic theological ramifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Currently, there remains an aversion for substance dualism in both philosophical and theological literature. However, there has been a renewed interest in substance dualism within philosophical literature. In the present article, I advance substance dualism as a viable position that persuasively accounts for the Scriptural and theological data within Christian thought. I make a specific argument in favor of a metaphysically simple substance. Along the way, I note the overlap between the philosophical and theological literature and suggest that a simple soul as substance is a metaphysical presupposition grounding the data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the debate over the theology of the soul's origin, there have traditionally been three broad views on origins. These include creationism, traducianism, and Origen's pre-existence view. In the recent philosophy of religion and mind literature, William Hasker posits an alternative view of origins called emergent substance dualism. As a contribution to this discussion, I put forward one novel option as a via media between simple creationism and Hasker's emergent substance dualism, wherein it has relevant overlapping features found in the two contrary positions. I suggest that this view is a variation of creationism like emergentism where the material part (i.e. the brain) has some positive causal role in the soul's coming to be as a discrete effect of one divine cause. I argue that emergent creationism (as I call it) is a viable option deserving the attention of philosophers and theologians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion of the soul has come under attack in contemporary philosophical, scientific, and theological literature. In this essay, the question is raised as to whether or not the soul has meaning and ought to be affirmed as a real metaphysical entity. I affirm that the soul is rooted in a common-sense framework reaching back through history, and is not only intuitive but is still commonly accepted. I put forth three arguments in favor of the soul-concept and argue that it is not only meaningful, but ought to be affirmed by persons. I see these arguments as inter-related and mutually affirming. First, I consider the argument from first-person knowledge. Second, I put forth a variation of the knowledge argument. Third, I put forth an argument from personal identity. All three arguments comprise a robust cumulative case argument wherein one can derive meaning and content concerning the soul-concept. I conclude that the soul-concept is meaningful and ought to be accepted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been an uptick in important works exploring the afterlife and the nature of death from theological, philosophical, and social perspectives. Several works come to mind, including I The Palgrave Handbook of the Afterlife i , I Heaven and Philosophy i , I The Oxford Handbook to Eschatology i , and I The Oxford Handbook to Death i to mention just three important analytic works. I The Philosophy of Death Reader i is an important contribution as a textbook for seminars on death and the afterlife. [Extracted from the article]