He revived a rationalist
conception of human nature in which the mind is richly endowed with creative powers at a time when behaviorism ruled and «innate» was a dirty word.
We are today urged to embrace an abstract
conception of human nature that ignores the reality of our bodies.
The only relevant question for the theologian is the basic assumption on which the adoption of a biological as of every other Weltanschauung rests, and that assumption is the view of the world which has been molded by modern science and the modern
conception of human nature as a self - subsistent unity immune from the interference of supernatural powers.
But to recognize that precursor would have posed an awkward question for Walzer: Are the liberationist project's flaws merely a matter of means and attitude, or are they also rooted in
its conception of human nature, its principles, and its goals?
Brunner's commitment to the doctrine that agape can exist only in the relationship of «I and Thou» in which all impersonal elements are eliminated is based upon an erroneous
conception of human nature.
To engage in such formalistic rhetoric is to ignore the substantive
conception of human nature (and of a natural moral law) that informed the political thought of both Federalists and anti-Federalists.
In one of his last writings, Niebuhr describes «the guiding principle» of his mature life in relating religious responsibility to political affairs, as a «strong conviction that a realist
conception of human nature should not be made into a bastion of conservatism, particularly a conservatism which defends unjust privileges» (Man «s Nature and His Communities [Scribners, 1965], pp. 24 - 25).
The particular mechanisms employed depend on circumstances of history, geography, and culture, and decisions about them can be made responsibly only by taking account of man's acquisitive propensities, his need for rational order, his longing for freedom, and his sense of justice — in short, by relying on an integral rather than a truncated
conception of human nature.
«The eighteenth - century moral philosophers... inherited a set of moral injunctions on the one hand and
a conception of human nature on the other which had been expressly designed to be discrepant with each other....
One's relations to others also imply characteristic
conceptions of human nature, whether or not they are consciously formulated.
Traditional theological
conceptions of human nature were turned inside out: each self was a «portal of the divine,» a natural repository of inborn qualities, capacities, and talents, not least of which was a disposition toward good will, kindheartedness, fair play, and so on.
Human communities are only as healthy as
our conceptions of human nature.
Not exact matches
Yet, thinkers from Edmund Burke to Russell Kirk have shown the deeply anti-conservative bases
of the social contract theory
of Lockean (and Hobbesian) origin, one that is premised upon a
conception of human beings as naturally «free and independent,» as autonomous individuals who are thought to exist by
nature detached from a web
of relationships that include family, community, Church, region, and so on.
Unfortunately,
humans seem to forget this fact when we find ourselves turning to
nature to guide us through difficult choices, such as arguments about whether life begins at
conception, or over the proper structure
of the family.
The Catholic Church, to take one prominent institution devoted to the defense
of human life from
conception until natural death, makes no «theological» argument about the
nature of the life in the womb.
One can see recent standoffs in Geneva on so - called traditional values resolutions as manifestations
of a conflict between two rival
conceptions of human dignity: one, supported by most Western advocates, that focuses on individual autonomy; and the other, proposed by voices from the global East and South, that focuses on traditional understandings
of human nature.
However, there is nothing in Camus» writings that speaks against a
conception of God that could account for the hierarchy
of value in
nature and also insure the freedom and value
of human existence.
Rather than yielding to relativistic morality, Newman's
conception of real assent fortifies objective standards while embracing
human nature.
For, as Caldecott highlights, the Catholic tendency, from Thomas Aquinas through to the contemporary Catechism (one might also add St Augustine and the 14th - century papal Encyclical Benedictus Deus) has been to emphasise that the
human soul is not physical, but rather spiritual, in the image
of God's divine
nature, and directly created at
conception.
The mission
conception of the
human situation — the
nature of sin, free will, and responsibility — as it relates to alcoholism is philosophically and psychologically inadequate.
Human society is the natural outgrowth and expression of human nature which, like all created natures, is set within the Unity Law of Control and Direction, which is his new name for and conception of the Natural
Human society is the natural outgrowth and expression
of human nature which, like all created natures, is set within the Unity Law of Control and Direction, which is his new name for and conception of the Natural
human nature which, like all created
natures, is set within the Unity Law
of Control and Direction, which is his new name for and
conception of the Natural Law.
