Dialogo 2.1 (2015)

Proceedings of the Conferences on the Dialogue between Science and Theology

DIA LOGO Volume 2 - Issue 1 - November 2015

„See

the unseen”

www.dialogo-conf.com

DIALOGO Proceedings of the annual Conferences on the Dialogue between Science and Theology

Journal of RCDST (Research Center on the Dialogue between Science & Theology), Ovidius University of Constanta, Romania

Journal indexed in international Databases

DIALOGO CONF 2015 volume 2 - issue 1 : The 2nd Virtual International Conference on the Dialogue between Science and Theology.

Organized by the RCDST - Romania in collaboration with other Institutions from Slovakia - Pakistan - Switzerland - Poland India - Egypt - Uganda - Jordan - Turkey Argentina - USA - Canada - Germany held from 5 to 11 November, 2015

at

www.dialogo-conf.com

The ideas and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of RCDST. The designations employed and the presentation of material throughout the publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of RCDST concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning its frontiers or boundaries.

Disclaimer: All abstracts and titles of presentations were only formatted into the correct font, size and paragraph style and texts were not language and grammatical edited. The abstracts were reprinted as submitted by their authors.

The editors accept no responsibility for any language, grammar or spelling mistake.

The authors of individual papers are responsible for technical, content and linguistic correctness.

Publication Series: Description: ISSN (CD-ROM): ISSN (ONLINE): ISSN (PRINT): ISSN-L: Editors:

DIALOGO (Proceedings of the Conferences on the Dialogue between Science and Theology) 2392 – 9928 2393 – 1744 2457 – 9297 2392 – 9928 Fr. lecturer Cosmin Tudor CIOCAN, PhD (Romania) and Ing. Stefan BADURA, Ph.D. (Slovak Republic)

Series Publisher: RCDST (Research Center on the Dialogue between Science & Theology), from Ovidius Univesity of Constanta. Romania 2nd Volum Title: The 2ndVirtual International Conference on the Dialogue between Science and Theology. subtitle: ISBN: DOI: Published by: (DOI issuer) Pages: Printed on: Year of publication:

Dialogo Conf 2015 978-80-554-1131-6 10.18638/dialogo.2015.2.1 EDIS - Publishing Institution of the University of Zilina

Univerzitna 1; 01026 Zilina - Slovak Republic 326 100 copies 2015

*All published papers underwent blind peer review. *All published papers are in English language only. Each paper was assigned to 3 reviewers and went through two-level approval process.

Open Access Online archive is available at: http://www.dialogo-conf.com/archive (proceedings will be available online one month after the publication release).

In case of any questions, notes or complaints, please contact us at: info(at)dialogo-conf. com.

Warning: Copyright © 2014, RCDST (Research Center on the Dialogue between Science & Theology), Romania.

All rights reserved. Reproduction or publication of this material, even partial, is allowed only with the editor’s permission. Unauthorized duplication is a violation of applicable laws.

DIALOGO

2 (2015)

Proceedings of the Conferences on the Dialogue between Science and Theology November, 5 - 11 2015

CONFERENCES & JOURNAL

Conference Sponsors and Parteners

Ovidius University of Constanta (UOC/Romania) www.univ-ovidius.ro

University of the Punjab (Lahore) www.pu.edu.pk

The Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi (UAIC/Romania) www.uaic.ro

“Vasile Goldis” Western University of Arad (UVVG/Romania) www.uvvg.ro/

The Institute for the Study of Christianity in an Age of Science and Tech- Horizon Research Publishing, HRPUB - USA nology (ISCAST/Australia) http://www.hrpub.org/ www.iscast.org

Research and Science Today www.lsucb.ro/rst

Research Center on the Dialogue between Science & Theology www.rcdst.ro

www.The-Science.com (Slovakia)

Maritime University of Constanta “Mircea cel Batran” Naval (UMC/Romania) Academy (ANMB/Romania) www.cmu-edu.eu www.anmb.ro

Global Ethics (Geneva/Switzerland) www.globethics.net

Faculty of Educational Sciences (WNP) Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, Poland www.pedagogika.umk.pl

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Action-research in Contemporary Culture and Education – Practice & Theory (ACCEPT/Poland) www.accept.umk.pl

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Centre for Research and social, psychological and pedagogical evaluation (CCEPPS/Romania) ccepps.univ-ovidius.ro

The 2nd Virtual International Conference on the Dialogue between Science and Theology

http://dialogo-conf.com

DIALOGO

2 (2015)

Proceedings of the Conferences on the Dialogue between Science and Theology November, 5 - 11 2015

CONFERENCES & JOURNAL

Conference Sponsors and Parteners

Faculty of Theology in UOC, Romania teologie.univ-ovidius.ro/

Faculty of Orthodox Theology in UAIC, Romania www.teologie.uaic.ro

Faculty of Medicine in UOC, Romania www.medcon.ro

Faculty of Theology in UAB, Romania www.fto.ro

Faculty of Psychology and Sciences of Education in UAIC, Romania www.psih.uaic.ro

Faculty of Psychology and Sciences of Education in UOC, Romania pse.univ-ovidius.ro

Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering in UOC, Romania fcetp.univ-ovidius.ro

Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences in UAIC, Romania snsa.univ-ovidius.ro

Centre of Inter - Religious Research and Christian Psychopedagogy Alba Iulia - Saint Serge (CCIRPC)

Second Volume published by

EDIS Publishing Institution of the University of Zilina Univerzitna 1 01026 Zilina Slovak Republic

RCDST Research Center on the Dialogue between Science & Theology Ovidius University of Constanta Romania

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doi: 10.18638/dialogo.2015.2.1

DIALOGO

2 (2015)

Proceedings of the Conferences on the Dialogue between Science and Theology November, 5 - 11 2015

CONFERENCES & JOURNAL

International Scientific Committee, Reviewers and Contributers Christoph STUECKELBERGER Globethics.net Executive Director and Founder; Prof. PhD. (Switzerland)

Ahmed USMAN University of the Punjab (Pakistan)

Maria Isabel Maldonado GARCIA Directorate External Linkages/Institute of Language University of the Punjab; Head of Spanish Dpt. / Assistant Professor (Pakistan)

Mihai Valentin VLADIMIRESCU Faculty of Orthodox Theology, University of Craiova; Professor PhD. (Romania)

Dagna DEJNA NCU Faculty of Educational Sciences (Poland) Lucian TURCESCU Department of Theological Studies - Concordia University; Professor and Chair (Canada) Francesco FIORENTINO Dipartimento di Filosofia, Letteratura e Scienze Sociali; Universita degli Studi di Bari «Aldo Moro»; Researcher in Storia della Filosofia (Italy)

Mohammad Ayaz AHMAD University of Tabuk; Assistant Professor PhD (Saudi Arabia) IPS Teodosie PETRESCU Archbichop of Tomis disctrict; Faculty of Orthodox Theology; “Ovidius” University of Constanta; Prof.

PhD. (Romania) Edward Ioan MUNTEAN Faculty of Food Sciences and Technology - University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, Cluj–Napoca; Assoc. Professor PhD. (Romania)

Filip NALASKOWSKI Faculty of Educational Sciences - Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun; Dr. (Poland) Panagiotis STEFANIDES Emeritus Honoured Member of the Technical Chamber of Greece HELLENIC AEROSPACE IND. S.A. - Lead engineer; MSc Eur Ing (Greece) Wade Clark ROOF J.F. Rowny Professor of Religion and Society; Emeritus and Research Professor Walter H. Capps Center for the Study of Ethics, Religion, and Public Life; Director Department of Religious Studies - University of California at Santa Barbara (United States of America) Cristiana OPREA European Physical Society; member Joint Institute for Nuclear Research - Frank Laboratory of Neutron Physics; Scientific Project Leader (Russia) Gheorghe ISTODOR Faculty of Orthodox Theology - “Ovidius” University of Constanta; Prof.

PhD. (Romania) Nasili VAKA’UTA Trinity Methodist Theological College University of Auckland; Ranston Lecturer PhD. (New Zealand)

Altaf QADIR University of Peshawar (Pakistan) Eugenia Simona ANTOFI “Dunarea de Jos” University (Romania) Coli NDZABANDZABA Rhodes University (South Africa) D. Liqaa RAFFEE Jordan UNiversity of Science and Technology (Jordan) George ENACHE Faculty of History, Philosophy and Theology „Dunarea de Jos” University of Galati; Associate professor PhD. (Romania) Ahed Jumah Mahmoud AL-KHATIB Faculty of Medicine - Department of Neuroscience University of Science and Technology; Researcher PhD (Jordan) Ioan-Gheorghe ROTARU ‘Timotheus’ Brethren Theological Institute of Bucharest (Romania) Akhtar Hussain SANDHU Department of History, University of the Punjab; Associate professor PhD. (Pakistan) Richard WOESLER European University press, PhD. (Germany) Riffat MUNAWAR University of the Punjab; Dr. PhD. (Pakistan)

Dilshad MAHABBAT University of Gujrat (Pakistan) Adrian NICULCEA Faculty of Orthodox Theology, “Ovidius” University of Constanta; Prof.

PhD. (Romania)

Hassan IMAM Aligarh University, PhD. (India) Ioan G. POP Emanuel University of Oradea; PhD. (Romania)

Tarnue Marwolo BONGOLEE Hope for the Future; Executive Director (Liberia)

Farzana BALOCH University of Sindh Associate professor PhD. (Pakistan)

Ahmed KYEYUNE Islamic University in Uganda

Petru BORDEI Faculty of Medicine - “Ovidius” University of Constanta; Prof. PhD. (Romania)

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DIALOGO

2 (2015)

Proceedings of the Conferences on the Dialogue between Science and Theology November, 5 - 11 2015

CONFERENCES & JOURNAL

International Scientific Committee, Reviewers and Contributers Khalil AHMAD University of the Punjab; Prof. PhD. (Pakistan)

Fouzia SALEEM University of the Punjab, Dr. PhD. (Pakistan)

Maciej LASKOWSKI Politechnika Lubelska; Prof. PhD. (Poland)

Mihai CIUREA University of Craiova, PhD. (Romania)

Muhammad HAFEEZ University of the Punjab; Prof. PhD. (Pakistan)

Mohammad Ayaz Ahmad University of Tabuk, Assistant Professor PhD. (Saudi Arabia)

Muhammad Shahid HABIB International Islamic University; Lecturer Ph.D. (Pakistan)

Mirosaw Zientarski Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toru, PhD. (Poland)

Muhammad Zakria ZAKAR University of the Punjab; Prof. PhD. (Pakistan)

Manisha MATHUR G.N.Khalsa College; University of Mumbai; Assistant Professor (India)

R S Ajin GeoVin Solutions Pvt. Ltd.; PhD. (India)

Pratibha GRAMANN Saybrook University of San Francisco, California (United States of America) Adrian GOREA Concordia University, Montreal (Canada)

Mustfeez Ahmad ALVI Lahore Leads University; Prof. PhD. (Pakistan)

Richard Alan MILLER

Radu NICULESCU Ovidius University of Constanta; Assist.prof. PhD. (Romania)

Navy Intel (Seal Corp. and then MRU); Dr. in Alternative Agriculture, Physics, and Metaphysics (United States of America)

Fermin De La FUENTE-CALVO De La Fuente Consulting (Corporative Intelligence) B.Sc. Physics and Professor PhD. (United States of America)

Maria CIOCAN “Mircea cel Batran” Naval Academy; teacher PhD. (Romania)

Kelli COLEMAN MOORE University of California at Santa Barbara (United States of America)

Sorin Gabriel ANTON Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi; PhD. (Romania)

Osman Murat DENIZ Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart Üniversitesi; Associate Professor PhD. (Turkey)

Sultan MUBARIZ University of Gujrat; PhD. (Pakistan)

Daniel MUNTEANU The International Journal of Orthodox Theology (Canada)

Gheorghe PETRARU Faculty of Orthodox Theology, Iasi; Prof. PhD. (Romania)

Dragos HUTULEAC Stefan cel Mare University of Suceava; Assistant Lecturer, PhD candidate (Romania)

Rania Ahmed Abd El-Wahab Mohamed Plant Protection Research Institute; PhD. (Egypt)

Shiva KHALILI Faculty of psychology and education - Tehran University; Associate Professor PhD. (Iran) Mihai HIMCINSKI Faculty of Orthodox Theology - „1 December 1918” University of Alba Iulia; Prof. PhD. (Romania) Richard Willem GIJSBERS The Institute for the Study of Christianity in an Age of Science and Technology - ISCAST (Australia) Flavius Cristian MARCAU Constantin Brancusi” University of Targu Jiu; Phd. Candidate (Romania) Stanley KRIPPNER Association for Humanistic Psychology, the Parapsychological Association; President; Prof. PhD. (United States of America)

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Rubeena ZAKAR University of the Punjab; Prof. PhD. (Pakistan) Mihai GIRTU The Research Center on the Dialogue between Science & Theology (RCDST); President Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering - “Ovidius” University of Constanta; Prof. PhD. (Romania) Cosmin Tudor CIOCAN The Research Center on the Dialogue between Science & Theology (RCDST); Executive Director Faculty of Orthodox Theology - “Ovidius” University of Constanta; Lecturer PhD. (Romania)

DIALOGO

2 (2015)

Proceedings of the Conferences on the Dialogue between Science and Theology November, 5 - 11 2015

CONFERENCES & JOURNAL

Organizing Committee Cosmin Tudor CIOCAN - SCIENTIFIC PROGRAMME OFFICER RCDST Executive Director and Founder; Lect. ThD. Faculty of orthodox theology, Ovidius University of Constanta (Romania) Mihai GIRTU RCDST President and Founder; Professor PhD. Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering , Ovidius University of Constanta (Romania)

RESPONSIBLES FOR SESSION 1. ART and LITERATURE Mihai Valentin VLADIMIRESCU University of Craiova; Prof., PhD (Romania) Radu NICULESCU Ovidius University of Constanta; Assist. Prof., PhD (Romania)

RESPONSIBLE FOR SESSION 2. EARTH SCIENCES, ECOLOGY, ENVIRONMENT Cristiana OPREA Dzelepov Laboratory for Nuclear Problems (DLPN) - JINR Dubna, Professor PhD (Russia)

RESPONSIBLES FOR SESSION 3. SOCIAL SCIENCES, CULTURE, LIFESTYLE CHOICES Maria Isabel MALDONADO GARCIA University of the Punjab; Assist. Prof., PhD (Pakistan) Miguel ALGRANTI, PHD (ARGENTINA) Instituto Universitario Nacional del Arte, Universidad Favaloro; Lecturer PhD (Argentina) Mariana MITRA - RESPONSIBLE FOR SESSION 4. LAW AND POLITICAL SCIENCE Faculty of Law, Ovidius University of Constanta; Assoc. Prof . PhD. (Romania) Osman Murat DENIZ - RESPONSIBLE FOR SESSION 5. PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart Üniversitesi - lahiyat Fakültesi; Assoc. Prof . PhD. (Turkey) Ahed Jumah Mahmoud AL-KHATIB - RESPONSIBLE FOR SESSION 6. LIFE SCIENCES

University of Science and Technology - Department of Neuroscience; Dr. (Jordan) Christoph STUECKELBERGER - RESPONSIBLE FOR SESSION 10. BIOETHICS University of Basel ; Founder and Executive Director of Globethics.net, Geneva ; Professor PhD. (Switzerland) Valeriu Gheorge CIMPOCA - RESPONSIBLE FOR SESSION 11. ASTRONOMY, ASTRO-PHYSICS “Valahia” University of Targoviste; Professor PhD. (Switzerland) Akhtar Hussain SANDHU - RESPONSIBLE FOR SESSION 12. HISTORY, DEMOGRAPHY, ARCHAEOLOGY University of Gujrat; Professor PhD. (Pakistan) Anton LIESKOVSKY - RESPONSIBLE FOR SESSION 13. MATHEMATICS, TECHNOLOGY, INDUSTRY, NETWORKING Faculty of Management Science and Informatics, University Tomas Bata of Zilina; Ing. PhD. (Slovakia) Teodosie PETRESCU - RESPONSIBLE FOR SESSION 14. GENERAL TOPIC (THEOLOGY) Faculty of orthodox theology , Ovidius University of Constanta (Romania) Stefan BADURA - RESPONSIBLE FOR I.T. Publishing Society of Zilina; Ing. PhD. (Slovakia)

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Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people.

Eleanor Rosevelt

Welcome Address

INTRODUCTION On behalf of the Organizing Committee, we welcome you to the 2nd Virtual International Conference on the Dialogue between Science and Theology, jointly organized by the Research Centre for Dialogue between Science and Theology (RCDST) from Ovidius University of Constanta (Romania) along with all our partners from 31 academic institutions, faculties and research centers within 21 countries, made the conference truly international in scope.

The 2nd Virtual International Conference on the Dialogue between Science and Theology (Dialogo 2015) was held online at www.dialogo-conf.com during 5th - 11th November 2015.

Reflecting the positioning of this conference at the intersection of different scientific fields with different religions, the call for papers resulted in submissions from a wide variety of viewpoints, but still at the same event. Precise refereed articles were accepted for publication in these proceedings. All articles were thoroughly triple peer-reviewed by the external international Reviewers Committee and Technical Committee. The Reviewers Committee members came from 18 different countries and many different fields of research.

In contrast to the first Dialogo event, when we approached this interdisciplinary debates from a triple topic angle - Life, Anthropology and Cosmology -, this year a very useful change was made due to the many requests we have received from former attendees and Dialogo visitors. Therefore, this year we approached this dialogue from a large variety of scientific disciplines, grouped in 13 sessions, to which was added the general section of the subject that has led to the creation of this Conference. During the conference the Section Chairman Committee was established to enhance the discussion, to supervise debates and comments, and not to be left unanswered. The Organizing Committee motivated authors by proposing a financial support (the second paper of each author, aside from coathorship, to be free of charge; the former participants and Scientific Committee to benefit of a discount of 20 % if submitting a single paper). More about Dialogo attendance conditions can be found at conference web page (www.dialogo-conf.com).

A well-received improvement was regarded the endorsement of Dialogo Journal & Conferences accredited by several international Databases that indexed our Journal during 2015.

All these facts and many others move this event further, to be acknowledged and valuable for Scientific Community. In conclusion, we all hope that these Proceedings will be fruitful for the current and future Science.

Lastly, we would like to express our sincere thanks to all authors and participants. Special thanks belong to all members of Section Chairman Committee and Reviewers Committee, who contribute significantly to the Scientific value of DIALOGO 2015. The annual “DIALOGO” CONFERENCES promote reflection and research on important public issues to which Christian theology can make a constructive contribution and is essential in the relation between science and religion in this era; scientists are also invited to manifest their ideas/

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theories on the topics in a constructive manner. This virtual conferences series gives you a great new way to participate in the fully fledged, scientific and professional conference without physical participation.

The success of the conference is due to the joint efforts of many people. Therefore we would like to thank the Scientific Committee and the Reviewers for their valuable contribution. All accepted paper has been precisely reviewed. Also, we are proud to announce that all these concerted efforts are international endorsed and till the moment of this volume Dialogo Journal of Proceedings received recognision inthe following well-known Databases. Dialogo Journal is indexed in Social Science Research Network (SSRN), The CiteFactor, Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Advanced Science Index (ASI), The Philosopher’s Index and the subject for indexing under evaluation in EBSCO, ATLA Religion Database, JSTOR, Religious and Theological Abstracts, SCImago, Summon by ProQuest, Index Copernicus, and Thomson Reuters.

Annual DIALOGO Conferences have been supported by Virtual Conferences community, which is located at www.the-science.com. The goal of this community is to organize Virtual Conferences covering quality research and make a closer cooperation between researchers within and between different scientific disciplines. Among all our partneres in organizing this conference a special role was played by Mr. Anton Lieskovský who initiated this virtual project and was succesfully conducted and then carried on by Ing. Stefan Badura - both deserve all the credit of outstanding organizing the virtual conference platform Dialogo uses.

Last but not least, we are grateful to all the participants for their great and important work prepared for and presented in this conference along with many and fruitful debates.

See you at DIALOGO 2016 with new, useful multiple events !

Cosmin Tudor CIOCAN

RCDST Executive Director and Founder (ROMANIA)

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The 2nd Virtual International Conference on the Dialogue between Science and Theology

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DIALOGO

2.1 (2015)

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CONFERENCES & JOURNAL

t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy

Table of Contents Table of Contents INTRODUCTION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11 SECTION 1. Art and Literature & Religion Union between the word and its sense- the biblical exegesis used in St. Augustine’s work De sermone Domini in monte. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19 Anabela Katreničová, PhD

Mapping New York Irish-American Identities: . Duality of Spirituality in Elizabeth Cullinan’s Short Story “Life After Death”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27 Nicoleta Stanca, PhD

Spirituality through Transculturality in Harry Tavitian’s Creation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35 Ruxandra Mirea, PhD

Congruence of rituals and theatre. The use of drama for religious ceremony. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Cosmin Tudor CIOCAN, PhD

Biblical symbols and their meanings.54; in the Parable of the Sower, according to the American author Ellen G. White vision. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 Ioan-Gheorghe ROTARU, Associate Professor PhD

SECTION 2. Earth Sciences, Ecology, Environment & Theology Environment Impact Assesment on Flora and Fauna in Madhya Pradesh. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Manisha Mathur, Dr.

SECTION 3. Social Sciences, Culture, Lifestyle Choices & Religion Is the Inquiry Based Education Paradigm Useful not just for Teaching Sciences, but also Theology?. . . 73 1. Prof. Mihai A. GÎRŢU, PhD; 2. Fr. Lecturer Cosmin Tudor CIOCAN, PhD

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Tabel of Content

DIALOGO 2.1 (2015)

November, 5 - 11 www.dialogo-conf.com The 2nd Virtual International Conference on

CONFERENCES & JOURNAL

t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology

Aspects of violence in the Old Testament. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .83 Adrian Vasile, PhD

Muslim education in India. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 Beata Pietkiewicz-Pareek, PhD

Reconstitutions of the evangelical text in the Mysteries of the Orthodox Church. . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 1. Nicuşor TUCĂ, Prof. PhD; 2. Dragoş Corneliu BĂLAN, Lecturer PhD

The place and role of youth in the liturgical life of the Church . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 Assist. Prof. Dr. Pr. Iulian ISBĂȘOIU

Ludic role of religious rituals. The use of play for religious ceremony. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 Cosmin Tudor CIOCAN, lecturer PhD

SECTION 5. Philosophy of Science & Theology Approaching the relationship between religion and science through language games. . . . . . . . . . . 131 Daniela Stănciulescu, PhD

Godhood & Mathematics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 H Chris RANSFORD, PhD

The dark side of the Scientific Revolution. The Biblical interpretation in Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton.141 Francesco Fiorentino, PhD

Creation, its Processes, and Significance. Samkhya - evolution and involuton. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158 Pratibha Gramann, PhD

SECTION 6. Biology, Medicine, Natural Sciences & Theology Molecular Sociology: Further Insights from Biological and Environmental Aspects. . . . . . . . . . . . 169 Ahed J Alkhatib, PhD

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DIALOGO

2.1: 112 - 119 (2015)

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CONFERENCES & JOURNAL

t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy

SECTION 8. Epistemology, Metaphysics and Communication Sciences & Theology Can a Person Believe in Both God and Evolution? When Naturalism and Creationism Clash: . . . . . 175 Osman Murat DENIZ, PhD

Eros in the first century’s Christian theology. Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 Mircea Adrian MARICA, PhD

SECTION 9. Management, Marketing, Economics and Tourism & Religion The start of Romanian Pilgrimage to the Holy Places. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 Assoc. Prof. PhD. Claudiu Cotan

SECTION 10. Bioethics - Science - Theology Bioethics in the vision of the Orthodox Theology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 Antony – Catalin PĂŞTIN, PhD

SECTION 12. History, Demography, Archaeology & Religion Stars Influence on the Earth at Maya’s. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 1. Oprea Emanuel George, PhD 2. Oprea Cristiana, PhD

Romanian-Bulgarian Religious Relations during the First World War. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218 Assoc. Prof. PhD. Claudiu Cotan

Dacian Temples and Ancient Astronomical Research in Sarmizegetusa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226 1. Oprea Emanuel George, PhD; 2. Oprea Cristiana, PhD

Historical and biblical features of the last five kings of the Kingdom of Judah. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 Ioan-Gheorghe ROTARU, Associate Professor PhD

The Changing Nature of Faith Based Insurgence in Uganda since 1986 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240 Kyeyune Ahmed, PhD

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Tabel of Content

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November, 5 - 11 www.dialogo-conf.com The 2nd Virtual International Conference on

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology

SECTION 13. Mathematics, Technology, Industry, Networking & Religion Contemporary challenges to the Church Mission from the perspective of post-modern art and technology.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247 Gheorghe ISTODOR, Professor PhD

Asset revaluation for scientific supersonic-like technique. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255 1. Kazu-masa Yamada, PhD; 2. Nobuaki Matsuhashi, PhD

Long distance communication with affordable wireless system, and discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264 Kazu-masa Yamada

SECTION 14. General Topic: Science and Theology in dialogue NeoNeoPlatonism : Can Theology be Studied with the Scientific Attitude ?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271 Bruno Marchal

Contingency in complex systems and eastern trinitarian divine action in creation . . . . . . . . . . . . 284 Arvin M. Gouw, PhD.

The Church’s mission in the face of great challenges that come from the sphere of modern and postmodern science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295 Gheorghe ISTODOR, Professor PhD

St. Ap. Thomas and steps of faith. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302 Fr. Asist. Prof. PhD Nicolae Popescu

The pastoral care and the priest profile in the study “On the Priesthood” of Saint John Chrysostom. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318 Assist. Prof. Dr. Pr. Iulian ISBĂȘOIU

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Union between the word and its sense – the biblical exegesis used in St. Augustine’s work De sermone Domini in monte Anabela Katreničová, PhD

Department of Romance Studies and Classical Philology Faculty of Arts, Pavol Jozef Šafárik University Košice, Slovakia anabela.katrenicova@upjs.sk Abstract: Sermone Domini in monte is the exegetical work written by St. Augustine. In his work St. Augustine treat the interpretation of the Lord’s speech on the mountain taken from the Matthew Gospel. Our paper tries to introduce this work at the backround of the Patristic biblical exegesis. We introduce the main principles of the biblical exegesis form the Patristic period, where we focus on the St. Augustine’s theory of the symbol and allegoric interpretation of the Gospel. Finally we present the interpretation of the Lord’s speech from the view of the beatitudes and from the view of their practical purpose.

Keywords: St. Augustine; speech on the mountain; biblical exegesis; Patrology; allegory

I. INTRODUCTION There is no doubt that St Augustine is one of the most precious representatives of the Latin Patristic literature. His works strongly influenced whole doctrine of the Catholic Church till nowadays. In his numerous books we can find the works from various branches of the science – the works purely philosophic, apologetic, dogmatic, polemic, moralistic or exegetic. In the centre of the exegetic writings stand the commentaries

of the books from the Old Testament, especially the book of Genesis. The study of St. Augustine concerned the books of New Testament as well, where the main position belongs to the John’s Gospel. The analysis of the other books of Holy Scripture, naturally, does not remain without any interest from the side of St. Augustine1. In his biblical commentaries St. Augustine has brought the basis of the Christian rhetoric – homily, hermeneutic – exegesis and semiotic to demonstrate how to work with the pagan cultural heritage. In his scriptures he presented St. Augustine is well known also as the very fruitful commentator of the biblical texts. To the biblical exegesis he dedicated many of his books. From the Old Testament we could cite the exegetic writings as: De Genesi ad Litteram libir duodecim, De Genesi ad Litteram imperfectus liber, De Genesi contra Manichaeos libri duo, Locutionum in Heotateuchum libri septem and Quaestionum in Heptateuchom libri septem. The books of the New Testament are interpreted in the following works: Enarrationes in Psalmos, Expositio Epistolae ad Galatas, Expositio quarumdam propositionum ex Epistola ad Romanos, In Epistolam Ioannis ad Parthos tractatus decem, In Evangelium Iannis tractatus centum viginti quatuor, Quaestionum Evangeliorum libri duo and Quaestionum septemdecim in Evangelium secundum Matthaeum liber unus.

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology the useful advices for everyone who wants to understand the inspired text of Bible [1].

The biblical exegesis is not an invention of the Christianity and we do not thank for it to St. Augustine neither, as we display in the first part of this paper. It is derived from the pagan theory of literature and philosophy. Nevertheless St. Augustine influenced this branch of the text analysis by his theory of signs developed in his work De doctrina christiana. In this paper we focus on the methods of the biblical analysis presented and used in the St. Augustine’s works, especially in the writing De sermone Domini in monte.

II. ST. AUGUSTINE AND THE BIBLICAL EXEGESIS The epoch of Patristic literature represents the decisive point of beginning of the biblical exegesis comprehended as an explanation and analysis of the original Bible text. The analysis of the Holy Scripture leads to the better and deeper understanding of the God’s speech. The origin of biblical exegesis could be derived from the pagan Hellenistic exegesis with remarkable influence of Hebraic exegesis.

The pagan Hellenistic exegesis was developed on the commentaries to the Homer’s epic poem.

2 The Jewish Hebraic analysis, on the other side, is based on the very detailed explanation of Torah – five books of Moshe, called Midrash. The Christian biblical exegesis tried to make union between the two mentioned ways in the text analysis. Allegory and belief that the all texts taken form Old Testament announce the arrival of Jesus Christ that mentions the New Testament became the point of unification. The western Church Fathers, St. Augustine as well, in their exegesis used the hermeneutic key adopting the process based on the allegory and mysticism [2]. These styles of the text analysis were used in that time by all greatest authors of the Bible Just the ancient tradition of the Greek thinking knew the commentaries, which were used to formulate the new ideas. The origin of these commentaries we could find in the epoch of philosophe Plato. For more details see: Canfora, Luciano, Dějiny řecké literatury, (Praha: KLP 2004), p. 624 – 625.

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commentaries, such as Jerome3, St. Ambrose4, Tertullian5 and others. In the Orthodox Church it was Origen6 and John Chrysostom7.

The importance of the biblical exegesis derives mainly from the different options in reading the Bible looking for the various nuances of its meaning. The credibility and the necessity of these analyses are in the following steps justified as suggested Gilbert Dahan in his discussion concerning Bible exegesis [9]. The exegesis of the Alexandrian school established on the interpretation of the Homer’s epic poem just as the works of Filon from Alexandria8 became the principal sources to interpret the Holy Scripture. The Jewish approach to the exegesis and to the interpretation of biblical text is naturally different. It used to analyse the literary style of the text in question (peshat) and its true meaning (derash) [9]. The exegesis in the hand of Christians in the Patristic era follows the similar way dividing the literary meaning of the text form its spiritual and mystical sense.

The characteristic sign of the Patristic biblical interpretation is the belief of the Church Fathers that the inspired text of Bible is the real word of God hidden in a human language. The understanding of the biblical text leads to the further interpretations. The goal of the text analysis is to find all influences of the other literary productions that could be incorporated to the text [9]. In the same way, the text understood in this manner could be considerated as the subject of analysis, in which it is possible to apply any technics of interpretation used primary for the other types of literary production. For this reason the biblical text is very often situated into the historical context. The commentators analysing the text considerate the distance See for example Hieronym’s famous work Commentarii, MPL 25, col. 1009 – 1116C. 4 St. Ambrose is well known as the commentator of the John’s Gospel: Expositio evangelii secundum Lucam libris decem comprehensa, MPL 15, col. 1527D – 1850D. 5 Tertullian, he also wrote the commentaries to the book of Genesis. See: Genesis, MPL 2, col. 1097 – 1102A. 6 Origene influenced the bible exegesis by his work: Hexaplorum, MPG 12, col. 185 – 254.

7 See his work: De Maccabeis, MPG 48, col. 345 – 407.

8 See the book: Quaestiones. MPG 87.

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy dividing them form the time of the text origin.

Biblical text is then studied from the point of view of its historical context and linguistic character. To identify them the Fathers used the methods taken from the grammar, rhetoric or philosophy. The exegetes had never forgotten the fact that the biblical text contains the God’s message, which is transcendent and impossible to be understood by a man because it differs so much from the manner of human expression.

Their effort is for this reason oriented to relieve the profundity of the God’s word hidden in human language [9].

The Latin exegetes used very often not only the hermeneutic method, but also the proceeding derived from the Latin grammar and history. Inos Biffi in his study dedicated to the Middle – Ages exegesis on the page 9 supposes that, each biblical text was considerated as an unit with the well determinated linguistic structure characteristic with the place and period of its origin [7]. The lack of the exact linguistic and historical method brought the commencement of the various biblical commentaries.

The Church Fathers, in addition, thought that the “septem artes liberales”9 merit to be used in the methodology of the Bible analysis. The seven free arts were at the epoch understood as the product of the pagan culture and erudition, but they must be subordinated to the Christianity, which is only way to find the truth. According Yves Congars, the Church fathers, under the influence of St. Augustine, accepted the idea that the profane methodology could have the auxiliary function in the exegesis of the Holy Scripture. “Artes liberales” – the profane and pagan methodology, according St. Augustine, belong to Jesus Christ and must be given back to him. That is the reason for what they must serve God and interpret His word10. The profane methodology so became the mediator of the The free arts represented the base of the scholar system in the epoch of Antiquity. There are seven branches of the all science: the grammar, dialectic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music.

10 See: Congar, Yves, Théologie, coll. 354: „Il Medio evo riceve dai Padri, e soprattutto da sant’Agostino, l’idea che le scienze o le arti profane, le arti liberali, appartengono di dirrito a Cristo e che occorre ridarle al loro vero proprietario, facendole servire a una intelligenza piu approfondita delle Scritture.“ 9

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true knowledge – it is the knowledge of the Scripture. The Church fathers proclaimed the perfect acquaintance of the pagan seven free arts because that is the only way to the cognition of the God’s word hidden in the Holy Scripture.

The need of “septem artes liberales” defends St. Augustine, as well. In his work De doctrina christiana he explained their use for the better understanding of the Bible [10]. On the other hand, St. Augustine is in his thoughts more radical. He proclaimed that the analysis of the Scripture is the only reason why to study the profane scientific methods.

III. THEORY OF SIGNS The theory of signs, adopted form St. Ambrose, as suggested Felix Baffour Asare Assiedu [3], is presented mainly in the second and third book of St. Augustine work De doctrina christiana. The sign is defined as the thing, which causes with its effect on the sense that the substance represented by the sign could enter to the human mind. St. Augustine in the second book, chapter one wrote: “Signum est enim res, praetor speciem quam ingerit sensibus, aliud aliquid ex se faciens in cogitationem venire.” 11 [5]. St. Augustine made a difference between the natural sign and the conventional sign.

The natural signs are, according St. Augustine, those, which lead to the cognition of something else without the inner intention to use them as the signs. In the second book of his De doctrina christiana, chapter 1. 2. we can read about it: “Naturalia sunt quae sine voluntate atque ullo appetite significandi praetor se aliquid aliud ex se cognosci faciunt.”12 [5]. On the other hand, the conventional signs are understood as the expedients ordinated by the men to relieve their meaning. They are characterised by the words of St. Augustine that could be found in the second book of De doctrina christiana, chapter 2. 3.: “Data vero signa sunt quae sibi quaeque viventia In the English translation St. Augustine’s words: “For a sign is a thing which, over and above the impression it makes on the senses, causes something else to come into the mind as a consequence of itself.”

12 The English version of the text: “Natural signs are those which, apart from any intention or desire of using them as signs, do yet lead to the knowledge of something else.”

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology invicem dant ad demonstrandos quantum possunt motus animi sui, vel sense aut intellect quaelibet. Nec ulla causa est nobis significandi, id est signi dandi, nisi ad depromendum et traiciendum in aterius animum id quod animo gerit is qui signum dat.”13 [5]. The Holy Scripture contains the signs given by God through the men, who had written it down. All signs are done in the form of words. St. Augustine insists to take in consideration this fact in the analysis of the biblical text.

It is very common that the signs in the form of words are not so clear and that is the reason why they could hide their true meaning, their true sense. Their understanding opposes two obstacles: the ignorance or the ambivalence of the sign. There are also two types of the signs – the proper sign and the transferred sign. The proper signs express the things, which they were been determinate to express them. The transferred signs are those, which denote the things, which they were not been determinate to express them. St. Augustine described them in the second book of De doctrina christiana, as well, in the chapter 10. 15. using the words: “Sunt autem signa vel propria vel translate. Propria dicuntur, cum his rebus significandis adhibentur, propter quas sunt institute… Translata sunt, cum et ipsae res quas propriis verbis significamus, ad aliquid aliud significandum usurpantur.”14 [5].

The misunderstanding of the language, in which the Bible was written, could cause the ignorance of the proper sign.15 In the case of the transferred sign ignorance came from the See the English translation: “Conventional signs, on the other hand, are those which living beings mutually exchange for the purpose of showing, as well as they can, the feelings of their minds, or their perceptions, or their thoughts. Nor is there any reason for giving a sign except the desire of drawing forth and conveying into another’s mind what the giver of the sign has in his own mind.”

14 In English version we can read following: “Signs are either proper or figurative. They are called proper when they are used to point out the objects they were designed to point out… Signs are figurative when the things themselves which we indicate by the proper names are used to signify something else.”

15 For more details see: Augustinus, Aurelius. De doctrina christiana libri quatuor. MPL 34. II. 11. 6.

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various facts. Firstly it could be the ignorance of foreign language. In the second position it is the deeper ignorance of the things.16 St. Augustine concretises this ignorance as the ignorance of the natural sciences17, numbers18, music, theatre19, classical culture20, or magic21, astronomy22, pagan mythology23 or religion24.

St. Augustine, in the second book of De doctrina christiana, chapter 25. 40. proclaimed that the men are called to know all these products of the human culture: “Sed haec tota pars humanorum institutorum, quae ad usum vitae necessarium proficient, nequaquam est fugienda Christiano, immo etiam quantum satis est intuenda memoriaque retinenda.”25 [5] In the case of the ambivalence of the words or signs St. Augustine recommends the common instruction, which is to use the rule of the faith having on mind the whole biblical context.26 The ambivalence of the transferred signs could be solved by use of the two rules. The firs one is do not interpret the words literary.27 The second is do not accept the metaphoric explanation of the exact expression. 28 IV. SEVEN TYCONIUS RULES St. Augustine proclaims as the one of the several manner in the biblical exegesis the use of the seven Tyconius rules contained in the work with title Liber regularum. This work could be considerated as the first Latin hermeneutic adopted by St. Augustine [1]. St. Augustine, he Ibidem. II. 16. 23.

Ibidem. II. 16. 24.

18 Ibidem. II. 16. 25.

19 Ibidem. II. 16. 26 – 18. 28.

20 Ibidem. II. 19. 29.

21 Ibidem. II. 20. 30.

22 Ibidem. II. 21. 32 – 22. 34.

23 Ibidem. II. 23. 35.

24 Ibidem. II. 23. 36 – 25. 38.

25 The English translation: “This whole class of human arrangements, which are of convenience for the necessary intercourse of life, the Christian is not by any means to neglect, but on the contrary should pay a sufficient degree of attention to them, and keep them in memory.”

26 See: Augustinus. De doctrina christiana. III. 2. 2.

27 Ibidem. III. 5. 9 – 9. 13.

28 Ibidem. III. 10. 14.

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy characterised these rules, in the third book of his work De doctrina christiana, chapter 30.

42, like the keys to open the hidden secrets of Holy Scripture [5]. He does not grant them the absolute significance. He admits, on the other hand, that the seven Tyconius rules could be applied only for some dubious texts of the Bible.

But in these cases, he thinks that they could be very useful.

In these rules we can find the followings instructions: Rule one is on the Lord and his body.

Rule two is called two parts of the Lord’s body.

Rule three talks about the promises and law.

Tychon’s rule four is on kind and species.

Rule five is concerning the time.

And the last one, rule seven talks on devil and his body.

The first Tyconius rule, on Lord and his body, shows the fact, that Jesus Christ and his Church make together one inseparable body and represent one person.

In the case of the second rule, St. Augustine refused the notion of the double Lord’s body because it does not exist any part of the Christ’s body, which could be separated. That is why he suggested the more appropriate name for this rule, in the book three, chapter 32. 45 of his writing De doctrina christiana: “Secunda est De Domini corpore bipertito, quod quidem non ita debuit appellari. Non enim re vera Domini corpus est, quod cum illo non erit in aeternum.

Sed dicendum fuit: De Domini corpore vero atque permixto, aut: vero atque simulato, vel quid aliud, quia non solum in aeternum, verum etiam nunc hypocritae non cum illo esse dicendi sunt, quamvis in eius esse videantur Ecclesia.

Unde poterat ista regula et sic appellari, ut diceretur: De permixta Ecclesia.”29 [5]. This rule In English translation we can read: “The second rule is about the twofold division of the body of the Lord; but this indeed is not a suitable name, for that is really no part of the body of Christ which will not be with Him in eternity. We ought, therefore, to say that the rule is about the true and the mixed body of the Lord, or the true and the counterfeit, or some such name; because, 29

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should be used in case if the biblical text changes the recipients without any remarkable evidence.

Then it looks like two different groups make an unity, because they were unified by one common presence on the sacraments. 30 St. Augustine changed the name of the third Tyconius rule. He explained his decision by the spirit of the commandments and for this reason he preferred to talk about a mercy and commandments, which are inseparable gifts of God himself.

The forth Tyconius rule concerns the kind and species. When we talk about kind, we think on a part of the unity. The species, on the other hand, denotes the unity. This rule could by applied on the other situations in Bible, as well. 31 The fifth Tyconius rule is usually used in the hidden dates in the Bible. As Tyconius himself defines, this rule could be applied in relation to the rhetoric figures or in relation to the true numbers found on the pages of the Holy Scripture. 32 The sixth rule is very often used in the situations, when the Scripture offers the conclusions or short revisions of the events seen as they followed one after other. In reality, these conclusions or revisions represent the return, or recapitulation of the history without made any trace or explanation. 33 At last, the seventh rule concerns the devil and his body. This rule is according St. Augustine very similar to the first one and should by used in the occasion, when the Scripture talk about devil himself. The devil very often cannot be recognised as a person. That is why it must be observed his body. 34 St. Augustine explained how could be used these seven rules by the readers of the Bible.

One thing helps to understand the other thing. not to speak of eternity, hypocrites cannot even now be said to be in Him, although they seem to be in His Church. And hence this rule might be designated thus: Concerning the mixed Church.”

30 See: Augustinus. De doctrina christiana. III. 32. 45.

31 Ibidem. III. 34. 47.

32 Ibidem. III. 35. 50.

33 Ibidem. III. 36. 52.

34 Ibidem. III. 37. 55.

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology So, it means the understanding a metaphoric statement, which obviously presents the situation in a way to become ambiguous. St. Augustine, in the third book of the De doctrina christiana, in chapter 37. 56. has written: “Hae autem omnes regulae, excepta una quae vocatur De promissis et Lege, aliud ex alio faciunt intellegi, quod est proprium tropicae locutionis, quae latius patet quam ut possit, ut mihi videtur, ab aliquot universa comprehendi.

Nam ubicumque velut aliud dicitur ut aliud intellegatur, etsi nomen ipsius tropi in loquendi arte non invenitur, tropica locution est.”35 [5].

V. ALLEGORY St. Augustine in the manner how he works with the biblical text mentioned the allegory and paradoxally, he did not write about it in his hermeneutic work De doctrina christiana, but in the autobiographical Confessiones. He started his discussion with the simply statement, that the careful reader of the biblical text could find also the other sens of Scripture, the metaphoric sense. St. Augustine wrote in the twelfth book of his work Confessiones, chapter 18. 27.: “Dum ergo quisque conatur id sentire in Scripturis sanctis, quod in eis sensit ille qui scripsit, quid mali est, si hoc sentiat, quod tu, lux omnium veridicarum mentium, ostendis verum esse, etiamsi non hoc sensit ille, quem legit, cum et ille verum nec tamen hoc senserit.”36 [4].

St. Augustine believed that the Holy

The English version of the text: “Now all these rules, except the one about the promises and the law, make one meaning to be understood where another is expressed, which is the peculiarity of figurative diction; and this kind of diction, it seems to me, is too widely spread to be comprehended in its full extent by any one. For, wherever one thing is said with the intention that another should be understood we have a figurative expression, even though the name of the trope is not to be found in the art of rhetoric.”

36 In the English translation we can read following statement: “Since, therefore, each person endeavors to understand in the Holy Scriptures that which the writer understood, what hurt is it if a man understand what Thou, the light of all true-speaking minds, dost show him to be true although he whom he reads understood not this, seeing that he also understood a Truth, not, however, this Truth?”

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Scripture could be explained in the metaphoric or allegoric manner without the lost of the love of the Truth. He wrote about in the twelfth book of Confessiones, chapter 30. 41. So, the allegory became the proper method of biblical exegesis, which explains the inner sense of Scripture united with the secret of the faith, denominated by the term mystical. The statement of this fact we can find in the thirteenth book of Confessiones, chapter 24. 36.: “Verum est enim, nec video, quid impediat ita me sentire dicta figurate Librorum tuorum. Novi enim multipliciter significari per corpus, quod uno modo mente intellegitur, et multipliciter mente intellegi, quod uno mod per corpus significatur.”37 [4]. The man himself cannot reveal this aspect of the text analysis.

To find the message veiled in the Bible, man needs absolutely to enter into the dialogue with God, who is the only source and origin of the knowledge. That is why St. Augustine confessed, that the truth could be known only

by God’s illumination. In the thirteenth book of Confessiones, chapter 25. 38 he wrote: “Vera enim dicam te mihi inspirante, quod ex eis verbis voluisti ut dicerem. Neque enim alio praetor te inspirante credo me verum dicere, cum tu sis Veritas, omins autem homo mendax. Et ideo qui loquitur mendacium, de suo loquitur. Ergo ut verum loquar, de tuo loquor.”38 [4].

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See the English translation of the words: “For it is true, nor do I see what should prevent me from thus understanding the figurative sayings of Your books. For I know a thing may be manifoldly signified by bodily expression which is understood in one manner by the mind; and that that may be manifoldly understood in the mind which is in one manner signified by bodily expression.”

38 The English text: “I would also say, O Lord my God, what the following Scripture reminds me of; yea, I will say it without fear. For I will speak the truth, Thou inspiring me as to what You will that I should say out of these words. For by none other than Your inspiration do I believe that I can speak the truth, since You are the Truth, but every man a liar. And therefore he that “speaks a lie, he speaks of his own;” therefore that I may speak the truth, I will speak of Yours.”

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy VI. THE METHODOLOGY USED IN THE ST. AUGUSTINE WORK – DE SERMONE DOMINI IN MONTE The St. Augustine’s work De sermone Domini in monte is exegesis of the Gospel text written by Matthew. The writing is divided into two books explaining the text form the different point of view. The introduction of the St. Augustine’s exegesis is characterised by the subtitle representing the main idea of whole book. The book one treats the prescriptions, which pertain to the life. The importance of the Lord’s speech on mountain is the perfection of the live of Christians. That is why St. Augustine called this speech the prescriptions of fulfilment of the human life.

The book two, in the other hand, contains the beatitudes obtaining by which it is possible to see God. In this part of his work, St. Augustine talked about purity of heart, which could be gained by the prayer and benefaction.

In this exegesis, St. Augustine treated the biblical text using primary the allegory. In his proceed he pointed out the plasticity of the situation described in the Matthew Gospel.

On the other hand, he specified the allegoric or mystical sense of the single words. So, St. Augustine proposed the double meaning of the word – its allegoric and realistic sense. Each word in Augustine’s interpretation represents the double sense. The allegoric meaning of the word is explained by the various citation of the Bible, all according the rule, that the Bible should be explained by the Bible. From the Tyconius seven rules St. Augustine in this book used the second and third rule without mentioned them.

In the book De sermone Domini in monte we can observe two types of text analysis usually used by St. Augustine. On the first place St. Augustine use allegory and double explanation of every single word from the Gospel. In his analysis he proposed two meanings of one word – the first sense explains the function of the word in the Gospel context. For example the word “mountain” according St. Augustine express the upper place, where Jesus presented his speech.

But in the figurative sense “mountain” means: “maiora praecepta iustitiae, quia minora errant quae Iudaeis data sunt.” 39 [6]. So, the mountain 39

English translation: “If it is asked what the “mountain”

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became for St. Augustine the most important prescriptions given to the men.

The same kind of text analysis we can see with the word “candelabra”. St. Augustine understood this word in the two senses, as well.

In the first meaning it represents for him the body of a man, who gave himself to the service for God and for the Church. The “ candelabra” in the metaphoric meaning is, according St. Augustine, the Christian doctrine, which, from the upper position, could shine to the whole world. 40 The word “house” is presented in the double meaning, as well. St. Augustine explained this word as the place where the men used to live.

In the straight meaning is the world. In the allegoric sense it means the whole community of brothers and sisters in united in the name of Jesus Christ.41 The second type of the biblical exegesis used

by St. Augustine in this writing is focused not on the interpretation of the single words, but on explaining the sense of the whole expressions or whole sentences. We find this kind of analysis mainly in the second part of St. Augustine’s book De sermone Domini in monte. This manner of the text study shows the intention of St. Augustine to explain basic idea of the biblical narration. In this approach St. Augustine used the rule of the biblical exegesis that consist not in the literary meaning, but in the allegorical explanation. St. Augustine did not want to be lost in the literary meaning, but he always looked for the true practical sense of the Scripture. That is well seen in the St. Augustine’s explanation of the Jesus prayer42 and in the analysis of the eight beatitudes. 43 St. Augustine had always on the mind the practical application of the Holy Scripture messages into the every day life. That is why he means, it may well be understood as meaning the greater precepts of righteousness; for there were lesser ones which were given to the Jews.”

40 For more details see: Augustinus, Aurelius. De sermone Domini in monte secundum Mattheum. MPL 34. I. 6. 17.

41 Ibidem. I.6. 17.

42 Ibidem. II. 4. 16. – 11. 38.

43 Ibidem. 1. 3. – 3. 10.

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology interpreted the Jesus speech on the mountain in the view of the common live. He put together the first and second part of this work in the exegesis.

So, he started to explain the first part of Jesus speech using the second one. St. Augustine so unified the eight beatitudes with the prayer of Jesus. The St. Augustine’s interpretation of this union is the fact that he saw the fulfilment of the eight beatitudes in the seven gift of the Holy Spirit and in the seven virtues. 44

[9] Dahan,

Gilbert. “Esegesi della Bibbia.” In Dizionario enciclopedico del Medioevo, edited by André Vauchez, Catherine Vincent, and Claudio Leonardi, 663 – 667. Roma: Citta Nuova, 1999.

[10] Riché, Pierre, Chatillon, Jean, and Verger, Jacques.

Lo studio della Bibbia nel Medioevo latino.

Brescia: Paideia, 1989.

CONCLUSION In this paper we presented the methods of Patristic approach to the biblical exegesis, which leads to the better understanding of the Holy Scripture. Union of the pagan Hellenistic exegesis and the Hebraic Bible analysis using the hermeneutic method created the Patristic exegesis, used in St. Augustine exegetic writings. The hermeneutic text analysis used the symbolism and allegory. St. Augustine in his work did not only used these methods, but he was also father of the analytic theory of signs, which proposed the understanding of the metaphoric meaning in the context of the Bible.

REFERENCES [1] Andoková, Marcela, introduction to Sv. Augustín –

[2]

[3]

[4] [5] [6] [7] [8]

44

O kresťanskej náuke, O milosti a slobodnej vôli by St. Augustine (Prešov: Petra, 2004), 21 – 29.

Arbesmann, Rudolph. 1958. “The Daemonium meridianum and Greek and Latin Patristic exegesis.” Traditio 14: 17 – 31.

Asiedu, Felix Baffour Asare. 2001. “The song of songs and the ascent of the soul: Ambrose, Augustine, and the language of mysticism.”

Vigiliae Christianae 55 (3): 299 – 317.

Augustinus, Aurelius. Confessiones libri tredecim.

MPL 32.

Augustinus, Aurelius. De doctrina christinana libri quattuor. MPL 34.

Augustinus, Aurelius. De sermone Domini in monte secundum Mattheum. MPL 34.

Biffi, Inos. Mirabile medioevo. Milano: Jaca Book, 2009.

Canfora, Lucano. Dějiny řecké literatury. Praha: KLP, 2004.

Ibidem. II. 11. 38.

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy

Mapping New York Irish-American Identities: Duality of Spirituality in Elizabeth Cullinan’s Short Story “Life After Death” Nicoleta Stanca, PhD

Department of Philology Ovidius University of Constanta Constanța, Romania nicoletastanca1506@gmail.com Abstract: Elizabeth Cullinan’s short story “Life After Death” depicts a day in the life of a young New Yorker, Constance, walking along Lexington Avenue, attending the evening Mass at a Dominican church and visiting the Catholic college where she worked part time to pick up her paycheck. Though the woman is involved with the married Francis Hughes and confronted with the burden of the past and of intricate family dynamics, her voice, which is “the Cullinan narrative voice has become that of one of those sceptical granddaughters grown into a reasonably assured and independent adulthood [...] balanced between then and now, the ethnic and the worldly, and better able to judge self and others because of the doubleness” (Fanning qtd. in Bayor and Meagher 528). Thus, the paper will discuss the manner in which Elizabeth Cullinan maps, in her story, the oscillation of Irish Americans between the ethnic drive and a cosmopolitan individuality gained in New York, with a focus on the value of the duality of consciousness and spirituality, which facilitates enriching and clarifying answers to identity dilemmas.

Keywords: Elizabeth Cullinan, Irish-America, New York, identity, duality, ethnicity, Catholicism, city, multiculturalism

I. INTRODUCTION Elizabeth Cullinan was born in 1933 in New York City of Irish parents; she received a BA from Marymount College, Manhattan and in between 1955-1964 she worked as a secretary for The New Yorker. The, she travelled in between Ireland and America for a number of years, at present teaching creative writing at Fordham University. Cullinan’s short fiction, republished in two collections, The Time of Adam (1971) and Yellow Roses (1977), has appeared in The New Yorker since the 1960s. Her two novels House of Gold (1970) and A Change of Scene (1982) have also been well received, according to Casey and Rhodes (216).

Cullinan’s approach to Irish-American fiction fits the traditional pattern in an intricate manner.

The writer tackles Catholicism but at a stage when the Catholic church no longer serves the primary supporting role for the immigrant in the US. The Irish heritage of family patterns (late marriage, celibacy, children as caretakers, self-sacrificing, demanding mothers and generational conflicts) is also challenged in short stories, such as “Life After Death”. The Irish obsession with security translated in America through occupations in the public domain (police and fire department) and the story of the next generation’s advancement

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology are equally dealt with through stories of young females from Irish backgrounds, who seem to have settled safely in present day New York. The ethnic context is there, without being so visible, as Cullinan probably shares Flannery O’Connor’s view: “I have never been greatly tied emotionally or sentimentally to my own Irish background.

The Irish in America are sometimes more Irish then the Irish and I suppose some of my indifference is a reaction against that” (qtd. in Liddy 76). What the writer generally portrays are Irish American Catholics in the city, individuals involved in generational conflicts, young women trapped in affairs and bearing the burden of the past and of complicated family relationships.

II. Modern Irish American Short Stories: general characteristics The majority of Irish Americans, the focus of Cullinan’s stories, are descendants of the Catholic, Gaelic immigrants that reached America in large numbers from the nineteenth century to mid 1950s. Between 1854 and 1855, the number of Irish people in the US was around one million and a half and the trend continued so that in 1860, 5.12% population was of Irish origin. Their uprooting had been mainly caused, according to Liddy (75), by racial and political oppression, famine and poverty.

Constance, the protagonist in Elizabeth Cullinan’s short story “Life After Death”, comes a long way after the first massive waves of Irish female immigrants that reached New York in the nineteenth century and worked as domestics and factory workers, contributing to what is known as “chain immigration”1 . Later on, as nuns, these women brought their contribution to the American society and when they gained more strength, as teachers and nurses, they gathered in unions and asked for more rights for their kin. Yet, the early Irish women immigrants 1 Sending money back home to Ireland, so that other immigrants, relatives, friends could afford to pay for the journey to America. Guibernau and Rex even mention the network theory related to ethnic migrant groups expansion and they discuss migrant networks as “sets of interpersonal ties that connect migrants, former migrants, and non-migrants in origin and destination areas through ties of kinship, friendship and shared community origin” (316).

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did not easily move to better skilled jobs as “they were willing to defer or forgo marriage and family”; thus “they worked as live-in servants, and later as schoolteachers who had to remain single” (Diner xvi). The 1980 American Census showed that more than forty million Americans claim some Irish origin. And the kind of jobs the Irish women had access to or embraced, the associations they formed and the families they raised, have shaped the Irish American life for future generations.

The Irish in the nineteenth century brought Catholicism to America; back then, the church was seen positively by the immigrants: it bridged the gap between the rural community in Ireland and the new urban neighbourhood in America and the Catholic parish preserved a pervading sense of community. However, the situation changed in the twentieth century, the second generation of immigrants no longer needing this kind of spiritual support. Even in the fiction depicting modern characters, Irish Americans still appear as “cultural Catholics (Hallissy 21), through their ethnic affiliation, which is the case of Cullinan’s stories.

Family patterns (complicated mother and father roles, late marriage, long or permanent celibacy, dour parents-children relationships), brought over to the US by the Irish are also extremely influential when it comes to Irish heritage in America. Irish American patterns were also influenced by the way in which a rural population shifted to a predominantly urban population in America. Parents are closer to the Irish past, but sometimes the second generation has to comply with the burden of the past as well. Mothers-daughters and granddaughters often have complicated relationships, with the older generations having especially overbearing personalities. Silences and a certain inability to express feelings are registered among Irish family members and they appear as a topic in Irish American fiction as well. Charles Fanning observes that a recurrent theme in Irish and Irish American fiction consists of “the dutiful self-immolation of children on behalf of their parents” (qtd. in Hallissy 22). At home, maturity was defined by the parents’ death and the inheritance of the property, but that often came so late that the “children” chose to remain single. In America, it seemed that the inheritance

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy problem was replaced by a difficulty to break away with the family, a quandary valid for both sons and daughters and so strange to the American lifestyle.

Looking at the work history of the Irish in the US, we come to grasp the occupation and social states of the characters in Irish American fiction. The Famine generations were low skilled and poor but by the beginning of the twentieth century, with the help of unionization, the Irish moved to better positions, better pay and higher skilled occupations. Jobs in the public domain also started being available to a stronger Irish American community thanks to Democratic politics and tight ethnic connections. “Irish Maries” moved up the social ladder and became office workers, “secretaries, stenographers, nurses and schoolteachers” (Hallissy 26).

It is more difficult to clearly identify what ethnicity means for later generations as the achievement of middle-class socio-economic status is often opposed to powerful ethnic identification; this was considered to be the case of the “lace curtain Irish” (Rains 213), who moved from the old neighborhood into the suburbs. There were great changes in America in the twentieth century related to social and geographical mobility and the civil rights, thus, critics such as Herbert Gans speak of attenuated ethnicity or “symbolic ethnicity” in the 1970s or the 1980s, acquired through these new forms of social mobility across generations: This symbolic identification as more or less a leisure-time activity. Individuals identify as Irish, for example, on occasions such as Saint Patrick’s Day, on family holidays, or for vacations ... Gans also wonders how such symbolic ethnicity can continue when the actual ethnic collectivity that the individual claims belong to continue to recede. (qtd. in Rains 216)

Blending into suburban neighborhoods caused a significant change in terms of the perception of ethnicity; “the bonds of ethnic community [which] were inevitably sundered by suburbanization” (Hallissy 30) by the second and third generation. In spite of this phenomenon, the Irish American community identifies itself as such and proudly produces ethnic culture.

Michel Novak, in the study published in 1972, The Rise of Unmeltable Ethnics, sees ethnic

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identity as cultural values and behaviours, “ethnic identity persists among individuals ... by being passed on in unconscious, tacit ways in their early nurture” (qtd. in Bayor 20). The legacy of ethnic identity is equally tackled by Elliott Barkan in And Still They Come: in varying degrees across the generations, ethnicity has persisted among many groups even among the older ... ones. It could be seen in the private sphere of manners and mores, values, and specific traditional practices. (qtd. in Bayor 20)

Richard Alba also locates ethnic identity in the deep structure of the psyche, as explained in Bayor’s study (20). Taking into account the concepts used, i.e. the unconscious, private sphere, the psyche, it is obvious that ethnicity has to be understood from a psychological viewpoint as well, in terms of attitudes towards child rearing, family roles, illnesses, for instance.

One example used by Bayor in his study to demonstrate this theory refers to a psychiatry study in the 1960s in New York State, which revealed the patterns of disturbed behavior of Irish American boys because of maternal domination (21).

Daniel J. Casey and Robert E. Rhodes published a Modern Irish-American Reader (1989), in which they include names like Finley Peter Dunne, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John O’Hara, Mary McCarthy, Brendan Gill, Mary Doyle Curran, Edwin O’Connor, Flannery O’Connor, J.P. Donleavy, William Kennedy, Maureen Howard, Elizabeth Cullinan, Mark Costello, Pete Hamill, Joe Flaherty and Mary Gordon. These writers themselves and critics have showed different understandings of the idea of Irish American fiction. For instance, interviewed on the topic, William Kenney discussed evolution in the fiction resulting from the social, cultural and political changes of the Irish American community: God knows where I am in all of this, in this evolution, but I know all that came before me. I know that those who came before me helped to show me how to turn experience into literature. I know all that came before in the same way I know that the Irish ascended politically to become Jack Kennedy. After Jack Kennedy, anything was possible. Goddammit, we’ve been president, and you can’t hold us back anymore. (qtd. in Casey and Rhodes 2)

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology In spite of the changes mentioned by Kenney, there are some traces of a traditional vein preserved in Irish American fiction, such as idyllic images of Ireland, or elements that symbolize the country of origin even for those for which it is no longer their homeland, a sublimated long-distance nationalism, some sense of the past, stubbornly transmitted from generation to generation and an awareness of the Catholic church as a church of immigration and of the ethnic neighbourhood networks.

Charles Fanning, before Casey and Rhodes, published in 1987 an anthology of nineteenth century Irish American fiction (The Exiles of Erin), in which he distinguishes three generations of writers: the pre-famine, the practical fiction of the famine stage and the literature of a new middle class. Some themes analysed by Fanning as being of concern to those generations have been transmitted to later generations in one form or another, i.e. Catholicism, success or failure in the New World, nationalism and politics.

On Irish American fiction in the 1960s, like Kenney, Fanning states that it has been written under the impact of some major events, such as the civil rights and sexual revolutions, the rise and tragedy of the Kennedy family, the breakup of the Irish ethnic neighbourhoods and their move to the suburbs (in Bayor and Meagher 811).

This change and energy are reflected in the perspective of liberating doubleness that characterizes much Irish American literature since the 1960s.

(Fanning qtd. Bayor and Meagher in 511)

In no other place have the Irish been more successful as in New York, which is valid for writers too. Thus, Maureen Howard, Jimmy Breslin, J.P. Donleavy, Alice McDermott, Elizabeth Cullinan and Joe Flaherty are representative of more recent New York Irish American fiction. Many of these writers continue the depiction of everyday family life in the big metropolis, tackled by their predecessors. “In addition, much of this fiction published over the past few years illustrates both the persistence of ethnicity and the phenomenon of ethnicity as liberating doubleness” (Fanning qtd. in Bayor and Meagher 519).

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III. Elizabeth Cullinan’s “Life After Death”: a dual approach of New York Irish American spirituality The short story “Life After Death” starts with Constance’s thoughts referring to President Kennedy’s sisters. There are two interesting remarks here: one, the allusion to the epitome of Irish success in the US, which is symbolized

by President Kennedy, the first Irish president in America, and secondly, the modernity of the narrator’s consciousness rendering images of the street in New York as paper clippings: “Sister of the late President looks in shop window. Sister of slain leader buys magazine. Kennedy kin hails tax on Madison Avenue” (in Casey and Rhodes 27). Thinking in newspaper headlines points to a quality of fragmentation of consciousness of the urban individual. “Newspaper formulas move into a vacuum of authority in West’s disordered, violent urban world” and the situation becomes absurd so that even when people “meet face to face, they talk ‘in headlines’” (Bremer 128).

Actually, the protagonist of the short story thinks in headlines, which shows further internalization of disintegration but she seems to apply this approach to public figures only, as if everything was neatly packaged for public display.

The thoughts neatly arrange in the young woman’s head under a headline “LIFE AFTER DEATH”, which could mean after Kennedy’s death, a painful moment that crushed the hopes of many young Americans at the time, or it might hint at a moment of peace evoked by the conclusion Constance will draw at the end of the day analysing her life.

A typical Cullinan short story follows this pattern: incisively observed encounters and emotional consequences build in seemingly casual movement to climactic generalizations so appropriate and valid as to be immediately recognizable as wisdom. (Bayor and Meagher 528)

It is no wonder that Constance’s thoughts gravitate around Kennedy, whose election as president was considered a major breakthrough for the Irish Americans and it provoked commentaries such as McCaffrey’s: The Irish are even numbered among the socalled beautiful people- part of the Kennedy heritage.

On television handsome men, women and children

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy wearing Irish knit sweaters and with Irish names like Kevin, Brian, Sean, Sheila and Maureen sell cars, soap and toothpaste. (qtd. in Rains 215)

Representations of Kennedy’s visit in Ireland in 1963, his speech on arrival at Dublin Airport, his speech in the Irish Parliament, all point to the historical relationship between Ireland and American, the importance of the Irish diaspora, Ireland’s struggle for independence, its progress and role in the global economy and politics.

According to Kevin Kenny It was in 1960 rather than 1860 that the American Irish finally became ‘white’, if by that term one means full racial and cultural respectability, a final acceptance by white American Protestants of IrishAmerican Catholics as their equals in all things important. (qtd. in Rains 19)

Thus, in the context of the short story, though an element of powerful ethnicity, the Irish American president is seen as a liberating figure.

As it is a cold day and the protagonist of the story is warmly dressed thanks to her mother’s advice, this gives the woman a moment to focus on the mother-daughter relationship. The mother is typically Irish: overprotective, selfsacrificing, “her sheer competence, her strength, her powers of endurance, her devotedness” (in Casey and Rhodes 219) being revealed in Constance’s meditation on her mother’s relationships with the three daughters (Grace, Rosemary and Constance) and in Constance’s dreams about her mother (in one, though dead, she rises and takes charge of the household and in another one, she is held captive in the house, beaten and suffering without being rescued by her daughters who can witness the ordeal).

Grace, the oldest of the sisters, was married with six children and a perfectionist, never satisfied with anything or anyone. The middle sister, Rosemary, aged forty, had lived all her life abroad and was about to get married to a man of a different religion. In the short story, like in the other works by Cullinan we have “singleshot, slowed down moments of life in an Irish New York Matriarchy” (Liddy 83).

Conversely, “the fathers peep forward in shadows, bread losers, happy go lucky, financially distressed” (Liddy 83). The protagonists in

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traditional Irish American writing, young women, are usually affected by their mother’s ambition. Therefore “Life After Death” depicts a cry for evasion. The affection the daughters return to their mother in “Life After Death” is very far from being the self-sacrifice expected

by Irish mothers: We have a sense of irony that my mother with the purity of instinct and the passion of innocence sees as a threat to our happiness and thus to hers. Not one of us is someone she has complete confidence in. (in Casey and Rhodes 218)

As Constance continues her walk along Lexington Avenue, she remembers the explosion in the always active area (since the mid-1940s busy with commuters around Central Station), which is under construction. Since after WWI, New York has been described as “the first capital of the world” (Chevrillon qtd. in Bremer 114), displaying “more contrasts than any other city in the world” (Mencken qtd. in Bremer 114), as “all the cities” (W.L. George qtd. in Bremer 114), as “the new Cosmopolis” (Hunecker qtd. in Bremer 114), a creative place “where all belong but none is uncontested owner” (Bremer 115).

Due to its harbour in the beginning, New York started growing as a center for commerce and communications, then to host international headquarters for banking and stacks, printing and publishing, radio and television.

In the context of the busy and noisy city, Constance also recalls Francis’ call among the noise letting her know that they had to postpone their meeting. Francis Hughes was a documentary producer, a married man with four sons, whom Constance was secretly seeing. In her walks, West Fifties is avoided because of the memories of the time when she was working with Francis being around him longer hours: When I’m in that part of the city, the present seems lifeless, drained of all intensity in relation to the lost time when my days were full of Francis, where for hours on end he was close by. (in Casey and Rhodes 222)

And another area in New York avoided is Thirty-fourth Street with Third Avenue, where Constance’s uncle owned a restaurant, Flynn’s, a typical Irish family business. Constance’s father, whose memory she treasures, had

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology been a manger there for a while and apparently tampered with the books, and, though no charges were pressed, this incident severed the family ties and the young woman avoided that part of the city as much as she could afterwards.

From this viewpoint, of memories and lived experience in the urban space, it is interesting to look at New York as a fictional city in Cullinan’s story as a “thirdspace”, described by Soja in his studies Thirdspace (1996) and Postmetropolis (2000). Soja speaks of a “firstspace” in the city as “spatial practices” meant to create concrete forms and patterns of urban lifestyle; the “secondspace” belongs to the mental or ideational realm as a “conceived space of imagination” (Soja 10-11). What the narrator renders through Constance’s walking or avoiding walking in New York is this alternative third dimension of space, “lived space”, “a simultaneously real-and-imagined, actualand-virtual, locus of structured individual and collective experience and agency” (Soja 11), fed

by Constance’s fears and anxieties and the city dynamic with television and Irish pubs at their peak. Soja considers that understanding “lived space” is comparable to writing a biography; this could be one meaning attached to Cullinan’s short story: walking through New York with Constance, a young Irish American in the 70s, we remake, in a nutshell, the evolution of the ethnic community of the Irish in America; we witness the writing of an alternative monograph of New York City.

Constance had attended a Catholic college, like many Irish girls and she had a part-time job in the same institution working for the Admission Office. The nuns that are still at the college remind her of the old days of the Catholic school, otherwise the personnel now form a multicultural community, typical of New York City, and which the Irish, once the most dominant immigrant population in the city, adapted to: Yeshi, who comes from Ethiopia, Maggie, a Haitian, Delia, from Puerto Rico, all members of ethnic groups that entered the US in various waves in the twentieth century. In America, and especially in cities like New York, “every individual urban center, from the largest to the smallest, seems increasingly to contain the entire world within it, creating the most

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culturally heterogeneous2 cityspaces the world has ever seen” (Soja 152). This multicultural milieu constituted by her colleagues gives Constance contradictory feelings. On the one hand, diversity offers a chance for tolerance and reconciliation, as ethnic consciousness implies an acute awareness of other ethnic groups: “I’m half convinced that time is on our side, that nothing is ever lost, that we need only have a little more faith, we need only believe a little more and the endings will be happy” (in Casey and Rhodes 226), i.e. her mother will trust her daughters, Francis will realize how much she loves him and she will walk again confidently on 34th Street.

On the other hand, this intricate melange of people may create difficulties in one’s ability to identify oneself, like in the Dominican church Constance attends the Mass in in the evening: Since it’s a city parish, my companions at Mass are diverse – businessmen and students and women in beautiful fur coats side by side with nuns and pious people, the backbone of the congregation. I identify myself among them as someone who must be hard to place. (in Casey and Rhodes 228)

Without claiming to be a typically devout Catholic, Constance reveals a high degree of spirituality, her attendance of the Mass causing a powerful meditation on the meaning of life and death, which explains the title of the short-story: During those twenty or so minutes, I feel my own past to be not quite coherent but capable of eventually proving to be that. And if my life, like every other, contains elements of the outrageous, that ceremony of death and transfiguration is a means of reckoning with the outrageousness, as work and study are means of reckoning with time. (in Casey and Rhodes 228)

The fact that Constance’s moments of spirituality are not solely Catholic Mass bound is proved by the next meditation on vanity and fleeting life caused by New York City street life: “The street was crowded with people – fleshand-blood images, living tableaux representing virtue and temptation: greed on one face, faith on another, on another charity or sloth, 2 Appadurai calls them ethnoscapes, cities that have been shaped by global flows of people at an unprecedented level (in Soja 201).

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy fortitude, or purity” (in Casey and Rhodes 228).

To the crowd, Constance finally adds the image of the new flower seller at the corner of Sixtyeight and the short story serenely concludes on the noble, beautiful and still faces of people from all over the world settling in New York.

According to Raymond Williams, the experience of an individual in a large city could go either way “into an affirmation of common humanity, past the barriers of crowded strangeness; or into an emphasis of isolation, of mystery – an ordinary feeling that can become a terror” (qtd. in Tally Jr. 89) or rather to moments of oscillation like in the case of Cullinan’s protagonist. Equally, Walter Benjamin, in “A Berlin Chronicle”, Charles Baudelaire, in “The Painter of Modern Life”, Edgar Allen Poe, in the short story “The Man of the Crowd” and Michel de Certeau, in his “Walking in the City”, discuss this modern figure, the stroller, le flâneur, who covers an “urban island, a sea within the middle of the sea”, a phrase used by the latter to describe Manhattan (qtd. in Tally Jr. 96).

The conclusions of these writers’ works interestingly converge to one idea, namely the mental protean phenomenon characterizing an individual’s urban experience, which is an intensification, an “electricity”: “the psychological basis of the metropolitan type of individuality consists in the intensification of nervous stimulation which results from the swift and uninterrupted change of outer stimuli” (Simmel qtd. in Tally Jr. 96). At times, this type of experience creates a state of transition, which may oppress or reinforce any feelings of community. In the case of the young Irish American woman, we have stimuli like, the Kennedy sisters, the explosion on Lexington Avenue, the cold outside, the uncle’s pub, the college, the church and the new flower seller in the corner of the street, which trigger her thoughts and meditation. So, it is the story of a woman stroller, a modern Irish American young girl whose consciousness is bombarded by the urban flux.

Conclusion In conclusion, the movement of these Irish American characters, such as Constance in Cullinan’s “Life After Death”, through urban

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space – New York City, ultimately points at an oscillation between the parochial ethnic neighbourhood - represented by the mother, the uncle’s restaurant, the old college - and the liberating downtown – the streets, the office, the church, which parallels Constance’s ancestors’ migration from rural Ireland to urban America. The story take place within the diaspora discourse, which articulates, or bends together, both roots and routes to construct what Gilroy describes as alternate public spheres (1987), forms of community consciousness and solidarity that maintain identifications outside the national time/ space in order to live inside, with a difference. (Guibernau and Rex 325)

With Cullinan, the approach to the protagonist’s journey appears as sophisticate and, though alluding to specific ethnic details, applicable to any immigrant in New York, whose experience becomes universally illuminating: ... the doubleness of ethnic consciousness is enriching and clarifying, that the debate cannot really be resolved, and that a refusal to decide between the poles of ethnic community and cosmopolitan individuality can mark the beginning of a rich, varied life. The middle, straddling position, having something to compare everything with – therein lies a valuable source of energy and understanding. (Bayor and Meagher 530)

As there is silence in relation to chain migration, re-Irishing, Hibernian activities in the US, and visits to Ireland and encounters with Irish people (Hallissy 30), as strategies of coming to terms with ethnic identity dilemmas to be used by Constance, her only answer remains storytelling. Thus, we learn about Francis, her mother, her father, her uncle’s pub, her office work and colleagues, the church she attends, choices through which she seems to find comfort and peace even in the absence of clear cut verdicts as to her belonging to the Irish American community.

The spiritual universe of the protagonist remains ethnic bound, Irish, and cosmopolitan and profoundly humane as well. On the one hand, the presence of president Kennedy’s sister reconnects her to the ethnic community, which was liberated from many viewpoints by the charismatic leader; Constance’s mother is a constant remainder of their attachment to the

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology Irish community, yet the girl chooses to challenge any family oppression; Flynn’s, her uncle’s pub, is avoided because of the family conflict but Constance longs to return there one day and feel confident about walking in the restaurant; the Catholic college Constance works for, the same she attended as a student, is now multicultural, which can only enrich the spiritual dimension of the protagonist’s consciousness even if at times freedom is offered by the possibility to mask one’s identity, through different clothing, for instance. Finally, both the Dominican church and the streets of New York, as the two facets of existence, the religious one and the lay one, cause very powerful spiritual insights for the young Irish American woman.

REFERENCES [1] Bayor, Ronald H. And Timothy Meagher, eds. The

New York Irish. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.

[2] Bayor, Ronald H. “Another Look at ‘Whiteness’: The Persistence of Ethnicity in American Life.”

Journal of American Ethnic History. Vol. 29. No. 1 (Fall, 2009). University of Illinois Press. 13-30.

Accessed: 02/05/2013.

[3] Bremer, Sidney H. Urban Intersections: Meetings of Life and Literature in United States Cities.

Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1992.

[4] Casey, J. Daniel and Robert E. Rhodes. Modern Irish-American Fiction Reader. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 1989.

[5] Diner, R. Hasia. Erin’s Daughters in America: Irish Immigrant Women in the Nineteenth Century.

Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983.

[6] Guibernau, Montserat and John Rex, eds. The Ethnicity Reader. Cambridge, Polity, 2010.

[7] Hallissy, Margaret. Reading Irish-American Fiction: The Hyphenated Self. Gordonville, VA: Palgrave, Macmillan, 2006.

[8] Liddy, James. On American Literature and Diasporas. Ed. Eamonn Wall. Dublin: Arlen House, 2013.

[9] Rains, Stephanie. The Irish-American in Popular Culture 1945-2000. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2007.

[10] Soja, Edward. Postmetropolis: Critical Studies of Cities and Regions. Oxford, Malden, MA: Oxford,

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2000.

[11] Tally Jr., Robert. Spatiality. London and New York:

Routledge, 2013.

Biography Nicoleta Stanca has been teaching at Ovidius University Constanta since 2003.

She has published three book-length studies Mapping Ireland (Essays on Space and Place in Contemporary Irish Poetry), (2014), The Harp and the Pen (Tradition and Novelty in Modern Irish Writing) (2013), Duality of Vision in Seamus Heaney’s Writings (2009), articles in academic journals and book chapters. She has been a coeditor of conference volumes, the most recent being: The American Tradition of Descent/ Dissent: The Underground, the Countercultural, the (Anti)Utopian. A Collection of Essays (2012). She has also been an editor for the International Journal of Cross-Cultural Studies and Environmental Communication. ISSN 2285 – 3324 and she is a member of the Romanian Association for American Studies, the Romanian Society for English and American Studies and of the Ireland-Romania Network.

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Spirituality through Transculturality in Harry Tavitian’s Creation Ruxandra Mirea, PhD

Department of Arts Ovidius University of Constanta Constanța, Romania ruxandra.m63@gmail.com Abstract: Harry Tavitian, like any other creator, is in a continuous motion, quest and development, with free mind and spirit. Harry Tavitian was born in Constanta, in 1952, in an Armenian family, who is always in his heart, as he says. The study of the piano was so useful, that, in his late teens, he is already exploring the blues. Before graduating the Ciprian Porumbescu Conservatory in Bucharest in 1978, the artist founded, with a deliberate enthusiasm, a band called Creative, which would always express itself recreatively, in the spirit of a permanent renewal.

His concerts, initially thought with an exigence that shows through the creation, are not repeatable, cannot be quantified with a measure of a weight or linearity, but with one of depth and veracity of the message, of liberty, joy and simplicity. The piano, the one that helps him and us to grow through music is the instrument which comes to support the improvisation and the variations. Thus springs the original esthetics called ethno-jazz, a genre nurtured from the fertile soil of the Romanian folklore, thus building and promoting a valuable South-Eastern European school of jazz. In his language both the avant-garde jazz and the traditional blues are amplified and also supplemented with Romanian and Armenian flavors. The cavalcade of improvisation is defining, Harry Tavitian being spontaneous in the

original harmonic lacing in which he always wraps his creations and performances. The aftermath is always the same, an audience that hardly recovers from the dreamy ambience of every concert.

Keywords: ethno-jazz, blues, improvization, melody, Armenian, Romanian, harmony, rhythm, creation, piano, percussion, dance

I. INTRODUCTION About his personality it is difficult to speak only once, as it is difficult to gather the multitude of information about him until present day, for the simple reason that he is a boundless and free artist. Like any other creator, he is in a continous motion, quest and development, with mind and spirit without borders. Harry Tavitian was born in Constanta, in 1952, in an Armenian family, who is always in his heart, as he says. „My hearth is in Dobrudja for at least four generations. Elsewhere I think I would lose any idea” says Harry Tavitian in an interview[1].

The togetherness with the piano, since he was six years old, gave him the possibility of an unhindered expression and communication, in a language which he would sustain and transform quickly. He confessed in an interview that „one of the big lessons which my parents taught me

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology was taking care not to bore people.” Studying the piano was so useful, that by the end of his adolescence he was already exploring the blues.

II. SHORT HISTORY OF THE JAZZ Jazz is history, it is the expression of the corseted freedom of a colored population, forcefully manifested within city borders, otherwise paradoxically propelled by it. The slaves deported from the African continent, from the Gulf of Guinea, Cameroon or Senegal to the United States have also manifested through singing the remanence of the native land. The jazz is a reflex of life, pain and oppresion suffered by the Black people. Thus, every day-to-day activity would also materialize in music, which will become an attitude of protest, revealing both the pain and torture of their lack of adjustment, but also the necessity and harshness of incorporating in the new and imposed adoptive American society. The faith, the work, the attitude of protest, the entertainment, they were the expressions that generated the primary forms of jazz, such as worksong, spirituals, blues and afterwards ragtime. The unalterable background of the African popular culture was a geyser that fed the genre’s spirit, through the accepted liberties by the way of conveyance.

Originally, the mentioned genres were limited to the orality, to the bodily involvement, through gesture and efforts of some dance movements, vocal effects, called “dirty” in specialty language and the presence of the musical instruments, even rudimentary at first, from the percussion family.

The amalgamation of the moods and expressions of the colored people, who were oppressed, dehumanized, blamed and marginalized by the whites, brought about the demolition of the barrier between sacred and profane at the beginning of the XXth century, when the birth of the jazz is documented (around the year 1900) and as the French musicologist Gilles Mouëllie stated, “the evangelists accompany themselves with piano and guitar”. The stars of gospel are both artists on stage, but also in church... Mahalia Jackson triumphed and numerous jazz musicians made their debut at the religious service (Charles Mingus played the trumpet there)[2]. As an example, jazz is polyvalent, vocal and scenic,

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through the African and the instrumental tradition, through the American tradition, also clearly involving the European culture. In all the five periods influenced by the musicologist and jazz singer Andre Hodeir, from the beginning of the XXth century and nowadays, the art of jazz, which will maintain its Black-American tradition core, was engrafted with the Western music, which has penetrated the New World by various situations. Thus, in the mosaic-like esthetics of the jazz we can rediscover the tonal system, the four-time meter, the primary forms of lied and the syncopated rhythm. Naturally, the transformation being the measure of progress, such elements have set the background of later development, the art of improvisation being the most important. Therefore, jazz, like any other genre, remains condescending to folklore, but radiantly, widely opens to any other influence, either intellectual or originated from national cultures.

Blues is that form of musical expression that was generated by the worksongs of the slaves and of the “field hollers” (calling cries of the field workers)[3]. Song and dance, blues unfolds on a slow rhythm, where the interpreter confesses, at the first person, the drama of an tireless uprooting. In a Bar form, or barform, AAB, the three phrases of four beats to the bar are determinated by a harmonic clinch, of a tonal plan: I, IV-I, V-I. The atmosphere of melancholy and nostalgia due to the long distance from the native land, specific to the genre, have impressed and inspired Harry Tavitian, the genre remaining to this day a landmark in the creation of the artist, despite the inevitable stylistic evolution.

III. MOMENTUM OF CREATIVITY In 1975, in the second edition of the Jazz Festival in Sibiu, H. Tavitian participated with a student band, which he founded in Brasov, Harry Tavitian Quintet, and received standing ovation.

In 1976, the artist participated alone, in the same Festival in Sibiu, drawing the amazement and also appreciation of both the jury and the audience for his novelty appearance, as a valuable exponent of the postmodern esthetics which we were experiencing back then. As Virgiliu Mihaiu also stated, the artist has drawn great attention, due to the specially constructed piano “Tavitian using ping-pong balls to bestow the performance

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy an additional sense of unpredictability, through the stochastic play of the celluloid balls on the instrument’s chords”[4]. Before graduating the Ciprian Porumbescu Conservatory in Bucharest in 1978, the artist founded with deliberate enthusiasm, the band Creativ, which will always manifest itself in recreative manner, in the spirit of a permanent renewal.

In 1980 he participated again in the Jazz Festival in Sibiu as a solo act, winning the first prize and the appreciation of more than 1200 spectators. Thus, the approach to the jazz is final and irreversible. At the beginning of his career, he formed a duo with George Manescu and later on, with Alexandru Ianos, Catalin Frusinescu etc. The band structure was modified in 1981 by adding the percussionist Corneliu Stroe. His respect for art and jazz esthetics has compelled the band soon enough to take initiative to release two albums at the famous record label Leo Records of London, Horizons and Transylvanian Suite.

The reviews from the West are appreciative and laudatory towards Transylvanian Suite. The work removes, from the dowry chest of the Romanian culture, the spirit, the ethos of the folkloric melos of two pieces composed by the Romanian composer from the XVIIIth century, Ioan Caianu, which were metamorphosed by Harry Tavitian and the remarkable drummer, Corneliu Stroe, through harmonies and impetuous rhythms of best quality.

In 1984, we found H. Tavitian again, as leader of the group Creative, presenting to the audience of Sibiu, at the same Jazz Festival, a colourful sextet, in which the loud mix of piano, brass and drums have convinced the audience once again due to the overflowing harmonies and obstinate rhythms. On this occasion, he performed the piece To Mircea Eliade, exhibiting a strong Romanian vein inserted in the frenzy of rhythm and free harmony. The next year, we found him again performing together with Corneliu Stroe a recital well received both for its technique and reverberations of the Romanian ethos.

After 1985, the group Creative limits itself to the definitely valuable binominal - Harry Tavitian and Corneliu Stroe, two artistic characters which complete and enhance each other, in the chosen tendency, which is the Romanian jazz. Thus, their artistic profile took shape, Harry Tavitian excelling at piano, vocals and sometimes at

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traditional woodwind, but being in permanent relation with Corneliu Stroe, the conductor and the soloist of his own drums arsenal, plenty of diversity and always prepared to face the musical challenge of his partner. His repertory, wide by options and demands, is one of his own creation, deeply engraved by the Balkan ethnojazz, but also classical jazz and blues pieces and songs sourced from the Armenian folklore and from everywhere.

In 1987 the group Creative explored the enchanting world of the Romanian carols, collected by Bélla Bartók and it performed The Suite at the eighth edition of the Jazz Festival in Brasov. The piece already has the virtue of originality no matter the price, like many others.

The syncretism of the piece is recognized in the synergy of the vocal and instrumental music and also in the archaic clothing of the two soloists, H. Tavitian and Corneliu Stroe.

In year 1988, the group Creative which would invite the double bass player Reinhart Hammerschmidt, performed a new piece in Sibiu, Drumul cu rodii (TN – The Pomegranates Road), a musical invitation to the imagery of forging a human destiny, realized with utmost technical performance.

Throughout the eighties, a decade of promotion of postmodernist tendencies in literature and music, young Harry Tavitian continued his searches and accumulations. At the County Library of Constanta, he initiated auditions and concerts that encouraged the audience towards new and bold esthetics focused on symbiosis between different cultures, thus showing the unlimited richness of such musical language. Under the influence of overwhelming personalities, in the spirit of the friendship and emanating a charismatic nobility, Harry Tavitian has always invited prestigious guests. At the first concert initiated at the County Library in 1982, he has invited the unique Johnny Raducanu, who would guard his artistic life as a torch, until the latter left us in 2011.

Harry Tavitian would always invite him, thus the audience in Constanta would see him again, and feel his dedication and effervescence in the creation workshops organized at the Drama Theater, then at the Art Museum. In the course of time, he would be joined by Marius Popp, Mircea Tiberian, Dan Grigore and Delia Pavlovici.

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology The recital of the two musicians at the Jazz Festival in Bucharest in 2005, was a gala on two pianos, proof of the need of any artist to have a role model. „For me, the main lesson that I have learned from Johnny all these years, was the fact that I have learned to live jazz. From him I learned the spirituality of jazz, alongside him, I learned that jazz means much more than just music, it is a whole world. There were things that I couldn’t have learned in any other school or university of jazz in the world”[5].

For an artist, the freedom of mind and creation is a modus vivendi which guards his life. Harry Tavitian had and has the strength and expansion of the quest and of the expression that he is sharing with us, the audience, as people from everywhere and without borders.

His frequent travels are occasions to always meet artists that express themselves musically and unconventionally, in the spirit of the present esthetics and even the future. Among them, we remember famous names like: György Szabados, Mihaly Dresch, Hans Kumpf, Anatoly Vapirov, Okay Temiz, and many other musicians from the Balkans or from the West.

Harry Tavitian was and is always welcomed at these jam-sessions and always draws the audience’s enthusiasm, which vibrates as the artist does, relates and understands his messages of harmony, fraternity, altruism and dignity. When I say dignity, I also refer to his constant choice to pay tribute to his Armenian ethnicity and to promote its traditions. Harry Tavitian is the artist that has the capacity of a syncretic performance, combining music with text and traditional dress specific to his ethnicity.

His performance is true architecture, conceived in a composite and polychrome style, from which the ethno tendency comes into shape and brings out his personality. His shows, overwhelming in the spiritual richness which they convey, must also be seen.

IV. ORIGINAL TECHNIQUE OF AN ARTIST The basic musical elements in jazz are melody, harmony and rhythm. As regards the form, we can say that it is present only at a rarefied level of minimal structures and at the phrase level that will afterwards generate impromptu volute. Thus, jazz score is many times redundant,

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almost incompatible with the genre we are speaking about. In jazz music, improvisation is the element besides harmony and rhythm that creates a sound field hard to explain in any dictionary, perhaps joy, exultation, sensibility, frenzy, performance. Harry Tavitian states every time the melodic theme, undiversified in its simplified structure. The improvisation of his technique is overwhelming, as well as his natural harmonies, the artist liberates himself from the functional constraints, and gushes, by extraneous note, in the harmonic lacing. Not by chance he is considered as one of the unique jazz artists in the country, due to his perpetual state of harmony that he is emanating through every piece. Permanent variation is the technique that is serving the jazz singer in his continuous improvisation. Thus, we sometimes perceive jazz as being evanescent, weightless, due to the absence of limits in creation by improvisation.

The lightness of this technique offers a different perspective, of implying others artistic forms too. Thus the genre becomes open, being close to the open text, innovator esthetics of the second half of the XXth century.

Harry Tavitian is the artist who, out of respect for music and creation, becomes aware of the deep originality of his music, style and esthetics he is serving.

That is why his concerts, initially conceived with an exigency that shows through the creation, are not repeatable and cannot be quantified with a measure of weight and linearity, but of depth and authenticity of his message, of freedom, joy and simplicity. The instrument which comes to support the improvisation, for the themes with variations is the one that helps him and us to evolve through music. The instrument that helps and inspires H. Tavitian in his creation is the piano. Its possibilities, be it temperate, melodic, harmonic and counterpoint, provide him with a fan with seven octave, an aspect not at all to be neglected, on which he can embroider with his inexhaustible fantasy. As for the rhythmic aspect, the possibilities are remarkable, as long as both hands, with all the ten fingers are engaged in this labor. Additionally, the whole soundboard becomes for H. Tavitian the instrument which helps him transcende the perceivable reality.

Eloquent proof of his sublime improvisation of his creation is also his performance in the

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy Jazz Festival in Satu-Mare, Samfest 2005, at two pianos. The joy was doubled by the presence of another jazz harmony professional, Ion Baciu jr.

Spontaneity, harmony, clarity, variation, East, West and magic are a few key words of this special meeting.

His discography is significant but, not that sufficient as the music loving audience would like.

The third record, after the two London releases, was East-West Creative Combinations, which was released in Romania at the Electrecord label, but ordered from Germany and also sold there. The fourth record has finally appeared in Romania too, Creatiunea (NT – Creation).

The CD called There’s Always Hope, released in 1995, a duet with the Russian saxophone player, Anatoly Vapirov was produced in Bulgaria.

The next release in 1998, of the Black Sea Art Project, alongside a multinational group, with musicians from every country from the Black Sea Basin, contains the recording of a concert in Istanbul, in the autumn of 1996. The audio recordings continued with Alone, a piano solo and Open End, a duet with the German clarinet player, Hans Kumpf. The record of another duet with the drum player Eugen Gondi completes the series of musical recordings catalogue. The novel musical reveals itself in the company of another older group, The Blues Community, together with Corneliu Stroe on the drums, Catalin Rotaru, base, and the young back then Hanno Hofer at harmonica. Another duo with the Russian saxophone player, Anatoly Vapirov, The Last Romantic, was recorded in the Melodia studios in Moscow, in February 1991, but released in Romania. The Birth is another CD, recorded with the drum player Cserey Csaba and launched in November 2008.

V.

AVANT-GARDE ORIENTATIONS

Harry Tavitian is a man of modesty worthy of his artistic value. In his interviews he always proves parsimony with regards to the amplitude of his successful stage performances. None the less, his creation can say many things about his character, which is creative, exuberant, and generous, altruist and positive. He is a remarkable composer and pianist of the Romanian jazz, among those who have defined the concept of East-European ethno-jazz. His avant-garde orientation, syntonic with classic blues, melted in Romanian, Armenian or some other folklore

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ethos, represents his creative effigy. Proof of the music transculturality through style, esthetics, feeling and experience, Harry Tavitian confessed that “for me, the folklore is a starting point, a source of inspiration, a footprint, a touch, an identity....after all, I live in this environment.

Perhaps a particular thing for me would be a double origin – that I am Armenian by birth and Romanian by adoption, and I feel at home in both traditions”[6].

Composer of wide vision, he created pieces of impressive inspiration, especially on stage, that motivates his orientation towards stage music: Furtuna (TN – The Tempest) (1988), stage music for William Shakespeare’s play, premiere in 1988 at the Drama Theater of Constanta; Melissa (1995), stage music for Nikos Kantzantzakis’ play, premiere at the Bulandra Theater of Bucharest; Orgasm (2001), stage music for Vlad Zografi’s play, premiere at the Toaca Foundation in Bucharest. From the genre which represents him best, we mention the following: August 82 (1982); Noiembrie ‘82 (1982); Acasă (TN – At Home) (1983); Horisons (1985); Suita transilvană (TN – Transylvanian Suite) (1986); Last Romantic (1992); Roots (1994); Old Balkan Rhapsody (2002); Cântând în întuneric (TN – Singing in the Dark); Dans oriental; La porţile Levantului (TN – At the Gates of Levant); Geampara major; Coborând pe Ararat (TN – Down the Ararat); Marşul Miresei (TN – March of the Bride); Omagiu lui Anton Pann; Dans fecioresc (TN – Maiden Dance); To Brâncuşi etc.

CONCLUSIONS Born in New Orleans, at the end of the XIXth century, jazz is a sound magic both for the performer and the audience. In the colorful clubs of the impressive port-city on the Mississippi River, the encounter between the Metis and the first generation of liberated Black slaves brought about the emergence of a new genre in the musical culture. It was different, original and impressive compared to the serious and cultivated genres of the cultured music. Born in the lowest class of American society, jazz included the painful issues of an uneducated population, whose sincerity and sacrifice has forced the renewal of the XXth century music.

Completely unknown at first, jazz has hatched from the spirit of brutalized population, who

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology succeeded to sublime its own misfortunes, harmoniously coloring the perimeter of music in time. The track record of the genre was all the more captivating, the more it was improved from the phase of an entertainment song, played in clubs of ill repute, to the performance before an elite audience with in-depth knowledge.

Saxophone, trumpet, trombone, piano and lead singing are the instruments which bestow the genre an authentic interpretation, truthfully expressing its psychological subtext.

After the first generations of musicians, the genre was assimilated by the American light music scene and migrating to Europe, as well.

Jazz brought a change of perspective into the European national cultures, joining two intrinsic complex trends at the time: that of the juicy subtext of jazz, binomial itself and that of the markings of distinct local tradition. Thus, Harry Tavitian renews the genre by the totally special color of the markings in his stylistic: Armenian, Romanian and Balkan. It is a reconfiguration and revival of the genre which he builds in Romania.

It is an expansion of the genre which thus gains expressivity, elements of surprising rhythmic and striking harmonies.

The improvisation is also perpetrated, the characteristic of authentic jazz, always picking up the markings of the local music authenticity. The music notes, a restrictive brand of the cultured music, is redundant also in Harry Tavitian’s creation. Thus, his works have authentic ideas which instantly draw interest; they are modulated in always atypical phrases, periods and sections, which do not observe any preset rules of the musical science. In other words, the freedom of the heart to choose the most adequate vibration is the artist’s prerogative, which is constructive for his creation.

century, (Cluj: Grinta Publishing, 2003), 26.

[3] Gilles Mouëllie, Jazz – An Esthetics of the XXth

century, (Cluj: Grinta Publishing, 2003), 26.

[4] Virgil Mihaiu, Jazzorelief, (Bucarest: Nemira

Publishing, 1993), 104.

[5] Mirela Stîngă, “Six months after his death Johnny Răducanu, commemorated in Constanta”, Telegraf Online, 20 martie 2012 (http://www.telegrafonline. ro/1332194400/articol/193025/johnny_raducanu_ pomenit_la_constanta.html).

[6] Mugur Grosu, “Axis Mundi”, Observator, suplimentul de marți, 16 noiembrie 1999 (http:// asalt.tripod.com/a_010.htm).

Bibliography [1] Andrieș, Adrian. Jazz Dictionary.

Bucharest: Tracus Arte Publishing, 2010.

[2] Bota, Johnny. History of Jazz. Sighetul Marmației: Valea Verde Publishing, 2012.

[3] Hodeir, Andre. Jazz. Music Publishing, 1967.

[4] Mouëllie, Gilles. Jazz – An Esthetics of the Century XXth. Cluj-Napoca: Grinta Publishing, 2003.

[5] Pop, Marius. Applied Harmony in Jazz, Pop and Rock Improvisation. Bucharest: Music Publishing, 2013.

[6] Kinkle, D. Roger. The Complete Encyclopedia of Popular Music and Jazz 19001960, New York: Arlington Hause, 1977.

[7] Mihaiu, Virgiliu. Jazzorelief, Bucharest: Nemira Publishing, 1993.

[8] Tiberian, Mircea. Jazz Inside Out. Bucharest: Tracus Arte Publishing, 2012.

Spontaneity, harmony, clarity, variation, East, West and magic are a few key words of this special encounter in the history of Romanian jazz with Harry Tavitian.

[9] Bălan, Ancuța. 2011. “The more difficult times are, the more favorable for jazz” VIP 39:10.

REFERENCES

[11] Stîngă, Mirela. “Six months after his death Johnny Răducanu, commemorated in Constanta”, Telegraf Online, (20 martie 2012), http://www.telegrafonline.ro/1332194400/ articol/193025/johnny_raducanu_pomenit_la_ constanta.html.

[1] Ancuța Bălan, The more difficult times are, the

more favorable for jazz, interview in VIP magazine, issue 39 / 26 sep – 2 oct 2011.

[2] Gilles Mouëllie, Jazz – An Esthetics of the XXth

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[10] Grosu, Mugur, “Axis Mundi”, Observator, suplimentul de marți, (16 noiembrie 1999), http://asalt.tripod.com/a_010.htm.

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween  Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy Biography: Ruxandra Mirea has graduated from George Enescu Highschool of Music, from Bucharest, piano specialisation, and afterwards Faculty of Music, and Music Composition, Musicology, specialisation Vocal and Instrumental Music, from Ciprian Porumbescu Conservatory of Music, Bucharest. She has a PHD in Music, from George Enescu Academy of Arts, Iasi, Musicology specialisation (2008). She has taught piano, in Quen Marry National College of Arts, Constanta (1988-1999). From 1999 she has become lecturer at Faculty of Arts, part of Ovidius University, where she has taught Theory of Music-solfeggio, dictate and History of Universal Music. Between 2004-2010 being a lecturer at Faculty of Orthodox Theology-specialisation Sacred Arts- she taught Theory of Music-solfeggio, dictate and Piano.

Now, she is a lecturer at Faculty of Arts, where she teaches History of Music, Musical Esthetics, Theory of Music-solfeggio, dictate.

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Congruence of rituals and theatre.

The use of drama for religious ceremony

Cosmin Tudor CIOCAN, PhD Department of Theology Ovidius University of Constanta Constanța, Romania cosmin.ciocan@univ-ovidius.ro

Abstract: I have started this research as a response to a pejorative question that religious rituals are merely theatrical, and the personnel involved nothing else but actors; beyond this there is nothing any religion suggests, e.g. healing, divine touch, blessings et.al.

This paper is about rituals and their meanings and roles played as in social drama and theatre play.

Considering the relationship between ritual and theatre to be reciprocal I will use their functions to evaluate the process of religious ceremonies and the role they play for adherents/participants, as if they would be attending a play. Religious Studies and Drama joint study offers the opportunity to combine two complementary humanities subjects, as both drama and religion are mainstays of cultural practice.

Keywords: scenery, choreography, badge, healing, garments, social cohesion, settings, piety

I. INTRODUCTION Why do people have rituals of any kind?

Repetitive acts are finger-printed habits, patterns that eliminate the element of surprise, the unknown, for those who know the content of the ritual, because discovering the unknown was what determined man to become religious in the

first place. By performing meaningful, repetitive acts man ensures himself psychological comfort.

A particular kind of play is drama, maybe the most elaborate, systemic and adequate means that religious rituals can use in their manifestation. Drama is for everyone. It relies on universal human skills that we use every day, such as communication, empathy, observation, and improvisation. It is not concerned with creating a polished performance, but with the development of emotional, embodied and cognitive knowledge built on experience.

[1] While creating an entertainment/relaxing atmosphere, theatre and rituals also transmit values, ideas, and profound beliefs without enforcing anyone to believe so; everything comings naturally, feelings induced through the play and active participation. It is easier to induce a behaviour and a thought through play/ theatre/ritual than to request those directly. Any direct approach will have to face a contradictory attitude, a wall made of preconceptions that are usually hidden, unknown or subconscious. But spoken as a direct confrontation, these attitudes are always well formed and become stronger through arguments, and the person who verbalizes them becomes convinced of the truth of his feelings, now grown into strong beliefs. In order to make people believe what you want,

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th e Dia l o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and T heology it is more productive to make them believe the ideas you portray are actually theirs, that they always thought this, even if they weren’t saying it out loud.

The relationship between theatre and ritual is complex; it differs according to cultural norms and periods. When you attend a performance of a play in connection with any social traditions, religion or just cultural behaviour, you would probably have a strong sense that what you were experiencing was not just a play but a ritual. Also, attending religious ceremonies will make you feel like being in a play, as if you are an outsider of the belief shared by and through that ritual. “The presence of singing and dancing, elevated beyond the conversational use of the voice and the body, together with the environment and the story, would mark the experience as something other than theatre, even though it would be using the resources of theatre”[2].

Dedicated to the gods in the beginning, but not too distant from educating people to behave in a certain way to those gods, religious ceremonies had to grasp all the possible functions and roles in order to attain these two aims. Most religious plays are centred on the birth-death-rebirth of a god and mankind is invited to rejoice with Him through that ritual. ”This basic alternation of death and life is found in myths across cultures and centuries: death as a necessary prelude to life. This pattern is clearly an archetype for many religious ceremonies”[3].

II. THE ESSENCE OF THEATRE, A RITUAL OF LIFE The “essence” of theatre is thus needs a player and someone to experience the performance; a story for the player to tell is also assumed. Everything else (a formal script, scenery, costume, etc.) is a welcome but not essential accoutrement of the interaction of actor and audience[4].

Drama is active learning, but its lessons are not easy to learn, even if it includes historical and theoretical information. These lessons and activities can be taken as inspiration, just as we discovered ourselves after being inspired by our teachers and mentors; but we encourage readers to adapt them both to personal

strengths and to populations with whom you work. We learn through doing, exploring, and trying out, and by interacting with our peers and our environment. The act of doing is what makes us lifelong learners.[5] Vice versa, theatre and all its elements became an integral part of religious life to provide the desired effects for its adherents.

Besides divine encounters and healing/helping aids of religious rituals, they have always played the role of the display of their beliefs. For adherents to experience the reality of divinity implication in this world and in their lives, they have to become witnesses of what I like to call, ‘religiogenesis event’ (RgE)[6]. People have always been changed by a divine/spiritual apparitions, but it never lasted and they cannot begin anew every time someone wanted them to. This is just not possible at all times, to compel divinity to make its appearance and use its power – it is just not a God-like-way of acting, (“The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” John 3.8). Therefore, religion’s representatives came up with this compromise solution, a ceremony.

Although ritual is the symbolic anamnesis of a RgE, the undergoing transformations can be very real, depending on a multitude of elements – which will be discussed partially here. Christopher Junes describes the ritual as “apparently inducing a change in the participants that is not merely symbolical but actual.”[7] Everything that has been said or done has the purpose of bringing participants to the same position of witnesses of a real, unique historical event. For that reason everything related to cult is perceived as belonging to another time, the oldest and most distant era. For many social events that have produced profound changes in social consciousness were accompanied with myths and legends, with the role of underlining the importance of these events, but especially the amplitude that have been further developed.

I have heard quite often direct and vehement complaints against those trying to modernize places of worship or the cult itself. The use of a modern idea is always regarded with scepticism, because they diminish the archaic atmosphere created by all the elements of the cult, around http://dialogo-conf.com

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology the remaking of the RgE. Everything, from architecture, position and placement, to unimaginable details, as singing, dancing, and mime, which all suggest a wellplanned choreography with a single purpose: the (re)significance of everything and every element that implies a meeting divine figures.

Since the aim is always the same, the differences, sometimes huge, between types of temples, ceremony or stage settings have not aided the cause of God’s will, but in the different vision each leader has about the ‘scene’ of the RgE. The elements found on the ‘scene’ of the RgE will be refigurated on the ‘stage’ of religious rituals, so that participants of the ritual will feel the same as the actual witnesses of the event.

Other elements in the ceremony may not be directly related to the event’s scene itself, but they are re-symbolized, and, by the function of symbolic attribution, they ‘become’ as being there. Here we require the help of myth and legend, for we need to fabric the unreal, still helpful, meaning for something that will be used in ritual drama . For example, the use of water in religious ceremonies is well-known; some use it per se, others after a blessing upon this element.

In any case the first ritual - writers made a link between water and religious events, (e.g. the crossing of the Red Sea and Jewish deliverance from the slavery of Egypt; baptism of Christ, Vitezda well, the bath of Ganesh Chaturthi, the elephant-headed god, into Ganges, etc.). There many Faiths that incorporate ritual washing, (ablution), including Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Judaism, Islam, the Bahá’í Faith, Shinto, Taoism, and the Rastafari movement, encouraging us to consider the importance of this element in religious practices.

But the ‘real’ benefit of using holy/blessed water is that, through divine touch it takes away pain, sins, in a word it lifts the spiritual burden from the participants at ceremony. The particular selection of the moment of religious ceremony, (day of the week, hour of the day, period of the year, etc.), is also symbolized through myths of transformation (Derrida): for some Saturday is important as the day of deliverance from the slavery of Egypt (Jews), others celebrate Sunday as the day of resurrection (Christians), while for others Friday is important for it is the day of Adam’s creation, and his salvation too

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(Muslims). The ritual made by the Babylonians in the first seven days of the year (on the first day of the seventh month, called Tashritu) was a remembrance of the steps of Creation (Rosh Hashanah)[8]; a ritual that celebrates birth and death, etc.

Other scholars view theatre and ritual as two manifestations of performance. “Some performance tended toward “entertainment” (theatrical performance), and some tended toward “efficacy” (ritual with an intended outcome), but both ritual and theatre were performative activities”[9]. To sustain this suggestion anthropologists from The Cambridge School of Anthropology (CSA) imply that “ritual developed into drama as the magical element of the ritual weakened in the face of declining belief, as the mimetic element grew and the participants were divided between performers and spectators, and as myths were replaced by heroic sagas”[10]. Yet this can also be seen as just the symptoms, the external appearance that public can see without any doubt, but the need of re-significance over objects that take control over pain – either physical or psychological – is known and used in other domains as well, at least for the placebo effect[11].

Another role of the use of staging religious motifs within ceremonies is imitation, as an intuitive activity of humans (Aristotle).

“People, even and especially as children, tend to imitate and role-play in life. This inherent tendency supposedly led to the use of the mimetic (i.e., theatrical) in religion and later in art”[12]. Therefore, instead of wasting time with acts of teaching behaviours that you expect from others, you can streamline this period by creating pathways of behaviour, easy to follow and capable of developing attitudes and mimetic conducts. This function underlines the role of education or formative role of religious dramatics. Known in Hebrew culture as an ot, the use of the whole body in delivering a message (such as in 2 Kings 9.13) is an important manner in which Hebrews communicate. This emphasises the power of concepts used by the suggestion of example. Acknowledging this transformative potential inherent in role-playing, drama becomes a means of therapy for several educational domains, drama therapy, counselling sessions, known as psychodrama for people with

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy psychological disorders or alower capability to accommodate new, tough situations.

A. Ritual function of catharsis Victor Turner considers that rituals are „means of doing the same, but by allowing the normal social structure to be inverted and broken out of temporarily, so that the return to everyday structure is enhance in value”[13]. The main reason, if not the only one that matters, the space of worship,(public or private), tries to recreate the theatrical atmosphere of the spiritual world, transforming a portion of this world in a celestial space, full of positive spirits and benefits for those entering it, is to “remove anxiety and resentment through catharsis”.

Removing anxiety is especially fully done through the decoration and the choreography of religious ceremonies, fully valuing the symbolic forms, so that, although part of this world, the religious temple no longer belongs to this world.

“The temple I am going to build will be great, because our God is greater than all other gods” (2 Chronicles 2.5); „I have built a magnificent temple for you, a place for you to dwell forever” (2 Chronicles 6.2) „ When Solomon had finished the temple of the LORD…the LORD appeared to him at night and said: I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a temple for sacrifices…I have chosen and consecrated this temple so that my Name may be there forever” (2 Chronicles 17.11,12,16). „We made the House (at Makka) a resort for mankind and sanctuary, (saying): Take as your place of worship the place where Abraham stood (to pray). And We imposed a duty upon Abraham and Ishmael, (saying): Purify My house for those who go around and those who meditate therein and those who bow down and prostrate themselves (in worship)” (Quran 2:125).

C. Geertz treats culture in general, „as the vehicle which enables participants to give form and meaning to their experiences”[14].

This way of picturing religion as, „the most elaborately system of symbols”, helped Geertz understand that religion, “acts to establish powerful, pervasive and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by formulation conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing”[15].

In the context of this conceptualizing

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of religion, as having the role of organizing human experience and, especially, in providing responses to those experiences that lack interpretability, religious ceremony links the religious promoter and his vision on the one hand, with his (future) followers on the other. By far the Saviour Christ used the role of “staging” His didactic and theological concepts the best. Without redefinition of His teachings in dramaturgical representation of parables, Christological theology would seem very complex and also very barren, non-stick.

Thus we see how religious ceremony takes another function of the theatre, that of disinhibition, breaking the barriers of audience’s preconceptions. Surely we all have had the experience of been directly approached on the street, in shops or at the front door by a representative of a religious denomination different from ours, to promote his confession / religious faith, (or a company wishing to present a new product on the market). And whenever this promotion began abruptly, with abstract theories and doctrines that are contradictory to what the audience believes, the latter always leaves the scene,, leaving the merchandiser without success. I have even witnessed a street play presentation, where someone stages, using puppets, a very abstract and stodgy philosophy, like the Apocalypse. Well, his success, which attracted not only children who saw the beauty and decoration of the play, but also adults who managed to glimpse the true content, beyond the act of drama.

Religious ritual succeeds in emphasizing meanings and experiences that otherwise would be hard to express, to deposit in man’s consciousness, or even to be digested by them.

The preference that people have towards the play form of any educational process has been successfully employed and used in the design of religious ceremonies. Quite often religious rituals were treated as theatre and the performances of some local religious leaders as “theatrical”. By use of these derogatory systems, the appellative actually wanted to highlight the excessive use of ceremonial forms, and less the spiritual significance of the background of gestures. Of course these accusations, often very subjective, cannot be really proven, nor differentiated from the usual religious ceremony.

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology B. The different, higher use of religious rituals over theatre When made the subject of systematic historical and comparative cultural analysis, ritual has offered new insights into the dynamics of religion, culture, and personhood [16]. But why do we use rituals? Admitting that ritual is any activity that we perform at least as much for its symbolic and emotional value as for its practical value, do we use rituals because the act in itself has meaning, or because doing it makes us feel better about ourselves, or both?

From the simple acts of serving meals with family on Easter, sharing gifts at Christmas, to complex ceremonies of wedding and funeral, all our ritually activities have the role of creating a psychological comfort given by the stability of the acts as landmarks in our lives, points that help us organize our thoughts, feelings and stability for we think in patterns, apart from the unknown.

As David Cortesi, (an IBM programmer), says [17] “we are culturally (perhaps, biologically) programmed to enjoy doing things that have symbolic and emotional value, and to not count their cost too carefully”. According to him the main uses of ritual could be put together into four issues.

- Rituals give time-structure to our lives, saving us from chaos and anxiety and acting to stabilize the tempo of life, as the beat of a metronome stabilizes music; - They assist and encourage the formation of trust and community between people; - They give shape to public expressions of powerful emotions: expressions of grief, as at funerals; and of joy, as at weddings, graduations, etc.; - They help to reorient and stabilize our own feelings when we need to comprehend and cope with crucial life passages.[18] Because rituals are standard processes that we come to know by heart, along with all the other attendees, we realize that we eventually allow play-ritual to express our feelings.. They express the way we feel about ourselves (guilty, happy, remorse, etc.), and reassure us that we are still in control of our lives.

When time goes by and shows no mercy, ,

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little, insignificant short-in-time creatures as we are, we pay ‘time’ back,, by meeting it with the right behaviour, emphasizing that we are still in charge of our time, still masters of our lives.

Being efficacious is the only tool we have to have some control over our lives, and if the meaning of our acts, (like religious rituals), we can overcome time, extending its influence beyond time, then our aim is accomplished and we ‘make’ time obey us and not the other way around. By doing expected things at appointed intervals and not letting things happen at their will, this empowers us over time, keeping everything under control by ‘knowing’ what is going to happen and overcoming everything that might occur.

By putting together people with same purpose in a controlled environment, this helps people bond. In fact, it starts long before they actually meet, that a positive energy, a kind of emotional neutral ground is attracting people with common needs to express them and/ or interact. Similarly to people who gather in restaurants, cinemas, and theatre (A), in schools, nightclubs, casinos, outdoor shows (B); they also use similar situations for doing what people in churches and temples do(C). The difference is that (A)s have a mutual aim, but less contact; (B)s have the aim and contact, but without proper professional assistance for their bond and aims. But for (C)s everything is set in place for the gathering, (as in A’s), a special bond and interaction (as in B’s), and also for supervised, assisted healing – in a word, for psychological comfort. The fact that people mostly attend As or Bs does not help them isolate and take control over their emotions; or expressing them chaotically doesn’t mean they are gone, in fact they might actually take control in time over you and change you into a person you didn’t intend to be. That is why taking part in a ritual group helps you express and know how to control your feelings by reaching out for people who really care for you and are not there as a job (as in As or Bs).

It is comforting to take part in a formal, public gathering (as in A), but it is rather stressful needing to make contact with others (as in B), knowing that behind every attempt at approaching someone stands a possibility of a refusal that might shut you down for good. “Being lonely in a crowded place” is not unusual in this

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy kind of meeting (A or B), and with each failure to interact, your psychological comfort (along with self-respect, self-esteem, etc.) decreases to the point of suicidal behaviour. This was proved as inefficacious by many collective specialists, and apart from those interested-for-contact people, (e.g. pimps, prostitutes, drug dealers, and the like), the majority being sceptical regarding the unknown approach, and 90% of B gatherings end with stressful behaviour[19]. Instead, attending religious rituals puts you in contact with people sharing positive thoughts, desiring selflessly to help and professionally assist you to go through your emotional situation. This has always proven to be helpful, “to deal with either tragedy or triumph silently, unshared, the emotional burden [that] can be choking”[20].

Religious rituals give a controlled, assisted way to externalize emotion, express it, and so end it. Many times I have witnessed people burying their loved ones, or giving their children for marriage, and I was always seeing stress and fear along with sorrow / happiness on their faces.

Coming together with a religious community for many rituals that follow “the event” is for their benefit, because the legitimate grief is shared by others, and make the rest of life more bearable, (after the event has ended).

C. The role of decor in rituals In general, besides the imaginative scenery that I spoke of earlier, which is found more or less in any religious ceremony, a role that is at least as important is the part that choreography plays in the ceremonial act. In addition to basic roles of ritualistic choreography – recorded in the books of worship – i.e. (1) the uniformity of ritual confessional, (2) the schematization of religious belief, and (3) the imprinting of this scheme and of theological vocabulary. – It is very important to emphasise the ambient function of décor, the true aspect of religious ritual that matters and helps both to promote the confessional creed and to maintain the cohesion of the community.

It turns out that people attend more frequently temples of worship with more vivid ambient decoration, or at least they prefer those to the sober, undecorated ones, because it confers an increased psychological / spiritual comfort. Quite often I have heard believers of certain confession that attend religious services of another

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denomination, (or of the same denomination), because they “feel better” there.

This preference it is not just for the religious ceremonial, but for the religious actor too, for he is the one that fulfills the roles of a real actor, but on a stage of worship, ritualistic, not dramaturgical, and therefore the characteristics that they should have are somehow similar to those of drama actors. Often, followers and leaders religious subsequent to the religious promoter have sought to improve the ceremonial choreography with all sorts of elements that complement the environmental decor and enhance theological rigor behind the ceremony.

Each religious local leader will try to improve the choreography as best he can (e.g. spectacular manifestation, pleasant music, painting vivid, hand-crafted furniture, etc.), and this is certainly dependent on the talents he received as gifts (very good speaker, chanter, manager, etc.), but also by the interest allocated to their optimal use.

The “theatrical” form in terms of presentation (nonmimetic) and staging (suggestive costumes and scenery) which certain clerks give to the scenic interpretation of the ceremony is often wanted, although rarely acknowledged or verbalized. They are seen by their followers or/ and peers as exaggerations – without knowing whether that assessment is only a manifestation of collegial envy or something else – has greater appeal, more followers, etc., because nobody forbids the use of their “talents” to improve ceremony if he would thus bring more followers.

Even if it seems to be an essential feature of religion, proselytism in this form, of theatrical interpretation, it is often condemned – by others, but used by all. It is also true that this method works almost always and that people prefer them to rigorous, cold, leisurely events that bring monotony rather than ambient décor comfort.

III. THE ROLE OF SCENERY IN RELIGIOUS RITUALS If a ritual act is one that we perform for its symbolic and emotional value, so we can apply the same qualifier to spaces, objects and the whole décor of the scenery in rituals. We are aware now that we don’t keep or acquire ritualistic objects because they are useful, but because they mean something, as souvenirs, mementos, a record of

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology their symbolic and emotional value. Rituals can portray their effective power over us for several reasons. They are mementos, ties to events and good things that happened and we need to remember in order to dilute the bad things that come upon us. Then, a ritual object can capture a whole complex of meanings and beliefs , events and stories that our faith carry with it, in a single non-verbal and subtle object.

It is easy to see that almost all religious manifestations use pictures and visual representations of their faith. However, alongside this universal imagery, any religion contains ceremonies structured to contain essential elements that sustain religious belief – along with other elements, about which we will talk later. We will encounter denominations which have minimized visual representations, but there is none that exclude any symbolic badge of their faith.

A. Role of badge for religious symbols I am not referring to religious phenomena that have banned any graphic or sculptural representation of what divinity means in their design, (e.g. Islam, Judaism, Protestantism Christian), because, in one form or another, they have also felt the need of “filling” the visual space with something. This something ranges from a minimum of items, e.g. just a name, a single religious symbol, the cross, to complete and complex decoration of the enclosure with human figures, flowers, animals or simply crafts. In all of these was manifested the artistic spirit of man who wanted to contribute something to beautifying the space devoted to religious worship, public or private, and these artistic decorations, (either graphics, craft or sculpture), subsequently became iconic symbols of faith and of their religious manifestation by concomitant use. If in the theater scenery is meant to create a certain atmosphere, offering to the viewers the opportunity to transpose themselves, during exhibition, in the time and space of play, in religious ceremonial this function is accompanied by many others, with very deep implications in worship. This way, the need to symbolize, schematically and analytically, the whole teaching of faith and to have a concise formula of presenting religious manifestations, led the religious adherents to

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use badges and iconic figures as to symbolize faith emblematically. In other words, functions that religious symbol - and not only – has, are: the customization, of branding places, objects and people, marking them and dedicating them strict for ritual purposes; we use such badges to give an authentic, unique note. Another function is that of identity that a religious symbol gives to the community; whoever or whatever (space or object) bears the specific mark, definitely belongs to that community and cannot be claimed for purposes other than religious.

A badge is a code that is linked with the license management. It corresponds to a kind of resource that has a stock which is consumed by users when using the functions of ritual through the dedicated objects. As in the theatre’s scenery we will find in religious ceremony similar elements that compose it and help it accomplish its aim.

All this variety of symbolic decorations certainly have been desired, thought or even felt, as functioning as (1) support for the content of faith. The painting was conceived and nurtured in Christianity as an auxiliary of or completing the catechesis, preaching the pictures, available for everyone, an intuitive material of great value. Also there are (2) present patterns, templates of brief externalization of religious manifestations, (3) and a badge of religious identity. Perhaps there was another function too, one of (4) decorating, just the arrangement of the consecrated place. Still it is most unlikely that these symbolic representations have been conceived as a mere decoration, because then they would not have been placed under divine authority and thus mandatory. A simple decor which sprang solely from the human mind and unrelated to inspiration, such as that of resymbolizing the faith, would not have had any impact on followers. The psychological comfort felt where these representations abound, in places of worship, can be considered no more than a side-effect and not a purpose in itself. The main religious function of ritual scenery, found only in the traditional religions, is (5) to stimulate feelings of reverence, and piety. In contact with the symbols of his religion, each follower will feel reverence, and now these items are being re-symbolized in his mind, as taboo objects / symbols, in the presence of which they feel the

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy company of the worshiped deity / spirits. The function of (4) decoration of the cultic space plays an important role in the science of design, namely (6) setting, the (re) creation of a specific atmosphere, in this case the celestial, a (re) creation of the spiritual world. For this spiritual atmosphere, full of meaning – of taboo, spiritual values, etc. – and content of faith, emanating the interest of divine for the restoration of its bond with man and inspiring feelings of reverence, is intersecting religious ritual with the theatre, therefore the rapport between the two is ambivalent – either assimilating ceremonial cult with theatrical scene, or bringing reasons and characters from religious domain into the theatrical drama. Leaving the second side of this relation aside, theatre with religious content; for further research, we will deal here exclusively with the first relationship between them.

B. Role of costumes in theatrical choreography As in the theatre, the improvement of religious ceremoniy is demonstrated by clothing details, the decor, frescoes and statuary and everything that constitutes in general the choreographic ambience where the ritual act takes place. Costume design is the envisioning of clothing and the overall appearance of a character or performer. Dramatic effects may be decidedly aided by costumes. It takes a lot of energy and qualities to make people follow your footsteps without wearing the right outfit, but if you back-up your skills and effort with the right clothes, then you may double your winning odds. At least you can improve your results by making people turn heads over your unusual costume.

The first theatre plays attracted people through various accessories for picturing the characters in the play and for setting the mood.

The most significant accessory the choreography had was the masks, mostly indicating the expressions and emotional state its character had in the act of drama. ‘The use of the mask tradition, which made the doubling of roles easier, was a form of disguise or concealment usually worn over or in front of the face to hide the identity of a person and by its own features to establish another being. This essential characteristic of hiding and revealing personalities or moods is common to all masks’.[21] The role of wearing

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a mask is in accordance with the aim the play intended to achieve. ‘A paramount role of the mask is to give a sense of continuity between the present and the beginnings of time, a sense that is of vital importance for the integration of a culture with no written history. Psychologically the spectators are linked to the past through the spirit power of the mask, and—depending on the character represented by the mask— this may in some cases lead the participants to a state of complete absorption or near-frenzy.

In some cases, the spirit or supernatural being depicted is viewed with rejoicing and almost a familiarity, which leads to gaiety that has a cathartic aspect’ [22]. In time, many religions gave up masks and have developed instead the layout of clothing. Since there are no rituals without special clothing, we have to assume its importance and sine qua non condition.

By far, most investigators of religions say that all religious rituals are mostly about,”a drama about life and the drama of life”[23]. The anthropological study of religion can prove that the image every religious confession has on the, life-humankind-God relationship, is reflected in their rituals, at least in their main forms of ceremony. Consequently, in a primitive society, ‘a daily ritual is incorporated in the common activities, in eating, washing, fire-making, etc., as well as in pure ceremonial; because the need of reasserting the tribal morale and recognizing its cosmic conditions is constantly felt’[24].

Therefore we have to assume that ritual masks and outfits have everything to do with this intention. Even the words used to define the ritual outfit are considered to bring forward the very meaning of wearing them; instead of using clothing – as covering the body; to be dressed up – it is always used the archaic significance of the term apparel – to adorn certain vestments with a piece of embroidery and ornament. From that emphasis of wearing clothes, always in an extravagant way compared to common people, fashion designers borrowed the look, the adornment, but mostly the concept that outfits are not exclusively for coverage, but for making them more pleasing, attractive, and impressive too. “Make sacred garments for your brother Aaron to give him dignity and honour” (Exodus 28.2).

Clothes reflect the time and place in which

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology the character lives, his social standing, his present circumstances, and even his emotional state. They are therefore important to the expressiveness of the production. Moreover, they must be, in one way or another, part of the general design of the production. Certain elements of the design may have to be made more noticeable, the colours may have to be modified, and the areas they cover may have to be larger.[25] We will not engage further in the philosophy of costumes about other clothing’s characters, regarding colour, design, and the quality of the material.

But if they are used for visibility or projection of a certain vision and atmosphere, either for a hierarchical distinction [26] or just as a sacerdotal emblem, the garments used in religious ritual play an important role without any doubt. In the performance of ceremonial, costumes and other visual elements create beyond doubt a particular impression the instant a religious actor appears on the stage and establishes himself in the audience’s mind [27] along with his performed role-play-message. It is obvious that ‘not only language, but stage setting, properties, and costumes take on a new significance as religious symbols, much like those employed in high-church liturgies’[28] and soon the use of certain garments, especially those sacred through the ‘divine touch’ or by wearing them in the divine service, became as religious symbols like any other. Therefore, used as a sacerdotal emblem, the ceremonial garments received also some kind of personality, allegorically or, sometimes even literally speaking. The famous designer Valentina[29] stresses the importance of conveying, emphasizing, and vitalizing the wearer’s personality, his “uniqueness, a neverrepeated psychological and external pattern”.

Being considered as the beneficent, as the holy person, that once worn, the garments of saints were always surrounded with great care and honour, and even worshiped per se. This honour passed from only saints’ garments to every ceremonial garments, so that religious adepts worship them with great luxuriance for several reasons, e.g. they were symbolically related to a divine act, for a possible power of healing or punishment, for divine protection against all kinds of evil, etc. They give finery, embroidery and expensive materials (gold, jewels) as presents for garments to become more gorgeous, sumptuous (see the process of making them in Exodus 28); sometimes, due

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to the pomposity and expensiveness of them these garments were used as a mean to pay debts [“The governor gave to the treasury 1,000 darics[b] of gold, 50 bowls and 530 garments for priests...”, Nehemiah 7.71; Zechariah 14.14].

Next step was to venerate these garments downright (Fig. 2); there are many traditional religions that even have prayers for dressing up with these holy garments, or before starting the process of making them, and subsequently a taboo restriction about touching them by the unholy, without previous preparation. “[Priests] must wear them whenever they enter the tent of meeting or approach the altar to minister in the Holy Place, so that they will not incur guilt and die” (Exodus 28.43). These two kinds of symbolism were bestowed upon ceremonial garments – (1) esoteric symbolism made out of combinations of motifs representing the divine name or his words[30] and (2) totemic one – made a heavy stone in ritual choreography out of them.

C. Other functions of scenery and drama meetings for religious rituals Besides all these we can add several other functions play and theatre may have had within religious rituals. An important role to stress here is finding identity and social cohesion.

As a negative example for demonstrating this assumption, in the Letter to Monsieur d’Alembert (1758), Rousseau energetically quashed d’Alembert’s suggestion that Geneva required a theatre in order to keep up with other European cities. Rousseau’s main argument was that the theatre would threaten the identity of the inhabitants of Geneva, perhaps even destroy it altogether.It threatened the cultural, gender and, ultimately, also the individual identity of the Genevans. In order to preserve their sense of identity, Rousseau believed, they should not accept theatre into their society[31]. But the concept of identity was understood in a narrow, static way: identity is understood as something which is either given by Nature or dictated by society for now and ever more, as something which must be maintained in the individual and social life at whatever cost[32]. This was a concept long time used in human society to classify and tear apart people into classes of sexes, skin colour, culture, richness, and other.

That was the main social problem religion,

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy (Christianity, in particular), tried to solve; “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus [and] if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Galatians 3.28). As ambulant actors did by travelling through society and making people see that there should not be any differences between humans, (for we are all the same from birth), similarly religious preachers always had this aim in their sermons, to prove that we are all brothers in the eyes of the Maker; “Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all” (Colossians 3.11). “Through actions carried out by the [religious] actors with their bodies and language, and through the role being played, the actors’ stage aspects and scenes which the spectators perceive and understand as representative of society in terms of their identity as members of a particular society and as themselves”[33].

Rituals have the social function of helping people how to ‘construct’ their identities, worldviews, and taken-for-granted [34] ways of managing their affairs

separate use or contained in any small meaning.

They are bound by their institutional symbolism and tied together for a larger significance.

Taken separately, each object used in rituals, has its meaning and its useful purpose only in relation with the entrusted code, as a badge of everything else, and not solely, by itself. In other words, it is about the psychological law of projective, (of perceptive image), where we can reconstruct a “panoramic” image from a small detail. Similarly, any believer can reconstruct his whole faith and system of beliefs from a single item (a wooden cross, rosaries, Star of David, Ganesha statue, Allah pictogram, et. al.). That is how religious adherents deposit an intrinsically exoteric body of knowledge in the scenery of ceremony with all the mentioned purposes. In most societies, however, some rituals accompany the transition from primary to secondary socialization and because this is not based on any ‘laws of nature’, we are not ipso facto taking a position on a metaphysical conception of ‘natural law’. Therefore the attendance to rituals, religious or theatrical, is a personal choice, and thus accompanied by the expected outcomes.

CONCLUSIONS If someone would ask if he should make the effort to invest habitual activities with ritual value, the correct answer is most probably affirmative, since rituals have uses that go beyond and above the details of their practice.

Depending on the social length of relevance of a particular type of ‘knowledge’ and its complexity and importance in a given community, the ‘knowledge’ may have to be reaffirmed through symbolic objects (such as fetishes, amulets, and taboo badges), and/or by symbolic actions,(such as religious or theatrical ritual). In other words, physical objects and actions may be called upon as mnemotechnic aids[35]. All transmission of institutional meanings obviously implies control and legitimating procedures that are attached to the institutions themselves and administered by the transmitting personnel.

These are the necessary and natural steps from which any ritual is born and grows, along with its ancestry and institutions. The entire inventory of theatrical and/or religious ritual – made out of scenery décor, objects, clothing, masks, and choreography – cannot be explained by its

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[1] Manon van de Water, Mary McAvoy, and Kristin

[2] [3] [4] [5] [6]

[7]

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Hunt, Drama and Education. Performance Methodologies for Teaching and Learning.

London: Routledge, 2015, Introduction 3.

Todd E. Johnson, Performing the sacred…, p. 32.

Todd E. Johnson, Performing the sacred…, p. 33.

Todd E. Johnson, Performing the sacred…, p. 30.

Manon van de Water, Mary McAvoy, and Kristin Hunt, Drama and Education…, p. 3, The spiritual experience that someone lives once, in the beginning of his religious life, when he encounters divinity or spiritual beings and feels touched by divine grace. This is the moment his life take a crucial turn and change it forever making him become a new person, with new intentions and thoughts, commonly trying to save all others from living a wrong, sinful life. This ‘religiogenesis event’ is always a start for a religious phenomenon, movement or a main religion due to the urge that divine-touched-person feels to impose his change into others’ lives too.

Todd E. Johnson, Performing the sacred…, p. 73.

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology [8] For further discussion on the New Year’s festival in

Babylon (and in other ancient cities), see A. Sachs, in: J.B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, Princeton 1955, pp. 331-334; M.E. Cohen, The Cultic Calendars of the Ancient Near East, Bethesda MD 1993, pp.

400-453; M.J.H. Linssen, The Cults of Uruk and Babylon: The Temple Ritual Texts as Evidence for Hellenistic Cult Practice (Cuneiform Monographs 25), Leiden 2004, pp. 61-91, 184-237.

[9] Todd, Performing the sacred…, p. 56.

[10] Ibid, 56.

[11] For more on placebo social effect see Daniel E. Moerman, PhD; and Wayne B. Jonas, MD, “Deconstructing the Placebo Effect and Finding the Meaning Response”, in Ann Intern Med. 2002;136(6):471-476. doi:10.7326/0003-4819136-6-200203190-00011 “Placebo effect” is not caused by “placebo” but rather by the belief, expectations or any previous to conditionings placebo, meaning that the patient gives significance to the substance or procedure that is administered.

[12] Ibid, 56.

[13] John Bowker (edit.), The Oxford Dictionary of World Religions…, p. 820 citation after Victor Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and AntiStructure. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1969, p. 95.

[14] John Bowker (edit.), The Oxford Dictionary of World Religions, p. 369.

[15] Clifford Geertz, The interpretation of Cultures. NY: Basic Books, 1973, p. 90.

[16] Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997, Preface.

[17] David Cortesi, Secular Wholeness: A Skeptic’s Paths to a Richer Life. Bloomington (US): Trafford Publishing, 2002, p. 61. I recommend this book, especially Cpt. 5, for a better understanding of rituals.

[18] Ibid, p. 64.

[19] There are several studies on how the nightclubs impact your comfort level, all proving that Bs can frustrate us and cause further discomfort, lowering personal comfort and increasing anxiety. For example, Yale Fox, The Psychology of a Nightclub, http://jordandetmers.com/2014/06/25/thepsychology-of-a-nightclub/ (accessed 2.10.2015); Edmund Janes James, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1952, p.

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144. Et. Al. [20] D. Cortesi, Secular Wholeness, p. 65.

[21] Paul S. Wingert, „Mask”, in Encyclopaedia

Britannica, online edition, http://www.britannica. com/art/mask-face-covering (accessed 9/29/15).

[22] Ibidem.

[23] Todd E. Johnson and Dale Savidge, Performing the sacred: theology and theatre in dialogue. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009, p. 26.

[24] C. Geertz, The interpretation of Cultures, p. 107.

[25] John Gassner, Producing the Play. New York: The Dryden Press, 1949, p. 119.

[26] For some religion, in which religious hierarchy doesn’t exist or it is very poor, adepts take this position instead or along with them and make their garments the distinctive element of faith display.

For example Muslims in Iran, home to some of the best-dressed clergy in the Islamic world, looking good is part of their life. See Niloofar Haeri, “Clothes make the mullah”, in Salon, Wednesday, Jan 5, 2005. Online source: http://www.salon. com/2005/01/05/iran_clergy/ (accessed 1/10/15).

[27] John Gassner, Producing the Play, p. 120.

[28] Todd E. Johnson, Performing the sacred…, p. 74.

[29] Valentina Nicholaevna Sanina Schlee (1 May 1899 – 14 September 1989), simply known as Valentina, was a Ukrainian émigré fashion designer and theatrical costume designer active from 1928 to the late 1950s[. ]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Valentina_(fashion_designer) accessed 9/30/15.

[30] As an example the tassel (tzitzit) (Hebrew: ‫תיציצ‬, Modern tzitzit, Tiberian sˤisˤiṯ), specially knotted ritual fringes worn in antiquity by Israelites and today by observant Jews and Samaritans, are made with four strands passed through holes near the four corners of the garment, have a special, esoteric symbolism related to a combination of numbers, of knots, separated by four sections of winding, repeatedly done at each group etc. This procedure is repeated three times, such that there are a total of five knots, the four intervening spaces being taken up by windings numbering 7-8-11-13, respectively.

The total number of winds comes to 39, is found to be significant in that it is the gematria (numerical equivalent, Greek geōmetriā) of the words: “The Lord is One” Deuteronomy 6:4). Others, especially Sephardi Jews, use 10-5-6-5 as the number of windings, a combination that represents directly the spelling of the Tetragrammaton (one of God’s names). – cf. Rabbi Mois Navon, Threads

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween  Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy of Reason. A Collection of Essays on Tekhelet.

2013. Article about Tzitzit in Wikipedia, https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzitzit (accessed 9/30/15).

[31] Erika Fischer-Lichte, History of European Drama and Theatre. London: Routledge, 2002, p. 1.

[32] Ibid.

[33] Ibid, 2.

[34] Berger Peter L. & Luckmann Thomas. The Social Construction of Reality; a Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1991, p.

15.

[35] Ibid. 88.

California and 4 other States in USA, gathering data and understanding how religious pluralism is possible at a high level of involvement; in the same time I made friends from many different countries and religions that are now involved in this project or another, helping in his endeavor.

Biography Ciocan Tudor Cosmin, born in Constanta/ Romania in 1977, I have attended several theological and psychological schools (BA, MB, PhD), obtained my PhD in Missiology and Doctrinal Theology in 2010. I was ordained as orthodox priest in 2002. High-school teacher from 1998, then Professor assistant and Lecturer from 2012, I have written more than 30 papers on theology and psychology, along with 4 single author books in the past two decades.

In 2013 started a multidisciplinary program aiming to engage scholars from different files into friendly and academic debates with theology and in the same year a Research Center was founded in Ovidius University with researchers from 11 fields. in lest then 1 year I manage to gather people from around the globe around this idea and so we have started Dialogo Conferences project. In 2014 I received a Fulbright scholarship and I spent the summer

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Biblical symbols and their meanings in the Parable of the Sower, according to the American author Ellen G. White vision Ioan-Gheorghe ROTARU, Associate Professor PhD ‘Timotheus’ Brethren Theological Institute of Bucharest President of Education Society for Romanian People (SPIPR) Bucharest, Romania Dr_ionicarotaru@yahoo.com

Abstract: The study refers to the biblical symbols and their meanings in the Parable of the Sower, according to the American author Ellen G. White vision, which in one of her books presents the parable and its symbolism. The symbolism is interesting because draws a profound presentation of the meaning of words in the parable mentioned, beeing actually a plead for valuing the seed - symbol of the Holy Word and giving priority in the concerns of life.

Keywords: parable, symbol, meaning, significance.

I. INTRODUCTION Reading the Holy Scripture we find a lot of symbols. At the prayers practiced by the priests at the sanctuary and afterwards at the temple, there were a lot of items, sacrifices, rituals with symbolic value. In the prophets ministry we find all sorts of symbolic elements. The bible books with a profound prophetic message, Daniel and Revelation, are related with symbols. The present study its an attempts to present some of the biblical symbols and their meaning in the vision of an American author, respectively, Ellen G. White, due to the fact that her works got printed in a high number of copies. The symbols from the parable of the sower will be analyzed.

„The parable of the sower! Here is one of the most beautiful parables spoken by Jesus Christ.

Beautiful, because it’s simple. Beautiful, because it is taken from everyday life. Jesus spoke to people who were not foreign of agriculture, and what other more comprehensible parable for them was able to tell, than telling them something related to their lives, from which to extract the spiritual teachings they needed to live with reason and comfort, in peace with God and with people.”[1] II. THE MEANING OF THE PARABLES A parable is meant to show a central truth. To correctly interpret a parable you must discover from the context, why that parable was told and which was the determinant reason to be told ?

From a parable it must be identified which is the central teaching of the illustration and also which are the relevant and irrelevant details.

Thus through His training methods, Jesus used the parables also for the following reasons: I. By presenting a truth under the form of parables a sifting was done between those really interested in the presentation and those disinterested (Matthew 13,13-16) ; II. Illustration of a truth in parables has the advantage to be easier to understand (Luke 11,5-13); III. Besides all this, the

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th e Dia l o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and T heology teaching transmitted through an illustration in parables better imprints itself in the mind and heart, convince more easily and calls for action (Matthew 13,44- 46).[2] IV. Through the parables Jesus Christ could rebuke the hypocrisy of the leaders and the incompatibility of their facts with the high positions they occupied. Thus Ellen G. White writes about this purpose the following words: „And He had another reason for teaching in parables. Among the multitudes that gathered about Him, there were priests and rabbis, scribes and elders, Herodians and rulers, world-loving, bigoted, ambitious men, who desired above all things to find some accusation against Him. Their spies followed His steps day after day, to catch from His lips something that would cause His condemnation, and forever silence the One who seemed to draw the world after Him. The Saviour understood the character of these men, and He presented truth in such a way that they could find nothing by which to bring His case before the Sanhedrim. In parables He rebuked the hypocrisy and wicked works of those who occupied high positions, and in figurative language clothed truth of so cutting a character that had it been spoken in direct denunciation, they would not have listened to His words, and would speedily have put an end to His ministry.

But while He evaded the spies, He made truth so clear that error was manifested, and the honest in heart were profited by His lessons. Divine wisdom, infinite grace, were made plain by the things of God’s creation. Through nature and the experiences of life, men were taught of God. “The invisible things of Him since the creation of the world,” were “perceived through the things that are made, even His everlasting power and divinity.” Romans 1:20, R. V.” [3] The american author Ellen G. White wrote about the point of Jesus Christ’s teaching in parables, the following: „By the parable of the sower, Christ illustrates the things of the kingdom of heaven, and the work of the great Husbandman for His people. Like a sower in the field, He came to scatter the heavenly grain of truth. And His parable teaching itself was the seed with which the most precious truths of His grace were sown. Because of its simplicity the parable of the sower has not been valued as it should be.

From the natural seed cast into the soil, Christ desires to lead our minds to the gospel seed, the sowing of which results in bringing man back

to his loyalty to God. He who gave the parable of the tiny seed is the Sovereign of heaven, and the same laws that govern earthly seed sowing govern the sowing of the seeds of truth. By the Sea of Galilee a company had gathered to see and hear Jesus-an eager, expectant throng. The sick were there, lying on their mats, waiting to present there.” [4] Wanting to tell people about the most valuable things regarding the spiritual values and about His Kingdom, Jesus told His listeners the following parable: „Behold, a sower went forth to sow; And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up: Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth: And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them: But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.”[5] This parable was told in order to show the listeners that God wanted to tell all the necessary truths regarding His plans with them regarding their salvation. People receives the divine message in various forms and ways of understanding and often instead of anchoring their faith in the One represented by different symbols within the rituals, people ended up to keep more of the symbols than of the Person symbolized. „Christ’s mission was not understood by the people of His time. The manner of His coming was not in accordance with their expectations. The Lord Jesus was the foundation of the whole Jewish economy. Its imposing services were of divine appointment.

They were designed to teach the people that at the time appointed One would come to whom those ceremonies pointed. But the Jews had exalted the forms and ceremonies and had lost sight of their object. The traditions, maxims, and enactments of men hid from them the lessons which God intended to convey. These maxims and traditions became an obstacle to their understanding and practice of true religion. And when the Reality came, in the person of Christ, they did not recognize in Him the fulfillment of all their types, the substance of all their shadows. They rejected the antitype, and clung to their types and useless ceremonies.” [6]

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology Jews were expecting a revolutionary Messiah which through warlike actions, to prove His messiahship and to reorganize His kingdom on the ruins of the earthly kings. To such an expectations Jesus Christ will respond by the parabola of the sower, showing that His new kingdom will be built on different principles, not by force, but by a change in mentality, change in the hearts of the people. “He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man.” Matt. 13:37.

Christ had come, not as a king, but as a sower; not for the overthrow of kingdoms, but for the scattering of seed; not to point His followers to earthly triumphs and national greatness, but to a harvest to be gathered after patient toil and through losses and disappointments.” [7] III. THE SYMBOL OF THE SOWER Even in the moments when Jesus spoke to them on the nearby hills, sowers could be seen working. From this fact, Jesus transmits them a fundamental teaching regarding his own work among the people. The sower in the parable was a symbol of Jesus Christ: „In the East the state of affairs was so unsettled, and there was so great danger from violence that the people dwelt chiefly in walled towns, and the husbandmen went forth daily to their labor outside the walls.

So Christ, the heavenly Sower, went forth to sow. He left His home of security and peace, left the glory that He had with the Father before the world was, left His position upon the throne of the universe. He went forth, a suffering, tempted man; went forth in solitude, to sow in tears, to water with His blood, the seed of life for a world lost.” [8] “The sower soweth the word.” Christ came to sow the world with truth. Ever since the fall of man, Satan has been sowing the seeds of error.

It was by a lie that he first gained control over men, and thus he still works to overthrow God’s kingdom in the earth and to bring men under his power. A sower from a higher world, Christ came to sow the seeds of truth. He who had stood in the councils of God, who had dwelt in the innermost sanctuary of the Eternal, could bring to men the pure principles of truth. Ever since the fall of man, Christ had been the Revealer of truth to the world. By Him the incorruptible seed, “the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever,” is communicated to men. 1 Peter 1:23.

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In that first promise spoken to our fallen race in Eden, Christ was sowing the gospel seed. But it is to His personal ministry among men and to the work which He thus established that the parable of the sower especially applies.” [9] IV. EXIT OF THE SOWER TO SOW – A SYMBOL OF JESUS CHRIST COMING ON EARTH FOR A VERY SPECIAL WORK The author makes a comparison between the work of the sowers from the Oriental world, which in order to sow they came out from the cities where they lived and so going outside on the field they sowed their seeds hoping their work to be fruitful crowned. In this way the author presents the work of Jesus Christ on earth as one, for which He left the comfort of heaven, “coming out” in our world to sow the seeds of the divine truth, hoping that finally His work regarding people salvation to be fruitful according to the prophecy of Isaiah: „Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.” [10] Thus the author compares the work of the human sowers who came out from the cities to sow the seed, with the coming of Messiah, to sow principles and truths in the minds and hearts of the people of His Kingdom: “The sower went forth to sow” (R.V.). In the East the state of affairs was so unsettled, and there was so great danger from violence that the people dwelt chiefly in walled towns, and the husbandmen went forth daily to their labor outside the walls.

So Christ, the heavenly Sower, went forth to sow. He left His home of security and peace, left the glory that He had with the Father before the world was, left His position upon the throne of the universe. He went forth, a suffering, tempted man; went forth in solitude, to sow in tears, to water with His blood, the seed of life for a world lost.” [11] „A sower from a higher world, Christ came to sow the seeds of truth. He who had stood in the councils of God, who had dwelt in the innermost

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy sanctuary of the Eternal, could bring to men the pure principles of truth. Ever since the fall of man, Christ had been the Revealer of truth to the world. By Him the incorruptible seed, “the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever,” is communicated to men. 1 Peter 1:23. In that first promise spoken to our fallen race in Eden, Christ was sowing the gospel seed. But it is to His personal ministry among men and to the work which He thus established that the parable of the sower especially applies.” [12]

untrustworthy. Thus the seeds of doubt are planted in the minds of the youth, and in time of temptation they spring up. When faith in God’s word is lost, the soul has no guide, no safeguard.

The youth are drawn into paths which lead away from God and from everlasting life. To this cause may in great degree be attributed the widespread iniquity in our world today. When the word of God is set aside, its power to restrain the evil passions of the natural heart is rejected.

Men sow to the flesh, and of the flesh they reap corruption.” [14]

V. THE SEED – SYMBOL OF THE DIVINE WORD For the human sowers the seed was the indispensable element in terms of fruition. In the same way the parable describes the role of the seed - the divine word. The author describes the seed and its role as follows: „The word of God is the seed. Every seed has in itself a germinating principle. In it the life of the plant is enfolded. So there is life in God’s word. Christ says, “The words that I speak unto you, they are Spirit, and they are life.” John 6:63. “He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life.” John 5:24.

In every command and in every promise of the word of God is the power, the very life of God, by which the command may be fulfilled and the promise realized. He who by faith receives the word is receiving the very life and character of God. Every seed brings forth fruit after its kind.

Sow the seed under right conditions, and it will develop its own life in the plant. Receive into the soul by faith the incorruptible seed of the word, and it will bring forth a character and a life after the similitude of the character and the life of God.” [13]

„“But the teacher of sacred truth can impart only that which he himself knows by experience.

“The sower sowed his seed.” Christ taught the truth because He was the truth. His own thought, His character, His life-experience, were embodied in His teaching. So with His servants: those who would teach the word are to make it their own by a personal experience. They must know what it is to have Christ made unto them wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. In presenting the word of God to others, they are not to make it a supposeso or a may-be. They should declare with the apostle Peter, “We have not followed cunningly devised fables when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eye-witnesses of His majesty.” 2 Peter 1:16. Every minister of Christ and every teacher should be able to say with the beloved John, “The life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us.” 1 John 1:2.” [15]

„“The sower soweth the word.” Here is presented the great principle which should underlie all educational work. “The seed is the word of God.” But in too many schools of our day God’s word is set aside. Other subjects occupy the mind. The study of infidel authors holds a large place in the educational system. Skeptical sentiments are interwoven in the matter placed in school books. Scientific research becomes misleading, because its discoveries are misinterpreted and perverted. The word of God is compared with the supposed teachings of science, and is made to appear uncertain and

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VI. THE SEED FALLEN WAYSIDE - SYMBOL OF THE INDIFFERENT AND DISINTERESED LISTENER As the road and the portions of land on the wayside represent hard areas, calloused, where it is difficult for the seed to grow and because of the fact there is no place to take root because of the hard ground, but also because of the fact that the seeds easily can fall prey for birds, the author presents in special words the meaning of the wayside fallen seed, symbolizing those indifferent and disinterested: „The seed sown by the wayside represents the word of God as it falls upon the heart of an inattentive hearer. Like the hard-beaten path, trodden down by the feet

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology of men and beasts, is the heart that becomes a highway for the world’s traffic, its pleasures and sins. Absorbed in selfish aims and sinful indulgences, the soul is “hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” Heb. 3:13. The spiritual faculties are paralyzed. Men hear the word, but understand it not. They do not discern that it applies to themselves. They do not realize their need or their danger. They do not perceive the love of Christ, and they pass by the message of His grace as something that does not concern them.” [16] VII. THE BIRDS PICKING THE SEED FALLEN ON THE WAYSIDE – SYMBOL OF THE DEVIL AND HIS ALLIES „As the birds are ready to catch up the seed from the wayside, so Satan is ready to catch away the seeds of divine truth from the soul. He fears that the word of God may awaken the careless, and take effect upon the hardened heart. Satan and his angels are in the assemblies where the gospel is preached. While angels of heaven endeavor to impress hearts with the word of God, the enemy is on the alert to make the word of no effect. With an earnestness equaled only by his malice, he tries to thwart the work of the Spirit of God. While Christ is drawing the soul by His love, Satan tries to turn away the attention of the one who is moved to seek the Saviour.

He engages the mind with worldly schemes.

He excites criticism, or insinuates doubt and unbelief. The speaker’s choice of language or his manner may not please the hearers, and they dwell upon these defects. Thus the truth they need, and which God has graciously sent them, makes no lasting impression.” [17] Of those who steal the valuables things of the seed influence, namely the saint word, can be even the parents, which even as Christians, going home and criticizing the value of the service, of the presentation, of the person who presented it or of the message held, decrease significantly the value of the respect for the holy word preached or presented in different occasions. In those circumstances families educates young people more for unbelief and under these conditions parents may wonder from where it comes the attitude of disrespect towards the holiness.

Parents should be reluctant in having a critical spirit towards the altars servants and towards

1. Art and Literature & Religion

the holy message presented. American author Ellen G. White captures this element through the following statement: „Satan has many helpers. Many who profess to be Christians are aiding the tempter to catch away the seeds of truth from other hearts. Many who listen to the preaching of the word of God make it the subject of criticism at home. They sit in judgment on the sermon as they would on the words of a lecturer or a political speaker. The message that should be regarded as the word of the Lord to them is dwelt upon with trifling or sarcastic comment.

The minister’s character, motives, and actions, and the conduct of fellow members of the church, are freely discussed. Severe judgment is pronounced, gossip or slander repeated, and this in the hearing of the unconverted. Often these things are spoken by parents in the hearing of their own children. Thus are destroyed respect for God’s messengers, and reverence for their message. And many are taught to regard lightly God’s word itself.” [18] VIII. THE SEED FALLEN IN STONY GROUND – SYMBOL OF A SUPERFICIAL RELIGION Each place where the seed falls symbolizes something. According to author Ellen G. White the stony place represents people which do not have a deep faith, but a superficial one, appeared in various circumstances: „The seed sown upon stony ground finds little depth of soil.

The plant springs up quickly, but the root cannot penetrate the rock to find nutriment to sustain its growth, and it soon perishes. Many who make a profession of religion are stony-ground hearers.

Like the rock underlying the layer of earth, the selfishness of the natural heart underlies the soil of their good desires and aspirations. The love of self is not subdued. They have not seen the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and the heart has not been humbled under a sense of its guilt. This class may be easily convinced, and appear to be bright converts, but they have only a superficial religion.” [19] IX. THE ROOT – THE SYMBOL OF A PROFOUND CONNECTION WITH DIVINITY What gives the plant the resistance to remain, it is primarily the root. A strong root binds the plant on soil, so that cannot be easily torn.

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy American author Ellen G. White writes about the root as being the connection between man and divinity, this relation being the one that gives stability: „The roots of the plant strike down deep into the soil, and hidden from sight nourish the life of the plant. So with the Christian; it is by the invisible union of the soul with Christ, through faith, that the spiritual life is nourished.

But the stony-ground hearers depend upon self instead of Christ. They trust in their good works and good impulses, and are strong in their own righteousness. They are not strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might. Such a one “hath not root in himself”; for he is not connected with Christ. The hot summer sun that strengthens and ripens the hardy grain, destroys that which has no depth of root. So he who “hath not root in himself,” “dureth for a while”; but “when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended.” Many receive the gospel as a way of escape from suffering, rather than as a deliverance from sin. They rejoice for a season, for they think that religion will free them from difficulty and trial. While life moves smoothly with them, they may appear to be consistent Christians.” [20] X. THE SEED FALLEN BETWEEN THORNS – SYMBOL OF LIFE CONCERNS „The gospel seed often falls among thorns and noxious weeds; and if there is not a moral transformation in the human heart, if old habits and practices and the former life of sin are not left behind, if the attributes of Satan are not expelled from the soul, the wheat crop will be choked. The thorns will come to be the crop, and will kill out the wheat. Grace can thrive only in the heart that is being constantly prepared for the precious seeds of truth. The thorns of sin will grow in any soil; they need no cultivation; but grace must be carefully cultivated. The briers and thorns are always ready to spring up, and the work of purification must advance continually. If the heart is not kept under the control of God, if the Holy Spirit does not work unceasingly to refine and ennoble the character, the old habits will reveal themselves in the life. Men may profess to believe the gospel; but unless they are sanctified by the gospel their profession is of no avail. If they do not gain the victory over sin, then sin is gaining the victory over them. The

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thorns that have been cut off but not uprooted grow apace, until the soul is overspread with them. ” [21] The most dangerous things for the soul, according to Jesus Christ, are “worldly concerns”, “deceitfulness of riches” and “the lusts of other things” (Mark 4, 19; Luke 8,14), which are the real causes that stifle the development of the spiritual seed. Thus the author comments the passage as follows: „“The cares of this world.”

No class is free from the temptation to worldly care. To the poor, toil and deprivation and the fear of want bring perplexities and burdens.

To the rich come fear of loss and a multitude of anxious cares. Many of Christ’s followers forget the lesson He has bidden us learn from the flowers of the field. They do not trust to His constant care. Christ cannot carry their burden, because they do not cast it upon Him. Therefore the cares of life, which should drive them to the Saviour for help and comfort, separate them from Him.” [22] The love of money and the riches fascination make people put spiritual values in second plan, and accumulation of material goods does not return with gratitude to the One who is the source of all goods, but rather to the man and its power of succeed. Here is how the American authors describes the deceptive power of wealth: „“The deceitfulness of riches.” The love of riches has an infatuating, deceptive power.

Too often those who possess worldly treasure forget that it is God who gives them power to get wealth. They say, “My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth.”

Deut. 8:17. Their riches, instead of awakening gratitude to God, lead to the exaltation of self.

They lose the sense of their dependence upon God and their obligation to their fellow men.

Instead of regarding wealth as a talent to be employed for the glory of God and the uplifting of humanity, they look upon it as a means of serving themselves. Instead of developing in man the attributes of God, riches thus used are developing in him the attributes of Satan. The seed of the word is choked with thorns.” [23] Along with the love of money and riches, another source of spiritual values suffocation are life pleasures, used only as a source of exclusive gratification of personal satisfactions, fact presented by the author: „“And pleasures

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology of this life.” There is danger in amusement that is sought merely for self-gratification. All habits of indulgence that weaken the physical powers, that becloud the mind, or that benumb the spiritual perceptions, are “fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.” 1 Peter 2:11. “And the lusts of other things.” These are not necessarily things sinful in themselves, but something that is made first instead of the kingdom of God. Whatever attracts the mind from God, whatever draws the affections away from Christ, is an enemy to the soul.” [24] A preacher at the beginning of our century, Bishop Evghenie Piteșteanu (Spiritual pasture, 1912, p. 272), spoke about the fact that some people tend to be defined as “the souls of those possessed by the thorny concerns of the age,” in which the seeds “drowns and does not bind to fruition.” Interesting is the use of the phrase” thorny concerns of the age.” [25] XI. THE LAND - SYMBOL OF HUMAN BEING (HEART) The mind and the heart of the human receives the holy message that could be received or rejected. About those who listen the holy message, the author explains the fact thus: „The good-ground hearer receives the word “not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God.” 1 Thess. 2:13. Only he who receives the Scriptures as the voice of God speaking to himself is a true learner. He trembles at the word; for to him it is a living reality. He opens his understanding and his heart to receive it. Such hearers were Cornelius and his friends, who said to the apostle Peter, “Now therefore are we all here present before God, to hear all things that are commanded thee of God.” Acts 10:33.

A knowledge of the truth depends not so much upon strength of intellect as upon pureness of purpose, the simplicity of an earnest, dependent faith. To those who in humility of heart seek for divine guidance, angels of God draw near. The Holy Spirit is given to open to them the rich treasures of the truth. The good-ground hearers, having heard the word, keep it. Satan with all his agencies of evil is not able to catch it away.” [26]

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XII. THE GOOD GROUND – SYMBOL OF SINCERE PEOPLE OPENED FOR THE SPIRITUAL VALUES Nowhere a seed works better than in a good ground. Any worker of the ground knows how to appreciate the good ground value and the possibilities of this ground fruitfulness. In this way are things also seen from a spiritual point of view, as the author describes the value of good ground: „The good-ground hearer receives the word “not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God.” 1 Thess. 2:13. Only he who receives the Scriptures as the voice of God speaking to himself is a true learner. He trembles at the word; for to him it is a living reality. He opens his understanding and his heart to receive it. Such hearers were Cornelius and his friends, who said to the apostle Peter, “Now therefore are we all here present before God, to hear all things that are commanded thee of God.” Acts 10:33.” [27] XIII. HONEST AND GOOD HEART – SYMBOL OF SINCER AND OBEDIENT HUMAN The author Ellen G. White comments that the person symbolized by “an honest and good heart” does not mean that it refers to a holy, righteous person, but to one that is always open and obedient toward the “seed” toward the holy word: „The “honest and good heart” of which the parable speaks, is not a heart without sin; for the gospel is to be preached to the lost.

Christ said, “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Mark 2:17. He has an honest heart who yields to the conviction of the Holy Spirit. He confesses his guilt, and feels his need of the mercy and love of God. He has a sincere desire to know the truth, that he may obey it. The good heart is a believing heart, one that has faith in the word of God. Without faith it is impossible to receive the word. “He that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.” Heb. 11:6.” [28] XIV. THE SYMBOL OF THE FRUITS Good ground brings fruits, sometimes more, sometimes less, but good ground bears over and over, like a good man who will always have, in his life, fruits according to his character: „“And

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy bring forth fruit.” Those who, having heard the word, keep it, will bring forth fruit in obedience.

The word of God, received into the soul, will be manifest in good works. Its results will be seen in a Christlike character and life. Christ said of Himself, “I delight to do Thy will, O My God; yea, Thy law is within My heart.” Ps. 40:8. “I seek not Mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent Me.” John 5:30. And the Scripture says, “He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked.” 1 John 2:6.” [29] CONCLUSIONS „In Christ’s parable teaching the same principle is seen as in His own mission to the world. That we might become acquainted with His divine character and life, Christ took our nature and dwelt among us. Divinity was revealed in humanity; the invisible glory in the visible human form. Men could learn of the unknown through the known; heavenly things were revealed through the earthly; God was made manifest in the likeness of men. So it was in Christ’s teaching: the unknown was illustrated by the known; divine truths by earthly things with which the people were most familiar.” [30] Because over time people have forgotten the Creator of all things, teaching people through parables was meant to lead in this way people minds from the simple things of nature towards the Creator of everything. This fact was described in remarkable words by the American author, as follows: „In His teaching from nature, Christ was speaking of the things which His own hands had made, and which had qualities and powers that He Himself had imparted. In their original perfection all created things were an expression of the thought of God. To Adam and Eve in their Eden home nature was full of the knowledge of God, teeming with divine instruction. Wisdom spoke to the eye and was received into the heart; for they communed with God in His created works. As soon as the holy pair transgressed the law of the Most High, the brightness from the face of God departed from the face of nature. The earth is now marred and defiled by sin. Yet even in its blighted state much that is beautiful remains. God’s object lessons are not obliterated; rightly understood, nature speaks of her Creator.” [31]

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In the describing of this parable the author Ellen G. White makes an interesting and depth description of the work Heavenly sower, Jesus Christ, about the “seed” - His word and of how it is perceived, and as well about the final fruits of accepting and living His teachings, taken from His word, as the education gained by accepting His word, will finally lead to the restoration of the image of God in the soul of the believer.

As a conclusion, at the beautiful parable of the sower, we take the words of Archbishop Antonie Plămădeală, who said, that in the end: “is not in question neither the seed nor the art of the sower, but the ground, the land, people’s hearts. Any farmer knows that the land must be prepared, to receive the seed and make it bear fruits. The sower soweth all the time. Then, today, and forever. With this occasion Jesus ended his speech by: “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” (13,9). And to us He addresses also through them, with bitterness, with unconcealed prevention thought, but with hope and love. Whether our ears acquire the voice of His words. “ [32] REFERENCES [1] http://www.crestinortodox.ro/predici/predici-

duminica/pilda-semanatorului-121634.html, accesed 21.10.2015.

[2] http://www.caleacrestina.ro/index.php/pildele-luiisus/788-ce-este-o-parabola-si-de-ce-le-utilizeazadomnul-isus, accesed 21.10.2015.

[3] Ellen G.White, Parabolele Domnului Hristos [Christ’s Object Lessons], București, 1995, p.8.

[4] Ibidem, p.12.

[5] The Holy Bible, King James Version, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, The New Testament, Mathew 13,3-8, p.19.

[6] Ellen G.White, Parabolele Domnului Hristos [Christ’s Object Lessons]..., p.8.

[7] Ibidem.

[8] Ibidem, p. 14.

[9] Ibidem, p. 15.

[10] The Holy Bible…, Isaiah 53 10-11, p.869.

[11] Ibidem, p. 14.

[12] Ibidem, p. 15.

[13] Ibidem, pp. 15-16.

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology [14] Ibidem, p. 18.

[15] Ibidem, p. 19.

[16] Ibidem, p. 20.

[17] Ibidem.

[18] Ibidem, pp. 20-21.

[19] Ibidem, p. 21.

[20] Ibidem, p. 22.

[21] Ibidem, pp. 24-25.

[22] Ibidem, p. 25.

[23] Ibidem, p. 26.

[24] Ibidem, pp.26-27.

[25] http://www.crestinortodox.ro/predici/predici-

duminica/pilda-semanatorului-121634.html, accesed 21.10.2015.

[26] Ellen G.White, Parabolele Domnului Hristos [Christ’s Object Lessons]..., pp. 31-32.

[27] Ibidem, pp.31-32.

[28] Ibidem, p.31.

[29] Ibidem, p.32.

[30] Ibidem, p. 5.

[31] Ibidem, pp. 5-6.

[32] http://www.crestinortodox.ro/predici/prediciduminica/pilda-semanatorului-121634.html, accesed 21.10.2015.

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Earth Sciences, Ecology, Environment & Theology

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Environment Impact Assesment on Flora and Fauna in Madhya Pradesh Manisha Mathur, Dr.

Department of Zoology G.N.Khalsa College, Matunga Mumbai, India manishakmathurs@yahoo.co.in Abstract: Mining and metallurgical activities cause greater perturbation and devastation of both terrestrial and aquatic environments which has large scale ramifications. This piece of work reports the findings of a study undertaken to assess the environmental impacts of the mining activities in the city of Madhya Pradesh,India. In addition to assess the environmental impact of the mining activities, community perceptions about the mining activities were also assessed to know the health effects caused by these activities. Marked environmental impacts were observed through the study in the form of Water quality,Flora and Fauna and the consequential effect on the health of the persons who got exposed to the pollutants released from mines. The concentration of some of the pollutants both in the air and water has reached alarming proportions which are presenting a health hazard, exacerbating various disorders among the people. A comprehensive strategy and appropriate regulations are indispensible to alleviate the negative impacts of the mining activities on the environment to make this practice a sustainable one.

Keywords: Mining activities, community, environmental impacts, health hazards, disorders

2. Earth Sciences, Ecology, Environment & Theology

I. INTRODUCTION The importance of preserving rare species was legally recognized in 1973 when the Endangered Species Act (ESA) was signed into federal law. The purpose of the ESA is not only to protect species that have been listed as threatened or endangered, but also to conserve the ecosystems upon which those species depend (Makweba et.al ,1994). In aiming to protect species in danger of becoming extinct, the ESA prohibits actions that have the potential to result in a “taking” of any listed species[1].

The term “take” under the ESA refers to any attempt or action involving the harassment, harm, pursuit, hunting, shooting, wounding, killing, trapping, capturing, or collecting of any listed species(Boni, 1999., Balistrieri ,1999) Under this definition, the alteration of habitat that results in injury to, or death of, any listed species by preventing essential behavior (such as breeding, feeding or sheltering) is considered unlawful “harm”. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) are the lead agencies tasked with the implementation of the ESA and are therefore responsible for regulating prohibited and allowable activities.

[2] While the primary objective of the ESA is

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology the protection of endangered species, and the take of such species is considered unlawful, the ESA is not absolute. In 1982, amendments were made to the 1973 ESA which authorize the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Commerce to allow the take of federally listed species (Endangered Species Act, Section 10a(1) (B)). When non-federal activities that would otherwise be legal have the potential to result in the take of a listed species for example, they may be allowed under an Incidental Take Permit, obtained through the USFWS (Deswal,et.al, To mitigate the take of listed species, Section 10 of the ESA requires that parties wishing to obtain an Incidental Take Permit must submit a conservation plan, hereafter referred to as a “Habitat Conservation Plan” or “HCP,” with their application.[3] A Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) is a required part of an application for an Incidental Take Permit, a permit issued under the United States Endangered Species Act (ESA) to private entities undertaking projects that might result in the destruction of an endangered or threatened species[10]. It is a planning document that ensures that the anticipated take of a listed species will be minimized or mitigated by conserving the habitat upon which the species depend, thereby contributing to the recovery of the species as a whole(4) Project Tiger is a wildlife conservation project initiated in India in 1972 to protect the Bengal Tigers. It was launched on April 1, 1973 and has become one of the most successful wildlife conservation ventures. The project aims at tiger conservation in specially constituted tiger reserves representative of various biogeographical regions throughout India. It strives to maintain a viable tiger population in their natural environment. In 2007, there were 28 Project Tiger wildlife reserves covering an area of 37,761 km². Project Tiger helped increased the population of these tigers from 1,200 in the 1970s to 3,500 in 1990s[5] . The Kashmir stag (Cervus affinis hanglu) also called Hangul is a subspecies of Central Asian Red Deer native to northern India[7]. This deer lives in groups of two to 18 individuals in dense riverine forests, high valleys, and mountains of the Kashmir valley and northern Chamba in Himachal Pradesh(Ogezi,et.al 1988). In Kashmir, it’s found in Dachigam National Park at elevations of 3,035 meters[9]. These deer once numbered from

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about 5,000 animals in the beginning of the 20th century. Unfortunately, they were threatened, due to habitat destruction, over-grazing by domestic livestock, and poaching. This dwindled to as low as 150 animals by 1970[6]. However, the state of Jammu & Kashmir, along with the IUCN and the WWF prepared a project for the protection of these animals. It became known as Project Hangul. This brought great results and the population increased to over 340 by 1980[8]. The Indian Crocodile Conservation Project is considered among the more successful of conservation initiatives in the world[9]. It has pulled back the once threatened crocodilians from the brink of extinction and place them on a good path of recovery(Dhar et.al,1993., Singh et.al 2011)The Project has not just produced a large number of crocodiles, but has contributed towards conservation in a number of related fields as well.

II. Objectives The mine under study was a mine of mineral stone located in tehsil Sanwer, district Indore (M.P.) with a lease area of 0.361 ha. As per the Madhya Pradesh gazette notification, dated 23rd March 2013, the case was examined by the committee in light of the guidelines issued under Rule 48 of Environment Management plan.

Objectives were to carry out Base line study for an area having a radius of 10 Km around the mining lease area and following parameters were studied: 1) Quality of ground water resources within the study area was considered to evaluate the anticipated impact on the quality of water due to the proposed mining activity.Three parameters were studied in ground water:), Nitrate as NO3 (mg/Lit), Fluoride as F (mg/Lit) and Total Hardness (mg/Lit) 2) Study of flora and fauna in the study area whether they contain any endangered, Red listed or Rare plant species (Flora) according RED Data Book of Indian Plants (Nayar and Sastry ,1990). and whether there is any endangered species of Fauna in the study area.

3) Environment Impact assessment on a) Water Quality,

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noticed to be uniform.

Ground water Consumption: Water used for different industrial activities are given below:

III. Methodology The existing environmental setting has been taken into consideration to adjudge the basic environmental conditions, which are described with respect water quality, ,vegetation pattern, ecology, The objective of this section is to define the present environmental status which would help in assessing the environmental impacts arising due to the proposed mining operations.

Basic study was carried out for an area having a radius of 10 Km around the mining lease area and following parameters were studied by APHA, Standard methods for the examination of water and waste water (20th edn.) Washington, DC, American Public Health Association, (1998) 1) Quality of ground water resources within the study area was considered to evaluate the anticipated impact on the quality of water due to the proposed mining activity.Three parameters were studied in ground water: Nitrate as NO3 (mg/Lit), Fluoride as F (mg/Lit) and Total Hardness (mg/Lit) 2) Study of flora and fauna in the study area whether they contain any endangered, Red listed or Rare plant species (Flora) according RED Data Book of Indian Plants (Nayar and Sastry ,1990). and whether there is any endangered species of Fauna in the study area.

3) Environment Impact assessment for Water quality,Flora and Fauna and Land degradation.

A. Results and Disscussions The EIA has been done. A detailed study having baseline data, is given in the proceeding section incorporating all the desired information.

Stone quarry is having an area of 0.361 hectare village in Indore.

(a) Drinking (b) Mining (c) Afforestation (d) Dust Suppression Water was obtained from open well/tube well.

Quality of Ground Water: The quality of ground water around river and study area is potable. The chemical analysis results are appended in the report. No change in water quality will be observed due to mining activities as mine pits will not touch ground water level.

Results of water analysis are shown in Table 2.

S. No.

1.

Nitrate as NO3 (mg/Lit)

19

2.

Fluoride as F (mg/Lit)

0.16

3.

Total Hardness (mg/Lit)

281

Table 2: Water analysis report C. Flora and Fauna Madhya Pradesh has a subtropical climate.

Like most of north India, it has a hot dry summer (April–June) followed by monsoon rains (July– September) followed by a cool and relatively dry winter. The mining lease area, in most part is covered by rock exposures with very little soil cover to sustain vegetation. Therefore vegetation in the mining lease area is very scanty. Few common animals like hares, jackals and foxes are occasionally seen. There are no rare or endangered species in the area. List of flora and fauna is given table 3 and 4.

B. Water Environment Quality of ground water resources within the study area was considered to evaluate the anticipated impact on the quality of water due to the proposed mining activity. The ground water table is at 450 mRL. The water seeps into the ground through different water channels.

The behavior of ground water table has been

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Result

Parameter

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S .

No.

Botanical name

Family

Life form

A c a c i a leucophloea

Mimosaceae

Phanerophytes

Acacia nilotica

Mimosaceae

Phanerophytes

Acacia senegal

Mimosaceae

Phanerophytes

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology A l b i z i a odoratissima

Mimosaceae

Phanerophytes

Azadirachta indica

Meliaceae

Phanerophytes

B u t e monosperma

Fabaceae

Phanerophytes

Cassia indica

Caesalpiniaceae

Phanerophytes

Dalbergia latifolia

Fabaceae

Phanerophytes

F i c u benghalensis

Moraceae

Phanerophytes

a

s

3.0

Impact on water regime and water quality No adverse effect is expected on surface water, as there is no water reservoir, river or any other source near mining area. Ground water is not likely to be affected, as the mining activity will not intersect water table. The stone is inert and do not react or dissolve with water and nontoxic. No discharge of water effluents from the mines.

Table 3: List of plants found in the project area *The study area do not contain any endangered, Red listed or Rare plant species (Flora) according RED Data Book of Indian Plants (Nayar and Sastry ,1990).* Sr. No.

Scientific Name

Common Name

Acridotheres tristis

Common Myna

Alcedo atthis

C o m m o n Kingfisher

Apus affinis

Indian Swift

Athene brama

Spotted Owlet

Bubo bubo

Indian Great Horned Owl

Centropus sinensis

Crow Pheasant

Columba liviba

Rock Pigeon

C o r v u s macrorhynchos

Jungle Crow

Corvus splendens

House Crow

Biodiversity The impact on terrestrial ecology will be there due to emission of gaseous pollutants like NOx, SO2 and dust/SPM. To check air pollution, the mitigation measures will be taken as discussed in proceeding section.

References 1. Makweba M.M. and Ndonde P.B., The mineral sector andthe national environmental policy, Proceedings of the workshop on the national environmental policy for Tanzania (Dar es Salaam, Tanzania), 164-173 (1994)

House

2. Boni M., Costabile S., De, Vivo B. and Gasparrini M.Potential environmental hazard in the mining district of southern Iglesiente (SW Sardinia, Italy), Journal of Geochemical Exploration, 67, 417-430 (1999) 3. Balistrieri L.S., Box S.E., Bookstrom A.A. and Ikramuddin M., Assessing the influence of reacting pyrite and carbonate minerals on the geochemistry of drainage in the Coeur d’Alene mining district, Environmental Science & Technology, 33, 3347-3353 (1999)

Table 4: Fauna observed in the Study Area *There is no endangered species in the study area.* 2.8. National Park No National Park is located in the study area.

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4. Ogezi A.E., Impact of Mining on Nigeria Environment. In FEPA MONOGRAPH: Towards Pollution Abatement in Nigeria. FEPA: Lagos, Nigeria, (1988) 5. Dhar B.B. and Ahmad M., Impact of mining and processing activities on surrounding environment – a case study, Journal of mining research, 2(2), 34-41 (1993) 6. Singh A.K., Mahato M.K., Neogi B., Mondal G.C. and Singh T.B., Hydrogeochemistry, elemental flux and quality assessment of mine

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy water in the Pootkee-Balihari mining area, Jharia coalfield, India, Mine water and the environment, 30(3), 197-207 (2011) 7. APHA, Standard methods for the examination of water and waste water (20th edn.) Washington, DC, American Public Health Association, (1998) 8. Deswal S. and Deswal A., Basic course in Environmental studies, Dhanpat Rai & Co. Publishers, New Delhi, India, (2008) 9. Filer, C. Mining in the South Pacific, http:// www.antenna.nl/ecsiep/bulletin.htmlO., (1998)

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Is the Inquiry Based Education Paradigm Useful not just for Teaching Sciences but also Theology?

1. Prof. Mihai A. GÎRŢU, PhD

2. Fr. Lecturer Cosmin Tudor CIOCAN, PhD

Department of Physics and Electronics Ovidius University of Constanta Constanţa-900527, Romania mihai.girtu@univ-ovidius.ro

Department of Theology Ovidius University of Constanta Constanţa-900527, Romania cosmin.ciocan@univ-ovidius.ro

Abstract: Starting from the traditional approaches to teaching science and religion we discuss modern pedagogical methods based on inquiry. We explore whether and how the teaching methods specific to each discipline may benefit in the teaching of the other.

Keywords: science education, theology education, inquiry based learning

I. INTRODUCTION A year ago we attempted to respond to the challenge posed by Dialogo 2014, the virtual conference on the dialogue between science and theology, discussing how diet impacts on health, as a case study of a wider debate on scientific consensus, public perceptions and religious beliefs [1]. Dialogo 2015 renews that challenge: can a scientist and a theologian find some common ground and address the same topic from their different perspectives? As we are both educators, we decided to concentrate this time on pedagogy, by discussing, comparing and contrasting the most effective methods of teaching science and theology. We start by reviewing the early approaches to teaching science and religion and then discuss the modern methods for each field, exploring whether and how they can be used for the other.

II. TRADITIONAL APPROACHES TO TEACHING SCIENCE AND RELIGION Scientific endeavor has been based from its early stages on inquiry, as an “act or an instance of seeking for truth, information, or knowledge; investigation; research; or a question or query.” The root word, inquire, means “to ask for information, to make an investigation or search, to seek information or questioning.” In ancient times, philosophers, 3. Social Sciences, Culture, Lifestyle Choices & Religion

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particularly Socrates, were teaching their students by asking questions, guiding the student to finding the truth, or to realizing the limits of knowledge [2, 3].

In contrast, the ancient approach to teaching religious ideas was by means of myths and parables [4]. The major problems, such as the creation of the universe, the origins of life, death and the afterlife, have all been tackled through legendary stories and passed from one generation to the next [ 5, 6].

Parables, as short allegorical stories, have been used to illustrate or teach some religious principles or spiritual lessons [ 7].

Over time pedagogical approaches have evolved, the teaching of science being strongly influenced by Jesuit educational models. As theological education was meant to deliver the ideas followers should know and respect, teachers were expected to give systematic instruction and deliver precise knowledge.

With the mission to defend the religious core values and dogmas, the teachers were not supposed to encourage experiments, discussions or any deviations from the truth. However, despite the obvious focus of the monastic schools on theological instruction, advances in sciences, particularly in medicine and in astronomy (the latest in order to preserve the calendar and observation of religious holidays) did take place. Also, although much of the learning was contained to the confines of the monastery walls, knowledge did extend beyond the relatively isolated centers through travelers and pilgrims who would stay at the monasteries [8].

III. BACKGROUND ON INQUIRY-BASED INSTRUCTION In modern times inquiry has evolved steadily [2], with a stronger impetuous in the early 1900s due to eISSN: 2393-1744, cdISSN: 2392-9928 printISSN: 2457-9297 ISBN: 978-80-554-1131-6

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology the work of John Dewey [ 9, 10, 11], who considered that there was too much emphasis on the curriculum, on the subject matter to be taught, without enough emphasis on the student prior experience and on teaching them how to think. Dewey encouraged teachers of science to use inquiry as a teaching strategy in a few distinct steps: sensing perplexing situations, clarifying the problem, formulating a tentative hypothesis, testing the hypothesis, revising with rigorous tests, and acting on the solution. The teacher has a role of a facilitator and guide whereas the students should be actively involved, adding to their personal knowledge by addressing problems of interest, related to their experience and within their intellectual capability [12].

Later on, in the 1960s, Jerome S. Bruner emphasized the discovery methods of teaching, in which the learner is encouraged to discover new laws of nature and understand new concepts and ideas rather than being required to memorize the “truths” stated by the teacher or by the authoritative books [ 13, 14]. Various pedagogical approaches resulted, ranging from pure discovery methods, in which the student receives problems to solve with little or no guidance from the teacher, guided discovery methods, in which the student receives problems to solve but the teacher also provides hints, direction, coaching and feedback, to keep the student on track, and expository methods, in which the student is given the problem and, at the end, the correct answer [3]. Various studies [15, 16] showed that the guided discovery is generally more effective than both pure discovery and expository methods, as the students performed better in tests of immediate retention, delayed retention, and transfer to solving new problems.

The disputes about the impact of instructional guidance during teaching [17] have been ongoing for at least the past half-century. More recently, Kirschner et al. [18] argued that the evidence for the superiority of guided instruction can be explained in the context of our knowledge of human cognitive architecture, expert–novice differences, and cognitive load.

Although unguided or minimally guided instructional approaches are very popular and intuitively appealing, they ignore both the structures that constitute human cognitive architecture and evidence from empirical studies over the past half-century that consistently indicate that minimally guided instruction is less effective and less efficient than instructional approaches that place a strong emphasis on guidance of the student learning process [17].

Arguing for inquiry-based learning (IBL) and problem-based learning (PBL), seen as guided

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instruction models, Hmelo-Silver et al. [19] present evidence demonstrating that PBL and IBL are powerful and effective models of learning. Far from being contrary to many of the principles of guided learning that Kirschner et al. [17] discussed, both PBL and IL employ scaffolding instruction extensively thereby reducing the cognitive load and allowing students to learn in complex domains. Scaffolding is the support given during the learning process which is tailored to the needs of the student with the intention of helping the student achieve his/her learning goals [18, 20].

Moreover, the IBL and PBL approaches to learning also address other important goals of education that include content knowledge, epistemic practices, and soft skills such as collaboration and self-directed learning [18].

The work of Hoffman et al. [21] showed, based on ten years of experience with PBL in a medical program, that graduates obtained higher performances on USMLEs and improved evaluations from residency program directors. The conclusion was that the inquiry approach better prepare graduates with knowledge and skills needed to practice within a complex health care system [20].

Later on, based on forty years of experience at the Medical School of McMaster University, where PBL was pioneered in 1969 [22], Alan Neville states [23]: “Problem-based learning has swept the world of medical education since its introduction 40 years ago, leaving a trail of unanswered or partially answered questions about its benefits. The literature is replete with systematic reviews and meta-analyses, all of which have identified some common themes; however, heterogeneity in the definition of a ‘problem-based learning curriculum’ and its delivery, coupled with different outcome measurements, has produced divergent opinions. Proponents and detractors continue to dispute the merits of the cognitive foundation of a PBL approach, but, despite this, there is evidence that graduates of PBL curricula demonstrate equivalent or superior professional competencies compared with graduates of more traditional curricula.”

Even more recently, Dolmans and Gijbels [24] agree that PBL can be characterized by: (i) learning in small groups; (ii) a teacher facilitating learning in the group; (iii) learning by means of problems that are first discussed in the group, and (iv) learning by means of self-study after which a discussion in the group follows. The problems in PBL are the trigger for the students to learn, ask questions, search for information and for self-study and, finally, arrive at and formulate a solution. The benefits of PBL reach

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy beyond higher scores at medical examinations, improving students’ social studying practices and enhancing student learning inside and outside the typical medical curriculum [25].

In a wider sense, going beyond the medical education and PBL, inquiry based learning has been also reviewed extensively. One such recent study, by Minner et al. [26] synthesizes findings from research conducted between 1984 and 2002 to address the research question: What is the impact of inquiry science instruction on K–12 student outcomes? Based on the 138 analyzed studies, the authors find a clear, positive trend favoring inquiry-based instructional practices, particularly instruction that emphasizes student active thinking and drawing conclusions from data. It was concluded that instruction approaches that actively engage students in the education process through discovery and investigation are more likely to stimulate conceptual understanding than the strategies that rely on more passive techniques [25].

The discussions on improving instruction methods has left the academic debate and have entered the political agenda, as science education reform attracts significant attention around the world. Efforts in the USA [27, 28, 29], England [30], France [31], the European Union [32], Australia [33], etc. have been devoted to improving student performance, particularly due to government-established standards and/or national curricula. In this context, the National Research Council (NRC) of the USA described as ‘‘essential features of classroom inquiry’’ [28]: “i) Learners are engaged by scientifically oriented questions. ii) Learners give priority to evidence, which allows them to develop and evaluate explanations that address scientifically oriented questions. iii) Learners formulate explanations from evidence to address scientifically oriented questions. iv) Learners evaluate their explanations in light of alternative explanations, particularly those reflecting scientific understanding. v) Learners communicate and justify their proposed explanations.”

Additionally to the NRC requirements other skills are necessary for the effective learning of science in adolescent populations [34]. Such skills are: adaptability, complex communication/social skills, non-routine problem-solving skills, self-management/ self-development and systems thinking.

Given the central role of teacher training in the process of educational reform, some questions are of particular interest to science teacher educators: How does one prepare a teacher to utilize inquiry-

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based instruction? What barriers must be overcome to initiate such science education in the schools? What obstacles do teachers face when switching to the new pedagogical methods? [35] This emphasis on the learner needs to be matched by an equal focus on the teacher [36].

IV. INQUIRY-BASED INSTRUCTION IN VARIOUS FIELDS In the previous section we mentioned how problem-based learning has been used extensively in medical schools across the USA and Canada.

However, IBL concepts have been applied to other fields of knowledge. In particular, one such field is physics [37], pioneered by the group from University of Washington, but also chemistry and biology [38], electrical engineering [39, 40], and cognitive neuroscience [41], or even archeology [42].

A very useful IBL model, called the 5Es, was introduced through the Biological Science Curriculum Study (BSCS), by a team lead by Roger Bybee [ 43, 44, 45]. The five steps are: (1) Engagement (Excite, stimulate the learner’s curiosity) (2) Exploration (Experiment to satisfy curiosity) (3) Explanation (Show that you understand the concepts) (4) Elaboration (Extend the new concepts into new areas) (5) Evaluation (Check your knowledge) The teacher appeals to the learners’ prior knowledge and helps them become engaged in a new concept through the use of short activities that promote curiosity and elicit prior knowledge.

The activity should make connections between past and present learning experiences, expose prior conceptions, and organize students’ thinking toward the learning outcomes of current activities.

Physics education in Romania has also benefited from a project promoting IBL. The Romanian Physical Society has been involved in a project initiated in 2011 [46] by Cristian Hatu, with the aim to change the way physics is taught throughout secondary education, by stimulating students’ active participation in the process of learning. Students are assisted by the teacher to discover the laws of physics and to understand the new concepts, after performing experiments and observations. During its different stages, the project has produced a methodological guide for the teachers as well as the psychopedagogical foundation of the new approach and has already trained to use the new methods over 1300 teachers. Moreover, various materials have

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology been prepared to assist teachers in using the new approach: short videos presenting experiments and demonstrations with common, everyday objects, guidelines regarding class management, higher complexity tasks for students with high intellectual potential, items for student evaluation for a part of the learning units etc. Numerous examples of such materials have been uploaded on the webpage of the project [46].