When, for example, at first in the 19th century down to Pius XII the Church adopted a very reserved attitude to any inclusion
of the
human bios in the idea
of evolution, that was motivated, and rightly so, by a fundamental
conception of the
nature of man which for good reasons required to be defended.
Other statements, notably various declarations issued from 1969 to 1989 by the National Conference
of Catholic Bishops in the U.S. and a 1984 statement by the Chinese Catholic bishops, appeal instead to the
nature of the
human person and the idea that life begins at
conception.
Rather, liberalism is constituted by a pair
of deeper anthropological assumptions that give liberal institutions a particular orientation and cast: 1) anthropological individualism and the voluntarist
conception of choice, and 2)
human separation from and opposition to
nature.
Its two revolutions — its anthropological individualism and the voluntarist
conception of choice, and its insistence on the
human separation from and opposition to
nature — created its distinctive and new understanding
of liberty as the most extensive possible expansion
of the
human sphere
of autonomous activity in the service
of the fulfillment
of the self.
In The Spirit and the Forms
of Love Williams analyzes the meaning
of love and indicates what this implies about the
nature of God.104 The classical conviction that the immutable is the superior is shown to devalue
human love and to conflict with the biblical
conception of God's love.
The thesis
of this lecture is that the
nature and role
of relationships determine both the level
of human fulfillment that is possible and the
conception of power that is to be practiced.
The key to Tanner's Christology is Incarnation, understood not simply as an event that takes place at Jesus»
conception but as the permeation
of the
human nature assumed by the Word» a permeation completed only in the Resurrection and Ascension.
Given His onto - logical primacy, in his uncreated Personality and his created body and soul, it would be il - logical, in the deepest sense
of the term (i.e. contrary to the Logos), if the
conception of the Creator's
human nature were subject to that creaturely power
of co-creation by which new creatures are brought into being, for this is a fundamental aspect
of human procreation.
Put differently, the materialist neo-Darwinian
conception of nature is almost certainly false and those who hew to its reductivist tenets would strip us
of what makes us
human.
Such a «social constructionist»
conception of science might seem as menacing to Hawking as it would to Wordsworth, both
of whom need to believe that, whatever ontological affinities must be conceded, the distinction between daffodils and stinkweeds is grounded not only in the
human intuition about the world but in the
nature of things.
For if God is to share
human nature with the whole
human race through the Incarnation, there need to be other
human beings sharing this
nature by virtue
of their inheritance
of it through
conception of a woman.
Again, in Romans 8:9 - 22, Paul seems to echo the Stoic views
of the aging
of the world, as well as the Jewish apocalyptic
conception of its subjugation by evil powers responsible for
human sin and the disruption
of nature.
To the extent that traditional
conceptions of morality require a recognition
of some salutary dependence upon
nature, or
of insuperable limitations on
human self - transformation, science must be understood as an outright rejection
of them.
In the period
of the Protestant Reformation Luther and Calvin reaffirmed Augustinian
conceptions of God and
human nature and the utter dependence
of human beings on the Grace
of God.
If therefore the student in our laws hath formed both his sentiments and style, by perusal and imitation
of the purest classical writers, among whom the historians and orators will best deserve his regard; if he can reason with precision, and separate argument from fallacy, by the clear simple rules
of pure unsophisticated logic; if he can fix his attention, and steadily pursue truth through any the most intricate deduction, by the use
of mathematical demonstrations; if he has enlarged his
conceptions of nature and art, by a view
of the several branches
of genuine, experimental, philosophy; if he has impressed on his mind the sound maxims
of the law
of nature, the best and most authentic foundation
of human laws; if, lastly, he has contemplated those maxims reduced to a practical system in the laws
of imperial Rome; if he has done this, or any part
of it, (though all may be easily done under as able instructors as ever graced any feats
of learning) a student thus qualified may enter upon the study
of the law with incredible advantage and reputation.
Her opinion relied heavily on the statistics
of the pervasive
nature of sexual assaults, demonstrating the highly gendered
nature of the offence, and emphasized how violence against women was itself a
conception of human rights protected by ss.