V. IS IBL SUITED FOR THEOLOGY EDUCATION? Inquiry-based learning requires that the learner draws on his own past experience and existing knowledge to discover facts and relationships and new truths. Students interact with the world by exploring and manipulating objects, wrestling with questions and controversies, or performing experiments. As a result, students may be more likely to remember concepts and knowledge discovered on their own (in contrast to being given the answer by the teacher).

But is such an approach valuable in teaching religious concepts?

Why this interest in inquiry? Teaching religion is not trivial, particularly as many of its concepts are pretty abstract and difficult to grasp by students.

In addition, teachers of religion are often given the mission to ‘translate’ the concepts, to make them more familiar for adherents. It remains challenging for an educator to translate concepts into behavior, and large ideas into social conduct.

Being convinced that any kind of education can benefit from such new methods of teaching, we argue, in the fallowing, that inquiry-based instruction may be an effective technique even when tackling theology education.

To answer the questions above we can return to the 5Es applied initially to teaching biology. Is Engagement needed in teaching religion as it is in teaching science? The answer is, most likely, positive, as the students learn more effectively when their interest is triggered by an interesting and exciting problem.

What is a trigger and what could be effective triggers in teaching religion? A trigger could be anything, from a simple word, an image, a symbol, a short movie or a particular gesture, anything that can stimulate the student’s curiosity for the theme. For instance, before starting a discussion on how heaven is perceived in Christianity, Islam and Judaism, it may be useful to display a few relevant pictures, particularly renaissance paintings and old orthodox frescos on that theme. Similarly, a display of two paintings depicting the Judgement Day could generate interest from the

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students more effectively than a typical, traditional lecture about the differences between Catholics and Orthodox Christians. Pictures or little movies with atrocities caused in the name of religion could trigger an emotional reaction and openness for a lecture on respect for all faiths. Scientific illustrations, such as the echography of the fetus or gene sections, could trigger interest and vivid discussions on abortion and on genetic engineering or gene therapy.

The classes can also start by provoking the students with cognitive conflicts [47], addressing known misconceptions. Cognitive conflicts can be imagined not just in Science but also in Theology, as the religious educator also has to deal with preconceptions or misconceptions.

Typically, examples of conflicts that could trigger the student interest with respect to learning theological concepts are those regarding proving wrong some of their prior beliefs (particularly related to old superstitions and practices in contradiction with religious principles) and those related to the lack of alignment or harmony between one’s words and deeds. Fighting pre- or misconceptions is, many times, teaching against wrong conduct or heresy.

The second step, Exploration, is typical for science. Can it be relevant for teaching theology?

Although experimenting is the key attribute of the scientist it should not be disregarded when teaching religion. In the end, religion paves the spiritual way of approaching Divinity and such path can benefit from landmarks, from guidance along the way. For the students, reading or hearing about the Path is not enough. They need to experiment themselves, through prayer and meditation: ‘Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart.’ Luke 18:1 [48]. And, through prayer and meditation, they get a better understanding of their own way: ‘But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup.’ 1 Corinthians 11:28, ‘I meditate within my heart, And my spirit makes diligent search.’ Psalm 77:6 [48].

If in science the students explore the reality around them, in religion they experience and discover their own spiritual self by praying and meditation as well as by acting in the real world: ‘12 Because I delivered the poor who cried out, The fatherless and the one who had no helper. 13 The blessing of a perishing man came upon me, And I caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy. 14 I put on righteousness, and it clothed me; My justice was like a robe and a turban. 15 I was eyes to the blind, And I was feet to the lame. 16 I was a father to the poor, And I searched out the case that I did not know. 17 I broke

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy the fangs of the wicked, And plucked the victim from his teeth.’ (Job 29:12-17 [48].)

In science, the teacher gives the students educational materials and guides their experiments and observations; in religion the teacher follows the students through their search and guides them when they encounter obstacles. With right guidance from an educator, the students may discover truths that were always there, inside their soul. Similar patterns are used in psychoanalysis and psychological therapy, matrimonial counseling, and various cases of social conflict. Through inquiry technics people are brought to seeing the real problem and the solution to it, which in fact lies inside themselves. Ultimately, is up to them to act and solve that problem.

Embracing someone else’s thoughts and conduct is not an issue easy to deal with; we can see that every day at parents-child relation and its failure in most cases. ‘Acceptance involves undefended exposure to thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations as they are directly experienced to be.’ [49] It is important to understand the stages the students go through during their experimenting, that the person have to let go of controlling private events and expose themselves to these trials without the use of safety nets. In religious education students are supposed to give up more, being asked to abandon their old mind and to be open for discovering new truths: ‘9 Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, 10 and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him’ (Colossians 3:9-10 [48].)

In the third and fourth steps, Explanation and Elaboration, the students are supposed to show that they understand the concepts and then, use them extend their use in other contexts. In the learning process they ought to do more than just reproduce the knowledge. They ought to give in to the profound meaning of the teachings.

One way to guide the students through these stages is to present new images and/or parables and ask them to draw parallels with the initial ones. For instance, when discussing religious symbols and/vs. objects of adoration, one can give additional examples to the initial ones and check whether the students can explain and then extend their knowledge to adjacent topics.

One example of teaching by inquiry could be provided by the parable of the adulteress. The ‘students’ were the scribes and Pharisees; they were not offered an answer but another question to ask themselves:

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So when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, ‘He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.’ (John 8:7 [48].)

The ‘students’ had to search in their own souls and discover the answer. By using such challenging, selfawareness ways of teaching, student misconceptions and preconceptions can be dispelled, leaving room for a new way of thinking.

Unlike teachers, educators [50] have to produce positive reactions into the minds and souls of the students so that they will not only understand and embrace the new concepts, but they become able to promote them further. It is a great challenge for every religious teacher to transform dogma into behavior, to convert knowledge into social conduct, which have to be self-inflicted, believed and not only trusted or accepted [51]. Religion has a role in providing responses to those experiences which lack interpretability, to create strong, long-lasting emotions that lead to a moral social conduct. Religion is a ‘vehicle which enables participants to give form and meaning to their experiences’ [52]. This may be the Elaboration step for religious teaching as students are impelled to extend the new concepts acquired into their lives, to formulate a particular path for applying the ideas they embraced.

The last step, the Evaluation is required in any formal education process, as it allows the instructor to verify whether the student has acquired the targeted competences. Therefore, religious education can make no exception, having to rely on evaluation, for any religion has the ways and characteristic means.

How should this evaluation take place? In the case of religion, showing knowledge is not enough.

The student is expected to also show compassion and advancement on his spiritual path: ‘Examine me, O LORD, and prove me; Try my mind and my heart.’

(Psalm 26:2 [48]).

Students are supposed to be appraised for becoming better persons, for applying in the everyday life the principles that they have learned in class. Additional to the regular, educational tools the religious teacher has an extra way to examine the students. The confession is, probably, the most powerful method of evaluation, as it allows going beyond the classroom experience and reach into the deeper beliefs and emotions of the student.

In conclusion of this section, we argued that, to various extent, all the 5Es steps formulated by Bybee [43] have some relevance to religious instruction.

VI. IS STORY-TELLING USEFUL FOR SCIENCE EDUCATION?

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology We argue in the following that knowing how the scientist think and work, how they lived and came to understand or discover knowledge, can have a positive role on students as future scholars.

For instance, learning about celestial mechanics in a science class can be too abstract and challenging to students. Inserting stories about the history of these concepts may give the students an overall idea of how advancement of knowledge actually takes place, how, sometimes, novel theories are not easily accepted. The evolution of common thought regarding the celestial motion brings together science and philosophy and even religion.

Ancient Indian cosmology describes, around the 15th - 12th century B.C.E., a universe that is created, destroyed, and re-created in an eternally repetitive series of cycle [53]. Later on, the Greek philosopher Aristotle in the 4th century B.C.E. and the RomanEgyptian mathematician and astronomer Ptolemy, in the 2nd century C.E., described a geocentric model, in which the planets and the rest of the universe orbit about a stationary Earth. In contrast, in the 3rd century B.C.E. the Greek astronomer and mathematician Aristarchus of Samos presented a heliocentric model, placing the Sun, not the Earth, at the center of the known universe. His ideas were generally rejected in favor of the geocentric theories of Aristotle and Ptolemy until they were successfully revived nearly 1800 years later by Copernicus.

Such stories of correct theories being overlooked in favor of wrong ones are not singular. Another example may be the wave theory of light published in 1690 by the Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens [54], which was dominated by the Isaac Newton’s corpuscular theory made public in 1704 [55]. For more than 100 years, the corpuscular theory was favored over the wave theory, partly because of Newton’s great prestige and partly because not enough experimental evidence existed to provide an adequate basis of comparison between the two models. When light interference, diffraction and polarization experiments were performed the wave theory became the dominant theory of the nature of light.

Going back to celestial mechanics, it is useful to present a little history to illustrate how scientific progress takes place. We follow Thomas Kuhn’s arguments that periods of conceptual continuity in normal science, characterized by development by accumulation, are interrupted by periods of revolutionary science, when the discovery of ‘anomalies’ lead to revolutions in science and to new paradigms [56]. Tycho Brahe, a Danish

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astronomer who tried to reconcile the Ptolemaic and Copernican models of was recognized for his precise measurements of planetary motion. Although he had at hand massive amounts of astronomical data, he advocated for a system with an immobile Earth.

According to Tycho Brahe, the idea of a rotating and revolving Earth would be ‘in violation not only of all physical truth but also of the authority of Holy Scripture, which ought to be paramount’ [57].

Johannes Kepler, a German mathematician and astronomer, who for a short time was Tycho Brahe’s assistant, did not succeed to convince his mentor to embrace the Copernican model. After Tycho Brahe’s death, inheriting the vast collection of astronomical observations, particularly on the motion of Mars, Kepler was able to draw three laws that described the planetary motion: the law of elliptical orbits, the law of equal areas and the law of periods [58, 59].

According to Kuhn [56], ‘individual scientists embrace a new paradigm for all sorts of reasons and usually for several at once.’ Some of these reasons, for instance, the worship of the Sun that made Kepler a Copernican—lie outside the apparent sphere of science entirely [56, 60]. Much of Kepler’s enthusiasm for the Copernican system stemmed from his theological convictions about the connection between the physical and the spiritual; the universe being an image of God, with the Sun corresponding to the Father, the stellar sphere to the Son, and the space in-between to the Holy Spirit [61].

Finally, Isaac Newton, an English physicist and mathematician, was able to make a step even further, deriving all three of Kepler’s laws by means of one single law of universal gravitation [62]. He was able to make such a huge step forward due to his knowledge of the mechanical laws of motion, which he presented to the Royal Society in 1686, before the publication of the ‘Principia’ one year later. Such stories of science history are relevant to show that the development of science means long times of accumulation interrupted by revolutions, when new paradigms are shaped, taking over the previous theories.

The advancement of science may sometimes be a bumpy road. Robert Hooke, another English physicist, accused Newton of plagiarism, claiming that the idea of the decrease of gravity by the square of the distance between the bodies was taken from him.

Newton did accept and acknowledge, in all editions of the ‘Principia,’ that Hooke (and others) had separately considered the inverse square law and the centrifugal/ centripetal effects to discuss planetary motion.

However, there is a long distance between a truth that is glimpsed and a truth that is demonstrated [63].

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy Thus, the importance of giving credit to the prior work on the topic was well known long before the modern ethical standards in conducting research [64].

One last point that is worth making is on the role of serendipity in research discoveries. Serendipity is the occurrence and development of events by chance in a satisfactory or beneficial way. Typically, by ‘chance’ we understand that the event takes place in the absence of any obvious project (randomly or accidentally), which is not relevant to any present need, or in which the cause is unknown. Under these circumstances, it should be emphasized that serendipity in scientific research has an important characteristic: discoveries are made by scholars able to make creative connections, based on a deeper understanding of the problem, where others are subject to only astonishment. It is attributed to Louis Pasteur that ‘Chance favors only the prepared mind’ [65]. Although it is estimated that between 33% and 50% of all scientific discoveries are unexpected, however it is believed that [65]: ‘Scientists are not passive recipients of the unexpected; rather, they actively create the conditions for discovering the unexpected and have a robust mental toolkit that makes discovery possible.’

To give an example of the role of chance in scientific discovery we can return to Newton’s discovery of gravity. Due to some infectious disease, Newton was sitting in his yard when he noticed an apple fall from a tree [66]. The apple fell straight down, perpendicular to the ground, never upward or off to a side, which prompted Newton to conclude that it was a property of all matter to interact with attractive forces along the direction of their centers.

It was another 20 years before Newton published his detailed theory of gravity, but he later visited the tree that helped him provoke the idea [67].

In summary of this section, we argued that science teaching can benefit from the history of scientific discoveries. The students may more easily see the pattern every scientist had in his development; one that can become their own pattern of discovery.

Acquiring only the knowledge of the predecessors is not enough, as it does not stimulate creativity and independent thinking. On the contrary, evaluating the process in which the knowledge was forged, may lead to new discoveries and further inquiry. Moreover, the students may learn about the role of chance, the importance of ethical conduct and, through anecdotal stories about the lives of the scientists may develop role models for their entire career and, overall, classes may be more fun to attend.

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CONCLUSION We argued that inquiry methods can be used to stir interest and make teaching more enjoyable and more effective not just in science instruction but also in theology education. Fishermen in Bible times as well as today need not to be given fish and be fed for a day; they need to be taught how to fish and feed themselves for a lifetime. Bringing people in a state of self-involvement with the source of knowledge is a better method of teaching for both science and theology.

Religious education has used some kinds of inquiry methods for a long time, as parables and symbolic stories were at the core of theological education for all faiths. We went further and analyzed whether Bybee’s 5E steps could be extended to theology education. We concluded that the first and the last steps (Engagement and Evaluation) should be common to any kind of teaching, as stimulating the students’ curiosity and checking the knowledge acquired cannot be separated from the training process. While the third and fourth steps, Explanation and Elaboration, are more easily adaptable to religious education, the most challenging step is Exploration, as experimenting to satisfy curiosity has not been widely regarded as characteristic to religious endeavors. However, as the students are supposed to find their way to Divinity, pointing to the landmarks that can guide their way may be useful for them. If in science the students explore the reality around them, in religion they experience and discover their own spiritual self by praying and meditation as well as by acting in the real world.

In turn, we also argued that the story-telling, typical for teaching religion, can be used in science education. Accumulating knowledge is not enough; students need to develop critical and creative thinking.

Listening to stories about scientific discovery could teach them lessons that, later on, could support them in fighting future obstacles. Knowing that chance may also play a role, creating opportunities, but only those prepared to seize such occasions can benefit, may prove important for the overall education of the adult. Moral values and the emphasis on ethical conduct is key to the individual, as a principled member of the community, and beneficial to society as a whole. Moreover, the anecdotal stories about the lives of the scientists may help students in developing role models for their entire career and make classes more enjoyable.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The authors are grateful to dr. Cristian Hatu and

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology dr. Cristina Miron for useful discussions. The financial support of the Romanian-American Foundation as well as the generous sponsorship form BRD – Groupe Société Générale and OMV – Petrom is thankfully acknowledged.

DECLARATION OF CONFLICTING INTERESTS The authors declared no conflicts of interests with respect to the authorship and/or publication of this article.

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[35] R.D. Anderson, „Reforming science teaching: What research says about inquiry.” Journal of Science Teacher Education, 13 (2002) 1–12.

[36] B.R. Brand and S.J. Moore, “Enhancing Teachers’ Application of Inquiry-Based Strategies Using a Constructivist Sociocultural Professional Development Model,” International Journal of Science Education 33 (2011) 889–913.

[37] L.C. McDermott & the Physics Education Group at the University of Washington Physics by Inquiry, John Wiley, New York, 1996.

[38] T. Eberlein, J. Kampmeier, V. Minderhout, R.S. Moog, T. Platt, P. Varma-Nelson, and H.B. White, “Pedagogies of Engagement in Science – A Comparison of PBL, POGIL, AND PLTL,” Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education 36 (2008) 262–273.

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[42] E.-L.H. McGuire, „Students and their digs: Enquiry based learning in level-one Archaeology,” Practice and Evidence of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education 3, (2008) 84-101.

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[46] Romanian Physical Society, The reform of the physics education in Romania through inquiry-based learning, www.srfizica.ro/rpfip [47] J.A. Rowell and C.J. Dawson, “Cognitive conflict: It’s Nature and Use in the Teaching of Science,” Research in Science education, 9 (1979) 169-175.

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John Wiley & Sons, 2009.

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology [61] P. Barker and B.R. Goldstein. “Theological Foundations

of Kepler’s Astronomy,” Osiris, 16 (2001) 88-113.

[62] Isaac Newton “Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica.” 3rd Edition (1726) with Variant Readings, A. Koyre, B.I. Cohen and A. Whitman (eds.), Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1972.

[63] W.W. Rouse Ball, “An Essay on Newton’s ‘Principia’” London and New York: Macmillan, 1893.

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57–79). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2005.

[66] R. Gaughan, “Accidental Genius: The World’s Greatest By-Chance Discoveries.” Metro Books, 2010.

[67] R.M. Roberts, “Serendipity: Accidental Discoveries in Science.” John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 1989.

Research Council. He has experience in research policy making and research management, gained while serving as vice-president of the Romanian University Research Council (CNCSIS), as well as in higher education funding, acquired in the course of his term in the Romanian Council for Higher Education Funding (CNFIS). Presently he serves as vice-rector for international relations of Ovidius University of Constanța.

Biography

Mihai A. Gîrţu is Professor of Physics at Ovidius University of Constanța, Romania. A graduate of the University of Bucharest with an M.Eng. degree in Applied Physics, he received the Ph.D. degree in Physics from the Ohio State University, USA. His research interests focus on molecular modeling and simulations of materials with applications in organic electronics and hybrid photovoltaics, molecular magnetism, photocatalytic degradation, and, more recently, in biomedical sciences. He is a member of ΦΚΦ and ΣΧ honor societies, and a recipient of the In hoc signo vinces award of the Romanian National

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Ciocan Tudor Cosmin, born in Constanta/Romania in 1977, I have attended several theological and psychological schools (BA, MB, PhD), obtained my PhD in Missiology and Doctrinal Theology in 2010.

I was ordained as orthodox priest in 2002. Highschool teacher from 1998, then Professor assistant and Lecturer from 2012, I have written more than 30 papers on theology and psychology, along with 4 single author books in the past two decades.

In 2013 I started a multidisciplinary program aiming to engage scholars from different files into friendly and academic debates with theology and in the same year a Research Center was founded in Ovidius University with researchers from 11 fields. in lest then 1 year I manage to gather people from around the globe around this idea and so we have started Dialogo Conferences project. In 2014 I received a Fulbright scholarship and I spent the summer California and 4 other States in USA, gathering data and understanding how religious pluralism is possible at a high level of involvement; in the same time I made friends from many different countries and religions that are now involved in this project or another, helping in his endeavor.

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy

Aspects of Violence in the Old Testament Adrian Vasile, PhD

Department of Theology Ovidius University of Constanta Constanța, Romania preotadrian@yahoo.com

Abstract: Life is a gift from God. It is sacred for God is the absolute holiness. Being received as a gift from God, it is our duty to bring her to its holiness and then give it back to God to render it eternal, not to let it be spoilt by our nature that was corrupted by the original sin. Meant to support human life, the Human Rights Declaration considers life to be the right of rights, which is the greatest right which ultimately surpasses the others. In other words, all the other rights are meant to give quality to life. Based on these realities, according both to divine right and human right, we all have the holy duty to respect our personal life and its proper dignity (values) and in the same time we have the duty to respect in all respects the life of our brother. All attempts to take someone’s life are forbidden.

Keywords: violence, God, the Old Testament, Cain, Abel, Joshua, sin, war

I. INTRODUCTION Violence and its exterior manifestation do not ontologically pertain to human beings. Christian theology, especially the orthodox one, sees evil – sin, respectively – as the cause of this state or of its ad extra actions. The God of Christians is Love (I In. 4, 16) and He, as Father, Son and the Holy

Ghost, spills His love upon the earth amongst the people, thus bringing the redemption of the fallen human nature through His Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, as a state and as a work of love for God and among the mankind.

Violence, as man’s state of rebellion against God, but also against the surrounding nature is due to man’s separation from the Structure of the Supreme Love and his connection to the corruptibility and impurity of created existences oriented towards evil and evildoing.

Violence is generated by the crisis of the contemporary world, by the fact that man is eternally restless. The cult of violence tends to replace God’s love in people’s life – the Holy Trinity, the cult of peace, and destroys any rational and spiritual order of creation reinstalled

by Christ. In post-modernism, the orthodox spirituality has the responsibility to convert the selfishness and ontological violence of the human being into power of forgiveness and communion amongst people, and among them and God – the Trinity.

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology II. GENERAL ASPECTS REGARDING THE PRESENCE OF VIOLENCE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT The Old Testament begins with a relatively violent deed, when the first people are exiled from Paradise, a deed that gives the impression of a relatively violent action. Then, there is the part about Cain and Abel, the first manslaughter, and especially the Flood. Without knowing exactly why, because man’s wickedness has grown on earth (Genesis 6,5), God responds to this wickedness – through violence as well and decides that all human creatures should perish: I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created (Genesis 6, 7). “This flood, which almost ended the world, represents the end of the world that is about to come. God himself sais so: Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.

(Luke 17, 26-27; Mathew 24,27). [1] In this text, the end of the world indicates the same form of the flood, the one before and the one called future. So, just as Noah was told to build the ark and take inside of it not only his sons and relatives, but also creatures of all sorts, at the end of time our Lord Jesus Christ, the only one who is just and faultless, is told by His Father to make Himself an ark out of a plank with sizes full of heavenly mysteries”. [2] And, throughout the Holy Scripture, the acts of violence keep unfolding: „Evil resides in not knowing the right cause of things. This blinded the human mind and opened his feelings and led man astray from knowing God and filled him with knowing things that are subjected to his senses. Abandoning himself to his senses, just like the speechless creatures, and not seeing that this pleases his bodily and seen existence, he left God’s beauty meant to form his spiritual adornment. He mistook the seen creation for God because he needed it to support the body; and he loved his own body with all his might.

Through his exclusive care for the body he served the creation instead of the Creator”. [3] Exodus, for example, speaks about the freeing of the Hebrews from the Egyptian slavery (Exodus 7-12). If we pay attention to

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those chapters, we notice that the freeing of the Hebrew slaves is accompanied by acts of violence from God through the ten plagues sent upon the Egyptians. Why is the freeing of the people of Israel linked to the death of all Egyptian first-borns? Were all Egyptians enemies of Israel? Saint Gregory of Nyssa answered this question: „not knowing God is the reason that leads him towards a sinful dishonest life. The determination of the tyrant of Egypt must not be perceived as an opposition caused by the divine will in his soul, but as his own will due to his propensity for evil. He did not receive God’s word that could have softened his opposition.”

[4] Moreover, the texts describing how the Law of Israel was given, for example in Deuteronomy, chapter 13, verse 9, speak about condemning to death everybody who worship other gods and not the God of Israel: If secretly your brother...son ... daughter ... wife ... friend ... urge you worship other gods ... kill them! There are many other texts in Moses’ Pentateuch which express violence towards other nations (Midianites, Canaanites, etc). The Hebrew were not only compelled to avoid, but also to kill. In the same way, the Book of Joshua describes acts of extreme violence: God has all the indigenous population to be killed. The Book of Joshua presents the overtaking of a country through a destiny of merciless war against the Canaanites.

It has been said that the Old Testament is fulfilled by the New Testament. The violent God of the Old Testament has nothing to do with loving God of the New Testament. The Christian manner is to illustrate that the New Testament offers us a message of love, contrary to the Old Testament which is more archaic, crueler, and yet, we can trace elements of violence in it as well. But, evangelic Christianity teaches us that any wickedness perishes along its causes and man learns from experience that any pleasure is certainly followed by pain. He is attracted by pleasure but runs away from pain.

Indeed, many times, the Church has had the tendency to say that the New Testament represents the Christian message, a message that has to leave aside the Old Testament. This tendency emphasizes the New Law as a special one. From a historical point of view, nothing is false. Never has the New Testament been

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy considered to be a scripture separate from the Old Testament. This is a deep theological mistake. All the writings of the New Testament are part of a dialogue with and send to the Hebrew Bible, the holy writing that the first Hebrew Jewish Christians had at their disposal.

The writings of the New Testament do not substitute the Hebrew Bible, in fact they add to it and take it further. This is the whole difference between the Scriptures and the Quran, which has constantly intended to substitute the Scripture of the Christians and the Jews. It is well known that the Quran comprises traditions that are considered older than the Quran, so there is no question about its integration into the Christian and Jewish Scripture at the level of its contents.

Anyway, the New Testament is considered as a second part of a whole scriptural body.

When approaching the above mentioned biblical texts in terms of violence, we must keep in mind the fact that they have a history, that they describe historical events. They are not timeless texts, which is the case of other religious texts belonging to other religions, they all belong to a historical period in the history of mankind and we are aware that we are their prime addressees. Ignoring the historical nature generates numerous acts of religious violence. This approach is part of the religious fundamentalist manifestations in the Jewish, Christian, Muslim worlds or in other forms of religion. The violence that occurs through these fundamentalist movements comes from the ideologies of those who do not want to accept the historical context in which some scriptural texts (especially in the Quran) have played their role, and therefore a new vision and a new interpretation is needed for them. It all depends on the status of these texts, a status that some consider to be inspired or not. It all depends on the interpretation, in the sense that violence can be expressed in a certain verse or that by consensus it activates other texts as well. For example, the Jews used the Book of Joshua for their fight against the Palestinians. Others, members of the American fundamentalism movements, wanted to reintroduce the capital punishment for adultery. And the examples can go on like this.

As far as the interpretation of the biblical text is concerned, this has to be placed in context,

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in relation with other biblical texts, and, as a result, it must not be analyzed in isolation. The simultaneity of the analysis is not timeless and it implies the exegetic reading in the line of the tradition of the church. On the one hand, this implies a maintaining the balance between a part of the text and its history, and, on the other hand, the historical context we live in must not be ignored.

We can exemplify this using two biblical texts: the biblical reference to Cain and Abel, as a reflection on the origin of violence, and the Book of Joshua, as the source of the first genocide in the history of mankind, to discuss violence nowadays.

III. CAIN AND ABEL AS THE FIRST ACT OF EXTREME VIOLENCE The text, pretty well known, is an attempt to answer the question about the origin of violence.

From the very beginning we notice that when reading this text we find out that a certain point Cain is banished and settles in Nod, east of Eden (Genesis 4, 16). The analysis includes the entire forth chapter of Genesis. One observation: Genesis Chapter 4 is part of the first part of the Bible, between chapters 1 and 11 that depict the beginnings of civilization until the Tower of Babel.

These chapters recount events that are never neglected, that are present in all times. These chapters aim at answering the great questions that are raised in all religions and by all the people: the origin of death, the origin of evil, the origin of the world and of the human race, the difficult relations between men and women, the existence of civilizations, of cultures and of different languages, the fragility of creation, and, starting with Cain and Abel, the origin of violence.

“Along the history, modern anthropologists have had to rephrase their old opinions. They have noticed the fact that, even inside the cultures that do not have monotheistic beliefs, the existence of the Supreme Being is behind all animist and polytheistic ideas. The Bible tells us quite clearly that since the beginning man has worshiped the only true God, the Creator. Cain and Abel brought their offerings to God. The two brothers had learned from their parents how important in their lives honoring God and

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology bringing Him offerings were.” [5] This conclusion is part of the cycle of origins and it is interesting to notice that the Bible does not start with the origins of the people of Israel, but with the origin of mankind. The reflection upon violence is therefore part of the context of the whole mankind. “This earthly food of wrath becomes our food when we use it rationally to do right. But if wrath is used un-rationally, either to punish the innocent, or against those who have done nothing, this food will be that of the beasts of the fields, the snakes of the ground, and the birds of the sky. For this food that feeds and encourages our bad deeds is also the food of demons. The proof for this is Cain who killed his innocent brother by wrath caused by jealousy.”[6] The text brings forward the question: where did Cain find his woman after he was banished?

(Genesis 4, 17). If we read the Old Testament, the question remains unanswered. Yet this shows that it is not a problem with the text. Chapter 4 does not claim to be a logical continuation of the previous chapter, so it does not continue the respective story. This chapter brings up a reflection upon the origin of violence, a reflection that is placed under a mythical perspective. When the word mythical is exhausted as meaning, some pejorative meanings can be extracted out of it. We do not speak about the meaning of the word myth given to the fratricidal part and to the following biblical scenes, because the Holy Scripture is neither a legend, no a mythological string of events. It is the word of God revealed, inspired by the Holy Ghost.

A myth is a purely symbolic history that tries to say something about some things that are hard to understand. In this case the mythical language is used. So, this myth about Cain and Abel was probably introduced in order to answer the question on the origin of violence, and the answer is rather complicated.

The text begins by a very strange exclamation of Eve. After giving birth to Cain, she shouted: I have gotten a manchild with the help of the Lord. (Genesis 4, 1). Sometimes it is translated with the help of the Lord, but the Hebrew text states clearly: with the Lord. What the text means is that for Eve the true father of the child is God. The text meant to say that what

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she brought to the world was what had been foreseen in Genesis chapter 3: you shall be like God, which means that she believed that her first son would be the Messiah promised by the Protoevangelium (Genesis 3, 15), placing Cain in the sphere of the divine. Besides that, through Adam, who is the biological father of Cain and all the other children born naturally, Cain continues to be the fugitive on earth (Genesis 4, 14). The whole story about Cain is meant to be a separation between the good, the peaceful, the faithful and the evil, the violent and the murderers. Cain will lose communication with people and with God. In the same time, there is a play upon words in the biblical text. When Eve says: I have gotten (Can’na in Hebrew) the exclamation is her son’s very name, a word whose root – in Hebrew – is related to the word to create. In a sense, Cain is the creator of a new sin – fratricide, and through his descendents the founder of a civilization prone to violence. Were Cain and Abel twins? The text does not say that Adam and Eve procreated again and after that Eve had Abel, but it simply states that: then she gave birth Abel (Genesis 4, 2). Yet the important theme remains the same: the brotherly relation is or can be a source of conflict, but religiously speaking it represents man’s entire effort to kill the intemperance of the body and of the soul: “Getting beyond Cain’s murder, I have willingly become the murderer of the mind, the soul, feeding my soul and ruling it with my devious actions… Just like Cain, we, sinful souls, have committed filthy deeds in front of our Creator, brought unclean offerings and led a wicked life; and for that we have convicted ourselves together”. [7] Abel bears an extremely curious name. No one dared to name their son Abel for centuries to come. Maybe in the biblical language the name might have suggested what the Ecclesiastes would say: vanity of vanities (Ecclesiastes 12, 8). Abel (Hebel in Hebrew) is haze, a mere blow, the little nothing, the passing wind. Given the importance of names in ancient times, a man named Abel (Hebel), a little nothing, gravely showed that that person was in fact nothing but a nobody, a name that points out the fragility of existence. This explains why the violent ones want to show that they are not nobodies, but the strong ones, the fierce ones in society.

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy Christianity and Judaism have always tried to explain the unspiritual face of Cain. Again, she gave birth to his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of flocks, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. (Genesis 4, 2). This sentence is an important observation from a historical point of view if we are to notice the order in which the two brothers are named. When it described their birth, the Holy Scripture named Cain the first, according to chronological criteria, but when mentioning their occupations, it placed the righteous one first. Abel’s occupation is indeed more honorable than Cain’s, for animals are superior to plants in nature. In the Scripture, Cain is not said to be a man of the soil, but a tiller of the ground (τά γήїνα είλυσπώμενος), because otherwise he would not be different from Noah who is a man of the soil (γεωργός) (Genesis 9, 20) and not a tiller of the ground.

Allegorically presented, Abel is a keeper of flocks, in the right sense of this occupation, a good shepherd who by means of the crook of his consciousness asserts himself through the resolution and reason of a leader and organizer.

Cain, who worked the soil and dealt with earthly things, was called only a tiller of the ground (τά γήїνα είλυσπώμενος), and nothing more for he was a material thinker (φιλοσώματός) who had neither reason nor order. The saying: let us eat and drink for tomorrow we may die (Isaiah 22, 13) suited him perfectly. He was not like the man who does these things with godly wisdom, according to the teaching: So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. (I Corinthians 10, 31) .Besides all these, Philon also mentioned that Abel and Cain can be two aspects of the soul that act in different moments”. [8] This reflects a human experience: life is not always fair. It is hard to find the connection between what I do now and what awaits me in the future. In this biblical episode we discover the origin of the conflict between brothers. Cain experiences firsthand an inequity that he cannot accept. From here springs his frustration and his choleric behavior. The rejection of Cain’s offering in the above mentioned text does not mean that he as a human being was rejected by God, it simply means that God spoke to him by rejecting his offering. God does not speak to Abel, who is no longer mentioned in the biblical episode, but to Cain who remains the main character

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of the episode. God addresses Cain as a father angry at his child who has done wrong, He does not question him about his sin – though in this excerpt the term sin appears for the first time: sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you (Genesis 4, 7).

In verse 8 there is a syntax problem. In Hebrew, the text says that Cain makes Abel a proposition by means of an adverbial of place: Let’s go out to the field! (Genesis 4, 8), looking for the beginning of a speech. Violence is born out of his inability to complete the speech and discuss a brotherly issue that has exterior causes. In other words, according to this text, the violence that brings about the first manslaughter in the history of mankind is ultimately related to man’s inability to communicate, to have a dialogue with the other one: And Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field!” (Genesis 4, 8). In the Hebrew version there is no recording of Cain’s words to Abel. God steps in to dialogue: Where is Abel your brother? (Genesis 4, 9). Covered in sin, Cain gives a childish explanation: Am I my brother’s keeper? (Genesis 4, 9). Cain’s answer is rakish, even defiant. He implies that it is not his role as an observer of what happens in the world, and even more, according to a very clear behavioral law, he considers himself free of any responsibility. The law will come into force much later. It will come into being out of the need for rules, in order to have an interior structure to help man find his reference.

Cain understood well the imminent risk: the spiral development of violence: I will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me (Genesis 4, 14). God made so that Cain should not be killed, He gave him the chance to repent, for God does not want the sinner to perish, but to come back. Cain settled somewhere east of Eden, in the land of Nod, a sign of his possible repentance.

In the mythology of the Middle East, the cardinal points had a spiritual connotation: west was the land of death, east was the land of life.

The Sun would go to rest upon the souls of the dead in the west. Life and resurrection were in the east. Cain was looking for this, he wanted with all his heart to become the founder of a civilization together with his descendents. He invented metallurgy, music, they started to build houses. The technical civilization appears as

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology an alternative to violence. If you are busy with something, you forget about wickedness. So, according to the Bible, civilization appears to be the work of the descendents of the first violent man and a chance for the whole mankind.

Cultural activity seeks to defeat sin from the outside. The progress of Cain’s descendents goes towards civilization.

The chance to contain the sin was annihilated

by Lamech who will renew the spiral of violence: I have killed a man for wounding me; and a boy for striking me (Genesis 4, 23). Society turns corrupted. The chance to take a stand against primary human violence was put into practice by Enos, Adam and Eve’s son, who, in Abel’s place, began to all God’s name again (Genesis 4, 26). A cult of the word replaced the sacrificial cult.

Chapter 4 of Genesis explains to us the way violence was born as a result of the human nature’s inability to manage human inequity, frustration and the disconnection in human communication. Is God the origin of violence because he did not accept the two simultaneous offerings? By no means! The origin of human violence is human nature, which is free to veil one’s pride or to rise above his fellow creature out of purely selfish feelings that are unknown to the purpose of the primordial creation. The tradition of the Church sees a spiritual internal fight between free will and intemperance, which is often compared to the violent biblical characters of the Old Testament, Cain and Lamech: “Lamech the first murderer, killed my soul like a man, my mind like a young man, and my body like a brother, just as Cain did, with his lustful tendencies”. [9] IV. ACTS OF VIOLENCE IN THE BOOK OF JOSHUA This book has always raised major problems.

As far as its origin is concerned, the story of Joshua has always preoccupied and challenged the Fathers of the Church for they have tried to establish a linguistic association between Joshua and Jesus. In Hebrew and Greek the name has the same meaning. In Septuagint, the book of Joshua is titled the book of Jesus. [10] The nominal relation Joshua-Jesus is to be found for the first time in Origen. “The purpose of the book of Joshua is to make us know less

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about Jesus’ deeds (Jesus as the son of Navi) and more to describe the secrets of Jesus, our Savior”. [11] How can such a similarity be accepted? We are tempted to say that, symbolically speaking, the book of Joshua was a fight against the wickedness of man’s sins. This is also proven by the patristic exegeses of the East. “If we refer now to the following commentaries on the book of Joshua, those of Theodoret [12] and Procopius [13] are precise because they resume to the essence of a tradition; they – especially Procopius – are quite often the copy or the summary of Origen, and from this point of view we can use Procopius to assess the accuracy of Rufin’s translation. The issue raised by these commentaries is the source of the excerpts that are not found in Origen’s work, but nothing new regarding Joshua is to be found. Later on, a certain Theodor Prodromos [14] would write strophes for the book of Joshua. All these confirm the information and the persistence of the oriental tradition, and at the same time show the direct influence of Origen”. [15] Along the history of Christianity, the book of Joshua has served to legitimize numerous acts of violence. The most eloquent known example is that of the American colonization.

In their expansion to the west conquering new territories, the colonizers have assimilated the indigenous population of the new territories with the Canaanites in the book of Joshua. To support this, there are theological texts from the 17th and 18th centuries that justify the American Indians massacres on the bases of the book of Joshua.

If we are to make a detailed research into the patristic literature in the West, we will find the same thing: the typology of Joshua is the message of the book of Joshua. Similarly, in Beda the venerable and Rahab Maur, it is easy to notice the influence of the oriental exegeses, but we must say that the typology of Joshua in the West has not been preserved in the East, given the variants of the text and the influence of the translators, while the theme of the Promised Land was only for beginner monks who were in the phase of initiation. [16] According to the patristic exegeses, Joshua represents the spiritual fight that any

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy Christian has to fight on earth while waiting for redemption. For a monk, the two lands, Canaan and Egypt are the path to life and to virtue and the path to death and to sin, while Jerusalem is the heavenly Eschatological Land.

About the milk and honey of Canaan, in a very short text of Ippolit, it is said that: “this land (Canaan) represents the body of our God, which is fertile, for it produces milk and honey”. And Joshua’s fight for Canaan is the typology of the text in the Epistle to the Jews 3, 7-4, 11, meaning the spiritual forcing into entering the promised rest land, the eschatological Sabbathisation, the purpose of history. [17] This attitude to exclusively and historically base the book of Joshua on fundamentalist religious violence could be compare to what happened in the Africa during the Apartheid, the book of Deuteronomy being called upon. We can also mention here the polemics that erupted right after Roger Garaudy’s book was published i which he dealt with the founding myths of the State of Israel. This book was initially banned in certain libraries just because it drew a parallel between the genocide in the book of Joshua and the events during the Seven – Day War. What is important is the fact that the Book of Joshua is not simply and plainly about transmitting a document of how the Hebrew settled in Canaan. [18] This is also confirmed by the book of Israël Finkelstein - Bible dévoilée, but also by the numerous Israelite archeological discoveries.

The book is not simply a documentary about the events that took place in the 12th century B.C. The book dates later than that and sends us back into the Assyrian age (approximately the 8th - the 7th centuries B.C.). To understand this aspect, there are very relevant the archeological discoveries in the Middle East, in Egypt and Iran, according to which this period dominated by the Assyrian Empire knew what is similar to nowadays mobilization. The Assyrians were definitely superior in terms of writing and images. This explains why the subjected countries to the empire embraced the Assyrian customs and started worshiping the gods of the Assyrians. There were situations when Assyrian gods were being worshiped in the temples of the subjected countries, which generated Joshua’s

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reform, and this phenomenon has especially led to adopting the statues by the subjected peoples in the temples of Assur which were then brought back to their original temples after a while. This ritual movement of the statues had a clear significance: the gods of the subjected peoples were humiliated by the great god Assur whom they had to obey. In this context we must look upon the situation in Israel. To witness this, there are the bas-reliefs which illustrate movements that are completed by biblical texts. Against these gods there rose the God of Samaria, meaning the God of Israel, which prooves that in Israel these acts are not fogotten.

There was indeed a tough propaganda in writing and in image that played a very important role in those times since few nations knew how to read. Many images have been discovered to show the presence of the Assyrian gods especially in fighting scenes. In one reproduction the king Assurbanipal can be seen attacking an enemit city and above his image there is the inscription: this is the divinity of Assyria that goes in front of the king and grants him victory.

The Assyrians ceasingly insisted upon this reality: their victories were in fact the victories of their god Assur.

In another bas-relief which represents the siege of a city, the Assyrian soldiers are depicted to be as big as the city they besiege to emphasize their strength. There is a character who holds something in his hand, something that looks like a scepter. He must definitely be the king.

But he also holds a scroll on which is written a speech to the besieged population. This scene can be compared to that in II Kings 18, 19 and the next in which Jerusalem was under siege by the Assyrians. An Assyrian high representative was standing in front of the gates of the city delivering an exciting speech in Hebrew to the conquered Jerusalem and stating that their god is nothing but a subordinate of their god Assur.

This appears to be what we call a psychological form of war. The method is specific to the Assyrians who were used to this psychological approach.

In the book of Joshua there are many elements that illustrate the combatant propaganda stories of the Assyrian literature. For example, the message of an oracle to the king of Assyria before going into battle: fear not, I am

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology with you. The same is the tone at the beginning of the book of Joshua: “Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them—to the Israelites. I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses. Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates—all the Hittite country—to the Mediterranean Sea in the west. No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life.

As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Joshua 1, 2-5).

In this very text we can notice that the slogan of the Assyrian propaganda has generated an Israelite coalition against the Assyrians and their gods whom they constantly invoked during the military campaigns waiting for miracles from above as a sign of support and divine will. The Assyrian god Haddad can be an example. He would throw stones from the sky or large pieces of hail upon the enemies during the battles of the Assyrians. This aspect is to be found in the book of Joshua as well: As they fled before Israel on the road down from Beth Horon to Azekah, the Lord hurled large hailstones down on them, and more of them died from the hail than were killed by the swords of the Israelites.

(Joshua 10, 11) God would throw stones from the sky against the enemies of Israel and against annihilators: “It is quite clear that the theme of the book of Joshua was partly inspired by the Assyrian propaganda stories, it is plagiarism and must be considered as such, we cannot accept it as a historical reflection of what happened in reality”. [19] But what does the reflection mean to the Israelites? Everything must be understood as a polemical episode. It is about defeating your enemies using their very own weapons. This is like the creation of a language that imitated the dominant one, but turns from the beginning.

We must also notice that in the book of Deuteronomy there was elaborated a true model of vassalage treaty before used by the Assyrians, a model that insists upon the absolute vow towards the vassal and towards the Assyrian gods. Deuteronomy uses the same Assyrian terminology to say: Israel has only one God, and this God is the God of Israel, and not the king of Assyria. Israel cannot serve two masters. Israel

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cannot bow before the king of Assyria.

The same situation is found in the book of Joshua. The book tells stories of Assyrian propaganda waiting for the entire people to turn against the Assyrians. God who brings victory is no longer Assur, but the God of Israel. The question that arises is: who are the inhabitants of the country to be conquered? It is difficult to identify the populations mentioned in Joshua 3, 10 (the Hittite, the Hivite, the Perizzite, the Girgashite, the Amorite, and the Jebusite), though some rabbies say that these names are codes of the populations who did not actually have a country. Could it simply be the Assyrians who occupied their country who are targeted by these texts?

The eastern spirituality saw in the genocide of Joshua the unseen spiritual war and did not transfer the fight from the spiritual to the social sphere. The meaning of the violence episode is a symbolic one: “let us look into the meaning of the text: and they slew them until no one was left of those who survived or escaped (Joshua 8, 23). When reading this excerpt, the Hebrew become cruel and thirsty of human blood, for they believe there is a basis of true piety to hit the inhabitants of Ai in such a way that no one remained alive (Joshua 8, 23). They do not understand that in these texts the Holy Mysteries are foreseen; the meaning is rather that we must not live like any of these demons who live in the dark and work upon the dark, but we must kill them all. If we kill the demons, this does not mean that we were not aware of their existence, but that their entire activity is to push people towards sin, which makes them be wrongdoers. The killers in Joshua 8, 23 are the saints who kill the inhabitants of Ai, they kill them and do not let any of them get away”. [20] The texts must be perceived from other angles. The violence in the book of Joshua, which was many times re-edited, must be related to the idea of peril. After the exile, the war inciting figure of this book was referred to only in the mosaic world. The Christians have always interpreted it from a spiritual point of view. For example, “in the common perspective of the Homilies on Joshua, Christian life is solemnly inaugurated in Jordan. The promised land where wars take place clearly represents the Christian soul that has to turn his face towards the place

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy where Jerusalem from above is, where the object of his hole lies.”[21] The original development of the book of Joshua starts with Origen. The typology of Jesus is brought forth in the line of the eastern tradition. Eusebius of Caesarea placed great importance upon the name of Jesus in the Holy Scripture. [22] Cyril of Jerusalem left a small catechetic summary [23]; using the allegory, Gregory of Nyss [24] urged the Christians towards a spiritual crossing of the Jordan, while John Chrysostom hints at Rahab’s repentance. [25] It is clear that this story was later integrated in the Book of Joshua. Chapter 1 ends with Joshua’s speech, who says: within three days you are to cross this Jordan (Joshua 1, 11) and these three days are mentioned again at the beginning of Chapter 3 (Joshua 3, 2). Of course, Chapter 2 comes between Chapters 1 and 3, thus interrupting the course of events. What was the purpose of this interruption? Why the story of Rahab the prostitute? Why did Joshua’s spies go to Jericho and why did they stay with Rahab?

The interesting fact is that Rahab, a Canaanite woman, therefore an enemy of Israel, protected Joshua’s spies from the servants of the king of Jericho. It is thus the first act of confessing the faith (Joshua 2, 9-13) in the God of Israel: I know that God gave you this land. The spies did not spy on anything. Upon their return to Joshua, they did nothing but repeat the Canaanite woman’s words.

After Chapter 2, the conquest of Jericho appears to be Rahab’s work, the result of her attitude. If she had not said those words, Joshua would probably have not entered Jericho.

A foreign woman and a dubious occupation were needed for the Israelites to settle in their country. This is typical of the biblical texts: they alter the texts to introduce nationalism and triumphalism. It is not by chance in the exodus that a foreign woman interferes and makes it possible for Israel’s future history to be written.

Jericho symbolizes the face of this world.

“Besiege Jericho and attack it. Many times in the Scripture Jericho represents the face of this world. (Luke 10, 30). Aren’t the blind of Jericho (Mathew 20, 30) to whom Jesus came to make them see again the people in this world who are

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blinded by ignorance and for whom the Son of God came to this world?”

CONCLUSIONS The conflict between Cain and Abel is related to the issue of offerings, and not only. One is a shepherd (keeper of the flocks), the other is a farmer (tiller of the land). More precisely, the conflict is related to the acceptance or rejection of the offering. Both bring as offering what they have produced: Cain offers fruit, while Abel offers the lambs of his sheep and their fat. God accepts Abel’s offering, but rejects Cain’s. The Old Testament tells us why God rejected Cain’s offering: (Genesis 4, 5). Could have Cain been a mean person by nature? Could God have loved only blood offerings? Orthodoxy teaches us that God appreciates the love in a man’s heart that makes him bring an offering to God or to his fellowman. Abel’s offering was pleasing to God because it came out of love and appreciation for divinity.

The book of Joshua served the legitimization of many causes: slavery and the idea that black people are less important than white people, and at the same time the belief behind the extermination of the Native Americans. We wish to make Christians out of both black people and Native Americans. But, when reading the book of Joshua, they will not be able to understand oppression and extermination and they will find inspiration in terms of resistance and desire for freedom. They have understood, without any exegesis, the meaning of the book which uses an Assyrian terminology and which is a book that questions the Assyrian power and they had the wisdom to reject this terminology.

If we are to reflect upon the themes of violence in the Bible, we must reflect upon our own situation when reading the Bible. The Bible is not read in the same way in all times and in all regions of the world, in Paris or in Nicaragua. We must be aware of this kind of differences, just as we must be aware that David’s revenge Psalms seem shocking at the first reading, to some they cause a sense of desperation, to others a sense of revolt. The Bible does not have instructions on how to be read. If it contains texts about violence, this implies the fact that violence is part of our daily life and that we must know how

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology to manage it. A dogmatic answer is needed: the problem of violence can be solved by simply accomplishing this. Of course today everybody is against violence, this is the trend. Yet we must ask ourselves why violence is born and why people manifest it. We never justify our violence referring to the violence of the biblical texts.

REFERENCES [1] Origen, Despre înviere, despre pedepsire şi despre făgăduinţe, în vol. Despre principii (On the Resurrection, and the Judgment, the Fire of Hell and Punishments in De principiis), trad. pr. prof. Teodor Bodogae, P. S. B. vol. 8, Ed. Inst.

Bibl. şi de Mis. al B. O. R., Bucureşti 1982, p. 176.

[2] Origen, Omilii, comentarii şi adnotări la Geneză (Homilies, Commentaries and Annotations on Genesis), trad. Adrian Muraru, Ed. Polirom, Iaşi 2006, p. 179.

[3] Sfântul Maxim Mărturisitorul, Răspuns către Talasie (Maximus the Confessor, Questions to Thalsssius), trad. pr. prof. dr. D. Stăniloae, Filocalia românească, vol. III, Ed. Harima, Bucureşti 1994, p. 34.

[4] Sfântul Grigorie de Nyssa, Viaţa lui Moise (Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses), trad. pr. prof. D. Stăniloae, P. S. B. vol. 29, Ed. Inst. Bibl. şi de Mis. al B. O. R., Bucureşti 1982, p. 53.

[5] Philip Eveson, Originea închinării şi a culturii umane, în vol. Cartea originilor: Geneza (The Origin of Human Worship and Culture in The Book of Origins: Genesis), trad. Dorin Pantea, Oradea 2005, p. 98-99.

[6] Origen, Omilii, comentarii şi adnotări la Geneză (Homilies, Commentaries and Annotations on Genesis), trad. Adrian Muraru, Ed. Polirom, Iaşi 2006, p. 163 şi 165.

[7] Canonul cel Mare a Sfântului Andrei Criteanul (The Great Canon of Saint Andrew of Crete), Săptămâna I-a a Sfântului şi Marelui Post, Cântarea 1, glasul 6, Triod, Ed. Inst. Bibl. şi de Mis. al B. O. R., Bucureşti 1970, col. II, p. 144.

[8] Didym l’Aveugle, Sur la Genèse (Didymus the Blind, On Genesis), Sources Chrétiennes, Cerf, Paris 1976, p. 281.

[9] Din Canonul cel Mare a Sfântului Andrei Criteanul (The Great Canon of Saint Andrew of

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Crete), Săptămâna I-a a Sfântului şi Marelui Post, Joi seara, Triod, Ed. Inst. Bibl. şi de Mis. al B. O. R., Bucureşti 1970, col. I, p. 173.

[10] IHSOUS, Septuaginta. Id est vetus testamentum graece iuxta LXX interpretes adidit Alfred Rahlfs, Editio monor. Duo volumina in uno, Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft Stuttgart 1935, p. 354.

[11] Origen, Homiliae in Jesu Nave (I) (Homilies on Joshua), Sources Chrétiennes, Cerf, Paris 2000, p. 101.

[12] Theodoret de Cyr, In Iosuam Filium Nave (Theodoret of Cyrus), P. G., 80, 457-486.

[13] Procopius de Cezareea, Commentarii in Josue (Procopius of Caesarea, Commentary on Joshua), P. G., 87 (pars I), 991-1042.

[14] Theodor Prodromul, Tetrasticha in Vetus Testamentum (Theodore Prodromus, Tetrasticha in Old and New Testaments), P. G., 133, 1133-1137.

[15] Annie Jaubert, Origène. Homélies sur Josué. Introduction, traduction et notes (Origen, Homilies on Joshua, Introduction, translation and notes), Sources Chrétiennes, Cerf, Paris 2000, p. 59-60.

[16] Ilarie de Pictavium, Ieronim, Comm. in Aggaeum, 1, 1; P. L., 25, 1391 D; Ambrozie al Mediolanului, In Ps. 47 enarr., 21; P. L. 14, 1154 B; De fide, 5, 12, P. L. 16, 651 D; Augustin, Contra Faustum Manichaeum, 16, 19; P. L., 42, 327-328.

[17] Ipolit, GCS, 1, pars 2, p. 63, frag. 32 (Achelis), apud Annie Jaubert, Origène.

Homélies sur Josué. Introduction, traduction et notes (Origen, Homilies on Joshua, Introduction, translation and notes), Sources Chrétiennes, Cerf, Paris 2000, p. 33.

[18] Origen, Omilii la Cartea Iosua (Origen, Homilies on Joshua), trad. T. Bodogae, Ed. Inst.

Bibl. şi de Mis. al B. O. R., Bucureşti 1981, p. 246.

[19] Thomas Roemer, La violence dans la Bible (Violence in the Bible), 7 décembre 2002, p. 34.

[20] Origen, Homiliae in Jesu Nave (I) (Homilies on Joshua), Sources Chrétiennes 71, Cerf, Paris 2000, p. 236-237.

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy [21] Annie Jaubert, Origène. Homélies sur Josué. Introduction, traduction et notes (Origen, Homilies on Joshua, Introduction, translation and notes), Sources Chrétiennes, Cerf, Paris 2000, p. 50-51.

[22] Eusèbe de Césarée, Démonstration évangélique (Proof of the Gospel), IV, 17, 1; GCS, 23, 195-196. H E, I, 3, 3-4.

[23] Cyrille de Jérusalem, Catéchése (Cyril of Jerusalem Catechetical Lectures), 10, 11 (De uno Domino Jesu Christo), P. G., 33, 676, B-677 A. [24] Grégoire de Nysse, De Baptismo (Gregory of Nyssa, On Baptism), P. G. 46, 420 C-421.

[25] Jean Chrysostome, De Poenitentia hominum (John Chrysostom On human penance), 7, 5, P. G. 49, 330-331.

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Muslim education in India Beata Pietkiewicz-Pareek, PhD University of Nicolaus Copernicus Torun, Poland beatapietkiewicz@gmail.com

Abstract: Madrasa education is a very important part of the History of Muslim education and Islamic studies in India. As many as 25 per cent of Muslim children in the 6-14 year age group have either never attended school or have dropped out, so madrasa school is the only choice for them.

Keywords: madrasa, education, India, children, Islam, Muslims, illiteracy

I. INTRODUCTION Trade relations have existed between Arabia and the Indian subcontinent since ancient times.

Even in the pre-Islamic era, Arab traders used to visit the Konkan-Gujarat coast and Malabar region, which linked them with the ports of South East Asia. Newly Islamised Arabs were Islam’s first contact with India. The first Indian mosque, Cheraman Juma Masjid, is thought to have been built in 629 AD by Malik Bin Deenar.

In the 8th century, the province of Sindh was conquered by an Arab army led by Muhammad bin Qasim. Sindh became the easternmost province of the Umayyad Caliphate [1].

In the first half of the 10th century, Mahmud of Ghazni added the Punjab province to the

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Ghaznavid Empire and conducted 17 raids on modern-day India. In the 11th century, Ghazi Saiyyad Salar Masud played a significant role in the conversion of locals (Hindus) to Islam. A more successful invasion came at the end of the 12th century by Muhammad of Ghor. This eventually led to the formation of the Delhi Sultanate. The Delhi Sultanate was a Muslim kingdom based mostly in Delhi that stretched over large parts of the Indian subcontinent for 320 years (1206– 1526). Five dynasties ruled over Delhi Sultanate sequentially, the first four of which were of Turkic origin: the Mamluk dynasty(1206–90); the Khilji dynasty (1290–1320); the Tughlaq dynasty (1320–1414); the Sayyid dynasty (1414–51); and the Afghan Lodi dynasty(1451–1526). At the Battle in Panipat in 1526 Delhi Sultanate caesed to exist. [2].

The Mughal Empire was an empire established and ruled by a Persianate dynasty of Chagatai Turco-Mongolorigin that extended over large parts of the Indian subcontinent and Afghanistan [3]. The “classic period” of the Mughal Empire started in 1556 with the ascension of Akbar the Great to the throne. Under his the rule India enjoyed economic progress as well as religious harmony, and the monarchs were interested in local religious and cultural traditions. Akbar was a successful warrior. He

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th e Dia l o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and T heology also forged alliances with several Hindu Rajput kingdoms. The reign of Shah Jahan, the fifth emperor, between 1628–58 was the golden age of Mughal architecture. He erected several large monuments, the best known of which is the Taj Mahal at Agra. The Mughal Empire reached the zenith of its territorial expanse during the reign of Aurangzeb. The last remnants of the empire were formally taken over by the British, and the Government of India Act 1858 let the British Crown formally assume direct control of India in the form of the new British Raj. When India came under the British rule and a new educational system was introduced, which was perceived to be a threat to the Islamic identity of the Muslims, the Madrassa system in India took upon itself the task of opposing the cultural and educational hegemony of the British.

It is important to point out, however, that the Madrassa system in the Indian Subcontinent was the only one that underwent drastic changes in terms of Islamic education curriculum and teaching styles and quality and abandoning of the earthly science studies [4].

Arabic and New Persian (Farsi) were two languages of Islam. Farsi was the language which intelligentsia preferred to use. The Muslim rulers of India had for centuries welcomed the Iranians for their knowledge and expertise.

Mughals admires Persian culture and wished to emulate it. Akbar formally declared Persian to be the language of administration at all levels and ordered the introduction of Persian syllabi for different subject in Islamic institutes of learning [5].

The Sufi orders of the Muslim faith were establishing Madrassas in the Indian SubContinent and Central Asia. In these Sufi Madrassas grammar, poetry, literature, logic, math and other disciplines of Islam and general knowledge were taught. As most of the knowledge about Islam was either recorded in Arabic and Persian, the Madrassas in Indian SubContinent became places for learning Arabic and Persian. Every student aspiring to reach the highest level of the Madrassa education had to learn these two languages whatever the mother tongue of the student. The most renowned poets of India at that time were, borrowing from the Sufi traditions of Persia and Central Asia, composing their poems in Persian [6].

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II. THE SITUATION OF MUSLIMS IN INDIA The Muslims are a religious minority in India.

The 2001 census enumerated India’s Muslim population at over 138 million, and by 2006 the Muslim population would be over 150 million.

The 2006 Sachar Committee Report revealed how the Indian growth story has bypassed much of the Muslim community. The India Human Development Report 2011 by the Planning Commission reveals that in 2007-8 nearly 24 per cent of Muslims in urban areas and 13 per cent of Muslims in rural areas were poor. The incidence of urban poverty among Muslims was the highest among all social and religious groups. Moreover the rate of decline in poverty since 1993-94 has been the slowest for Muslims. Features of the Hindu caste system are found among Indian Muslims as well. Those who owe their lineage to Arab Muslims, or are converts from upper caste Hindu groups are more advantaged. But those who have converted from the lower castes among Hindus have also been historically discriminated against [7].

Muslims constitute the second largest religious group in India and thus the largest religious minority. The majority of the Muslim population in India are in these four states.

Besides, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Jammu and Kashmir, and Karnataka had five to ten million Muslims each, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, and Tamil Nadu 3 to 5 million each, and Delhi, Haryana, and Uttaranchal one to two million each. Generally, large states also have large Muslim populations, as expected. However, Punjab and Orissa, with populations of over twenty million each, had fewer than one million Muslims [8]. 23 per cent of the total population is of below 10 years in age [9].

Education and employment linkages appear to be weaker for Muslims than for the population as a whole. Only a low proportion of Muslims are employed in public institutions and governance structures. Less than 8 per cent of urban Muslims work in the formal sector as against more than 20 per cent among the population as a whole.113 The high rate of unemployment, even among educated Muslim men, discourages parents from investing in their children’s schooling. Instead, parents may send their boys to apprentice with artisans, mechanics, etc. so that they can be self-

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology employed. The sense of alienation and insecurity arising from communal tensions has furthered ghettoisation, leaving Muslims with reduced opportunities for development [10].

In recent research amongst women wearing hijab in India, the latter often “felt that Muslim women had been stereotyped as backward, illiterate, oppressed and victims of a barbaric society and/or closely aligned to terrorists in some way” [11]. Thus, in addition to being held responsible for communal violence and seen as potential terrorists, ‘Muslims’ experience stigmatization because ‘their’ religion has been framed as ‘backward’ and ‘pre-modern’ [12].

The committee’s report, known as the Sachar Report, was issued in 2007 and has seemingly put to rest any talk of Muslim “appeasement” by showing the depressed status of Indian Muslims.

As a whole, Muslim Indians were demonstrated to be poor; below the national average in literacy; underrepresented in government, the army, and the police; and underserved by the public education and health infrastructure [13].

The low literacy level of Muslims and SCs/STs is well documented in research studies. In the mid 1960’s literacy levels of both these groups were low, and far lower than that of ‘All Others’.

In many States however, the position of SCs/STs was worse than that of the Muslims. The literacy rate among Muslims in 2001 was 59.1 %. This is far below the national average (65.1 %). As many as 25 per cent of Muslim children in the 6-14 year age group have either never attended school or have dropped out [14].

Table 1 shows that ST, SC and Muslims are all over-represented among the out-of school children. (The proportion of OBCs among the out-of-school children is high, but lower than the proportion in India’s child population).

6-10 years

11-13 years

All

out-ofschool

All

Out-ofschool

ST

11.6

16.8

10.9

19.5

SC

19.4

29.0

19.6

24.9

Muslims 13.3

20.6

12.6

21.9

ALL

100

100

100

100

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Table 1: Percentage distribution of all children and out-of-school children by social groups Source: Unicef/Unesco, All in school. Global Initiative on out- of- school children. A situational study of India, Unicef/ Unesco Institute for Statistics, New Delhi 2014, p.24 III. MADRASA EDUCATION IN INDIA One meaning of the word Koran is “recitation”, and for Moslems, prayer is usually interpreted to mean the recitation of the Koran.

Thus, the teaching of proper recitation through the memorization of the Koran has been the central feature of Islamic education. The Koranic school or Maktabis a place where Muslim children go to read and recite the Koran only.

Koranic schools can function in the mosque, under a tree, in the house of the Koran teacher or under an open sky. The term madrasa is usually used for more organised institutions with classrooms and teachers for different levels of education [15].

The history of Madrasa education in India starts since the arrival of Muslims in India and it began in the 10th century with the establishment of Maktabs and Madrasas in the towns of Sind, Dabel, Mansura, Multan by the Arab traders and settlers. After the passage of time, this system was gradually developed and hundreds of mosques during this period were flourished.

Oudh, Multan, Lahore, Khairabad, Patna, Surat, Delhi, Agra, were the main centers of Madrasa education and Islamic studies.

The secular identity of the madrassas was established in 1915, also under the initiative of the then British government. It introduced general subjects like history and English in the madrassas, in addition to Islamic studies [16].

Traditionally madrassas have been seen as centres for Islamic learning where girls are often taught separately from the boys. It is often thought that the need for religious education in madrasas and makhtabs acts as a barrier to Muslim children being enrolled in regular schools [17]. However, evidence does not find that madrasas play a major role in the education of Muslim children. An in-depth study of the Muslim community by the Sachar Committee showed that, contrary to common perception, Muslim parents are not averse to sending their children

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy to mainstream schools. The Report found that only 4-7 per cent of Muslim students were found to be studying exclusively in madrasas and had opted for madrasas largely because of the lack of access to Urdu-medium schools and a lack of Urdu language teaching (and teachers) in non-Urdu medium government schools. All the rest were in mainstream government or private schools.

A Madrasas Modernization Programme was introduced in the National Policy on Education of 1986 and in the updated plan of 1992. Some Indian states have established government Madrasas Education Boards with which madrasas can be affiliated. Selected madrasas receive government support to teach secular “modern” subjects such as science, mathematics, English and social sciences. A number of Indian universities recognise credentials from certain madrasas thus enabling their graduates to continue to higher education. Students typically go on to study Arabic, Urdu, Persian and Islamic subjects but also other subjects.

The SSA RTE framework document discusses how “the education of Muslim children continues to be a particularly neglected area in policy and programming”. It refers to scattered bits of evidence that do exist, which indicate that the education of Muslim children is constrained by their experience of a lack of sensitivity in the schooling system to their socio-cultural realities. Discriminatory attitudes may be openly expressed, or exclusion may be more subtle, contributing to children dropping out of school.

Poverty is also an important reason for many Muslim children to be out of school [18]. Muslim children are reported to be doing wage work, whether as migrants or in the village. Girls are involved in household work and sibling care.

The Sachar Committee revealed that a part of Muslim poverty can be associated with the caste system, though Islam itself does not have social hierarchy based on caste. The Arzals (who share the OBC quota) can be compared to the Hindu SCs as they engage in similar low-status work. As a group, who has been historically disadvantaged, they need special attention, much like the Hindu SCs. Other Muslim groups with insecure livelihoods include skilled or semi skilled craftsmen who are experiencing a decline in demand for their trades [19].

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IV. METHODOLOGY The methodology used in this research is that of the case study. The case study approach is a “detailed examination of a single person, group, institution, social movement or event” (Thomas, Brubaker, 2000, p.103).According to Stake, case study is not generalization but particularization (Stake, 1995, p.19).

During my practice in India, I had a chance to participate in orphanage in Mattancherry Muslim Orphanage run by Najatbul Muslimeen Trust Reo by Board of Control for Orphanages and Other Cheritable Homes, Kochi, Kerala. I was also in slums area in Mumbai where was situated madrasa Ittehad – ul – Muslimeen, Kapadia Nagar Jama Masjid Trust. A review of madrasa policy documents and pedagogical documentation was carried out at the beginning of the research.

I carried out observations; all that I was able to observe I wrote in my journal, as detailed field notes. Observation was used to understand the true state of this both institutions and to verify the problems that the interviewees discussed. I used also photography as another technique to collect data.

As main tool besides observation, I consider interviews – all that I led were similar to regular conversation rather than to prepared questionnaires. I carried out informal and formal interviews with administrators and teachers.

The interview allowed me to hear the children`s voices, to know their opinion and stories. I talked to the children and listened to them during their regular daily activities. I asked them about their dreams, about their future.

In this article I focus on two problems. In the first part of the article I present the situation of Muslim community. In the second part I try to show how important are Muslim`s educational institutions for this community to reproduce their traditions.

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology V. RESEARCH RESULTS -Madrasa Ittehad – ul – Muslimeen, Kapadia Nagar Jama Masjid Trust, Mumbai, Maharastra In 2014, I had the opportunity to visit Madrasa School named Ittehad in Mumbai. In general, Madrasa School plays a huge role in maintaining ethnic identity and religious Muslims in India.

The visited Madrasa School Ittehad was located on a busy road connecting Mumbai city with Navi Mumbai, where most of the Muslims inhabitants lived as slum.

The children attending to Madrasa School, did not have the possibility to go to any other public schools. In addition to study the recitation of the Koran, children also learn subjects like: Urdu language, mathematics and history.

Generally, the most of the Madrasa schools are located near the mosque, because teaching Madrasa education plays an important role in Islamic religion In Madrasa School, the students from slums community are not regularly attending the classes that is why the teachers have much difficulties to fight against the absenteeism in classes and the introduction of new contents in the classroom. The most common reason of absenteeism in classes is uncertainty of living life of slum children families. As a typical life for slums residents, they often change their place of residence.

The Human Resource Development ministry of the government of India has recently declared to start up a Central Madrasa Board to enhance the education system of madrasas in India. Though the madrasas teach Quranic education mainly, efforts are on to teach also the Mathematics, Computers skills and Science in their curriculum. In Maharastra, a child, male or female, if found studying only in religious institute which does not take government grant and does not follow formal school syllabus, will be considered uneducated and out-of-school.

In a bid to modernize madrassa education, the government had last month announced that four subjects - Maths, English, Science and Social Science - would be mandatory for availing government grants. In Maharashtra, there are 1890 registered madrassas, out of which 550

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have already agreed to teach these subjects [20].

-Mattancherry Muslim Orphanage run by Najatbul Muslimeen Trust Reo by Board of Control for Orphanages and Other Cheritable Homes, Kochi, Kerala Orphanage in Kochi is one of the few institute of its kind in India, where they can take care of the orphans, the Muslim community and the help to provide sponsors to take care of dozens of orphan boys. Most of the children at orphanage were being prepared for adoption in India and abroad, so they learn different languages, including English and Arabic. Oxford dictionary defines an orphanage as a residential institution for the care and education of children whose parents are dead. But in Ernakulam, most of the orphanages are not only housing orphans but are also increasingly admitting children whose parents are alive and working as migrant laborers in the state. They house children of migrant laborers from Bihar, West Bengal and Manipur who work in the city but don’t earn enough to provide food, shelter, clothing and education to their children. It is not known however whether these children are given up for adoption because this information is not accessible to outsiders. Furthermore, there is no clear information about sources of financing, as donations are anonymous.

Most important, however, it seems to be the welfare of children, and those in the orphanage can finally enjoy their childhood without fear about the future. The Cochin Orphanage Trust houses around 11 Manipuri, 10 Bihari and 3 Nepali children, whose parents work in the city and they come to visit them once in a while.

About 94% children in orphanages of Kerala have parents. They are in orphanages mainly due to family problems or poverty. These institutions take care of the kids till the age of 18.

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy Conclusion Based on the current state of the Muslim children in India, there are some suggestions which can be made: The first requirement for all people is to improve understanding of the scale and nature of urban poverty and exclusion affecting children. This will entail not only sound statistical work, a hallmark of which must be greater disaggregation of urban data, but also solid research, and evaluation of interventions.

Biography Mgr Beata Pietkiewicz-Pareek PhD student at University of Nicolaus Copernicus in Torun, Poland -Illiteracy in India, Tha Asian values discourse - myths, paradoxes, perspectives, Adam Marszalek 2014, p.17-29 - Education for promoting gender equality and empowering women in India, Rocznik Andragogiczny 2012, p. 308-317

In addition to this, every child has the right to education. The voiceless should start to talk about their problems and dreams. It is not so important which school they finish, but their quality of life.

References [1] h t t p : / / j a n . u c c . n a u . e d u / s j 6 /

eatonapproachconversion.pdf [2] http://www.britannica.com/place/Delhi-sultanate [3] Burjor Avari, Islamic Civilization in South Asia: A History of Muslim Power and Presence in the Indian Subcontinent, Rutledge, London, New York 2013 , p.83 [4] Azar, Uzma, “Islamic Education: A Brief History of Madrassas with Comments on Curricula and Current Pedagogical Practices”2003, p.5 http:// siteresources.worldbank.org/EDUCATION/

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Reconstitutions of the evangelical text in the Mysteries of the Orthodox Church 1. Nicuşor TUCĂ, Prof. PhD

2. Dragoş Corneliu BĂLAN, Lecturer PhD

Department of Theology Ovidius University of Constanta Constanţa-900527, Romania

Department of Theology Ovidius University of Constanta Constanţa-900527, Romania

Abstract: The miracles performed by Jesus Christ are primary forms of practice of the Holy Mysteries.

Therefore, every one of the seven Holy Mysteries finds its correspondent in the healings performed by our Savior: for the Mystery of Baptism, we have highlighted as paradigms the healing of the man born blind, but also the resurrections from the dead; for the Chrismation Mystery, the paradigms are the healing of the woman who had been suffering from a hemorrhage for 12 years and the healing of the deaf man who could hardly speak, while for the Mystery of Confession we have highlighted as defining examples the public confession of the father of the lunatic child, the blind men of Jericho and Bethsaida and the leper of Galilee. The Mystery of the Holy Eucharist has as special paradigms the parable of the emperor’s son’s wedding and the parable of the people invited to supper, while the Mystery of Priesthood (or Ordination) is prefigured by the second wonderful fishing and the first multiplication of the loaves of bread. As far as the Mystery of Marriage is concerned, beside the miracle of Cana in Galilee, suggestive is also the “salvation of Zacchaeus’ house”, while the healings of the devil-possessed are eloquent for the illustration of the Mystery of the Holy Unction.

Keywords: miracle, Holy Mysteries, blind, deaf,

lunatic, leper, resurrection

parable,

devil-possessed

people,

I. INTRODUCTION The Mysteries of the Church have been highlighted, established, and confirmed by many of the miracles and acts performed by our Savior at the time of His Embodiment. The reasons of the miracles of our Savior’s time, and of those occurring by the receiving of the sanctifying grace of the Holy Mysteries, lies in God’s almightiness, which sets the miracle apart from magic, which uses occult procedures or turns to supernatural powers immanent in nature. The reason of the miracle is goodness, the victory of the truth and the realization of beauty in the world, and its essential and ultimate goal is salvation. Some of the healings related in the Holy Evangels constitute paradigms of each of the seven Holy Mysteries by the gestures and actions of Jesus Christ.

It is therefore obvious that the following are necessary premises for the receiving of the Holy Mysteries: a) the reality of the unitary body of the community; b) the Mysteries are natural, anti-magical historical acts, as they suppose man’s free and synergic agreement.

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th e Dia l o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and T heology

The Holy Mysteries are not understood just as simple visible symbols, in which there is created grace, or a reminder of some events of the Savior’s earthly life; they are understood as a union between man and the resurrected Christ. In other words, the Holy Mysteries of the Church do not simply recall, from a historical perspective, acts of the divine economy; they are not a memory of the past or a reference to the past, but express a real state of the future, namely the state of God’s Kingdom. What is present in the Holy Mysteries is act and truth, yet this truth is not identified only with history but also with the state of what is going to be.

The Holy Mysteries were then performed by the Holy Apostles and transmitted to us to this day. In time, the ceremonies, the external parts have been added, yet their being is found in the grace of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit testifies about the Son and continues His works (John 16:13-14). While in the Holy Scripture the miracles indicate a trajectory of the sacramental aspect, in the Church, Mysterious Body of Jesus Christ, from what can be noticed in the divine service of the Church, one can reconstitute a reverse trajectory, towards what the text of the Evangels states. This can be reconstituted from the content of the prayers made during the public and private cult, recommended by the Church and put down in the prayer books in use.

II. The healing of the man born blind and the resurrections from the dead – paradigms of the Mystery of Baptism Saint John the Theologian calls the healing of the man born blind a miracle and a sign. The Holy Fathers observe that all the miracles related in the fourth Evangel also have the value of signs.

Thus, John the Evangelist insists on mentioning that Jesus made “the beginning of His miracles (signs)” at the wedding of Cana in Galilee (John 2:11), while the last miracle from the Evangel according to John is the resurrection of Lazarus (John, chapter 11), by which Jesus reveals Himself as the One Who is “the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25). By the miracle in Chapter 9, Jesus, giving the light of physical eyesight to the man born blind, reveals Himself as the One Who is the Light of the world.

The Savior Jesus Christ stops by the side

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of the man born blind; and before we find out whether He is going to heal him or not, or how this is going to happen, we learn that the disciples accompanying our Savior ask Him: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:2). And Jesus replies: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned: but that the works of God may be made manifest in him” (John 9:3).

As reasonable men, the disciples were convinced that any effect has a cause; yet, as believers, the disciples were convinced that there are spiritual causes of certain physical effects. And they were convinced of this because often the evils in people’s lives are consequences of their sins or their forerunners’ sins. Yet, there are cases when the disease is not a consequence of sin, but a means by which God wants to perfect us. At the same time, there are also what we could call social sins, namely sins of certain people or even whole peoples, therefore sins whose consequences affect the innocent as well. Thus, a sinful father brings misfortune to the whole family; pollution, for which not all the community members are to blame, nevertheless affects them all alike; a country governed without viable projects brings suffering upon the whole nation, etc. But even when we talk about such social sins, we ought to ask ourselves what exactly is our personal contribution to these sins.

By putting an end, through repentance, to this personal contribution, the evil will be less great, and even if we continue to suffer because of the perpetuation of the social evil, this suffering that we are not guilty of will be for us a chance of spiritual progress1.

Yet, the main reason why this miracle was performed is to show “God’s works”, namely that Jesus Christ, God’s Son, is the Creator of the world, the One Who together with the Father and the Holy Spirit created man at the beginning of the world (cf. Genesis 1:26-27), and that He is also the Light of the world (John 8:12), namely the ultimate sense of life, of the existence of the universe and of mankind, and that He is also the giver of the physical eyesight and the giver of the spiritual eyesight which is called faith. He is 1 Vasile Mihoc, Meditaţii la Evangheliile Duminicilor Triodului şi Penticostarului (Meditations on the Evangels of the Triodion and Penticostarion Sundays), EdituraTeofania, Sibiu, 2008, p. 153.

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology the source of the light seen by the physical eyes and of the light seen only by the spiritual eyes of faith.

The element leading to the suggestion of baptism, in the case of the miracle of the healing of this blind man, is the saliva of Jesus. Saliva, in this case, can be understood, in the working on the blind man, as the formula of inoculation of the divine energy from the authority of God’s Son on earth, just like a drop from what water in itself means. The saliva in Jesus’s mouth becomes a concrete part taken from the divinity in the concrete matter which is dust 2.

The miracles performed by Jesus Christ are primary forms of practice of the Holy Mysteries.

“The Church Mysteries take the place of the miracles of the time of the embodiment of Christ the Savior” 3, as Oscar Cullman says. Paradigmatic for the revelation of the importance of the Mystery of Baptism are the resurrections from the dead accomplished by the Savior Jesus Christ, and this is so because the resurrection can manifest itself as the effect of the power lying in the creation, in birth and in re-birth, as renewal of the world.

The resurrection of Jairus’ daughter (Matthew 9:18-19, 23-26; Mark 5:21-24, 35-43; Luke 8:40-42, 49-56) is a miracle by which Jesus interrupted the routine of nature, fallen into sin, which would limit the perspective of eternal life through the physical death that seemed inapproachable as virulence and results.

By the power of the word, Jesus brings back the girl’s body to the state of subject (bearer) of life. Annuling the payment for sin through forgiveness, the resurrection of Jairus’ daughter highlights the life offered through baptism as a rebirth from Above. The deliverance from the effects of the ancestral sin and of the personal 2 Silviu-Ioan Negruţiu, Minunile săvârşite de Iisus Hristos – o perspectivă exegetică şi sacramentală (The Miracles Performed by Jesus Christ – an Exegetical and Sacramental Perspective), Editura University Press, Târgu Mureş, 2012, p. 168.

3 Oscar Cullman, Les Sacrements dans l’Évangile johannique. La vie de Jésus et le culte de l’Église primitive. Études d’histoire et de philosophie religieuses publiées par la Faculté de Théologie protestante de l’Université de Strasbourg, no. 42, Paris, Les Presses Universitaires de France, 1951, p. 35.

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sins can be realized in the rebirth (John 3:3).

While spiritually this is possible as a resurrection through baptism, allowing salvation by grace, the resurrection of Jairus’ daughter is a rebirth by the Christic baptism, which is the experience of death and at the same time of the dichotomist resurrection. This trajectory is realized by the verbal and non-verbal dialogue between Jesus and Jairus, in which one can find elements of the Christian baptism (Do you renounce Satan? Have you renounced Satan? Do you unite yourself to Christ? And do you believe in Him?) as one can note in: - Jairus’ renunciation of the tempter and of the effects of the tempter’s work, in the name of his daughter subject to illness /death appear in: his kneeling and asking for help (Mark 5:22; Matthew 9:18; Luke 8:41); - the father’s emphasized renunciation of the tempter: put your hand on her and she will be alive/ that she may be healed and live (Mark 5:23; Matthew 9:18; Luke 8:41); - the tacit confession of faith; only believe and she will get better (Mark 5:36; Luke 8:50); - the immersion in divine love (the rising from spiritual and physical death) - He took her hand, He told her to arise and lifted her up (Mark 5:41; Matthew 9:25; Luke 8:55) - by Christic attitude.

The resurrection of the young man of Nain (Luke 7:11-17). Jesus, by His divine authority, demonstrates once more, after the experience with Jairus’ daughter, that life is a sleep of the human being after a first stage of the existence, during which resurrection is but a superior form of manifestation of God in the creation, as a solution for the continuation of life. “Adam’s sleep and Eve’s creation could be an explanatory formula. From the creation, from Adam, life (namely Eve) is taken, in order to multiply life through her, who becomes someone who gives birth to life” 4. This is how Jesus demonstrates what happens at the Resurrection of the body.

From a body fallen into an existential sleep, the soul is taken, which, through the re-birth of the body, can amplify life, unto a new quality of the existence and for a new manifestation 4 Silviu-Ioan Negruţiu, op. cit., p. 90.

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy of time. The resurrection is a qualitative leap in the existence, into a superior stage of life, into its renewal, by its transfiguration for the coexistence between the visible and the invisible, in the time of eternity, there where the light that shines is that of God’s face. This is the reason why whoever is not born again (John 3:3) has no access into the Kingdom of Heaven. Baptism is more than meets the eye, it is transfiguration, it is the metamorphosis of matter into light; it is resurrection.

having placed his faith in God along with his entire household” (Acts 16:25-34).

Lazarus’ resurrection (John 11:1-57) has a whole series of consequences for himself, for those around and for the conclusion of Jesus’ miracle for men’s salvation. Lazarus’ death and resurrection, just like those of the son of the widow of Nain, also have another connotation, namely of baptism. From the dialogue between Jesus and Nicodemus, one can note that salvation depends on being born again (John 3, 3), on baptism (John 3:5). From another conversation of Jesus, the one with his disciples Jacob and John, sons of Zebedee, we find out that the cup - namely Passion - and the baptism - that is death - (Matthew 20:22) are indispensable to the condition of salvation (Matthew 20:23). This perspective (though under the reserve that the reference, from the dialogue, to the Eucharist and to baptism has a mystical sense) allows us to see in Lazarus’ death and resurrection (as well as in the other two resurrections performed

by Jesus: Jairus’ daughter and the young man of Nain) a Christic baptism (Romans 6:3-4; Colossians 2:12; 1 Peter 3:21).

“O unbelieving and perverse generation, how long am I to be with you? How long must I put up with you?” (Matthew 17:17). This is how the Savior scolds the scribes but also a part of the crowds of His time, because they were denying His healing power. The Savior is angry because although there had been so many proofs of the fact that He is the Son of God – as He had performed so many miracles before – the multitudes and the scribes were still in doubt. We find a correspondence between this indignation of our Savior and that of God’s Son Who accused the multitudes, saying: “Why does this generation seek a sign?” (Mark 8:12).

After having put the mixture of dust and saliva on the blind man’s eyes, Jesus tells him: “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam...” (John 9:7), which was at some distance from that place.

The spring of Siloam foretells the Christian baptism, as the Holy Fathers say. We know that during the first centuries of Christianism, on Easter, the catechumens were baptized, after a previous preparation. Those baptized were called illumined namely purified and instructed regarding the basic elements of Christianism.

This topic of the connection between the source of Siloam and the Christian baptism is actually suggested as well by the fragment of the Scripture reminding of the baptism of the jailer of Philippi (with all who were in his house) by Paul the Apostle, event after which “he rejoiced,

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III. The deifying grace of the Holy Mysteries works by true faith The people of the contemporary society are tempted to give up hoping in God’s help and believing in His healing power as long as the divine help does not come at the moment when it is desired.

This was the atmosphere in which the Savior received the father’s supplication of healing his lunatic son: “Lord, take pity on my son, because he is a lunatic and suffers terribly; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water” (Matthew 17:15). The unhappiness, the suffering of the father who had the ill child is illustrated as well in other cases in which the Savior performs the miracle of healing the children for the parents’ faith: the resurrection of Jairus’ daughter (Matthew 9:18-26), the healing of the Canaanite woman’s daughter (Matthew 15:2128). In the present case, the father of the lunatic child says: “I believe, Lord; help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24).

We find a paradox in these words of the father, because we could ask ourselves how was he able to say that he believed, if he had no faith?

Because if we refer to ourselves, the Christians, if we believe we can pray, this may help our belief.

Yet, these words of the father are part of the category of the paradoxical words, paradoxical expressions that we meet in the Holy Scripture: “The first will be last” (Matthew 20:16) or “Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it” (Mark 8:35) or as Blaise Pascal says: “You would

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology not be looking for Me if you had not found me.

So do not worry”. This answer of the father indicates the fact that he believed intellectually that God exists, he had heard about God making miracles, yet he was not able to believe that the Savior could go over the limits of nature and heal his child. The father needed to be cured of the disease of unbelief: “If You can do anything, have compassion on us and help us!” (Mark 9:22). The father addresses the Savior in despair, yet not very convinced: “if You can …”. He did not have the belief and the certainty that this Rabbi could heal his child. Yet, the Lord does not heal the child before demonstrating to the father that by faith one can reach healing, the healing of what had seemed impossible to be healed: “If you can? All things are possible for the one who has faith.” (Mark 9, 23). And immediately, aware of his guilt of unbelief, the father tells the Savior in tears: “I believe, Lord! Help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).

Yet, receiving the commandment never to return again, it cannot stand against the Lord’s almighty order.

Christ attributes the child’s disease to the father’s unbelief, reasoning in this sense: “‘If You can?’ All things are possible for the one who has faith” (Mark 9:23). Saint John Chrysostom explains this verse as follows: “In Me there is such an abundant power that I can give to other people as well to make miracles. If you had believed as you should have, you yourself would have been able to heal your son as well”. Thus, the unbelief of the father regarding the Savior’s power prevents the power from working the miracle, because of the unbelief of this parent.

The same happens for every one of us. Who of us has never been under such a material and spiritual burden that any human help seemed useless or impossible? Then true belief becomes the mediator of the miracle performed by God. The father understood that his unbelief was the reason of his son’s unhappiness and this is why he is crying (“…he cried out with tears” - Mark 9:24) for his great sin and confesses out loud the belief in the true God and in His healing power.

a) the blind man of Jericho (Bartimaeus) – Mark 10:46-52; Matthew 20:29-34; 9:27-31; Luke 18:35-43. “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” (Matthew 10:47). Bartimaeus calls out to the Savior. From the way the blind man addresses Jesus, one can clearly see that he was not just a believer (“the blind man believes that Jesus can do this thing and Jesus took note of his faith. Then He said: “See!”, and let him know that this faith had saved him” 5), but also a man who knew well the Law of Moses and was aware of this text from which he had been drawing great hopes, calling out: Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me. Such an appellative points not just to one of the many descendants of David the King, but designates the unique one who was the Messiah and this because the expression “Son of David” means, for the Jews of the beginning of the Christian era, Messiah (in the Greek form: Christ) 6. The Savior asks him: “What do you want me to do for you?”. And the blind man answered: “Rabbi, which I might see again!” (Mark 10:51) and Jesus replies: “Go, Your faith has healed you! And immediately he regained his sight and began following Him on

The result of the father’s sincere faith is immediate; Jesus heals that tormented child, chases away the devil, and moreover commands it never to enter that child again: “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again” (Mark 9:25).

And this because Satan runs out - out of its own will - only to return with even greater torments.

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We consider that this public confession of the lunatic child’s father represents a primary stage of the Mystery of Confession. The father’s dialogue with Jesus is a special confession bringing with it both the child’s healing by the deliverance from sins offered by Jesus and the father’s confession of belief in His divinity.

A. The confessions of the men healed by our Savior – primary forms of the Mystery of Confession We find in the Holy Evangels innumerable public confessions, by which people with physical torments admit to their state of sinfulness or confess their belief in the divine healing power of God’s Son and receive healing:

5 † Antonie Plămădeală, Tâlcuiri noi la texte vechi (New Interpretations to Old Texts), Editura Arhiepiscopală, Sibiu, 1989, p. 422-423.

6 Vasile Mihoc, Predici exegetice la duminicile de peste an (Exegetical Prayers on the Sundays of the Year), Editura Teofania, Sibiu, 2001, p. 219.

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy the way.” (Mark 10:52).

This dialogue between the blind man Bartimaeus and our Savior highlights the sense of Confession. Its result can be the vision of God in the aspects lived both physically (in what is divine in the work of God’s hands in the creation) and spiritually (the qualitative leap in the understanding of the human person in the creation) 7. b) the blind man of Bethsaida (Mark 8:22-26).

Jesus heals this blind man, having a dialogue with him in which He asks what he can see after He has used saliva to anoint his eyes and after He has put His hands on him. At the beginning, the blind man answers Him: “I see people walking, but I see them as trees …” (Mark 8:24), which demonstrates that his healing was not perfect, the information the eye was receiving being deformed; therefore, Jesus “again put His hands on the man’s eyes and he saw clearly. His sight was restored and he saw everything distinctly” (Mark 8:25). After the Savior has accomplished the complete healing of this ill man, He asks him for one thing: “Do not go back into the village, and do not tell anyone in the village” (Mark 8:26). Jesus begins the healing of the blind man “taking him by the hand” and leading him out of the village, but finally isolates him and advises him “not to get into the village” probably to suggest the ecclesiological aspect of the action of protection from sin, a state in which the healed man is advised to remain. c) the leper of Galilee (Mark 1:40-45; Matthew 8:1-4; Luke 5:12-16). The meeting of Jesus with the leper is a state of Confession.

The special way of confessing his faith, of recognizing Jesus by the believing man, Jesus’ capacity of including him in His work, is the unconditional way of accomplishing a prayer.

The appellative Lord means recognition of a supreme authority in Jesus and confession of a total trust in Him. The leper comes in front of Jesus, marked by the prophet’s words that God lets some people know His power and His might (Jeremiah 16:21), in other words, I know that you are a merciful and compassionate God (Jonah 4:2) and that the Father from heaven knows what I need (Matthew 6:8; Luke 12:30).

This dialogue between the Savior and the leper of Galilee catches three gradual stages of the 7 Silviu-Ioan Negruţiu, op. cit., p. 247.

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communication between man and God: the first part is a strong confession of faith: Lord, if You are willing, You can (Mark 1:40; Matthew 8:2; Luke 5:12); the second part is a prayer of conviction: make me clean (Mark 1:40; Matthew 8:2; Luke 5:12); the third part is an epiphany, resulted from the answer that confirmed the conviction that had been confessed, an answer compatible with the confession and with the prayer: I am willing; become clean (Mark 1:41; Matthew 8:3; Luke 5:13).

IV. Testimonies of the Mytery of Chrismation from the texts of the Evangels The healing of the woman who had suffered a flow of blood for 12 years (Matthew 9:2022; Mark 5:25-34; Luke 8:43-48) is the miracle mentioned in the context of the resurrection of Jairus’ daughter. We remind of this wonderful healing here because it can be considered paradigmatic for the Mystery of Chrismation, relying on “the power gone out of Him” (Mark 5:30) which Jesus felt, but also on the strong and sincere faith of the woman who had spent “all she had” (Mark 5:26) under the care of many doctors, ”yet it benefitted her nothing; rather she had grown worse”; she became aware that her only solution was the hope in the authority of the One about whom she had heard that He holds a power greater than the one of the healers and of the doctors. It was enough to touch Him to get healed. She had come to touch Jesus, the hem of his garment, which for a believing Jew symbolized God’s commandments and salvation. Saint Theophylact, archbishop of Bulgaria, notes that “the woman did not come openly, being unclean because of her illness and fearing that she might be stopped (Leviticus 15:19-25). And although she was thinking that she could hide himself from Him, she still hoped to acquire health if only she could touch the hem of His garment 8.

And indeed, touching the hem of the Savior’s garment, she gets healed. The price of her healing was her faith, which took from Jesus the healing power. Yet, “knowing in Himself that 8 St. Theophylact, archbishop of Bulgaria, Tâlcuirea Sfintei Evanghelii de la Matei (Interpretation of the Holy Evangel according to Mark), Editura Sophia, Bucureşti, 2002, p. 236.

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology power had gone out from Him” (Mark 5:30) Jesus immediately asked who had touched His clothes. Jesus does this because He wanted to exemplify this exercice of faith, which was at the same time an example of sincerity and which calls for an amplification by a gesture of confession. This is the reason why Jesus calls her daughter, in the name of faith “because if she had not come with faith, she would not have taken the gift, even though His clothes were holy” 9. It is what is going on with each of us when we touch the holy relics or the miraclemaking icons. As long as we have a sincere and strong faith, the divine power descends upon us; otherwise the manifestation that is exclusively rational, looking for miracle and sensational, yet devoid of faith, remains without answer in our lives.

The woman, “with fear and trembling, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell down before Him and told Him the whole truth” (Mark 5:33). Therefore, the woman’s sincerity is total. Due to the work of Jesus and to these rare qualities of the woman, the miracle was possible. The Savior concludes: “Daughter, your faith has made you well, go in peace!” (Mark 5:34; Matthew 9:22; Luke 8:48). The greatness of the woman’s faith lies in the fact that she did not want to touch Jesus, but only His garment, the fringes of His garment, symbolizing the limit of the law; “she believed that Christ’s power to heal was so amazing that even a simple touch of His garment would lead to an immediate and complete healing” 10.

The healing of the deaf man who could hardly speak (Mark 7:31-37), which takes place after Jesus’s first multiplication of the loaves of bread and His walking on the water (Mark 6:14-52) is also paradigmatic for the Mystery of Chrismation. Thus, we find out that “a deaf man who could hardly speak” was brought to Him, and Jesus, “taking him aside from the crowd privately, put His fingers into the man’s ears, and after spitting, He touched his tongue. Looking up to heaven, He gave a deep sigh and said to him: <<Ephphatha>>, which is “Be opened”. (Mark 9 Ibidem, p. 237.

10 William Hendriksen, Comentariu la Noul Testament. Evanghelia după Matei (Comment on the New Testament. The Evangel according to Matthew), Editura Reformatio, Oradea, 2006, p. 390.

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7:32-34). At that moment, the man is cured; both his ears and his tongue were opened. Jesus’ hands and saliva are healing. Thus, the spiritual progress made possible by Chrismation makes the healing of this tormented man possible. The sense of hearing and the power of speaking are functions by which God becomes confessed by someone who has lived a moment of rebirth for the world and for life. I consider that the modality chosen by our Savior to heal this ill person is a primary formula used by Jesus Christ in which we discover the Chrismation and the myrrh of this Mystery of the Church.

V. New Testamentary paradigms of the Mysteries of the Holy Oil and of Marriage The miracle of the healing of the ten lepers (Matthew 8:2-4; Mark 1:40-44; Luke 5:12-14) by our Savior is paradigmatic for the illustration of the Mystery of the Holy Oil by which man receives physical healing. Immediately after the Sermon on the Mount, on His way to Caphernaum, Jesus heals a leper: “a leper came to Him, pleading for help from Him, and falling on his knees, he exclaimed to Him: “If You are willing, You can make me clean!” Moved with compassion, Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, saying to Him, “I am willing; be made clean.” And at once the leprosy left him and he was cleansed.”

(Mark 1:40-42). This miracle is presented by the three synoptical evangelists (Matthew 8:2-4; Mark 1:40-44; Luke 5:12-14).

Our Savior heals as well ten men with leprosy while He was at the border between Galilee and Samaria: “As He entered a certain village, ten men with leprosy met Him, who stood at a distance” (Luke 17:12). This miracle is only related by the Holy Evangelist Luke.

Both in the case of the miracle of the healing of one leper and in that of the healing of the ten lepers, although He heals them, the Savior asks for one thing: “Go and show yourselves to the priests”. Moreover, in the case of the healing of the one leper, the Savior asks him to offer the gift “that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them” (Matthew 8:4) and this because in the Old Law there were prescriptions regarding the people with leprosy and what happens in the case of their healing. In Leviticus, Chapter 13 speaks exclusively about this disease and we

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy also find here the explanation of the exhortation addressed by the Savior to the lepers, namely to show themselves to the priests, and this because at that time the priest was the supreme medical authority, confirming or rejecting the presence of leprosy.

The Savior heals a blind and mute demoniac (Matthew 12:22-37), yet, on this occasion, we see the Pharisees rebuked, as, hearing Jesus praying to the Lord (the heavenly Father), they were thinking that He was working with the ruler of the demons: “This fellow does not cast out demons except by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons” (Matthew 12:24). The Pharisees did not dear to express these blasphemies out loud and openly, but were sharing them privately among themselves; for this reason, Jesus, knowing their thoughts, tells them: “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to ruin, and no city or house divided against itself will stand. So, if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then will his kingdom stand?” (Matthew 12:25-26).

Our Savior explains in this way to the Pharisees that when unity is lost, when disputes and civil wars begin, then authority is destroyed and disappears. This blasphemy of the Pharisees was devoid of logic: as long as the devil wishes to harm and destroy man, how can he chase and destroy his own power over men?

The healings of the demon-possessed people (the healing of the demon-possessed of Gadara - Matthew 8:28-34; Luke 8:22-40; the healing of the demon-possessed of Capharnaum - Mark 1:21-28; Luke 4:31-37; the healing of the Canaanite woman’s daughter - Matthew 15:21-28) of the Savior’s time find their counterpart in the Church by the Mystery of the Holy Oil. The healing of these demon-possessed people is realized only in the Church, not using medicines or by putting them into psychiatry hospitals. And this because to be demon-possessed is not of a physiological (bodily) nature, although it overflows in this domain as well; it is something of a spiritual nature, because the devil is not a man in flesh and bones or a microbe producing certain diseases, but a spiritual being 11.

11 The archimandrite Tikhon relates the way some Russian psychiatrists could differentiate between psychically ill people and devil-possessed people:

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During the period of the Messianic miracles, after having healed the man who had been paralyzed for 38 years, the Savior tells him the following: “See, you have been healed! Do not sin any longer, so that nothing worse happens to you.” (John 5:14). From this statement we deduce that the reason of this paralysis was sin, and the medicine recommended by Jesus Christ was staying away from sin. The Savior did the same thing with other ill people, whose sins He forgave and who He then healed (Matthew 9:2; Mark 2:5); these are miracles by which He taught us that diseases are the consequences of sins, and health is a consequence of spiritual purification, the two being connected by a causeeffect relationship. For this reason, from the prayers uttered by the priests during the Mystery of the Holy Oil, we find out that God heals those who feel sorry in their hearts and leave their sins, so that the grace of God they receive works both on their soul and their body, in unity, as Father Stăniloae explains: “The very healing of body is felt by the diseased person as a grace given to him as a complete human person. The body is full of the energies of the soul, the soul works through it [i.e. grace]; without it the soul cannot work. This is why grace does not work on the body without working on the soul as well. Yet, on the soul it [i.e. grace] works by strengthening and purifying it from sins and calming his conscience by this, which has a strengthening effect on the body as well, in order to make it an instrument of the good work of the soul and to reinforce the soul as well” 12.

The Holy Oil calms down the endless suffering of the man who is far away from God and gives suffering a Christological meaning: that of Cross of patience and humility for man in “The doctors used a simple method: they put in front of the diseased person several identical cups of ordinary water and one of holy water. If the patient drank calmly the water from all the cups, they would send him to hospital. If he refused to drink the cup of holy water, started to make noise and fell unconscious down to the ground, his healing was beyond their competence” – Nesfinţii sfinţi şi alte povestiri (The Holy Non-Saints and Other Stories), translated by Cristea Florentina, Editura Egumeniţa, Galaţi, 2013, p. 318.

12 Dumitru Stăniloae, Teologia Dogmatică Ortodoxă (Orthodox Dogmatic Theology), vol. III, Editura I.B.M. al B.O.R., Bucureşti, 1978, p. 204.

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology God. The reason of this ecclesial Mystery is the presence of sin and of disease in the world, as effects of mankind’s inner fall and death. For this reason, the first step of the healing of a diseased man is precisely the restoration of his spiritual connection with Christ and with His Church.

The fragment of the Scriptures talking to us about the desire of atonement of Zacchaeus the chief tax collector is also an opportunity to illustrate the importance of the family sealed by the Church through the Mystery of Marriage.

“Today salvation has come to this house, since he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10).

Our earthly life is a voyage, because we come from God, we run in the world for a while and then we go back to God, closing the circle. But our running in the world is useful if we find the way to Christ and if we accept this way. To receive Christ in your house and in your heart is to let Him decide in our place, is asking Him what way we ought to follow, what we need to do, is offering Him from what belongs to us and offering Him our very life. But the house that has Christ is strong and beautiful, in it there is a continual celebration, as it was on that day when Zacchaeus received our Savior in his house, as we find it related in the second Evangel from the Order of the Holy Oil (Luke 19:1-10). The presence of our Savior in our house brings happiness here and in the other world. This is why Christ said: “Today salvation has come to this house” (Luke 19:9). He could have saved Zacchaeus alone as well, yet He wanted to show that the family is more important than the individual and that the way of salvation is more direct and safer with the family than without it.

A saved house, a house that has met God is a house like the one of Zacchaeus. The Metropolitan Bishop Nicolae Bălan, in an article on the family, said extremely suggestively that: “A house in whose middle lives Christ is an organism in which eternity vibrates”. The beauty of a saved house consists in the fact that it lives from God’s life. Our Savior has come to give us life and eternal life, and if in our houses we take the commandments, we fight against sin and we receive Christ, in these houses “heaven is pretasted”, as the Holy Fathers say.

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VI. Reconstitutions of the evangelical text concerning the Mysteries of the Eucharist and of Priesthood Two of our Savior’s miracles are eloquent in demonstrating the importance of the Mystery of Priesthood: the second wonderful fishing (John 21:3-13 – especially the second part – verses 9-13) which is a primary formula of the mystery of the Eucharist, highlighting the message the disciples had and needed to accomplish; but also the first multiplication of the loaves of bread (Mark 6:31-44; Matthew 14:13-21; Luke 9:10-17; John 6:1-15), especially the beginning of the miracle, when the disciples ask our Savior to feed the multitudes who had been listening to Him the whole day without eating, and Jesus answers: “You give them something to eat” (Mark 6:37).

This exhortation of Jesus to the disciples is a commandment, but also a demonstration, an incipient form of application of the Eucharist.

Starting from the need of physical food, the five loaves of bread and the two fish - by the working of the Savior Who multiplies them - become heavenly food, being a practical manifestation of the Holy Mystery of Priesthood. Both the lunch at the fishing from the Sea of Tiberias and the multiplication of the loaves of bread are practical applications helping the disciples to get used to their future mission that they are to overflow over the people, in the Mysterious Body of Jesus Christ, after the descent of the Holy Spirit.

“Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me and eat what is good and let your soul delight itself in rich food” (Isaiah 55:2). The evangelical pericope relating the miracle of the multiplication of the bread and of the fish by our Savior Jesus Christ evidently refers to two significant events in the history of salvation: one in the past – the feeding of the Jews on manna in the desert – and another from the future – the Last Supper. Our Savior first feeds the multitudes to their full on the food of His word, which helps man understand the meaning of his earthly life and his celestial future, then He offers the multitudes that followed Him food for their body as well. This miracle is presented briefly

by Saint Matthew the Evangelist and in a more detailed manner by Saint John the Evangelist, who also presents what happened after the

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy wonderful feeding of the multitudes. In their enthusiasm, they came to Jesus “to take Him by force to make Him king” (John 6:15). Knowing their thought, Jesus answered them and told them: “you are not looking for me because you saw miraculous signs, but because you ate the loaves and had all you wanted. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that lasts for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give You” (John 6:26-27). “Then they said to Him: So what miraculous sign will You perform that we may see and believe in You? What will you do?”

(John 6:30). This question proves what Jesus had said before, that they had been looking for Him only because they had eaten to their fill and not for the miracle itself. What miracle did they need to believe in the divine power of Jesus Christ, greater than the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves of bread, which they had just witnessed? (John 6:26).

We shall note that at the heart of the narration of this miracle are these verses: “… and, taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, said a blessing, and broke the loaves. He gave the loaves to the disciples and the disciples gave them to the crowds” (Matthew 14:19-20). These verses are met under the same form in all the four Evangels. And this is a sign of their importance. They reveal to us that Christ made four distinct gestures: 1) he took (the bread); 2) he blessed; 3) he broke; 4) he gave to the disciples.

We find precisely these gestures as well at the Last Supper: “…Jesus took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and gave it to the disciples, saying: Take, eat; this is My body…” (Matthew 26:26). We find again these gestures after the Resurrection, in Emaus, in the presence of the two disciples, Luke and Cleopas: “When He was reclining at the table with them, He took the bread, blessed and broke it and gave it to them. At this point their eyes were opened and they recognized Him” (Luke 24:30-31). At the same time, we find these four fundamental gestures as well in the Christian Liturgy as essential moments of it (according to Christ’ commandment from the Last Supper: “Do this in remembrance of Me” – Luke 22, 19). All these reinforce our conviction that by this miracle Christ was preparing His disciples and, by them, His future people, to become His Eucharistic

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people.

The spiritual meaning of this fragment of the Scriptures relating the multiplication of the loaves of bread is that of prefiguration of the Mystery of the Holy Eucharist, which makes perfect, as Nicolae Cabasila suggestively mentions, all the other Holy Mysteries of the Church and is the aim of the whole spiritual life: “The Mystery of the Holy Communion is above any other mystery and its fruit is a whole series of good things, since it is also the highest aim the human endeavor may target. As by it we get to meet even God, Who unites with us in the most perfect love. And if you get to be one spirit with God Himself, could there be any union more perfect than this one?

This is why the Eucharist is also the perfection of all the other Mysteries. It therefore helps accomplish what the other Mysteries are not able to accomplish, being at the same time the Mystery that makes the gift received through the other Mysteries and darkened by the shade of sin shine brighter” 13.

Paradigmatic for the illustration of the Holy Mystery of the Eucharist is also the evangelical fragment that refers to the “parable of the King’s Son’s wedding” or “the parable of the people invited to supper” or “the parable of the Great Banquet”. The message of the parable, although presented slightly differently by two of the evangelists (Matthew 22:1-14; Luke 14:1624), is the same: God is calling us all to the Eucharistic Supper – the Holy Eucharist -, namely to salvation, the way a very close fried would call us to dinner.

CONCLUSIONS The Holy Evangels relate forty miracles performed by our Lord Jesus Christ, yet all the four evangelists mention that there were other miracles, as well. All of them show Christ as God’s Son, they reveal His Almightiness and His dominion over nature, life and death, suffering and the devil. To this day, God’s Church is the great area of miracles, and the means by which miracles are performed today are the Holy Mysteries and the hierurgies. The sanctification of the objects, of the crops, of the offerings, 13 Nicolae Cabasila, Despre viaţa în Hristos (On Life in Christ), translated by Teodor Bodogae, Editura I.B.M. al B. O. R., Bucureşti, 2009, p. 110.

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology of the water, of the food, the fact that in the Church is at work the grace using which people are baptized, sealed, set free from sins, from diseases, from curses, from the power of the devil, all these are miracles, just like the ones performed by our Savior Jesus Christ during the time of His embodiment.

The sense of the miracle, both of that of the time of Jesus’ embodiment and of those of all times, is not to quench the thirst of sensational things, but to help man in his effort towards salvation and to reveal God to him.

We accept the miracles according to the dimensions of our faith, namely according to the extent to which we are connected to God. Do we believe in the Almightiness of God and His care for the world? If so, we also believe in miracles and in the means by which God manifests His mercy to His beings; and these means are the Church Mysteries.

Miracles are generated by the prayer made in great faith. Faith is before and after the miracle.

Jesus put so much emphasis on faith that He told the father who was begging Him to heal his demoniac son: “‘If you can!’ All things are possible for the one who has faith.” (Mark 9:23).

Father Stăniloae says in this sense: “Strong faith is a total union between man and God, without man’s getting dissolved in God” 14.

of the human nation, the obtaining of subjective salvation can be realized only in His Resurrection, in the Church, His Mysterious Body, from which people are part, subjectively, being limbs of Christ (John 17:11). Salvation in its turn is a miracle, just like all the others (if we consider the subjective, limited, human way of understanding and comprehending what can be going on in the world and in man), after the Embodiment and the Ascension of Christ to heaven, and by the state of renewal created by the coming in the world of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:41).

Consequently, from this moment on, the miracle can occur only on condition of the teaching left by its Accomplisher, our Savior Jesus Christ. It becomes possible and “is accomplished only in the Church” 15, being a gift of God, for the one who performs it, who can be a simple person living in Christ both physically and spiritually (1 Corinthians 15:46).

REFERENCES: [1] Cullman, Oscar. Les Sacrements dans l’Évangile

From the moment when Jesus Christ accomplished His objective mission of salvation

johannique. La vie de Jésus et le culte de l’Église primitive. Études d’histoire et de philosophie religieuses publiées par la Faculté de Théologie protestante de l’Université de Strasbourg, no. 42, Paris, Les Presses Universitaires de France, 1951.

David, P. I. Ghid tematic pe temeiul Bibliei [Thematic Guide Based on the Bible], Bucureşti: Editura Arhiepiscopiei Bucureştilor, 1985.

Hendriksen,William. Comentariu la Noul Testament. Evanghelia după Matei [Comment on the New Testament. The Evangel according to Matthew]. Oradea: EdituraReformatio, 2006.

Mihoc, Vasile. Meditaţii la Evangheliile Duminicilor Triodului şi Penticostarului (Meditations on the Evangels of the Triodion and Penticostarion Sundays). Sibiu: EdituraTeofania, 2008.

Mihoc, Vasile. Predici exegetice la duminicile de peste an [Exegetical Prayers on the Sundays of theYear]. Sibiu: EdituraTeofania, 2001.

Negruţiu, Silviu-Ioan. Minunile săvârşite de Iisus Hristos – o perspectivă exegetică şi sacramentală [The Miracles Performed by Jesus Christ – an Exegetical and Sacramental Perspective]. Târgu

14 Dumitru Stăniloae, Chipul evanghelic al lui Iisus Hristos (The Evangelical Image of Jesus Christ), Editura centrului mitropolitan, Sibiu, 1991, p. 69-70.

15 P. I. David, Ghid tematic pe temeiul Bibliei (Thematic Guide Based on the Bible), Editura Arhiepiscopiei Bucureştilor, Bucureşti, 1985, p. 7.

In fact, nothing can be fully understood in this world unless we accept that all things are the result of the wonderful acts of God. Miracles are performed having a providential aim; they are overwhelming for the mind and complete the human imperfections and the laws of nature.

They are performed to reinforce people’s faith (John 2:11) or a truth of faith (Signs will accompany those who believe – Mark 16:16-17).

It is clear that healings (wonderful regardless of their nature) come from the Holy Spirit, and the capacity to perform them is a gift from God (1 Corinthians 12:10), an essential condition in the act of the disciples’ mission, as objective act, and in that of salvation, as subjective act (John 6:56).

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[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy Mureş: Editura University Press, 2012.

[7] Plămădeală, Antonie, archbishop. Tâlcuiri noi la

textevechi [New Interpretations to Old Texts].

Sibiu:Editura Arhiepiscopală, 1989.

[8] St. Nicolae Cabasila, Despre viaţa în Hristos [On Life in Christ]. Bucureşti: Editura I.B.M. al B. O. R., 2009 (translated from Greekby Teodor Bodogae).

[9] St. Theophylact, archbishop of Bulgaria. Tâlcuirea Sfintei Evanghelii de la Matei [Interpretation of the Holy Evangel according to Mark]. Bucureşti: Editura Sophia, 2002.

[10] Stăniloae, Dumitru.Chipul evanghelic al lui Iisus Hristos [The Evangelical Image of JesusChrist].

Sibiu: Editura centrului mitropolitan, 1991.

[11] Stăniloae, Dumitru. Teologia Dogmatică Ortodoxă [Orthodox Dogmatic Theology], vol. 3. Bucureşti: Editura I.B.M. al B.O.R., 1978.

[12] Șevkunov, Tihon, archimandrite. Nesfinţii sfinţi şi alte povestiri [The Holy Non-Saints and Other Stories]. Galaţi: Editura Egumeniţa, 2013 (translated from Russian by Cristea Florentina).

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The Place and Role of Youth in the Liturgical Life of the Church Assist. Prof. Dr. Pr. Iulian ISBĂȘOIU Department of Theology Ovidius University of Constanta Constanța, Romania iulianisbasoiu@yahoo.com

Abstract: The Church takes good care of each single person, from the beginning of their lives, giving them all the support so that they achieve the final goal of human creation: their salvation. From birth, man is involved in the liturgical life of the Church, which initiates them as members, transforming them progressively into active members, who participate on their own free will in the divine worship and in the social and cultural events held by it. Acknowledging the role that the young have in the activity of the Church we will discuss in our study an overall view of their involvement in liturgical life. We will emphasize the role of the Church in completing the religious information received within the family, as well as methods to help the Church get the young involved in the liturgical, social and cultural activities held by it. In addition, we will highlight the decisive role the priest has in motivating the young by using the power of the word (preach and catechesis) and above all by personal example. Applying the most suitable methods in order to get the young people closer to the Church and involving them in the life of the Christian community offers the Church the certitude of fulfilling its role within the contemporary society.

I. INTRODUCTION The reality of life in the contemporary world makes us become active participants in the world’s transformations, which are directing towards a new type of society that wants to create a social syncretism and also to produce, in spiritual terms, a religious syncretism too.

This trend is also visible in the countries which have an Orthodox majority by various means to present the Orthodox Christianity as a religion which is reserved about the evolution of society and especially about the freedom of expression and thinking of young people through their education in certain clichés that are far from nowadays world’s development.

Keywords: Church, liturgical life, young, family, school, priest, catechesis, preach, personal example

If in what concerns the religious manifestation, the Church entered a normal

The situation becomes more complicated especially in the Romanian Orthodox Church, which has to respond with wisdom to the challenge and face the wave of freedom gained by the Romanian people after the revolution of 1989, which manifested itself both socially, by regaining the freedom of thought and expression, and also religiously by regaining the right to express religious freedom and the reappearance of the religious subject in the public educational state.

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th e Dia l o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and T heology state, the priests and the believers being able to participate without any obstacles in all the religious activities, regarding the youth, religious education has lately appeared as currently opposing a minority of the civil society that tries to eliminate from the school the Christian Orthodox education and replace it with different subjects, such as ethics or the history of religions.

Romanian history, prior to the installation of communism, whose reminiscences are also represented by this protestant minority, presents us the Church from the position of a solid factor for the cultural development and the maintenance of the living conscience of our nation and of its freedom. The school emerged in the entrance hall of the worship place and for a long time the main educators were clergymen.

Religious education in schools continued to be present and show its results in the moral quality of this nation’s children, which has made Romania, an internationally respected country.

The current concern of the Church has remained the same, to give young people the advice and the examples needed to develop a personality that can cope with all the events from their social and spiritual life. This is why we will try to see the place and role of young people in the life of the Church, especially in what concerns their presence in the liturgical activity.

II. THE CONCERN OF THE CHURCH FOR CHILDREN The Saviour Jesus Christ uttered at one point a sentence which will remain the reference point for the place and role of the child in the earthly life, as well in the future one ”Let the little children come to me, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these” (Mark 10, 14; John 16, 20-21). In fact ”the Church’s interest in the children begins long before birth. Even the service of the Sacrament of Marriage is about children who will be born, because God’s will is the lawful union and the birth of babies”[1]. The prayers and litanies’ demands of the marriage ceremony are often referred to the beseeching God to give the family ”good children”, “the young olive shoots around their table”[2]. The care of children, which manifests in the liturgical life of the Church, is materialized along with its appearance in the world. Thus, even since the

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day of its birth, the priest participates in this joy through the service which he delivers both for the mother and baby. In the prayers uttered on this occasion, the Church prays for infant to be protected from “helplessness, weakness... and from the evil eye”[3], and for his/her health to “pray to the earthly church”[4]. Also, in the first day, the child receives the first blessing from the priest, who sprinkles holy water in the room that he or she will live with his mother in: ”the priest sprinkles the house in the image of the cross; then he marks the baby blessing on his or her forehead, for mind, on mouth, for word and breath, and on the heart for power, where we have the living power: saying ’Lord’ Hands made you and built you’. This is done to protect the child until he or she receives the Holly Baptism”[5].

The eighth day of life of the baby is an opportunity for the priest to officiate the service of marking, when “his/her name is decided.”

The content of the service and the gestures of the priest show the care of the Church for the newborn, receiving him for the first time in the sanctuary, a place where at some point he/she will become a member of the army of Christ.

The priest makes the sign of the cross on the child’s forehead, mouth, chest, blessing him/ her, and he reads the prayer O Lord our God, to Thee we pray and we beseech Thee, let the light of Thy countenance be signed on Thy servant (name) and may he/she be signed with the Cross of Thine only-begotten Son in his heart and understanding, that he may flee from the vanity of the world, and every evil design of the enemy, so that he may follow according to Thy commandments. And grant, O Lord, that thy holy Name may remain unrejected by him/her that at an appropriate time he/she may be joined to thy holy Church and be perfected through the dread Mysteries: so that having lived according to Your commandments, and having preserved the seal unbroken, he/she may receive the blessedness of the elect in Thy kingdom. Through the grace and compassions and love for mankind of Thine Only-begotten Son, with whom Thou art blessed, together with Thy most holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now and for ever: world without end”[6]. Then, in the narthex, the priest presents him/her to the icons of the Blessed Virgin Mary and to the Savior Jesus Christ.

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology The next meeting of the infant with the liturgical life of the Church is 40 days after his/her birth, when he/she is brought to the Holy Church for worship. The Euchologion tells us that “when 40 days are celebrated, the child is brought to the church to become a Christian, namely to make his entry into the church. He is brought by his mother, being spiritually cleaned, and by the baby’s godfather. This practice is done after 40 days, whether or not the child is baptized. If he/ she is not baptized, the baby’s worship of the Holy Altar will be made in after he receives the baptism, according to the custom... (for boys n. n)[7]. In the prayers uttered on this occasion, the priest asks God to bless the baby, to grow him/ her, to sanctify him/her, to make him/her wise, to make him/her right-minded and to give him/ her skills, because he/she was brought by God to see the perceptible and natural light, and this will help him/her receive the understandable one too at the Sacrament of the Holy Baptism, when he/she will join with the Holy Church and with Christ and he/she will come into Shepherd Jesus’ flock. God is “the guardian of infants” and who receives them into the visible Church, protects and helps them reach the unseen Church. After uttering the prayers, the priest takes the child and elevates him/her making with his/her body the sign of the cross in front of the church’s doors saying ”The servant of God (…..) is churched, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”, then in the church saying “I will enter into Thine house: I will worship Thy holy temple”, in the middle of the church uttering the words “The servant of God (…..) is churched, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen”, then before the altar, the doors and before all the icons saying the same words. If the baby is a boy, and is baptized, he is brought into the holy altar and presented to the four sides of the Holy Table. Then the child is placed in front of the holy doors, from where he is lifted by the godfather or godmother, after which he is lifted 3 times[8].

Typically, in our church practice, the worship of the infant takes place immediately after the Sacrament of Baptism.

We reminded here of the sacrament of the Holy Baptism, when the child becomes a member of the Church of Christ, being cleansed of the ancestral sin which he/she inherited by his/ her bodily birth. Along with the Holy Baptism,

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the child is also sealed with the Holy Chrism and receives his/her first Holy Communion.

For now their place in the life of the Church is sealed forever, and they will grow in wisdom and understanding, putting into practice all the values that will deeply develop in his heart and mind, through all the given holy works and teachings. His/her path now is accompanied by the light of Christ, who gives him ”luminous vestment” and reinforces in him/her the acquisition and practice of Christian virtues.

This growth, under the protection of the Church and through the care of parents, will continue in the first stage of their life, the accumulation stage, of moral education, until the age of 7, when they will enter the first role as Christians. It is the role of assuming the acts, the moment when the child turns his steps towards the altar and realizes that from now on he/she will only receive Holy Communion if he/she deserves it. The worthiness is presented to them as a natural state experienced by the Christian that respects and practices the Christ’s teachings. He/she also has to be aware that incorrect behavior should be confessed reluctantly in the Sacrament of Holy Confession, in order to receive forgiveness from God. The child becomes in this way an active member of the Church, participating in the liturgical life, confessing and partaking of the Holy Communion as any Christian, at least four times a year, according to the teachings (see the quote).

III. THE RELIGIOUS TEACHING AND CATECHESIS IN THE LIFE OF YOUNG PEOPLE A. The liturgical initiation of the child in family and school The pedagogical role that the family plays in the religious education of the child is most often the foundation on which is built the liturgical relationship between the young people and the Church. In the family, particularly due to mothers, the child learns the first verbal or nonverbal liturgical gestures. The parents are for them the first educators, through simple religious gestures, as how to make the sign of the cross, worshiping or leading his/her hand in order to teach them how to properly execute this sign. They also learn the prayer position, by

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy kneeling with the hands joined in prayer position or by standing with the same position of the hands and with the head a little bit down. Also at home they are taught the first dialogue with God through the prayer “Angel, my angel” or “Our Father.” Another skill that the child acquires in the first years of life is learning the way to the Holy Church. This contact is established through the Holy Baptism and will continue as often as possible by receiving the Holy Communion without confession administered by the age of 7. From this age the child is accountable for his/ her actions and must confess, knowing that they cannot receive the Holy Communion without receiving forgiveness for the mistakes made.

He/she also systematically acquires continuous religious education at school, where they are taught religion. From a logistical point of view, children receive religion textbooks and are required to receive a proper theoretical education. Practically he/she is driven towards the liturgical life by the teacher of religion, who must have “deep, pure and subtle faith”[9] and be a model for those they educate. The teacher is encouraged to maintain a close relationship with the church to which the school belongs and also occasionally to reserve in the planning of lessons hours for going to church, in order to give children the opportunity to receive additional information about what he theoretically teaches in the classroom.

If in the family there is not the custom of active participation in the liturgical life of the Church, the religion teacher must take care to familiarize the children with the religious practice and to engage them in various activities in collaboration with parishes, and also in fasting periods, to bring them to the Holy Church for confession and communion, because a humanization of the school is needed so that it does not remain ”just to the acquisition of knowledge...” but it should ”guide towards the cultivation of joy, friendship, common life, of the availability of helping others.

The exploitation by the school of the chances which the community life parish and of religious holidays offer are premises for the realization of those above”[10]. So family and school should be nurseries of the initiation and growth of the child in accordance with its role in the social and liturgical life of the Church[11].

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B. The servant and confessor priest – a model for contemporary young people In the early years, the child is very attentive to everything that happens around him/her and goes through different experiences that influence their perception of the existential values. In what concerns religious life, in addition to the two educational factors that we have mentioned, he/she also interacts with the servants of the Church. The first meetings with the priest are held in the Holy Church, where he/ she initially goes to take the Holly Communion.

If the first Communion, which takes place after receiving the Sacrament of Baptism, does not remain the only one in his life, and the parents and teachers of religion regularly take him/her to church to take the Holly Communion, the priest becomes familiar to them, a part of their life, as the person who puts him/her in direct relationship with God, through the union with the symbol of the bread and wine received by the Sacrament of the Eucharist. Also, the pastoral visits which the priest makes to the homes of the faithful ones, especially in the period before the great Christian feasts, represent an opportunity for young people to interact with him, especially since these meetings take place in their home, where they feel more comfortable and may be more communicative. In these moments, “the priest must be strong not by authority, like any authority, but by the authority of love, forgiveness, of the guidance towards the good way”[12]. This image of the priest must persuade young people to want the closeness and participation in the liturgical life of the Church.

The priest must know how to invite the young people in the Church. Often, this invitation can be done without words, but with gestures to express that there, in the Church, young people will gain peace and will acquire everything they need for their spiritual balance.

C. Catechesis and divine worship in the life of young people Saint Basil the Great said that “wise doctors often cover round with honey the cup of bitter medicines they give to patients without appetite.

This is why we composed these harmonious songs of psalms, because those who are children by age or behavior to seem that they are singing, but actually the truth teaches their soul”[13].

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology The words above summarize the relationship that the practice of the divine cult must have with the catechetical teaching of the Church.

We cannot talk about a religious education of the mind without a prior predisposition of the soul to receive the doctrine. And this goal is accomplished when the young procures the food of the soul through prayer and with the soul fed with the spiritual ones, they can also receive the teaching nutrition, because otherwise we risk transforming the catechesis in an“ethical or rationalist type of discourse”[14].

The church must act wisely taking into consideration the existential stages through which man passes from a child, to an adolescent, then to adulthood. The factors which influence this course can form ultrarationalist personalities, which hardly accept or do not accept at all a truth revealed, or individuals inclined spiritually to work and who accept the Christianizing steps that succeed in his/her life and which exclusively belong to the relationship that he/she builds with the Church.

Often we hear it in everyday life to motivate someone to do something, especially in terms of education. The same is true regarding the child’s development in religious terms, of his/her participation in the liturgical life of the Church, ”how good or bad results largely depend on the stimuli’s way of functioning and on the exercised impulses, as well as on the way of functioning of the native skills and of those which they learn through practice. This demonstrates the power of the relational fabric and of the educational process that makes the one who instructs to continually progress, putting him/her in a relationship and communion with individual and social behaviors, which help him/her become a person”[15]. To create an attractive environment through which the child wants to participate in the worship of the Church and in the lessons of catechesis, the Church must resort to the spirit of gentleness for them to feel the joy, beauty and the gifts offered by the communion to the liturgical life. Young people should spiritually be encouraged to actively attend all activities of their community through a real involvement in them. Otherwise, the word of catechesis becomes a new opportunity to gain theoretical knowledge, as mentioned above, without offering an immediate practical implementation. Church’s liturgical experience

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begins, as we have seen in the family’s altar, and is continued at school and accomplished in the place of worship, in order to bring to the young people the awareness of the need to practice actively the life of the cult. The church must send its catechetical message taking into account all the social, cultural and economical realities that surround the everyday life of young people.

From the social point of view, we must note how long young people enjoy the attention of people around them, considering their relationship with parents, friends, teachers and why not with the priest, and involuntary with the Church. We also watch the message of the civil society regarding cultural values and we see if the Church has a positive or a negative coverage. The classification of the values promoted by society must not be overlooked. Can these also be recorded in the area of the moral teaching promoted by the Church? Are they promoting moral principles of forming a healthy personality of the individual?

Do these values raising the human dignity gaze towards the sky or do they sink them into the ground with an obedient look, exclusively to the observation of matter and of the material need in his/her life? In these conditions, man can perceive happiness as the ultimate goal of existence and as a consequence of spiritual peace, which he/she must acquire through the concrete bond with God in the Church or is it all about material comfort, which if any, is equal to happiness and when missed is it translated through unhappiness?

In a world full of temptations, the young individual is not made to choose between good and evil, truth and lie, between right and wrong, but is given an ambiguous content of values that offer them the opportunity to live the present moment, without further thinking ahead. And when they talk about God, they expect ”the discovery of a pseudo-god, of a good deity, gentle and forgiving, too good, too gentle and especially forgiving, which left His teaching to the whole world, materialized in some signs and symbols that are used in many discussions and concerns, not only the ones left by the true God”[16]. In fact, young people accept God’s presence if they rationaly understand His works, because their everyday formation happens in the world which we presented, a world that feeds their wish to compare themselves with those who are on a high level on the material

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy achieving scale, regardless of the manner and the means that those people have used to get there. With all these temptations, the young people’s ability to perceive faith and values is large enough that once activated it becomes stronger. The young must accept the authority of faith and to see that in Him there is a ”quarrel with the authority”, which upsets Him. This is why they often dispute it, considering themselves able to build an independent lifestyle and a way of living. However, towards the end of their youth, the young look for the ideal authority, which would give them security and peace. However, this authority must not have anything that might deceive their hopes of moral and spiritual fulfillment. ”It must intactly possess the true and ideal symbol, the ideal after which the young can build their personality”[17].

IV. THE ACTIVE IMPLICATION OF YOUNG PEOPLE IN THE LITURGICAL LIFE OF THE CHURCH In the conditions of contemporary life, the young people must feel active and useful in the life of the Church. The transition from the minimal theory and practice enherited in the family or at the hour of religion is made as a natural consequence which has to be realised between family, the professor of religion and the Church. Where this habbit misses, the professor of religion interferes through the practical classes of religion, which he should have in the teaching curriculum for the practical formation of the student in matters of faith. If these two attitudes of the institutions of theoretical-practical formation of young people, family and school, conscientiously fulfill their role, the Church, with its status as a divine – human institution, which unites through work the heaven and earth, has to consciously fulfil the effort of the two nurseries of religious training. Thus, all social- missionary activities must be a means of collaboration with its members because they are their practitioners and recipients according to their needs they have in time. The stages that the Church forms in relation with its believers, especially with the young ones, should incorporate a logical sequence of their development.

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A. The confession It is the time when the priest really enters into the intimacy of the one who comes with repentance to confess the mistakes, with humiliation and determination that he/she will not commit them again. If by the age of 7, the church decided to offer the children the Sacrament of the Eucharist without a previously confession, after this age they have to confess their mistakes regardless of their severity. The spiritual and intellectual qualities of the confessor offer to the young man/woman who comes to confess the spiritual comfort needed to be able to confess the mistakes without inhibition and repentance. ”The trust that a priest can inspire, not only by the authority of his grace, but also by a clear personal competence, is a real objective condition not only to support this essential virtue to salvation, but also to determine or detach it into the soul the one who comes to redress”[18].

A proper confession, both in the attitude of the priest and in the sincerity of the repentant, will create a close spiritual relationship that will serve as an essential foundation for other involvements in the liturgical life of the Church.

B. The participation in the social activities and cultural religious life of the Church Young people need extra-curricular activities to distract them from the automatisms offered by society and to make them believe themselves useful for society. The church can provide such activities through various social and cultural initiatives. The voluntary work, which takes place in different social places that are organized around the church, can train the young people from all age groups.

On these occasions, the daily program includes besides the activities that are developped for the initially purposed goal and for the special moments of liturgical manifestation: the prayer before eating, the prayer before starting work, the participation in various services done during the week and during the Divine Liturgy. This participation can be an active one, by recitating prayers, either by singing, rehearsals being made for this skill. How can such youth groups be organized? Through various means to attract them. Among the tools that are applied ”outside the walls of the church”[19], we mention ”the mission through the members of the group

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology (human to human discussion), pastoral visits, meetings and television programs, radio, invitations, reports in the local press”, and ”the spiritual network support”[20]. Of those which happen ”intra muros” we mention: the religious services, the catechesis, the exhortation and the interpersonal discussions.

The messages that we address in all these activities must be the result of approaching some topics of general interest, which concern the young people today, namely: friendship, marriage, the profession, the use of modern techniques, etc. Another interesting action that can be practically implemented is the organization of services by young people for young people, services that can be celebrated with the personal involvement of young people and do not require special theological training or special musical qualities (Akathists, Paraklesis, all-night vigil etc.). The organization of such pilgrimages and thematic tours also offer an effective opportunity for the youth involvement in the liturgical life of the Church, because during these activities there are also moments of active participation in the ecclesial objectives of the visited services. These moments celebrate the young peoples’ occasion to enrich the religious or historical knowledge and to know and maybe to discover the confessor they need, because they are waiting for ”the good teacher” to guide their souls to the kingdom of God[21].

CONCLUSIONS The church, following the example of our Savior Jesus Christ who came into the world and to reconcile man with God, through His sacrifice on the cross, gave him all necessary means to become a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Since birth, every person participates in the liturgical life of the Church, first as a recipient of the sacraments necessary for salvation and then as an active member as a volunteer involving in all the activities that take place in the life of the cult.

In modern times it takes a special approach by the Church to determine the place and role of the young generation in its liturgical life. Thus, we consider that the Church must continue and develop religious education that young people receive in the two fundamental institutions of

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the society: family and school, by determining the youth to actively participate in social, cultural and liturgical activities held by it. The priest is the most important mobilizing factor, because he makes the real connection between the grace he receives, between man and God, especially in the Sacrament of Confession. The power of the personal example and of the word (in preaching and catechesis) can emotionally mobilize young people, convincing them that one of the roles they have to play in their lives is also the active participation in the liturgical life of the Church, whose members they are.

References [1] Ioannis V. Kokulis, ”The Christianization” of the

students (Îmbisericirea elevilor), Deisis Publishing Company, Sibiu, 2012, p. 24.

[2] Euchologion (Molitfelnic) (a principal liturgical book used in the Orthodox Church on Sundays and feasts) the book of offices in the Greek Church, containing the liturgy, sacraments, and forms of prayers, Bucharest, 2013, p. 93.

[3] Ibidem, p. 13.

[4] Ibidem.

[5] Ibidem, p. 15.

[6] Ibidem, pp. 16 - 17.

[7] Ibidem, p. 19.

[8] Ibidem, pp. 23 - 24.

[9] Vasile Băncilă, The religios initiation of the child (Iniţierea religioasă a copilului), Anastasia Express Publishing, Bucharest, 1996, p. 67.

[10] Ioannis V. Kokulis, ”The Christianization”.... (Îmbisericirea ...), op. cit.,p. 243.

[11] See also Pr. Maxim Kozlov, The family, the last bastion. Answers to the questions of the young( Familia, ultimul bastion. Răspunsuri la întrebări ale tinerilor)., pp. 237- 275, Sofia Express Publishing, Bucharesti, 2009.

[12] Antonie Plămădeală, The priest in the Church, in the world and in the home (Preotul în Biserică, în lume, acasă), Sibiu, 1996, p. 127.

[13] Ioannis V. Kokulis, ”The Christianization”.... (Îmbisericirea...),op. cit., p. 101.

[14] Ibidem, p. 102 - 103.

[15] Ibidem, p. 113.

[16] Prof. conf. univ. Constantin Necula, Pr. lect. univ.

Mihai Iosu, The young and the temptation of the

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy modern days (Tinerii şi ispitele modernismului), Agnos Express Publishing, Sibiu, 2008, p. 39.

[17] Pr. prof. Dumitru Călugăr, Catechesis. Coursebook for Theology Universities (Catehetica. Manual pentru Facultăţile de Teologie), Renaşterea Express Publishing, Cluj Napoca, 2002, p. 123.

[18] Pr. Petre Vintilescu, The confession and the spirituality (Spovedania şi duhovnicia), Alba Iulia, 1995, p. 49.

[19] Centrul de Studiu de Teologie Aplicată al Mitropoliei Olteniei, The youth and Church (Tinerii şi Biserica), Mitropoliei Olteniei, Craiova, 2007, p. 83.

[20] Ibidem.

[21] Arhimandrit Vasilos Bacoianis, The father and the confession (Duhovnicul şi spovedania), Tabor, Bucharest, 2012, p. 81.

Bibliography 1. Bacoianis, Arhimandrit Vasilos, The father and the confession (Duhovnicul şi spovedania), Tabor , București, 2012.

2. Băncilă, Vasile, The religios initiation of the child (Iniţierea religioasă a copilului), Anastasia Express Publishing, București, 1996.

3. Călugăr, Pr. prof. Dumitru, Catechesis, Coursebook for Theology Universities (Catehetica, Manual pentru Facultăţile de Teologie), Renaşterea Express Publishing, Cluj Napoca, 2002.

4. Centrul de Studiu de Teologie Aplicată al Mitropoliei Olteniei, The youth and Church (Tinerii şi Biserica), Mitropoliei Olteniei, Craiova, 2007.

5. Kokulis, Ioannis V., ”The Christianization” of the students (Îmbisericirea elevilor), Deisis Publishing Company, Sibiu, 2012.

6. Kozlov, Pr. Maxim, The family, the last bastion.

Answers to the questions of the young (Familia, ultimul bastion. Răspunsuri la întrebări ale tinerilor)., pp. 237275, Sofia Express Publishing, București, 2009.

7.

Euchologion (Molitfelnic), Editura I.B.M.B.O.R.,Bucharest, 2013.

8. Necula, Prof. conf. univ. Constantin, and Pr. lect. univ. Mihai Iosu, The young and the temptation of the modern days (Tinerii şi ispitele modernismului), Agnos Express Publishing, Sibiu, 2008.

9. Plămădeală, Antonie, The priest in the Church, in the world and in the home (Preotul în Biserică, în lume, acasă)., Tiparul Tipografiei Eparhiale Sibiu, Sibiu,

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1996.

10. Vintilescu, Pr. Petre, The confession and the spirituality (Spovedania şi duhovnicia), Renasterea Express Publishing,, Alba Iulia, 1995.

BIOGRAPHY Iulian Isbasoiu was born in Mizil, Romania, on the 22nd of July, 1966. He graduated the Theological Seminary of Buzau in 1993, the Faculty of Theology at the University of Bucharest, where he finished his BA in liturgical theological studies in 1993. He graduated the University of Catholic Theology of “Marc Bloch” University of Strasbourg and received the title of Doctor in Theology with the doctoral thesis: “Culte et religion populaire dans l`Eglise Orthodoxe. Le mariage chez les Roumains Orthodoxes a l`aube du XXI-e siecle”.

He worked as a teacher at the Theological Seminary and as a cultural adviser at the Archiepiscopacy of Tomis. At present he works as a priest at ”Saint John the Baptist” church in Constanta and as an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Theology of the Ovidius University of Constanta. Among his publications, the most remarkable are: „Culte et religion populaire dans l`Eglise Orthodoxe. Le mariage chez les Roumains Orthodoxes a l`aube du XXI-e siecle”, French ed.

Vasiliana, Iaşi, 2008; “The implementation challenges of the Bologna process in theological orthodox university education in Romania – the dialogue between church and state”, International Scientific Conferences on Social Sciences & Arts, Albena, Bulgaria, 3-9th September 2014, vol. III Psychology, psychiatry, sociology, healthcare education, pp. 913-925; ”Church architecture in the Romanian orthodox church.

Romanian architectural church styles”, International Scientific Conferences on Social Sciences & Arts, Albena, Bulgaria, 3-9th September 2014, vol. History of arts, contemporany arts, performing arts, visual arts, architecture, design, pp. 577-585; “The Personality of the Saintly Prince Constatin Brâncoveanu as Revealed in the Prefaces of the Books Printed in his Age” in International Journal of Cross-Cultural Studies and Environmental Communication. Special Issue “Constantin Brâncoveanu’s Legacy from CrossCultural Perspectives”, 2015. Coordinators Florentina Nicolae and Nicoleta Stanca. Editura Universitara & ADI Publication. pp. 39-48.

Assist. Prof. Dr. Iulian Isbasoiu currently works within the church as a priest and at the university as an Assistant Professor.

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Ludic role of religious rituals The use of play for religious ceremony

Cosmin Tudor CIOCAN, PhD Department of Theology Ovidius University of Constanta Constanța, Romania cosmin.ciocan@univ-ovidius.ro

Abstract: This paper was made as part of a wider research I made about rituals and their meaning and roles they are playing in the religious system of thinking. The way they are thought, displayed, precisely followed as instructed and believed, makes them a powerful social act that has been always provided by any religion, and also a tool for religion to make the human society what it is today. After I speak about what is a ritual and its religious content in general, I am enumerating roles and functions of play and theatre in particular have, both for profane and religious purpose.

Do we still use play/games as adults because they are rewarding, they give us pleasure? They are used as means of relaxation, or for continuing the age of childhood; or it is in our nature to play games in everything we do? In this paper I have emphasized play as adaptive potentiation or adaptive variability useful both in therapy, as in religious ceremony. The relation and comparison of rituals with play is due to the fact that playing is the most engaging behavior performed by man and animals, and it can be found as foundation of almost any ritualist activity.

Keywords: play, games, function, education, healing, role-play, ceremony, therapy, misconceptions,

childhood

I. INTRODUCTION: PLAY AND RITUAL AS MEANS OF ALTERING REALITY Role play and religion have many things in common – both build on reinterpreting reality with clear rules and rituals with the same effect on people, to make them believe reality can be changed through inner vision.

I cannot help myself noticing that very often the religious ceremony is compared with a (theatrical) play, and that, in many cases, is said in a pejorative way. And since I must gave an answer to these “challenges” without abdicate from my role as religious minister, I had to wonder myself whether these claims are somewhat true without necessarily having something bad, dishonorable in them, and so I have got making up the material presented here in full.

What are the implications of the ludic, especially in relation to ritual? The parallel between these two methods of putting reality in role, allows for simultaneity when people are dealing with several ways of classifying reality, which demands comparison of those alternatives. The ritual itself must be understood

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th e Dia l o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and T heology in its double perspective with normal reality. Why is that? First of all, because ritualistic actors act inside “this world”, but speak as they descend from “another” one. “As soon as people start playing schemes, developing another reality, as happens in ritual, the aptitude for simultaneity is indispensable”[1].

Nowadays, under the pressure of globalization and secularism, people are impelled to recognize as “real” only what can be experimented, therefore religious rituals had to deal with this challenge and stress on its experimental function, and play role can be one of the main means of doing it. Seeing the specific pattern every religious ritual has, some scholars consider it as rigid and inappropriate to experiment; “the ritual schemes are usually applied in a routine manner, which might give the impression that nobody is aware of the meaning of the symbols used and that they are reduced to their schematic minimal skeleton” [2]. In the same time any game, beyond its seen aspect of entertainment, has the same scheme/routine as ritual, with rules and applicability as ritual has, and this gave us one more justification to reconsider the relationship between them. Because “the minimal nature of schemes allows for their creative application” [3], ritual can serve all kind of functions, but “people repeat rituals because they offer diversion and satisfaction through the playful creation of a relevant alternative reality” [4]. Victor Turner consider that the human ludic capacity is a modus “to catch symbols in their movement, so to speak, and to play with their possibilities of form and meaning” [5]. As a first conclusion, taking a look on the ludic qualities and functions, it may help us understand how ritual works, beyond its sacramental aspect.

Players in live-action-role-games decide that the stage where their role-playing-games takes place is a kingdom. Likewise the church’s parishioners share an acceptance that the bread and wine of the Holy Communion are the body and blood of Jesus [6]. But the similarities are also extended to the audience, for they choose to believe in a certain constructed reality, taking position against the ‘reality’ as we see, and trying somehow to alter it accordingly. There are several articles mentioning the similarity between role-play and rituals, more since the business of e-games is rising; they ‘felt’ somehow

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that people, especially youth, have the urge to be led by unknown forces and become a character among others sharing mutual rituals and aims. I have even saw an interesting article [7] where the authors place particular emphasis on the similarity between social information phenomena present in both ritual and pretence (delusion), and the way those affect cognition – the seemingly “magical” interface that makes shared experiences possible. This kind of studies were made from a cognitive study of religion showing that certain key phenomena in games can be modeled as patterns of information and thus examined to a deeper level than before and make this intel useful in order to create more addictive games for youth. Both, in case of play as in that of ritual, the temporary creation and enactment of an alternative reality in which they both create, by particular means and the permanent reference to elements of physical reality as their counterpoint of networking, “suggest that people temporarily turn the established repertoires of normal reality upside down or inside out, or exaggerate them” [8].

In myths, religion, and play, man “creates a second, poetic world alongside the world of nature”. The process is more elaborate and distinctive and ornate than in the case of outer world. Because of the imagination of any mythology, man comes to perform sacred rite, sacrifices, consecrations and mysteries, all of which serve to guarantee the well-being of the world, in a spirit of pure play truly understood” [9]. Mostly any religion states that their rituals have effect exclusively on those who “believe” in the power (reality) of them (the positive explanation) and (negatively) tell that no curse can harm you if you do not believe in it also.

That’s why the changing to well-being of the world – as adherents imagine – takes place for real and effect humans not only spiritual, but also literally changing them, bodily speaking.

Not seldom we heard about people that were miraculously healed just by attending a religious ritual or get bodily-seen new aspects (e.g. brightening, stigmata, levitation, and fragrant bones). The same principle works in case of play as ludic therapy. The therapist reconstruct the world outer reality into a fiction role and put people became actors in their lives in order to handle situations and resolve problems.

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology II. THE MEANING OF RITUAL First of all we have to understand the meaning of ritual in order to comprise its roles among which I pick up here for special debates the role of play or ludic roles of religious rituals.

The meaning of ritual is deep indeed. He who tries to enter it with the kind of perception that distinguishes hard and white, same and different, will drown there – Xunzi (third century B.C.E.).

The great instinctive forces of civilized life have their origin in ritual. All are rooted in the primeval soil of play [10].

So, what is a ritual? According to the Oxford Dictionary of World Religions [11] any ritual, either for religious or secular, profane context, is defined as “actions repeated in regular and predictable ways, both in religious and secular contexts, serving so many purposes that summary is impossible” [12]. At a first sight rituals have several elements that recurring every time, making them the core principles of them. “Religious rituals is usually thought to comprise repetition, commitment, intention, pattern (especially of movements), tradition (often by linkage with myth is regarded by some as supplying the meaning of the ritual), purpose, and performance” [13]. Not seldom public ritual was associated with social drama, which lead unsurprising to the origin of theatre in religious rituals. The association of religious ritual with civil, secular human activities leads to restauration of the former and it’s origination in the later. Thus, rituals were thought as emerging from play [14] and from theatre, or from other activities that imply repetition and pattern (e.g. ploughing and sowing – J. Frazer; expressing collective consciousness – E. Durkheim). For those activities that cover strange, unknown or shadowed area of life, a need to construct surface-level meaning by the procedures of an internally coherent life-world makes ritual a step of adapting to this ‘walk in shadow’ condition (P. Ricoeur) [15]. That significance makes rituals a normal human behavior of adaptation for religion is an adaptive, spiritual response and the solution to mortality and social existence [16], first constructing an image upon what we intend to solve, than act accordingly and develop a solution that can be implemented outside the ritualistic stage.

Whether we are talking about pilgrimage,

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ancestor worship – as the ritualized commemoration of, communication with, and sacrifice to one’s deceased relations [17] –, death and dying, fasting or feasting, or about celebrating something or receiving new adepts into the community, all of these rituals’ themes and many others have the same elements getting the rituals done as appointed above. Rites of feasting and fasting are those through which a community publicly expresses an adherence to basic, shared religious values, rather than to the overt presence of deities as is found in rites of affliction [18] where feasting or fasting may also take place. It encompasses a range of performances such as communal fasting during Ramadan by Muslims; the slaughter of pigs in New Guinea; Carnival festivities; or penitential processions in Catholicism. Everything takes place in an atmosphere of ceremonial through a social agreement of the whole community to which it refers, and the actions and gestures that, from the outside, pass for unacceptable or sometimes abominable, in the social context mentioned they are more than natural, with defined roles and irreplaceable functions.

Not infrequently public rituals were associated with social drama, which unsurprisingly put the origin of theatre in religious ritual, for example in Greece, India and Japan. Along with other motifs of social drama, religious rituals played an important role in ancient theatre. But the use of rituals for public display in the theatre is not the issue for the present paper, although it is an important subject for any other debate. Instead we are interested here only on the single-sided relationship between religion and theatre, namely that the former uses all the means the later provides for religion to express itself as adequate as possible.

III. THE ROLE OF PLAY IN HUMAN DEVELOPMENT Is play so important for human (to) function?

Cannot it be replaced with anything else, something more rational and logical? We usually are inclined to consider ‘play’ as childish and superfluous, related only to the age of childhood and also a ‘thing’ we have to give up in order to evolve, to grow up and become more ‘adult’.

But, is it so? Do we need to remove ‘play’ from our life/thinking in order to become more

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Because most societies have this kind of misconceptions about ‘play’, they think that it should be done exclusively for/by children and they tend to create a lot around it with activities and behavior that are labeled as childish. “We are accustomed to think of play and seriousness as an absolute antithesis” [19]. That’s why we always define people with these kind of activities as behaving in a silly way that makes you seem much younger than you really are used to show disapproval [= immature] [20].

Whoever behaving so is treated as alienated from humanity pattern of being and impelled to behave, i.e. to act according to their age and give up childhood mode. “Men do not quit playing because they grow old; they grow old because they quit playing.” (Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.) Facing these misconceptions sometimes we hear that the only (categories of) persons that can be happy (as finding happiness) are crazypeople and children. We raise our children in this belief and inoculate them the fear of gaming, the presupposition that play/games are somehow bad, inadequate for a grown up and that they should give it all up in order to step up into the human society. “From the earliest years, children rehearsed the productive roles they would play as adults… Most adolescents followed the path their parents did. The transition from childhood play to adult work did not require any change in attitudes, values, or knowledge” [21]. Childish activities must be replaced with work and, since play is presented as opposite to work, soon (even ‘under-aged’ persons, depending from one culture to another) every child forgets his childhood and, in many societies, they will learn how to control themselves, to seek harder for career and work, to develop into a more serious young man. ‘Joking and playing won’t pay your bills’, would be a universal language spoked affectively in this regard.

Still, due to the instability of the job market, “young people no longer live in a world where adult productive roles are predictable. They have little idea of what they will actually do when they grow up, and they do not know which role models, if any, are valid. They do not know what expectations are realistic, what skills are useful, or what values are relevant to their future” [22] and usually a job for people who can entertain

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other easily, play more often or take all as a game, can be as easy to find as other ‘serious’ ones. For we also believe that, hiding deep inside us the moments of childhood play, we always came up with plans for other games; Life is a game with permanent consequences.

Why there are still games/play in the list of adults’ activities? Does they have the same purpose as for children? Some may say it doesn’t matter as long as they are present and bring the same outcome. The point is that at every age games are changing, get different look, but the target seems to be always the same: selfentertainment. However, M. Csikszentmihalyi think that this involvement of play in most adults’ activities have a different angle and it is strict related to work as a valve. Considering that “the survival needs and self-respect dictate that they (adults, n. n.) must invest the most substantial portion of their energy in productive activities…, “Thank God It’s Friday!” has become a mantra for workers in all classes who can hardly wait for the weekend to begin” [23]. So, the main point is that, while for children play is the main activity involving all their energies, reasons, goals, learning means – in a word, almost everything - , for an adult this is only used because “They give us a sense of control together with a chance to forget ourselves temporarily” [24] and only as long they are related somehow to the work we are doing. Same authors imply that, again, we dedicate ourselves to work, sometimes excessively dedicated to one’s job, and we have many other feeling related to work than exclusively payment. The very fact that we are paid is considered to come from the meaning of play. “The reason work is intrinsically rewarding is that jobs are like games” [25]. In conclusion we will find opinions that make play last over the ages of human development, sometimes making the performance of a grown-up in a play even better and more profound, more organized and determined than a child’s play.

IV. PLAY AND PRAY There are several methods by which we can transmit our knowledge to other people. The characteristics of ‘teacher’ and ‘learner’ are also important for choosing the right and most operative technic, along with the relation built among them. The depositing of religious vision

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology in people’s mind can be easily done if: people are eager to be thought, the leader is charismatic, and the information is S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Approachable, Relevant, and Timefriendly). The simple is the way of transmitting the necessary information, the faster will be assimilated and the longer it will stick in their mind and habits. This is a very summary way of describing the basic principles upon a teacher should choose his methods of teaching and carry on his vision.

It is well-known that, besides learning – that usually can become very rigid and sterile if it is not doubled with a relaxing interruption – people, from childhood to late adulthood, need to be involved into different acts of play, just for fun.

It was Friedrich Fröbel’s [26] merit to combine these two ‘different’ types of activities into a single, more productive, more enjoyable one.

According to proponents of the concept, play enables children to make sense of their world.

“The game is a mirror of life, their own and of another’s, of inner life and that surrounding” [27].

A. Functions of Play Play is often defined as activity done for its own sake, characterized by means rather than ends (the process is more important than any end point or goal), flexibility (objects are put in new combinations or roles are acted out in new ways), and positive affect (children often smile, laugh, and say they enjoy it). The goal of ‘play’ is often thought to be exclusively done for amusement rather than for work. These criteria contrast play with exploration (focused investigation as a child gets more familiar with a new toy or environment, that may then lead into play), work (which has a definite goal), and games (more organized activities in which there is some goal, typically winning the game). [28] But play is likely to be multifunctional. That is, it may have more than one adaptive benefit, and any given species may evidence some, all, or none of the benefits. This being the case, crossspecies comparisons can be troublesome. What may appear a promising explanation in one species may not be replicable in another. Even if Burghardt’s [29] psychological theory (Surplus Resource Theory, SRT) presents negatively some of the functions that play have over the

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personality of any child involved in such kind of activities, I still want to emphasis them here, considering that the negative perspective is not so ‘negative’ after all, at least concerning its applicability on religious ritual.

B. A better way of transmitting information The game is a voluntary activity that produces joy and satisfaction of participants.

By extension, the game is a parallel world, fantastic (not necessarily unreal [30]), in which the participant can interpret any desired role, in a story imagined by himself or by the group of participants. If in physical life we cannot detach ourselves from the limits and restrictions of the environment and our own, in the game – in the psychological, mental world – we can imagine the that we have any skill we want, can become any character we want and try any approach suits us – this is the fundamental approach of psychoanalysis entrusted to playful therapy.

“In the plan of religious experience sacred indicates the real, but a real compelling us to come out of contingencies and our particularism towards paradigmatic” [31]. In a pragmatic approach of life, the reality of the game, and consequently one of sacred, are designed to absorb inaccuracies and deficiencies of physical reality, to solve them and to provide appropriate solutions in favor of both realities, without compromise and the neuralgias that would occur when the solution came directly, in the physical world, often accompanied by failures.

At the same time play has considerable advantages over those involved in the game against the systematic teaching method. It is interactive so that without knowing from the beginning all the information boring the game relies on, participants can start to play and, as they grow and accumulate new information, they develop and play better on, developing even their own episodes / upper levels of the game when they master the rules and can juggle with them doing all sorts of variations on the same theme by combining and recombination sequence without departing from the idea of the game. There are games that have these effects on participants and that captivates so hard that sometimes participants become inpatient to evolve to the next level. Another advantage game has to the systematic learning is that

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy through game, participants better aware of what they do, understand easier and better how the game works and they contribute to complete it or carry it forward. The game is important part of the child’s intellectual development, but also for the proper development of the adult. Johan Huizinga titled his book Homo Ludens [32] and argued that play was a defining human characteristic. Play, he contended, is the driving force in the evolution of civilization; he introduces the game as cultural phenomenon and not - or not primarily - as a biological function. Also for Friedrich Schiller 1967, play is the activity that allows humans to realize their highest aspirations and ideals [33].

For his portrayal in a game the participant appeals to figurative – imaginary or physical – representations that play different roles and functions in the management of the game.

These objects / characters can be evoked even mentally, in their physical absence. As he plays, the participant accumulates lots of new knowledge and he diversify his mental actions.

He develop his imagination; each participant understands different the game and the role he plays along with the other in ludic framework.

C. Ludic Therapy - Healing role of ritual Emotional involvement is another feature of any game; each participant feels the urge to satisfy his need for competition and he throws into the game more and more of his resources, intellectual, emotional, physical or of other nature. This way the outcome of the game became his own result, bringing satisfaction or disappointment to the participants as the result should be real (no less real than the in physical life). Attachment to a game or a role in the game will come along with its attributes to be challenging, but also with partial positive gains / results.

Play is an effective method, along with drama, to solve real problems, either by finding solutions applicable to physical life, or even by psychological, virtual resolutions; both bring wellbeing of participants, comfort required to overcoming emotional blockages encountered in life or in the game. It also helps to increase the adaptability in the facing emerging new circumstances. Through play, many participants learn and develop collective sentiments that

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otherwise would not have how to gain; they learn respect for neighbors, learn to be grateful and also responsible the relation with others. I have met at some point a situation linked to art area that could give us a comparative idea of how people choose their religion as well as how religion may be lead to failure. Generally, people tend to approach with a critical, disapproving attitude other religions when they considered themselves “clarified” through their own experience, and so they say that the appointed religious vision does not work for them, even if they haven’t try it at all. This opinion, entirely subjective, it is normal and justified up to a point.

Looking at a time for an instructor of guitar for my son, I wanted - as any other parent would do - what’s best for him, so I turned - as it was “normal” - to the experiences of others and we have reached to a famous instructor with many results and performing students. But, to our great disappointment, his teaching methods were unable to persuade the boy to make any progress, not to mention to excel in the field.

We continued for some time thinking logically that if the praised instructor had so many great results, we should insist and maybe finally he will succeed with our son too. But unfortunately, this logic was not applicable because the method did not work out, on the contrary, it brings him more close to reluctance for the instrument than to results or satisfaction. Accidentally, the child was enthralled into a camp by an older boy who knew how to play the guitar and he taught in a few days everything that he knew, not much, but enough to build his confidence and passion playing the guitar.

This experience came into my mind when trying to fit some facts that were opposing one to another, although they were all valid: on the one hand, there are plenty of diverse religions, each with visible results on spiritual improving on some of their adherents, and on the other hand things that do not work as that for many others so, disappointed with the failure that a particular religion had over their lives, they slander it calling it sterile and untrue. The answer may lie precisely in a pluralist approach of the earlier example: perhaps there isn’t only one instructor with one valid method for everyone and that, what had really good results for some, will fail on the spirit of others who, rather than abandon the project, should search for another instructor (religion).

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology There are several reasons for play is the best method of learning. Age young, inexperienced, abstract knowledge, vocabulary cumbersome... these are just some of the reasons why many educators prefer this method to direct learning.

In many of these cases learning is done only if dressed in a playful form. Participants can easier store knowledge and concepts that otherwise would not be fixed; they will start to imitate behaviors and will gain faster psychological experiences as skills, that normally would require a longer time for fixing. Interaction with other partners during play produce, in addition to entertainment and comfort, also social abilities, of communication, feeling of belonging to the group involved directly or indirectly. Greater cohesion among group members, developed during a game or of mounting a theater play, is often used as target in circumstances of conflict of some social categories (schools, prisons, companies, etc.). By using these playful methods the conflicting parties are posted in direct contact and made to manage new situations, different from the reason of their conflict, in order to create a state of dependency between partners. We will be amazed to see what unexpected changes are made role during play compared to the social roles (statuses) possessed in fact by the participants.

Both play and theatre have been used in therapy as we have already mentioned about psychodrama, for healing is forever regarded in the recognition of mind/body/spirit connection, therefore healing should be first done at spiritual level, so that healing in spirit would take effect healing the body. “Primitive peoples evolved rituals to express the fundamentals of human life, following the cycles that are intrinsic within life forms, in order to bring about resolution and thus healing - this may be a healing of tribe, healing of a family, healing of a disease or resolving of threats to the tribe’s survival. Theatre expressed through a dramatic form themes that were pertinent to each era.

The audience is carried on an emotional journey, and given the opportunity to experience many things, and comes away feeling they have lived through these events vicariously and thus experienced the effects of the catharsis, with a sense of being uplifted or liberated.” [34] For the purpose of understanding why

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theatre and ritual are used for healing, we have to see what healing is in the first place. Healing is a process of slowly coming back into alignment with the innate and unifying wisdom of a cosmic evolutionary plan, and ritual has its role to play in this process. Spiritual healing involves a dialog between unconscious part of the patient with his consciousness, a kind of conversation in which he acknowledge the regressed state of ‘wealth’ he is in and the need for a cure. In short, in any case of healing it is a base rule, a sine-quanon condition for the patient to acknowledge his illness and to look for a cure. “When a person successfully participates in sacred ritual, she promotes healing by requesting and drawing down sufficient light energy from her higher self (the numinous self) and/or her superconscious (the psychological respond) to illuminate those negative energetic patterns which are the focus of desired change” [35]. The process of healing is difficult and time-consuming, but when we cannot appeal to something else, play / ritual is the best chance we have to overcome the situations from physical life. How play help alter reality in the benefit of participants? Placed firmly in the ritual’s interval discourse and seen through the participants’ ‘inner eye’, this reality becomes shared through religious actors’ performances and, most important, through narratives of the journeys that transpose participants into different reality and transform them from simple, passive spectators, into active witnesses and participants, translated by the transformations their bodies, minds and lives suffer insofar through the changes of their consciousness.

CONCLUSION: LUDIC ROLE OF RELIGIOUS RITUALS It is easy to see that almost all religious manifestations use pictures and visual representations of their faith or something related to it. However, alongside this universal imagining, any religion contains ceremonies structured so that they contain essential elements of religious belief - among other elements. Inside the game of ritual, participants change their social roles and become something else. The new role they gain is also implied by the healing aim of ritual. For example, in the case of St. John the Baptist and the governor

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy Herod Antipater that led to the executions of the former. In their worldly life, the master was the governor, but beginning their religious play-role, the one that scold and rebuke was St. John, however the governor has not accepted permanently the game and his leaving the game led subsequently to John’s death.

The parallel approach of these two ways of interpreting the reality help us rehabilitate the use and importance of the contested term of ritual, because the ludic represents a way in which ritual acts beyond those aspects it is normally reduced to (e.g. societal or cultural causes or functions, subjecting the masses through the power of influence, ‘opium to the people’, etc.).

We saw that, by far, the most relevant aspect of this relationship, play and pray, that should be accepted even in the secular world, is the healing role of ritual. As play is frequently used in therapy, so should ritual be ‘used’ with the same goal, as it is for other purposes. We can research for this role in the incipient birth of any ritual, for they have this ontology of ‘soul retrieval’, “blurring the line between spirituality and psychotherapy and perceiving the quest towards the divine as indistinguishable form of self-development” [36]. Compared to the reality of everyday life, other realities provided by rituals and play appear as endless deposits of meaning and vast ways of experience without the danger lived in the unknown course of physical life, and consciousness always returns to the paramount reality as from a dream. The symbolic universe of ritual/play establishes a different hierarchy from the everyday life that “the individual can live in society with some assurance that he really is what he considers himself to be as he plays his routine social roles, in broad daylight and under the eyes of significant others” [37].

REFERENCES [1] Don Handelman, Galina Lindquist (edit.). Ritual

in its own right: Exploring the Dynamics of Transformation. NY: Berghahn Books, 2005, p.

152.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid, p. 153.

[4] Andre Droogers, “Enjoying an Emerging Alternative World. Ritual in Its own Ludic Right”, in Don Handelman, Ritual in its own right…, 2005,

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p. 139.

[5] Victor Turner, From ritual to theatre: the human

seriousness of play. Michigan: Performing Arts Journal Publications, 1982, 23.

[6] Rasmus Karkov, “Role playing and religion function identically”, Published on ScienceNordic (http://sciencenordic.com), May 22, 2012. http:// sciencenordic.com/role-playing-and-religionfunction-identically (accessed 9/24/2015).

[7] J. Tuomas Harviainen and Andreas Lieberoth, “Similarity of Social Information Processes in Games and Rituals: Magical Interfaces”, in Simulation & Gaming, August 2012, 43: 528-549.

DOI: 10.1177/1046878110392703 [8] Andre Droogers, Play and Powers in Religion: Collected Essays. Berlin & Boston: De Gruyter, 2012, p. 123.

[9] J. Huizinga, Homo Ludens. A Study of the PlayElement in Culture. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980, p. 5.

[10] Ibid.

[11] John Bowker (edit.). The Oxford Dictionary of World Religions. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 819.

[12] J. Bowker, The Oxford Dictionary, p. 819.

[13] Ibid.

[14] J. Huizinga, Homo Ludens, p. 16.

[15] J. Bowker, The Oxford Dictionary, p 820.

[16] Richard Sosis and Candace Alcorta, “Signaling, solidarity, and the sacred: The evolution of religious behavior”, in Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews, Volume 12, Issue 6, Pages 247–283.

[17] Jeffrey Richey, “Rites and Ceremonies”. Article published at: http://www.patheos.com/Library/ C o n f u c i a n i s m / R i t u a l - Wo r s h i p - D e v o t i o n Symbolism/Rites-and-Ceremonies.html.

[18] Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 115. Rites of affliction seek to mitigate the influence of spirits thought to be afflicting human beings with misfortune [19] Huizinga, Homo ludens, p. 18.

[20] Definition in Longman Dictionary; http://www. ldoceonline.com/dictionary/childish.

[21] Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Barbara Schneider.

Becoming adult: how teenagers prepare for the world of work. New York: Basic Books, 2000, p.

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology 23.

[31] Aurel Codoban, Introducere în Filosofie, ed. a

[22] Ibid, p. 24.

[23] Ibid, p. 34.

[24] Ibid, p. 32.

[25] Ibid.

[26] Friedrich Wilhelm August Fröbel (1782-1852) cf.

Constantin Cucoş, Istoria pedagogiei, Iaşi: Editura Polirom, 2001.

[27] Stoian Stanciu (edit.), Din istoria gândirii pedagogiei universale, Bucureşti: Editura de Stat Didactică şi Pedagogică, 1959, p. 298.

[28] Anthony Pellegrini & Peter K. Smith, Learning Through Play. In “Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development”, june 2013. Online source: http:// www.child-encyclopedia.com/Pages/PDF/SmithPellegriniANGxp2.pdf (accessed 8/31/2015).

[29] Gordon M. Burghardt, The genesis of animal play: Testing the limits. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2005, p. 165-8 et al.

[30] We do not use here the word unreal because we would have to define what is real, or, in the words of Plato and Cartesian cogito, real is everything that exists in one form or another, and thus those in our minds too. With modernity the philosophy discovers that what is real is relative to what can be known and psychological sciences prints the character of this “real” to all human feelings and imagination, showing once again that the philosophy centered on the activity of the subject, not upon the object (as was the case empiricists Bacon, Hobbes, Locke or Hume) is entitled to assert the realism of what is thought not only what falls under contingency of senses.

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III-a, nepublicată. http://comunicare.codoban.ro/ if.pdf, p. 82.

[32] Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens. A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980.

[33] Online resource: [34] Claire Schrader (edit.), Ritual Theatre: The Power of Dramatic Ritual in Personal Development Groups and Clinical Practice. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2012, p. 33.

[35] Ibid, p. 73.

[36] Don Handelman, Ritual in its own right…, 2005, p. 153.

[37] Berger Peter L. & Luckmann Thomas. The Social Construction of Reality; a Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1991, p.

118.

Biography Ciocan Tudor Cosmin, born in Constanta/ Romania in 1977, I have attended several theological and psychological schools (BA, MB, PhD), obtained my PhD in Missiology and Doctrinal Theology in 2010. I was ordained as orthodox priest in 2002. High-school teacher from 1998, then Professor assistant and Lecturer from 2012, I have written more than 30 papers on theology and psychology, along with 4 single author books in the past two decades.

In 2013 started a multidisciplinary program aiming to engage scholars from different files into friendly and academic debates with theology and in the same year a Research Center was founded in Ovidius University with researchers from 11 fields. in lest then 1 year I manage to gather people from around the globe around this idea and so we have started Dialogo Conferences project. In 2014 I received a Fulbright scholarship and I spent the summer California and 4 other States in USA, gathering data and understanding how religious pluralism is possible at a high level of involvement; in the same time I made friends from many different countries and religions that are now involved in this project or another, helping in his endeavor.

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Approaching the relationship between religion and science through language games Daniela Stănciulescu, PhD

Department of of Law and Public Administration ”Spiru Haret” University Craiova, Romania danastanciulescu@yahoo.fr

Abstract: Generally, applying Wittgenstein phrase “language games” into the science and religion relationship, reflects the futility of attempting to identify the truth beyond linguistic communities in which each of them takes part. Starting from the idea that through semantic assumption of some concepts, specific to a particular language game by another language game, the principles of comprehension can be violated, the postmodernist thinkers consider necessary the compartmentalization of the two types of discourses, scientific and religious. Therefore, the statements should be regarded as moves in a game.

Each category of utterance operate according to some rules, without which there can be no “language game” and whose change, even minor, leads to changing the whole game.

Keywords: science, language games

religion,

postmodernism,

I. INTRODUCTION Approaching the relationship between religion and science in a diachronic perspective, we see that there is a conflict situation which extends up to the modern period and reflects, to the end of a long line of disputes, the impossibility that a person could believe, at the

same time, the truth of religious propositions and the truth of scientific propositions. The prejudgements of the modernity in the face to the concept of irreversible time and the hazard start from the modern science dream to discover universal laws which works without deviations over the matter; in this perspective, the hazard is only a human helplessness image: “the new science reconsiders the role of the irreversibility and the hazards and promises to “bewitch” the world” [1].

The conflict between science and religion in the modern era takes two forms: on the one hand, the scientific materialism, on the other hand, the biblical literalism. If the biblical liberalism insists on the dogmas infallibility, the scientific materialism, starting at the idea that the matter is the fundamental reality of the world, claims that the possibility of knowledge can only depend on the scientific method. In modernity, as shown by Lyotard, the legitimacy of knowledge would depend on the fulfillment of three conditions: 1. everything is derived from the scientific activity, which is the original principle; 2. everything is related to an ideal which rules

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology the social and moral practice;

language.

3. the scientific work and the ideal are synthesized in a legitimate subject, or a metasubject “which formulates both the legitimacy of the empirical science discourses and the immediate institution of popular cultures” [2].

Therefore, accepting that science and religion relate to distinct realities, to resolve the ancestral conflict it would be necessary to replace that old relationship. In the contemporary period, the new relationship, if not a friendly one, may be at least non-confrontational.

In such a context, we note that the religious beliefs and the scientific activities exist in parallel planes and are hostile to another.

But in his famous work, The Postmodern Condition, Lyotard shows that it is possible to have a peaceful discourse about the relationship between religion and science.

Thus, shows Lyotard, if in the modernity the narrative knowledge, incorporating the religious knowledge, lies in a conflicting relationship with the science, in the postmodern period the relations between the two types of knowledge is no more antithetical. This is because, along with the modification of the attitudes towards the knowledge, specific to the contemporary period, we talk about language games, local determinism, performance, difference, lean thinking, etc. Moreover, we can say, according to Lyotard, “that in the last forty years the object of leading science and techniques is the language” [3].

The thesis of the two different languages can help us to understand the diversity of religious discourse functions. The religion is a way of life, not just a set of ideas and beliefs. But the religious practice of a community, including the worship and moral rules, requires distinct beliefs [7].

II. Semantics, „language games” and the relationship between science and religion Applying the Wittgenstein’s famous phrase “language games” in the relationship between science and religion, we generally arrive at the futility of trying to identify the truth outside language games in which each of the two part.

Following this direction, “science and religion, although foreign to one another, can coexist, if each maintains a considerable distance from each other” [4]. Thus “the scientific and religious thesis aren’t some objective descriptions of reality, but merely social constructs, reflecting the local cultural values and therefore there can not be established among them any relationships, abstract or general [5]. In other words, the scientific language becomes a simple language game like any other language and therefore “no regulatory vocation” [6] of other language games, such as the aesthetic or the practical one. The same for the religious

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From this point of view, statements must be considered as movements in a game [8]. Each category of utterances operates according to same rules, without which there can be no “language game” and therefore the modification, even minor, leads to the change of the entire game. These rules “can not find the legitimity in themselves, but are the subject to an explicit or not agreement between players” [9].

If, by semantic assumption of some concepts specific to a particular language game from another language game can be violated the principles of the comprehension (this may be the case of the syllogistic formulation of religious knowledge, and also the approach of the scientific discourse by mystical methods), by the separation of the two types of speech it will dissolve any misunderstanding.

In favor of the separation of the scientific assertions from the theological ones, there will be useful to consider the following distinctions operated by Langdon Gilkey: 1. The science seeks to explain datas, reproducible and known objectives. The religion wonders on the order and beauty of the world, as well as on our inner self experiences; 2. The science questions about “how” things happen, the religion asks “why”, in a personal way, about the meaning and purpose of our origins and our ultimate destiny; 3. The authority of the science is based on logical consistency and experimental verification.

In religion, the ultimate authority validated in our

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy knowledge comes from God and by revelation, through the medium of some persons whom have been granted the enlightenment, and so the required discernment; 4. The science produces quantitative predictions that can be experimentally tested. The religion must resort to symbolic and analogical language, because God is transcendent [10].

Therefore, considering the religion and the science as two distinct language games, which operates under totally different rules, the religion-science conflict would be as such dissolved.

Furthermore, the scientific and religious arguments reveal the existence of two forms of non-competing languages, because their roles in human life are completely divergent, answering to different questions. Science asks about how things work and dealing with objective facts, while the religion is interested by moral values and the ultimate meaning of existence [11].

Thanks to these postmodern theories, the religious and scientific beliefs are no longer in a relation of antagonism, once giving up the idea of reason “centered on the subject”; the antipositivist nuance of the postkuhnian scientific philosophy in combination with postheideggerien theologians ideas, would permit the approach of the intellectual persons to the concept of William James which affirms that “the natural science and the religion need not compete with each other” [12].

We find these considerations in some postmodern approaches aimed at non-conflicting raports between religion and science. Also, we found in postmodernism a “weak” variant of interdependence thesis, namely that “the two types of questions provide complementary perspectives on the world, which are not mutually exclusive. The conflict arises only when we ignore the differences – that is to say, when the exponents of the religion proclaim scientific opinions or when the scientists out of their domain promote naturalistic philosophies” [13].

In a theological context, this approach is adopted by the Reformed epistemology adepts, adherents of Wittgenstein’s language games theory, who believe that by accepting the

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crisis of the epistemological delegitimisation, the religious discourse could be possibly reconsidered in its relationship with the science, provided that acceptance of the differences occurred at the games language. The religious language arises in this interpretation, from the practice of religion in the community.

Each “language game” is distinguished by how it is used in a particular social context.

The science and the religion play completely different roles, so one criteria for one can not serve to judge the other. The scientific language is used, above all, for the purpose of the prediction and the control. A theory is a useful tool for data synthesis, the correlation of the regularities of the observable phenomena and the production of technological applications.

The science have rigorously defined questions about natural phenomena. We can not expect it to perform tasks for which it was intended, such as proposing a general vision of the world, a philosophy of life or a set of ethical rules [14].

III. The „independence thesis” and „language games” The thesis of the independence of the two languages is supported in philosophy, as shown

by Barbour, with instrumentalism. From this perspective, the scientific theories are mere intellectual and practical tools within which it assembles the scientific observations and it made predictions: The scientific models are not models of the world, but convenient fictions that, having served to structure theories that allow the results prediction, can be ignored. The instrumentalism adepts are generally pragmatic persons, judging the validity of a sentence based on its usefulness for human life and not by correspondence with the observable reality [15].

Even when the religious language is approached from the same instrumentalist angle, namely as a human construct necessary to achieve some spiritual and moral purposes, then any attempt to build a relationship between religion and science falls apart on its own.

Generally, the independence thesis stresses the differences between religious and scientific discourses. As noted by Aurel Codoban, “the

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology idea that the current scientific knowledge suggest as a model of legitimisation the one of differenciation defined as paralogy, and which requires that the emphasis be placed from now on disagreement and not consensus, is a profoundly postmodern fact” [16].

It is therefore possible to talk about religious language failing the world to which it relate?

Some say that, as long as we can talk about electrons or curved spacetime, within a scientific language, why it would it be unacceptable to talk about another kind of non observable realities, such as God or angels or spirit, inside a completely different kind of language, namely the religious one [17].

Moreover, if we accept the idea of language games, it is possible to conceive some rules for a higher level, as said by Leszek Kolakowski, choosing a specific language, from the plurality of possible languages?

It seems that such rules are not available.

If they would be binding, in the sense that the rules of logic are restrictive, they ought to be expressed with the help of the language, being as such thrown into an infinite regression [18].

Chosing between possible languages according to Kolakowski is the work of civilisations (not God): “however, this choice is neither arbitrary nor guided by previously acquired knowledge about the cognitive merits or the language superiority over the other; such a knowledge would require higher criteria of validity and so it can not be able to get out of the known skeptic circle. However, the choice is not arbitrary, not blind or random. It consist, in fact, in making explicit what we already know” [19]. Kolakowski suggests that everything is limited to how the experience is interpreted by different groups of individuals. Thus, Kolakowski believed, those who “hear” the call of God are different from those who “shuts its ears”, through different interpretation of experience, not by identifying some different elements of the empirical evidence. Therefore, the reality of God lies not in the faith of some believers or some thinkers, but in its approach within the religious tradition where the concept of God is used, and this is consistent with Wittgenstein’s famous phrase of “language games”, at least in its semantic usage.

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Conclusions Using some of the epistemological and semantic implications of Wittgensteinian notion of «language games», this paper argues in favor of a non-normative, anti-realist approach to the relationship between science and religion. According to the line of argumentation developed, the language games semantic permits us to redescribe the relationship between science and religion in a nonconfrontationalist way, as equally legitimated fields of the human activity, differentiated only by their goals.

REFERENCES [1] Călinescu, Matei, Cinci feţe ale modernităţii.

Modernism, avangardă, decadenţă, kitsch, postmodernism (Iaşi: Polirom, 2005), 262.

[2] Lyotard, Jean François, Condiţia postmodernă, (Cluj: Idea Design & Print, 2003), 56.

[3] Lyotard, 13.

[4] Barbour, Ian G., Când ştiinţa întâlneşte religia.

Adversare, străine sau partenere?, (Bucureşti: Curtea Veche, 2006), 14.

[5] Barbour, 19.

[6] Lyotard, Condiţia postmodernă, 63.

[7] Barbour, 44.

[8] As in chess, as exemplified Wittgenstein. And, like the chessboard, where the game involves fighting between white and black pieces, speech acts will claim a “general agonistic” (Lyotard, Condiţia postmodernă, 25).

[9] Lyotard, 24.

[10] Barbour, 38.

[11] Barbour, 15.

[12] Rorty, Richard, “Anticlericalism şi teism” in Viitorul religiei – Solidaritate, caritate, ironie, (Bucureşti: Paralela 45, 2008), 40.

[13] Barbour, 15.

[14] Barbour, 40.

[15] Barbour, 42.

[16] Codoban, Aurel, Semn şi interpretare. O introducere postmodernă în semiologie şi hermeneutică (Cluj-Napoca: Dacia, 2001), 133.

[17] One thing is certain: the two linguistic communities, religious and scientific, are, in terms of Whorf, in a hostile relationship, of opacity – in

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy a percentage (yet) quite large!

Kolakowski, Leszek, Horror metaphysicus, (Bucureşti: ALL, 1997), 75.

[19] Kolakowski, 94.

[18]

Bibliography [1] Barbour, Ian G. Când ştiinţa întâlneşte religia.

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

Adversare, străine sau partenere?. Translated by Victor Godeanu. Bucureşti: Curtea Veche, 2006.

Călinescu, Matei. Cinci feţe ale modernităţii.

Modernism, avangardă, decadenţă, kitsch, postmodernism. Translated by Tatiana Pătrulescu &Radu Ţurcanu. Iaşi: Polirom, 2005.

Codoban, Aurel. Semn şi interpretare. O introducere postmodernă în semiologie şi hermeneutică. ClujNapoca: Dacia, 2001.

Kolakowski, Leszek. Horror metaphysicus.

Translated by Germina Chiroiu. București: ALL, 1997.

Lyotard, Jean François. Condiţia postmodernă.

Translated by Ciprian Mihali. Cluj: Idea Design & Print, 2003.

Rorty, Richard. “Anticlericalism şi teism”. In Viitorul religiei – Solidaritate, caritate, ironie.

Translated by Ştefania Mincu. București: Paralela 45, 2008

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Godhood & Mathematics

H Chris RANSFORD, PhD

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany henri-chris.ransford@grenoble-inp.org

Abstract: Scientists who approach questions related to faith and Godhood from their supposedly wholly objective angles routinely reach totally different conclusions. Therefore, a new approach using the most objective tool possible, that of pure mathematics, is attempted. The validity of using some mathematics in this context is briefly examined. Mathematical analysis leads to a number of counter-intuitive outcomes, such as the mathematical necessity of some measure of evil in a godlike universe, the mathematical illegitimacy of prescriptive religions, and more. This article is adapted from the forthcoming book ‘God and the Mathematics of Infinity: What Irreducible Mathematics Says About Godhood’.

Keywords: Infinity, God and mathematics, prescriptive religions, contemplative religions, apex infinity, infinities, science and God, science and religion, mathematics and religion, mathematical analysis and God, science and mystical experiences, Stephen Hawking’s argument

I. INTRODUCTION For as long as records reach back in time, different human communities have always entertained religions, in some form or another.

Today, religions seem to have become in many

ways more vibrant than ever, and few society narratives are so fraught with controversy, irreconcilable differences and strife. They largely set society’s agendas and dominant narratives, and set the stage for conflicts. Luckily, in the 21st century, we now benefit from the accumulated collective wisdom and formidable arsenal of analytical tools and intelligence collectively developed by humankind over hundreds of years, and for the first time in history we are able to examine issues surrounding religion in the cold light of these tools. Oftentimes, it seems that science has dashed ahead in leaps and bounds, but that our discourse on religion has stayed put, mired in the selfsame controversies and arguments that were rife in an earlier age, when the sheer armamentarium of thought, analytical tools and hard data was nowhere near where it is today.

Attempts to use science to untangle arguments on Godhood have been plagued by carry-overs from a bygone age, and patently, by the famed ‘butterfly effect’. Accordingly, academics with impeccable credentials from a wide range of reputedly objective disciplines - Richard M. Gale, Michael Martin, Richard Swinburne, Victor Stenger, Peter Russell, George H. Smith, and many others, have approached the subject from a variety of supposedly rigorously

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th e Dia l o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and T heology impartial angles, and yet have still reached totally opposite conclusions with seemingly metronomic regularity.

II. Irreducible Mathematics We must therefore conclude that any science possibly open to slight shadings of interpretations by different people does not work, as it may be impacted by even the slightest subconscious bias held by different individuals, and is therefore unable to provide a spotlessly objective analysis.

Nothing short of neutral, incontrovertible numbers - in effect, statements and reasonings directly reducible to the statement that 1 plus 1 is 2 - can help with a truly objective analysis of any ideas or views related to Godhood and to religion. Any branch of mathematics exclusively predicated on unproven axioms would obviously not work, but as far as number theory goes however, we will accept here that an irreducible reality underlies it, and that irrespective of labels or language, 1+1 indeed equals 2. We will accept that the later codification of numbers and their relationships by Peano et al. does not detract from their fundamental validity - i.e., that any and all conclusions flowing from simple rock-bottom arithmetics are rock solid. Should we decline to do so, all bets would then be off, all of reality would degrade to a random and unpredictable illusion, and we would then have to accept that if we lend someone a dollar, that person does not owe us anything back because even numbers would be illusory. Should we take that view, and thereby subscribe to the hard version of the Münchhausen Trilemma, then all discussions lose their meaning, and we might just as well forthwith repair to the beach, maybe with a glass of wine and a Pink Floyd CD, waiting for the sun to perhaps set on a thoroughly unpredictable and nonsensical world.

III. Different Religions Reflect Incompatible Views of the Nature of Reality The issue with different religions is that they are as a rule starkly incompatible - the religious views hallowed and held true by different communities are most often mutually exclusive. This could of course be interpreted, and is interpreted by many, as meaning that the very core of what religions purport to reflect,

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Godhood Itself, is an illusion and does not exist.

But that is much too glib an explanation - there must exist an objective reason why religions always find willing practitioners, that they always arise whenever some human community forms, and explaining this fact away with alleged human gullibility, fear of death, or whatever else, simply does not hold up to scrutiny.

There are of course plenty of compelling historical imperatives that were served by enforcing religions top down - such as the necessity to police people and transactions and forestall thievery, at a time when enforceable means of policing were non-existent, and an enforcement based on the fear of gods has historically served its purpose well. It has also helped along the building of functional communities, and the advent of ever larger human endeavours and ultimately large-scale civilization itself. But that cannot be the whole explanation ¬ as Abraham Lincoln once put it, you can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time, which the continuing success of religions would then seem to effortlessly achieve.

IV. Mystical Experiences The true explanation has to be, in the words of the author David Mitchell [1], the fact that ‘The paranormal is persuasive : why else does religion persist?’ Statistically significantly, enough people are drawn to (the professionals of) spirituality because they have experienced something transcendent at some point in their lives - something they could not explain. Most polls show that many people have experienced what they felt were extraordinary mystical experiences at some point, experiences that defied all other possible explanation and hinted at some truth at the core of their particular community’s religion(s). Such experiences have been reported throughout history, in all possible cultural and/or religious contexts. They have been reported by atheists and by religious adherents of all stripes, with similar statistics of incidence for all surveyed groups.

A part of science has tried to explain mystical experiences by the workings of the material, biochemical brain gone haywire. An interesting

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology explanation starts from the simple observation that it is impossible to tickle yourself. Why? Because whatever the brain does, unbeknownst to you, in the background it informs the body and the rest of itself [the brain] that it is doing these things: thus your tickle-sensitive skin knows full well that it is your brain - you - who is wiggling these fingers, and it can’t be bothered to be tickled because it knows it’s fake. Now when the brain misfires, i.e. when some structural or other problems (drug-related or other) lead the brain to malfunction, its meta-messages, which normally inform your body and the rest of your brain of what it does, experience glitches and promptly morph into something else: hallucinations, mystical experiences. The brain then no longer puts two and two together, as it were, and starts to hallucinate - ergo, starts creating mystical experiences out of whole cloth [2].

There exist many such explanations.

Trouble is, they don’t work, because external, material consequences and effects sometimes accompanying mystical experiences have been objectively ascertained - effects that cannot possibly have been produced by a hallucinating brain, and which even atheists have reported, including recently Prof. T. Luhrmann in the New York Times [3], and many others.

V. Using Irreducible Mathematics So we’re back having to try to make sense of mystical experiences, because we must accept them as the ultimate reason why religions abide in the modern world, and we are back to number theory as the only strictly objective and bias-resistant means of analysis. To analyse what Godhood can or cannot possibly be, we must agree on and predefine a precious few analyzable traits of Godhood, so that we know what it is what we are analysing. We will begin by defining Godhood as being alive and infinite (bearing in mind of course that there are many, many types of different infinities, which we will however be able to analyse more in depth.) Of course, we have no choice but to define Godhood as the apex infinity if such exists, and we realize that we are in good company: Georg Cantor, the famous theoretician of infinity, was led to a definition of Godhood as the only means towards resolving his antinomy (an inextricable contradiction in

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the mathematics of infinity which he could only resolve by positing a Godhood [4].) We also realize that theology and mathematics are the only two human pursuits that deal, and can deal, with infinity, and that therefore it is legitimate that mathematics be used in an attempted approach of the mystery of Godhood (unless we accept, along with Harold Kushner [5] and a few others, that Godhood is not infinite. We will simply decline here that view from the word go, on all kinds of grounds whose explanations would exceed the scope of this article. As far as we are concerned, a true Godhood has infinite characteristics. For instance, in keeping with the old saw, It is infinitely good.)

VI. Outcomes Cutting a long story short, the use of mathematical tools to analyse Godhood and some of the issues related to Godhood leads to a few mathematically compelling and incontrovertible insights, some of which may appear squarely counter-intuitive. These include: - Godhood and any prescriptive religion cannot possibly have anything to do with each other. The unpredictable phenomenon of emergence [6] ensures that it is impossible in principle to second-guess, let alone to speak on behalf, of the Infinite. It is just impossible to do so, and, to use an ancient perceptive phrase, the ways of the Infinite are indeed, mathematically, wholly impenetrable. Any affirmation of knowledge of what the Infinite wants, of what “pleases” the Infinite, is just plain delusional, perhaps not much else than a psychological ‘projection’. In the context of emergence, even the very meanings of such words as ‘want’ or ‘please’ at that scale of application become unknowable.

Reinforcing it, this view is independently proven anew by another route - i.e., by the simple mathematics of trying to map infinity, or the Infinite, onto a finite environment (such as ours): e.g., map a three dimensional map of planet Earth onto a 2-D flat surface, and you end up with the huge distortions of the Mercator (or of any other) projection. Now try to go down by two dimensions instead of one, from the earlier 3 D to 2-D, to now from 3-D to 1-D - try and map the Earth upon a 1-D environment instead (i.e., a line

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy segment), and now all of the information is lost, as opposed to being only hopelessly distorted in the earlier case. Picture what information warpage and loss would accrue from trying to map higher or infinite dimensionality onto 4-D spacetime.

- Another insight from mathematical analysis is that an infinite Godhood is a mathematical unobservable - that is, there is no way mathematically to either prove or disprove Its existence. Either It exists, or it does not, and that’s all you can ever say - which rejoins the insight of many. Georg Cantor reached the same conclusion from a quite different angle and set of considerations. One mathematical reason for this (independently corroborated by other considerations such as Cantor’s), is that if you start from any finite base or environment, you can always generate absolutely huge numbers and environments from that finite base (through the application of combinatorics], but you can however never break into infinity. There is a stark, for ever unbridgeable gap between finiteness and infinity. No one knows for sure whether the universe (or any wider metaverse) is finite, but if it is it cannot accommodate any infinite Godhood. If it is infinite, analysis shows that it can only ever be of a lower-ranking infinity (technically, a lower-ranking aleph number metric) and hence it cannot accommodate an apex Infinity either: if a Godhood exists, then it is largely out of the material universe or metaverse.

Other considerations also show that It has to exist out of time [7], although it is difficult for us to picture this. Which leads to another insight, or rather, supports another insight reached through another route, which is .....

- The universe does not need a Godhood at all to exist: it can exist by the simple agency of the known laws of physics. But ..... the reverse may not be true: a Godhood may need a universe to exist. The gist of the argument, put into everyday rather than mathematical language, is that unless new actual reality is produced all the time from within an infinite pool of potential reality, then any Godhood would become trapped into stasis - a gilded cage of ‘been there, done that’ - unless new actualization occurs. The Godhood is everywhere and everywhen within an infinite metaverse: whatever it is, It’s been there, It’s done that, unless things change and transform

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and create new layers of actuality [8]. If that did not happen, the Godhood would become akin to some kind of curator of a museum universe caught in infinite stasis. In such a universe, nothing new would ever happen in the multidimensional fullness of apparent time - a timeless, infinite, and well-known static universe. Teilhard de Chardin’s Omega point has been reached, and apex infinity Godhood has become encaged within a well known infinity. Unless ..... reality itself is kept open-ended, so that new layers of reality keep being generated, and the Omega point is in fact an asymptote instead of a point. To enable that generation, an engine of creation of new materiality must exist. This generation must be able to happen - in other words, there must exist a mechanism, an engine whereby creation can occur. If the whole Universe accommodating a Godhood were suffused throughout with, say, only infinite godhood (and other infinite attributes), then nothing could ever happen: no work nor movement can be generated from an environment everywhere bathed in the same infinite quality - the same infinite this or that: there is a necessity for something less than infinite goodness, or than infinite this or that attribute, for Godhood to be in a position to not become restricted to a role of curator. To weave new reality from the fabric of that universe, some differentials, some crimps in the fabric are needed (which, incidentally, is exactly the second Law of Thermodynamics.) Have we just created a measure of evil? Yes, if we appropriately define ‘a measure of evil’ as anything less than infinite goodness. Being caught in pure timelessness and in unchangeable memories of multidimensional spacetime (the future, the past and space itself, of any dimensionalities) would amount to a relinquishing of full Godhood. This is why the ‘Word’ may, occasionally, become ‘Flesh’, as the phrase goes, so that stasis be kept at bay.

Stephen Hawking’s argument that probably no God exists because It definitely is not needed to create the Universe, has been squarely turned on its head, becoming that it is a perfect Godhood who would stand in need of a less than perfect Universe, rather than the other way around.

There is much more - for instance, mathematical analysis incontrovertibly establishes the total inability of even an ideal human language to convey godlike thoughts.

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology As is the case in all human endeavors, all areas of research in the sciences, all industries whether good or hollow and/or nefarious, religions must and do exist within an economic system. Careers are made, dedicated buildings and schools and systems are built and run, theses defended, salaries paid, and so on. This sometimes leads to entrenched attitudes, to old paradigms being defended well past their due date. Isn’t it high time, in the 21st century, to wonder whether prescriptive religions should finally be laid to rest, and ought not better be replaced with purely contemplative ones, likely truer to the Spirit of any possible Godhood.

References [1] David Mitchell, ‘The Bone Clocks’, Random House, 2015.

[4] Wolfgang Achtener, ‘Infinity as a Transformative Concept in Science and Technology’, in ‘Infinity: New Research Frontiers’, edited by Michael Heller and W. Hugh Woodin, Cambridge 2011.

[5] Harold Kushner, ‘When Bad Things Happen to Good People’, Schocken Books, 1981.

[6] Steven Johnson, ‘Emergence’, Scribner, 2001, et al.

[7] H Chris Ransford, ‘The Far Horizons of Time’, de Gruyter, 2014 [8] ‘God and the Mathematics of Infinity’, same author (forthcoming).

[2] Blakemore SJ1, Wolpert D, Frith C., ‘Why can’t you tickle yourself?’ Neuroreport. 2000 Aug 3;11[11]:R11-6.

[3] T. M. Luhrmann, 2015, March 5. New York Times ‘When Things Happen That You Can’t Explain’. Available online at: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/05/ opinion/when-things-happen-that-you-cantexplain.html?_r=0

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The dark side of the Scientific Revolution The Biblical interpretation in Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton Francesco Fiorentino, PhD

Università degli Studi di Bari ‘Aldo Moro’ Uniba Bari - Italy fiorentino12@libero.it

Abstract: This contribution investigates a hidden and surely singular – but far from marginal – aspect of the Scientific Revolution of the 17th century, in other words the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. First of all, this work analyzes the situation immediately before the advent of the fathers of the 17th Century Scientific Revolution like Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton, starting from the Council of Trent. This reconstruction aims to throw light on the particular way that Galileo and Newton intended to approach the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures with respect to the main tendencies of the Catholic Reformation of biblical hermeneutics. Their way is important both in itself and in relation to the Scientific Revolution. In itself because Galileo and Newton elaborate original theories that are not entirely in agreement with the predominant views and that are decidedly no less interesting than their pure scientific theories. In relation to the Scientific Revolution because the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures is addressed in an original fashion by both Galileo and Newton, also with the intent of facilitating the spread and approval of their own scientific theories in their respective socio-cultural environments. The primacy of nature is not manifested only in contrast to and outside the book of Scriptures, but conditions the Book of Scriptures, locating it within a precise

cultural perspective and religious sense that are by no means contrary to Galileo and Newton’s views.

Keywords: modern science, Bible, cardinal Bellarmino, Galilei, Isac Newton, Tommaso Campanella, cardinal Ratzinger

I. INTRODUCTION In 1965, Mario Viganò[1], and then in 1966, Carlo Maria Martini[2] inserted the Copernican letters written by Galileo Galilei between 1613 and 1615 in a historical panorama that contemplated an interaction among theologians, philosophers and scientists, through exegetical commentaries and scientific reasoning. The study of this interaction was encouraged by the Commission of Galileian Studies, and indeed the Exegesis Section was entrusted to Martini himself, as one of the very first to promote such a form of historical research.

The first outcomes of the research were the contributions by Rinaldo Fabris[3] in 1986 and Olaf Pedersen[4] in 1991. They proposed that the starting point should be the exegetic and religious context of the late Renaissance, exploring the implications of the Council of Trent and then examining the common ground

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology among the exegetes who were Galileo’s contemporaries.

To these contributions by members of the Commission were added others by scholars outside the Commission that aimed to clarify aspects of Galiliean exegesis while paying special attention both to the historical context in Galileo’s time and to the reception of the Galileian interpretation immediately after the letter to Christina of Lorraine began to circulate (1615). In particular, since 1975 William Shea had been looking into the Galileian biblical interpretation within a highly elaborate contextual framework[5] .

IN 1991, RICHARD J. Blackwell focused his attention on the relationship between Galileo Galilei, Paolo Antonio Foscarini, the Calabrian Carmelite friar, supporter of Copernican thought, and the famous Roman inquisitor, Cardinal Roberto Bellarmino, from the perspectives of the history of theology and the history of religion, in order to highlight the role of the Bible in the Galilei case. The picture he draws develops from an evaluation of the effects of the two Decrees of the Council of Trent regarding the Holy Scriptures to enlarge on post-Tridentine Catholic theology, with particular reference to Melchior Cano, Benedict Pereira and Bellarmino himself, whose salient theological characteristics are underlined in a contour of continuity with the contemporary theological tradition. Blackwell placed the contributions of Galilei and Foscarini in this context, in which he considered the reasons and the suggested differences that would launch the novel vision of modernity[6].

This contribution investigates a hidden and surely singular – but far from marginal – aspect of the Scientific Revolution of the 17th century, in other words the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. First of all, this work analyzes the situation immediately before the advent of the fathers of the 17th Century Scientific Revolution like Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton, starting from the Council of Trent. This reconstruction aims to throw light on the particular way that Galileo and Newton intended to approach the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures with respect to the main tendencies of the Catholic Reformation of biblical hermeneutics.

Their way is important both in itself and in

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relation to the Scientific Revolution. In itself because Galileo and Newton elaborate original theories that are not entirely in agreement with the predominant views and that are decidedly no less interesting than their pure scientific theories. In relation to the Scientific Revolution because the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures is addressed in an original fashion by both Galileo and Newton, also with the intent of facilitating the spread and approval of their own scientific theories in their respective socio-cultural environments. The primacy of nature is not manifested only in contrast to and outside the book of Scriptures – as I saw in the previous article[7] – but conditions the Book of Scriptures, locating it within a precise cultural perspective and religious sense that are by no means contrary to Galileo and Newton’s views. *** The two decrees approved by the Council of Trent (1545-1563) in the fourth session of 8 april 1546 constitute an essential passage in the reformation of the catholic church: in the first of these the concept of tradition (traditio) is determined, authentic canon of the holy scriptures, while the second deals with the editing and interpretation of the bible. In particular, the second paragraph of the second decree supports the principles and criteria of orthodox exegesis: «Praeterea ad coercenda petulantia ingenia decernunt ut nemo, suae prudentiae innixus, in rebus fidei et morum ad aedificationem doctrinae christianae pertinentìum, Sacram Scripturam ad suos sensus contorquens, contra eum sensum, quem tenuit et tenet Sancta mater Ecclesia, cuius est iudicare de vero sensu et interpretatione Scripturarum Sanctarum, aut etiam contra unaninem consensum Patrum».[8]

In other words, this council deliberation attempts to curb the individualism and hermeneutic relativism that were threatening to spin out of control in the wake of the protestant reformation: every exegete proposed, in support of his own interpretation, a personal discernment of the meaning of the relative biblical passage under analysis. Therefore, the deliberation was oriented toward imposing order, commencing from the editing of the bible and culminating in its interpretation. It confined all interpretations within two clear borders,

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy the second of which constituted the basis of the first: (1) the meaning (sensus), that cannot be entrusted to petulantia ingenia, namely intellectuals all too ready to supply free, personal interpretations, but rather to the Holy Mother Church, proclaimed as the qualified, definitive, unique judge without appeal, and interpreter; (2) the unanimous support of the Fathers of the Church, rediscovered and preferred to the scholastic theology and philosophy by countless humanists such as Erasmus of Rotterdam and Lefèvre of Etaples. These limits underlined what Pope Leo XIII had decreed in the provincial council of florence in 1517 and what had been enacted in the V Lateran council during the eleventh session of 19 december 1516 in the decree «Supernae maiestatis». The intent of this decree was, in fact, to condemn the personal interpretations of a great many preachers who distorted the meaning of the holy scriptures on the basis of their presumed eschatological views.

The deliberation of the Council of Trent did not deal with the exegesis of the entire Bible but only with those texts that refer to res fidei et morum, or complex apostolic tradition, rooted by the unique Spirit both in the lifestyle of the believer and in particular in the lifestyle directly concerned with the construction of the christian doctrine, and hence posing a threat to the faith itself[9].

The third paragraph of the Decree includes an important provision declaring that ecclesiastic approval is obligatory for editions of all texts that develop questions of faith. This norm, formalized in subsequent sessions, was to lead to the institution of the famous Index Librorum Prohibitorum and the constitution of the Congregation of the Index[10].

The most immediate, evident effect of the enactment of the second council decree was the SISTO-CLEMENTINE RE-EDITION of the VULGATA after seven years of revision work.

This re-edition gave rise to an AMPLE SPECTRUM OF BIBLICAL COMMENTARIES that BEAR WITNESS TO the GROWING LIST OF CRITICAL AND PHILOLOGICAL STUDIES. Nevertheless, there is no mention of the COPERNICAN theory, other than the COMMENT to the BOOK OF JOB, PUBLISHED IN TOLEDO IN 1584, COMPOSED BY the heremitan DIEGO DE ZUNIGA, the ONLY ONE who ATTEMPTED A philo-COPERNICAN

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INTERPRETATION OF the FAMOUS PASSAGE IN JOB on the immobility of the earth. Above all, the re-edition had practical goals, to wit the reform of the calendar and the calculation of the length of the tropical year and the precessions of the equinoxes[11]. The re-edition of the comment by Zuniga in Rome in 1591, as well as the inclusion of Copernicus’ De revolutionibus in the statute of the University of Salamanca in 1561, bear witness to the relaxed intellectual climate immediately post-tridentine[12]. However, later Zuniga himself, in the first part of the Philosophia published in 1597 and dedicated to Pope Clement VII, seems to have changed his mind in favour of the ptolemaic system[13].

The biblical commentaries are accompanied by hermeneutic support instruments, like the De locis theologicis libri duodecim by Melchior Cano, published posthumously in 1563[14]. Considered one of the most authoritative theologians in the ecclesiastic environment, Cano drew up eight arguments aiming to deal with some of the more obscure meanings of the scriptures.

These arguments transfer the dictate of the second decree to exegetic practice, facilitating the work of the bible readers whose institution in the major churches and monasteries had been stipulated in the council of trent[15].

For the bible readers, the council decree provoked the need to preface their own comments by a methodological section. For example, in the introduction to his commentary to Pentateucon, Thomas de Vio, known as the Cajetan, emphasized the importance of the literal meaning of the text, inveighing against those who adopted the patristic tradition to justify their own allegorical, figurative interpretations[16].

As well as Cajetan, Giovanni Maldonado was also concerned with methodological research, in order to clarify the rules for the study and teaching of the Holy Scriptures[17]. Another stage in the development of post-tridentine theological thought was the Bibliotheca Sancta written by Sisto da Siena, a jew who converted to the catholic faith and became firstly a franciscan and then a dominican friar. He was reputed by Tommaso Campanella to be equally as authoritative as Thomas Aquinas[18]: a reflection of his, in the third book, on the canons of the holy books preceding the hermeneutic question of the meanings was so successful that

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology it was then published alone[19].

Sisto da Siena can be compared to the jesuit Benedict Pereira of Valencia, cited by Galileo in his letter to Madam Christina of Lorraine. He was the author of important comments to the book of the prophet Daniel, to Genesis and Exodus, as well as of a dispute regarding the gospel of John, and of a cosmological work[20]. In his comment to Genesis Pereira describes his four hermeneutic rules, the last two of which are then referred to by Galileo, but in inverse order[21]. The first rule, that defines the historical truth of Moses’ account of the creation of the world according to the literal meaning of the places in Genesis, is dealt with directly in the first two chapters of De Genesi ad litteram, in which Augustine of Hippo contests Origens’ allegorical, mystical interpretation. In an analogous refrence to De Genesi ad litteram Pereira confirms the validity of the second rule, whereby the explanation of Moses’ teaching is established without any need to fall back on miracles and divine power. The creation is the result of what can best be seen to correspond to God’s absolute knowledge. The third rule underlines the methodological perspective according to which the determination of a specific interpretation must not be upheld at all costs, even going so far as to declare all other explanations false. It is better, instead, to employ the circumspect approach of the Fathers of the Church, who, as Galileo later pointed out, «conoscendo di quanto progiudizio e quanto contro al primario instituto della Chiesa Cattolica sarebbe il volere da’ luoghi della Scrittura definire conclusioni naturali, delle quali, o con esperienze o con dimostrazioni necessarie, si potrebbe in qualche tempo dimostrare il contrario di quel che suonan le nude parole, sono andati circospettissimi».

In this sense Galileo praises the prudence of the Fathers of the Church, who did not rely on the literal meaning of the scriptures to define questions that do not regard the faith but nature, and may be established, even in the future, by experimental observations or mathematical demonstrations[22]. The fourth rule, cited verbatim by Galileo, proceeds from a denial of rigid dogmatism to arrive at a due consideration of the «manifeste esperienze e ragioni» di altre discipline, prima tra tutte la filosofia, con le quali l’interpretazione biblica non può se non concordare», in other words experiments and

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rational arguments advanced by other disciplines and above all by natural philosophy, that are evidently and necessarily in agreement with the Holy Scriptures. The concordance between natural and scriptural truths is corroborated by a mention of the Epistle to Marcellinus by Augustine, used by both Pereira and Galileo to back up their reasonings[23].

By contrast, Roberto Bellarmino adopted a more radical position in his celebrated Controversiae, first published between 1586 and 1593 in the context of an ample literary production ranging from Praelectiones lovanienses (1572) to Explanatio in Psalmos (1611), in which Bellarmino opposes the purality of the heavens and the distinction between the astronomic sky and the atmosphere, defending the cosmology of Genesis inspired by Moses’ teaching. Referring to the Council decree on biblical interpretation, the Jesuit cardinal states in Controversiae that the Holy Scriptures are absolutely infallible not only as regards faith and lifestyle directly, but also everything referring in general to the Church and in particular to each single common man. Not only all the verses but every single word concern the faith; no word in the Holy Scriptures is superfluous or wrongly used[24].

Bellarmino’s method is clearly literal: if God is the author of the Scriptures then every word in the Bible is true, regardless of its importance in terms of man’s salvation. The truth of what is stated in the Bible does not depend on the function it has in God’s salvation project but simply on the fact that it is contained in the Scriptures.

Granted the literal meaning, that may be simple or figurative, and the mystical sense, that can have an allegorical, analogical and tropological meaning, it is wrong to interpret figuratively what should have only a simple meaning. One example is the declaration by Jesus «this is the body», that was taken in a figurative sense by the Reformationists and especially by Zwingli.

The correct consideration of the most apposite meaning of each Biblical passage is determined by the spirit according to which the passage was written, or will of the Spirit, that must ultimately be testified by the institutional Church according to the dictates of the Tridentine Decree. This consideration of the Scriptures as the revelation of the Spirit extends from the written word in

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy the Bible to the unwritten, or Church tradition, as the ultimate authority deputed to recognize the truth of divine revelation and to safeguard Church tradition itself[25].

While every proposition in the scriptures can be interpreted literally, the same does not apply to the spiritual meaning, so «ex solo litterali sensu peti debet argumenta efficacia», whereby efficacious arguments are required only for the literal meaning that surely expresses the intentions of the Holy Spirit[26].

Thus, the second Council Decree had the clear effect of exalting the literal meaning, or in any case the simplest; this effect was a general tendency in the counter-reformation period immediately preceding Galileo and Newton. But what was most important was that this tendency appeared to Galileo in a more radical form even than the tridentine decree, in other words in the form of Bellarmino’s concept of biblical hermeneutics. The radical nature of this concept was due to at least two factors: the absolute primacy of the Church even over tradition, and the extension of the ecclesiastic determination of the literal meaning of the Holy Scriptures from res fidei et morum to every single word in them, and so also to the questions that the Fathers in their wisdom had left undefined. *** One year after the publication of Sidereus Nuncius in Venice in 1610, Galileo earned the approval of Tommaso Campanella, who pointed to the concordance among the Fathers as the remedy against the criticisms of theologians: «Tu vero, huius vaporosi mundi cortices et velamina ante tempus rumpens, nos ad caelum illud clementinum rapis vel caelum ad nos inclinas. Gaudeamus: si murmuraverint theologi, prophetizantes defendent te patres theologiae, Crysostomus et Theodorus episcopus tarsensis magister eius et Procopius gazaeus, qui caelum stare, praesertim supremum, et stellas circulvolvi docent; et Augustinus hanc opinionem suo tempore a mathematicis rite demonstratam fuisse docet, neque per sacras litteras evertendam esse nobis, ne simus irrisui mathematicis: quod debuisset ipse observare cum antìpodas negavit».[27]

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The passage underlines the agreement among the Fathers, including John Chrysostom, Theodore of Mopsuestia, disciple of Diodorus of Tarsus with Chrysostom and supporter of the historical-literal meaning in accordance with the school of antioch and against that of Alexandrie, Procopius of Gaza, exegete according to the byzantine school (that tends to give preference to its own opinion over those of previous interpreters), and above all Augustine of Hippo.

This agreement leads to the formalization of a certain distinction between faith and the knowledge of nature, as shown in the quote from De Genesi ad litteram by Augustine and repeated by Galileo himself in his letter to Madam Christina[28].

While Galileo was preparing for his reception with all honors at the Roman College, the dissertation by Ludovico delle Colombe was already circulating in manuscript version, in which, without ever quoting Galileo personally, he employed scriptural arguments to support aristotelian-ptolemaic cosmology[29].

Firstly, Galilei did not bother to respond to this veiled attack, that seemed to him simply stupid[30]. Then he decided to confide his doubts about the decisive character of the scriptural arguments to cardinal Carlo Conti, and asked him to express his opinion as to whether the aristotelian or the copernican system showed a greater congruity with the Holy Scriptures[31].

The resulting opinion stressed the Fathers’ agreement on the corruptibility of the heavens and the Holy Scriptures as regards the rectilinear motion of the Earth, but a circular motion seemed to Conti to be less in conformity with the Scriptures «perché se bene quei luoghi dove se dice che la terra stii stabile et ferma, si possono intendere della perpetuità della terra [...] non puole havere altra interpretatione la Scrittura, se non che parli conforme al comun modo del volgo; il qual modo senza gran necessità non si deve ammettere.»[32] Therefore, the immobility and eternity of the Earth correspond to the right meaning of the Scriptures, that must not be adapted according to the criterion of accommodation (accomodatio) by which Michele Camerota reconstructed the long history of the Fathers of the Church, namely Gerome and Augustine, through the scholastic theologians like Thomas Aquinas, Nicholas Oresme, Calvin,

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology to the astronomers of the scientific revolution, such as Rheticus, Tycho Brahe, Kepler, and on up to galileo’s contemporaries, Curzio Casati and Giovanbattista Agucchi[33].

In fact, in Conti’s view it is the Scriptures themselves that wish to speak through the vulgate language, and the interpreter must do nothing more than confirm this desire through the literal meaning. However, so as not to completely frustrate Galileo’s expectations, the cardinal did offer a timid opening toward the possibility of not admitting the literal vulgate meaning and propending for the copernican hypothesis, supported by Zuniga who « dice esser più conforme alla Scrittura moversi la terra, ancor che comunemente la sua interpretatione non sia seguita.» In this way Conti referred Galileo to Zuniga’s philo-copernican interpretation even while he pointed out that this was only a single interpretation[34].

The confirmation of the conformity of the Scriptures with the corruptibility of the heavens reappears in another letter by Conti, immediately afterwards[35].

Sustained by his observations of the sunspots and the agreement of the Holy Scriptures with the corruptibility of the heavens, Galileo could declare the homogeneity of the observation of nature and the biblical dictate: «Or chi sarà che vedute, osservate e considerate queste cose, voglia pur persistere in opinione non solamente falsa, ma erronea e repugnante alle indubitabili verità delle Sacre Lettere? le quali ci dicono, i cieli e tutto il mondo non pure esser generabili e corruttibili, ma generati e dissolubili e transitorii. Ecco la Bontà divina, per trarci di sì gran fallacia, inspira ad alcuno metodi necessarii».[36]

This passage is important in that it offers two main elements for reflection, the second of which is more cryptic and subtle. The first element refers to the famous primacy that Galileo attributes to the necessary methods, in other words experimental observation and mathematical demonstration; in this scenario divine goodness inspired man to adopt these methods in order to ensure the maximum concordance with the Holy Scriptures.

The second element regards a question

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of competence. In fact, the agreement of the Holy Scriptures with the necessary methods, although not strictly concerning res fidei et morum, cannot be established by Galileo in the cultural and religious climate of the time, marked by a radical conception of the bellarminian biblical hermeneutics, but must be advocated by ecclesiastic determination, regardless of the support of aristotelian-ptolemaic or copernican cosmology.

As a result, not only does the primacy of the necessary methods pose a problem, but also the conflict of competences, such that Galileo is induced to retract the passage in a later version: «Or chi sarà che, vedute, osservate e considerate queste cose, non sia per abbracciar (deposta ogni perturbazione che alcune apparenti fisiche ragioni potessero arrecargli) l’opinione tanto conforme all’indubitabili veritadi delle Sacre Lettere, le quali in tanti luoghi molto aperti e manifesti ci additano l’instabile e caduca natura della celeste materia? non defraudando però intanto delle meritate lodi quei sublimi ingegni che con sottili specolazioni seppero a i sacri dogmi contemperar l’apparenti discordie de i fisici discorsi. Li quali ora è ben ragion che cedino, rimossa anco la suprema autorità teologica, alle ragioni naturali d’altri autori gravissimi e più alle sensate esperienze, alle quali io non dubiterei che Aristotele stesso avrebbe conceduto, poi che noi veggiamo aver egli non solo ammessa l’esperienza tra i mezi potenti a concludere circa i problemi naturali, ma concedutogli ancora il luogo primario: onde se egli argomentò l’immutabilità de’ cieli dal non si esser veduta in loro ne decorsi tempi alcuna sensibile alterazione, è ben credibile che quando il senso gli avesse mostrato ciò ch’a noi fa manifesto, avrebbe seguita la contraria opinione, alla quale con sì mirabili scoprimenti venghiamo chiamati noi. Ecco la Bontà divina, per rimuoverci dalla mente ogni ambiguità, inspira ad alcuna etc».[37]

This version reinforces the primacy of experimental observation over both the Scriptures and Aristotle, who could not but have conceded the value of well-conducted experiences; but this primacy becomes so imperative as to aim at offsetting even ecclesiastic authority and so to accentuate the conflict of competences. It is evident that this version could not satisfy the Lincean

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy Academics, who invited Galileo, when approving the publication of the work on the sunspots, to speak «philosophice» but to refrain from any reference to the Holy Scriptures[38]. In the sense that, in the eyes of the ecclesiastic authorities that Galileo wished to keep at large, he should not speak as a theologian but as a philosopher, and not take any pains to base his theories of natural philosophy on the Holy Scriptures, whose interpretation must be delegated to theologians and, ultimately, to the Church, as the upholder of the traditions of the Fathers of the Church. This invitation was repeated by Federico Cesi[39].

As explained by Giorgio Stabile, the reviewers of the Letters on the sunspots professed the complete autonomy of theology and the subordination of all the other sciences to it[40]. It must be added that in this way, the reviewers showed that they had accepted the thomist theory on the nature of theology as the queen of sciences, the others being dimmed to handmaidens. In fact, both in the Summa theologiae and the Summa contra gentiles Aquinas assigned only to the science of God and the blessed men the evidence of the principles of syllogistic demonstrations. Because such evidence does not pertain to the other sciences they cannot proceed in a deductive manner, that is to say from the beginning to the end of the demonstrative syllogisms through the middle term to discover their truths. Instead, they must assume the truths of theological science as the conclusions, and from these construct their syllogisms in an inductive manner[41].

On the other hand, Tommaso Campanella proposed a complete reform of scientific thought and disciplines, including theology, starting from the science infused by God into Adam as the progenitor of the human genus and transmitted as a progressive research in rerum natura rather than as an immutable store. This progress involves theology, too, that is the queen of sciences, but because of the importance of its object not of its judgment function[42].

In Galileo’s letter to Benedetto Castelli, the primacy of nature reemerges, becoming here «osservantissima esecutrice degli ordini di Dio» (the most observant executor of God’s orders) as related to the Scriptures, that are «dettatura dello Spirito Santo» (dictated by the Holy Spirit):

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«Stante, dunque, che la Scrittura in molti luoghi è non solamente capace, ma necessariamente bisognosa d’esposizioni diverse dall’apparente significato delle parole, mi par che nelle dispute naturali ella doverebbe esser riserbata nell’ultimo luogo: perché, procedendo di pari dal Verbo divino la Scrittura Sacra e la natura, quella come dettatura dello Spirito, e questa come osservantissima esecutrice de gli ordini di Dio; ed essendo, di più, convenuto nelle Scritture, per accomodarsi all’intendimento dell’universale, dir molte cose diverse, in aspetto e quanto al significato delle parole, dal vero assoluto; ma, all’incontro, essendo la natura inesorabile e immutabile e nulla curante che le sue recondite ragioni e modi d’operare sieno o non sieno esposti alla capacità de gli uomini, per lo che ella non trasgredisce mai i termini delle leggi impostegli; pare che quello de gli effetti naturali che o la sensata esperienza ci pone innanzi a gli occhi o le necessarie dimostrazioni ci concludono, non debba in conto alcuno esser revocato in dubbio per luoghi della Scrittura ch’avesser nelle parole diverso sembiante, poi che non ogni detto della Scrittura è legato a obblighi così severi com’ogni effetto di natura».[43]

In other words, Galileo proposes to interpret the Holy Scriptures according to the criterion of accommodation, and to take nature literally, because the Scriptures are the result of dictation, even if supernatural, and so belong to the field of language and communication, that must necessarily interact with the intellectual capacities of men and so be able to vary according to the cultural context. This confuses truth, whereas nature, as the creature of God, cannot but obey divine orders, in other words the laws that God had fixed for ever and ever in the universe. Its character as God’s creature confers to nature some characteristics that distinguish it from the Scriptures (although they share a common supernatural origin), namely constancy, invariance, necessity, inexorability and indifference to the anthropic factor.

Therefore, while nature descends directly from God, and is indissolubly bound to Him, the Scriptures adapt to men.

It is the very creatural character of nature that founds scientific study and its primacy over the Scriptures: it is not nature that should be accommodated to the Scriptures, but the Scriptures that should be confined to the nonnatural ambit, or adapted to nature.

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology As Edward Grant explained[44], while the goal of the Scriptures is that of persuasion alone, the truth of reality is expressed by nature, that is ineluctable, in that it always to complies with the necessary laws of the universe without any other implications of historical or cultural type. The tool for discovering nature is not hermeneutics but mathematics, although even this allows man to approach nature from a very particular perspective, that is in some ways reductive. The mathematization of nature as God’s creature prevails over the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures because they were dictated by the Holy Spirit to man.

Giorgio Stabile[45] has pointed out that in Galileo’s entire literary production, the contrast is between nature as expressio inexorabilis and the Scriptures as the word ficta. Nature is indifferent to man’s point of view, because it is the language of things and events, upheld by an institutional norm of effectiveness and structured according to stable, uniform, inderogable rules[46].

Galileo offers as example of his hermeneutic proposal of the Holy Scriptures, based on the criterion of accommodation, the famous verse in Joshua «so the Sun stood still»: this expression cannot be taken literally to avoid falsifying the geocentric system of ptolemaic ascendency. In fact, in this system the length of the day does not depend on the motion of the sun but on the primum mobile. Hence, if the sun were to stand still, the opposite effect would be obtained, in other words to cause the sun to set earlier rather than to lengthen the day: « [...]essendo il moto del Sole al contrario della conversione diurna, quanto più il Sole si movesse verso oriente, tanto più si verrebbe a ritardar il suo corso all’occidente; e diminuendosi o annullandosi il moto del Sole, in tanto più breve tempo pugnerebbe all’occaso [...] »[47]

Instead, adopting the copernican system the biblical passage would be saved not because of some concordist principle but thanks to the inexorability of nature, that always reveals the truth to which the Holy Scriptures must be adapted. In fact, by rotating on its axis, the Sun draws with it all the planets that rotate around it. So God operated the miracle of lengthening the day without overturning the whole

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planetary order but by arresting the rotation of the sun around itself and with this, also of that of the Earth, the Moon and the other planets around it. Thus, this very verse in Joshua ends up by being the best testimonial to the greater reasonableness of the copernican system, that Galileo still has not finished proving on the experimental plane.

In his letter to Christina of Lorraine Galileo continues to show his intolerance to the invasions of the field by biblical hermeneutics in questions of nature not strictly confined to the faith. This intolerance is associated with a lower estimation of the ecclesiastic authority as compared with the consensus of the Fathers: «Ora, per queste false note che costoro tanto ingiustamente cercano di addossarmi, ho stimato necessario per mia giustificazione appresso l’universale, del cui giudizio e concetto, in materia di religione e di reputazione, devo far grandissima stima, discorrer circa a quei particolari che costoro vanno producendo per detestare ed abolire questa opinione, ed in somma per dichiararla non pur falsa, ma eretica, facendosi sempre scudo di un simulato zelo di religione e volendo pur interessar le Scritture Sacre e farle in certo modo ministre de’ loro non sinceri proponimenti, col voler, di più, s’io non erro, contro l’intenzion di quelle e de’ Santi Padri, estendere, per non dir abusare, la loro autorità, sì che anco in conclusioni pure naturali e non de Fide, si debba lasciar totalmente il senso e le ragioni dimostrative per qualche luogo della Scrittura, che tal volta sotto le apparenti parole potrà contener sentimento diverso».

[48]

In Galileo’s judgment, taking for granted that the Holy Scriptures are infallible then the superficial meaning of the words must be studied in depth so as to discover the most profound, recondite meaning that escapes the vulgate language to which the Scriptures are adapted. Therefore, the literal interpretation of the Bible, limited only to the superficial meaning, dissimulates many insidious dangers that can give rise to contradictions and serious heresies[49]. For the ptolemaic system to be considered a question of faith, the literal meaning, adapted to the vulgate, is not sufficient and it is also necessary that the Fathers should have condemned the opposite hypothesis[50].

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy The employment of the literal meaning must be replaced by other criteria that evince the accomodation to the vulgate, «Perché se, come si è detto e chiaramente si scorge, per il solo rispetto d’accomodarsi alla capacità popolare non si è la Scrittura astenuta di adombrare principalissimi pronunziati, attribuendo sino all’istesso Iddio condizioni lontanissime e contrarie alla sua essenza, chi vorrà asseverantemente sostenere che l’istessa Scrittura, posto da banda cotal rispetto, nel parlare anco incidentalmente di Terra, d’acqua, di Sole o d’altra creatura, abbia eletto di contenersi con tutto rigore dentro a i puri e ristretti significati delle parole?»[51] This means that it cannot be the Scriptures that wish to say only what the vulgar can understand, because that would be too reductive and ultimately, misleading for God. Instead, it is necessary to use the accommodation criterion and supersede the literal meaning, subjecting the scriptural data to the reasons of nature[52].

Galileo empahsises that the Scriptures, as «dettatura dello Spirito», adapt to the universal meaning whereas nature, as «osservantissima esecutrice degli ordini di Dio», does not transcend the terms of the laws imposed on it[53]. The primacy of theology is not based on the determination of the principles of the other sciences – as the Lincean Academics believed, influenced by the thomist theory – but on the consideration of the most noble object, that is God. As a consequence, the theologians cannot expect to intrude into all the other sciences, commanding astronomers and mathematicians to believe false what in reality is based on observations and mathematical demonstrations[54]. Indeed, in the footsteps of De Genesi ad litteram by Augustine, theologians must confine themselves to the questions that regard the salvation of souls, and must not force the Holy Scriptures into rash interpretations or condemn out of hand theses that might potentially be proved true in the future, without any prior knowledge of the reasoned experiences and mathematical demonstrations[55].

According to Galileo, the unanimous consensus of the Fathers is valid only for the propositions that the Fathers themselves had deliberately studied and fully disputed. The question of the copernican theory does not seem to have been discussed by the Fathers,

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and even if a common pronouncement by the Fathers on the immobility of the earth were to turn up, this pronouncement would not be legitimate, because it would not concern res fidei et morum[56]. So, when it is a question of hypotheses that have still to be verified, or that are impossible to assess on the experimental or mathematical plane, it is best to stick to the literal meaning of the Bible: « […] io non dubito punto che dove gli umani discorsi non possono arrivare, e non si può avere scienza, ma solamente opinione e fede, piamente convenga conformarsi al puro senso della Scrittura».

[57]

In this way Galileo assigns to the purely literal meaning of the Scriptures a value as residual proof, after conceding the impossibility of elaborating any scientific data.

As Pietro Redondi has pointed out[58], Galileo resorts to the authority of the Holy Scriptures in the absence of certain experimental proof on at least two occasions: the nature of the sunspots as shadows produced by hordes of tiny planets in transit on the solar disk or as cloudy formations of fumes generated by enormous fires (1612), and the theory of the first instants of the universe by a uniformly accelerated fall (1634).

Bellarmino answered by letter in 1615 to Galileo and Foscarini, who had just written the Lettera sopra l’opinione de pitagorici e del Copernico in favour of which he had adopted the same arguments as Galileo. Bellarmino’s letter follows three main polemical tangents, in the wake of the Controversiae: (1) the heliocentric hypothesis can be treated, but only ex suppositione, or as a pure mathematical model divorced from experimental reality in the same way that Bellarmino attributed to Copernicus; (2) the geocentric hypothesis is in accord with the literal interpretation of the Holy Scriptures and the consensus of the Fathers; any statement about the Holy Scriptures falls into the subject matter of the faith at least ex parte dicentis, or inasmuch as dictated or inspired by the Holy Spirit, if not indeed ex parte obiecti, as regards the content; (3) because there are ocular experiences that cast the heliocentric hypothesis in doubt, it is not worth abandoning the Holy Scriptures and the Fathers[59].

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology In a letter of January 1681 to Thomas Burnet, Isaac Newton seems to agree with the criterion of accommodation, defending the verdicity of Moses’ account of the creation. In fact, although exact, the biblical account has the merit of being adaptable to the limited intellectual capacities of the vulgar: «As to Moses I do not think his description of the creation either Philosophical or feigned, but I think that he described realities in a language artificially adapted to the sense of the vulgar. [...] Consider therefore whether any one who understood the process of creation and designed to accomodate to the vulgar not an Ideal or poetical but a true description of it as succintly and theologically as Moses has done, without omitting any thing which the vulgar have a notion of, or describing any being beyond what the vulgar have a notion of it, could mend that description which Moses has given us»».[60]

Thus, the adaptation of the story of the creation to the intellectual capacities of the vulgar results in a simplification and substantial reduction of teh scriptural contents. Moses does not describe reality as such but calibrates it to the way of perceiving reality and acting of a member of the populace: « [...] Moses accommodating his words to the gross conceptions of the vulgar, describes things []…. as one of the vulgar would have been inclined to do if he had lived and seen all of what Moses describes»».[61]

Alexander Koiré[62] underlined that Newton’s belief in an omnipresent and always active God allows him to avoid both Boyle and Hooke’s superficial empirism and Descartes’ narrow rationalism, renouncing mechanical explanations and constructing his universe as an interplay of forces whose mathematical laws should be established by natural philosophy by induction, not abstract speculation. However curious it may seem, in this universe the study of the Holy Scriptures is not accidental but essential, because it reveals to Newton the analogy between the way God acts in the world, and the way man moves his own body[63].

The final conflation of the Earth and the probable succession of worlds in the physics ambit explain the young Newton’s interest in apocalyptic and prophetic literature. This

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interest was rooted in the cultural background of Cambridge and in the Clavis Apocaliptica by Joseph Mede, that induced Newton to write some important manuscripts. These have long been neglected and have only been consultable since 1969 in a public library, to wit at the University of jerusalem. Currently, only three small fragments have been edited[64].

Newton himself later decided to nake heavy emendations of his youthful manuscripts, writing in a much more pondered style worthy as an elderly pastime. The latter manuscript had been published already in 1733 by Benjamim Smith, nephew of Barnabas, Newton’s stepfather, under the title Observations upon the prophecies, Daniel and the Apocalypse[65].

The manuscripts written in Newton’s youth concern the theme of the prophecies and are underlaid by the same methodological problem as the scientific studies that immediately preceded them, between 1664 and 1672, on the theory of colours, the motion of fluids, the immaterial character of matter and space-time as God’s sensory organ. This problem is the uncertainty of the hypotheses and hence of the future. That is why the method of certifying the future becomes the instrument for discovering the truth, that cannot be violated in the exegesis of the Holy Scriptures except by fighting against God[66]. This truth, both scientific and religious, is not fixed for ever in dogmatic tradition, that must be rejected, but unfolds over time, blossoming thanks to the fecundity of the word of God. The search for the truth cannot be crystallized in the eternal assertions of any church or sect but requires continual scraping to clean off the old palimpsests and bring back to light ancient uncorrupted beliefs that the figurative language of the prophecies expresses at primitive, popular level. Therefore, taking an immaterial world and a non-trinity God in the arian light as givens, newtonian science, by studying the inexorable source of divine truth unveiled in space, coincides with newtonian theology that examines the witnesses to this truth over time[67].

To solve the methodological problem of certifying the future, the young Newton in his Treatise on the Apocalypse formalizes general rules and definitions that must serve to restrict the degree of hermeneutic uncertainty, and

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy employs the demonstrations with the effect of enunciating the reasons for the truth of the prophecies, taken as propositions.

The definitions are ATOMIC MEANINGS that MAKE the SCRIPTURAL LANGUAGE UNAMBIGUOUS AND ALLOW the MATHEMATICAL METHOD to BE APPLIED AS their syntax. Defined in this way, the prophetic figures may be used according to semantic rules of interpretation that render them true and universally applicable. The context and analogy ensure that the definitions are unambiguous, provided that a universal teleologism is acknowledged, that becomes a sort of metarule for the meaning of all the contents: either the apocalypse is nonsense or else it expresses God’s plans[68].

The general rules of interpretation echo those of Robert Sanderson[69] and have the task of circumscribing the margin of doubt and uncertainty that is inherent in any language, with the aim of obliging the reader to agree with the evidence of the propositions that outline the scriptural contents. The certainty of the interpretation is useful for the prophecies themselves, that must not be eluded or blended with the hypotheses, rash dreams or fanatisms of the false prophets. Turning the Apocalypse into a certain rule of faith is tantamount to knowing when an interpretation is genuine, and which is the best among various competing interpretations[70].

There were sixteen of these rules, that can be subdivided into three groups: (1) rules 1-5bis for interpreting the words and language of the Scriptures; (2) rules 6-11 for methodizing or constructing the Apocalypse; (3) rules 12-15 for interpreting the Apocalypse. The first four rules are aimed at uniforming the scriptural language and making it homogeneous. For this reason Newton assumes that the meaning of the various places under study is univocal, in order to determine the main meaning, that may be mystical or literal but in any case univocal. The fifth rule proclaims the truth of the meaning that results from the language of the Scriptures itself, established according to the previous rules. The fifth rule bis, that deals with importance, states that it is necessary to prefer the higher meaning concerning things that have a great importance.

Rules 6-9 are concerned with order, harmony

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and simplicity. The tenth rule, that has to do with opportunity, warns that the word of God, that is certain, should not be commingled with arguments drawn from uncertain events. The eleventh rule again concerns truth, whereby that which is constructed according to a manifest order is true; perfection and order are values of truth, being inherent to the perfection of the works of God. The twelfth rule states that constructing the Apocalypse, after it has been determined according to the previous rules, is in turn a hermeneutic rule. In other words the Apocalypse must not be forced to fit history but on the contrary, those historical events that best conform to the Apocalypse should be selected. The subsequent rules, having to do with relevance, must be observed in conformity with the perfection of God’s plans[71].

Taken overall, the definitions and the rules make up a simple geometric-mathematical method that proceeds in a clear, evident and deductive manner. This method is not applied to natural phenomena but to the Holy Scriptures, and in particular to the understanding of the prophecies. While the understanding of nature would have launched a potentially infinite phase of progress, the discovery of the method serving to understand the prophecies imbued in the young Newton’s mind an awareness that he was at the end or near the end of history, according to the prophecy of Daniel, for whom the prophecies would be understood at the end of time [72].

According to Newton, in the same way as nature is simple because it has only one cause, so revelation is simple because it contains clear doctrines that are easy to understand, in other words those reflected in the customs of the primitive Christians[73]. The obscurity of the mystical writings is a trial to which God subjects men who are unable to discern the wisdom of God in the mechanism of the creation. Therefore, it is not necessary to ask for help from other men to demonstrate the certainty of the faith in the Scriptures, because whoever reads them can judge them and feel their force with the same clarity and certainty as when learning one of Euclid’s theorems. That is why the learning of the scholars – says the young Newton – prevents, in the same way, the discernment of the wisdom of God both in the mechanism of the creation and

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology in the Scriptures[74].

Later, Newton was to correct this esoteric conviction of his, distinguishing between the truths necessary for salvation, that are easy and understandable to all (milk for babies) and the more profound, difficult truths that are not necessary for salvation (solid food for adults), that include the prophecies[75].

Conclusion In conclusion, the first point that leaps to the eye is the relaxed intellectual climate that reigned immediately after the council of Trent in the great blossoming of philological and hermeneutic instruments for the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. These instruments presented at least two common denominators that derived from the second tridentine decree: the exaltation of the literal meaning and the equal dignity of the consensus of the Fathers of the Church and the determination of the catholic Church in the questions of faith and lifestyle alone. But while Pereira employed the literal meaning weakly, leaving biblical hermeneutics open to a collaboration with the natural sciences and limiting it to questions of faith alone, the conception Bellarmino had of the use of the literal meaning was shown to be decidedly stronger. There were two main reasons for this: the primacy of the determinations of the institutional Church over the consensus of the Fathers and the extension of these determinations to every single word in the Holy Scriptures, including the question of nature and all those question that had not already been defined by the Fathers. The predominance of the bellarminian conception at Galileo’s time was overwhelming, even in the roman Curia (that initially confronted Galileo in the character of cardinal Conti) and the Lincean Academy.

The predominance was also anticipated by Diego de Zuniga’s changed interpretation from copernicanism to aristotelian-ptolemaic cosmology.

As I noted in the previous contribution[75], the bellarminian conception enters in direct collision with Galileo’s, based on the criterion of accommodation. In fact, in Galileo and Newton’s view, the Holy Scriptures reflect the adaptation to the historical-cultural human context, that

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poses the risk of simplifying the content, to the detriment of the real essence of God. By contrast, nature, not in itself but in its character as creature of God, better reflects the image, because it does not relate to man but directly to God, Whose necessary, universal and invariable laws it executes. Therefore, while the Scriptures can be adapted in the hermeneutic sense, nature must be taken literally, and the literal meaning of nature is not deduced by hermeneutics, but by mathematics, that is the truest and most intimate language of God. The mathematization of nature in its reality as the creature of God explains both Galileo’s resort to the necessary methods, and the analogy that Newton establishes between the way God acts and man acts, by virtue of the harmony and homogeneity of the whole and of its parts, and the attempt to reduce the degree of uncertainty of the hypotheses and of the future not only of physics but also of the prophecies. The interpretation of the prophecies and of the Apocalypse is mathematized by Newton with a simple geometric-mathematical method that is articulated through definitions, rules and propositions, in order to obtain the rule of faith and uniform the scriptural language, like the scientific language. Thus young Newton, recalling the concept of good sense of cartesian memory, can conclude that whoever learns to read the Holy Scriptures in this way cannot but accept their evidence, like that of the natural sciences, and understand the simplicity of the revelation, like that of nature.

Galileo also trusts in the Holy Scriptures, not in order to mathematize them like Newton, but to use them to support his scientific theories, that were still in search of further experimental proof, like the copernican theory, or had not been experimentally demonstrated at all, like the nature of the sunspots and the creation of the universe. That is why Galileo appreciated the consensus of the fathers on the corruptibility of the heavens and the agreement of the passage in the book of joshua on the rotation of the Earth around the Sun and of the Sun around its own axis. If this passage, too, should be subjected to the criterion of accommodation, Galileo does not exclude the possibility of interpreting literally the Holy Scriptures in cases where there is a total lack of experimental proofs, thereby

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy assigning to the Holy Scriptures a value of residual proof.

It is obvious that in Galileo’s intent this value is inferior to that of nature, whose inexorability emerges in experimental observations and in mathematical demonstrations with such force as to bind the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. The primacy of nature suggests to galileo’s mind the offsetting of ecclesiastic authority, the subordination of theologians to astronomers and mathematicians, and direct reference to the consensus of the Fathers only in questions of faith not in those of nature, even if their pronouncement is concordant. As regards this pronouncement, it is necessary not only to demonstrate its positive agreement with a certain scientific theory, but also its negative agreement with the opposite theory.

This is the conception that Galileo, as mathematician and natural philosopher by profession, expresses of bliblical hermeneutics, a field served by theologians by profession.

Naturally, this conception could not but conflict with the views of theologians who held to the bellarminian conception, starting from Cardinal Conti, for whom the vulgate language was not an adaptation of the Holy Scriptures to men possessed of a low culture but the clearest expression of the will of the Holy Spirit, that must simply be complied with. The Lincean academics reiterated the autonomy of theology and the consequent Thomist subordination of the other sciences. But above all, they could not brook galileo’s invasion of their field: for them it is not theology that should deal only with questions of faith but natural science that should deal only with questions of nature.

Finally, Bellarmino laments the lack of experimental and ocular proof to support the heliocentric hypothesis, that must be held simply as a supposition and set aside in favour of the geocentric view according to the literal meaning of the Holy Scriptures. Therefore, while Galileo intends to rely on the Holy Scriptures to reinforce his scientific theories, that have not yet been perfectly demonstrated experimentally, Bellarmino demands more experimental proof before abandoning the literal meaning of the Holy Scriptures and transforming a mere hypothesis into a true scientific theory.

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However paradoxical it may seem, Bellarmino is speaking as a scientist in terms of experimental method and Galileo as a theologian in terms of the most refined biblical hermeneutics. Walter Brandmuller’s conclusion seems illuminating: «We find ourselves [...] faced with the paradox of Galilei who is wrong in the field of science and of the Curia that is wrong in the field of theology. Vice versa, the Curia is right in the scientific field and Galilei in the interpretation of the Bible».[76]

This means that Bellarmino was right to ask for further experimental proof on the scientific plane and Galileo was right to propose a scriptural interpretation, open to the natural sciences and to analysis of the language and culture of men.

But in this way, the roles of the theologian and the philosopher are reversed.

Brandmuller’s conclusion was echoed in the talk given by Pope John Paul II in october 1992, concluding the works of the Commission constituted in 1981 to study the case of Galileo. After underlining that Galileo «refused the suggestion that he had been made to present Copernicus’ system as a hypothesis, until it had been confirmed by inconfutable proof», the Pontifice noted that from the standpoint of exegesis Galileo «showed himself more perspicacious than his theologian adversaries.»[76].

In short, even if improperly, Galileo and Newton manifested their own ‘theology’ or at least thir own way of living religion or the personal relationship with God. This way was so convinced that it justified the creatural character of inexorable nature and through this the absolute primacy both of God, Who created nature and emanated the natural laws, and of science, that studies nature and the natural laws. It is this primacy that prevails not only over the Holy Scriptures but also over the Church, and over men, their language and their culture. However, it is this very primacy that, although it allows nature to become transparent to man’s rigorous knowledge, poses the risk of unveiling a particular aspect but not the whole essence of God. As observed by cardinal Joseph Ratzinger[77] in 1991: Is it God Who speaks the language of mathematics and mathematizes reality or is it man who better understands the language of mathematics, when God speaks

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology to him in this language rather than others?

Mathematics, too, could be the result of the adaptation to created reality rather than of the Holy Scriptures to man, this time not to man of a low culture but to highly cultured man.

Cardinal Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict XVI, returned in 2013 in a dialogue with Piergiorgio Odifreddi to this great question: «mathematics as such is a creation of our intelligence: the correspondence between its structures and the real structures of the universe – that is the presupposition of all the modern scientific and technological developments, already expressly formulated by Galileo Galilei in the famous statement that the book of nature is written in mathematical language – inspires our admiration and raises a great question. In fact, it implies that the universe is structured in an intelligent way, so that there is a profound correspondence between our subjective reason and the objective reason of nature. It therefore seems inevitable to wonder if there must not be a unique original intelligence, that is the common source of both one and the other. Hence it is reflection on the development of science itself that brings us back to the Lògos creator».[80]

REFERENCES [1] See Viganò Mario, “Fede e scienza in Galileo”

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[Faith and science in Galileo], La civiltà cattolica 116 (1965): 36-45 228-239: 447-455 (translation by author).

See Martini, Carlo M. “Gli esegeti del tempo di Galilei.” in Nel quarto centenario della nascita di Galileo Galilei, edited by Anonymous, 115-124.

Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 1966.

See Fabris, Rinaldo. Galileo Galilei e gli orientamenti esegetici del suo tempo, Vatican City: Pontifical Accademy of Sciences, 1986.

See Pedersen, Olaf., Galileo and the Council ofTrent, Vatican City: Libreria Vaticana Editrice, 1991.

See Shea, William “La Controriforma e l’esegesi biblica di Galileo Galilei.” in Problemi religiosi e filosofia, edited by Albino Babolin, 37-72. Padue: Garagola, 1975; reprint in Copernico, Galileo, Cartesio: aspetti della rivoluzione scientifica, Rome: Armando, 1989, pp. 107-129); Idem “Galileo e la Chiesa.” in Dio e la natura, Saggi

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storici sul rapporto tra cristianesimo e scienza, edited by DavidC. Lindberg, and Ronald L. Numbers, 123-152. Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1994; see also Leonardi, Giovanni. “Verità e libertà di ricerca nell’ermeneutica biblica cattolica dell’epoca galileiana e attuale” [Truth and liberty of search in the biblical catholic ermeneutic of Galileo’s age and to-day], Studia Patavina 29 (1982): 109-147 (translation by author); Pesce, Mauro. “L’interpretazione della Bibbia nella lettera di Galileo a Cristina di Lorena e la sua ricezione” [The interpretation of the Bible in the letter of Galileo to Cristina of Lorena and its reception], Annali di Storia dell’esegesi 4 (1987): 239-284 (translation by author); Idem., “Momenti della ricezione dell’ermeneutica biblica galileiana e della “Lettera a Cristina” nel XVII secolo” [Moments of the biblical receiption of the Galileian ermeneutic and of the “Letter to Cristina” in the XVIIth century], Annali di Storia dell’esegesi 8 (1991): 55-104 (translation by author); Idem, “Le redazioni originali della Lettera “Copernicana” di G. Galilei a B. Castelli” [The original editings of the Copernican Letter of G. Galilei to B. Castelli], Filologia e Critica 17 (1992): 394-417.

[6] See Blackwell, Richard J. Galileo, Bellarmine and the Bible, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991.

[7] See Fiorentino, Francesco “The image of the universe as a cultural choice between science and theology. Probabilism and Realism from the Middle Ages to Modernity.” In Dialogo Conference 2014. The first virtual international Conference on the Dialogue between Science and Theology. Cosmology, Life and Antropology, held ffrom 6 to 11 november, 2014 at www. dialogo-conf.com, edited by Research Center on the Dialogue between Science and Theology of Ovidius University of Constanta, Romania, 14-27.

[8] MANSI, Domenico J., SACRORUM CONCILIORUM NOVA et AMPLISSIMA COLLECTIO, Graz: VERLAGSANSTALT, 1961, VOL. 33, pp. 22-33.

[9] See Fransen, Paul F. 1978-1979. “ “A Short History of the Meaning of the Formula ‘Fides et mores.”

Louvain Studies (7): 270-301.

[10] See Mansi. Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, vol. 33, pp. 117-120, 194.

[11] See MARTINI. GLI ESEGETI DEL TEMPO DI GALILEI, PP. 115-124.

[12] SEE DE BUSTOS TOVAR, EUGENIO. « LA

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy INTRODUCCIÓN DE LAS TEORIAS DE COPERNICO EN LA UNIVERSIDAD DE SALAMANCA » [THE INTRODUCTION OF COPERNICUS’ THEORIES IN THE UNIVERSITY OF SALAMANCA], REVISTA DE LA ACADEMIA DE CIENCIAS EXACTAS, FISICAS Y NATURALES 67 (1973): 235-253.

[13] See BARONE FRANCESCO, “DIEGO DE ZUNIGA E GALILEO GALILEI: ASTRONOMIA ELIOSTATICA ED ESEGESI BIBLICA” [DIEGO OF ZUNIGA AND GALILEO GALILEI. ELIOSTATIC ASTRONOMY AND BIBLICAL EXEGESIS], CRITICA STORICA 19 (1982): 329331; BLACKWELL, GALILEO, BELLARMINE AND THE BIBLE, APPENDIX 2, PP. 185186; NAVARRO BROTÓNS, VICTOR (1995).

“THE RECEPTIONS OF COPERNICUS IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURY SPAIN. THE CASE OF DIEGO DE ZUNIGA.” ISIS (86): 67-69.

[14] See Tapia, JOAQUIN Iglesia y teologia en Melchor Cano (1509-1560), Rome: Iglesia Nacional Espanola, 1989, passim.

[15] See Cano, Melchior. De locis theologicis libri duodecim, Coloniae: officina Birckmannica sumptibus Arnoldi Mylij, 1585, book 12, chap. 6, ff. (=folios) 366r-372v.

[16] See De Vio, Thomas (Caietanus), Praefatio in quinque Mosaicos libros, Romae: apud Antonium Vladum Asulanum, 1532book 1.

[17] See Fabris. Galileo Galilei e gli orientamenti esegetici del suo tempo, pp. 26-27.

[18] See da Siena, Sixtus. Biblioteca sancta ex precipuis catholicae Ecclesiae auctoribus collecta, Venetiis: apud Franciscum Franciscium Senensem, 1566; Neapolim: Mutiana, 1742; Montgomery, John W. (1964). “Sixtus of Siena and Roman Catholic Scholarship in the Reformation Period.” Archiv fµr Reformationsgeschichte (54): 214-234.

[19] See da Siena, Ars interpretandi Sacras Scripturas absolutissima, Coloniae: apud Petrum Horst, 1577.

[20] See Pereyra, Benedictus, Commentariorum in Danielem prophetam libri sexdecim, Romae: Zannetti, 1587; Idem, Commentariorum et disputationum in Genesim tomi quatuor, Romae: Zannetti, 1591; Idem, Selectarum disputationum in Sacram Scripturam: Èxodus, Ingolstadt: Dauidis Sartorium, 1601; Idem, Physicorum sive de principiis rerum naturalium libri XV, Romae: Zannetti, 1562.

[21] See Galilei, Galileo. Opere. Edizione Nazionale,

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ed. A. Favaro, Florence: Barbera, 1890-1909, rist.

1929-1939,11964-1966, 20 voll., vol. V, pp. 320, 339.

[22] See ibidem, pp. 338-339.

[23] See Pereyra. Commentariorum et disputationum in Genesim, Lugduni: Cardon, 1607, vol. I, pp. 22-27.

[24] See Bellarmino, Roberto. Disputationes de controversiis christianae fidei adversus huius temporis haereticos, vol. 2, liber 2, chap. 12, Venetiis, Malachinus, 1721, p. 43.

[25] See ibidem, liber 1, chap. 3, pp. 68-69.

[26] See ibidem, liber 1, chap. 4, pp. 70-71.

[27] Campanella, Tommaso. Lettere, ed. A. Spampanato, Laterza: Bari, 1927, PP. 166-167.

[28] See Galilei. Opere, ed. Favaro, vol. V, p. 331.

[29] See delle Colombe, Ludovico. Contro il moto della Terra, in Galilei. Opere, ed. Favaro, vol. III, p. 290.

[30] See ibidem, vol. XI, p. 154.

[31] See ibidem; Poppi, Antonino. “La lettera del cardinale Carlo Conti a Galileo su cosmologia aristotelica e Bibbia (7 luglio 1612): l’approdo galileiano alla nuova ermeneutica biblica” [The letter of cardinal Carlo Conti to Galileo on Aristotelian cosmology and Bible july 7 1612. The Galileian landing to the new biblical ermeneutic]. « Atti e memorie dell’Accademia patavina di scienze, lettere e arti 109 (1996-1997): 131-158 (translation by author).

[32] See Galilei. Opere, ed. Favaro, vol. XI, pp. 354355.

[33] See Camerota, Michele, “Galileo e l’accomodatio copernicana.” IN IL CASO GALILEO : UNA RILETTURA STORICA, FILOSOFICA, TEOLOGICA: CONVEGNO INTERNAZIONALE DI STUDI : FIRENZE, 26-30 MAGGIO 2009, edited by Massimo BUCCIANTINI, Michele CAMEROTA, ANDGFranco IUDICE, 29-151, IN PARTICULAR. 129-140. Florence: OLSCHKI, 2011.

[34] See Galilei. Opere, ed. Favaro, vol. XI, pp. 354355.

[35] See ibidem, p. 376.

[36] Ibidem, vol. V, p. 138.

[37] Ibidem, p. 139.

[38] See ibidem, vol. XI, p. 453.

[39] See ibidem, p. 471; Bucciantini Massimo.

“Teologia e nuova filosofia. Galileo, Federico Cesi, Giovambattista Agucchi e la discussione

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology sulla fluidità e corruttibilità celeste”, in Science et religion, edited vy Christian Brice and Andrea Romano, 411-442. Rome: Ecole francaise de Rome, 1999; Idem, Galileo e Keplero, Torino: Einaudi, 2003, pp. 328 ssq.

[40] See Stabile Giorgio, “Linguaggio della natura e linguaggio della scrittura in Galilei. Dalla “Istoria” sulle macchie solari alle lettere copernicane” [Language of the nature and language of the scripture in Galilei. From ‘Istoria’ on the sunspots to the Copernican letters]. Nuncius 9 (1994): 3764, in particular 55-57.

[41] See Fiorentino, Francesco, Conoscenza scientifica e teologia fra i secoli XIII e XIV, Bari: Edizioni di Pagina, 2014, pp. 52-55.

[42] See Lerner, Michel-Pierre, « Le “livre vivant” de Dieu: la cosmologie evolutive de Tommaso Campanella » [The living book of God. The evolutive theology of Tommaso Campanella].

Baroque 12 (1987): 111-129.

[43] Galilei. Opere, ed. Favaro, vol. V, pp. 282-283.

[44] See Grant, Edward “Scienza e teologia nel Medioevo”, in Dio e natura. Saggi storici sul rapporto tra cristianesimo e scienza, edited by David C. in Lindberg, And Ronald LL. Numbers, 39-73. Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1994, pp.

[45] See Stabile, Giorgio. “Lo statuto di “inesorabile” in Galileo Galilei”, in Lexiques et glossaires philosophiques de la Renaissance, edited by JAMESSE Hamesse, and MARTA Fattori, 269-285. Louvain-La-Neuve : FIDEM, 2003; Hamou, Philippe. « La nature est inexorable”.

Pour une reconsidération de la contribution de Galilée au problème de la connaissance [The nature is inexorable. For a reconsideration of the contribution of Galilei to the problem of the knowledge], Galilaeana 5 2008: 149-177 (translation by author).

[46] See Stabile. “Linguaggio della natura e linguaggio della Scrittura in Galilei”, pp. 37-64.

[47] Galilei. Opere, ed. Favaro, vol. V, pp. 286-287.

[48] Ibidem, p. 313.

[49] See Ibidem, p. 315.

[50] See ibidem, p. 365.

[51] See ibidem, p. 316.

[52] See ibidem, pp. 282-283.

[53] See ibidem, p. 317.

[54] See ibidem, p. 325.

[55] See ibidem, pp. 336-337.

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[56] See Ibidem, p. 337.

[57] Ibidem, p. 330.

[58] See REDONDI, Pietro “NATURAE SCRITTURA”,

IN IL CASO GALILEO: UNA RILETTURA STORICA, FILOSOFICA, TEOLOGICA: CONVEGNO INTERNAZIONALE DI STUDI: FIRENZE, 26-30 MAGGIO 2009, edited by Massimo BUCCIANTINI. Michele CAMEROTA, and F*** GIUDICE, 153-162, IN particular 160162. Florence: OLSCHKI, 2011.

[59] See Boaga, Emanuele. “Annotazioni e documenti sulla vita e sulle opere di Paolo Antonio Foscarini, teologo “Copernicano” (1562 ca.-1616)” [Annotations and documents on the life and the works of Paolo Antonio Foscarini, Copernican theologian (1562 ca.-1616)], Carmelus 37 (1990): 173-216, in particular 214-216.

[60] Newton, Isaac, Letter to Thomas Burnet, January 1680/1, in The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, edited by Herbert W. Turnbull. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959-1977, 7 voll., vol. 2, pp. 331-333.

[61] Ibidem, p. 133.

[62] See Koyré, Alexander. Studi newtoniani, Torino: UTET, 1965, pp. 59-126.

[63] See Newton, Isaac. Unpublished scientific Papers of Sir Isaac Newton, edited by Rupert A. Hall, and Marie B. Hall, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978, p. 108.

[64] See Manuel, Franz E, The Religion of Isaac Newton, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974, passim.

[65] See Westfall, Richard S. “Newton’s Theological Manuscripts”, in Contemporary Newtonìan Research, edited by Zen E. Bechler, 130-154, in particular 131. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1982.

[66] See Newton, Isaac, Treatise on the Apocalypse, ms. Jewish National and University Library, Yahuda MS Var. I, Newton I, F. 9r.

[67] See Manuel. The Religion of Isaac Newton, p. 63.

[68] See Newton. Treatise on the Apocalypse, f. 17v.

[69] See Sanderson, Roberto. Logicae artis compendium, edited by Ealine J. Ashworth, Bologna: Cleub, 1985, pp. 226 ssq.

[70] See Newton. Treatise on the Apocalypse, f. 10r.

[71] See ibidem, f. 17rv.

[72] See ibidem, f. 15v.

[73] See ibidem, f. 6r.

[74] See ibidem, f. 18r.

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy [75] See Manuel. The Religion of Isaac Newton, pp. 32,

54.

[76] See Fiorentino. The image of the universe as a cultural choice between science and theology.

Probabilism and Realism from the Middle Ages to Modernity, pp. 22-27.

[77] Brandmuller, Walter. Galilei e la Chiesa, ossia il diritto ad errare, Città del Vaticano: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1992, p. 196: «Ci troviamo [...] di fronte al paradosso di un galilei che sbaglia nel campo delle scienze e di una curia che sbaglia nel campo della teologia. viceversa la curia ha ragione nel campo scientifico e galilei nell’interpretazione della bibbia.»

[78] See John Paul II. “Discorso alla Pontificia Accademia delle Scienze”, in La nuova immagine del mondo. Il dialogo tra scienza e fede dopo Galileo, edited by Paul Poupard, 23-34, in particolar 27. Casale Monferrato: Piemme, 1996.

[79] See Ratzinger, Joseph. Svolta per l’Europa. Chiesa e modernità nell’Europa dei rivolgimenti, Cinisello Balsamo: Edizioni Paoline, 1991, pp. 11-32.

[80] Odifreddi, Pier-Giorgio, and Benedetto XVI, Caro papa teologo, caro matematico ateo : dialogo tra fede e ragione, religione e scienza, Milan: Mondadori, 2013, p. 187: «la matematica come tale è una creazione della nostra intelligenza: la corrispondenza tra le sue strutture e le strutture reali dell’universo - che è il presupposto di tutti i moderni sviluppi scientifici e tecnologici, già espressamente formulato da galileo galilei con la celebre affermazione che il libro della natura è scritto in linguaggio matematico - suscita la nostra ammirazione e pone una grande domanda. implica infatti che l’universo stesso sia strutturato in maniera intelligente, in modo che esista una corrispondenza profonda tra la nostra ragione soggettiva e la ragione oggettivata nella natura. diventa allora inevitabile chiedersi se non debba esservi un’unica intelligenza originaria, che sia la comune fonte dell’una e dell’altra. così proprio la riflessione sullo sviluppo delle scienze ci riporta verso il lògos creatore.»

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Short Biography Francesco Fiorentino, born in 1975, professor of Philosophy and History in Liceo Scientifico ‘Arcangelo Scacchi’ of Bari in Italy and qualified to the universitarian teaching of History of Philosophy in Europe.

He recently has published Conoscenza scientifica e teologia fra i secoli XIII e XIV, Bari: Edizioni di Pagina, 2014.

Prof. Francesco Fiorentino is member of S.I.E.P.M., S.I.S.P.M., S.I.S.M.E.L. and various other international Societies.

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Creation, its Processes, and Significance Samkhya - evolution and involuton

Pratibha Gramann, PhD De Anza College California USA pratibhagramann@gmail.com

Abstract: Science, religions, and cultural traditions develop theories and creative descriptions about the origin of the universe and meaning of life. These theories have both similarities and differences regarding the cause and effect of creation, and life as human beings know it. Religions and cultural traditions primarily adhere to a personal God as creator and ruler. Science has gone in the opposite direction of denying the existence of a God. A definitive cause of creation has not been scientifically found. Science may find a comparable, suitable match in the ancient thought of Samkhya, written in the 500-800 BC time. Samkhya is probably the first complete philosophical description of the origin and evolution of creation. The three basic energetics of Samkhya are comparable to the basic energies of physics. This paper addresses the hypothesis that the evolution and origin of creation stem from the 3 energies gunas of materiality prakriti described in ancient Samkhya.

Keywords: Samkhya; guna; light; action; inertia; ego; intellect; senses; principles; consciousness; materiality; universal/cosmic mind; Mahat; evolutes

I. INTRODUCTION A view of life during the BC era would be different than modern life. There were fewer people and lifestyle would naturally be close to nature. People naturally adjusted to the seasons, consumed food seasonally grown, observed the phases of the moon and the behavioral patterns of animals and other creatures. There were few material items as we know them. Before the time of written language, people scribbled on leaves and rocks. Some of these observations included perspectives about how life evolved.

The terms rishis and sages were used for those who meditated and reflected on the processes of life, its meaning, and creation. One such person was Kapila who lived a few hundred years prior to Gautama the Buddha.

Kaplia wrote the philosophy of Samkhya.

One meaning for Samkhya is numbers. In this connection, Kapila refers to 24 principles that are responsible for the entire creation. Ancient scriptures refer to lively debates that took place over philosophical issues about origin and meaning of life. The most authoritative commentary on Samkhya philosophy was written by Ishwarakrishna in 3rd century AD. That is 600 years after Samkhya was first written.

Samkhya Karika is the title. It is still studied as

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th e Dia l o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and T heology the most authentic source of Samkhya thought.

Some Indian philosophers and scholars used Samkhya as a base to develop other systems of thought. One such system is Vedanta written by Sankara All Indian epic writings used Samkhya philosophy as a base including the Mahabharat, Bhagavad Gita, and Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, the ancient health science of Ayurveda, even Indian classical dance [5].

II. 24 PRINCIPLES OF CREATION Samkhya holds that the universe consists of two coexisting principles: consciousness purusha and materiality prakriti. These 2 principals exist in an absolute dimension. They are separate, but always in proximity of each other. Consciousness is non-changing and Materiality, when it is in its unbalanced state, continually changes.

Consciousness, the illumination principle, continually pervades, and as such it is like a mirror. It shows to materiality ‘where it is.’ In other words, consciousness enlivens the aspects of materiality. In this connection, the two eternal principles have a continual relationship.

Consciousness does not create. Rather it is the eternal principle of illumination, and in whose presence, materiality is enlivened. The inertia of materiality awakens, lives life, and creates.

This includes every form from the stars, planets, trees, and humankind.

We human persons are composed of a combination of materiality and consciousness.

Materiality has two states due to its makeup of the three energies: light, action, and inertia. One state is the ever-changing, unbalanced three gunas that manifest creation. This includes the cosmos, all living forms organic and inorganic, gross and subtle, including the human mind of thoughts and emotions [2].

The other state of materiality consists of the gunas in perfect balance. Typically this dimension refers to the state of cosmic equilibrium, the time prior to creation pralaya. However, the three gunas in a human person come into a state of balance in deep meditation when the body and mind, the psychophysiological, are in pure stillness [6].

Through our human experience, we learn about the manifestation of the world. In the non-

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manifested state, there is no world, no human life or any form to experience. In deep dreamless sleep, we do not know the world. In a nonmanifested state, the carpet of the world has been rolled up. Deep dreamless sleep is a state of mental equilibrium [8].

Samkhya philosophy affirms over and over again, that the world comes into existence, exists for some eras of time, and it possesses the qualities for preservation. Then again, it breaks down and becomes destroyed. For an unknown amount of time, there is no creation pralaya. Then again, the 3 energies of materiality fall out of balance, and the process of creation begins once more. The phenomenon of repeated creation and destruction gives rise to many issues and questions for the human person. Some of these will be addressed in this paper.

Of the 24 principles of creation, 23 are evolutes.

Materiality is an eternal principle. Therefore it is not an evolute. Materiality is not evolved from something else. It exists permanently in the same way that the Consciousness principle eternally exists. Materiality, unlike Consciousness, has the quality of change due to its composition of the three gunas.

Matter changes, but it is never destroyed.

Physics too asserts the same view that matter changes, and is never destroyed. Within the Universal Cosmic Mind, matter is in the precognized condition. It first manifests into a subtle condition, followed later by dense, physical formation.

A hypothesis: could atoms and molecules be contained in the universal cosmic mind Mahat in a pre-cognized, vibrational state? Within time and space, could the molecules take on a mathematical subtle formation - known as the mathematics of the universe?

If the above is true, what caused the changes in the atoms and molecules? According to Samkhya, it is the ever-changing 3 instruments of creation: light, action, and inertia that causes all transformations to occur. The 3 instruments gunas are roots or seeds enlivened by pervading Consciousness. The gunas change moment to moment. Their first evolute is Universal Cosmic Mind that continues the process of producing evolutes, ending with the 5 basic elements of ether, air, fire, water, and earth [5].

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology The mental dimension, the mind and the brain are also a product of the 24 evolutes. Even though we cannot see the mind, it is considered a product of light, action, and density. What is the make-up of the thought and expression process? According to Samkhya, the ego of a person expresses knowledge acquired from Mahat. It becomes individualized according to the type of ego that a person has. The ego works together with the intellect, perceptions, senses, and memory of a person.

Samkhya adheres to the concept of multiple purushas. Each is the same as the total ocean of consciousness purush. Every person has his/ her own core of consciousness, purusha, the soul within. It is colored by the person’s past and present actions, skills, work, tendencies, and memories. The soul of a person gives life to the gunas as they interact among themselves in varying proportions. If the person’s life is characterized by a predominant combination of sattva and rajas, it makes a different print on the soul than a tamasic predominant life. A pattern develops based on amount of time and intensity.

The type of guna predominance becomes the basis of cause and effect in a person’s life [7].

The strength of sattva and rajas working together leads to a liberation of anxiety and pain. A life characterized by tamasic energy will lead to the cause and effect of increased mental suffering, a binding to ignorance, and unpleasant retribution due to patterns set in motion [5].

The concept of rebirth is based on past energies that characterized one’s soul. Effort and will are key contributors to willfully changing one’s life toward the direction of light.

III. UNIVERSAL COSMIC MIND 1st EVOLUTE The first evolute of materiality is cosmic, universal mind, known as Mahat, Hirangarbha, Buddhi, and Chitta. Within universal mind, all potentialities exist. It gives rise to the sun, planets, and stars, as well as the world we know physically, mentally, and psychologically.

Universal mind contains everything prior to form. It is the golden egg of creation.

IV. I-SENSE 2nd EVOLUTE The universal mind gives rise to the 2nd evolute, “I-Sense.” Astronauts who have related their experiences in space refer to a dimension of mind that is indescribable and life changing.

Could this experience have been the pure “Sense of I?” Perhaps astronauts in space do experience the universal cosmic mind.

I-Sense is pure, sattva dominate, and unconnected to any form. It is known in yogic scriptures as Asmita. It has no physical form, nor does it identify with anything. I-Sense is inherent

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy to universal mind Mahat. I-Sense is not indicated in the above chart [1].

V. EGO AHAMKAR 3rd EVOLUTE From the manifestation of ‘I-Sense,’ arises the 3rd evolute, ego Ahamkar. ‘Ego’ has the scope of identifying with objects. The sense of Ego or ‘I am’ that every person experiences is connected to something, an actual item, or something subtle in the mind. This could be a psychological emotion, a feeling, or a tangible role in life, such as a parent or type of work.

Ego operates according to three different frames of reference or viewpoints. Sattva is light, and pure intentioned ego. Rajas is the action-oriented ego. Tamas is the inert, darkness filled ego. All three of these exist within every dimension and form of creation. We are accustomed to thinking of ego in connection to personality, yet the same principles exist in all cosmic dimensions, animate and inanimate, intellectual and emotional expressions. The braided strands of three cosmic energies gunas operate in a continually changing way. One of the three energies is always dominate, and supported by the other two. This occurs in the microcosm and the macrocosm [7].

The moon is an example of continual change of the gunas that takes place in nature and the influence it has on people. When full, the moon’s influence is uplifting sattvic and rajasic.

In generally it has a positive energizing effect on plants, animals, and humans. When the moon’s energy is in the dark phase, the energetics are more dense, inert tamasic.

Can humans control the action of the three cosmic energies within themselves? Every person has the option of putting forth effort toward the success of an endeavor. Effort comes from one’s will or will power [9]. The effort may be mild, medium, or intense, and that will have an effect on the outcome. If a person sleeps late in the morning and is regularly late for work, how much can effort change this situation? What would be needed to transform or change laziness tamasic energy into a more active rajasic energy [4]?

VI. 5 MENTAL and 5 ACTIVITY EVOLUTES Four of the 24 principles of creation have been described.

Starting with materiality prakriti, it gives rise to the first evolute Universal Mind that contains the pre-subtle threads of potentiality for all manifestations. It is appropriately referred to as the golden egg of creation. The second evolute is I-Sense alone, deep peace sufficient unto itself. The third evolute is Ego, and it has three dimensions. The natural characteristic of ego is to attach itself to objects, thoughts, and emotions. In this regard, one can see how cause and effect works in one’s life. Every thought, association, and item has its own effect, increasing or decreasing knowledge and tendencies.

It is stated in Samkhya texts that the three cosmic energies of light, action, and inertia work together through the internal organ of mind antahkarana. This internal organ consists of the senses, intellect, and ego. It drives the thoughts, feelings, and actions of a person [10 ].

In the physical creation of a person, the sattvic and rajasic dimensions of ego work together to give rise to the 5 powers of mental perception jnanendriyas, and the 5 powers of action karmendriyas.

The 5 sattvic powers of perception or sentience consist of the abilities to hear, feel, see, taste, and smell. These connect with the 5 rajasic powers of action through the recording subjective faculty of mind antahkarana (ego, intellect, senses). The powers of action consist of expressing, grasping, moving, procreation and elimination. One braid of the tripartite energy is always dominant. In the situation of the powers of perception, sattva is dominant. In the case of the organs that perform action, rajas is dominant. These two energies are supportive of each other. Tamasic energy pulls in a heavier, gravitational, physical direction [10].

Hearing pleasant music is sattvic, the activity of listening is rajasic, and the physical structure of the objective ear is tamasic. Three gunas are required for experience, and one is always dominant. There is continual change from one moment to another in the proportional operation of the gunas.

The hands grasp and the nose smells because

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology there is an internal ability to perceive and act.

This is not due to the physical hand or nose. It is due to ‘that which enlivens’ present within the internal organ. The intellect, ego, and senses are not physically discernable. The attunement of the internal ear could be dominated by any one of the three gunas. If a person cannot hear, it may be due to an inability to perceive, a sattvic inability. If the action of listening is not occurring, it could be due to a rajasic distraction.

If the physical eardrum is defective, the cause would be tamasic.

Birds chirp all the time, but when do we hear them? A perception of the vibrational dimension of the birds must be present in the internal organ, in the intellect, ego, and sense awareness at the time that the birds are chirping. Otherwise the process of hearing the birds will not be activated. Of course the physical ears must be in good condition.

Another example of internal organ operation is one who perceives a philosophical concept versus one who does not. The sattvic oriented mind has the one-pointedness and sentience to perceive deeper concepts.

VII. 10 ELEMENTS - EVOLUTES (5 subtle and 5 physical) Ten more evolutes remain to complete the 24 principles of creation. These are the tamasic or objective principles. ‘Objective’ is used here to mean inorganic. There is a lesser amount of consciousness in tamasic dominated matter. Still there would be a small amount of consciousness in inertia or darkness because the three gunas work in unison. Proportions of each guna vary in everything [10].

The subjective, organic qualities of perception and action are inherently dominated with sattva followed by rajas. The objective, inorganic powers of nature or 5 elements that form the mass and structure of matter, are inherently dominate with tamasic energy.

There are 5 subtle non-physical elements tanmatras. These give rise to the 5 knowable, tangible elements bhutas: ether, air, fire, water, earth. These five elements are the groundwork of every physical structure including the human form. These sustain the earth and every form in

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a connected way. Without any one of these five, life on earth perishes1 [1].

Our planet exists in space. We use space for the placement of items, and to avoid crowding.

We need air in order to breath. We need fire and heat for warmth and circulation. We need water for moisture and to avoid thirst. We need earth to walk on and we need to grow food. Because these belong to the materiality principle, they change. They have a life of coming and going that significantly affects humans and other forms of life.

Humankind, due their abilities for insight and perception, sattva and rajas together, is the only form of life that can exert control over the supply and use of the 5 elements. The intelligence of humanistic values can help to preserve life in a way that personal involution can take place.

VIII. INVOLUTION AND PSYCHOLOGY Just as evolution took place, involution will occur on the cosmic level and individually. In the human being, it is a process, a psychological transformation, a personal journey. Change is an inevitable occurrence. Due to the influences of life, there is both pleasure and pain. Pain teaches one most profoundly. A person may begin to think ‘what is life about?’ One wants to get rid of the anxieties. One seeks liberation from the mental suffering.

The same mental framework of gunas that comprise stress, can be a person’s initiator to make changes. The psychophysiological is nonother than the gunas. Following a moment of ignorance, one could begin to choose more personal responsibility. A person can exercise his/her will and engage in practices to develop focus, change lifestyle, make new acquaintances, and become determined in a new direction.

Involution takes place regularly as one goes about life, engaging in work, relationships, and lifestyle, as long as the ego is sattvic and rajasic [3].

Liberation and freedom are related to involution. You may feel a freedom when a job or task has been completed. You may feel liberated by detaching from a detrimental practice such as alcoholism. An ultimate, final liberation is a term used at the time of passing if one has

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy been able to merge totally into consciousness purush. One soul generally has thousands of births over centuries of years. A completion of samskaras together with restitutions, and a total purification are the path to an ultimate liberation [10].

Of course one does not know his/her previous births. One can develop focus for sattvic and rajasic intentions and ways of living. This is the path toward the return to pure consciousness. A teacher who knows the path can be of immense value in the process.

The concept of rebirth is supported in Samkhya due to the results imprinted on one’s soul accumulated over lifetimes. Everything has a cause and effect in Samkhya. Once the wheel begins to spin in a direction, momentum carries it to a particular end. Rebirth follows the cause and effect initiated by the gunas [6]. This is a topic that could become a paper of its own.

Involution takes place when one places effort into transforming one’s personal life into Sattva, reaching for the universal mind.

Involution results in clarity and new knowledge.

This can take place in meditation, including study and knowledge about the significance of life, awareness of the dimensions of prana, and psychological transformation. It is a process, a journey.

Who or what is responsible for what arises in our minds? Are our minds a combination of memory from unknown past births with its actions, accomplishments, skills, and previously formed tendencies samskaras? Awareness of what is arising in the mind becomes the responsibility of each person. We have to save ourselves by becoming mindful and changing focus in the present moment about whatever needs transformation or adjustment. This is the era of information. Resources to study about prana are available. It is possible to work with one’s prana and shift the dimensions of ones’s mental outlook, to rid reactionary responses and develop focus. Studying about prana can inspire the practice of pranayam and meditation that will bring clarity, attention, and will [3].

Since the dawn of humankind, people have recognized the forces of nature, and created gods and goddess as a means to interact with nature.

There were gods that represented thunder,

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rain, fire, and other elements. Psychological dimensions were recognized through ancient mythological stories. Qualities associated with human life were depicted by divinities. Creating and hearing the stories was a way of addressing emotional and psychological dimensions. In turn, these increased clarifications, relinquished anxieties, rid unwholesome emotions, and helped persons to have more direction and focus. One example is the goddess of learning and speech Saraswati in the tradition of India.

Devotion and dedication to an image of learning, together with study of a subject, attracts that combination of gunas, the atoms and molecules that make up that subject. The influence of consciousness will also have to be there.

In the current era, the number of people claiming ‘there is no god’ is increasing. Does this mean they are of demonic character? Not at all, those who claim to be atheistic or agnostic may have a wholesome, mindful, and virtue-filled way of living. It takes courage and will to put one’s entire lifestyle on the shoulders of one’s self. Since early civilizations, certain lifestyles have promoted courageous, intelligent, kindly, unselfish, uplifting values. Sattva and rajas egos working together bring about uplifting values for self and others.

It must have been persons with qualities of sattva combined with rajas that brought about altruistic systems of interaction, including harmony, kindness, and compassion. Under the universal cosmic sky of Samkhya, there is room for many religions and systems.

Ultimately one becomes their own religion, responsible for one’s own actions, the principle of cause and effect. The dark side of life involves dominance of tamasic ego. It is responsible for stability and structure in our lives, the positive side of tamas guna. On the other hand, qualities of ignorance, hatred, and laziness are harmful.

These characteristics bring about illusions and unwholesome attachments. These in turn impact one’s thinking, intentions, and interactions with others. [7].

Awareness of one’s ability to change and control the forces of the gunas within, is key.

Effort is significant. Awareness about oneself permits a person to know what they need to work on. The factor of will is required in order

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology to make changes. It reorders the arrangement of the gunas. Will and effort are types of rajasic action.

So far, it may seem there is not much accountability in the system of Samkhya. Not so, it is through cause and effect that everything is connected, manifested, exists for some time, and eventually breaks-down. When a wheel is set into motion, it eventually increases in speed and volume. It then takes time for a halt to occur.

By this is meant purification and the restoration of the equilibrium of gunas must take place in order for a person to be ready for involution.

The gunas operate, and consciousness pervades, becoming temporarily locked into a form -- for the period of time that the form exists.

The consciousness within the form becomes the soul of that form, the giver of life, sentience, and abilities. The soul within, together with prana and the gunas are the reason that a person is alive.

Consciousness has magnitude, and it has been described by every art form. It is due to consciousness that water moves and has sound, trees grow and leaves move, the moon has phases, and humans have the ability to learn, to read, to speak, connect with others. There is no end to the ways that one can realize the greatness of consciousness—hence the reason that consciousness has been considered as eternal God.

and every other knowledge. The potentiality of Mahat, acted upon by the three gunas, causes manifestation of the atoms, molecules, universe and the world as we know it. Sattva guna was predominate in the early formations. It gave rise to the second evolute, pure I-Sense. The third evolute, Ego, contains all three dimensions: ego of light, ego of activity, and ego of inertia. It is Sattvic ego combined with Rajas that leads in the process of involution for liberation [5].

In religious, spiritual traditions, we find the phrase, or similar ‘in the beginning there was light, and the light became word, and the word became knowledge.’ This could be likened to the process of Mahat’s evolution and its first evolutes. The phrase is a statement of sentience dominated by sattva, supported by rajasic intelligent action, and supported by tamasic structural formation of language and words.

Sattva and rajas working together have a close affinity with consciousness, the principle of illumination whose pervasion enlivens.

If consciousness pervades, though does not act, how do forms get created? How does the creation actually occur? Creation occurs due to the continual changing of light, action, and inertia -- present within universal mind, the first evolute and storehouse of all potentialities.

Within human beings the universal cosmic mind also exits, reachable through transformative and transcendent methods.

IX. SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPLICATIONS If the physical and human sciences, the psychophysiological, can be paralleled with Samkhya, the connection must be in cosmic mind mahat. Cosmic mind is prior to what we consider as subtle formations. This first evolute precludes the scientific discovery of wavelengths, strings and particles. It precludes mathematics, music,

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy Conclusion Creation viewed from the Samkhya perspective of two coexisting eternal principles -- indicates that life evolved atheistically. It purports that within Cosmic Mind, every strain of thought and imagination exists. Mahat is the beginning of time and space.

It is entirely possible that life exists due to two co-existing eternal, separate principles.

The knowledge presented in this paper about Consciousness and Materiality as described by Samkhya presents valuable knowledge toward the understanding of life. The knowledge may not be new, but it is for the most part, unknown in this modern day. Even though, Samkhya was written in an age seemingly unrelated to modern times, it presents concepts and principles that drive human life in this era. Samkhya presents a reasonable framework to intellectually explain creation, and meaning and significance of life.

Potentialities that exist in Mahat include every aspect of life. It includes beneficial, kindly influences and divine images. The beneficial influences have their origin in sattva dominance followed by rajas.

Potentialities within Mahat also include the influences of tamasic dominance, demonic images, and harmful influences of ignorance.

This is ‘psychological darkness.’

Tamasic guna is responsible for form and mass, both positive and negative, produced by the elements. Many types of form exist on earth.

In space, there are mass planetary and other formations. The phenomenon of ‘dark holes’ belongs to tamasic origin.

Future Research Investigations that may prove interesting and productive could be Samkhya theorists collaborating with physicists. New questions would be formulated and explored.

In our human mind, we all can recognize the existence of a subtle thought before expressing it. Prior to the subtle thought, could there be a seed of unseen particles, strings, atoms, and molecules that caused the thought? All of the potentialities of life are in the inter-workings of the 3 gunas. Do these three gunas become

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the unseen potentials, and then the knowable manifestation? This is the framework of Samkhya.

Science may consider a parallel of energy between the energies of physics and 3 energies of materiality. Does light, kinetic energy and mass parallel the energies of light sattva, action rajas, and inertia tamas? On a psychological level, are the archetypes of personalities and dimensions of life that were delineated by psychologist Carl Jung, found in the storehouse of potentials, Universal Mind [11].

The hypothesis has been presented, explored, and elaborated in this paper - how creation has its roots in the interactions of light, action, and inertia. It is reasonable, possibly not yet provable according to physical science, that creation has the ongoing phenomena of life due to the interactions of the three gunas.

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Yoga Philosophy of Patanjali. (4th ed.) New York: State University of New York, 1983.

Chakravarti, Pulinbihari, Origin and Development of the Samkhya System of Thought. (2nd ed.) New Delhi: Munishiram Manoharlal, 1975 P. Gramann. (2012). “An exploration of the effects of pranayam breath procedures on work, relationships, health, and spirituality,” Saybrook University, [dissertation] http://gradworks.umi. com/35/63/3563528.html P. Gramann. (2014). “Cosciousness, Free Will, and Transformation,” Research and Science Today, http://www.rstjournal.com/archive, 2/2015 Larson, G. James and Bhattacharya, Ram Shankar, Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies, vol.4, Samkhya A Dualist Tradition in Indian Philosophy.

Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1987.

Larson, G. James, Classical Samkya. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1969/2014.

Rao, K. Ramakrishna, Consciousness Studies: Cross Cultural Perspectives. North Carolina: McFarland, 2002.

Rao, K. Ramakrishna, Handbook of Indian Psychology. Delhi: Cambridge University Press India, 2008.

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology [9] Tse, Peter, The Neural Basis of Free Will: Criterial

Causation. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2013.

[10] Virupakshananda, Swami, Samkhya Karika of

Isvara Krsna. Madras: Sri Ramakrishna Math, 2006.

[11] VandenBos, G. R. (Ed.). (2009). APA college dictionary of psychology. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association

AUTHOR’S BIO: Dr. Pratibha Gramann is an Inner Wellness Consultant and Coach. She conducts classes in breathing sequences, pranayams, and guided meditation. She consults on Ayurvedic and psychological methods for building a lifestyle that works. Dr Pratibha teaches Samkhya philosophy and holds debates.

She is interested in collaborating. Tel: 408 507 6948

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Biology, Medicine, Natural Sciences & Theology

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy

Molecular Sociology: Further Insights from Biological and Environmental Aspects Ahed J Alkhatib, PhD

Department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, Faculty of Medicine, Jordan University of Science and Technology

Abstract: The present study expanded our previous study in which features of molecular sociology were mentioned. In this study, we added the microbial dimensions in which it is thought that religiosity may be impacted by microbes that manipulate brains to create better conditions for their existence. This hypothesis is called “biomeme hypothesis”. We talked about other environmental impacts on human behaviors through three studies in which exposure to lead caused violent behaviors ending with arresting in prisons.

By conclusion, the present study has expanded our horizon about interferences on various levels including biological and environmental impacts with our behaviors. Although we are convinced that behavior is a very diverse and complex phenomenon and cannot be understood within certain frame as either biologically or environmentally, but further new insights are possible to participate in better understanding of human behaviors. Many behaviors have their roots in religion, and we showed how religious rituals may be affected by some microbes that make to form a microenvironment within the host for microbial benefits.

Keywords: Molecular sociology, environmental

interferences, biological interferences, behavior

I. INTRODUCTION We conducted this study to express our views regarding a very important topic that relates microbes with religion and the understanding of basic concepts of life. In a previous study, we have denoted to molecular sociology. Molecular sociology was used as a new term to describe or explain the modes or patterns of behaviors of humans and /or animals. We believe that behaviors are highly diverse and still considered complex phenomena that cannot be placed in one frame [1].

In the present study, an attempt is made to emphasize that there is a potential to set up fundamentals of molecular sociology. In this regard, our previous studies provided evidences from biological and environmental aspects.

Biological example includes the impacts of diabetes on behaviors. Diabetics have been recognized for being nervousness [2].

Diabetes mellitus is not considered as a single disease, but rather it is a group of metabolic diseases which leads to progressive damage of organs [3]. The most affected organs by diabetes are the kidney, retina, peripheral nervous system

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology (PNS), and small and large blood vessels [2].

Lowered blood glucose concentrations shift the case of patients from cognitive impairment to convulsion, coma, and eventually death.

Furthermore, moderate levels of hypoglycemia impair general cognitive abilities, including reaction time, analytical ability, verbal fluency, and verbal and visual memory [4]. A new study

by Calum et al [5] confirmed that diabetes and depression are associated with each other and shared similar biology.

In a previous study, we have demonstrated new biological insights to explain the association of diabetes with nervousness. In our experimental study, diabetes was induced in rats and brains of diabetic rats expressed high levels of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) in white matter compared with gray matter [6]. These findings make it possible to suggest a potential mechanism to explain diabetic neuropathy. It is also possible to associate diabetic behaviors which are characterized by being nervous and stressful. In other studies using the same model, we have also demonstrated a significant expression of iNOS in several tissues of diabetic rats including kidney and heart [7], [8]. Taken together, diabetes is a disease associated with stress in various organs. According to this context, it is plausible to think about molecular effects of certain biomarkers including iNOS to interfere with behaviors of diabetic persons.

From an environmental point of view, our findings have demonstrated that exposure to heavy metals, particularly lead (pb) has impacts on persons and may cause criminal behaviors ending in prisons. In the first study, we have demonstrated that exposure to lead reduced blood cellular components significantly compared with normal population (P < 0.05).

Such blood findings may denote to intolerance and less patience that may lead to aggressiveness and violent behaviors. The same prisoners who had higher levels of lead (pb) were more likely to have violent crimes [9].

In another study, we have demonstrated the association between lead exposure and mental retardation in a sample treated in one of rehabilitation centers. This study has demonstrated that the patients who were diagnosed with mental retardation due to inheritance to have high concentration of lead

6. Biology, Medicine, Natural Sciences & Theology

[10].

Our studies, and in agreement with other studies, showed that addiction is strongly associated with depression and addictive patients had low vitamin D [11].

Can microbes interfere with religiosity?

Pathogens may interfere with behaviors of human and animals. Toxoplasma gondii has been described to be associated with violence and aggressiveness including suicide [12]-[15].

Recent trends regarding microbes imply that some microbes work on human brain that introduce some religious rituals to facilitate the propagation microbe(s) [16].. This hypothesis is called “biomeme hypothesis”, and it implied that microbes are not likely to induce religiosity but rather predispose individuals into particular religious rituals. It is suggested that microbes have other influences on human behaviors but some religious rituals are considered as the best markers of such effects since the engagement in them does not offer any obvious benefits to anyone but the hypothetical microbes [17].

Crossing several studies, the existence of a “microbiome-brain axis” has been well described in several studies and such data can provide some indirect and speculative evidences for a possible role of microbes in a human religious behavior [18], [19]. An illustrating example is the germ-free mice which exhibit less anxiety and fear, two factors that potentially might be important driving forces of human religiosity [20].

Another example is provided by Toxoplasma gondii that is suspected to be guilty in shifting of a number of behavioral characteristics of multiple hosts. Hence, theoretically microbes have a potential to modulate people’s behavior such as to make them be more inclined to take part in religious rituals [21].

Conclusions The present study has expanded our horizon about interferences on various levels including biological and environmental impacts with our behaviors. Although we are convinced that behavior is a very diverse and complex phenomenon and cannot be understood

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy expression of INOs in kidneys of diabetic rats”.

European Scientific Journal, 10, 21 (2014): 302309.

within certain frame as either biologically or environmentally, but further new insights are possible to participate in better understanding of human behaviors. Many behaviors have their roots in religion, and we showed how religious rituals may be affected by some microbes that make to form a microenvironment within the host for microbial benefits.

[9] Ahed Alkhatib, Haitham Mohammad Alta’any

References

[10] Ahmad Boran, Nabil Al-Bashir, Ahed AlKhatib,

and Qasem Mohammad Abdelal. “Lead exposure and possible association with violent crimes: a field study in two Jordanian prisons”. European Scientific Journal, 10 (3) (2014): 1-8.

Ilham Qattan, Saud Alanazi and Adnan Massadeh.

“Investigating the relationship between mental retardation and lead intoxication”. European Scientific Journal, 9 (6) (2013): 62-76.

[1] Ahed J Alkhatib. “Perspectives Towards Molecular

Sociology: An Approximation of Molecular Biology and Sociology”. British Biomedical Bulletin, 3 (2) (2015): 263-267.

[2] GS. Mijnhout, P. Scheltens, M. Diamant, et al.

[11] Ahed Alkhatib, Nabil Bashir, Geir Bjørklund, Ali

Shotar, Wafa Rawashdeh and Mohammadnoor Al Omary. “Depression among addictive patients in Jordan”. Ind Res J Pharm & Sci., 1 (3) (2014): 1018.

“Diabetic encephalopathy: a concept in need of a definition”. Diabetologia, 49 (2006): 1447–1448.

[3] Dinesh Selvarajah and Solomon Tesfaye. “Central

Nervous System Involvement in Diabetes Mellitus”. Current Diabetes Reports, 6 (2006): 431–438.

[12] Arling TA, Yolken RH, Lapidus M et al.

“Toxoplasma gondii antibody titers and history of suicide attempts in patients with recurrent mood disorders”. J NervMent Dis, 197 (2009): 905–908.

[4] IJ. Deary. “Symptoms of hypoglycaemia and

effects on mental performance and emotions.In Hypoglycaemia in Clinical Diabetes”. Edited by Frier BM, Fisher BM. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons, (1999): 29–54.

[13] Okusaga O, Langenberg P, Sleemi A et al.

[5] Calum D Moulton, John C Pickup and Khalida

[14] Pedersen MG, Mortensen PB, Norgaard-Pedersen

Ismail. “The link between depression and diabetes: the search for shared mechanisms”. Lancet Diabetes Endocrinol., 3 (2015): 461– 71.

“Toxoplasma gondii antibody titers and history of suicide attempts in patients with schizophrenia”.

Schizophr Res,133 (2011):150–155.

B, Postolache TT. “Toxoplasma gondii infection and self-directed violence in mothers”. ArchGen Psychiatry, 69(11) (2012):1123–1130.

[6] Ahed Al-khatib. “Co-expression of iNOS and

[15] Zhang

[7] Muhammed Al-Jarrah, Mohammed Bani Ahmad,

[16] Panchin AY, Tuzhikov AI and Panchin YV.

HSP70 in diabetes type 1 makes a rational hypothesis to explain the diabetic neuropathy”.

European Scientific Journal, 9 (3), (2013): 145156.

Ahed Al-Khatib, Irina Smirnova, Lesya Novikiva and Lisa Stehno-Bittel. “Effect of Exercise Training on the Expression of p53 and iNOS in the Cardiac Muscle of Type I Diabetic Rats”. J Endocrinol Metab, 2, 4-5 (2012): 176-180.

[8] Ahed

AlKhatib, Fatima Laiche, Mosleh Alkhatatbeh, AliyuMaje Bello, Ibrahim Ahmad Muhammad and Ya’u Sabo Ajingi et al. “Leaf extract of U. Pilulifera down regulates the

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Y, Träskman-Bendz L, Janelidze S, Langenberg P, Saleh A and Constantine N et al.

“Toxoplasma gondii immunoglobulin G antibodies and nonfatal suicidal self-directed violence” .J Clin Psychiatry, 73(8) (2012):1069-76.

“Midichlorians - the biomeme hypothesis: is there a microbial component to religious rituals?” Biol Direct, 9(1) (2014):14.

[17] Petro Starokadomskyy. “Microbes on the edge of

Occam’s razor”. Biology Direct, 9 (2014):25.

[18] Cryan JF and O’Mahony SM. “The microbiome-

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gut-brain axis: from bowel to behavior”.

Neurogastroenterol Motil, 23(3) (2011):187–192.

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology [19] Foster JA and McVey Neufeld KA. “Gut-brain

axis: how the microbiome influences anxiety and depression”. Trends Neurosci, 36(5) (2013):305– 312.

[20] Yee BK, Zhu SW, Mohammed AH and Feldon

J (2007). “Levels of neurotrophic factors in the hippocampus and amygdala correlate with anxietyand fear-related behaviour in C57BL6 mice”. J Neural Transm, 114(4) (2007): 431–444.

[21] Lafferty KD. “Can the common brain parasite,

Toxoplasma gondii, influence human culture?”

Proc Biol Sci, 273(1602) (2006):2749–2755.

Biography Dr. Ahed Jumah Alkhatib, clinical researcher at Forensic science and Toxicology department, Faculty of Medicine, Jordan University of Science and Technology. He has research interests in cancer, diabetes, and neurological disorders. He is working to establish new science “molecular sociology” and published two articles in this topic. He also believes in non-classical roles of microbes.

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Epistemology, Metaphysics and Communication Sciences & Theology

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy

When Naturalism and Creationism Clash: Can a Person Believe in Both God and Evolution?

Osman Murat DENIZ, PhD

Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart Üniversitesi, Çanakkale -17100, Turkey osmandeniz@comu.edu.tr

Abstract: Theory of evolution is identified with naturalistic view of science itself and considered by many people as a sound basis for atheism. And any alternative is automatically disqualified as unscientific and metaphysical. I would say that the battle is really between two worldviews: naturalism in its philosophical form and theism in the widest sense. It is open to debate whether a scientific theory like evolution has right to make a metaphysical claim that God does not exist. My paper calls attention to the conflict between naturalism and creationism and asserts that theory of evolution alone does not exclude belief in God of Theism.

Keywords: Science, Theory of Evolution, God, Theism, Creationism, Naturalism

I. INTRODUCTION In scientific, philosophical and even theological circles, many people suppose that scientific theories and metaphysical theories must either be in outright conflict or they must occupy two separate and unrelated realms of human experience. When the relationship between theory of evolution and belief in God comes to the fore in a debate on science and religion, one of the prevalent delusion is that

those who believe in and advocate evolution as the origin for biological complexity and diversity are identified with atheism and those who does not believe in evolution are integrated with theism. However, in the relation of evolution to belief in God, contrary to popular assumption and distinction, there appears to be not only two opposite categories such as “evolutionist atheist” and “anti-evolutionist theist” but a plenty of categories if we take into account the agnostic, theistic, atheistic attitudes towards respectively evolution and God’s existence.

[1] So, as a theist or atheist, it is even entirely possible and plausible to adopt an agnostic attitude about the truth of evolution. Putting aside the dispute about the validity of evolution, without raising doubts and questions about its accuracy, if we accept that evolution is true, do we have to conclude that there is no need for God? I argue that to prove the theory of evolution as a scientific fact does not necessarily require denial of God’s existence for as much as theistic ontology have the opportunity to either refuse or accept the evolution against Creationism.

II. NATURALISM VS. CREATIONISM Creationism tells us that before the universe and life were created, there was a God of

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology immense intelligence, a moral God, a God of compassion and love, who wanted to make humans and give them everything they needed to be happy and fulfilled. He also gave humans a conscience and made them responsible for their own actions. But at a narrow level, creationism is a doctrine that matter and all things were created, substantially as they now exist, by an omnipotent Creator and not gradually evolved or developed. So it is obvious that the clash is inevitable between this doctrine and evolution.

Of course many questions arise when we pay attention to metaphysics of Creationism.

Does naturalistic view of evolution disprove God? Is evolution incompatible with Religion?

Or does evolution contradict the Bible and Qur’an? I think that those questions essentially very different and so the answers of them also have to be different. So in the limits of this paper I want to focus on these kind of questions as follows below: - Is evolution incompatible with the existence of God? - Can we both accept evolution as a fact and reality of God’s existence?

- Can a Person Believe in Both God and Evolution?

Yes, certainly it’s possible for a theist to affirm faith in God and evolution. Now I’m assuming for the purposes of this paper that ‘God’ means the God of theism and that ‘evolution’ means macroevolution—the system or process that involves the descent of increasingly complex and developed organisms from ancestor organisms over long periods of time by natural selection.

Intellectually sharp scientific minds such as Asimov, Sagan, Dawkins, and Provine have all been absolutely consistent in saying that if an impersonal, inanimate evolutionary system can rearrange molecules and chemicals in such a way as to have produced all that is, then there is certainly no need or place for God and religious myth in this world.

It is clear that in fact those minds are defending naturalism as a worldview when taken into account that naturalistic-atheistic ontology has no alternative but to accept the theory of evolution that insists on making an explanation about emergence of life, just remaining within the boundaries of physical world, irrespective

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of any metaphysical doctrine regarding the existence of life.

I would suppose that the battle is really between two worldviews: naturalism in its philosophical form and theism in the widest sense.

Naturalism is the idea or belief that “the cosmos has always been a closed system of material causes and effects that can never be influenced by anything from `outside’-like God.”[2] Naturalism tells us that the universe and life all came about by natural laws, such as gravity and the direction in which heat moves and so on. There is no room at all for a God, or any supernatural intelligence. Shortly, philosophical naturalism says that nothing beyond nature is real. This amounts to atheism. Therefore no theist can embrace philosophical naturalism.

The theory of evolution plays a key role in the battle in question due to the fact that it is used with impunity by atheists and naturalists in their own interests. Here Creationism willingly falls into the trap of naturalism, that is to say, atheism by refusing evolution as if it is capable of justifying naturalism.

In fact, Naturalism and Creationism are two sides of the same mind that to believe in God is impossible if evolution is true. That is to say, “If a lack of scientific explanation is proof of God’s existence, the counter logic is unimpeachable: a successful scientific explanation is an argument against God”[3] Hereunder this tacit agreement or reciprocal approval we can say that Creationism being in a disadvantaged position draws water to Naturalism’s mill. By insisting on arguing that nature is by no means self-sufficient in the formation of new species, the creationists establish an epistemological relation between the limits of natural processes to accomplish biological change and the existence of a God who has designed nature’s laws and processes.

In other words, they help the defenders of naturalistic atheism in the way of disproving the existence of God. Finally ending with a challenge to atheists stating, show that evolution works, antiquity of the earth, the validity of the fossil record, and the sufficiency of evolutionary mechanisms and it’s time to deny God. Moreover, from the Creationist point of view, cumulative scientific knowledge about evolution eliminates the need for the existence of God.

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy So, granted that evolution really does explain the very things that its critics say it does not, it is the creationism’s rejectionist attitude towards scientific methods and findings of evolution is that makes the existence of God less likely. [4] On the other hand, it must be stated that the theory of evolution, as other theories about changes in life over time, cannot be conclusively proven or disproven. However, a great deal of scientific evidence supports the theory of evolution. As theistic evolution does, leaving aside discussion of the validity and soundness of the facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses that support evolution, to argue for the compatibility of the theistic God and biological evolution can be more fruitful in resolving conflict between religion and evolutionary biology. Considering “the mounting evidence for Darwinian evolution and its perceived threat to faith, many theists recognized a deeper connection.” They regarded evolution as the God’s creative activity. [5] Nowadays, “theistic evolution is the dominant position of serious biologists who are also serious believers.” [6] Can belief in God as Creator and sustainer of the universe be maintained if life evolved by natural selection? Firstly, in modern science, the term “theory” refers to scientific theories, a wellconfirmed type of explanation of nature, made in a way consistent with scientific method, and fulfilling the criteria required by modern science.

Theory of evolution, like all scientific theories, for example gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion, makes an explanation just about Nature and how it behaves and accounts for the unity and diversity of living organisms. That is to say evolutionary discourse, explanations of life’s beginnings and diversity, belongs to visible, observable, empirical and physical World. But proving God’s existence belongs to metaphysics and should be related to reflections on existence.[7] In any case, philosophically, theistic God is characterized as the absolutely metaphysically ultimate being. Then how come a scientific theory essentially based on large set of biological observations disprove the existence of God requires to be questioned. The problem here involving philosophy of science is so obvious that even Richard Dawkins, who is regarded as famous atheist in the world, admits he could not be sure that God does not exist.

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[8] Dawkin’s problem, if it can be called that, is that he doesn’t really understand philosophy, or a philosophical approach to the ‘big questions’.

Maybe science, because of his lack of critical thinking. He does not even want to consider that the theory of evolution might not be true.

Trigg points out that the acceptance of a scientific truth claim implies the choosing of one set of explanatory principles over another, a kind of belief in the superior merits of science as a method of explanation.[9] Moreover, a truth claim about physical world that exceeds phenomenal reality or pushes the limits of scientific territory is in danger of becoming a metaphysical truth claim. Nevertheless, a scientific theory may contain or make use of some metaphysical elements. The clearestcut example of this fact that science uses mathematics at all given that science is all about the senses, observations, and experiments and mathematics is about none of this.[10] The numbers which are mathematical objects are abstract, nonphysical and metaphysical entities.

Nobody thinks that number 2 is a sensible being or entity that dwells in time and space.

For example, if theory of physics is empirically falsified that does not mean that all the mathematical objects, inclusive of the theory, is falsified. We can say that metaphysical truth claims are not subject to scientific verification and falsification.[11] So, if the creationist proposition “that God has created all species according to their kinds and be it finally” be regarded as falsified, to infer the non-existence of God from this falsification is doomed to failure.

God’s existence is a meaningful metaphysical truth claim that is somehow tied to reality and to prove that life evolves by natural selection does not disprove the existence of God. Here what a creationist person, inclined to construe God’s revelation literally, needs to do is to contemplate and reinterpret God’s nature and his natural attributes by considering his causal relation to his creation. Consequently it can be asserted with plausibility that God invented evolution and takes an active part in the all process or at least as a First Cause in the beginning of the process.

This approach is entirely compatible with the knowledge that science produces about the external world. It is also entirely compatible with the three significant monotheistic religions:

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The theistic evolution perspective cannot, even by means of Intelligent Design argument, prove that God is real in a mathematical certainty, as no logical argument can fully achieve that. But the arguments against naturalism can confirm or increase the probability of God’s existence.

Belief in a theistic God will always require a leap of faith. “But this synthesis has provided for legions of scientist-believers a satisfying, consistent, enriching perspective that allows both the scientific and spiritual worldviews to coexist happily within us.” This perspective makes it possible for the scientist-believer to be intellectually fulfilled and delightedly satisfied, both worshiping God and using the tools of science to explore some of the awesome mysteries of his creation. [12] CONCLUSION If God of theism exists, He acts in the world today in accord with natural laws and causes. His will in the present through the contingent events of human and natural history. All that evolution does is to point out that the workings of natural processes are also sufficient to explain the contingent events of natural history in the past, including the origin and extinction of species.

Besides, the theory of evolution is concerned with how things began, is not concerned with why they exist. There is neither logical nor epistemological justification for excluding God’s use of natural processes to originate species, ourselves included. There is therefore no reason for theists to draw a line in the sand between God’s existence and evolution.

Supposing that God of theism is real, we should be able to find Him in the Nature and in the bright light of human knowledge, metaphysical and scientific. Unless contrary is proved, we can say that God is the “best explanation” of the way things are. From that point of view theory of evolution can be evaluated. Moreover, a metaphysical outlook is so deeply ingrained in human thought processes that it cannot be expunged.

[2] Howard J. Van Till, “Special Creationism in

Designer Clothing:A Response to The Creation Hypothesis”, PSCF, 47, June 1995, p.123.

[3] Kenneth R. Miller, Finding Darwin’s God, Harper Perennial, 2002, p. 266.

[4] Fatih Özgökman, “Evrim Teorisi Tanrı İnancını Dışlar mı?”, ÇOMÜ İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi, 2012/1, p.55 [5] Roger Trigg and Justin L. Barrett, The Roots of Religion: Exploring the Cognitive Science of Religion, Burlington: Ashgate Publication, 2014, p. 170-171.

[6] Francis S. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, New York: Free Press, 2006, p. 199.

[7] Jules Janssens and Daniel De Smet, Avicenna and His Heritage: Acts of the International Colloquium, Leuven University Press, 2002, p. 260.

[8] J. Angelo Corlett, The Errors of Atheism, New York: Continuum, 2010, s.73 [9] Roger Trigg, Rationality and Religion: Does Faith Need Reason, Oxford: Blackwell,Publishing, 1998, pp. 70-73.

[10] Mike Hockney, Psychophysics, Hyperreality Books, 2015, pp. 8-10.

[11] Eliot Sober, “Evolution without Naturalism”, Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion, ed. J. Kvanvig, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, s. 24-28.

[12] Collins, The Language of God…p. 201.

Biography Osman Murat Deniz, born in İzmir/Turkey in 1974, I have graduated from the Marmara University, Faculty of Theology in 1997. I obtained my PhD degree in Philosophy of Religion in 2010 at Ankara University. I was ordained as assistant professor in 2013 at ÇOMÜ.

References [1] Caner Taslaman, Evrim Teorisi, Felsefe ve Tanrı,

İstanbul: İstanbul Yayınevi, 2014, pp. 278-279

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Eros in the first century’s Christian theology Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite Mircea Adrian MARICA, PhD Ovidius University, Constanta, Romania marica.mircea.adrian@gmail.com

Abstract: For among most contemporaries, the concept of Eros seems to have nothing to do with Christianity. Sifting through the psychoanalysis of sexual fantasy, theologically it says nothing. Our study gives reasons showing that for theologians since the dawn of the Christian era, Eros-love plays a fundamental role.. The connotations of this concept, however, are different from those of today, when its sensory meaning is more restricted to sexuality. Greek theologians of the first centuries after Christ, taught the concept of Plato enshrined as a unifying enthusiasm, the attraction of inferior to superior states, as “hungry and thirsty” for something continuously higher, developing, and enriching the connotation. The work of Dionysius ((Pseudo) Areopagite, the Idea of Good, leads us step by step up the ascent of the erotically chaste, and is identified with the One-God, who is the very source of love. Consequently, Eros-love originates from God, Eros- love being not only an ascending but firstly a descending love, which calls for a reciprocal communion.

Keywords: Eros, the Platonic Eros, the true Eros, part Eros,Christian love

I. INTRODUCTION. The platonic model of love The dialogue between science and theology, was preceded by another dialogue, deeper, more intimate and more fertile, that between philosophy and theology. Historical evidence for this dialogue is found in the writings of the Greek Fathers of the early Christian era, which documents explicitly or implicitly the great Greek philosophy. We illustrate the above mentioned through the teaching of the Platonic concept of Eros and the adaptation to the demands of Christian theology in the work of (Pseudo) Dionysius the Areopagite.

The Platonic Eros was a tutelary spirit, a divine messenger of transcendence in immanence.

Touched by the wings of love climbing step by step, from the here and now, from below, to beyond this world, above, to the eternal world of Ideas, over which lives the Idea of Good. The Intercessor of this erotic progression was the idea of beauty, the only one which shows itself to mortals in its diverse hypostases. Under the seduction of beauty we are progressing from a beautiful body, to the beauty of a body, , from a beautiful soul to the beauty of a soul, from the beauty of actions and laws, to the beauty of science, to arrive finally at Beauty itself,

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology meaning the Idea of Beauty, which is at the same time Good.[1] This is the purpose of our lives, says Plato, “for if life is worth living by man, it’s only merited by one that that reaches the contemplation of beauty itself [...] without the dross of mortal flesh [...] the face of truth “[2]. The Initiate progresses thus from sensory experiences to the aesthetic and epistemic, in an ascending dialectic, which ends in a metaphysical experience. We arrive here beyond the intellect to understand, placing us in full revelation. Thus the Platonic rationalism “ends with a mystical edge” [3]. Love is, “missing and desire” generated by “erotic enthusiasm” [4] through “the rumour of immortality” contained in it, leading to the “deification”, through the “procreation in the name of beauty “and “striving to master forever the Good “[5]. As a consequence, in love the transcendent calls us through the mediation of earthly shadows of Beauty itself.

II. MEDIATION OF PLOTINUS The Platonic philosophy is on the verge of being incorporated in Christian theology

by Neo-Platonist Plotinus, which is “both an end and a beginning - an end as regards the Greeks and a start regarding Christianity [6].

Plotinus’ uses Plato’s text just as Christian mystics use the “Song of Songs”[7], the Platonic Banquet becoming the object of an allegorical interpretation. In Plotinian metaphysics all beings originated in the primordial unity, in The One, rationally unknowable, indefinable, to whom we cannot attribute characteristics, but we can just say “it is”, all that exists owing its existence to the fall from this unity. Each rung of existence is justified by the higher level of the Hierarchy, up to The One who is the source of all. The movement from the top down, “emanation” or “procession”, meets with an opposite movement, generated by the aspiration to return to the primordial unity of all beings. This return is a spiritual movement expressed in a mystical love. The position of Eros, the tutelary spirit, leading to Good, is now replaced by the grace that descends from the Good, but the motive of ascension remains love. Grace is the attraction exerted on us by the presence of Good, through love, through which “the soul has the chance to meet Him”, The OneGod; when “there is nothing between them and

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no longer two but both are one: indeed, you cannot separate them while He is there: their image is that of lovers and beloved here on earth who would very much like to merge “[8].

From this point on begins, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. The One, The Good and The Beauty will become God, the emanation will metamorphose in creation, and Eros, grace of Good, will become the love of God the Creator of created beings and their loving response to their creator.

III. THE SUPREME GOOD OR LOVE Beyond the controversy over the identity of the Areopagite corpus [9], “The Homeric problem of Christian literature of the first centuries” [10], Areopagus’ writings contain passages that, taken separately by themselves, could pass as fragments of the Platonic dialogues. For Dionysius, God is very similar to the Idea of Good, described by Plato in the Republic; like the Sun, The One is simultaneously Good and Beautiful, and similarly a source of everything good and beautiful, “Because all things that exist derive from this beauty, and all the harmonies and friendships and communions among everything, exist for beauty; and through beauty everything is joined together. And beauty is the beginning of all, or the cause of all. It moves all and sustains all through its love for beauty itself. And it is the end of everything and a beloved and final and exemplary cause (for all is done for beauty), as all are defined according to it. Therefore beauty is the same as the good, because all is wanted for beauty and the good it contains. And there isn’t anything from what exists, that does not share the beauty and good [...]. This One and only good and beautiful is, in a uniform manner, the cause of all things beautiful and good “[11] As one can easily see from the above quotation, the Dionysian hermeneutic approach still exists in a realm of Platonic philosophy. The One, above all names, has “multiple benefactor names”. Along with The Good and Beauty, illustrated above, the “unnamed deity” also bears the name of Eros-love. Unlike Plato - “the chief among Greeks” [12], for whom Eros was only a mediator between this world and the one beyond, understandably, to Dionysius, Eros is the appropriate name of God, for he does not have love as quality of His, but He is love, love

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy being His very way of existing. Each divine person achieves his being in the absolute dedication of self to the other divine Persons This unifying devotion of self of divine Persons is called by Dionysius “the Teon Eros “ [13].

If Platonic Eros is primarily responsible for something missing, the Dionysian - love desired - is also an outpouring of divine goodness - of creative love. Out of this love God created all that exists, in heavenly and earthly hierarchies.

God, whose very nature is love, offers as His gift, creation of the whole universe and man, made in His likeness Eros is precisely this huge movement of love that spreads, at the beginning, into a multitude of beings, so that afterwards it can coalesce and bring them to the unity of their origin. Through this love, the one who loves is removed from himself and centres his being onto the object of his love, unites himself with the loved one, who is for him a manifestation of beauty. Love is, “a unifying, binding power that combines the beautiful and the good.”[14] The sense of existence is therefore, the return of creation to its origin, the erotic enthusiasm being the divine appeal to unity, the active force that unifies creation with its Creator.

IV. THE TRUE EROS AND EROS IN PART Although during his era there was a difference between eros and agápe, the author of the Areopagit corpus prefers the term of eros in, About Divine Names. It seems that, starting with that time, the terms eros and erotic didn’t enjoy a good reputation, something which encourages Areopagit to dedicate a whole series of paragraphs in order to legitimise it. The name agápe (άγάπη) is considered by Yannaras [15], (no doubt a close connoisseur of the evolution of Greek terminology), to be charged with inferior semantic content, thus just defining a social virtue, identified by altruism, charity, kindness. For this reason, in the Areopagetic writings the preferred term is eros (έρως), desire, unifying thirst, claiming the scriptural origin of the term, encouraging you to consider Solomon’s Parables: “But so that we don’t appear to be saying this, changing the scriptures so that the name of love (eros) can be heard by researchers/ critics: Love her (έράσθήτι) and

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she will keep you. Embrace her and honour her so that she embraces you (Parables 4,6-8)” [16].

Although “some of our holy orators thought that the name of eros (love) is less divine than agape (love)”, we shouldn’t, argues Dyonisos, “be afraid of the name of love (eros), nor should we be troubled by any dubious meaning about it.

It seems to me that according to the Scriptures there is a common meaning between the name of love and eros, and that’s why the word eros is used more for the divine [17], because of the misplaced prejudices from such people” [18].

“These misplaced prejudices” derive from the unilateral understanding of eros, only as the thirst for egocentric pleasure, as an expression of rebellious autonomy of the senses. The priest considers it is not possible, however, to identify the true Eros with his idols, because: “not only we, but also the Scriptures praise Eros as being in accordance with God. But the public, not understanding the unity between God’s name and Eros, tended to use the name of Eros in a form separated from God, focusing on the human, of lust, distinctive aspect of it, it doesn’t reflect the true Eros, but his idol, better described as a fall from true Eros”[19]. To avoid any misunderstanding, the Areopagite uses the form, “true Eros”.

Another difference between “true Eros” and his “idol” is the ecstatic character, of the first one: “Divine Eros is also ecstatic, not allowing people who are in love to belong to themselves, but to those whom they love” [20]. The Eros of the people, the Eros portraying human lust, is nothing but an alienation from the meaning of true Eros, due to its fall; it divides and fragments, by serving ephemeral appetite. But even through its egocentric desire for pleasure, it still retains something of its nature before the fall, through its thirst for life as thirst for relationships, for dedication, for relating to something external.

Dumitru Stăniloae considers that the Areopagite “does not distinguish between kindness, love (AGAPE) and eros” [21] because he “does not know the difference the Protestant theologians make, (eg. Nygren), between eros and agape, considering the first one as a natural attraction that creation feels towards God, and the latter as a benevolent acknowledgment by God to them, and assigning to the church Fathers a Platonism contrary to Christianity, whereas he

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology forgets about God’s love, which acknowledges the creation (AGAPE) [22] “. St. Symeon the New Theologian uses these terms in a similar manner; he states that “love (eros) and love (AGAPE) for You, Oh Savior, is light (phos)” [23] God being “the radiant sun” [24] which generates light. Therefore, although the term coined to describe today Christian love seems to be the agape, Christian parents of the first millennium preferred the term eros.

V. EROTIC UNIFICATION For Areopagite Eros is a unifying power, whatever form it takes: “Whether we call it heavenly or angelic, either mental or spiritual or physical, we should understand it as a unifying and enabling power that moves superior beings to care for inferior ones, and those of the same kind towards reciprocity in communion, and ultimately inferior beings to return to the highest and most advanced ones”[25]. This unifying trend animates Eros towards both human beings, and towards God. The thirst for unification and the inclination to renounce ourselves is implanted in us by divine creativity.

This erotic passion for a minute sign of Good can be deduced even in the tragedy of erotic lust, “the debauched, although depriving himself of good through irrational lust [...] still shares the good, through a characteristic of union and love” [26]. It so happens that, because Eros is the passion and thirst for wealth, springing from the consciousness of inadequacy, that cannot be fulfilled except by someone or something external: “And the very one who lusts after the worst life, as one who desires this throughout life, which it seems, moreover, is the best, even by the fact that he lusts after life and aspires to the life he pictures as being the best, participates to Good “[27].

So far we are, however, very close to Plato.

Where do the two Eros divide? At the end of the road. The ascent through the stages of Platonian erotica leads to the impersonal idea of, Beauty, Good, The Beauty-Good. And then, the Platonic Eros is devoid of personal reciprocity.

Contrastingly, the Christian Eros presupposes a personal reciprocity, the person being “an erotic category through excellence and the Eros being a personal category through excellence” [28] as Yannaras argues. The Supreme Good

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is no longer an Idea but a Person animated by erotic goodness. In all its stages this divine Eros presupposes a relationship that requires sharing. The other is no longer just in the midst of my ascension, as in Plato, but my neighbour.

The ascent is the answer. Christ descended among men, suffered with them and, finally in their place. This Christian God, named Eros, is madly in love with his own creation, and especially the one being that was made in his likeness. On this one He is waiting to return home.

The thinking of the early Middle Ages does not distinguish between the work of Dionysius and his commentator Hrisopolis Maximus, known as Maximus the Confessor [29], who interpreted in his Scholium, Areopagus’ work. In Scholium at About the Godly Names, Maximus the Confessor, notes that Areopagite calls God the wellspring of love and of unifying Eros, [30] divine Eros, without beginning and without end, which extends from Good and returns to Good, through a circular motion. When we talk about the Divine eros, the angelic one, the understanding one, the psychic Eros (animal love ) or the natural (of the inanimate), his role is the same, to make them all face the spring and to draw them towards Him: God is an Eros which creates, supports and attracts the creation to itself through its Beauty and Goodness.

Everything is kept bounded by Eros and pushed towards the spring of beauty and goodness.

“Divine Love makes the good fruitful for the good itself” [31] God as the source of Hierarchy is beautiful, wise and good, the whole Hierarchy having these qualities in varying degrees. In, ‘About The Hierarchy of Heaven’, the Greek theologian makes a classification, now classic, of angelic armies or of the nine “names/callings” portrayed as the “three orders threefold”. The first Hierarchy, in the immediate proximity of God, next to the primordial illuminations of the Tetrachy includes the Thrones, the Cherubims and the Seraphims, the second celestial triad comprises the Pillars, the Lords?! and the Powers, and the last triade contains the Angels, the Archangels and the Beginners[32]. The three orders of angels seem to be arranged in vertical concentric spirals, “fiery wheels” which, “turn in circles around the same Good” [33]. If the first

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy triad is in direct contact with “The high being”, the last one is in direct connection with the people. All of them are moving, passing through purification, illumination and perfection [34]. The unity of the system is supported by the force of attraction at the centre. This force of attraction is love, “a dance suite around God” [35]. A symbolic church Hierarchy corresponds to the heavenly Hierarchy, without a scriptural basis [36]; the church Hierarchy consists of two “triads” and six “armies”, the one of the initiators (the deiform hierarch, the priests, and the deacons) and the initiated (the monks, the holy people and the cleansed); The Bishop “sanctifies and perfects”, the priest “illuminates” and the deacon “purifies”. The church Hierarchy is a “sacred order” through which Christ’s light reaches us.

“Theurgy” is “the work of the Hierarchy” and its numerous mediators, through which one can reach union with God. Climbing the successive steps of the Hierarchy, on the path of initiation, one can reach the mystery which remains in its hidden being; in the absence of an initiation, we can only have an indirect knowledge, via hierarchical intermediaries or symbols [37] The highest ones within the Areopagitic Hierarchy are burning with love for “The Transcendental One” and radiate love in the next circle. Love unites all levels of existence, the ones belonging to the world of angels between them, and them with those of earthly existence. The goal of the Hierarchy, Areopagite tells us, is, “likeness and union with God, as much as possible [38]”. Ascension to the divine, deification, presupposes likeness, perfection, being animated by divine love that generates love for others. But love cannot occur without freedom. Although love is the nature of all, it has been attracted, even in the case of some angels, to themselves, which led to their fall, and in some people’s cases, to material pleasures, since they are dressed in flesh. Purification, illumination and perfection are conditions for rediscovering good love, for true eros.

Although some contemporary commentators [39], with particular regard to the hierarchies, accuse Dionysius of individualism, “too overwhelmed by Platonism” [40], we consider that for Dionysius, the ascent to Good, unlike Plato’s, is nevertheless uniting and not solitary.

Rather as in Plotinian thinking, every stage of

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existence is drawn by a higher stage, but at the same time, it exudes love, care and responsibility for the inferior one, which attracts it. People cannot feel the connection with divinity without a connection with others. Dionysius describes an, “ascending hora”, symbolic expression of brotherhood and solidarity.

CONCLUSIONS In conclusion I will point out the opinion of John Rist, who believes that, “the first who combined the Neoplatonic idea about God as Eros with the idea of “ecstasy” of God, is PseudoDionysius, and it would be simply perverse to deny that Dionysius’ Christianity is the direct cause of this adaptation. Dionysius actually adapted Eros to the Christian requirement, according to which, God loves all creation, being the first to do so “[41]. First or not, the fact is that in Dionysius writings we find a Christianization of the Platonic Eros, transformed from divine messenger into deity. And this was necessary, since Good isn’t just an Idea any longer, but a divine Person. Hence, for the Christian Eros note specifically: personal reciprocity.

In conclusion, the Greek fathers use the concept of Eros to denote the “name” of God, the Trinitarian-interpersonal love, the creative divine love as well as man’s love towards God. The concept of Eros retains the Platonic significance of unifying enthusiasm, concerned in its authentic hypostasis, (“true eros”) as the sense of spiritual love, the bodily love belonging to “the fallen eros” or “eros in part”.

This interpretative line, which emphasis the Greek concept of Eros, will be rediscovered and recycled theologically, towards the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century

by Vladimir Solovyov, who in The Life Drama of Plato deplores the inconsistencies of the ancient philosopher, who allowed Eros “to fabricate himself in conjecture”, and finalises “man’s deification”, bringing the realisation of “divine-humanity” [42]; Nicholas Berdiaev, who in The Meaning of Creation. An Attempt at the Justification of Man [43] theorizes the metahistorical process, the creation and tragedy of existence around the concept of love; Vasily Rozanov, for which the erotic experience is the only barrier of being, through which we

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology approach the sacred [44]; Sergei Bulgakov, who develops a Sofiane erotica [45], or Ch. Yannaras, who theorizes the relationship between Person and Eros [46], and argues that “we must learn God again, from the beginning, “ [47]. According to these thinkers, the concept of Eros is rich in meaning, and permits renewals in the Christian theological space.

REFERENCES [1] See Marica, M.A., Erosul. O istorie filosofică

[2] [3]

[4]

[5] [6]

[7]

[8] [9]

a iubirii (Eros. A philosophical History of Love), Constanţa: Muntenia, 2007.

Platon, The Banquet, 211d.

Windelband, W. Istoria filosofiei greceşti (The History of Greek Phylosophy), vil I, Iaşi: Moldova Publ. House, 1995, p. 154.

In Greek language en-theon-siasmos, a state in which God lives within you, deification, cf. Tigler, A., Viaţa şi nemurirea în viziuinea greacă (Life and Immortality in Greek vision), Bucharest: Univers Enciclopedic Publ. House, 1995, p. 110.

Platon, The Banquet, 206a.

Russell, B., Istoria filosofiei occidentale (The History of Wester Philosophy), vol. I., Bucharest: Humanitas, Publ. House 2005, p.

316.

Hadot, P., Plotin sau simplitatea privirii (Plotin or The Simplicity of Glancing), Iaşi: Polirom, 1998,p.103.

Plotin, Enneade, VI, 7.

The author of the writings known as the Corpus Areopagiticum presents himself as a disciple of St. Paul, and he claims to have witnessed the solar eclipse that accompanied the death of Jesus. His writings appear for the first time, in the year 532, in a theological colloquium, where Severus of Antioch’s sympathizers invoked them in their academic argument, while the Catholics openly dismissed them as apocryphal. Since the Renaissance, following Laurentiu Valla, most experts in the field date his writings back to V-VI century; Lossky says that the mysterious author of the Areopagitic Writings “certainly lived after Nicaea and after the great Cappadocians”, “probably by the end of V or VI century “(V. Lossky, In God’s Image and Likeness, Humanitas, Bucharest, 1998, p. 9); the same

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point of view we find in Andrew Louth (Andrew Louth, Dionysius the Areopagite. An introduction, Deisis Publishing House, Sibiu, 1997, p. 43 and the next.) and Étienne Gilson (Étienne Gilson, Philosophy in the Middle Ages, Humanitas Publ. House, Bucharest, 1995, pp.73-74), all of whom invoke a deep affinity between the vision of Dionysius and the philosophy of Proclus (411-485); J. Meyendorff states that “discussions around the true identity of Pseudo-Dionysius, even if they themselves didn’t reach a satisfactory outcome, they have allowed at least the opportunity to clearly define the dependence of our author on neo-platonic authors of V century, and especially, on the Iamblic and Proclus”,(John Meyendorff Christ in Eastern Christian thought, EIBMBOR, Bucharest, 1997, p. 110);Fr. George Drăgulin attributes them to monk Dionysius Exiguus from Dobrogea, (the identity of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite with ieromonk Dionysius The Meek (Exiguous). Research on a controversial historical issue of the Byzantine and the straroman/ancient roman culture, Metropolitan Publishing Craiova, 1991); Father Stăniloae Dumitru, who translated into Romanian the collected works, attributes them to Saint Dionysius of Athens Areopagus, by dating them around the year 100 AD (Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, Complete Works and Scholium of St. Maximus the Confessor, translation D. Stăniloae, Paideia, Bucharest, 1996, pp. 7-13); an analytical presentation of “dionisiene issue” is performed by John I. Ica jr., Yet Tradition Is Right. Notes on the interpretation of Corpus Areopagite, foreword to Andrew Louth, Dionysius. An Introduction, pp. 2-26.

[10] Vlăduţescu, G., Teologie şi metafizică în cultura evului mediu (Theology and Metaphysics in Middle Ages Culture), Paideia Publ. House, Bucharest, 2003, p.85.

[11] Sfântul Dionisie Areopagitul, Despre Numirile Dumnezeieşti, în Dionisie Areopagitul, Opere complete (Saint Donysius Areopagite, About the Godly Names, the Complete Works), Rom. translation Dumitru Stăniloae, Paideia Publ. House, Bucharest, 1996, p. 148.

[12] Sf. Atanasie, Despre Întrupare, 2, Părinţi şi Scriitori Bisericeşti (About Embodiment, 2, Fathers and Religious Writings ), vol. 15, Rom.

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy translation D. Stăniloae, E.I.B.M.B.O.R., Bucharest, 1987, p. 139.

[13] See chapter Cunoaştere apofatică – comuniune erotică (Apophatical Knowledge – Erotic Communion) from Christos Yannaras, Heidegger and Areopagite, Rom. translation Nicolae Şerban Tanaşoca, Anastasia Publ.

House, Bucharest, 1996.

[14] Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, Despre Numirile Dumnezeiesti (About Godly Names), IV, § 12 in Opere complete (Complete Works), p. 150. The idea of unifying force of eros will be discussed by other fathers; Nicolae Cabasila (1320-1391) states that „what unites, everywhere, is the power of love” (Nicolae Cabasila, Despre viaţa în Hristos (About life in Christ), Romanian translation Teodor Bodogae, EIBMBOR, Bucharest, 2001, p.

229).

[15] Christos Yannaras, Heidegger and Areopagite, ed. cit. pp. 119-120.

[16] Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, Despre Numirile Dumnezeieşti (About Godly Names), IV, § 12 p. 150 [17] This aspect is also signaled by Jean-Claude Larchet who considers that the term eros designates „an increment of intensity”, by comparison with agape, and it refers to God’s love rather than love of others, while agape comprises both equally (Jean-Claude Larchet, Terapeutica bolilor spirituale (The Therapeutics of Spiritual Diseases), translation Marinela Bojin, Sofia Publ. House, Bucharest, 2001, p. 603, infra.).

[18] Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, Despre Numirile Dumnezeieşti (About Godly Names), IV, § 12 p. 150.

[19] Idem.

[20] Ibidem, IV, § 13, p. 150.

[21] D. Stăniloae, Teologia Dogmatică Ortodoxă (The Orthodox Dogmatic Theology), vol 1, EIBMBOR, Bucharest, 1996, pp.190-191.

[22] Ibidem, p. 191, nota 163.

[23] Erosurile imnelor dumnezeieşti (The Eros of Godly Hymns), in Saint Simeon New Theologian, Imne, Epistole şi Capete, Scrieri III (Hymns, Letters and Paragraphs), trans.

Ioan I. Ică jr., Deisis Publ. House, Sibiu, 2001, p. 216.

[24] Ibidem. p. 396.

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[25] Saint Donysius Areopagite, About the Godly

Names, IV, § 15, p. 151.

[26] Saint Donysius Areopagite, About the Godly

Names, IV, § 20, p. 153.

[27] Idem.

[28] Cf.

Christos Yannaras, Heidegger şi Areopagitul, p.122.

[29] Étienne Gilson, Filosofia în Evul Mediu, Editura Humanitas, Bucharest, 1995, p. 78.

[30] Scoliile Sfântului Maxim Mărturisitorul, Despre Numirile Dumnezeieşti, în Sfântul Dionisie Areopagitul, Opere complete şi Scoliile Sfântului Maxim Mărturisitorul (Scholium of St. Maximus the Confessor, About the Godly Names in Saint Donysius Areopagite, the Complete Works and Scholium of St. Maximus the Confessor), transl. Dumitru Stăniloae, Paideia Publ. House, Bucharest, 1996, p. 195.

[31] Sfântul Dionisie Areopagitul, Despre Numirile Dumnezeieşti (Saint Donysius Areopagite, About the Godly Names), IV, § 10, p. 149.

[32] Saint Donysius Areopagite, Despre Ierarhia Cerească, în Opere complete (About Heavenly Hierarchy in the Complete Works), p. 23.

[33] Ibidem, XV, § 9, ed. cit., p. 39.

[34] Dumitru Stăniloae, Teologia Dogmatică Ortodoxă (The Orthodox Dogmatic Theology), vol 1, p. 305.

[35] Dumitru Stăniloae, Note la Ierarhia Cerească (Notes to Heavenly Hierarchy), op. cit. p.66.

[36] Cf. John Meyendorff, Hristos în gândirea creştină răsăriteană (Christ in the Eastern Christian Philosophy), p. 111.

[37] Ibidem, p. 120.

[38] Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, Despre Ierarhia Cerească, în Opere complete (About Heavenly Hierarchy in Complete Works), ed. cit., p. 19.

[39] J. Meyendorff, Le Christ dans la pensée byzantine, (Christ in Byzantine Philosophy) Paris, 1969, p. 147.

[40] B. F. Westcott, Essay in the History of Religious Thought in the West, London, 1891, p. 191, apud A. Louth, p. 170.

[41] John Rist, A note on Eros and Agape in PsDionysius, “Vigiliae Chrisitianae” 20, 1966, p.

238, apud A. Louth, op. cit., p. 136.

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology [42] Soloviov, V., Drama vieţii lui Platon (The

Drama of Plato’s Life), Timişoara: Amarcord, 1997 [43] Berdiaev, N., Sensul creaţiei. Încercare de îndreptăţire a omului (The Meaning of Creation. An Attempt at the Justification of Man), Bucharest: Humanitas Publ. House, 1992.

[44] Rozanov, V, Apocalipsa timpului nostru (The Apocalypse of our time), Iaşi: Institutul European, 1994.

[45] Bulgakov, S., Lumina neînserată. Contemplaţii şi reflecţii metafizice (The Eternal Light.

Metaphysical Contemplations and Reflections), Bucharest: Anastasia Publishing House, 1999.

[46] Yannaras, Ch., Persoană şi Eros (Person and Eros), Bucharest: Anastasia Publishing House,, 2000.

[47] Yannaras, Ch., Foamea şi stea (The Famine and Star), Bucharest: Anastasia Publishing House, 2000.

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy

The start of Romanian Pilgrimage to the Holy Places Assoc. Prof. PhD. Claudiu Cotan Ovidius University, Constanta, Romania claudyu_cotan@yahoo.com

Abstract: The Pilgrimage to the Holy Places has always been one of the dimensions of the Christian life. Ever since the 4th century the Christians used to go to the Holy Land wishing to live the Bible realities which they knew only from the Holy Scripture. The Orthodox Christians of Wallachia appeared among the pilgrims to the Holy Places in the 17th century.

During the reign of Constantine Brancoveanu the pilgrimage to Jerusalem or Mount Athos has become an ordinary spiritual devotion. Once back in the country, these pilgrims used to raise a church or monastery as thanksgiving for the success of their spiritual journey.

Keywords: pilgrimage, Holy Places, monastery, saint, prayer, monks, church

I. INTRODUCTION Pilgrimage has been one of the realities of the Christian life ever since the first centuries.

The journey to the Holy Places has been known from the 4th century from Egeria’s travel notes, a Christian woman from Spain, who covered the long way to the Orient wishing to live a new Christian experience, and especially to discover the Bible places. The contemplation of the holy places was accompanied by prayer, either

individual or collective, but especially by the celebration of the Divine Liturgy. The churches, road side shrines and chapels became places of prayer on the pilgrim’s way to the Holy Places.

The pilgrimages made for the sacred place of the preaching of the Gospel of Christ, for the graves of the saints and martyrs, as well as for the places of residence of the famous monks. When they reached those loca sacra which witnessed either about Christ or about the activity of the apostles, the pilgrims wanted to read in the Holy Bible the texts referring to the respective places and to the things Christ and his disciples said. The same thing was done when the pilgrims arrived at the places related to the life of a saint, choosing to read holy texts from the Lives of the Saints.

The pilgrimage was understood as an act of thanksgiving or of repentance. While making such journeys, some of the faithful chose to live the monastic life in these special places. Blessed Jeronim came to live in the Holy Land together with his disciple women. Most times, before coming back to their countries, the pilgrims gave various donations or offers at the altars of the churches or monasteries visited, or gave money to the poor. Jerusalem is the ancient city, the place of Christ’s preaching, as well as the heavenly eschatological Jerusalem, the place where Christ will come for the second time to

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology judge the living and the dead. Thus, there is a Jerusalem of our reality, where the pilgrim goes to discover the heavenly Jerusalem, of the encounter with Christ. Many times the monks compared the Christian life to a pilgrimage that takes the human from the city on the earth to the heavenly city. After the pilgrimage of repentance that Empress Helen did to Jerusalem in 326, many churches and monasteries were raised in the places related to the history of salvation.

The churches raised by Constantine the Great became places of pilgrimage, marking the most important places of the Christians, namely the Holy Sepulchre and Bethlehem. From the 8th century forward the pilgrimage has been part of the canonical penitence. Pilgrimage becomes a manifestation of the Christian devotion so great that it gets several aspects. The pilgrimages done on behalf of the one who was suffering but could not do such a journey himself appear now.

Sometimes a parish delegated a faithful to go on a pilgrimage in the name of the community and to pray for all parishioners. The Christian who could not go on a pilgrimage during his life time, when dying he left all the money needed for doing such a journey to a pilgrim to do such a journey in his name.

Jerusalem was one of the most important destinations of the Christian pilgrim. After the Christianisation of the Hungarians, King Steven the Saint provided protection to the pilgrims who were passing through his country on their way to Palestine. A climax of the pilgrimage was noticed in the year 1033, a date with eschatological significance in the Christian collective mental [1].Mount Sinai is a locus sanctus in its turn, where the pilgrim manifests himself through proskinesis, the devotion expressed to God which makes himself present at the place where God spoke with Moses [2].

Egeria’s pilgrimage to Sinai is known from the Travel Journal, where she presents us not only the search of the place, but also the dialogue with the monks and hermits with whom she attends the lectio divina, readings of the Holy Scriptures, oratio, prayer and oblatio, the celebration of the Divine Liturgy[3].We know the case of John Casian from our territory, a pilgrim who went to Egypt and Constantinople, as well as to Rome and Marseille, where he set up monasteries and imposed a spiritual experience broken from the world, but not far from the world (xeniteia)[4].

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In the 17th century the custom of the pilgrimage to the Holy Places appears in the Romanian Principalities too, especially to Jerusalem, and to the great monasteries of the Holy Land, where a special place is held by the Monastery of Saint Catherine, to Mount Athos, a place where especially the monks go to, Meteora with its monasteries, as well as Eastern locations as Kiev and Moscow. The pilgrimage is recommended in the Confession of Faith of metropolitan Petru Movila, part I which comments the articles of faith of the Creed, section 41, which read that the Holy Land: „(...) the grave of Christ is still full of glory and the one who goes there with faith and great love, will have his sins forgiven through the intercession of Christ”. The father confessor urges the faithful to go on pilgrimages to the holy places (peregrinations ad loca sacra) [5],besides fasting, praying and charity. The theme of pilgrimage appears in the church painting too, in the porch of Polovragi Monastery showing the Mount Athos with its monasteries,[6] “the garden of the Mother of God” (1703), as well as in the porch of the metropolitan palace of Targoviste where according to Paul de Alep the monasteries of the Holy Land were painted, Jerusalem, Sinai Mount and Mount Athos with its monasteries[ ]. The painters from Polovragi must have known the Proschinitar of Mount Athos (a book of prayers with information on the holy places) by John Comnen. Certainly, the main focus of the Romanian pilgrims is Mount Athos, maybe due to its geographic location and role in the Eastern tradition. This is why during the reign of Constantine Brancoveanu, the Holy Mount became the object of many donations of this ruling prince.

In order to guide the pilgrims to Mount Athos one of the most important works is published the Proschinitar of Mount Athos, drafted by John Comnen in 1701 and printed at Snagov, translated into Russian by monk Damaschin to be useful to the Russian pilgrims. John Comnen, the future metropolitan of Dristrei[7], made a journey to Mount Athos to gather data related to the donations and aids sent by the Romanian princes. He writes in the letters sent to metropolitan Teodosie of Ungro-Wallachia that there were “proschinitare” for Jerusalem and Mount Sinai, but not for Mount Athos. Maybe such books existed, but Comnen did not know

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy anything about them. Comnen’s work advertised Mount Athos, the pilgrims having been urged to travel to Mount Athos to see the beautiful monasteries over there, the holy relics to pray to, the liturgical vessels and the vestments as well.

Moreover, the author hopes Prince Constantine Brancoveanu, the benefactor of Mount Athos, to go on a pilgrimage to the Holy Mount[8]. From the second half of the 17th century forward, such proschinitare start writing about the Romanian Principalities. The pilgrims learned more things about Mount Sinai also from the maps published by the Venetian publishing houses. The places of pilgrimage proposed were especially those inhabited by free Orthodox people, in the Romanian Principalities and Russia.

The person who went to the Holy Places was called hagi and his pilgrimage hagialac, which fact proves the influence the Muslim pilgrimage exerted over the Romanian Orthodox faithful during the 2nd half of the 17th century. For Christians the pilgrimage was a recommendation of the father confessor, but for Muslims it was a must, one of the tasks of the religious life. Because the pilgrimages were a source of income, the Ottoman Empire set up a true infra-structure to ensure their good development through caravans, supplying water and aliments, and especially protecting the pilgrims against ruffians or Bedouins in the case of Egypt. The military escort of the pilgrims who were crossing the River Jordan or the desert became normal. Thus, the pilgrimage involved a flux of merchandises and money favouring both the Christians and the Muslims.

The merchants who were travelling the same way as the pilgrims displayed their merchandises around a place of pilgrimage or a monastery.

The tax for displaying the merchandises was ascribed to the monasteries, while the panayir tax ascribed to the Ottoman authorities was shared with the local metropolitan. At these places or monasteries, the faithful were splashed with holy water, ageasma, while the donations they offered were called hagiasma, having also been holy through the sacrificial spirit of the faithful. These pilgrimages ensured some prosperity to the respective place or monastery, as well as a prestige in society to the one who succeeded in going on such a hagialac. The Ottoman authorities of Jerusalem administrated important amounts coming from the tax got

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from every Christian pilgrim, which they sent to the Islam religious foundations of the city. Thus, the Ottomans were interested in supporting the Christians’ pilgrimages which helped the Islam indirectly[9].

Thus, for Christians and for Orthodox too, the Holy Places represented the historical space of the activity mentioned in the Old Testament, and especially the place of Christ’s preaching the Gospel, of his passions and of his Resurrection.

Jerusalem is the city of the future too, the place where the world will be judged at the Last Judgement. Unfortunately, the Romanian literature does not mention these pilgrimages; not even the aristocratic pilgrimage of the Cantacuzinos family mentions their itinerary which must have been the one followed by the members of Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre, passing through Adrianopol and Constantinople, the donations given, or at least the religious services which they must have certainly attended. [10] Lady Elina Cantacuzino, who initiated this pilgrimage, was in good relations with patriarch Dositei of Jerusalem, who must have encouraged the initiative of this journey[11].

Almost all the Romanian ruling princes of the 17th century showed their love for the Orthodox East especially through the rich donations they offered. Mihai Cantacuzino’s pilgrimage to Sinai and Jerusalem in 1682, together with his mother and sister is only one proof of the love that the Romanian faithful showed to the Holy Places. This pilgrimage of the Cantacuzino family is mentioned by patriarch Samuil of Alexandria (1710-1743), maybe to mark a rare and important thing through the number and greatness of the group of pilgrims. The following note in the Slavonic language was found on a Serbian gospel from the 16th century, from Saint Sava Monastery: „Year 7190 (1682), April month, day 26, lady Ilinca Vlascoga came here from Jerusalem together with her son sword bearer Mihai, and her daughter Stanca. Iancu Bulibasa came with them too, together with ten seimeni (mercenary pedestrian solders) and 40 men of his retinue”.

It was the retinue worthy of a great boyar.

The greatness of the group of pilgrims was certainly due to the need of safety, because it was a very expensive journey to a long distance from Wallachia. Very interesting is the will of Elina Cantacuzino of 1 September 1681, which

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology explained the cause of the pilgrimage initiated: „I, Elina, daughter to Serban Cantacuzino and Lady Elina, wife of the late Minister for Foreign Affairs Constandin Cantacuzino, certify through this letter of mine that having reached an old age, I thought it was a good thing for me to do to travel to Jerusalem, to pray there to the holy place where I buried the pure body of His Grace, to complain the multitude of my sins, as said: I have not come to call the righteous, but the sinners to repentance, and: whoever comes to me I shall not send him away”[12]. The pilgrims prayed to the Holy Sepulchre, and Mihai Cantacuzino continued his way up to Mount Sinai. The Cantacuzino pilgrims shared gifts to the Greek monks from the Holy Sepulchre at these spiritual stops, but they did not forget the poor either.

When leaving Jerusalem the pilgrims were taken to the Holy City by monks and faithful, „all the fathers of the Great Church of Jerusalem and all citizens accompanying them”. As dramatic is presented the entrance into the country of the group of pilgrims who came back safe and sound: “Prince Serban with all his boyars and his court came out to meet them, joining his mother, kissing her hand with great love, and entered the princely houses of Bucharest in great honour”[13].

The moment is mentioned in 1681 by Gheorghe Brancovici in his Chronicle: „Her Highness, Lady Elena, sweet mother of His Highness Prince Serban Cantacuzino, when she reached old age, took Lady Stanca Cantacuzino with her and went to see the Holy Places, praying to the Holy Sepulchre of Jesus Christ, our Saviour, and to other holy places of Jerusalem, giving many expensive gifts there.

And they came back happy to the beloved people of her country”[14]. The example given by Cantacuzinos through this pilgrimage was hard to imitate by other boyars, so that the splendour of this pilgrimage remains unique in the history of the Romanians’ relations with the Holy Land.

One of Prince Constantine Brancoveanu’s religious concerns was Mount Sinai and the disputes between the Sinaics and Patriarchate of Jerusalem. Very interesting is the fact that although the Wallachian Prince helped so many places of worship of the Orthodox Orient, he was not a pilgrim, but certainly he knew the beauty of the pilgrimage from the relations of his close ones, of Mihai Cantacuzino first of all, and tried to support these destinations of the pilgrims. In order to make peace at the Holy

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Places, Brancoveanu was directly involved in the Sinaics’ domestic affairs ever since 1690, as he mentioned in a letter addressed to metropolitan Clement of Adrianopol, informing him that he did not agree with the turmoil caused by the monks from Sinai[15]. In 1695, Brancoveanu wrote to patriarch Dositei of Jerusalem about the disputes of the monks of Sinai and praised the pastoral tact of the great patriarch[16]. Moreover, he was glad when Hrisant was elected patriarch with no turmoil within the Synod[17]. When archbishop Ioanichie I Peloponnesios (1671-1702) passed through Wallachia, the prince showed his love for Sinai, so that on the occasion of this visit the Monastery of Ramnicu Sarat was dedicated to Sinai (30 January 1700) through a princely decree[18]. A few years later, Brancoveanu associated his uncle Mihai Cantacuzino to his foundation at Ramnicu Sarat[19], maybe as appreciation for the one who walked personally on the holy land of Palestine.

In order to make the Holy Land and the Monastery of Saint Catherine known to the faithful, metropolitan Antim Ivireanul printed in 1710, at Targoviste, a book in the Greek language, of great importance for the monks of Sinai entitled „The book which comprises the religious service of Saint Catherine, the proschinitar of the Holy Mount Sinai with everything around, the good order of the monastery’s religious service, and all those who were archbishops there and an encomium for Mount Sinai, printed in the time of most venerable prince John Constantine Basarab, master of the entire Ungro-Wallachia,

by His Grace and most scholar metropolitan of the Holy Metropolitanate of Ungro-Wallachia, Antim of Iviria, in the Holy Metropolitanate of Targoviste, by care of and corrected by Rt Rev Hieromonk Mitrofan Grigoras from Dodona, in the year 1719, month of September”[20]. As the title mentions, Mitrofan Grigoras, professor at the Princely Academy of Saint Sava supervised the printing of this book. The printing was done

by Gheorghe Radovici, printer disciple of Antim, who activated at Targoviste from 1710-1714.

The offering of the Cantacuzinos after the pilgrimage to Sinai was implemented, according to the pilgrims’ custom, in building Sinaia Monastery. From 1690-1695, the monastery founded by Mihai Cantacuzino was built, „in the likeness of big Sinaia, in the glory and praise

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy of God and honour of the Falling Asleep of the Mother of God (...)”, as the foundation document reads[21]. The famous Greek theologian, John Cariofil, had close relations with Sinai, having good knowledge of the Sinaite metokions of Wallachia.

Although the pilgrimage to the Holy Places and to Mount Athos provided the participants with a certain statute in society as persons worthy praying at the holiest places of the Orthodox, only a few people followed the example of the Cantacuzinos. Yet, in the 17th century the names of such pilgrims are known: clucer Stoian (person in charge with supplying the princely court) with his wife Elena, founders of Valeni Monastery, comis Apostolache (person in charge with the prince’s stables), the founder of the monastery of his name, pilgrim to Jerusalem together with master of ceremonies hagi Sava, hagis Dobre and Craciun, mentioned in a document of 1654, hagi Toma, captain of seimens at the time of Constantin Brancoveanu, direct subordinate of the sword bearer Mihai Cantacuzino, donor to the monasteries of Serbia and Bulgaria, hagi Parvan from Campulung, hagi Radu Fierescu, Iane captain hagi, Ivan, hagi Ivan of Belingrad, metropolitan Varlaam of Wallachia, pro-egumen hagi Iosif from Hurezi, hagi Macarie, monk at Radu Voda Monastery, Dionisie from Margineni Monastery, hagi at the Holy Mount, etc[22].

Captain of seimens Toma travelled to the Holy Land to pray there to have his sins forgiven, after all his nine children had died. Toma was grateful to Brancoveanu whom he served with faith: „(...) the Serb and bringing me God here, in the country, on Christian land, in the country of his highness, honoured by his nation and of good family, blessed by merciful God and prince Constantine Basaraba, in all Wallachia, protector and merciful, together with all the honoured Cantacuzino family”; he followed the example of the great prince donating to some churches and monasteries from Serbia and Bulgaria. The donations he gave from the estate he had at Muscel were given to the Monasteries of Ravaniča, Studeniča, Krušedol, Mileševa and Hilandar, as well as to the Bulgarian Monastery of Rila and to the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, to which he donated his houses from Bucharest to be remembered after his death[23]. Toma donated a part of his

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estate to Cotroceni Monastery too, founded by Serban Cantacuzino. The relics of Saint Simion were at Studeniča Monastery, those of Saint Metropolitan Maxim were at Krušedol, and the relics of Saint Sava were at Mileševa, Toma’s donations having proved the Serbian nationalism that animated the Slavs living in the South of the River Danube who were at permanent war with the Ottoman Empire[24]. In 1719, his wife Stana gave the Metropolitanate of Bucharest a shop situated in the Ulita Mare (Big Street).

When back home from pilgrimage hagi Stoian and his wife Elena dedicated Valenii de Munte skete, which they had founded, to Cotroceni Monastery (15 May 1684). The skete was endowed from the very beginning with several houses, 10 acres of vineyard at Deptura, two estates, Gypsis, 100 salt boulders, animals and 800 golden coins. It should be mentioned that the skete got several estates throughout the years, vineyards, tax exemptions, all this making a substantial income for the monastery of Bucharest and for Mount Athos indirectly[25].

A very interesting case is that of “Hagiu” church of Bucharest. At the time of Saint Constantine Brancoveanu’s ruling a monastery used to be on the place of the present church, which had only 3-4 monks. The abbot who had been at the Holy Places was considered a “hagi”, where from the name of “Hagi’s church”. The edge of the town used to be here marked by a ditch dug along Traian street.

Two hierarchs are pilgrims at the middle of the century. One of them, metropolitan Dionisie travelled to Mount Athos and to Moscow sent

by Ivir Monastery, going on his pilgrimage as obedience, and the other one, metropolitan Varlaam of Ungro-Wallachia went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, after he had passed through Transylvania and Russia as a repentance journey.

His pilgrimage to the Holy Land must have coincided with that o Elina Cantacuzino, in 1682.

Metropolitan Varlaam appears in the history of the 17th century as an original character in the conflict between the great families of boyars.

He is the hierarch who had good relations with both parts, coming at the head of the Church not because he wanted to, but because he had to.

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Dionisie had been a monk and ecclesiarch at

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology the Monastery of the Falling Asleep of the Mother of God of Campulung, and corrector too as long as the printing press operated here. Hence he left for Mount Athos, to Ivir Monastery, and this is why he is supposed to have been Georgian; in 1660, he was appointed egumen to the metokion this monastery had in Moscow. After seven years he must have retired to Ivir, because from 1670-1671 he was entrusted the leadership of Radu Voda Monastery of Bucharest. The prince imposed him as metropolitan, but he operated only for a few months. We insist on metropolitan Varlaam to mention that from 1666-1668 he travels to Russia, after he had retired from the abbacy of Cozia Monastery.

He visited Kiev and Moscow during his journey, at a time when the religious turmoil was very serious in Russia. According to the pilgrims’ habit, he brought several holy vessels and books from this journey, which he gave, later on, to the churches he had founded. The building of the stone church at Trivale skete is related to metropolitan Varlaam. In fact, he showed great care for this skete, this one having been an offering that he gave after his pilgrimage to the Holy Places in 1682. On 15 November 1702, the skete was dedicated to Cozia Monastery, after it had been endowed with some estates. Varlaam was the founder of Turnu Monastery (1676) and of Fedelesoiu skete (1673), a construction begun

by Lady Maria, wife of Prince Grigore Ghica, and finished by him after the dethronement of the prince. Prince Constantine Brancoveanu and metropolitan Varlaam [26] are painted inside the church.

The pilgrimage was present in Wallachia through the processions of the holy relics too, which the Greek monks organised sometimes.

In 1691, Brancoveanu wrote to the egumen of the Great Lavra, asking him to send him the head of Saint Mihail the Confessor, known for his miracles, to rid the country of the locusts’ invasion. The prince confirmed the amount of 6000 asprons (Turkish silver coin circulating in the Romanian Principalities from the 15th – 19th centuries) to the monastery as a reward, covered in silver the hand of Saint John Chrysostom, and had the relics of Saint Mihail put in a beautifully adorned shrine. In 1696 he continued his donation of 6000 asprons, plus 300, given to those who came to get the financial aid. In 1713, Hotarani Monastery received a decree

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from Brancoveanu concerning the preservation maybe of the relics of Saint John the Baptism from Dionisiu. The prince offered the monks 100 talers (Austrian silver coin that circulated in the Romanian Principalities too) per year and 20 for the one who brought the holy relics, provided that they were no longer taken from one place to another for charity, not to be lost, but „to be taken to a certain place where piety requires, and only in hard times to be taken out, when no other solution can be found”[27]. This piece of information leads us to the conclusion that these relics were brought by the Athonite monks for the Romanian faithful who wanted to pray to them to get financial support on behalf of whoever they could. In this context, Constantine Brancoveanu volunteered, as we can see, to pay this money, lest the relics be moved from one place to another[28].

An important role in the inner pilgrimage was played by Tismana Monastery in regard to life of Saint Nicodim, which is interestingly presented in the travel notes of Paul of Alep, who visited the monastery in 1649. The importance the monastery acquired was due to the aid provided by Matei Basarab, who raised it to the rank of Great Lavra of the country, with priority of the egumen in the protocol of the council, after metropolitan and bishops. The prince rebuilt the fortifications and built a chapel at Tismana. Paisie of Jerusalem confirmed the gestures of the prince through a patriarchal decree, strengthening the independence of the monastery (3 June 648), a gesture legalised by the will of Saint Nicodim. Although the relics of the saint are not here, the monastery becomes a locus sanctus through a series of relics related to the life of the saint: the cave where he lived, the objects that belonged to him, such as the cloak, stole, the Gospel book he wrote by hand and the shrine shaped censer. Presented with the Gospel in his hand, Nicodim seems a victorious missionary priest of the 17th century fighting against the Catholic and Calvin propaganda[29].

The importance of Tismana Monastery is proved by the election of abbot Stefan as metropolitan, at the time of Matei Basarab’s rule.

The pilgrimage to Tismana Monastery is exceeded only by the presence of the relics of Saint Filofteia from Curtea de Arges, similar in veneration with those of Pious Parascheva

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy from Iasi, received by Vasile Lupu as present and thanksgiving for his great generosity to the Ecumenical Patriarchate. The two women saints benefit of the veneration of the Romanian faithful more than Saint John from Suceava, Saint Gregory the Decapolite or Saint Nicodim from Tismana did before. They represent, through their statute of saints of charity, through their avoiding the world and care for the poor, just the society which accepted them. Besides the relics of these saints, the relics of some other saints were brought to the Romanian Principalities as presents and thanksgiving of the Eastern Patriarchates for the gifts received on behalf of the Romanian princes. The saints came down from the church frescoes and made themselves present through their relics which the faithful could venerate and touch. The veneration of Pious Parascheva from Iasi spread to Wallachia where Lady Balasa, wife of Constantin Serban built a church and an old people’s home for poor, the first of this kind in Muntenia. Churches are built having her as saint patron. In 1692, the Religious services of Saint Paraschevi the New and of Saint Gregory the Decapolite were printed in the Greek language, drafted by Meletie Syrigul[30].

The inclusion of these saints into the dedications of the churches and monasteries reflects a growth of the rite of the veneration of the holy relics, as well as an intensification of the spiritual life and wish of the faithful to pray to these relics during their pilgrimages.

The monasteries that hosted them became loca sacra, destinations of the Romanian pilgrims hoping that the intercessions of the saints would change their lives.

Is today’s pilgrimage only tourism in which marketing plays an important part? Aren’t certain places of pilgrimage cultivated because they are a craze in our time? If a journey to the holy places of Christianity used to bring a change into the pilgrim’s soul too in the beginning, is such an inner transformation still possible for the modern man overruled by laziness and comfort? I think the modern pilgrimage hides a financial aspect to a great extent, having been promoted by many tourism firms focused only on profit. Has pilgrimage become only a business for some people and a simple journey of culture and education for the so called modern pilgrims?

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How should religious tourism be in this time when the peoples experience a loss of identity and of religious faith?

Bibliography: A. Sources: Arhivele Naţionale Istorice Centrale, fond Mănăstirea Cotroceni, XVII/37.

Brancovici, Gheorghe, Romanian Chronicle (Cronica românească), edit. by Damaschin Mioc and Marieta Adam Chiper, Bucharest: Academiei Publishing House, 1987.

Hurmuzaki, E., N. Iorga, Greek Documents on the History of the Romanians (Documente greceşti privitoare la istoria românilor), vol XIV/1, Bucharest, 1915.

Wallachian Chroniclers (Cronicari munteni) vol. I, edit. by Mihai Gregorian. Bucharest: Publishing House for Literature, 1961.

B. Works of speciality: Barbu, Violeta, Purgatory of the missionaries.

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Contrareforma în Ţările Române în secolul al XVIIlea). Bucharest: Academiei Publishing House, 2008.

Benga, Daniel, “Peregrinatio” to Mount Sinai in the Christian Antiquity” (“Peregrinatio” la Muntele Sinai în antichitatea creştină). Anuarul Facultăţii de Teologie Ortodoxă Bucureşti, V (2005) 247-263.

Bulat, G. Toma, “Ioan Comnen „iatro - philosopher”, professor at the Princely Academy and metropolitan of Dristrei” (Ioan Comnen „iatro-filosoful”, profesor la Academia domnească şi mitropolit al Dristrei (†1719).

Biserica Ortodoxă Română, LXXXIV (1966), no.

3-4, 356-368.

Cristea, Letiţia Mirela, Relations of Wallachia with Mount Athos in the 17th -19th centuries.

Case of Mihai Voda Monastery (Relaţiile Ţării Româneaşti cu Muntela Athos în secolele XVIIXIX. Cazul Mănăstirii Mihai Vodă), Bucharest, 2011.

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Ielciu,

Ioan

Mircea,

“Constantimople,

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology Rome and Marseille: important stages of the geographic and spiritual itinerary of Saint John Cassian” (Constantinopol, Roma şi Marsilia: etape importante ale itinerariului geografic şi spiritual al Sfântului Ioan Cassian). Revista Teologică, 94 (2012), no. 4, 189-205.

Cotan, Claudiu, “The Image of the feminine monasticism in the theological works of Saints John Chrysostom and John Cassian”. The Christian Mission on the Romanian Territory during the first centuries of The Church. 1600 Years since the Falling Asleep in the Lord of Saint Theotim I of Tomis. The Acts of the International Symposium at the Center for Studies and Historic-Religious Researches of the European South-East Area “Holy Apostle Andrew”, Constanţa, 2009, 229-240.

Wallachia (1668-1672; 1679-1708)” (Mitropolitul Teodosie al Ţării Româneşti (1668-1672; 16791708). Studii Teologice, 5-6/1952, 330-341. references [1] Lucreţia Vasilescu,

[2]

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Lazăr, Mariana, “Romanian Pilgrims to Holy Places”. Historical Yearbook, vol. I, Bucharest, 2004, 193-204.

Marinescu, Adrian, “Aspects of the relations of metropolitan Antim of Iviria with Sinai” (Aspecte ale legăturilor mitropolitului Antim Ivireanul cu Sinaiul). Bucharest University, I, 2001, 289-303.

Măgureanu, N., Sinaia Monastery (Mănăstirea Sinaia), Bucharest: Athens Publishing House, 2000.

Moldoveanu, Ioan, Contributions to the history of the relations of the Romanian Principalities with Mount Athos (1650-1863).

Meeting 1045 years since the foundation of Mount Athos (963-2008) (Contribuţii la istoria relaţiilor Ţărilor Române cu Muntele Athos (1650-1863). În întâmpinarea a 1045 de ani de la fondarea Muntelui Athos (963-2008). Bucharest: Published by Institutul Biblic şi de Misiune al Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, 2007.

Păcurariu, Mircea, History of the Romanian Orthodox Church (Istoria Bisericii Ortodoxe Române), vol. II, Bucharest: Published by Institutul Biblic şi de Misiune al Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, 1994.

Pillat, Cornelia, Variations on given themes in the Romanian mediaeval art (Variaţiuni pe teme date în arta medievală românească). Bucharest: Vremea Publishing House, 2003. Şerbănescu, N., “Metropolitan Teodosie of

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[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

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“Pilgrimage-semantic and spiritual dimensions” (Pelerinajul-dimensiuni semantice şi spirituale). Anuarul Facultăţii de Teologie Ortodoxă, Bucharest University, I, 2001, 597-599.

Daniel Benga, “Peregrinatio” to Mount Sinai in the Christian Antiquity” (“Peregrinatio” la Muntele Sinai în antichitatea creştină). Anuarul Facultăţii de Teologie Ortodoxă Bucureşti, V (2005), 254.

Daniel Benga, “Peregrinatio”, 261.

Claudiu Cotan, “The Image of the feminine monasticism in the theological works of Saints John Chrysostom and John Cassian”. The Christian Mission on the Romanian Territory during the first centuries of The Church.1600 Years since the Falling Asleep in the Lord of Saint Theotim I of Tomis. The Acts of the International Symposium at the Center for Studies and HistoricReligious Researches of the European South-East Area “Holy Apostle Andrew”, Constanţa, 2009, 229-240; Ioan Mircea Ielciu, “Constantimople, Rome and Marseille: important stages of the geographic and spiritual itinerary of Saint John Cassian” (Constantinopol, Roma şi Marsilia: etape importante ale itinerariului geografic şi spiritual al Sfântului Ioan Cassian). Revista Teologică, 94 (2012), no. 4, 189-205.

Violeta Barbu, Purgatory of the Missionaries.

Counter-reform in the Romanian Principalities in the 17th century (Purgatoriul misionarilor.

Contrareforma în Ţările Române în secolul al XVII-lea). Bucharest: Academiei Publishing House, 2008, 522.

Cornelia Pillat, Variations on given themes in the Romanian mediaeval art (Variaţiuni pe teme date în arta medievală românească). Bucharest: Vremea Publishing House, 2003, 58.

Toma G. Bulat, “Ioan Comnen „iatro-philosopher”, professor at the Princely Academy and metropolitan of Dristrei (†1719)” (Ioan Comnen „iatro-filosoful”, profesor la Academia domnească şi mitropolit al Dristrei (†1719). Biserica Ortodoxă Română, LXXXIV (1966), no. 3-4, 356-368.

Violeta Barbu, Purgatory of the Missionaries (Purgatoriul misionarilor), 523.

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy [9] Violeta Barbu, Purgatory of the Missionaries

(Purgatoriul misionarilor), 525-526.

[10] Wallachian Chroniclers (Cronicari munteni) vol.

I, edit. by Mihai Gregorian. Bucharest: Publishing House for Literature, 1961, 210.

[11] Violeta Barbu, Purgatory of the Missionaries (Purgatoriul misionarilor), 527.

[12] E. Hurmuzaki, N. Iorga, Greek Documents on the History of the Romanians (Documente greceşti privitoare la istoria românilor), vol XIV/1, Bucharest, 1915, 248.

[13] Wallachian Chroniclers (Cronicari munteni), vol.

I, 210.

[14] Gheorghe Brancovici, Romanian Chronicle (Cronica românească), edit. by Damaschin Mioc and Marieta Adam Chiper, Bucharest: Academiei Publishing House, 1987, 74.

[15] E. Hurmuzaki, N. Iorga, Greek Documents, 272.

[16] E. Hurmuzaki, N. Iorga, Greek Documents, 297 [17] E. Hurmuzaki, N. Iorga, Greek Documents, 386388 [18] Adrian Marinescu, “Aspects of the relations of metropolitan Antim of Iviria with Sinai” (Aspecte ale legăturilor mitropolitului Antim Ivireanul cu Sinaiul). Bucharest University, I, 2001, 290.

[19] E. Hurmuzaki, N. Iorga, Greek Documents, 266.

[20] Adrian Marinescu, “Aspects of the relations of metropolitan Antim of Iviria with Sinai” (Aspecte ale legăturilor mitropolitului Antim Ivireanul cu Sinaiul), 293.

[21] N. Măgureanu, Sinaia Monastery (Mănăstirea Sinaia), Bucharest: Athens Publishing House, 2000, 136.

[22] [ ]Violeta Barbu, Purgatory of the Missionaries (Purgatoriul misionarilor), 529.

[23] Arhivele Naţionale Istorice Centrale, fond Mănăstirea Cotroceni, XVII/37; Mariana Lazăr, “Romanian Pilgrims to Holy Places”. Historical Yearbook, vol. I, Bucharest, 2004, 200-201.

[24] Mariana Lazăr, “Romanian Pilgrims to Holy Places”, 198.

[25] Ioan Moldoveanu, Contributions to the history of the relations of the Romanian Principalities with Mount Athos (1650-1863). Meeting 1045 years since the foundation of Mount Athos (Contribuţii la istoria relaţiilor Ţărilor Române cu Muntele Athos (1650-1863). În întâmpinarea a 1045 de ani de la fondarea Muntelui Athos (963-2008). Bucharest: Published by Institutul Biblic şi de Misiune al

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Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, 2007, 86.

[26] Mircea Păcurariu, History of the Romanian

Orthodox Church (Istoria Bisericii Ortodoxe Române), vol. II, Bucharest: Published by Institutul Biblic şi de Misiune al Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, 1994, 129.

[27] Ioan Moldoveanu, Contributions to the history of the relations of the Romanian Principalities with Mount Athos (1650-1863). Meeting 1045 years since the foundation of Mount Athos, 143.

[28] Cristea Letiţia Mirela, Relations of Wallachia with Mount Athos in the 17th -19th centuries. Case of Mihai Voda Monastery (Relaţiile Ţării Româneaşti cu Muntela Athos în secolele XVII-XIX. Cazul Mănăstirii Mihai Vodă), Bucharest, 2011, 50.

[29] Violeta Barbu, Purgatory of the Missionaries (Purgatoriul misionarilor), 626.

[30] Violeta Barbu, Purgatory of the Missionaries (Purgatoriul misionarilor), 635.

Claudiu Cotan biography: Orthodox priest in Bucharest since 1998. Assoc. Prof.

PhD, Department of Theology, „Ovidius“ University of Constanta, Romania. Important works: Orthodoxy and movements of national emancipation in the South-East of Europe in the 19th, Bucharest: Byzantine Publishing House, 2004; State and Church. Orthodox Church in XXth Century, Iaşi: Published by Vasiliana ’98, 2009; Romanian Orthodox Church during the First World War, Bucharest: Universitară Publishing House, 2015.

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Bioethics in the vision of the Orthodox Theology Antony – Catalin PĂŞTIN, PhD.

“Sf. Ioan Cassian” Centre for theological, intercultural and ecumenical research – Constanta Ovidius University, Constanta, Romania antoniupastin@yahoo.com

Abstract: The metamorphose of the european world from the medieval to the modern era or, the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century entailed the considerable mutations on the European culture scene. From God it was passed to the man, from the theology to the science, and from the spiritual values the society passed to the material values, like so many expressions of the globalization.

Keywords: spiritual values, Christian morality, the tragedy of modern man

I. INTRODUCTION The metamorphose of the European world from the medieval to the modern era or, the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century entailed the considerable mutations on the European culture scene. From God it was passed to the man, from the theology to the science, and from the spiritual values the society passed to the material values, like so many expressions of the globalization.

The mechanistic conception has favored the huge scientific and technological progress of the contemporary occidental society.

But, on the other hand, this conception represents the real cause of the spiritual and the moral regress of the world in which we are living. The economic, financial and political factors have acquired a considerable importance to the detriment of the spiritual preoccupation.

We live in a world where the material values have triumphed over the spiritual values. On the one side, we are witnessing at the victories of the science and technology that overcome the most optimistic expectations of the eighteenth century, but, in his inner life, man feels himself caught up in the grips of the irrational forces which he can no longer control.

The today sensuality and violence outburst, which are spreading throughout the society and comprising the ever wider circles, is a conclusive evidence of the spiritual climate degradation of man and of the contemporary society[1].

The understanding and the acceptance of the relationship between Logos and creation have a capital importance for the destiny of our world.

Due to the misunderstanding of this relationship or its rejection, in the West has been developed the evolutionary theory, which, acts on the premise that the God either does not exist, or at least is absent from the act of creation. Because if He would exist, it should be accepted that,

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology either He couldn’t create the world in 6 days or bring it into being only using His word [2], either He does not will to do it , and then we have to do with a God who is not love. Thus, God, Who does not create, has no reason to be involved neither in the salvation act and has not nor the conditions which Himself has been created them for the purpose of the Incarnation.

Evolutionism is what the atheist philosophers needed to justify the autonomy of man using his origin as an argument, or how Darwinist Richard Dawkins said: “Darwin made it possible to become a perfect atheist from the intellectual point of view”[3].

Based on the autonomy of the world and man towards God, the modernity has drawn the logical conclusion that: the world can be completely understood without assuming the existence of any God, whether it be the God of the philosophers or of the believers. For the actual modernity it remains to declare a new god or new gods. Falling again into the trap handed him by the devil in the Garden of Eden and in the tendency to be “like God, knowing the good and the evil” (Gen. 3: 5), the man idolizes, deifies and declares himself as God. The new god has developed a new cult stating within it also the images and idols that will complete the picture of this kind of human self-divinization. Thus, the first idol emerged and consecrated as such for the modern era seems to be “The cult of civilization”.

The establishment of this cult has consisted and consists in subordination of culture, art and all moral values, tradition and faith in God towards the need for civilization. All these were oriented by the modern man according to a superior goal: the assurance of civilization.

The modern science is another idol of the modern era und we perceive it so, because it conferred itself an absolute power. In essence, the proclamation of science as idol in modernity consist in the fact that the center of gravity of knowledge is transferred from God to man.

The modern age has imposed the conception that man is an autonomous being who can develop himself, especially with the help of his mind (nous) and using his inner powers.

Strictly speaking, this means the deification of the human rationality and its presentation as a

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substitute of faith in God. But as it was natural, the denial of the Living God was followed by the denial of reason itself,. Soon was reached the absurd limit of the despotism. The human reason was self-limited to the knowledge of matter and deprived of the absolute criteria of evaluation for the already known things, it has failed in the conflict with the thinking way of the human fellow beings.

The third idol of modernism is the belief in historical progress of humanity and the sacrifice on the altar of this idol of the past values, tradition, truth. The modern idea of progress has proved its falsification through the failure of the rationalism and of the enlightment rationalism, which after all leads to an irrationalism.

Bioprinting: the 3 D printing for organ creation, or in other words: Bioethics Bioprinting represents the term that defines the use of 3D printers to create tissues or organs. The most often used are the stem cells or other types of cells in what is called bio-ink, namely the biology ink.

More recently, 3D printers are being used in the medical field, where they create tissues which may be used for surgeries. Still not we haven’t reached the creation of a functional organ because it is difficult to print the blood vessels but, the engineers at Cornell University (USA) managed to print an ear, so the first step was made. Technological and ethical implications are quite large and the questions are quite obviously, “ will we become immortals if we will create the immortal bodies we can create organs on treadmill?” Or “ could we do a transplant of the nervous system to a new host body?”

One of the legacies left from the last century (the sixth decade of the last century) is also the bioethics, a science with a huge field of research, but with a very limited content. This phenomenon should not be considered a paradox, if it is considered that the science of Bioethics is called to reconcile the most disparate views regarding the burning and contradictory issues of human life. The field of the bioethics is considered to be, first of all, the research of human life. In fact, the bioethics deals with all moral and medical classical problems, and the newest ones, related to the human life. The cause that generated

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy the interest for the bioethics is the rapidly developing of the biology and its application in medical science.

The bioethics is presented as an extension of the medical ethics and its interest is centered in the problems that involve biology and application of new medical technologies in all processes related to the birth, the growth and the death of a human being.

Bioethics especially analyzes the moral issues, relating to: A) the infertility, the assisted reproduction, the artificial insemination, the prenatal control, the birth control, the abortion and those relating thereto; B) the interventions concerning the preservation or the improvement of human life, the cloning, the sampling and the transplant of tissues or organs; C) the approach to the terminal period of life, active or passive euthanasia and other problems related to this.

More precisely, the analysis of the problems to which we previously referred is actually the object of the biomedical ethics because, the bioethics spreads over the whole living world and researches the links of man with it. But, because the medical ethics represents the most important part of the bioethics, the bioethics is the name currently used for the entire research field.

The bioethics, trying to prevent and control the general evolutions generated by the development by leaps and bounds of the biology and medical technology, functions almost exclusively at an impersonal level. It objectifies the procedures and the numbers the people, try to tackle general states, and not persons or interpersonal relationships. His interest is focused on the analysis of the latest issues and cares for their global approach at world level through ultra-generalized principles. That is why, when it does not express within a religious confession or a cosmotheory, ignores as far as possible the religious, metaphysical conceptions or any other kind of conceptions concerning the world and tries to rely only on utilitarian principles and values, that can be accepted on

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a larger scale.

Thus, in the bioethics are highlighted the following principles: -the principle of autonomy; - avoiding principle of the pain and the suffering causation; -the principle of charity; -the principle of justice.

These principles, which are usually interpreted, from different viewpoints, are proving to be very elastics in practice and even contradictorily. In addition, today it is well known the erosion of the principles and of the moral values in society. Even the cases of unnatural behaviors such as homosexuality are known and accepted as normal characteristics of the human race.. When the man is emptied of any specific spirituality and identifies himself only with his biological functions, all these come of their own accord and finally are considered normal [4].

According to the above mentioned things, the most important basis for bioethics remains the anthropology on which is founded the today medical science. This anthropology, which is in essence alien towards the Christian spirituality, is mechanistic and one-dimensional. It is a normal fact that a mechanistic and one-dimensional anthropology can’t support a real moral. The moral is always understood as the movement from the „to be” state to the „to be good” particularity . But when to be is approached through a mechanical and one-dimensional way, then „to be good” pure and simple is a mechanistic evolution and not a spiritual or qualitative one of the state”to be”.

The bioethics usually appears as a morality which is in a constant flow and transformation, imposed by the research laboratories, exploited by political and economic factors and promoted by computer and mass communication means.

It doesn’t hesitate to accept the abortions as therapeutics or to do services to eugenics thus promoting the racism.

The morality purpose was always to help people to acquire the good habits since they are still little children. The morality, however, don`t refer to the habit as such, but its quality. And,

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology unfortunately, this thing tends to be forgotten.

The habit is nowadays considered an enough reason to justify any practice, when it presents some utility.

Especially, when moral reactions occur regarding the question of applying the contemporary medical technology, the technocrats despise and consider them as secondary impediments that will be removed as people will acquire the new habit. In parallel, the promotion of principles and religious commandments is characterized by the representatives of secular bioethics as a strong fundamentalism and therefore is downplayed or disregarded. All these however highlight the evidence of the weakening of moral conscience and of profound spiritual crisis in which we already find ourselves. So it has come to a situation where, today, the bioethics tends to replace the traditional morality that has as main object the personal life and the interpersonal relationships between men.

Moreover, the real dislocation of morality began much earlier, in the theological circles, by detaching it from spirituality and promoting almost exclusively of a social moral. In this way the social morals distinguishes itself in the West since the middle of the last century, and later the interest of the Western theologians concerned with the morality issues focused almost exclusively on Bioethics.

This already appears in a more extensive space, as a moral of globalization, i.e. a morality which tries to bring closer together people with different mentalities and trends regarding the issues raised by the applications of contemporary medicine and biology and to promote the homogenization of the criteria for approaching of these problems. In parallel, it cultivates the idea that the moral life of man is determined by the biologists. The bioethics, as globalization deontology, it`s directly related to the tradition of secularized Western Christianity and, especially, to the Western morality [5]. It is a moral with a legalist character, as the western morality also is, which is subsisting like a base of it.

And its general principles, which are proposed by the essential structure of this morality, do not provide convergence points

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for people, but on the contrary generate more contradictions. They are similar to the principles of so-called social morality that can be interpreted and applied according to the wishes and the interests of the powerful people.

By the golden rule: “ Therefore whatever you desire for men to do to you, you shall also do to them” (Matthew 7:12), the man is called to put himself in the place of the other and to act toward him like would act to himself. In other words, the golden rule is addressed to the human person and it requires understanding and solidarity with the neighbor.

It cultivates solidarity and excludes isolation, builds the unity and removes the disunity. It doesn’t happen the same with the principles of the bioethics. Even more, it comes to the opposite. The absolutization of first principle of bioethics, the principle of autonomy doesn’t bring people together, but isolates them, it doesn’t unite, but separates them. Certainly, this principle seems to respect the particularity of everybody. However, by the nature of things this respect is proved to be a chimera, because it is impossible to propose the principle of individual autonomy as long as the society needs unity and have nothing on which this unity could be founded.

If the individual is absolutized the communion disappears and with it the society. That is why the powerful people every time propose their arbitrary position as a unifying factor for the society. The laws come to limit this arbitrary act. But at the moral level, the absolutization of autonomy and its confrontation with any idea or collective value leads to confusion and incoherence.

It is normal that in the Orthodox Church the bioethics issues have to integrate themselves within Christian morality preoccupation.

Moreover, from the beginning the moral teaching of the Church was confronted with bioethical problems such as the abortions and euthanasia. Thus, the approach of bioethics problems, as well as moral ones, must be based on anthropology and Orthodox Christian cosmology. It must view this problems from the perspective of human deification and the human renewal in Christ. A fundamental premise of moral behavior of man is that man is not the

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy cause of his existence, but his being is the divine gift. When the man has not this conscience, it is normal to go beyond his limits and to selfdivinize. Moreover, the important guideline in the Christian morality is the hypostatic principle or the person principle from which emerge the meaning and the functionality of the other special principles and the methodology of the moral and social life.

The human person is not a static giving but a dynamic becoming. This begins from the moment of his conception and continues endlessly, and the infinite for Christianity is not impersonal or superpersonal, but is the Person.

More specifically, is one trinity of persons, i.e. the Holy Trinity. Finally, the birth and the evolution of man supposes and expresses the communion. The person cannot be conceived as an isolated individual because he exists only within the communion. And the true communion is always done in the human-divine communion which is the Church. In the face of danger of the human burying under the pile of his genes, the Christian morality presents the unlimited perspective of perfection and its deification.

The Christian morality is cultivated and developed in the human person. Prosopocentric character of this is not certainly in agreement with the views that dominate the bioethics. In our time, marked by the absence of spirituality, the idea of returning to the powers of the spirit is not very popular. And yet, the healing of this lack of morality, in which our society is today, as well as the cause for this situation must not be searched at the moral or social level, but at the spiritual level. From here derive the forces that influence the moral and social level.

The spirit, which reigns the hearts of men, determines the moral and social life, and not vice versa.

Certainly, this spirit can be crafty or perverse; can be the spirit of hedonism and materialism.

But it will be always spirit and not flesh and blood. That is why, apostol Paul says : „for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms”. (Ephesians 6:12). And for a man to fight against these spirits he needs power given by

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Christian spirit. The Christian spirit is not some impersonal force or impersonal principle. It is not even some temporary or eternal law. It is God who has revealed Himself in the person of Christ and remains in the Church through the Holy Spirit. And the healing of the world may take support from its revelation degree with Christ and with the Church. In the person of Christ it shows the Word of God, as a person and as a commandment. It looks like the Son of God, Who sacrifices Himself for man and as a way of life Who absolutely corresponds to the divine commandement. The new commandement of love is not only given by the Christ, but it is also embodied in the person of Christ. And its practical content reveals itself in His life. “ “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”

(John 13, 34).

The Christian Spirit above all offers itself through its lifestyle. The Christian life must express the content of the Christian faith. This will arouse the ambition for others to try the truth of the Christian life. From here we can conclude that the improvement of our society is a matter of our personal improvement. In fact, each of us is a member of society, therefore, to improve himself, will improve at the same time a part of our society and in this way will create a health centre in its organism.

We already find ourselves at the highest point, where we easily create failed interpretations, misunderstandings.Considering the society improvement like a personal improvement problem, we above all understand we are not empowered to demand the improvement of the other fellow men.

If God does not force man to improve himself, how can we think we can do it? The respect for the others freedom is the premise of any Christian act. Moreover, we must know that the correction of our own person doesn’t mean limiting ourselves. The man, as a person, always evolves in relationship with others.

The self-limit is necessary for a certain period of time for collectedness and self-criticism. But the aim is not to limit the Christian at himself, but his opening to all humanity. The grand error, which we typically do is the forgetting of the double commandment of love and therefore

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology we dissociate our individual responsibility from the social responsibility, which is universal. In this way, we come to understand the personal responsibility as a lack of social responsibility and the social responsibility as a lack of personal responsibility.

peoples in a disadvantaged position. The rough imitation and assimilation of elements foreign to our culture can create social and personal disorders. But, the superiority of the Orthodox can be found at the theological level, at the level of remaining in the truth of the Christian faith.

The personal responsibility involves the care for any justified intervention in social relations.

And the indifference to them, which proves social irresponsibility, is not personal responsibility.

In the Orthodox Church there is the pure truth of Christianity kept alive by his eschatological perspective. This is the great value of Orthodoxy and it guarantees the quality of its offer to the whole mankind. The perspective outlined currently in the world by the expanding globalization phenomenon is bleak.

All existing phenomena confirm the crisis and announces the upcoming of explosion. As long as man works aiming exclusively its individual interest, and not of the neighbor, the social life is undermined and is reached at deadlock.

The ideal of economic development becomes trampoline of self-destruction. The asphyxiating gluttony, on the one hand, the starvation and death, on the other hand, threatens with the death our globalized society. The rich get richer because the economy built on gain leads the wealth always in the hands of the rich and the poor get poorer because the same economy, to the need to slow down the development to ensure its viability, limited the revenues of the poor. This evolution however, can only have an end, namely self-destruction. The man can not to subdue easily by his selfishness or to empty, to accept the others. Even though, the disposal to love is innate of human nature, the true love does not characterize, the fallen man and needs to sacrifice his selfishness, to reveal itself.

The Christian considers himself above all, accountable to anything happening around him.

Not judging others, he does not reckon them in charge for the social evil. More than that, he doesn`t reckon the impersonal social system as being responsible, whose value or lack of value depends on the man. In the same time, however, he does not remain indifferent to what is happening in the world, to people and to the impersonal social system. And here we are bound to confess that Christian’s indifference from ignorance or form lack of courage has a very important part in promoting of evil in the world.

The world is our wider body. Its problems are our problems. That is why, the interest from the world is the interest for ourselves. Separating in the Nestorian mode our person from the world, seeing the church in a monophysic manner, only as a spiritual society which has no relations with the issues of daily life, we become in reality heretics.

The Orthodox Church has always been interwoven with everyday life. In this regard The Orthodox Church feels the problems of injustice, poverty, health, social instability, like its own problems. The problems that people have in our time are issues related to the body of the Church, that is our body. However, the lived reality of the Orthodox Churches does not always seem to confirm their theological teaching.

The temptation of nationalism, which has been condemned by conciliar decision in 1872, does not cease to create problems for Christian unity. Likewise, the money attraction is deadly threat to their spiritual life. In the moral and social life, the Orthodox people probably have no position of superiority towards the other heterodox people.

The secularization that was imported form the West to the East found the Orthodox

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The pattern of this love is God in the Trinity.

The unity of the Holy Trinity, which is achieved through the loving and kenotic perichoresis of Persons, is the prototype of unity between humans, in order to constitute the deifying society. The Christ showed the world this love and the Orthodox Church proposes all its members this love for man’s salvation, coinciding with his rise to the stature of universal person.

The believer is called within the church to live the universal tragedy, which goes through the entire history, to reach through penance the universal conciliation, the universal communion of love. In this way the whole mankind fraternizes and everybody opens to the universality [6].

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy To correspond of such life perspective are needed the superhuman efforts. The created and perishable man is called to approach the mode of life of the uncreated and eternal Being.

Certainly this thing couldn’t be acomplished by one person. Therefore, the Orthodox theology speaks always of the divine-human cooperation, about the theandric synergy. The only limit of cooperation between man and God is only the death. Ultimately, this provides the confidence the man in God and the assurance that the death has been overcome. But thus breaks the wall of death and opens the new creation of the Gospel.

That is why, the Gospel, as recorded by the apostle Paul, “is not from human” (Gal 1, 11).

Unlike the pantheism, that confuses being world and being of God, the Holy Scripture says that God’s being is transcendent being radical to the world, but through energy, the light and the work of the Spirit, God is present in all creation.

Those who isolate the God in transcendent and disregard His work in the world, denies the attribute of omnipotence divine and transforms God into a powerless being. God without His uncreated energy through which He is present and works in the world, appears as a inconsistent God. The Orthodox Church managed to keep people religiosity consistently asserting the presence of God in creation and in human being.

The tragedy of modern and of postmodern man comes from the fact that he is forever longing the God, searching for Christ. This search for Christ as the meaning of life is the basis of the anxiety and disorder for which suffers the modern man, because in the depths of his soul is flashing the longing after the life he choked itself the regret after losing meaning. But, the meaning of our lives is revealed only when we discover our roots deep in the Trinitarian reality, in Christ. In other words, without faith in God the life of man life is marked by the lack of sense. His successes and joys, his labor, his good deeds go nowhere. Do not provide any reward that lasts and thanks him forever. The good and the evil does not matter because it is suppressed the conscience and the freedom is also empty in the absence of God and does not have any role because there are no responsibility with eternal value. The sufferings and the death of man cause anguish and despair because beyond them is no horizon, everything seems futile. One such man

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completely covered in natural frames, can no longer have any value, because he completely belongs to earth. He values as much as he has to give, how can produce becoming source of earning. Its value consists only in what it is seen: his body. And then, man is no longer a mystery, there is someone, but only something. Not a person, but an individ, a puppet, one from the multitude of animals.

The exaggerated preferences of the modern and the postmodern human, expressed toward esotericism, gnosticism, magic, occultism, witchcraft, spiritism and Satanism and that these phenomena have become today such a scale that seem to replace faith in God, everything is explained through the emptiness that he feels inside due to the absence of God in his life.

Undoubtedly, the civilization where we live is tributary of economic development: in the center of interests is not the search for spiritual truth or essential thrill to the mystery for once and uniqueness of every person. The public space of the agora loses its classic dimensions in such a large extent that it is replaced with the market place (market), in the most economic sense of the word. If in the classic sense, the agora is the place where different voices meet and listen to a mutual enrichment, a strong emergence of the economic factors, in the contemporary culture operate sometimes the painful reductions. The disappearance from fifties and til the present time of half of the languages spoken in the world must be a serious signal reflection due the respect to national and local cultures. Man looking for a sense, does not find in today’s society and is not satisfied with his life. Then he finds refuge in some imaginary “artificial paradises”. The violence, the drugs, the alcohol have the same role as the occult practices listed above: to fill the gaps left inside the man after the God was banished. Under the influence of the postmodern world, even some pious Christians are victims of these serious deviations, being encouraged by some priests fallen in love of money. Increasingly, it is noted that Holy Cross and the icons are venerated not for their connection with the holy people which they represent, but they are idolized separately to them and in their place. The everyday concerns of postmodern man, and these concerns inclined more toward the bottom, toward the matter and body, the culture itself fell to the temporal

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology and minors ideals. Because it is the work of individuals who live only to eat, to produce material goods, to dress, to multiply and to master, of individuals who are no longer striving to emerge from the rules of nature but, to resign himself, seeking to honor pleasures to live their lives and fulfill their dreams in this life that they love.

The postmodern man greedily wants more and more goods and therefore arrive soon to be possessed by his own possessions. And the postmodern society stimulates the greed, manufacturing always new needs, but those needs are induced, produced and caused. Never, in his entire history the man had so much power to create artificial needs. This artificial goods live him unsatisfied and there overwhelming number prevents his personality to mature.

Deep in his soul he suffers, but suppress their suffering with intense experience of the moment. The sufferings it causes man who consumes more and more, at the urging by publicity most of the time immoral persist in humans, despite the common message of all advertising is the motto of whom bore fruit rich field: “you have many goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry “(Luke 12:19); target of such advertising is to make us worship the belly: “god is their belly” (Phil. 3:19).

Due to subhuman level were reached the postmodern man, he no longer taste the true culture and is no longer able to create an authentic culture, which explains the preference of most young people today, expressed in surveys, for subculture. It does not require an effort in the act of creation or in reception, but neither feeds. The suffering caused by the inability to fit to Absolut, planted in man through by the act of creation, and so yearning for mission and his destiny after heights beyond the natural world, modern man is too often and more and more the victim of surrogates: alcohol, drugs, sex, prostitution, adventure, luxury, violence, pornography, etc. But they do not take the place by God and do not solve the fundamental problem of man: salvation.

Lacking him the Model - Christ, the modern man is looking for patterns among the people but because of the confusion promoted by

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himself removing and disregard the divine revelation - the only true universal criterion - and the supremacy of by divine values: truth, good and beautiful, man modern, declaring himself the measure of all things, decides what is good and what is bad, who is good and who is bad.

That is why he seeks and finds the patterns of immoral conduct, the people without end and without God, only because they were declared “megastars” and “superstars”. The confusion between good and evil, between truth and lying, between beauty and ugly, between music and noise, of works of art or culture and kitsch, between morality and immorality, has generated by the indifference to the Person of Christ, led to the overthrow of values scale. Is why, the Holy is disregarded, and the star, even if it is immoral, is idolized. But by this man demeans himself, because if life lived in holiness no longer an attractive target and higher, man betrayed his destiny; if one prefers what is small and fleeting , instead of greatness and of eternity, he chose the state and condition of the animal and was disqualified! “For My people did two evils: Me, the fountain of living waters, have forsaken Me, and have dug fountains broken, that can hold no water” (Ier.2,13).

We have to do with a new anthropological type, which resemble, less and less, with the Christian anthropological type. In the postmodernism, the new anthropological type emerges according to the requirements of the day, transmitted through the media and not by the Truth revealed. The new anthropological refuse the obligations: the faithfulness, the responsibility, and precisely through their refusal to disturb the harmony in society and causes distress in the lives of fellows. The postmodern man has no conscience of sinfulness, of guilt, because he does not feel accountable to God and to fellows, so that the sin in the postmodern society is perceived as a fact indifferent, if not as a virtue. We note with dismay on the streets, in factories, in the family, to multiply “the masks” and to disappear “the persons”. The people have roles usually lifeless. It looks, increasingly like the accessories of a mechanism, are no longer the persons. Very often we have the feeling that we are in a dance sui generis of some persons disguised, where the participants hide their original identity with an original note which consists precisely in the fact that

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy every time when a mask is removed, another appears. In such a crisis of human authenticity it is impossible that we walk together to become a real communion. When the people do not love, they cannot be honest, open, but being selfish, pretending, hiding their true face and true intentions. “ [79] The masks” that the postmodern people wear have generated the phenomenon of mistrust in the human relationships; a general suspicion that makes any man should not have total confidence in each other. The lack of trust carries with it the fear of man to his fellow and all contribute to the enhancement of stress and uncertainty. The principal cause of this dramatic situation in which postmodern man lives is in opposition to God and to his revealed Truth. In the place of God he prefers to spend more energy, to constitute new and new human institutions, to live in fear and uncertainty, and all without ever to be sure if the truth and the justice were restored. But all these sufferings caused of man by the modern and postmodern thinking, together constitute a real tragedy that a man lives today and is increasing by the day. That is why; today is speaking more to the crisis than the joys, more the fear than the hope, more than what separates them from people than what’s approaching. The spiritual crisis, the moral crisis, the political crisis, the economic crisis, the crisis of management, the family crisis, the crisis of educational and cultural, the crisis that talks so much today are nothing more than the expressions of tragedy to the postmodern society he lives as a result of her separation from God. For man there is no other solution than turning to Christ because of the Incarnation of the Logos, the destiny of man is bound by his Christ. The coming of Jesus in the world or the Incarnation of the Son of God brings in the world a Law and a Reason, but the reason itself and the law, not a certain conception of life but the supreme conception of life. In Jesus Christ is revealed the measure of all things and of all values in this world. Like He is a center of time, from which to start counting the years from the beginning of the world towards the end of her world, so it’s the measure from that report the levels of life attained before or after Him.

a true man; the real man is the man of virtue ,the virtuous man, settled in well, proving that strength in opposition to sin and life which sees the presence of Christ through by behavior and attitude. Man’s natural state is in the concern for the higher, the spirit, in the he responsibility to himself and to others, in personal cultivation and affirmation of the man dignity. Man’s natural state is the same with the state of grace and it cannot have it only if are in communion with Jesus Christ, our God and with others. references [1] Pr. Prof. Univ. Dr. Dumitru Radu, Repere morale

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

pentru omul contemporan(Highlights moral for modern man), Editura Mitropolia Olteniei, Craiova, 2007, p.17.

Ierom. Serafim Rose, Cartea Facerii. Crearea lumii şi omul îceputurilor(Genesis. Creating the world and man îceputurilor), Ed. Sophia, Bucureşti, 2001, p.345.

Pr.Conf.Dr. Vasile Citirigă, Taina omului şi tragedia lui în epoca postmodernă(The mystery man and his tragedy in the postmodern era), în “Ortodoxia”, nr.

3-4, anul LVII (2006), p. 30.

Pr. Prof. Univ. Dr. Dumitru Radu, Repere morale pentru omul contemporan(Highlights moral for modern man), Editura Mitropolia Olteniei, Craiova, 2007., p.85.

Pr. Prof. Univ. Dr. Dumitru Popescu, Omul fără rădăcini(The man without roots), Editura Nemira, Bucureşti, 2001, p.21.

[8] Pr. Nicolae Dascălu, Comunicare pentru comuniune(Communication for communion), Editura Trinitas, Iaşi, 2000, p. 101.

Nichifor Crainic, Ortodoxie şi etnocraţie(Orthodoxy and ethnocracy), Ed. Albatros, Bucureşti, 1997, p.

36.

Today, the man is in a state of crisis and must to return to his natural state. And the natural state of the man is that which defines him as

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Stars Influence on the Earth at Maya’s 1. Oprea Emanuel George, PhD

2. Oprea Cristiana, PhD

Faculty of History, the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, Moscow, Russia

FLNP, JINR, 141980 Dubna, Russia

Abstract: The Mesoamerican Culture of Maya’s was one of the ancient and advanced cultures of the American continent and they influenced other Amerindian peoples. The life of Maya people, of the Earth itself and of the Universe is set and constructed around Maya Calendar and has a cyclic character as a direct influence of the stars.

Many centuries the Western civilization with the its linear Calendar had not accepted the ideas of the possible influence of the stars and planets to peoples lives. The end of the last century and the beginning of XXI’s had started to demonstrate the opposite. The present work tries to show the process of meeting and intersection of the ancient ideas of Maya civilization and some of new ideas from the modern sciences.

Keywords: maya culture, calendar, universe, God, creation, sacrifice

I. Stars and Planets in Maya Culture The Maya Culture is one of very old and extraordinary rich cultures from the Earth.

Unfortunately what is already found by archaeological digs represents not more than 10% from all Maya’s history and culture.

Maya’s astronomy according to many authors represents the main organizer of Maya’s life, of their days, years, centuries and in principal eras.

The unit of measurement for 1 year is the so-called “tzolk’in” (tzolk’in = sacred year or year of the God).

One of this types of unit means 260 days and in order to interpret this type of measurement unit it was compared with Venus (Venera) planet.

The Venus planet was very important for Maya’s and was most intensively studied. The point is that Venus and Mercury were observed not only because these planets were the most nearest to the Earth but also because it was necessary to not get wrong in the calculation of many religious and popular celebration days and feasts.

How is looking the time measurement unit? It is considered that 1 366 560 = 260 x 5256 (the number of “tzolk’in”); 365 x 3744 (number of “odd years”); 584 x 2340 (number of usually cycles of Venus); 780 x 1752 (number of cycles of Mars); 18980 x 72 (number of “aztek centuries”) [1]. First researches of Maya Calendar were realized already in 1867 by Ernst

Förstemann1 (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Ernst Wilhelm Förstemann He was a German historian and mathematician who has studied one of the four Maya scripts (the Dresden Codex) [2, 3], which contains valuable information of calendar elements of Maya and pre-Columbian cultures.

A continuator of Förstemann works was Cyrus Thomas2 (picture can be seen in Figure 2), who has shown how one year period of Maya civilization is going [4].

First we note that the Maya Calendar was a Moon Calendar. One month has 20 days and one year has 260 days. In the Maya Calendar also odd years with 365 days were. One calendar cycle was equal with 52 years.

The time measurement unit looked like follows: 20 K’in = 1 Winal (month with 20 days); 18 Winal = 1 Tun (year with 360 days); 20 Tun = 1 K’atun (7200 days); 20 K’atun = 1 B’ak’tun (144 000 days) [5, 6].

Figure 2. Cyrus Thomas According with the above data the life of Maya people was very exactly organized by stars. Why their life was so organized? We can try to understand them through their perception of the Nature by always maintaining the balance. In this way the Mayas had no problems with bad weather and harvest. As a consequence one of the most known and important feast in America is the Corn Fest or the Green Corn Festival [7, 8].

1 Ernst Wilhelm Förstemann - (18 September 1822 – 4 November 1906) – German historian and mathematician, Dr. of linguistic, librarian and director of the Saxon State Library from Dresden.

2 Cyrus Thomas - (25 July 1825 – 26 June 1910) – American entomologist and ethnologist with important contribution in the revealing of Maya culture with the work “Notes on Certain Maya and Mexican Manuscripts (Washington 1894).

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology This celebration was one of the most important for Native American Indians, for all Indian Cultures across the whole American continent. In many photos and other documental proofs it was observed that for many Indian tribes and peoples time to time when they considered that it is necessary to feed their Gods they accepted people sacrifice, but not as everyday custom.

In conclusion the influence of the stars was on the first place in their culture. Not the family, not the traditions, only the stars have dictate to the mankind how to live their life in Maya’s opinions.

II. MAYAN MYTHOLOGY Mayan Mythology had a cardinal influence to the mythologies of other Indian peoples from North, Central and South of America and this is the consequence of the fact that Maya Culture was the most advanced and evaluated culture for many centuries on American continent.

The Mayan mythology has a cyclic character in time which was repeated every 5200 years. This is very well illustrated in the legends book of Popol-Wuj3 [9].

According to this legend the Universe was created by two twin brothers heroes, Xbalanque and Hunahpu [10], who have fought and killed many enemies and also they were very skilled in the well known ballgame and they wined to the Lords of Xibalba4, - the Lords of the Under World [11]. The known Mesoamerican ballgame [12] is an ancient game with ritual associations and the Maya’s considered this game very seriously because the winner team survives and in the mean time the other team, - the looser team, is sacrificed.

Now let to return to the moment of creation of the Universe. Both brothers, with the permission of the Gods, were considered Gods also and in consequence they could not be killed and they were allowed to create peoples who obey them. For this reason, in the beginning, the brothers have made the Earth. First being who have obeyed them were the animals. But in principle the animals could not worship to Gods and therefore they decided to expel animals from the forest. Thus they have made people clay. But with the clay there was a problem, the clay crumbled.

They tried to made peoples of woods but peoples of woods also did not wanted to obey to theirs creators 3 Popol Wuh — In translation from the Language of Quiche Maya people, originated in the Western mountains of Guatemala, means “Book of the People” or “Book of the Counsel”. It is a sacred book of Mesoamerican cultures, a masterpiece of the ancient Amerindian literature. It contains historical and mythical facts and traditions, genealogical data of important dynasties of Quiche Maya civilizations from postclassic period. The book is of a crucial importance because is one of not so numerous and early texts of Mesoamerican civilizations.

4 Xibalba - The Underground World or the World of Fear in the Quiche Maya mythology.

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and in time the wood people disappeared too.

After many tries and experiments with rocks and other materials, the twin brothers have found the suitable material to make people. This material is named maize (the Indian corn). For this reason maize is a sacred product for Indians.

The construction itself of Indian world (Universe) is very simple: the lower word, the middle word and the upper word. The lower world, as is already mentioned, named Xibalba, consists of nine levels.

Very interesting that many authors from Europe wrote about the nine circles of hell. The middle world is the world of spirits that help or not help the people.

The upper world is more complex and the Gods are represented as stars in the sky. According to the scientists, the maya’s had on the sky 166 Gods and 30 of them were possible to recognize.

The principal Gods of upper Pantheon are [13]: Itzamna – the first of the Gods. In translation Itzamna means The House of the Lizard. Itzamna was depicted in the codices as an old man with a Roman nose and he was considered the God who invented the literacy, the promoter and protector of sciences and education.

Itzamna’s wife was Ix Chel (translated Ix Chel = Lady Rainbow) and she was the old God of spinning, medicine, birth and Moon. All others Gods are originated from them. The next God in the hierarchy is the God of Sun Kinich Ahaw followed by Chaak - the God of water and rain and not in the last, the supreme God Gukumatz - the God of wind represented by a snake covered by quetzal feathers [14]. The quetzal bird5 even nowadays has a ritual importance and is very respected by the original peoples, Amerindians, in Central and South America (Figure 3).

As a conclusion we can say that the principle of the Universe tree is the same in the almost all culture: the Gods of the lower world, the spirits from the middle world and the upper world ruled by Gods of the sky.

Figure 3. Quetzal bird (Pharomachrus mocinno) One can see the similarities with many cultures and especially with ancient culture of Egypt which is the most preferred in the comparison with Mesoamerican cultures.

III. THE INFLUENCE OF THE ASTRAL BODIES ON THE HUMANS IN THE MODERN SCIENCES In the last years the Cosmos influence to the Earth is one of the much debated subjects. About this it is already written a lot, there are many movies on this subject, humans are afraid about this. Moreover this human fear is exploited by many persons including 5 Resplendent quetzal – Bird from Central America playing in important role in Mesoamerican and Mayan Culture.

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy those who are studying or are related with the Cosmos. Scientific collectives have lost their financial support because they have tried to attract attention on themselves with this topic. And now we are not talking about crooks who are trying to sell stars to the people. Here we are talking about scientists who really believe in their researches and as result they will exaggerate in the relation with the public in order to attract public attention on the certainly important researches. But as result of these efforts appears hyper inflated stories like asteroids rain (who had not seen on TV how a poor dinosaur running away from meteorites rain), the ozone hole fear and the covered faces of Australian children against Sun, the almost every day prognosis of geomagnetic storms (based on which is very convenient to write off about the disturbance of communications), long-term forecasts of Sun activity (for surely with dramatic accent on the voice). All these make our life like a travel on a little ship in the stormy sea: just look and how our world is detonated by “the Earth echo of solar storm”.

From the point of view of natural sciences, astrology represents some empty words, soap bubbles without any rational content. In the situations where it is possible the science creates methods of prognosis without any mystical connotations. In the cases when it is not possible to create such methods the science declares the facts in a direct way, not offering empty hopes like astrology.

Nowadays astrology is not compatible with the sciences. Furthermore if the astrologists had not gained in a fair way a high reputation, like the science in general and astronomy in particular, then there would not be articles of this kind and we did not pay them much attention and they would not be separated from the other manifestations of the mass culture. But when the TV speaker announces that “according with the astrological calendar today will be the shortest day and the longest day” and bearded astrologist “appoints” for tomorrow a Sun eclipse then it will be normally to yell: “Hey people how is this all connected with astrology?”. In fact we have here usual scientific calculations. Not so many astrologists can demonstrate or calculate the duration of a day on the Earth or on the other planets or moreover, to exactly calculate the date of the eclipses.

Many common people trusts in fake astrologists just only because the eclipses can be found in the Astronomical Calendar which is very easy to buy in comparison with the Book of Fate. On the other side the astrologists consider their opponents as “dogmatic and scholastic” because they are not able to feel the birth process of a new science. I leave the reader to judge the fairness of such affirmations.

Now let analyze how the celestial bodies influence the people life. Even it is not well demonstrated there people are dependent on the weather. At the slightest change in the weather they just feel themselves tired.

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For example, they have strong headaches in the time of the full moon.

From medicine point of view it is a normal state because the complex processes in the human organism are slowing down and in consequence the blood pressure is growing.

But these simple facts are somehow understood.

But how is the influence of those celestial bodies which are far beyond us? Maybe they are closer to us than we expect. There are many manuals indicating how to live and many of them are related to astrology.

At the present time to most famous and actual work in the range of medicine and astrology is the tractate of Mantek Chia6 named also “Cosmic Healing Chi Kung” (Figure 4) [15]. The mentioned man organizes the life of the people after the stars in such a way as to never be sick.

In essence the tractate is based on Tao practice and Chinese medicine which is based on the self organization of the human life.

Figure 4.

Tao Master Mantek Chia This is the harmony of the man with himself and with the world. The harmony of the entire it is impossible without the harmony of the interacting components of the entire. The human organism is similar with a large symphony orchestra. The big life orchestra can be spoiled by out of tune violin. And without health there is no harmony, no feeling of full happiness.

Figure 5.

Prof. Dr. Felix Kazimirovich Velichko This is why the main purpose of astrology is the harmony of life and there is why astrology is inseparably connected with medicine [16]. This demonstrates that in a way or another the celestial bodies and stars are practically re-entering in our modern life step by step trying to re-organize in the right way the life of the people on the Earth.

Now maybe is the time to write about some scientists which by their theories have approached the science to astrology and vice versa. Of course many of such scientists have had no intention to approach astrology, sciences and religion.

One of them was Nikolay Aleksandrovich Kozyrev7, 6 Mantek Chia — Tao teatcher and master Chi Kung and sexual kung – Fu, founder of the Dao Healing System, author co-authors of tens of books dedicated to Chi Kung, meditation and sexual practice based on Chi Kung. The First World Congress on Chi Kung and Chinese Medicine held in 1996 had accorded him the title Chi Kung Master of the Year.

7 Kozyrev Nikolay Alexandrovich (2 September 1908 – 20

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology a brilliant soviet astrophysicist and astronomer (Figure 6). Being a young scientist he was considered a great hope of soviet science. But the hard times from that period (‘30-’60 years of last century) and his very advanced scientific ideas (even today!) brought him quickly in a deep contradiction with the representatives of the authorities and the dogmatic Marxist and communist dogma. All these almost broke his scientific carrier and life. He has many great contributions in sciences but only few of them have opened unexpected relations between sciences and the esoteric world.

One of the most controversial of his inventions was the so called “Kozyrev Mirrors” that would allow to see the future and the past [17]. More information about Professor Kozyrev and about his scientific concerns can be found in [18].

Figure 6.

Nikolay Aleksandrovich Kozyrev The ideas of this brilliant scientist appear also in the work and activities of his former students. One of them was Anatoly Evgenyevich Akimov8 (Figure 7).

Figure 7.

A k i m o v Anatoly Evgenyevich One of the main realizations of Akimov was the theory of the Torsion Fields conceived with Genady Ivanovich Shipov9 (Figure 8). The Theory of Torsion Fields developed by Akimov, Shipov and their followers was realized in more then twenty years. In the beginning the main purpose of this theory was to find a new source of energy based on physical vacuum. Latter developments have leaded to a complex theory in which the vacuum in the Universe is self organized at a high level giving in fact the possibility to explain paranormal phenomena, the spiritual world and the existence of September 1983) – He was born in Sankt – Peterburg (Russia) in the noble family. He has graduated the Leningrad State University in 1928 and in 1931 started his work at Pulkovo Observatory. Due to his advanced and very original ideas in science combined with the time of Stalin repression he will stay in prison for many years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Nikolai_Aleksandrovich_Kozyrev 8 Anatoly Evgenyevich Akimov (19 November 1938 – 19 February 2007) – controversial Russian scientist who has created together with G. E. Shipov the theory of torsion fields.

His scientific activity is considered by the Russian Academy of Science as fake – science. Still until today he and Shipov had many followers who are continuing their work. (http:// akimovae.com/auxpage_2/).

9 Genady Evanovich Shipov (1938) – Theoretical physicist coauthor of the Torsion Field, also considered a fake – scientist due torsion field issues.

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a Unique Force which is control, survey and evolving our Universe. This Force influences our destiny with the help of stars, planets, comets, black holes in a subtle, hidden and secret way for us. The beautiful construction of this theory is that it demonstrates for the first time, based on complicated equations of Theoretical Physics, the existence of the Leading Force, the Divinity if you agree, which is watching and supervising us.

The Akimov and Shipov theory is the one which look very close to Mayan concepts of the World.

In both, human life is supervised by a Great Force through the almost non visible and non touchable for us actions and in both the Universe has a few levels of reality (six levels of reality in the case of Torsion Fields).

The parallels between Mayan Universe and Torsion Theory can continue with the facts that in order to have access to superior reality it is very necessary to improve the own spirituality, to tend to the perfection, to become a real Man. Another amazing coincidence between the Mayans and Torsion Fields is that nowadays after 2010, due to the special cyclic properties of time; the Universe will pass in a new Era. Shipov has named this era as Aquarium Era, the era of new qualitative changes in the Universe. The Mayan Calendar has ended in 2012…

In spite of the fact that the Torsion Field Theory is a magnificent formalism of Theoretical Physics and of Field Theory, it is considered a fake – theory until now. Therefore it is hard to find scientific publications on this issue.

Figure 8. Shipov Genagy Ivanovich Most of all publications can be found on Internet site especially in Russian Language but some books and papers still can be found at the serious Russian publishing houses [19]. The ideas developed by Akimov, Shipov and coworkers with different parallels, comparisons and reciprocal implications betweens sciences and technologies in relation with the humanity will be developed in further articles and works.

CONCLUSIONS In conclusion of the present work the main task of Mayan and of modern Astrology is to evolve in the direction of applying the reading of stars from the sky in human life. Unfortunately the traditional ancient astrology gradually is vanishing. Since the sciences have turned the face to astrology, there is a little chance that the astrology slowly be accepted as science. The Mayan Calendar predicted the End of the World which has supposed to be few years ago. But in this End maybe it is hidden a symbolism, a symbolism

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy related to the extinction or survival of Astrology science Gilbert, M.M. Cotterell, The Mayan Prophecies. Unlocking the Secrets of Lost Civilisations, Cap.2 paragraph 9, Element Books Publisher, Great Britain (2000).

[2] Förstemann Ernst Wilhelm, New International Encyclopedia (1906) [3] Coe, Michael D. (1992). Breaking the Maya Code.

London: [4] Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-05061-9. OCLC 26605966.

[5] M. Chibnik, American AnthropologistAnthropological Miscellanea, American Anthropological Association (1910) .

[6] A.G. Gilbert, M.M. Cotterell, The Mayan Prophecies. Unlocking the Secrets of Lost Civilisations, Cap.2 paragraph 8, Element Books Publisher, Great Britain (2000).

[7] S. W. Miles, An Analysis of Modern Middle American Calendar. A Study in Conservation, p.

273, University of Chicago Press (1952).

[8] J. M. White, Every Days Life of the North American Indians, Holmes & Meier Publishers, USA (1979).

[9] B.M.Pritzker, A Native American Encyclopedia: History, Culture and Peoples, Oxford University Press (2000).

[10] A.J. Christenson, Popol Vuh: The Sacred Book of Maya, University of Oklahoma Press (2004).

[11] M.D. Coe, The Hero Twins: Myth and Images.

The Maya Vase Book, volume 1, New York Kerr Associates (1989).

[12] A.A. Walker, My Trip to Xibalba and Back, Publication of Archaeological Institute of America (2000).

[13] J. Fox, The Ball: Discovering thr Object of thr Game, Cap. 4, New York Harper Edition (2012).

[14] K. Taube, The Major Gods of Ancient Yukatan, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington (1992).

[15] S. N. G. Howell, S. Webb, A Guide to the Birds of Mexico and Northern Central America, Oxford University Press (1995).

[16] J. Miller, Chinese Religions in Contemporary Society, ABC-CLIO Editions (2006).

[17] F. A. Velichko - http://to-name.ru/biography/feliksvelichko.htm.

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riddles and mysteries, Moscow 2006 (in Russian).

[19] T. Hockey, The biographical Encyclopedia of

References [1] A.G.

[18] Golubev Maxim, Encyclopaedia of miracles,

Astronomers, Springer Publishing, ISBN 978-0387-31022-0 (2012).

[20] G. I. Shipov, The Theory of Physical Vacuum.

Theory. Experiments and Technologies, Nauka Publishing House, Moscow (2007) (In Russian).

Biography

Mr. Emanuel OPREA obtained his Bachelor Degree in History from The People’s Friendship University of Russia, Moscow, Russia in 2014. The Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia is an participating member of International University Association (IUA), European University Association (EUA), European International Education Association, etc. The diploma of Mr. Oprea was entitled “Cultural and Ethnical Characteristics of the Shamanism from Northern Asia and Northern America”. The area of interest of Mr. Oprea is represented by History, Archaeology, Shamanism and European and Asian Cultures. He is charged now in a master program of the Section “The Regional International Relationships of the SouthernEuropean Countries”. He likes also music, his preferred genres being folk, popular, classical and progressive rock. He is an active participant as organizer, singer, and poetry interpreter in the literary, musical activities and concerts in Moscow and Dubna (Russia). He is playing at guitar, violin and some specific Romanian and Mongolian musical instruments.

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Romanian-Bulgarian Religious Relations during the First World War Assoc. Prof. PhD. Claudiu Cotan Department of Theology Ovidius University of Constanta Constanța, Romania claudyu_cotan@yahoo.com

Abstract: After the outbreak of the First World War, when Bulgaria joined the Central Powers through the alliance with Germany, and Romania joined the Entente, the religious relations had a few special times. The defeat of the Romanian army in Dobrudgea and its occupation by the German – Bulgarian troops brought about a real exodus of the Romanian Orthodox clergy who took refuge especially to Moldova. The war ruined a few churches of Dobrudgea and destroyed the houses of the priests who had left their parishes. The issue of the priests fled from Dobrudgea was discussed within a Council met in Iasi in the summer of 1918, when the participants tried to find solutions for their return to their parishes. I personally examined the documents of this council found today in the Archives of the Metropolitanate of Moldova and Bucovina, because they reveal the deficiencies of the Romanian Orthodox Church in regard to the administrative organisation both in Dobrudgea and in the Quadrilateral.

Our study approaches two major events occurred in the Bucharest occupied by the German-Bulgarian troops: the Te-Deum service celebrated in the honour of the royal family of Bulgaria in the Metropolitan Cathedral and the attempt to steal the Holy Relics

of Pious Dimitrios Basarabov. The German administration has also been involved in the two events, because the Primate metropolitan Conon asked them to resolve these religious RomanianBulgarian conflicts. The documents which mention the two events can be found in the Archives of the Holy Synod of Bucharest and have a special significance because they represent an aspect less examined of the First World War and of the Romanian-Bulgarian relations.

The theme of this study has never been approached so far by the Romanian theologians and historians, the research covering a gap in the study of the history of the First World War and of the RomanianBulgarian relations.

Keywords: Bulgarians, Orthodox, war, priests, holy relics, schism, church relations

I. INTRODUCTION The schism of the Orthodox Church of Bulgaria, which is a special church phenomenon in the Orthodox world, affected the religious life of the Bulgarians[1]. In 1872, the Bulgarian Church was declared schismatic by a synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate headed by patriarch

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th e Dia l o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and T heology Antim VI. Nevertheless, the Romanian Orthodox Church continued to have good relations with the Bulgarians. The Bulgarian priests serving in the Romanian territory were received with indulgence by the Romanian church authorities.

One proof of the good Romanian – Bulgarian relations is the fact that in 1912, the Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church asked for the permission of the Bulgarian Synod to build a Romanian church in Sofia. The church was raised after the World War I, contributing to the consolidation of the church relations.

After the Congress from Berlin (1878), when Dobrudgea was restored to the territory of Romania, the primate metropolitan Calinic Miclescu asked for the blessing of the ecumenical patriarch Ioachim III to get the canonical unification of the Orthodox population of Dobrudgea - under the jurisdiction of the Metropolitanate of Dristra at the time with the Metropolitanate of Ungro-Wallachia.

The Patriarch accepted the request but asked, through a letter dated 13 December 1879, the Romanian Orthodox clergy to have no religious communion with the schismatic Bulgarians of Dobrudgea. The primate metropolitan Calinic conveyed the following in a letter dated May 1880: “We do not know any dogmatic point affected by the Bulgarians to motivate a break up, especially since the Bulgarians of Dobrudgea retired from any other authority are politically submitted to the Romanian State, and from a church point of view to an Orthodox bishop, and have the same faith like the entire Orthodox Church”[2]. In fact, metropolitan Calinic urges, in this correspondence to good understanding among the various ethnic groups that make up the Orthodox Church.

A very clear image of the religious state of things in Dobrudgea is presented by various reports of the church inspectors, documents which constitute a true arraignment on the social, moral and canonical state of the clergy, as well as on their material state and of the places of worship[3]. The State decided, through an administrative law of Dobrudgea, that every hamlet or village should receive a plot of land for school and church. The state authorities established that in Dobrudgea too, the Orthodox religion should prevail just like in the rest of the country. In 1902, bishop Pimen Georgescu

came to the leadership of the Eparchy of Lower Danube, and imposed, for the priests’ training, priestly conferences and their obligation to deliver sermons and pastoral advice at every religious service celebrated. As a result of the facilities provided by the state and of the economical dynamics, the Orthodox population of Dobrudgea have permanently increased.

In 1880, a little over 70,000 Orthodox people were registered, and in 1910, over 204,000. The statistics of 1880 presented the Romanians as the largest ethnic population of Dobrudgea[4].

II. The First World War and RomanianBulgarian religious relations At the beginning of the 20th century, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church was headed by exarch Joseph, seated in Constantinople, who was heading the clergy of Bulgaria through a vicar elected by the Bulgarian bishops and approved by the exarch. Unfortunately, a part of the eparchies had a double church authority, because besides the Bulgarian bishops there also were Greek bishops who depended on the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The state of things was changed in 1906, when the Greek bishops were removed. But the Balkan wars brought Bulgaria into a disastrous political state, as the Bulgarians lost a series of territories with several church eparchies. The Bulgarian Orthodox Church lost the parishes of the Quadrilateral, a province restored to Romania after the Peace of Bucharest. In the full swing of the military conflict, exarch Joseph decided that the Exarchate should be moved to Sofia and only a representation to remain in Constantinople headed by a Bulgarian bishop till 1945. Unfortunately, one year after the outbreak of the World War I, exarch Joseph, a great church and political personality, died. No other exarch was elected during the next 30 years to run the Bulgarian Orthodox faithful. During all these years the Bulgarian Orthodox Church was run by the Holy Synod, headed by a president locum tenens elected for a certain period of time. During the hard years of the World War I and afterwards, the presidents’ locum tenens were hierarchs Partenie of Sofia (1915-1916) and Basil of Dorostor-Cerven (1919-1920).

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology configuration of Dobrudgea. The peace treaty of Bucharest of 1913 established that a territory of about 7,700 km2 should be included within the Romanian frontiers with a population estimated by the Bulgarian statistics to 282,207 inhabitants.

The acquirement of the Quadrilateral caused little enthusiasm to the public opinion of Romania, maybe only Silistra gained caused some satisfaction. If the Romanian diplomacy considered this time a great political success, for Bulgaria, although it had increased its territory and number of inhabitants after the Balkan wars, the loss of the Quadrilateral at the negotiations’ table in Bucharest was considered a true national catastrophe, and maybe hence the Bulgarians’ hate when they occupied the Quadrilateral and Dobrudgea in the autumn of 1916.

The Quadrilateral was organised in two counties with administration identical with that of Old Dobrudgea, also including translators for Bulgarian and Turkish. Soon, the Romanian authorities were faced with a series of difficulties in regard to the control of the new territories where the hostile Bulgarian population was in majority. Given the new state of things, the Ministry for Religious Cults and Public Instruction and the Romanian Orthodox Church made a new church organisation of the region. The Holy Synod delegated hierarch Bartolomeu Stanescu to inspect the Quadrilateral and present the situation of the Orthodox clergy over there. He reported that the Romanian state would have to set up Romanian speaking schools and parishes in the future, where the Romanian language would be used for the population colonised in the region. The Romanian priests were assimilated to the state employees, and paid by the Ministry for Religious Cults and Public Instruction with a salary more than double a priest’s salary in the other Romanian territories. Bishop Bartolomeu made this offer to the Bulgarian priests too, who refused it because they were not used to the new administration and to the clergy’s dependence on the state, sustaining that they had never had in their history a State Church. Hierarch Bartolomeu succeeded in setting up the first church administration in the Quadrilateral[5].

Bishop Nifon Niculescu of Lower Danube (1909 – 1921) held the canonical jurisdiction of Dobrudgea and Quadrilateral during the years of the World War I, a territory with a diversified

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social and confessional structure. Preoccupied by the religious realities of his eparchy, bishop Nifon bequeathed us information on the state of things in the Quadrilateral in a Report presented to the Holy Synod during its working session of 24 October 1914, in which he also proposed a series of measures for organising the parishes[6].

Neither should we forget that the Bulgarians’ opposition had been very active both in churches and in schools ever since the beginning.

The Bulgarians’ opposition to the Romanian administration brought about the organisation of various societies which, under the pretext of defending the cultural rights of the Bulgarians, would introduce a true terrorism in the region encouraging the actions of the komitaci (Bulgarian outlaws). The Bulgarian propaganda in the Quadrilateral was encouraged by “Dobroudza Society” and by the “Dobrudgean Brotherhood” which activated in the territory of Bulgaria. These organisations supported the terrorist actions of the komitaci. The visit of Carol I in the spring of 1914 and of tsar Nicholas II to Constanta, in June 1914, who congratulated the Romanian military actions of 1913, tensioned the Bulgarian-Romanian relations and deteriorated the situation in the Quadrilateral[7]. The issue of the Quadrilateral was discussed in the diplomatic circles the moment the Entente tried to get the military support of Bulgaria. Bulgaria’s affiliation to the Central Powers ruined the possibility of a political agreement between Bulgaria and Romania.

Bulgaria joined the war on Germany’s side and, after the conquests made, the Bulgarian exarchate started re-establishing the old eparchies lost a few years before. The same phenomenon occurred in the Quadrilateral too and even in the territory of Dobrudgea occupied by the Bulgarian troops at the end of 1916. The Romanian army suffered great losses on the Dobrudgean front, and many soldiers were taken prisoners. When Dobrudgea was occupied, the Quadrilateral was included directly into Bulgaria, and Old Dobrudgea has become subject of dispute among Bulgaria, Turkey and Germany. The Dobrudgean province got a German governor who had a Bulgarian general with a prefect rank, while the communes with Bulgarian or Romanian-Bulgarian population had Bulgarian mayors. The German – Bulgarian

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy disagreements lasted all the war long. A statistics of the population of 1919, made by a team of American researchers who were supporting the Bulgarians’ claims at the Peace Conference, mentioned a population of 260,000 inhabitants for the Quadrilateral, out of whom 112,000 were Bulgarians (43,1%), 112,000 Turks (46,9%), 10,000 Tatars (3,8%) and 7000 Romanians (2,7%).

A statistics of 1925 presented the following demographic state in the Quadrilateral where 324,663 people were living, out of whom 133,067 were Bulgarians (40,98%), 141,650 Turks-Tatars (43,62%), 33,915 Romanians (10,44%) and 16,031 other nationalities (4,93%)[8].

The war caused much sufferance to the Romanian Orthodox clergy of Dobrudgea and Quadrilateral, similar to those of the Orthodox priests in Transylvania and Bucovina persecuted by the Austrian – Hungarian authorities. Part of the Orthodox churches of Dobrudgea were looted or damaged by the troops who occupied Dobrudgea, among whom Muslim soldiers too.

The majority of the priests who remained in their parishes were persecuted[9]. Unfortunately, a military priest, Belizarie Popescu, died in the battle of Turtucaia.

The hard situation of Dobrudgea was dramatically described by Marius TheodorianCarada, Romanian politician with a controversial activity in the life of the Romanian Orthodox Church: “Dobrudgea reminded me that in that spring (1918), Archbishop Netzhammer visited the Latin parishes of the province and that he met the Archpriest of Constanta County.

The archpriest told him that in the Romanian churches of that county the religious services were celebrated only in Bulgarian, because the anthimises had disappeared during the fights, and the occupants gave the priests other anthimises provided that they celebrated in Bulgarian. The archpriests could not escape this state of things unless the Metropolitanate sent him in secret, through an unsuspicious traveller, anthimises that he could share to the priests.

The archbishop informed me of that and told me to do my best, because the archpriest had asked him to; namely, to warn the competent persons. But I could not meet the Primate.

Therefore, I informed the Minister for Religious Cults what it was all about. D. Mehedinti assured me that he would ask the Primate to

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get anthimises. But he did not do anything, saying that the Metropolitanate could not send anthimises to a foreign eparchy. But nobody asked him how the Bulgarian Metropolitanate could do that. Fortunately, things turned out so as the Bulgarians got out of Dobrudgea, because with such people and such mentality, Orthodoxy would have been used once more to denationalise the Romanians...”[10].

Unfortunately, the state of things in Dobrudgea remained unchanged till the end of the war.

The synod met in Iasi in 1918, in autumn, also discussed the church situation of Dobrudgea.

Metropolitan Pimen of Moldova and Suceava, former bishop of the eparchy of Lower Danube, talked within the synod, about the priests who took refuge from Dobrudgea: “As a result of the disaster occurred over there, almost all the priests left their parishes for one reason or another and went to the territory not occupied.

Many of them have come to my eparchy too to ask for parishes. I gave them temporary parishes in the country, which were vacant at the time. But I did not promise them we would appoint them forever, because I did not know what would be decided in their case. It was a great mistake of these priests to leave their places and I would not have allowed them to, because the people who remained there needed their comfort. I think they should go back to their parishes, because when Dobrudgea would remain under Condominium, a group of well established priests should be there. A great mistake was that an Episcopal see was not set up in Dobrudgea to have the Quadrilateral under its jurisdiction too. This would have been a historical time and a proof confirming our rights over this part of the country beyond the River Danube. When the affiliation of the Quadrilateral to Dobrudgea was discussed, a Vicarage for Dobrudgea seated in Constanta was promised. This promise was not fulfilled and that was a big mistake... Yesterday, a monk from Cocosu Monastery of Dobrudgea arrived in Iasi, who told me what happened there when the Bulgarians occupied Dobrudgea. He told me that two Bulgarian monks were brought to Cocosu Monastery, and the Romanian monks were taken to Russian Slava... After two months he was taken prisoner in Bulgaria, where from he came back to Cocos Monastery again, where he found everything almost in good order.

This was a proof showing that if nothing was

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology devastated in the Monastery, so would have been if the Romanian priests had never left the place. It would be a good thing if the priests of Dobrudgea could go back to their places through the intercession of the Government... In fact, it would have been right if they had remained there, even with the price of their lives, imitating the old martyrs of the nation”[11]. The return of the priests to Dobrudgea took place after the war ended.

Besides the hard situation of Dobrudgea, two events took place in Bucharest in which the Romanian Orthodox Church was involved.

The Bulgarian authorities stationed in Bucharest asked the primate metropolitan Conon to allow them to celebrate a Te Deum service for the Bulgarian royal family, in the Metropolitan Cathedral of Bucharest. First, Metropolitan Conon accepted the Bulgarians’ request, but following the suggestion of those around him, he asked the German authorities to stop the Bulgarians’ initiative. The hesitation of the church authorities displeased the German high command. In fact, a canonical issue also emerged, because the Bulgarian Orthodox Church was in schism, so that the celebration with the Bulgarian clergy was impossible.

The celebration of this religious service in the Metropolitan Cathedral also affected the image of the Romanian Orthodox Church with her faithful. Certainly, Metropolitan Conon was quite afraid because he could have been accused to have easily ceded without being threatened by the military authorities from Bucharest. Scared by consequences, Metropolitan Conon tried to find the necessary justification to stop the Bulgarians’ celebration, explaining in a letter addressed to the Germans, that the Bulgarian Orthodox Church had her own church in Bucharest, but: “...they ostentatiously wanted to celebrate their prayer just in our metropolitan cathedral, seriously insulting the feelings of the defeated population...

Besides, the leaders of the Bulgarian army and the priests, whom they brought from Sofia, should have known that the situation of the Bulgarian Church was not canonically regulated within the Orthodox Churches of the East. It is outside the Orthodox communion, as a result of the protest of the Patriarch of Constantinople ...

You should know, Mr Governor, that a

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representative officer came to me for the first time, at the Metropolitanate, who communicated me that the general of the Bulgarian army decided to have two Te Deum services for the royal family of Bulgaria in the cathedral of our Holy Metropolitanate, which thing we could not admit. But the third day the same officer came for the second time, and brought me a written letter signed by General Tantilov. This letter informed that they “decided” to celebrate two religious services in our metropolitan cathedral and asked to be provided with everything necessary for the religious service...

The date announced through the address of general Tantilov mentioned above was Tuesday, 27 February inst., for which day we kindly ask you to order revocation. They have their own church in Bucharest and can go to celebrate their religious services there... ”[12] In spite of all the opposition of metropolitan Conon, tardy in fact, the Bulgarian celebrated their religious service in the metropolitan cathedral of Bucharest.

Another dramatic event occurred during the war was the theft of the holy relics of Saint Dimitrios Basarabov, on 17 Febraury 1918, from the Metropolitan Cathedral of Bucharest, which was finally hindered just by the German authorities. The Holy Relics were laid in a very beautiful silver shrine, in 1879, on the expense of bishop Ghenadie of Arges, the first primate metropolitan. Interested in the fate of the relics of Saint Dimitrios Basarabov, the Bulgarians had asked the German authorities to give the relics to them, but the Germans refused them after they examined the circumstances in which they arrived in Bucharest and the veneration they enjoyed with the Romanian faithful. Therefore, the Bulgarians wanted to steal the holy relics.

The Catholic Archbishop Raymond Netzhammer presented in his memoirs the tensioned time of the theft of the relics when he paid a consolation visit to the primate metropolitan Conon.[13] Metropolitan Conon has immediately addressed a letter to feldmarshal Mackensen, in which he deplored the brutal action of the commando who entered into the Metropolitan Cathedral: “We have the great sorrow to let you know that last night, 17 of the month, the church cathedral of our Holy Metropolitanate was robbed, as the coffin of the Holy Relics of Saint Pious Dimitrios was taken out

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween  Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy by force, with the holy relics inside it. The theft occurred when a troop of soldiers well armed came at 2.00 hours at night and operated till 3-4 hours. First, they removed the sergeant on duty from the courtyard, keeping him aside, and forced both doors of the Cathedral, and then using strong tools broke the entrance glasses and rushed into the altar, where from they took the precious coffin of the Holy Relics by force, with everything it was inside; then, they left from the church with what they robbed and transported all the things by a car they had previously prepared and parked down the Metropolitan hill, on a dark lateral street, so that the car disappeared nobody knows where...

We kindly ask you to take most urgent measures to stop the journey of the Holy Relics, wherever they may be, following the guilty soldiers, and to order the restoration of the coffin of the Holy Relics and give them back to the Cathedral of the Holy Metropolitanate of the Country, as Saint Dimitrios is the Saint Patron of Bucharest, the capital city of the countryâ&#x20AC;?[14].

Faced with this situation, the German authorities had every reason to be afraid of the revolt of the population. That was why feld-marshal Mackensen took drastic measures right away to catch the guilty[15].

Those who stole the holy relics were caught by the German soldiers, headed by lieutenant Rhefeld, not far from Giurgiu, in Daia village.

The inhabitants of Bucharest met with much joy the return of the relics of Saint Dimitrios, an event mentioned in the documents kept in the Archives of the Holy Synod. After the relics were stolen, metropolitan Conon drafted a report in which he presented the circumstances in which the theft was committed and the turmoil which affected the faithful of Bucharest. A few days after the Holy Relics were received, metropolitan Conon thanked feld-marshal for having caught the thieves and brought the relics back to the cathedral of Bucharest. The metropolitan accused in this letter the Bulgarians whose deed proved that they had forgotten that generations of Bulgarians, who helped with emancipation of their people, had been taught in the Romanian schools.

who robbed the Metropolitan Cathedral. He declared in his appeal that he did not consider himself guilty because he acted at the order of his military commander, general Tantilov.

Nevertheless, the Court of Appeal maintained the prison sentence previously given by another tribunal.

Although tensioned, the Romanian - Bulgarian relations improved in the years following the World War I. A Romanian church and a school were built in Sofia where the Aromanian young people from the capital city of Bulgaria studied, as well as those from neighbourhood.

The Romanian priests and professors received financial support on behalf of Romania. Although there were some other church tensions as well, the relations between the Romanian Orthodox Church and the Bulgarian Orthodox Church were good in the time of the Bulgarian metropolitan Steven of Sofia.

The religious Romanian - Bulgarian relations have become normal during the inter-war period. In 1913, the peace of Bucharest offered the Quadrilateral to Romania, a political decision that the Bulgarian felt as a national catastrophe.

After the war ended, in 1918, these territories remained in the structure of Romania, although the Romanians made one of the ethnic minorities in the Quadrilateral. In the course of time, the Romanian Orthodox Church has gradually succeeded in imposing in the region a number of Romanian priests and a certain administrative organisation. The Romanian government brought unmatched before prosperity in the region; nevertheless, the Bulgarian terrorist threatening was a reality. After 1940, when the Bulgarians retrieved the Quadrilateral, the relations between the Romanian Orthodox Church and the Bulgarian Orthodox Church have not been changed. Romanian claims over the Quadrilateral still appear today in various lectures and publications, as well as claims of the Bulgarians over Dobrudgea. Has the Orthodox Church contributed to the establishment of the inter-ethnic and inter-religious harmony in this region?

The Court of Appeal of Bucharest judged Dimitrie Belomoski, former warrant officer in the Bulgarian army, chief of the Bulgarian soldiers

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology [12] Iuliu Scriban, Documents and Evidence on Church

references

Issues and Facts (Acte şi mărturii privitoare la chestiuni şi fapte bisericeşti), Bucharest, 1919, 4648.

[1] Claudiu Cotan, Orthodoxy and movements of

national emancipation in the South-East of Europe in the 19th century (Ortodoxia şi mişcările de emancipare naţională din sud-estul Europei în secolul al XIX-lea). Bucharest: Byzantine Publishing House, 2004, 302-305.

[2] Gheorghe Vasilescu, “Primate Metropolitan Calinic Miclescu and recognition of the autocephaly of the Romanian Orthodox Church” (Mitropolitul primat Calinic Miclescu şi recunoaşterea autocefaliei Bisericii Ortodoxe Române). Autocephaly freedom and dignity (Autocefalia libertate şi demnitate), Bucharest: Basilica Publishing House of the Romanian Patriarchate, 2010, 338.

[3] I. Ilinoiu, “Religious cults in Dobrudgea. Fifty years of Romanian life 1878-1928” (Cultele din Dobrogea. Dobrogea. Cincizeci de ani de viaţă românească 1878-1928), Bucharest: Published by Cultura Naţională, 1928, 612-630.

[4] Ioan I. Roman, Study on the rural property in Dobrudgea (Studiu asupra proprietăţii rurale din Dobrogea), Constanţa , 1907, 79.

[5] Cătălin Raiu, Democracy and stateocracy. Social Christianity at Bartolomeu Stanescu, bishop of Ramnic New Severin (1875-1954) (Democraţie şi statocraţie. Creştinismul social la Bartolomeu Stănescu, episcopul Râmnicului Noul Severin (1875-1954), Bucharest: Published by Bucharest University, 2014, 91.

[6] Holy Synod Archives, File no. 137/1914, f. 404 f. v.; f. 432.

[7] George Ungureanu, Quadrilateral issue in the context of the Romanian Bulgarian relations (1918-1940), (Problema Cadrilaterului în contextul relaţiilor româno-bulgare (1918-1940), doctorate thesis, Bucharest, 2008, 47.

[8] George Ungureanu, Quadrilateral issue in the context of the Romanian Bulgarian relations (19181940), 67-68.

[9] Grigore N. Popescu, Romanian Priests and Completion of the Nation – prisons and camps (Preoţimea română şi întregirea neamului-temniţe şi lagăre), vol. II, Bucharest: Published by Tipografia Vremea, 1940, 331-333.

[10] Marius Theodorian - Carada, Efimeride, 19081928, Published by Tipografia „Serafica” Săbăoani, 1937, 81-82.

[11] Holy Synod Archives, File no. 145/1918, f. 163 v., 164 f. v., 193 f. v.

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Bibliography: A. Sources: Holy Synod Archives, File no. 145/1918, f. 163 v., 164 f. v., 193 f. v.

B. Works of speciality: Cotan, Claudiu, Orthodoxy and movements of national emancipation in the South-East of Europe in the 19th century (Ortodoxia şi mişcările de emancipare naţională din sud-estul Europei în secolul al XIX-lea). Bucharest: Byzantine Publishing House, 2004.

Cotan, Claudiu, The Romanian Orthodox Church during the First World War (Biserica Ortodoxă Română în timpul Primului Război Mondial), Bucharest: Universitară Publishing House, 2015.

Ilinoiu, I., Religious cults in Dobrudgea. Fifty years of Romanian life 1878-1928 (Cultele din Dobrogea. Dobrogea. Cincizeci de ani de viaţă românească 1878-1928), Bucharest: Published by Cultura Naţională, 1928.

Ionescu, Teofil, Saint Pious Dimitrie Basarabov with the Holy Relics in Bucharest (Sfântul Cuvios Dimitrie Basarabov cu Sfintele Moaşte la Bucureşti), Bucharest: Sofia Publishing House, 2009.

Popescu, N. Grigore, Romanian Priests and Completion of the Nation – prisons and camps (Preoţimea română şi întregirea neamuluitemniţe şi lagăre), vol. II, Bucharest: Published by Tipografia Vremea, 1940.

Raiu, Cătălin, Democracy and stateocracy.

Social Christianity at Bartolomeu Stanescu, bishop of Ramnic New Severin (1875-1954) (Democraţie şi statocraţie. Creştinismul social la Bartolomeu Stănescu, episcopul Râmnicului Noul Severin (1875-1954), Bucharest: Published by Bucharest University, 2014.

Roman, I. Ioan, Study on the rural property in Dobrudgea (Studiu asupra proprietăţii rurale din Dobrogea), Constanţa , 1907.

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy Scriban, Iuliu, Documents and Evidence on Church Issues and Facts (Acte şi mărturii privitoare la chestiuni şi fapte bisericeşti), Bucharest, 1919.

Theodorian - Carada, Marius, Efimeride, 1908-1928, Published by Tipografia „Serafica” Săbăoani, 1937.

Netzhammer, Raymund, Bishop in Romania (Episcop în România), vol. I, edited by Nikolaus Netzhammer and Krista Zach, trad. by George Guţu, Bucharest: Published by Romanian Academy, 2005.

Ungureanu, George, Quadrilateral issue in the context of the Romanian Bulgarian relations (1918-1940), (Problema Cadrilaterului în contextul relaţiilor româno-bulgare (1918-1940), doctorate thesis, Bucharest, 2008.

Vasilescu, Gheorghe, “Primate Metropolitan Calinic Miclescu and recognition of the autocephaly of the Romanian Orthodox Church” (Mitropolitul primat Calinic Miclescu şi recunoaşterea autocefaliei Bisericii Ortodoxe Române).

Autocephaly freedom and dignity (Autocefalia libertate şi demnitate), Bucharest: Basilica Publishing House of the Romanian Patriarchate, 2010, 336-353.

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Dacian Temples and Ancient Astronomical Research in Sarmizegetusa 1. Oprea Emanuel George, PhD

2. Oprea Cristiana, PhD

Faculty of History, the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, Moscow, Russia emanuel.oprea11@yahoo.com

Frank Laboratory for Neutron Physics, Joint Institute for Nuclear Research 141980 Dubna, Russia istina@nf.jinr.ru

Abstract: The actual Romanian territory belongs to Carpatho-Danubian Space and to Ancient Europe. The Ancient European Society was a vast cultural entity based on a theocratic, matriarchal society, peaceful and art creating.Temples of Sarmizegetusa have given rise to several theories over time, proven by historians with the most diverse arguments. The largest complex of temples and sanctuaries was founded in Sarmizegetusa Regia, the Dacian’s main fortress and ancient capital of Dacia in the time of King Decebalus. The mysterious form of settlements has led researchers to the conclusion that the locations were astronomical observation shrines. Among the places of Dacian worship in Orastie Mountains the most impressive is the Great Circular Sanctuary, used to perform some celestial observations, and also as original solar calendar. This paper had the purpose to re-discover the Dacian Civilization and Dacian cosmogony based on the accumulated knowledge upon our country’s past.

Keywords: Dacia, Sarmizegetusa Regia, Dacian Temples, the Great Round Sanctuary, Andesite Sun, Dacian Priest, astronomy

I. INTRODUCTION The actual Romanian territory belongs to the CarpathoDanubian Space and to the Ancient Europe. The Ancient European Society was a vast cultural entity already existing between 6,500 – 3,500 B.C., which had its foundations based on a theocratic, matriarchal society, peaceful, loving and art creating. Later, between 1st century BC – 2nd century AD, the Dacian Kingdom occupied a wider surface[1], which was bounded in the South by Danubius River[2] and Haemus Mons, by the Pontus Euxinus, Danastris and Hypanis rivers in the East, by the Carpatii Padurosi in the North and by the Middle Danubius, Bohemian Quadrilater Pannonian Danube, Morava and Tisia rivers in the West[3,4,5,6] (Figure 1) and included Carpathians Mountains in the middle of the country [1, 2].

The Dacian Kingdom was inhabited by the dacians, which were both peaceful and warriors in relation with the neighboring Sarmatians, Scytians, and Celts[7] [8] [9].

Figure 1. Dacia on a map[10] of Central and Eastern Europe[11], according to Strabo (c. 18 AD).

The capital of Dacian Kingdom was Sarmizegetusa Regia[12] for at least one and a half centuries (1st centuries B.C. and A.D.)[13] and reached the maximal development under King Decebalus [3, 4].

This paper has the purpose to re-discover the Dacian Civilization and cosmogony based on the accumulated knowledge upon our country’s past.

II. SARMISEGETUZA REGIA The Dacian capital Sarmizegetusa was the most military, cultural-religious, economic and political center of Dacian Kingdom. It consists in a fortresses complex of 6 citadels, located in Orastie Mountains (latitude 47°27’ - 45°49’ North, longitude 23°09’ - 29°31’ East[14]), over 1200 m high and was the core of the strategic defensive system of Dacians [5, 6]. The citadels/fortresses were: Sarmizegetusa, CostestiBlidaru, Piatra Rosie, Costesti-Cetatuie, Capilna and Banitza.

The main fortress, Sarmizegetuza [7], was constructed as a quadrilateral of 30,000 m² formed by massive stone blocks disposed on five terraces (Figure 2).

The defense system developed by the Dacians around their capital, Sarmizegetusa Regia, was composed of three distinct fortified elements: the outer consisted by fortified sites of palisade banks and ditches; the second is that of the five Dacian fortresses built as a defensive ring around it; the final category is that of linear defenses, which blocked access from certain routes and linked some of the fortresses.

Figure 2. Sarmizegetusa - Reconstruction 3D[15]

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th e Dia l o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and T heology Area is the Great Round Sanctuary [13].

There were three topographical parts of the Dacian capital: the fortress, the sacred area, and the civilian quarter.

The geographical plateau of the location is dominated by the fortress, which was the centre of secular and spiritual government.

The Sarmizegetusa places themselves are the only surviving examples of the once exceptionally high cultural and socio-economic level attained by the pre-Roman Dacian Kingdom in the late 1st millennium BC. It belonged to a typical Iron Age era, including matters as practising agriculture, stock-raising, fishing and metal-working, as well as trade with the Graeco-Roman world. The smithies in the northern part of the city (Figure 2) provide evidence of the Dacians’ skill in metalworking. They were involved in the extraction and processing of metals[16] and have used tools such as meter-long tongs, hammers and anvils to produce confection tools, weapons, religious objects or furniture, ornaments, vases and coins (more than 400 metallic artifacts including scythes, sickles, hoes, rakes, picks, pruning hooks, knives, plowshares[17] were discovered) [8-11]. In the flowering of Dacian civilization pottery was processed both by hand and with the potter’s wheel and become an art. The excavations at the Sarmizegetusa site yielded two especially notable finds: a huge vase bearing an inscription DECEBAL PER SCORILO and a medical kit containing pharmaceuticals[18].

III. THE SACRED AREA The most important remnant of the Sacred Area is located in Sarmizegetusa Regia[19]. According to historians in the pre-Roman Dacia besides the residential areas with dwellings and workshops the complex of temples and shrines has functioned at the east of the city walls. The Dacian fortresses in Sargmizegetusa Regia demonstrated a close connection of military and religious architectural techniques and concepts from the antiquity and the late European Iron Age. The enclosure was protected by large stone walls with watchtowers along them and at posed at least one entrance with monumental scale connected to civil settlement from the terraces.

The sacred zone includes two round temples and five rectangular temples and an altar grouped on two large terraces; the bases of their supporting columns (sometimes 10 meters high) are still visible as regular matrix (Figure 3) [12]. Access from the fortress to the sacred area is by means of a road paved with limestones on the west and a monumental stone stairway on the east. The most interesting and significant construction inside the Sacred

Figure 3. Sacred Area Plan[20]

A. The Great Round Sanctuary

The Great Round Sanctuary is a large nearly circular astronomical temple and served also as the Great Cosmic Dacian Calendar (Figure 4).

Figure 4. The Great Round Sanctuary It is located on the XIth terrace and is oriented NE to SW (Figure 5). It exhibited four phases of construction and ct consisted of a setting of timber posts in the shape of a D[21] (Figure 4), surrounded by a timber circle which in turn was surrounded by a low stone kerb (similarly with the stone monument at Stonehenge) [14].

The continuous perimeter circle had a circumferential diameter of 29.4 m[22] and it consists of 104 andesit blocks outside [15].

Besides traces of fire, the remnants of the Roman structure of wood, testify a second circle of massifs woden pillars placed around the sanctuary that are almost two meters deep in the ground, and by one meter in deep for the central ellipse, all being based on large limestone blocks.

The sanctuary presented 4 lines of 15 columns each, placed at 3.2 m between the lines and at 2.5 m inter-axes distance [16].

The second level, - a Dacian level, on 0.35 m depth, was a sactuary build with andesit-basalt pillars, on top of a substructure of river-rocks comprised in clay. From here and compared with other lierature sources was deduced the information about the existence of a “secret city under Sarmizegetusa” which have findings below 2.85 m depth, as traces of another much older habitation level [17].

The terrace of the sanctuary, of 41m x 13m, is manmade

by Dacian and is protected by massive walls, buil in murus dacicus technique. In the SE corner, on the SE to NW

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology direction, a rectangular guard tower into the wall was identified. It was shown later that in fact it was a house with three rooms [18].

Figure 6. Sacred Area Altar as Andezite Sun

C. Dacian Priests and God Zamolxis Figure 5. The Great Round Sanctuary Plan includes: Limestone disk; Substruction pillars of andesite; Paving rollers; Wooden pillars; Iron nails; Reused limestone disk; Medalion earthenware; Coins The sacred places were built from materials brought from dozens of kilometers away [17].

B. Andesite Sun The mysterious form of settlements in the Sacred Area suggested that the locations were astronomical observation decks. The altar of the Sacred Area was used for Dacian warrior initiation rites, as well as sacrifices. The ritual practiced in sanctuaries in particular for initiating military might have been aimed at transforming young man in a raging warrior that does not mean just the bravery, physical strength or endurance, but also a structural magic-religious experiment of the character of future warrior [17].

In the Sacred area is located as well an artifact known as the “Andesite Sun”. It seems to have been used also as a sundial [19]. Since it is known that Dacian culture was influenced by contact with Hellenisitic Greece, the sundial may have resulted from the Dacians’ exposure to Hellenistic learning in geometry and astronomy [20].

The pavement is made up of a central disc of 1.46 m diameter and of 10 circle sectors imaging the sunlights , each having 2.76 m in length; entire pavement has a diameter of 6.98 m. Three extensions of andesite blocks of 9.6 m, whose width and height decreases as we approach the central disc is contitued within a radius of Andesite Sun. The direction ray - disc gives the local meridian and the center line of the altar and of the Great Round Sanctuary indicates the direction NS [21-23].

Measurements and calculations of Hadrian Daicoviciu showed that the three rays, namely: the radius of the central circle, the radius of circle with T-s and and the disk radius were used by Dacian priests in calculating of the obliquity of the ecliptic.

Thus they predicted the equinoxes and solstices and to calculate the latitude. It uses the relationship: tgZ = U/hG (1) where Z is the zenith distance of the sun, U is the length of the gnomon and HG is its height.

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The leadership of the Dacian Kingdom belonged to the king, aided by a counsel of nobles, and was advised by a priest. The head priest having an important position as representative of the supreme deity, Zamolxis on earth, is also the adviser to the king. His people believed that the king gived his commands as advised by the gods[23].

The King secondated by the Big Priest manage to unify much of the Geto-Dacian political organizations, the new state result in such way being subjected to a process of institutionalization. As an example[24]: Scorylo King Dacian, knowing that the neighboring people were divided because of civil wars and considering it’s not proper to attack them, put in front of his compatriots two dogs and, when they fight each other fiercely, he showed them a wolf. Immediately dogs were thrown on it, forgetting their quarrel. This example stopped the Dacians from an attack that would bring benefits to Romans.

The process of state formation is the result of beneficial interactions of three political factors[25]: the tribal aristocracy , warriors and royal power, to which was added the high direct contribution of the Big Priest whose authority was extended to all Dacians (Burebista – Deceneu governance). Dacian state was organized as a military monarchy where the priests have an important role in leadership[26].

With the add of the Big Priest, who Iordanes showed that he was endowed with great power[ ], Burebista required the obedience to His orders and reforms. Along with the appointment of a viceroy in the person of the Big Priest, the king used a chancellery, where his orders were issued[27].

The ancient dacian priests were also astronoms. They have used stars and planets for divination. Just as the Moon pulls on the ocean’s tides and the light of the Sun enables all life on Earth to grow and flourish, the movements of the planets in our solar system relate to earthly all affairs.

The dacian priests have been using the zodiac to predict seasonal shifts and interpret celestial cycles. They would rely on astrological omens to decide when war would be waged, when crops should be harvested, when love was in the stars, and when voyages were to begin.

Through their knowledge about the movement of celestial bodies, by regulating the calendar, as being so necessary for agriculture for example, they were increasing

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy their authority over the masses, appearing in front of them not as simple scholars, but as possessors of some mysterious and supernatural powers [24]: As the Greeks, they wield two significations for “time” similar to: One such as Chronos, which refers to sequential, linear time. This is the time of clocks, stop watches, and calendars and forms the basis of Newtonian Physics; Another such as Kairos, which refers the ripeness of time. This isn’t so much time, as it is timing.

Crito (the Traian’s doctor) in Getica said that “Gets Kings imposed the peace by fear of gods and consistent skills and magic, thus enjoying a high status”. Co-governance priestking in Dacia (the king is ultimately more powerful) is similar to the relationship Enaree-king (to the Scythians), druidking to (the Celts) and chakravartin-yogi (in India), following a common pattern in northern Eurasia of the time [25].

Archeological findings suggest that the Dacian god Zalmoxis[28] and his chief priest[29] had an important role in Dacian society at this time [26]. God Zamolxis, the supreme divinity of Dacian people, was considered as the Eternity God Chronos, after testimonies of the ancient Greek historians. They have also shed new light on the political, economic and scientific development of the Dacians and their successful assimilation of technical and scientific knowledge from the Greek and Romans. Besides Zamolxiss (also called Gebeleizis by some of them), Dacians believed in other deities, Derzelas and Bendis, although their existence was not confirmed by archaeological sources.

Dacians already had obtained a high degree of civilization up to take first contact with the Romans [27, 28]. They believed in the immortality of the soul and regards dying as a simple change of country [29]. The religious services were held in quadrangular or circular sanctuaries.

Funerary ritual consists of burning the dead, and the ashes were placed in urns and buried in the ground.

CONCLUSIONS The historical ancient sources have mentioned that Dacian have scientific skills in various areas as botany, medicine, astronomy, etc. [Strabon VII, 5, 3; Porphyrios].

Iordanes says that Deceneu instructed Dacian as follows: he demonstrated them the theory of the 12 signs of the Zodiac, showed them planets movement, how the orbit of the moon increases or decreases and under what signs the 346 stars follow their fast way from sunrise until sunset to get closer or far from celestial pole[31].

In the support of the estimated chronology comes the discovery of a terra-cotyta medalion found in the center of the Large Limestone Sanctuary. It proves the sanctuary existence and function from the first half[32] of 1st century AD and imitate a Dacian coin.

References [1] Strabo, in his Geography, says: “…then immediately

adjoining this is the land of the Getae, which, though narrow at first, stretching as it does along the Ister on its southern side and on the opposite side along the

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mountain-side of the Hercynian Forest (for the land of the Getae also embraces a part of the mountains), afterwards broadens out towards the north as far as the Tyregetae…”.

[2] Acornion said: “…King Burebista became the first and greatest of the kings of Thrace and inheriting all the territory across the river on this side and beyond…”, The Inscription of Acornion from Dionysopolis, M. Georgi, Inscriptiones Graecae in Bulgaria repertae . 1, 1970.

[3] I. H. Crisan, Burebista si epoca sa, Bucuresti, 1977.

[4] H. Daicoviciu, Dacia de la Burebista la cucerirea romana, Cluj, 1972.

[5] Idem, Portrete dacice: Dromichaites, Burebista, Deceneu, Decebal, Bucuresti, 1984.

[6] H. Daicoviciu, J. Trynkowski, Les rois daces de Burébista a Décébale, in « Dacia – Revue d-archeologie et d’histoire ancienne », NS, 14, 1970, p. 159.

[7] Herodotus: The Histories (4.93), p. 266.

[8] Oltean 2007, p. 41.

[9] Bolovan et al. 1997, p.13.

[10] Müller 1877, Strabonis Geographicorum tabulae XV, pp 1088-1089.

[11] The map by Strabo included Dacia, Germania, Sarmatia, Illyria, Thracia [12] MacKendrick 1975, The Dacian Stones Speak, p. 48.

[13] Burebista transferred the Geto-Dacian capital from Argedava to Sarmizegetusa. M. Goodman, J. Sherwood 2002, The Roman World 44 BC–AD 180, p. 227.

[14] h t t p : / / w w w. c i m e c . r o / M o n u m e n t e / U N E S C O / UNESCOen/indexC61.htm.

[15] https://vimeo.com/52953687.

[16] https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dacia.

[17] MacKendrick 1975, p. 66.

[18] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarmizegetusa_Regia.

[19] C. L. N. Ruggles, Ancient astronomy: an encyclopedia of cosmologies and myth, 2005.

[20] http://www.romaniadevis.ro/dacia/zona-geto-daca/ reconstituiri-3d [21] C. L. N. Ruggles, Ancient astronomy: an encyclopedia of cosmologies and myth, 2005, 370.

[22] D. M. Teodorescu 1931, ACMIT, 60.

[23] Ibidem, VII, 3, 5, în Ibidem, p. 231.

[24] Frontinus, Stratagemele, I, 10, 4, în Ibidem, p. 431.

[25] M. Petrescu-Dâmboviţa, Istoria României de la începuturi până în secolul al VIII-lea, Bucureşti, 1995, p. 160.

[26] Ibidem, p. 164.

[27] Iordanes, op. cit, 71 – 72, în Ibidem, II, p. 419.

[28] Inscripţia lui Acornion din Dionysopolis, în I. H. Crişan, op. cit., p. 93.

[29] Herodotus: The Histories, in Bolovan et al. 1997, p. 20.

[30] Matyszak 2009, p. 222.

[31] Iordanes, op. cit, 71 – 72, în Ibidem, II, p. 419: “Communicating these and many others Dacians skilfully, Deceneu became in their eyes a miraculous being, that led not only ordinary people, but even kings.

For then he chose between the most significant and wiser mans and teached them the theology, advised them to

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology honor specific deities and shrines making them priests and gave them the name of “pillati, because, as I think, having the heads covered with a tiara, which we call with another name “pilleus”, they made sacrifices ; to the rest of the people he ordered to appoint capillati. The Goths reminded long time Deceneu in their songs because they gave him a great consideration.”

[32] A. Rusu-Pescaru, 2005, Sanctuarele Daciei, Deva, p. 33

Bibliography [1] Strabo, The GEOGRAPHY OF STRABO, The Loeb Classical /library founded by James Loeb, edited by T. E. Page, E. Capps, W. H. D. Rouse, L A. Post, E. H Warmington, 1932.

[2] K. W. L. Müller, Strabonis Geographicorum tabulae XV 1877, editor Ambrosio Firmin-Didot.06).

[3] P. MacKendrick 1975, The Dacian Stones Speak. The University of North Carolina Press.

[4] J. Sherwood 2002, The Roman World 44 BC–AD 180, Publisher Routledge.

[5] Road Access Map, 2002 - 2012, Available: http://www. cimec.ro/Monumente/UNESCO/UNESCOen/indexC61.htm [6] C. Daicoviciu, A. Ferenczi, Aşezările dacice din Munţii Orăştiei, în seria Cercetări de istorie veche, Editura Academiei R.P. Romîne, 1951.

[7] I., Glodariu, E., Iaroslavschi, A., Rusu, Die Münzstatte von Sarmizegetusa Regia, Ephemeris Napocensis, II, 1992, p. 75-58.

[8] Daicoviciu, C., şi colab., Studiul traiului dacilor în Munţii Orăştiei (şantierul arheologic de al Grădiştea de Munte), în SCIV, II, 1, 1951, p. p. 95-126.

[9] Florea, G., Ceramica pictată. Artă meşteşug şi societate în Dacia preromană (sec. I a. Chr. - I p. Chr.), Cluj-Napoca, 1998.

[10] Glodariu, I., Un atelier de făurărie la Sarmizegetusa dacică, Acta Musei Napocensis, XII, 1975, p. 107-134.

[11] Glodariu, I., Iaroslavschi E., Civilizaţia fierului la daci, Cluj-Napoca, 1979.

[12] I.Glodariu 1983, Arhitectura dacilor. Civila si militara.

[13] D. Antonescu 1984, Introducere in arhitectura dacilor.

[14] C. L. N. Ruggles, Ancient astronomy: an encyclopedia of cosmologies and myth, 2005, Grenwood: ABC-CLIO. [15] D. M. Teodorescu, Cetatea daca de la Gradistea Muncelului (Judetul Hunedoara), 1930 - 1931, ACMIT. [16] A. Rusu-Pescaru, The Large Limestone Sanctuary (LLS) from Dealul Gradistii (“Samizetetusa Regia”), in Annals of the Academy of Romanian Scientists, Series on History and Archeology, 5, 1, 25, 2013.

[17] Cristina Bodó, 2014, Temples of the Orăștiei Mountains, în Mousaios, XIX, p. 47.

[18] A. Rusu-Pescaru, 2005, Sanctuarele Daciei, Deva.

[19] H. Daicoviciu, I. Ferenczi, I. Glodaru, E. Iaroslavschi, 1980, Cercetari in incinta sacra a Sarmizegetusei, MCA XIV 161.

[20] E. Iaroslavschi, 1994, Opinii privind „soarele de andezit” de la Sarmizegetusa Regia, AMN 31 49.

[21] C. Daicovociu, Al. Ferenczi, 1951, Asezarile Dacice din Muntii Orastiei, p. 66.

[22] Gh. Chis, P. Muresan, 1982, Elemente astromice ale sanctuarului dacic de la Sarmizegetusa Regia, XV Congress on Historycal Sciences - 1979, Cerul o taina descifrata, p. 54.

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[23] F. C. Stănescu, 1985, Consideraţii privitoare la posibile semnificaţii astronomice ale altarului de la Sarmizegetusa Regia, în AMN, XXII-XXIII, 1985, p. 105.

[24] H. Daicovociu, Dacia de la Burebista la cucerirea romană, Editura Dacia, 1972.

[25] The Oxford illustrated history of prehistoric Europe. Barry Cunliffe. Oxford University Press. 2001. ISBN 0192854410, 9780192854414.

[26] P. Matyszak 2009. The Enemies of Rome: From Hannibal to Attila the Hun. Thames and Hudson.

[27] Enciclopedia dacica ENDA site. Available: http : //twiter. com/wwwENDAro. [28] Alexandru Popescu, „Cultura geto-dacă”, Editura Stiintifică si Enciclopedică, 1982.

[29] Herodot, web Istorii, IV, 93. (enciclopedia-dacica.ro/).

ACKNOWLEDGMENT The presented research work was inspired from a scientific trip to Sarmisegetusa place in Orastie Mountains. The first author would like to express his gratitude to his big friend Prof Darie Dragoi who took him in this trip. He met him in Moscow where the Philosopher Dragoi accomplish his second PhD in Religion History at The Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius, the most important Russian monastery and the spiritual centre of the Russian Orthodox Church, for various discussions on the paper matters.

The first author wants to express his gratitude to Dr Doc E. B. Barinova, from The Cathedra of History of the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, the supervisor of the diploma thesis of the student Emanuel Oprea, for invaluable help and support during the accomplishment of this particular research in shamanism.

Biography Mr. Emanuel OPREA obtained his Bachelor Degree in History from The People’s Friendship University of Russia, Moscow, Russia in 2014. The Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia is an participating member of International University Association (IUA), European University Association (EUA), European International Education Association, etc. The diploma of Mr. Oprea was entitled “Cultural and Ethnical Characteristics of the Shamanism from Northern Asia and Northern America”. The area of interest of Mr. Oprea is represented by History, Archaeology, Shamanism and European and Asian Cultures. He is charged now in a master program of the Section “The Regional International Relationships of the Southern-European Countries”. He likes also music, his preferred genres being folk, popular, classical and progressive rock. He is an active participant as organizer, singer, and poetry interpreter in the literary, musical activities and concerts in Moscow and Dubna (Russia). He is playing at guitar, violin and some specific Romanian and Mongolian musical instruments.

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy

Historical and biblical features of the last five kings of the Kingdom of Judah Ioan-Gheorghe ROTARU, Associate Professor PhD

‘Timotheus’ Brethren Theological Institute of Bucharest President of Education Society for Romanian People (SPIPR) Bucharest, Romania Dr_ionicarotaru@yahoo.com

Abstract: The study refers to the last five kings of the kingdom of Judah. Alongside the characterization of the 5 kings and the political and religious situation of the country, there will be observed as well the interventions of the Jewish prophets, in order to return the people to the full obedience to God. Of the five kings of Judah, only Josiah was a good king, who has done a series of reforms for the people, and the other four kings allowed the people to sink into idolatry and moral decay. Even if they have tried all sorts of variants of political support, particularly with Egypt, in the end they were conquered by the Babylonians and most of them taken into captivity, from where only after 70 years certain groups begin to return home and begin rebuilding the country.

Keywords: king, idolatry, prophets, uprising, captivity

I. INTRODUCTION In the life of every man appears a moment when the bad deeds and decisions are being rewarded, accumulated over a longer period of time. The history of the conquest and devastation of the Kingdom of Judah and its capital, Jerusalem, by Nebuchadnezzar, emperor of Babylon, highlights this fact and namely the

one of being rewarded because of making some wrong decisions and choices, and looking at these things, concerning the Kingdom of Judah, from a spiritual perspective, the consequences arising were just the result of neglecting and ignoring the warnings sent by God by the prophets of that time.

Around 720 B.C., The Assyrians conquered the northern tribes of Israel (the northern kingdom) and drove them out from their country, taking them into captivity, but the southern kingdom, Judah, the sister nation of Israel, miraculously survived the Syrian invasion and has continued for another 130 years, when it will be conquered by the Babylonians and most of the population taken into captivity. [1] II. THE HISTORICAL AND BIBLICAL CONTEXT BEFORE THE REIGN OF THE LAST FIVE KINGS OF THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH The emperor of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, undertook three military campaigns against the Kingdom of Judah and Jerusalem. Thus the first military campaign took place in 605 BC during the reign of Joakim, emperor who, after being bound with copper chains to be taken war captive into Babylon, humbled himself in front

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology of the king of Babylon and thus was allowed to remain king in Jerusalem, with the obligation of paying a consistent tribute to the Babylonians.

On this occasion of the first military campaign in the year 605 BC, the young Daniel and his companions were taken war captives and taken to Babylon, according to the report given by the Book of Daniel in the Holy Scripture: „In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah came Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon unto Jerusalem, and besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with part of the vessels of the house of God: which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his god; and he brought the vessels into the treasure house of his god. And the king spoke unto Ashpenaz the master of his eunuchs, that he should bring certain of the children of Israel, and of the king’s seed, and of the princes; Children in whom was no blemish, but well favored, and skillful in all wisdom, and cunning in knowledge, and understanding science, and such as had ability in them to stand in the king’s palace, and whom they might teach the learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans. And the king appointed them a daily provision of the king’s meat, and of the wine which he drank: so nourishing them three years, that at the end thereof they might stand before the king. Now among these were of the children of Judah, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah: Unto whom the prince of the eunuchs gave names: for he gave unto Daniel the name of Belteshazzar; and to Hananiah, of Shadrach; and to Mishael, of Meshach; and to Azariah, of Abed–nego.” [2]

The second military campaign of the king of Babylon against the Kingdom of Judah took place in 598/597 BC during the reign of emperor Joakim, the son of emperor Joakim. The military campaign appears on the background of the uprising of king Joakim , who had concluded a military alliance with Egypt. King Joakim dies before the conquest of Jerusalem, thus reaching to the reign in his place, his son Joakim, who will have a very short reign of just three months. On this occasion the Babylonian army took all the sacred vessels from the temple in Jerusalem, as well as the most important inhabitants of the country, together with emperor Joakim.

In his place will be seated as king in Jerusalem, Zedekiah, the last king of the Kingdom of Judah.

Among the war captives was also the young

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priest Ezekiel, who will then write a book that bears his name in the Old Testament canon.

The event of the military campaign is described as follows: „At that time the servants of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up against Jerusalem, and the city was besieged.

And Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came against the city, and his servants did besiege it.

And Jehoiachin the king of Judah went out to the king of Babylon, he, and his mother, and his servants, and his princes, and his officers: and the king of Babylon took him in the eighth year of his reign. And he carried out thence all the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king’s house, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold which Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of the Lord, as the Lord had said.

And he carried away all Jerusalem, and all the princes, and all the mighty men of valor, even ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and smiths: none remained, save the poorest sort of the people of the land. And he carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon, and the king’s mother, and the king’s wives, and his officers, and the mighty of the land, those carried he into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon. And all the men of might, even seven thousand, and craftsmen and smiths a thousand, all that were strong and apt for war, even them the king of Babylon brought captive to Babylon.” [3] The third military campaign of the emperor of Babylon against the Kingdom of Judah took place in 586 BC during the reign of Emperor Zedekiah. Following this campaign, most of the population was taken, as war captives, in Babylon. During the siege of Jerusalem, the population went through difficult moments of existence, enduring a horrible famine. At a certain point the emperor together with his garrison attempted to run away, but they were discovered and captured by the Babylonian army. Emperor Zedekiah, who was not loyal to the king of Babylon, as he had promised at the settlement on the throne, had suffered a horrendous treatment, because his sons were killed right in front of him, and then his eyes were taken out and he was taken into captivity in this way. One hundred years before this military campaign, the event was described for the Jews by the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 36). The prophet Ezekiel also writes about the campaign, before

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy the event, in his prophetic words, as follows: „Say thou unto them, thus saith the Lord God; This burden concerneth the prince in Jerusalem, and all the house of Israel that are among them.

Say, I am your sign: like as I have done, so shall it be done unto them: they shall remove and go into captivity. And the prince that is among them shall bear upon his shoulder in the twilight, and shall go forth: they shall dig through the wall to carry out thereby: he shall cover his face, that he see not the ground with his eyes. My net also will I spread upon him, and he shall be taken in my snare: and I will bring him to Babylon to the land of the Chaldeans; yet shall he not see it, though he shall die there. And I will scatter toward every wind all that are about him to help him, and all his bands; and I will draw out the sword after them. And they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall scatter them among the nations, and disperse them in the countries. But I will leave a few men of them from the sword, from the famine, and from the pestilence; that they may declare all their abominations among the heathen whither they come; and they shall know that I am the Lord. ” [4] The consequences of the Jews reaching into captivity have first of all a religious cause, namely disloyalty, of faithfulness to God. Thus the prophet Jeremiah was anticipating those events through his prophetic words: „And it shall come to pass, if ye diligently hearken unto me, saith the Lord, to bring in no burden through the gates of this city on the Sabbath day, but hallow the Sabbath day, to do no work therein; Then shall there enter into the gates of this city kings and princes sitting upon the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they, and their princes, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: and this city shall remain for ever.

And they shall come from the cities of Judah, and from the places about Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin, and from the plain, and from the mountains, and from the south, bringing burnt offerings, and sacrifices, and meat offerings, and incense, and bringing sacrifices of praise, unto the house of the Lord. But if ye will not hearken unto me to hallow the Sabbath day, and not to bear a burden, even entering in at the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day; then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched.” [5]

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III. THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH UNDER THE REIGN OF KING JOSIAH Josiah was the sixteenth king in the southern kingdom, Kingdom of Judah, where he reigned between 640-609 BC. Josiah came to the throne at the age of 8, after a long period of moral and spiritual decline, a period of more than 50 years, under the leadership of the kingdom by his father Amon and his grandfather Manasseh, two of the worst kings of the Kingdom of Judah.[6] Even if the political environment was not favorable for him, about King Josiah, the chronicle writes: „Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned thirty and one years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Jedidah, the daughter of Adaiah of Bozkath. And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in all the way of David his father, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left.”

[7] About King Manasseh the hagiographer writes: „The kingdom of Judah, prosperous throughout the times of Hezekiah, was once more brought low during the long years of Manasseh’s wicked reign, when paganism was revived, and many of the people were led into idolatry. “Manasseh made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to err, and to do worse than the heathen.” 2 Chronicles 33:9. The glorious light of former generations was followed by the darkness of superstition and error. Gross evils sprang up and flourished—tyranny, oppression, hatred of all that is good. Justice was perverted; violence prevailed.” [8] Not only King Manasseh, but also his son Amon followed the same line of moral and spiritual decay of the people. Their bad example was followed by the people, and the moral and spiritual decay of the people was reaching alarming levels: „Among those whose life experience had been shaped beyond recall by the fatal apostasy of Manasseh, was his own son, who came to the throne at the age of twentytwo. Of King Amon it is written: “He walked in all the way that his father walked in, and served the idols that his father served, and worshiped them: and he forsook the Lord God of his fathers” (2 Kings 21:21, 22); he “humbled not himself before the Lord, as Manasseh his father had humbled himself; but Amon trespassed more and more.”

The wicked king was not permitted to reign long.

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology In the midst of his daring impiety, only two years from the time he ascended the throne, he was slain in the palace by his own servants; and “the people of the land made Josiah his son king in his stead.” 2 Chronicles 33:23, 25.” [9] Although neither his father nor his grandfather were on the line of the good kings of the kingdom and with all the hostilities existing at the moment of his settlement on the throne, Josiah was on the line of the good kings, carrying out a significant number of political and religious reforms. „With the accession of Josiah to the throne, where he was to rule for thirtyone years, those who had maintained the purity of their faith began to hope that the downward course of the kingdom was checked; for the new king, though only eight years old, feared God, and from the very beginning “he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in all the way of David his father, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left.” 2 Kings 22:2.

Born of a wicked king, beset with temptations to follow in his father’s steps, and with few counselors to encourage him in the right way, Josiah nevertheless was true to the God of Israel. Warned by the errors of past generations, he chose to do right, instead of descending to the low level of sin and degradation to which his father and his grandfather had fallen. He “turned not aside to the right hand or to the left.” As one who was to occupy a position of trust, he resolved to obey the instruction that had been given for the guidance of Israel’s rulers, and his obedience made it possible for God to use him as a vessel unto honor.” [10] The reforms the King Josiah was going to accomplish had two major components. The first component was referring to the elimination as far as possible of all the idolatrous practices, places, temples and altars and all the idols, as well as the rites for the pagan deities. In such coordinates is described the religious reform, of large proportions, of King Josiah: „And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the door, to bring forth out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for the grove, and for all the host of heaven: and he burned them without Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and carried the ashes of them unto Beth–el. And he put down the idolatrous

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priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah, and in the places round about Jerusalem; them also that burned incense unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the host of heaven. And he brought out the grove from the house of the Lord, without Jerusalem, unto the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron, and stamped it small to powder, and cast the powder thereof upon the graves of the children of the people. And he broke down the houses of the sodomites, which were by the house of the Lord, where the women wove hangings for the grove. And he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense, from Geba to Beer–sheba, and brake down the high places of the gates that were in the entering in of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which were on a man’s left hand at the gate of the city. Nevertheless the priests of the high places came not up to the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, but they did eat of the unleavened bread among their brethren.

And he defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech. And he took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun, at the entering in of the house of the Lord, by the chamber of Nathan–melech the chamberlain, which was in the suburbs, and burned the chariots of the sun with fire. And the altars that were on the top of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the Lord, did the king beat down, and brake them down from thence, and cast the dust of them into the brook Kidron.

And the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand of the mount of corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Zidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites, and for Milcom the abomination of the children of Ammon, did the king defile.

And he brake in pieces the images, and cut down the groves, and filled their places with the bones of men. Moreover the altar that was at Beth–el, and the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, had made, both that altar and the high place he broke down, and burned the high place, and stamped it small to

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy powder, and burned the grove.” [11] King Josiah’s religious reforms were motivated by the fact that, during the renovation of the temple in Jerusalem in 621 BC, it was found, by accident the Book of the Law [12], which after being read also by the King, but also in front of the people, was the key element that motivated the religious reforms of the emperor. „The long-lost manuscript was found in the temple by Hilkiah, the high priest, while the building was undergoing extensive repairs in harmony with King Josiah’s plan for the preservation of the sacred structure. The high priest handed the precious volume to Shaphan, a learned scribe, who read it and then took it to the king with the story of its discovery. Josiah was deeply stirred as he heard read for the first time the exhortations and warnings recorded in this ancient manuscript. Never before had he realized so fully the plainness with which God had set before Israel “life and death, blessing and cursing” (Deuteronomy 30:19): and how repeatedly they had been urged to choose the way of life, that they might become a praise in the earth, a blessing to all nations. “Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid,” Israel had been exhorted through Moses; “for the Lord thy God. He it is that doth go with thee; He will not fail thee, not forsake thee.” Deuteronomy 31:6. The book abounded in assurances of God’s willingness to save to the uttermost those who should place their trust fully in Him. As He had wrought in their deliverance from Egyptian bondage, so would He work mightily in establishing them in the Land of Promise and in placing them at the head of the nations of earth.

The encouragements offered as the reward of obedience were accompanied by prophecies of judgments against the disobedient; and as the king heard the inspired words, he recognized, in the picture set before him, conditions that were similar to those actually existing in his kingdom.

In connection with these prophetic portrayals of departure from God, he was startled to find plain statements to the effect that the day of calamity would follow swiftly and that there would be no remedy.” [13] Between the last good king of the Kingdom of Judah, Josiah and the last four kings of Judah, there is a big contrast. The different types of political arrangements, the idolatry, along with

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the states of social injustice were the main causes of the decay of the kingdom, which finally led to the conquest and destruction of Jerusalem in 586/587 BC [14] III. KING JEHOAHAZ At the throne of the kingdom of Judah succeeded Josiah, his son Jehoahaz, which became emperor at the age of 23, having a very short reign of only three months. The report of the chronicler describes the way Jehoahaz became king, after the death of his father, Emperor Josiah: „And the people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, and anointed him, and made him king in his father’s stead.

Jehoahaz was twenty and three years old when he began to reign; and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.”

[15] King Jehoahaz disobeyed the reforms implemented by King Josiah, his father, allowing his people to commit idolatry again. The Egyptian Pharaoh Neco asked king Jehoahaz to present himself at Riblah, in Hamat, a Syrian region, where the Egyptians had their camp, forcing him to pay a tribute to the Egyptians. [16] Because the new king was not faithful neither to God and had no political attitude favorable to the Egyptian policy, He was removed from the throne of the kingdom and replaced by his brother Jehoiachin, faithful to the Egyptian policy. The young king Jehoahaz is taken as a slave to Egypt where he will finally end his life as well: „And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his fathers had done. And Pharaoh–neco put him in bands at Riblah in the land of Hamath, that he might not reign in Jerusalem; and put the land to a tribute of an hundred talents of silver, and a talent of gold. And Pharaoh–neco made Eliakim the son of Josiah king in the room of Josiah his father, and turned his name to Jehoiakim, and took Jehoahaz away: and he came to Egypt, and died there.”[17] „Then the people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, and made him king in his father’s stead in Jerusalem.

Jehoahaz was twenty and three years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. And the king of Egypt put him

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology down at Jerusalem, and condemned the land in an hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.

And the king of Egypt made Eliakim his brother king over Judah and Jerusalem, and turned his name to Jehoiakim. And Neco took Jehoahaz his brother, and carried him to Egypt.” [18] IV. KING JOAKIM Pharaoh Necho, after he had dethroned king Jehoahaz, he put in his place his brother, Eliakim, and changed his name into Jehoiakim.

This was actually the eldest son of Josiah, but the people named as king his younger brother, Jehoahaz. But the pharaoh reversed the order, naming him as king, as a vassal of the Egyptians.

[19] This was faithful to the Egyptian policy and agreed to the tribute imposed by the Egyptians on the people. Thus Joakim son of King Josiah, became king in 609 BC and reigned until 598 BC. It is believed that King Joakim was more faithful to the Egyptian pharaoh, to whom he was a vassal, than to God. As a king Joachim was an evil, corrupt, violent and avaricious king, who imposed people unbearable taxes, first of all for covering the tribute that had to be paid to the Egyptians, but also for various grand plans of construction. Due to the moral state of the people, steadily declining, the Jewish prophets were talking about the near destruction of Jerusalem: „The prophets had begun to foretell the utter destruction of their fair city, where stood the temple built by Solomon, and where all their earthly hopes of national greatness had centered.” [20] V. KING JEHOIACHIN Jehoiachin, son of Joakim, the nineteenth King of the Kingdom of Judah, had a short reign of just three and a half months. During the second military campaign of the Babylonian Emperor Nebuchadnezzar, Jerusalem was besieged, taking as prisoners the king, his family and a lot of courtiers. In 561 BC, after 37 years of captivity, Jehoiachin received as an act of leniency the opportunity to sit at the table, dressed in royal clothes, together with the king of Babylon, Evilmerodach, Nebuchadnezzar’s successor: „And it came to pass in the seven and thirtieth year of the captivity of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, that Evil–merodach

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king of Babylon in the year that he began to reign did lift up the head of Jehoiachin king of Judah out of prison; And he spake kindly to him, and set his throne above the throne of the kings that were with him in Babylon; And changed his prison garments: and he did eat bread continually before him all the days of his life.

And his allowance was a continual allowance given him of the king, a daily rate for every day, all the days of his life.” [21] „And it came to pass in the seven and thirtieth year of the captivity of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, in the five and twentieth day of the month, that Evil–merodach king of Babylon in the first year of his reign lifted up the head of Jehoiachin king of Judah, and brought him forth out of prison, and spoke kindly unto him, and set his throne above the throne of the kings that were with him in Babylon, and changed his prison garments: and he did continually eat bread before him all the days of his life. And for his diet, there was a continual diet given him of the king of Babylon, every day a portion until the day of his death, all the days of his life.” [22] VI. THE LAST MONARCH OF THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH – KING ZEDEKIAH Zedekiah, at the age of 21 years, was seated on the throne by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar. Zedekiah was the last king on earth on Davidic line.[23] The status of the morality of the king and of the people is described by the scriptural passage as follows: „Zedekiah was one and twenty years old when he began to reign, and reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord his God, and humbled not himself before Jeremiah the prophet speaking from the mouth of the Lord.And he also rebelled against king Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God: but he stiffened his neck, and hardened his heart from turning unto the Lord God of Israel. Moreover all the chief of the priests, and the people, transgressed very much after all the abominations of the heathen; and polluted the house of the Lord which he had hallowed in Jerusalem.” [24] Kings Joachim and Zedekiah persistently rebelled against king Nebuchadnezzar, concluding all sorts of alliances with Egypt. So King Zedekiah breached the oath made before King Nebuchadnezzar at his throne

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy settlement (Ezec. 17:11-14). King Zedekiah, seemingly, maintained diplomatic contacts with Babylon (Ier. 29:3) and even went to Babylon to visit king Nebuchadnezzar (Jer. 51:59), but secretly he sent his emissaries to Egypt in order to ask help from Ofra Pharaoh, ending an alliance with him. In 588 BC, the situation seemed favorable enough to him to rebel against Babylon (2 Regi 24:20; 2 Cron. 36:13). Hearing about the situation king Nebuchadnezzar answered by sending a huge imperial army against the Jews.

When the Egyptians, according to the covenant, went out to war, in order to help King Zedekiah, Nebuchadnezzar left the Jews alone and focused to defeat the Egyptians first, considering that it is not right to fight on two fronts suddenly. During this time the prophet Jeremiah was advising King Zedekiah, to no longer put his trust in Egypt, and to surrender voluntarily to Babylon`s king, because he will return after the battle with the Egyptians. But Zedekiah, never wanted to listen. [25] There are many explanations given on King Zedekiah disobedience of the prophet Jeremiah.

First, Zedekiah disobeyed because he has not believed the message sent by God’s Prophets.

Secondly, he did not listen because he was surrounded and advised by a group of people who gave more credence to the false prophet Hananiah, the man who swayed them in false hopes and who “gave them teaching after their own lusts” (Ier. 28: 1-4) than the prophet Jeremiah. Third, king Zedekiah did not obey the prophet Jeremiah, perhaps because he was seduced by the paganism cult, which replaced during that time the true worship placed by Solomon in the Temple of Jerusalem . The book of prophet Ezekiel tells what was happening there: (1) the priests had come to burn incense to various deities “with crawling and abominable animals faces painted all over the walls (Ezec. 8:912). This fact was idolatry, condemned by divine command. (2) The servant priests worshiped seating with the face toward a certain idol and with the “back” toward the temple of God (Ezec. 8: 13-18) and (3) the priests and women brought sacrifice to the gods of Assyria, Egypt, Syria and Babylon, namely to the pagan deities.

In these rituals of pagan worship king Zedekiah wholeheartedly participates, along with his imperial court, the king proved himself to be unfaithful to God, pointing out a man of bad

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character, a liar, a breaker of vows, a perverse rebel, full of cunning against the one that sit him upon the throne, the king of Babylon. [26] After the defeat of the Egyptian army of Hophra Pharaoh, king Nebuchadnezzar returned to punish Zedekiah for the revolt. The babylonian armies besieged Jerusalem on 15 January 588 BC. until July 18, 586 BC „And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he, and all his host, against Jerusalem, and pitched against it; and they built forts against it round about. And the city was besieged unto the eleventh year of king Zedekiah.“ [27] Following the siege of the city by the Babylonians, Jews reached some unimaginable economic crisis. Shortages of food in the city were so huge that people came to eat his own children: „They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger: for these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field. The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.” [28] In the moment when the Babylonians, breaking the defense wall, broke into the city, King Zedekiah and his nobles tried to flee towards the plain of Jordan, but they were caught near Jericho. After being caught, King Zedekiah was taken to Riblah, the headquarter of the imperial army, where after being judged, has been found guilty for the revolt and was sentenced to be taken prisoner to Babylon. But the heaviest punishment for King Zedekiah was that King Nebuchadnezzar put his sons to be stabbed before him, along with all the nobles of Judah, all the officials, who advised him all the time to oppose the Babylonians and certainly not to obey. „Then the king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah in Riblah before his eyes: also the king of Babylon slew all the nobles of Judah.

Moreover he put out Zedekiah’s eyes, and bound him with chains, to carry him to Babylon.” [29] Thus with the third invasion in the kingdom of Judah, the Babylonians after taking as warprey almost everything that can be taken from Jerusalem, on August 14586 BC they tore down and destroyed the city and the famous Temple of Solomon. All the people were deported to slavery, remaining in the country only “ the small

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology and insignificant ones” and the poorest of the people: „Then Nebuzar–adan the captain of the guard carried away captive into Babylon the remnant of the people that remained in the city, and those that fell away, that fell to him, with the rest of the people that remained. But Nebuzar–adan the captain of the guard left of the poor of the people, which had nothing, in the land of Judah, and gave them vineyards and fields at the same time.” [30] CONCLUSIONS After the three military invasion of the Babylonians, from a human standpoint, all seemed lost: the country was lying in ruins, the temple was destroyed, the leaders were in exile as slaves, and Jerusalem was a rubbish heap.

Because of this state of things, the Hebrew people should have been lost in history, like other many nations who have gone through similar experiences. However God had other plans for them, giving them the hope that all was not lost yet and that a remnant would survive and return again in the country, and through this remnant, the promised covenant would be fulfilled. [31] “The dark years of destruction and death marking the end of the kingdom of Judah would have brought despair to the stoutest heart had it not been for the encouragements in the prophetic utterances of God’s messengers.

Through Jeremiah in Jerusalem, through Daniel in the court of Babylon, through Ezekiel on the banks of the Chebar, the Lord in mercy made clear His eternal purpose and gave assurance of His willingness to fulfill to His chosen people the promises recorded in the writings of Moses.

That which He had said He would do for those who should prove true to Him, He would surely bring to pass.” [32] “In the closing years of Judah’s apostasy the exhortations of the prophets were seemingly of but little avail; and as the armies of the Chaldeans came for the third and last time to besiege Jerusalem, hope fled from every heart. Jeremiah predicted utter ruin; and it was because of his insistence on surrender that he had finally been thrown into prison. But God left not to hopeless despair the faithful remnant who were still in the city. Even while Jeremiah was kept under close surveillance by those who scorned his

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messages, there came to him fresh revelations concerning Heaven’s willingness to forgive and to save, which have been an unfailing source of comfort to the church of God from that day to this. ” [33] REFERENCES [1] http://streaming.ucg.org/languages/easteuropean/

Romanian/BApart1Romanian.pdf, accesed 19.10.2015.

[2] The Holy Bible, King James Version, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, Daniel 1, 1-7, p.

1033.

[3] The Holy Bible…, 2 Kings 24, 10-16, p.517.

[4] The Holy Bible…, Ezekiel 12, 10-16, p.976.

[5] The Holy Bible…, Jeremiah 17, 24-27, pp. 904905.

[6] The Holy Bible…, Imre Tokics, Studii biblice pentru majori. Ieremia, Casa de editură Viață și Sănătate, București, 2015, p. 44.

[7] The Holy Bible…, 2 Kings 22, 1-2, pp. 512-513.

[8] Ellen G. White, Profeți și regi [Prophets and Kings], Casa de Editură Viață și Sănătate, București, 2011, p. 265.

[9] Ibidem, p. 266.

[10] Ibidem, p. 267.

[11] The Holy Bible…, 2 Kings 23, 4-15, pp. 514-515.

[12] The Holy Bible…, 2 Chronicles 34,15, p. 603 ; http://wol.jw.org/ro/wol/d/r34/lp-m/1102010141, accesed 19.10.2015.

[13] Ellen G. White, Profeți și regi [Prophets and Kings].., pp.273-274.

[14] Imre Tokics, Studii biblice pentru majori.

Ieremia..., pp. 44-45.

[15] The Holy Bible…, 2 Kings 23, 30-31, p.516.

[16] h t t p : / / b i t i m a g e . d y n d n s . o r g / r o m a n i a n / WilliamMacDonald/Romanian-Comentariul_ Biblic_Al_Credinciosului_22_2_Regi.pdf,accesed 19.10.2015.

[17] The Holy Bible…, 2 Kings 23, 32-34, p. 516.

[18] The Holy Bible…,2 Chronicles 36,1-4, p. 606.

[19] h t t p : / / b i t i m a g e . d y n d n s . o r g / r o m a n i a n / WilliamMacDonald/Romanian-Comentariul_ Biblic_Al_Credinciosului_22_2_Regi.pdf,accesed 19.10.2015.

[20] Ellen G. White, Profeți și regi [Prophets and Kings]..., p. 267.

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy [21] The Holy Bible…, 2 Kings 25, 27-30, p. 519.

[22] The Holy Bible…, Jeremiah 52, 31-34.p.957.

[23] http://wol.jw.org/ro/wol/d/r34/lp-m/1102010141,

accesed 19.10.2015.

[24] The Holy Bible…, 2 Chronicles 36,11-14, p.607.

[25] http://barzilaiendan.com/2013/06/13/42-arhivele-

regale-zedechia-un-rege-zdrobit/, accesed 18.10.2015.

[26] http://barzilaiendan.com/2013/06/13/42-arhiveleregale-zedechia-un-rege-zdrobit/, accesed 18.10.2015.

[27] The Holy Bible…, 2 Kings 25, 1-2. pp. 517-518.

[28] The Holy Bible…, Lamentations, 4, 9-10, p.962.

[29] The Holy Bible…, Jeremiah 39, 6-7, p. 936.

[30] The Holy Bible…, Jeremiah 39, 10-11 , p.936.

[31] Imre Tokics, Studii biblice pentru majori. Ieremia..., p.52.

[32] Ellen G. White, Profeți și regi [Prophets and Kings]..., p. 320.

[33] Ibidem, p. 321.

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The Changing Nature of Faith Based Insurgence in Uganda since 1986 Kyeyune Ahmed, PhD

Faculty of law and social sciences Jobkey University Mogadishu-Somalia ahmedchuni14@gmail.com

Abstract: This paper looks at the way religious based insurrections change in order to survive. In this change the religious values they proclaim end being violated while the people they want to liberate become their victims. In to survive these groups end up collaborating with the very followers of faiths they regard disbelief. This somehow creates a problem of understanding terrorists, their motives and that of their supporters. In addition, this paper shows that reasons for the rise of these movements were not religious and the solution equally is not religious but political.

Keywords: Mfecane,1 Nyabingi2, puritans, military, faith based violence

I. INTRODUCTION The year 1986 was a turning point in the history of Uganda. Since 1962 when the country gained independence from Britain, it was ruled harshly by leaders from north Uganda (Milton Obote, Idi Amin Dada) until Yoweri Museveni, from the south of the country seized power in 1 a term used in history of south and central Africa to describe the disastrous effects of the Shaka wars.

2 a form of cult movement in southwestern Uganda in the early 20th century.

1986 eighties, also by force [Royo, 2008]. This not only ended the northern leadership but also control of the very institution on which these regimes based their power that is the army.

The new rulers from the south were ethnic Bantu and Anglican protestant while the last of the rulers from the north were Luo and Roman Catholic3. Ethnicity and religion are two powerful constituencies in Uganda’s politics determining not only who to support but also who to punish at the end of the regime. Resentment from north against the Southern ruler was not surprising but it’s religious nature was not expected.

There is no doubt on the intertwining between religion and politics in Uganda. Right throughout history since pre-colonial period, religion has played a major role in politics. The coming of foreign religions and the religious wars that followed, showed how religion could influence a political change. In the colonial period traditional religion was a major variable in resistance wars while Christianity played the role of conformity. Almost all resistors sought 3 Uganda has two major ethnic groups Bantu and Luo. Majority of Bantu tribes are found in the south of the country while majority of the Luo are found in the north of the country. In terms of religion the country is largely

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th e Dia l o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and T heology blessings of traditional gods like Nakayima4 in the case of Kabalega while in others like the Nyabingi in western Uganda the gods commanded. In the post-colonial period, many people have looked at religion as divisive political liability-an aspect of traditionalism that should go away as modernization takes hold. Despite this negative attitude, religion continues to occupy space in local and international politics.

Religious leaders and religions have been blessed by certain regimes but have also fallen victims of Uganda’s political excesses.5 In postcolonial Uganda, it is only during the NRM period that religion has been used to militarily challenge the state. Since the coming of NRM to power in 1986, there have many uprisings but two of these and with religious component has stayed.

The ‘Islamist’ Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) in western Uganda and the Holy Spirit Movements in northern Uganda. Both started as puritan movements, but with time they became part of Africa’s most impure and brutal machines. They have largely remained local insurgent groups against the government of Uganda though they now largely operate from outside the country.

The Holy Spirit Movement and later LRA caused their own ‘Mfecane’ in northern Uganda which it later spread to Congo, South Sudan and Central African Republic. The Islamists (ADF) progressed from simple religious reformers into dangerous force. What explains this religious warrior behaviour? What is common and uncommon between these two uprisings? It is important to recognize that what gives rise to terrorism may be different from what perpetuates terrorism over time. This comparative study intends to show the changing nature of terror organizations. Religious movements start as simple puritans, usually addressing the spiritual and leadership gaps in the society. They also in the beginning try to impose strict socio-religious code to their followers but they get influenced by realities of war and abandon the religious code to turn into brutal machines.

4 Nakayima was a female medium at shrine in mid west Uganda.

5 The most vivid example is archbishop Luwum who was killed during Amin’s regime.

II. Towards understanding faith based violence Our increasing interest both academic and non-academic in understanding and finding solutions to faith based terrorism has not yielded the much needed solutions leave on reliable knowledge on the subject. Much of this interest has focused on Islam and Muslims and the results have been too often narrative, condemnatory, and prescriptive. Some scholars have narrowed on monotheistic religions of being prone to violence due their tendency to dichotomize society into believers and nonbelievers, between us and them. However a close look shows that all religions of the world have at one time sanctioned violence and history is full of wars fought either in name of religion or with religious blessings.6 It is also a common assumption that traditional polytheistic religions were peaceful and that there were no religious wars in Africa before coming of monotheism.

However much there were no of religious wars that alone is not evidence of lack of warrior tradition in tradition polytheism. The political role of religion in pre-colonial Africa where there was no distinction between the church and state, extended to war. In almost all African traditional religions, there was a god or deity for war whose blessings were usually sought before going to war. In pre-colonial period traditional religions were used to maintain the statusquo while in colonial period they were used in defense of traditional systems in what came to known as African resistance wars. The highly religious man in traditional Africa had spiritual explanation on every event and had no time or even courage to doubt the gods of others. In many cases the tendency was to add on new gods from other societies. Gods were used by combatants to provide bravery and disorganize opponents. This role of religion has not changed much.

III. The rise of Puritanism In his Muqadimmat, Ibn Khaludun identifies the social feeling ‘assabiya’ as an important tool to use in building a constituency of those discontented with a political regime. According to him, religion other than any other factor can 6 Armstrong argues that fundamentalism, is not confined to the great monotheisms.

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology provide a strong feeling. The surge in cultural based violence brings this discarded theory into use. While it is true that history does not repeat itself as Ibn Khalidun assumed, social identities and feelings are once again on the rise as the failures of modernization appear more visible in developing countries. In most developing countries the failure of modernization has fixed cleavages on ethnic and religious identities.

In formation phase, movements are built on calamity or social problem which is interpreted as Gods punishment or divine indifference. End of times becomes a common sermon in which the faithful are warned of the pending hell punishment. The way to Gods favor is purity which not only draws a boundary between the followers and others but also creates a feeling that their special status is gateway to heavens and God’s intervention on their behalf in the temporal.

The rise of Muslim extremism can be traced to events of the 1980s with the fall of Amin’s regime. The fall of Idi Amin left Muslims in trouble with worst cases in western Uganda where it came close to genocide.7 The fall had two effects (a) attacks on Muslims which the new government then showed little interest to stop (b) leadership vacuum which provided a fertile ground for resurrection of leadership wrangles. Muslims were deeply divided between supporters of Sheikh Obeid Kamulegeya and Sheikh Kassim Mulumba and this division gradually shook the legitimacy of the old guards.

8 It was this period of confusion that saw the rise of puritan preaching starting with Sheikh Mawlana Zziwa Kizito9. While the first was an internal weakness of the Muslim community, the second one represented a internationalization taking advantage of the weaknesses in the former. The more the old guards quarreled amongst themselves, the more puritans gained ground. The puritan targeted not only innovated behavior (bidi’a) but also corrupt leadership.

Although there was fierce preaching, the target was limited to fellow Muslims which was 7 Amin was the first Muslim to be a president of Uganda (1972-1979).

8 The two were clerical leaders each leading a faction of Muslims.

9 Sheikh ZZiwa was a Pakistan trained cleric who introduced Islamic extremist reforms in Uganda.

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probably because they were still few or because they feared the state brutal machine of the time.

If the fall of Amin created problems for the Muslims, then the fall of Okello regime in 1986 left an indelible mark of guilty in the minds of Acholi.10 This was because of several reasons: (a) the Acholi people were accused of the excesses of the post-Amin regimes (b) they accused of betraying Obote (c) It was missed opportunity for Catholics and Acholis to rule11. Alice Auma who claimed to receive command from Holy Spirit ‘Lakwena’ offered a spiritual solution.

The calamity that befall the Acholis was Gods punishment for their sinful past for which they had to repent and be cleansed.

In the first phase of the Holy Spirit Movement under Alice Auma, the movement carried religious image as Acholi people understood it; synthesis between traditionalism and Catholicism. After all such a mix was and still is a common thing in Africa’s religious landscape. Starting her war on witchcraft and paganism, Auma soon widen the scope to include regime change.

IV. Puritanism and the rise of the insurgence To what extent were the insurrections religiously inspired? The fact that fundamentalism cuts across all the major religions suggests that it stems from other reasons than purely religious, such as social instability, cultural transformations, and upheavals within value systems. In other words, the insecurity that feeds fundamentalism is itself socially generated.

The Muslim puritans took long to change from preaching to armed insurrection compared the Holy spirit movement. It was not until the government forces stopped their violent takeover of the Muslim headquarters that they started an armed insurrection. At Buseruka in western Uganda, they carried the Muslim identity and Islamic teachings could have been at the core of the organization. There were no 10 Okello Tito was a president of Uganda (July 1985-January 1986). He belonged to the Acholi tribe.

Acholi is a Luo tribe in northern Uganda and majority are Roman Catholics.

11 For more on the fears of Acholi people see Refugee Law Project Working Paper No. 11.

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy records of brutality either to civilians or in their own ranks.

On the other hand in the northern Uganda Alice Auma quickly changed from mere cleansing to armed insurrection a change she attributed to the indiscipline of government forces.

There was fear among the Acholi people of deliberate persecution and possible extinction by government forces. In mid-1986, Alice Auma Lakwena set up the Holy Spirit Mobile Forces (HSMF) as the armed of the movement to fight government forces. In addition to cleansing Auma equipped with a strict moral code to ensure them victory through divine assistance and cooperation of nature.12 As shall be seen later none of the two groups had a religious grievance at the start of the violence.

V. From utopian Puritanism to realities The change from puritans counting on divine intervention to ordinary fighters counting on their military abilities brings in a lot questions. In the first place movement leaders realized that limit of the religious codes, the need to expand their bases, the need increase their recruits, the need for financial help and others needs that a military should have to survive and even to record victory.

Early of phase during Alice Auma, the unreliability of divine intervention was soon exposed as scores and scores of fighters were left dead on the battlefront. Although this was initially blamed on their failures to abide the code of conduct, the fleeing of Alice Auma herself marked the end of Puritanism. On dealing with Kony and LRA, Jackson [2010] considered the ideology of the LRA, which casts Kony as a quasimystic seeking to justify and sustain a violent conflict with the Ugandan state. Based on the self-identification of the Acholi as a loser group, Kony invented a quasi-religion based on the idea that the Acholi are victims not only of Museveni’s political vindictiveness but also of stronger cosmological forces, requiring a strategy based not just on violent struggle against the state but also repentance and internal cleansing Jackson 12 I was once told by one of the government soldier, Holy spirit forces used to tell them when they are to attack and they indeed used to keep time.

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[2010]. However it be noted that Repentance and internal cleansing was at the very beginning the core of the Holy Spirit Movements as an initiation process and Kony could have used it immediately after taking over from Alice Auma.

What befell the Acholis who are also largely Catholic was attributed to God’s anger which required repentance. But what Kony displayed in later period is a warrior taken by the war violating the very creed that the Holy Spirit movement professed to promote.

In these changing circumstances, brutality became more and more evident replacing the reliability on divine intervention. The objective of the brutality has been likened to other terrorist known objective of bad publicity being better than no publicity at all. Atrocities by LRA have a number of different purposes but that they served in particular as a form of “population control” designed to scare the civilian population away from working against LRA interests. This population control is exercised both against individuals and against whole communities as a form of “collective punishment”. As such the violence of the LRA serves specific purposes in the group’s attempt to avoid defeat in a highly asymmetrical war [Olsen, 2007].

The Allied Democratic Forces have not been very different. Although the intensity of violence has been less compared to LRA, the force has left behind a trail destruction both in Uganda and Congo. There has been extensive However things changed during Kony’s leadership and the number of volunteers dwindle forcing Kony to resort to abductions. The same appears with Muslims.

The collapse Muslim religious institutions at the fall Amin and the collapse of catholic institutions at the fall of UNLA junta provided gaps for fundamentalism to rise in the two different areas. Indeed in the beginning they claim to do what traditional churches have failed to do. However as the violence progresses they realize that divine intervention to give them a quick and easy victory is not coming.

VI. Regional politics and the survival of faith based violence The later part of these wars can better explained by financier-insurgent relationship

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology thesis. To survive, these groups became proxy actors appeasing their masters to attract continued flow of support. For Kony to keep the Sudan support flowing he had to show evidence by keeping the Uganda security busy. Whereas it true that Kony has used terror for population measures such mutilation of suspected state collaborators, closer look at Kony’s war shows interest beyond scaring possible state collaborators but varied objectives. Likewise, civilians were victimized in order that the ADF could keep their outside funding. Atrocities become a kind accountability to financiers.

The regional politics account for much of the survival of this religious based violence. In the post-cold war era many states have increasingly found easy morally and economically to use nonstate actors. In typical Machiavellian style of the end justifies the means, they ally with any group that weaken their present enemy. This explains Islamist Sudan support to Lord’s resistance army which is ‘christain’ or Mobutu’s support to Islamist ADF. VII. The future of faith-based insurrection Both movements ADF and LRA have been forced out of Uganda but still active. Whereas LRA has failed to reached Uganda since 2006, ADF continues to infiltrate Uganda. The ADF has been linked to the recent wave of assassinations of top Muslim clerics. In adaptability, ADF has shown more flexibility than LRA. In Congo, ADF is involved in several economic activities to ensure its survival.13 Troop recruitment and retention are also other worries. Both groups have been hit hard by defections and death reducing their military capacity. Without abilities to abduct which was the major source of recruits, both groups have been affected by dwindling numbers of fighter. LRA still abducts a few but ADF has had to change its requirement to recruit non-Muslim Congolese who now make 60% of its troops. This indiscriminate recruitment has further impacted to their religious commitment and attitude towards the outside world. Will there be a period when the two groups will realize that they can accommodate and be accommodated?

Conclusion This has been an attempt to show the changing nature of religious based insurgence.

Whereas the rebellions started under different circumstance, they both emphasized religion in the beginning but changed to methods of survival as circumstances demanded. What was a religious movement slowly lost it’s colors, violated the very religious rules it initially stood for and victimized the very people it intended to liberate. Relaxing recruiting rules further affect the identity both religious and ethnic. Regional politics plays an important role in the survival of terror groups and indeed these groups have been supported by people belonging to different religions. Being that poor conflict management appears at the beginning of both rebellions, improvement of conflict management and inclusive politics will go a long way in solving the problem of faith based insurrections.

Bibliography [1] Amone, C. 2014.“Rejecting the Masculinity of

[2]

[3] [4]

[5]

War: Was Alice Auma Lakwena Spirit Movement the Messiah of the Acholi?” Journal of Human and Social Science research Vol. 4, No. 1 (2014), 01-07 webpage: http://www.oricpub.com/hssr-journal Behind The Violence:Causes, Consequences And The Search For Solutions To The War In Northern Uganda, Refugee Law Project Paper No. 11 Plot 9, Perrymans Garden, Old Kampala Website: www. refugeelawproject.org Heike,B. Alice Lakwena and the Holy Spirits, Fountain Publishers, Kampala (1999).

Jackson, P. Politics, Religion and the Lord’s Resistance Army in Northern Uganda, Working Paper 43 of Religions and Development Research Programme. International Development Department, University of Birmingham, 2010.

Royo, J.M. War and peace scenarios in northern Uganda, Nº 6 of Peacebuilding Papers (QUADERNS DE CONSTRUCCIÓ DE PAU),www.escolapau.org.

13 By the time Jamil Mukulu, the head of the was captured in Tanzania he was suspected to be running several businesses including selling cars.

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Contemporary challenges to the Church Mission from the perspective of post-modern art and technology Gheorghe ISTODOR, Professor PhD Faculty of Theology “Ovidius” University Contanta - Romania pr_george_istodor@yahoo.com

Abstract: The secular challenges coming from postmodern art and postmodern technology constitute a serious challenge to be addressed by the mission and life of the Church. The distortion of the Christian Orthodox teaching and the blasphemous trends coming from the contemporary art scene is adding to the distortion of man as God’s special creation from the point of view of genetic engineering, biotechnology, and artificial intelligence, as the core elements of God’s empowerment of man through technology.

Keywords: postmodern art, genetic engineering, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, eugenics, cloning, artificial insemination

I. INTRODUCTION The Church’s mission represents the dimension of a living and dynamic ecclesial Mystical Body of Christ, a landmark of the life and work of every living and confessing Christian.

The period we are going through is called, by the secular heterodox experts, as one postpostmodern and post-Christian alike [1].

The challenge that comes from this reality, which surpasses both Christianity and even

post-modernism, is identified at a manifestation level, with secularism, materialism and with atheist accents. Secularization, as an abysmal rupture of man from God, is the beginning of an empowerment process of man in relation to his Creator since the Renaissance. Human autonomy is seen in Eastern patristic tradition as “cause and content of sin [2],” and it affects humans throughout all aspects of his life. Thus, through his own reasoning, self- declared as autonomous, man does not recognize God as Trinity, as being transcendent and immanent alike, does not recognize Him as,The Creator, CARER, The Saviour or The Sanctifier. And his rebellion against God extends to the Church of God from the divine creation. The latter is marginalized or even eliminated from the public arena, it is devalued at a message level and as an interlocutor for secular institutions today; and when it fails to silence it, an attempt is made to slander it , treating it as an outdated institution from medieval times, an institution that is an obstacle in the development and happiness of contemporary man.

The autonomy process is not concerned just with the spiritual powers but also with somatic aspects. Thus, in man’s sensory dimension, his feelings are no longer guided and enlightened by the work of the Holy Spirit, but they are

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology perverted and affect the body that ceases to be the “temple of the Holy Spirit” (I Cor 6, 19). But a reality now pervades, where the most disgusting passions are manifested, a reality which leads to the degeneration of man and of humankind.

Man’s autonomy is also pursued through sexual emancipation based on secular sexual pseudoeducation, so in the name of diversity, nondiscrimination and “human rights”, the atheist and materialist man also becomes hedonistic.

This means that he declares himself , feels and becomes an annex of the sensual pleasure; all these degenerations are identified with God’s calling to the secular man. Sexual autonomy, beyond the frightening perversions, (homosexuality, lesbianism, prostitution, pornography, bestiality, necrophilia, etc.), includes also gender-change, (trans-genetic biotechnologies, sex change operations), which is a sign that contemporary man sends a message of “omnipotence” to God Almighty.

Secularization directly includes three phenomena as true adverse consequences for man today: here we talk about desecration, de-Christianization and religious indifference [3]. At the same time we have two phenomena that show the influence of secularization on those who resist and want to have a religious identity: it is the pseudo-religious syncretism [4] and the sectarian phenomenon [5], as secular alternatives to genuine religiosity.

This study will focus on the challenges coming from the sphere of arts and technologies of contemporary postmodern period II. Challenges to Church Mission from contemporary arts and modern technologies For modern man, aggression, confusion and error regarding the meaning and purpose of life as derived from current secularism have become realities that increase the risk that man would succumb in this universe. The risk was that man would beng transformed from God’s magnificent creation and His gift for eternal salvation, rest and communion with The Holy Trinity, into a necropolis, a source of spiritual, biological and eternal human death. Human confusion is increased by the changes that occur in areas that were originally intended for human

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transfiguration, as splendid remedies against the danger of decline in the state of carnal or instinctual man, such as art and technology.

Although, according to Latin (art artis) and Greek (τεχνη, ης) etymology,art and technology were intertwined and had a calling especially in the rational sphere of searches of the meaning of the world, by the most competent, renowned and famous people. According to ancient societies – the philosophers, as scientific people–in time art and technology will form distinct domains, the first remaining in the vocational area , being marked by creativity and expressiveness, the second integrating itself strictly in the scientific field, where research and progress are the ultimate goal, to improve the life of modern, post-modern and present man. We will concentrate particularly on the challenges coming from the sphere of modern technology because this area is fundamental to human life, the quality and comfort of this life so appreciated by man today.

Modern and post-modern art have completely lost their purpose from the moment they relinquished divine inspiration as a sign of God’s presence and work in His creation. Art has ceased to be the state of “divine grace” where man surpasses himself by becoming a “creator” of values, engaged in a personal and constructive dialogue with the Creator and Maker of everything. The vocational fruits of the Christian artist can be seen in the emotions accompanying the description of human nature, in nature as God’s creation, with deep meanings, creation that exceeds the limitation given by the exclusively material dimension. “The fruits” of the modern artist, especially of the post-modern one are to be found in blasphemous acts, very harmful to the contemporary religious man.

We must affirm that nowadays, in the name of so-called post-modern art, (which may include all social sciences: literature, poetry, theatre, film, music, sculpture, painting, etc.), the most horrible blasphemies against fundamental Christian beliefs are committed. We will confine ourselves to only two examples: 1) Alina Pippidi’s play with profoundly blasphemous characters entitled, “The Evangelists” [6], where the Saviour is shown next to the Apostles, not as ordinary people, but rather as people overwhelmed by existential and instinctual problems; and the second example concerns The

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy Romanian Cultural Institute’s exhibitions –which aimed to make Romanian culture known in the world, and were present in Munich for Western Europe and in New York for North America. The works presented showed revelation elements of the Prophet Moses, as well as the crucifixion of the Saviour, in the light of sexual decadence in the spirit of today’s pagan neo- vitalism and revived hedonism. On the other hand the Virgin Mary was shown in a mocking and despicable manner dressed as a janitor. These examples underline the cruel reality in which we live today, where we cannot accuse anyone of trampling all over our souls by mocking our defining religious values; , because secular law interprets them as being only artistic works and creations.

Regarding the great challenges that come from the current area of technologies, we must first clarify some important points. The Orthodox Church does not in any way demonize technology and technological progress, it was not, is not and will not be against technological progress, but it does urge its management by a large, important and effective virtue, that of spiritual and intellectual discernment. If we think of the slippages coming from the area of current technologies, we would not wrong to say that there is an indispensable need for another major spiritual virtue - the gift of discerning the spirits.

Apostle John the Evangelist, who first received the title of theologian, in his Revelation he speaks of “the beast’s seal” on the forehead and right hand [7] ... at the end of the fourth century. Another great Father of the Church St. John Chrysostom – does a wonderful and profound exegesis of this prophetic and allegoric text of Saint John the Theologian, showing that it is not an external element applied to the forehead and right hand, but something from within. The forehead means the human mind, which can be “sealed” through thoughts, doctrines, concepts, foreign to the revelation of God and any form of acceptance or complacency of man with these temptations from the Lord’s Enemy, which means a separation from God and an attachment to deception. So it is with the “mark” of the beast on his right hand, which shows man’s activity which can lead either to their transfiguration or their degeneration. The sign on the right hand would rather show the action being associated to God’s Enemy against

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God, which is equivalent to human demonization and loss of salvation. In other words, there would be an ideologist and a perpetrator who works on behalf of God’s Enemy and man has been warned through the Scriptures not to be deceived by the false “offer” of their deification.

We make these remarks in order to firmly distinguish us from all hysterical and irrational interpretations of some ministers of the Church who see external signs, (health card, biometric passports), as the quintessence of the danger of losing salvation. However, we should note that there is a challenge in the field of contemporary technology, which can affect the mind through the brain. It is about the chip discovered at Harvard and implemented in the brain by a team of scientists, including a Romanian [8], who pretended that that would help us to make good decisions. Also in the cases of people who suffer of depression and have suicidal tendencies, as well as those suffering from senile dementia or who had strokes. Beyond this new reality from the field of neuro-surgery, the major problem remains the great potential manipulation of man through this chip. A fact recognized by the Romanian scientist, who declined his competence, especially the responsibility, from the sphere of science in the sphere of politics and contemporary ethics, which are responsible for the development and implementation of a legislation that would prevent manipulation.

Another challenge from the sphere of contemporary technology is the attempt to extend, at any cost, life in the flesh; the meaning and purpose of life is valued only through the material dimension of existence, a sign that materialistic and naturalistic ideologies have achieved their goal. The hope, in this endeavour, lies in contemporary genetics which would manage to extend by ten, hundreds or even thousands of years human life [9]. In fact, we are dealing with an imitation of the Church’s immortality, but in a strictly terrestrial paradigm; a relevant sign for us to understand,is who is in the shadow of such an approach, the imitator, deceiver and Enemy of God. But the most important challenge in the field of technologies comes from the area of multibillionaires from Silicon Valley, who are investing in the so-called, “artificial intelligence”, and are looking to acquire immortality, without

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology God, in a new species [10], a hybrid composed of man and robot which would practically mean the end of “homo-sapiens”. Increasingly more contemporary scholars recognize this as actually being a, “homo religious “.

In fact there are two new species: one coming from the field of genetic engineering and biotechnology and the other coming from the field of artificial intelligence. First let’s define the terms: genetic engineering manipulates genes and chromosomes, biotechnology manipulates the whole nucleus, the embryo and the whole cell. Artificial engineering is achieved through the artificial synthesis of genes by gene transfer.

The artificial synthesis of genes is carried out by reverse transcription between RNA messenger as model for DNA. The most famous artificial genes are, the growth hormone and insulin genes, fundamental to the people suffering from dwarfism or diabetes.This process leads to transgenic or genetically modified organisms such as Escherichia coli bacteria, able to produce human hormones - such as the Humulin converted into insulin as diabetic medicine-, or other human hormones – that determine growth in dwarfs. Transgenic organisms have been created in both plants and animals, with great advantages in the economic sphere [11].

The transfer of genes leads to the emergence of chimeras which are organisms that exhibit a somatic mosaic, (mice with different coloured body parts or sheep that had body parts with goat hair). If chimeras do not have a useful application for people [12], gene therapy from stem cells, on the other hand, can be of great help for people, those with leukaemia to give just one example [13].

In the field of biotechnology two fields are highly popular: artificial insemination as a remedy for infertile women, and cloning seen as major challenge for future humanity. With the first one the Church is in accord, because neither is the law broken, nor God’s will defied, and the phenomenon is already occurring within divine creation. As far as the second one is concerned, the Church is categorically against it, as it defies the rules of God, and the final “product” of cloning is not something that could be obtained through normal reproduction. The descendant does not have two parents, a father and a mother, but a replica that is not in God’s plan.

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After the famous cloning of the sheep Dolly, the risk of human cloning became a reality, which led to the establishment of a global moratorium, regarding state funding for research in this direction [14]. Furthermore, abortion, euthanasia and eugenics, especially, fall in the sphere of harmful biotechnologies. If abortion and euthanasia are criminal aggressions against the defenceless - the unborn child who is preparing to come into this life – for abortion, and the powerless elderly that wait to go into eternal life, regarding euthanasia. Eugenics, on the other hand, is presented by the Godless scientists as part of contemporary man’s atheist future, it is a pseudoscience, because it doesn’t have its own theoretical system, but it is more an application onto man, relying on other sciences, having as its own only the philosophical vision. Eugenics proposes that man should be treated like an animal, and methods of genetic improvement on animals could be applied to humans; this means that humans should be subject to selection like all animals; more precisely eugenics means eliminating human reproduction (the correct term would be procreation). Radical eugenicists propose sterilization of people with problems, (intellectual or loco-motor disability), while moderate eugenicists propose state interference into people’s mating processes without selection. Selection is an expression of the belief that man alone with his intelligence is responsible for all progress, therefore eugenics aims to make man more intelligent and rid society of those that are less intelligent.

People talk about eugenics as an ideologised science,, about the emergence of a new species based on genetic manipulation, a species shown to have almost limitless options. Theoretically, any gene in the DNA of any species can be extracted and introduced into the human genome. Thus, the man of the future could have excellent vision at night, an impressive agility, and ability to breathe underwater, etc; on the other hand, the animals would also acquire human traits, (ie laboratory mice have colour vision like people). It is a drastic change in the human genome, so that within a current species, given that the transmissibility of genes to offspring shows no promise of success, there are high concerns that these genetic manipulations could lead to irreversible alteration of the entire humankind, and not the human species the way

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy Darwin defined it.

Ideological propaganda is so widespread that genetic manipulation is presented as the key to the emergence of a world without wars, in the sense of making man less bloodthirsty, less hostile and more flexible in thinking [15].

Returning to super-man as a supergenius, naturally their share is about 3 to one million people, a percentage sufficient for human progress in all areas. The new atheist secular perspective promotes, in the name of science, through genetic engineering, the genetic technology called, “Human germline engineering”. This technology is supported by teams of scientists, many Nobel Prize winners [16], and it deals with the prenatal change of children’s genes passed to children, through the manipulation of embryos, (it is a bio-technology), from the earliest stages of development. Thus, an anticipated outlining of body shapes, of a man’s lifespan, of personality and induction of super-intelligence, are the goals aimed at [17].

The hope is that in this way in a few centuries mankind will be divided into two different species: the super-humans [18] (called The Genrich Class) and the sub-humans (called The Natural Class). This hypothesis was made by Lee Silver, a geneticist at Princeton University in his book “Remaking Eden: Cloning Beyond Dud in the Brave New World” for the year 2350 AD [19].

If we evoked earlier the emergence of a new species with the aid of genetic engineering and biotechnology, we must say that people today try to posit the idea that there will be a new species of non/trans-humans on behalf of artificial intelligence. Thus we deal with some dangerous, enterprising and ambitious youngsters, who are eager to dominate the world and are collectively called “the people from Silicon Valley”.For them, laws, international law, the court, parliaments as well as religious and moral standards are nothing more than artificial barriers to be removed. Their model is similar to Genghis Khan who conquered the world by the sword, while they want to conquer it by technology [20]; their religion is technology, their optimism is represented by technological fantasies. These young people, (a few hundred), live in Silicon Valley - a valley 80 km south of San Francisco –have anarchist tendencies and are extremely gifted, intelligent and extremely technologically savvy. They

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proclaim themselves as the “new masters of the universe”. Their ultimate motivation is to identify and change the way people think, live and organize themselves socially. The “Silicon Valley” religion wants to replace the “religion” of Wall Street, they want to substitute money with technology. We even have a “prophet” of this ideology, Ray Kurzwell, a 67 year old Google employee, who wrote an article, “How Silicon Valley shapes our future”, and who claims that by 2029 robots will achieve the same level of functionality as humans. He also defines the process by which robots and humans will become one –the singularity. His belief in technology is so radical that he believes that he will live forever. He founded “Singularity University” as an alternative to the current American university system. We should also mention Sebastian Thurm, (Director of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at Stanford), and Peter Theef, as other prominent representatives of this technoideology. They are also called “tech guys” and they foretell the end of hominid “species”, and life without death as targets, by implementing artificial intelligence into the human brain. Thus, through making technology, homo-technology and transformation of technology into a creed or religion will lead to the end of human species, life without death, by tackling the interface between the human brain and computers. This point will be the terminus of history, of the human biological existence, human life will enter into an inorganic space marked by ignorance, uncertainty and non-imagination. The human brain together with the robot will form a new creature, thus we have now a real scenario of the future human being merged into the technological emptiness.

The person who states - not necessarily promotes - this scenario related to the end of history, of humankind, through the murder of “homo sapiens” and his redefinition into a new species, is Yaval Noah Harari, a historian who has written a book “Sapiens, a Brief History of Human Kind “. He acknowledges that there is a major difficulty, making surgical changes at brain level, as the brain is very sensitive and it reacts negatively and aggressively to any alien object, which it rejects.

The robot is assumed to have artificial intelligence through human’s work, but has no conscience, the robot is not self-aware. What

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology scientists call conscience, theologians, the soul, and philosophers or psychologists, the psyche, is missing in a robot. The new creature hopes to have the artificial intelligence as reason from robots and the conscience, soul or psyche from man or from human brain.

Harari forecasts that this process of formation of the new hybrid species will last around 500 years or will not happen at all. It goes so far as to speak of salvation through technology, eternal life gained also through technology, man becoming a new being. Robotization of society in the XXI century will make “homo sapiens” useless, outdated, with no purpose. The new robotic economy will produce skeletons in which bodies of gray matter will be stored.

Death of the new creature will no longer be due to old age or disease, but technical malfunction.

It is believed that the technological progress of the last 200 years would be the main cause for the collapse of family, marriage and Christian values, which would lead to the conclusion that technology, would actually be number one enemy of current human morals and values.

Let’s use as example: Japan where family and marriage are replaced by the welfare state as a guarantor of man’s material and spiritual welfare. The new religion of mankind’s future will be centred on technology as a new “god”, worshiped by the new hybrid creature; a future without technology is unimaginable, being tied to death.

Conclusions The threats against the church’s mission and life of the Christian in the XXI century, threats that come from the arts and technology fields, are quite serious even if some of them seem rather utopian. A new Tower of Babel is being erected, a tower through which the independent and self-sufficient men claim that they can ignore, defy and substitute The Living God of Christian Revelation. If the challenges coming from the arts lead man toward blasphemy, those coming from the field of genetic engineering, biotechnology or artificial intelligence show that scientific ideology should be treated with the utmost seriousness and understanding, from a missionary perspective. The dreams of the autonomous and scientific man, to substitute

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man with new non/trans-human species show that man, in his foolishness, has come to believe that he is some sort of demiurge, the creator of monstrosities and chimeras. Thus, through his fall, man does not want to know, nor accept that there are limits to scientific knowledge - be it material sciences, (Plank’s wall), or life sciences,(spontaneous generation as chimera).

This reality is confessed by the great Christian scholar Alexander Mironescu. In his hatred and rebellion against God, the desecrated and deChristianized man is not only proclaiming the “death of God” through Nietzsche’s voice, but he is also killing man as “homo sapiens”, through these actions committed in the name of science and technology; in reality man is dehumanizing and consequently destroying himself.

reference [1] See in this sense the deconstructivist philosophy,

especially Gianni Vatimo (Sfarsitul modernitatii.

Nihilism si hermeneutica in cultura ostmoderna, Pontica, Constanta, 1993) and Jacques Derrida (Spectrele lui Marx, Polirom 1999) [2] Pr.Univ.Prof.PhD. Gheorghe Istodor, Misiunea Bisericii ca activitate permanenta si practica a Bisericii, Sigma, Bucharest, 2006, p 138 [3] The de-Christianization of the West occurred slowly and imperceptibly. There is a convergence of the deliberate, systematic and brutal deChristianization from Europe. “The phenomenon is complex and has been felt since the Enlightenment period. The great people of European culture had ceased their contact with the living sources of Christianity. One of the manifestations of this interruption is the very various attempts of “rationalization” of Christianity. The causes are multiple, from the disparagement of the official Christianity through the European religious wars, to the conflict between intellectuals and clergy.

One could draw up a long list of thinkers and men of letters who no longer had any interest in the central ideas of Christianity and, if they still had a mystic sense (mystical intuition) they have turned to other sources of inspiration: Oriental, Masonic etc. In our era the process of de-Christianization found great supporters in Freud and Marx.

Religious indifference reveals itself to the world as a less aggressive and popular facet of the broader

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy atheist trend, but it enjoys a larger spread and a far greater popularity among the masses than its more militant expression. Desecration is the gradual loss of his religious character given to man by God at creation.

[4] Religious syncretism wants to combine elements from different systems of thinking, different religions, which are often antagonistic.

[5] Deep psychological elements help the confessing Christian to realize the danger of nowadays sectarianism, to understand that we live during times which are marked by pseudo-religious alternatives to the true faith and religiosity, but also a time marked by superficiality and relativism in the name of religiosity. Thus, with the help of orthodox psychology, the contemporary Christian will acquire the gift of discerning the spirits and an indispensable “spiritual discernment” thus he will better understand the complex universe of apostasy from the communion with The Living and Eternal One and will become a true apologete for true faith.

Then the missionary Christian will better manage the relationship between prevention and treatment or management of pseudo-religious challenges.

[6] It was published in the volume “Apres la censure”, Unitext, Bucharest, 1993 [7] And she forces everyone, the small and the big, the rich and the poor, the free and the slaves to put the seal on their right hand and forehead (The Apocalypse 13, 16) [8] It is professor Ioan Opris [9] See in this sense Aldous Huxley, Minunata lume noua, Polirom Iasi 2011 and George Orwell, `984 Polirom Iasi 2002 [10] See Jacques Ellul, From Human to Post-Human, Ashgate Publishing Company, USA 2006 and Francis Fukuyama, Viitorul nostru postuman, translation Mara Radulescu, Humanitas, Bucharest, 2004 [11] Genetically modified organisms are the plants (such as soybean, cotton, corn, wheat, etc ) with remarkable results against pests, but also the animals (for example scientists transferred a gene from insects to fish and thus the fish increased resistance to diseases has been increased). Apud Prof. Dr. Ing . George Sandu ( Ieromonah Gregory ) Stiinta si credinta. Impreuna pe calea adevarului, Metropolitan Publishing House of Oltenia , Craiova, 2007 , pp . 269-275 [12] Chimeras reproduce themselves, but their offspring

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are identical to one of mixed forms , so the genetic intervention of man does not last. Apud Prof. Dr. Ing . George Sandu (Ieromonah Gregory ) , quote , pp . 274-275 [13] Also in the field of gene therapies, organ transplantation falls under the category of genetic engineering; this procedureis accepted by God and the Church , provided it does not endanger the donor’s life. In addition this action fulfills the Savior ‘s word: love your neighbor with your life [14] Father Gregory speaks about this moratorium as being contested, discrediting it for placing the researches underground; researches that could’ve been monitored in plain sight, as private laboratories do not encounter this hindrance. His Holiness stated that somewhere in secret human cloning has already been achieved, and that will be performed at least once anyway , because according to the prophecies of some Holy Fathers say that the Antichrist will appear in a lewd woman, imitating the way Christ came into the world, meaning from mother without a father. So it will be a clone of a lewd woman, probably a lesbian. Prof. Dr.Eng .

George Sandu (Ieromonah Gregory ), quote , pp .

282-283 [15] The source of these predictions is „Daily Galaxy” on the website www.descopera.ro [16] See comment of Petre Ţuţea, Christian philosopher, in his book “Intre Dumnezeu si neamul meu”, Anastasia Foundation , “ Graphic Art “ Publishing and Printing House, Bucharest, 1992 ; thus, Petre Ţuţea makes a comparison between an old simple woman with “ dirty feet “ who prays sincerely on her knees before the icon of Virgin Mary, and he classifies the old woman as human, unlike a atheist Nobel laureate scientist, whom he characterizes as Nobel laureate”ferret” [17] Prof. Dr. Eng . George Sandu Ieromonah Gregory), quote , pp . 298-299 [18] In this sense, F Nietzsche could be regarded as a visionary with his superman who substitutes dead God. [19] In Genrich class, which represents 10% of the American population, they all carry synthetic genes that were created in the laboratory. Genrich is a modern hereditary class of genetic aristocracy.

All aspects of the economy, the media, the industry are controlled by Genrich class members. The other 90 % (Natural Class) will be doing the poorly paid jobs as workers and suppliers. Completely separated, the two classes lose their ability to mate,

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology and the interest of one for the other will be like the one of humans to chimpanzees. Prof. Dr. Eng .

George Sandu ( Ieromonah Gregory ) , quote. , pp . 298-299 [20] Jacques Ellul , Le bluff technologique ( English translation : The Technological Bluff , William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company , 1990; Jacques Ellul , The Technological System, Continuum Publishing The Corporation , New York , 1980; Encyclopedia of Science Technology and Ethics , coordinated by Carl Mitcham , Thomson Gale , USA, 2005 volume 1

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy

Asset revaluation for scientific supersonic-like technique 1. Kazu-masa Yamada, PhD

2. Nobuaki Matsuhashi, PhD

Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (Department of Production Systems Engineering) National Institute of Technology, Hakodate College Hakodate-city, Japan e-mail: yama@hakodate-ct.ac.jp

Electrical and Computer Engineering Course (Department of Industrial Systems Engineering) National Institute of Technology, Hachinohe College Hachinohe-city, Japan e-mail: matsuhashi-e@hachinohe-ct.ac.jp

Abstract: Newly information technology tools and materials worldwide, it would not only be affordable rates but also be difficult to strengthen copyright rules.

It is also important to strengthen copyright rules.

The aim of this research is to obtain the performance using affordable information technology such as freeware virtual machine and operating system free emulator. It was concluded that even with the poor performance powered mobile-CPU build-in mobile computer, it will be completed environment that high-resolution system finally make a revival situation for scientific supersonic-like technique.

Also it is finding that the affordable virtual machine make a new grand-design future.

the other hand important to produce having a high quality presentation, publication and contribution, because of the recent high quality resolution visible environment.

Keywords: style; virtual machine, freeware, operating system, emulator, affordable rates, DOSBox, Android, MS-Windows, Ghostscript, PostScript file, PDF

I. INTRODUCTION Newly information technology tools and materials worldwide, it would not only be affordable rates but also be difficult to strengthen copyright rules among the e.g. sounds, texts and circumstances. It is also important to strengthen copyright rules on the Internet. But it is on

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Meanwhile, it was reported that many personages used via DOS programed presentation high quality tool in old days. In presented research, then the high quality DOS system is named “GP.exe” and started at fully freeware system being delivery until around 1990’s. It was began via the Internet delivery of the fully in fluently keyboard touch program which is a FTP server and satellite delivery of each university or college site through in presented year ultimately, and being able to applied worldwide.

The development of the newly computational virtual machine [1], [2] and operating system emulator [3] allowed the re-inflection of historical assets. Particularly, the data handling technology in the scientific field is one of the fields that are easy to utilize past assets again. If a notice is deep and performs the management of the computer file, it can be excavated the assets showing performance to surpass far the data handling software of the field of latest science again.

eISSN: 2393-1744, cdISSN: 2392-9928

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology Above all, the value of the re-utilization is high because there are many superior things as for the difference share and the fitting function of data and exists.

II. PROCEDURE In the experimental procedure for presented computational virtual machine, operating system emulator, the DOSBox tuned up for MS-WindowsOS, Apple-MacOS, LinuxOS and then AndroidOS as freeware has been done.

Additionally and particularly, the data handling technology in the scientific field, one of the fields that are easy to utilize past assets again, the “GP.exe” that can be excavated the assets showing performance to surpass far the data handling software of the field of latest science again has been done.

C. “aDosBox”on the Android OS On the Android 5.0 OS, in Figure 2, the title image of one of the emulators, DOSBox is a virtual machine so called Android type “aDosBox”, and accelerated scientific graphical data processor “GP.exe” even with the poor performance powered mobile-CPU build-in mobile computer.

The letter of “a” of “aDosBox” means from the letter “a” of the AndroidOS. Additionally a keyboard-function button on the upper-left corner, direction function buttons on the leftcenter and return-back buttons on the rightcenter were displayed as shown in e.g. Figure 2 respectively which is the typical function having in touchscreen type “aDosBox”. In presented research selected now on free downloaded “aDosBox” ver. 0.2.5 beta[5][6] released at 16th May 2011.

Above all, the high-resolution printing file system, PostScript-type file, a page-description language presented by Adobe Systems that offers flexible font capability and high-quality graphics, was chosen. And also high-resolution printing files system, acrobat-PDF-type file, was chosen for user friendly purpose.

D. “aDosBox”and “DOSBox” icon image In Figure 3, the icon image of one of the emulators, DOSBox including the image “aDosBox” that is a virtual machine and accelerated scientific graphical data processor “GP.exe”. Clicking of this icon makes start the DOSBox virtual machine.

III. RESULTS There are some results of this research, as listed below:

E. “DOS”command line image In Figure 4, “DOS”command line image would be shown. On the Android OS, the directry image of Android filesystem in the “aDosBox” virtual machine and the scientific graphical data processor “GP.exe” was stored in the “DOS” and “GP” directry. It would be typed letters “gp” via keyboard connected with Bluetooth Technology or screen touch, then the scientific graphical data processor GP.exe will be started.

A. Selecting a vertal machine, emulator First, it would be selected a DOSBOX series of MS-Windows DOSBox ver. 0.74 presented as Win32 installer DOSBox0.74-win32-installer.exe.

The DOSBox ver. 0.74 opening title image would be in Figure 1. On the MS-Windows OS, DOSBox is a virtual machine and accelerated scientific graphical data processor “GP.exe” [4].

B. scientific graphical data processor “GP.exe” [4] The “GP.exe” is a freeware and copyright and manufactured by Prof. Edamatsu at Tohoku University. It was clear that the “GP.exe” was able to be completely executed and also extract output file e.g. PostScript type graphic highresolution image file [4] .

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F. “GP.exe” started image, it has been just started In Figure 5, on the Android OS, the application image of DOS software in the “aDosBox” virtual machine and the scientific graphical data processor “GP.exe” has been just started.

Additionally instead of the OS of Android, it would be MacOS, LinuxOS and WindowsOS(e.g.

XP, Vista, 7, 8.1 and 10). It could be just operated fully comparable way.

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G. “GP.exe” has been just opened “sample1. gpr” file In Figure 6, on the Android OS, the scientific graphical data processor “GP.exe” application image in the “aDosBox” virtual machine and has been just opened “sample1.gpr” file. Additionally instead of the OS of Android, it could be just operated fully comparable way.

H. Just opened “sample5.gpr” colored file In Figure 7, on the Android OS, the scientific graphical data processor “GP.exe” application image in the “aDosBox” virtual machine and has been just opened colored “sample5.gpr” file. Additionally instead of the OS of Android, it could be just operated fully comparable way.

I. Just opened “sample8.gpr” with continuous function data In Figure 8, on the Android OS, the scientific graphical data processor “GP.exe” application image in the “aDosBox” virtual machine and has been just opened colored “sample8.gpr” file with continuous function data. Additionally instead of the OS of Android, it could be just operated fully comparable way.

J. Just opened “sample7.gpr” with menu “Load param(eter)s” In Figure 9, on the Android OS, the scientific graphical data processor “GP.exe” application image in the “aDosBox” virtual machine and has been just opened “sample7.gpr” file.

Furthermore, the menu “Load param(eter)s” was selected and opened the “ *.gpr ” window.

Additionally instead of the OS of Android, it would be operated fully comparable way.

K. Just opened “sample7.gpr” with listed filer “Load param(eter)s” In Figure 10, on the Android OS, the scientific graphical data processor “GP.exe” application image in the “aDosBox” virtual machine and has been just opened also “sample7.gpr” file.

Furthermore, the menu “Load param(eter) s” and directory of “SAMPLES” were selected and listed these “SAMPLE1.gpr” etc filenames.

Additionally instead of the OS of Android, it would be MacOS, LinuxOS and WindowsOS(e.g.

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XP, Vista, 7, 8.1 and 10). It could be just operated fully comparable way.

L. High-resolution print data as formatted of PostScript In Figure 11, on the Android OS, the scientific graphical data processor “GP.exe” application extracts the high-resolution print data as formatted of PostScript, as file name e.g. “DIFF_ CO. PS” was listed as shown in Android file manager. The “DIFF_CO. PS” was directly shown via “Docs Viewer” Android free PostScript viewer application. On the other hand, there isn’t any PostScript viewer free software on the MS-Windows OS. So the PostScript file must be translated into the PDF Adobe Acrobat format, in general use on MS-Windows OS. M. PostScript file viewer “Docs Viewer” application In Figure 12 and 13, on the Android OS, the scientific graphical data processor “GP.exe” application extracts the high-resolution print data as formatted of PostScript, as file name “DIFF_CO. PS” was shown as Arrhenius relations plots in Android free file viewer “Docs Viewer” application. On the other hand, there isn’t any PostScript viewer free software on the MSWindows OS. So the PostScript file must be translated into the PDF Adobe Acrobat format, in general use on MS-Windows OS. N. Translating from PostScript file to PDF, and application On the other hand, in Figure 14, because there is not means to perform image processing, on the Windows OS, regarding PostScript file format e.g. as file name “DIFF_CO. PS” that is extracted by data processor “GP.exe” application shown in Figure 12 and 13 must be replaced by PDF Adobe Acrobat format. So the PostScript file must be translated into the PDF format, in general use on MS-Windows OS. The free application Ghostscript (so called on WindowsOS, Ghostwin) was acceptable translator from PS to PDF as shown in this script.

The DIFF_CO.pdf file was extracted by this script.

Presented script was using a Ghostwin ver 9.04.

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology O. PostScript file viewer “Docs Viewer” application In Figure 14, 15, 16 and 17, the “DIFF_CO.PS” original data of data processor “GP.exe” parameter file GPR was shown. So the original data confirming process are as follows. A blackand-white typical graph layout with Arrhenius relations plots was shown as original filename of “DIFF_CO. PDF”. The picture was captured using Adobe (Acrobat) reader via “Take a snapshot mode”, then Ctrl+a, then zoom size 200%, then Ctrl+c, then using e.g. irfanview via Ctrl+v, then translation to 256-deep colored, then save as GIF format. Finally customer user can modify the high-resolution print graph as well as it would be in any way [7].

An Arrhenius relations plot on the “GP.exe” with related filename of “DIFF_CO. PDF” was shown in this figure 16. The picture was captured using “GP.exe” via Alt +g. Finally customer user can confirm live-resolution graph [7].

resolution printing system finally Adobe-PDF make a revival situation for scientific supersoniclike technique.

Finally, it is finding that the affordable virtual machine make a new grand-design future

Figure 1. On the MS-Windows OS, the title image of one of the emulators, DOSBox is a virtual machine and accelerated scientific graphical data processor “GP.exe”.

Arrhenius relations plots with the “GP.exe” displayed data confirming mode Alt+d with related filename of “DIFF_CO. PDF” was shown in Figure 17. The green colored cross-point cursor was displayed and indicated upper right corner banner using “GP.exe” via Alt+d, then “Enter”. Finally customer user can confirm liveresolution graph interactively [7], [8].

IV. DISCUSSION High-resolution printing system i.e.

Postscript and Adobe-PDF make a revival situation for scientific supersonic-like technique because of the showing the evidence presented with performances even with mobile-CPU on Android. These environments of borderless newly affordable information technology tools with virtual machine and operating system emulator would be user and assets friendly.

CONCLUSION The aim of this research is to obtain the performance using affordable information technology such as freeware virtual machine and operating system free emulator. It was concluded that even with the poor performance powered mobile-CPU build-in mobile computer, it will be completed environment that high-

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Figure 2. On the Android 5.0 OS, the title image of one of the emulators, DOSBox is a virtual machine so called Android type “aDosBox”, and accelerated scientific graphical data processor “GP.exe”.

Figure 3. the icon image of one of the emulators, DOSBox is a virtual machine and accelerated scientific graphical data processor “GP.exe”.

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doi: 10.18638/dialogo.2015.2.1.28 t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy Figure 6. On the Android OS, the scientific graphical data processor “GP.exe” application image in the “aDosBox” virtual machine and has been just opened “sample1.gpr” file.

Additionally instead of the OS of Android, it would be MacOS, LinuxOS and WindowsOS(e.g.

XP, Vista, 7, 8.1 and 10). It could be just operated fully comparable way.

Figure 4. On the Android OS, the directry image of Android filesystem in the “aDosBox” virtual machine and the scientific graphical data processor “GP.exe” was stored in the “DOS” and “GP” directry. It would be typed letters “gp” via keyboard connected with Bluetooth Technology or screen touch, then the scientific graphical data processor GP.exe will be started.

Figure 7. On the Android OS, the scientific graphical data processor “GP.exe” application image in the “aDosBox” virtual machine and has been just opened “sample5.gpr” file.

Additionally instead of the OS of Android, it would be MacOS, LinuxOS and WindowsOS(e.g.

XP, Vista, 7, 8.1 and 10). It could be just operated fully comparable way.

Figure 5. On the Android OS, the application image of DOS software in the “aDosBox” virtual machine and the scientific graphical data processor “GP.exe” has been just started.

Additionally instead of the OS of Android, it would be MacOS, LinuxOS and WindowsOS(e.g.

XP, Vista, 7, 8.1 and 10). It could be just operated fully comparable way.

Figure 8. On the Android OS, the scientific graphical data processor “GP.exe” application image in the “aDosBox” virtual machine and has been just opened “sample8.gpr” file.

Additionally instead of the OS of Android, it would be MacOS, LinuxOS and WindowsOS(e.g.

XP, Vista, 7, 8.1 and 10). It could be just operated fully comparable way.

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology would be MacOS, LinuxOS and WindowsOS(e.g.

XP, Vista, 7, 8.1 and 10). It could be just operated fully comparable way.

Figure 9. On the Android OS, the scientific graphical data processor “GP.exe” application image in the “aDosBox” virtual machine and has been just opened “sample7.gpr” file.

Furthermore, the menu “Load param(eter)s” was selected and opened the “ *.gpr ” window.

Additionally instead of the OS of Android, it would be MacOS, LinuxOS and WindowsOS (e.g.

XP, Vista, 7, 8.1 and 10). It could be just operated fully comparable way.

Figure 10. On the Android OS, the scientific graphical data processor “GP.exe” application image in the “aDosBox” virtual machine and has been just opened “sample7.gpr” file.

Futhermore, the menu “Load param(eter) s” and directry of “SAMPLES” were selected and listed these “SAMPLE1.gpr” etc filenames.

Additionally instead of the OS of Android, it

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Figure 11. On the Android OS, the scientific graphical data processor “GP.exe” application extracts the high-resolution print data as formatted of PostScript, as file name “DIFF_CO. PS” was listed as shown in Android file manager.

The “DIFF_CO. PS” was directly shown via “Docs Viewer” Android free PostScript viewer application. On the other hand, there aren’t any PostScript viewer free software on the MSWindows OS. So the PostScript file must be translated into the PDF Adobe Acrobat format, in general use on MS-Windows OS.

Figure 12. On the Android OS, the scientific graphical data processor “GP.exe” application extracts the high-resolution print data as formatted of PostScript, as file name “DIFF_ CO. PS” was shown as Arrhenius relations plots in Android free file viewer “Docs Viewer” application. On the other hand, there isn’t any PostScript viewer free software on the MSWindows OS. So the PostScript file must be translated into the PDF Adobe Acrobat format, in general use on MS-Windows OS.

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doi: 10.18638/dialogo.2015.2.1.28 t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy The DIFF_CO.pdf file was extracted by this script.

Presented script was using a Ghostwin ver 9.04.

Figure 13. On the Android OS, the scientific graphical data processor “GP.exe” application extracts the high-resolution print data as formated of PostScript, as file name “DIFF_CO. PS” was shown in Android free file viewer “Docs Viewer” application. On the other hand, there aren’t any PostScript viewer free software on the MS-Windows OS. So the PostScript file must be translated into the PDF Adobe Acrobat format, in general use on MS-Windows OS. “C:\Program Files\ gs\ gs9.04\ bin\ gswin32c.exe” -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH – sDEVICE =pdfwrite -r600 –sOutputFile = DIFF_CO.pdf -c 300000 setvmthreshold save pop -f DIFF_CO.PS Figure 14. Because there is not means to perform image processing, on the Windows OS, regarding PostScript file format e.g. as file name “DIFF_CO. PS” that is extracted by data processor “GP.exe” application shown in Figure 12 and 13 was applied by PDF Adobe Acrobat format. So the PostScript file must be translated into the PDF format, in general use on MS-Windows OS. The free application Ghostscript (so called on WindowsOS, Ghostwin) was acceptable translator from PS to PDF as shown in this script.

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Figure 15. A black-and-white typical graph layout with Arrhenius relations plots was shown as original filename of “DIFF_CO. PDF”. The picture was captured using Adobe (Acrobat) reader via “Take a snapshot mode”, then Ctrl+a, then zoom size 200%, then Ctrl+c, then using e.g. irfanview via Ctrl+v, then transration to 256deep colored, then save as GIF format. Finally customer user can modify the high-resolution print graph as well as it would be in any way[7].

Figure 16. An Arrhenius relations plot on the “GP.exe” with related filename of “DIFF_CO. PDF” was shown in this figure. The picture was captured using “GP.exe” via Alt +g. Finally customer user can confirm live-resolution graph [7].

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REFERENCES [1] VMware

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

Figure 17. Arrhenius relations plots with the “GP.exe” displayed data confirming mode Alt+d with related filename of “DIFF_CO. PDF” was shown in this figure. The green colored crosspoint cursor was displayed and indicated upper right corner banner using “GP.exe” via Alt+d, then “Enter”. Finally customer user can confirm live-resolution graph interactively [7], [8].

[6]

[7]

[8]

ACKNOWLEDGMENT The presented research work was partly supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory, Research Number 25560092. The author was favored to have the assistance of Mr. Kazu-hito SAKAMOTO in Tokin Corporation, Sendai, Japan who contributed to the past computational experimentation in accomplishing graphics (in 1992-3), for discussion of computational environment. The author also would like to express appreciation to Mr. Tomonobu SATO (National Institute of Technology, Hakodate College) for various discussions and drawing his attention to past researches.

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Education, Build Knowledge and Expertise, Available: http://mylearn.vmware.com/ mgrreg/index.cfm, at August 15th, 2015.

An Introduction to Virtualization, Available: http://www.kernelthread.com/publications/ virtualization/, at August 16th, 2015.

Amit Singh. Mac OS X Internals: A Systems Approach.

Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional; 1 edition (June 29, 2006).

GP.exe for IBM PC/AT: http://www.vector.co.jp/ soft/dos/business/se004831.html, and samples for GP.exe : http://www.vector.co.jp/soft/dos/ business/se010753.html aDosBox, Available: https://play.google.com/ store/apps/details?id= org.hystudio.android. dosbox& hl=ja, at October 4th, 2015.

GooglePlay TOOLS, Available: https://play. google.com/ store/apps/ category/TOOLS?hl=ja, at October 4th, 2015.

New Trends in Alloy Development, Characterization and Application, Editor: Zaki Ahmad, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, KSA, In-Tech Publications, Europe, Inc. (ISBN 978-953-51-2171-8), Self-Diffusion in Alloys, Chapter 3 Author: Kazu-masa Yamada and Nobuaki Matsuhashi, pp. 63-94 (September, 2015).

Applications of Calorimetry in a Wide Context - Differential Scanning Calorimetry, Isothermal Titration Calorimetry and Microcalorimetry, Editor: Amal Ali Elkordy, In-Tech Publications, Europe, Inc. (ISBN 978-953-51-0947-1), Numerical solutions for structural relaxation of amorphous alloys studied by activation-energyspectrum model, Chapter 15 Author: Kazu-masa Yamada, pp.343-364 (January, 2012).

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Biography: Dr. Kazu-masa YAMADA (right) obtained his PhD in Materials Science from the Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan in 2000. He is a chartered metallurgical engineer, electronics; and science applications engineer, now an associate professor of the Dept. of Production Systems Engineering (Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering), Hakodate National College of Technology (National Institute of Technology, Hakodate College) Hakodate-city, Japan. He was awarded the best paper award for the materials science section from the Japan Institute of Metals and Materials in 2004, Origin of Perpendicular Magnetic Anisotropy in Tb-Fe Amorphous Alloy (Materials Transactions Vol. 44). His main areas of interest are iron based amorphous alloys and magnetics, and have been working on the development of these alloys and devices for the last several years. It is hoped that this presented research will be found useful by researchers and general readers in the areas described in the conference.

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Long distance communication with affordable wireless system, and discussion Kazu-masa Yamada

Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (Department of Production Systems Engineering) National Institute of Technology, Hakodate College Hakodate-city, Japan e-mail: yama@hakodate-ct.ac.jp Abstract: Via a wireless LAN emitter-transmitter, distance for communications of the outdoor wireless is generally in radius several hundred meters, conventionally.

Meanwhile the beam forming technology used wireless communication highspeed data technology in mobile, at the good place of the prospect, realizes extensive communication in diameter more than kilometers. Particularly, presented technology advances good performance to the radio frequency interference in metropolitan area.

It can be in this way reduced the number of emittertransmitter equipment to approximately several percent of traditional products, significantly. In this work, as emitter-transmitter access point is used and measured under the environs of 1.5km distance location. It was acknowledged that research client pc location site at indoor room only distinguished from the outside, where 1.5 km distance from the emittertransmitter, wireless ID was recognized and text based browsing was also succeeded.

Keywords: Wireless LAN, Wi-Fi, internet communication, long distance communication, high speed

Wi-Fi internet communication is lower cost and more popular high speed access for wireless remote equipment, especially to provide a video playback controller which ensures an excellent sound reproduction environment even if a reproducer of camera is connected, and to provide a broadband internet video playback control method. Additionally in Japan, in the case of a 2.4GHz zone, if within 10mW/MHz, it does not acquire the license of the radio transmitter. So it would be prescribed by IEEE802.11b and 802.11g

eISSN: 2393-1744, cdISSN: 2392-9928

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I. INTRODUCTION Along with the popularization of extension user the mobile terminals such as smartphones, browse an on-the-job movie and information outdoors with a remote terminal, and quantity of broadband data communication using the high-speed-access increases in these days.

Additionally along with above, growing in demand all over the world, wireless LAN is now, owing to the increased international demand in the field of outdoor area where Wi-Fi user increases e.g. in a restaurant and the public accommodation crowd. Also presented widearea wireless system will be useful for the people in the community. At the time of a disaster, they can try to provide services and a variety of support to the local people.

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printISSN: 2457-9297 ISBN: 978-80-554-1131-6

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th e Dia l o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and T heology rule. And regarding a radiation-station of small antenna-radiation-power data communications system prescribed with the “Radio Law” phase No. 20 of wireless facilities rule article No.49, it is prescribed antenna radiation-power ≤ 10mW/ MHz, and EIRP (Equivalent Isotropic Radiated Power / Effective Isotropic Radiated Power) ≤ 160mW/MHz [1] [2]. It would be adopt the digital modulation/demodulation method called SS method (11b) and OFDM method (11g), with high transmission speed [1] [2].

the radio frequency interference. It can be in this way reduced the number of access point to approximately 25% of traditional products [3].

However, it is necessary to increase access points in a unit area as much as an antenna-radiation-power is weak. Therefore it will be taken a keen interest in that to investigate a characteristic to long distance WiFi communicator coverage-property without beam extra-antenna regarding the commerciallevel access point widely. As well as possible, using the access point without the beam extraantenna, it would be able to make expenditure cut off dynamically access point introduction cost. It would be introduced in presented report, there is an opportunity having demonstrate, testing the access point to cover in the range of 120 degrees widely, that is designed in Israel, GO Net Systems, Ltd. MBW2100J, Combining the Power of multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO), and xRF Beamforming Wi-Fi solutions [3].

B. Wi-Fi access point MBW2100J specifics MBW2100J specifics 4); antenna for access: horizontal 120 degree, perpendicular 27 degree and 40 degree, Wireless interface: IEEE802.11b 2.4GHz band 11Mbit/s, 802.11g 2.4GHz band 54Mbit/s,

In the present work, the aim of this research is to obtain the specific performance and characteristic in 1.5km Wi-Fi “super long the distance” communication.

II. PROCEDURE Communications distance of the outdoor wireless LAN is generally in radius several hundred meters, conventionally. On the other hand presented the MBW series of GO NET applies an adaptive beam forming technology used in e.g. LTE (Long Term Evolution; standard for wireless communication of high-speed data in mobile telephony, Japan), at the good place of the prospect, realizes extensive communication in diameter more than approximately 1 kilometer.

Especially, in the city area, central urban area, and downtown area, in addition, using a MIMO [3] technology advances good performance to

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It would be applied in this present work and experimentation as below: A. Emitter of Wi-Fi an access point Emitter, transmitter of Wi-Fi an access point is MBW2100J, GO Net Systems, Ltd.

Size W*H*D[mm] 400*600*70, Weight 7.6kg, Use temperature range -40 to +55 degree C, Wi-Fi an access point GO Net Systems, Ltd. The appearance of the catalogue was shown in Ref [4].

C. Experimentation and specifics Date with MBW2100J :2011, December, 1st to 20th. Temperature with MBW2100J : approximately +10 to +2 degree C. Air condition with MBW2100J : outdoor, approximately in bright sunshine and air clear. Client Wi-Fi receiver against with MBW2100J: briefcase computer, note PC Epson direct corp. Endeavor NA501E. D. Experimentation for location The access point and the client location map were shown in Figure 1. Distance between them is approximately 1.5 km. Reference is from Google map in English.

The access point and the client location altitude from the ground high: Distance from the ground, the access point MBW2100J is approximately 9.32 m high. (Presented college high from the ground is approximately 20 m) 2.4GHz band access point MBW2100J spectrum was shown in Figure 2, measured indoor room about 20m distance from the MBW2100J. AP-1 and AP-2 is the SSID name form

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology the MBW2100J. Outdoor MBW2100J spectrum and other indoor access point them are different because of the wall effect, then the intension of AP-1 and AP-2 would be relatively weaker than others.

Client pc location site were about 30m high from the ground, and 1.5 km distance from the MBW2100J. SSID name form the MBW2100J is recognized and being able to be connected to MBW2100J, and then html text based browsing is also recognized.

III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS As in Figure 3 and 4, experimentation 2.4GHz band client access measured at an indoor room.

The client computer was located in Fig 1 of left side, red-colored arrow point. Client pc location site were about 30m high from the ground, and 1.5 km distance from the MBW2100J. The wireless LAN ID (SSID) of AP-1 was recognized.

As in Figure 5 and 6, beam forming technology systems focuses communications to and from each client in a narrow beam. This advanced technology delivers around two times to eight times in multiply the range and capacity, to any standard-based Wi-Fi client, in comparison to standard Wi-Fi access points. The beamforming combined with presented systems specialized effective noise mitigation in harsh [3].

CONCLUSION Along with the popularization of broadband data communication using the high-speedaccess increases in these days. Wi-Fi internet communication that is lower cost and more popular high speed access for wireless remote equipment has been experimental measurement using antenna radiation-power of less than 10mW/MHz in 2.4GHz band access to cover in the range of 120 degrees widely, which is designed in Israel, GO Net Systems, Ltd. MBW2100J. In the present work, this research obtains the specific performance and characteristic in 1.5km Wi-Fi communication.

browsing was recognized.

It was concluded that MBW2100J Wi-Fi internet communication experimental results make help even in the ordinary communications.

It would be useful for the presented experimental result and discussion between the science and the technology region.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT The author is indebted to ITOCHU TechnoSolutions Corporation (CTC TECHNOLOGY Japan) for support to presented researches with the MBW2100J access point.

The author also would like to express appreciation to network facilities maintenance team member, National Institute of Technology, Hakodate College.

REFERENCES [1] Sheth, A. Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, Nedevschi,

S., Patra, R. , Surana, S., Brewer, E., Subramanian, L., “Packet Loss Characterization in WiFi-Based Long Distance Networks”, Proceedings IEEE Infocom 2007, 26th IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications. IEEE, IEEE Catalog Number 07CH37884, ISBN 1-4244-10460, pp.312-320, (May 2007) [2] Japan Radio Co., Ltd., in Feb.2008. 2.4GHz wirelessLAN(JRL-710) 47.5km distance with 8Mbps [2008.3.26 press release], wireless LAN (WiFi) long distance communication 47.5km Japan new record, (accessed 22 Oct. 2015) in Japanese, http://www.jrc.co.jp/jp/whatsnew/20080326/ index.html.

[3] MBW2100 Wi-Fi AccessPoint GO Net Systems, Ltd., (accessed 22 Oct. 2015) http://www. gonetworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/TriFold-Seperate.pdf.

[4] MBW2100 Wi-Fi access point GO Net Systems, Ltd., Copyright NEC Corporation, All rights reserved, (accessed 22 Oct. 2015) in Japanese, http://www.nesic.co.jp/solution/wifi/gonet_wifi. html.

Experimentation briefcase computer NA501E measured at indoor room only distinguished with thin board of glass from the outside, 1.5 km distance from the MBW2100J, is able to connect to MBW2100J, furthermore the html text based

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Fig 1 The assess point (right side) and the client computer (left side) bird’s-eye map. Using the google map in English and distance tool of https://www. google.co.jp/maps/@41.7816081, 140.7968101, 15z?hl =en.

Fig 2 Experimentation 2.4GHz band access point MBW2100J spectrum, measured at an indoor room about 20m distance from the MBW2100J. AP-1 and AP-2 is the SSID name form the MBW2100J. Outdoor MBW2100J spectrum and other indoor access point them are different because of the wall effect, then the intension of AP-1 and AP-2 would be relatively weaker than others.

Fig 3 Experimentation 2.4GHz band client access measured at an indoor room. The client computer was located in Fig 1 of left side, red-colored arrow point.

Client pc location site were about 30m high from the ground, and 1.5 km distance from the MBW2100J.

Fig 4 The SSID of AP-1 was recognized as this figure.

Experimentation 2.4GHz band client access measured at an indoor room. The client computer was located in Fig 1 of left side, red-colored arrow point. Client pc location site were about 30m high from the ground, and 1.5 km distance from the MBW2100J.

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology Fig 5 Schematic illustration for experimentation 2.4GHz band access in metropolitan area mode [3].

The route of channel that three, yellow-colored, orangecolored and white-colored way was discussed MIMO

Fig 6 Schematic illustration for beamforming technology focuses each return path as a distinct channel that three, yellow-colored, orange-colored and white-colored way was discussed MIMO. . The delay spread would be 2 µs and up. An internal delay is used to align the channels reducing the delay spread < 800 ns. The alignment creates the “renovation” for the presented equipment technology [3].

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biography Dr. Kazu-masa YAMADA (right) obtained his PhD in Materials Science from the Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan in 2000. He is a chartered metallurgical engineer, electronics; and science applications engineer, now an associate professor of the Dept. of Production Systems Engineering (Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering), Hakodate National College of Technology (National Institute of Technology, Hakodate College) Hakodate-city, Japan. He was awarded the best paper award for the materials science section from the Japan Institute of Metals and Materials in 2004, Origin of Perpendicular Magnetic Anisotropy in Tb-Fe Amorphous Alloy (Materials Transactions Vol. 44). His main areas of interest are iron based amorphous alloys and magnetics, and have been working on the development of these alloys and devices for the last several years. It is hoped that this presented research will be found useful by researchers and general readers in the areas described in the conference.

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SECTION 14

General Topic: Science and Theology in dialogue

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NeoNeoPlatonism : Can Theology be Studied with the Scientific Attitude ?

Bruno Marchal

IRIDIA, Université Libre de Bruxelles Belgium marchal@ulb.ac.be

Abstract: In this short paper I will argue that theology, or at least Platonist theology can be done with the scientific method, but that, perhaps paradoxically at first sight, this does not prevent the role of religion, nor the necessity of a dialog between science and theology (making it in part into a dialog internal to science) or between science and religion, seen as possible applied theology.

It is important to keep in mind that science, well understood, has at the start something common with (some) religion, which is a humility and modesty attitude. Science is born from the doubt, lives with the doubt, and never abandon the doubting attitude in any of its possible conclusion. We just don’t know, in science, and can only make our beliefs/ assumptions/theories as much precise as possible so that we make higher the possibility of refuting them, so that we can abandon them or improve them.

Theology, once made with the scientific attitude is no exception, and (re)making theology into a science, consists in reintroducing genuine doubts in the heart.

Only bad faith can fear reasons. Only bad reasons can fear faith. When fundamental science forget this, it becomes a kind of pseudo-religion.

I will use Neoneoplatonism for Neoplatonism +

Church-Turing thesis, as explained below. It is a mathematical theology that we can ascribe or attribute to any arithmetically sound (Turing) universal machine. The machines looking inward, and remaining sound in the process, can do this, in some technical sense. Such a theology will appear to contain a scientific, communicable and justifiable part (that we might called Science) extended by some Truth, that the machine can intuit or experience, but which are not amenable to a thorough scientific justification by the machine about itself. Indeed, I will argue that most theologies contain a trap, as some true theological propositions become false when only asserted, vindicating some mystical insight as variate as Damascius’ ineffability or Lao-Tseu when he said that the wise keeps silent.

This argument relies on my early study of the canonical theology of the universal Turing machine, which I will sum up in the first and second section of the paper, with some references for those interested in the details. It will appear that such a theology is very close to the Neoplatonist theology (notably through Moderatus of Gades, Plotinus, Porphyry, Proclus), and by “neo-neo-platonism” I mean a variety of Neoplatonism together with the mathematicalphilosophical thesis of Church and Turing which is

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology fundamental in theoretical computer science and mechanist philosophy of mind.

The apparent paradox is that such an approach seems to make theology into a science, and this should make, at first sight, unnecessary the existence of a dialog between science and religion. I will explain how that paradox is only apparent, and why this mathematical theology of the machine cannot be used normatively in religion and why this makes necessary the existence and preservation of a dialog between science and, let us say, any will for an applied theology, that is a practical religion, be it through theurgical means, or possible varieties of (theo)technological Pascal Wags.

Keywords: Church’s thesis, Neoplatonism, Neoneoplatonism, Universal Machine, Universal Dovetailer Argument, Plotinus, Moderatus of Gades, Hypostases, One, Noùs, World-Soul, Provability Logic, Belief, Knowledge, Observable

I. IS THE ENLIGHTENMENT PERIOD ONLY HALF ENLIGHTENMENT ? THE PROBLEM OF ATHEISM Occidental theology is arguably born as a fundamental science in Greece with Pythagorus, and then mainly with Plato and Aristotle. The main scientific production of that theology has been illustrated through the birth of the physical and the mathematical sciences. The term “Mathematician” was used then to denote those people skeptical that reality is ’’WYSIWYG” (what you see is what you get). The idea is that what we observe and measure might be a symptom, or a shadow, perhaps a border of some deeper and simpler reality, which might be mathematical, or not (in the modern sense of the word). The idea that reality is basically what we see is an assumption made by Aristotle in his Metaphysics, beyond being also the natural instinctive belief of the animals confronted to its problem of eating or being eaten.

According to Hirschberger [16] the God of Plato was Truth, understood as being beyond the communication realm and being somehow transcendental. Platonism was open to both rationalism and mysticism, and with Plato also to myth and, later, with the development of

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Christianity, to theurgy, like with some of the disciples and successors of Plotinus. Plotinus has been considered later as the founder of NeoPlatonism. That story is complex and beyond the scope of this short paper. An interesting and detailed account of the path leading from Pythagorism to Platonism, Middle-Platonism, and Neoplatonism up to Medieval philosophy is given by the erudite book written by Lambros Couloubaritsis [5].

The main happening arrived very early with Aristotle departure from Plato. What follows is a simplified account, as it is impossible to be fair with all nuances needed in a short account of such matter. Our approach, like the one by the neoplatonists and the machines, is closer to Plato’s Parmenides and Theaetetus than to its Timeaeus. Let us say that for Plato and most of his followers, the fundamental reality is the world of the ideas, which are conceived immaterial and as preceding logically the material reality.

The priority is logical, not temporal. Indeed the Timeaeus illustrates a notion of demiurge (god) starting the creation from matter in a time frame itself created by him, and this will strongly influence both Aristotle and its religious followers, even more so after the closure of Plato’s Academy in Athene (+523). After that event Platonism will continue to live and somehow flourish in the Middle-East. But even there, Aristotle’s idea of the existence per se of a material universe will be incorporated in most religion, with the disappearance of the influence of the neoplatonist Muslims, Christians and Jews (notably through Maimonides). Aristotle’s conception became eventually a dogma in both science and religion. Even Aristotle’s science (mainly his physics) became presented in some authoritative way. Yet, this will end with the Enlightenment Period, where, thanks in part to the jewish and the arabs studies of the greek philosophy, most of the ”exact” science will regain a liberty with respect to religious political authoritarianism. All the sciences? Not really: theology will be kept under the authority of the Churches, and will not, in its non-confessional form, regain its original status of science, seen as domain of free inquiry, doubts, dialogs and skeptical interrogations. We mean by science mainly the attitude of doubt in front of any public assertion of certainty. This has been understood by people from Descartes to Popper.

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy The fact that theology did not get back to the doubting attitude during the Enlightenment Period, an attitude which makes exact and modest the scientific inquiry, will institutionalize in an even deeper way, deeper than in the Middle-Age, the separation between science and religion or theology, and from that respect, this will make what we like to call “modernity” into perhaps a darker period than the MiddleAge, notably by making possible the birth of a very darker new form of pseudo-science/religion : (modern) atheism.

I will use atheism here in the strong nonagnostic sense of belief in the non existence of a God, usually accompanied by a strong belief in Aristotle Primary Matter, which is (weak) materialism. Such atheism will comfort the authoritarianism of the Churches by mocking any attempt to come back to doubt, reason and/ or to (mystical) experiences in the theological/ spiritual domain. In a Platonist perspective, atheism is a variant of Aristotelian Christianism.

The atheist believe in the same notion of the Creator, even if that is only used to deny It, and in the same dogmatic conception of the Creation: conceived as a primary or quasi-primary material world. I have not the place here to describe how modern atheism is able to use a subtle form of authoritarianism to hide even purely mathematical discoveries when they feel it can hurt its materialist dogma, but I say some words on this in my book ”The amoeba’s secret” [27]. It seems almost like if the debate on the existence or non-existence of a God (itself often limited to a fairy tale view of a god under the form of some ‘Santa Klaus’) is used to hide the original scientific question raised by Plato and the mystics about the ontological existence or non-existence of a physical or material prior universe.

Today, some progresses might have been done, as we have good reasons [20, 22, 26] to think that materialism, even in its weak form of doctrine asserting the existence of primary matter, is epistemologically incompatible with Mechanism1, which is the doctrine according 1 It can be argued that both Plato and Aristotle were already acknowledging this, or similar, form of incompatibility between materialism and the world-ofideas. Aristotle’s metaphysics refutes with some rigor the possibility of having a sensible concrete realm separated from a different realm of ideas. That criticizes

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to which our bodies are, in some sense, natural machines. This is troubling for strong (nonagnostic) atheists. Their view of the world relies on stipulating, more or less explicitly, both mechanism and materialism. This simply does not work, and leads eventually to the elimination of the person. That has already been illustrated by the early materialists and mechanists like Sade and LaMettrie in France, or by more recent cognitive neuroscientists or mechanist philosophers like Patricia Churchland [4] or Daniel Dennett [7] in the United States, to name a few.

II. DIGITAL MECHANISM, OR COMPUTATIONALISM By mechanism, we mean the hypothesis that we have some body and that such a body is mainly a natural machine. It means that we might survive, in the usual clinical sense, with a functional artificial kidney, or a functional artificial heart, or skin, or even brain. By digital mechanism, or computationalism in cognitive science, we mean that the brain or the body, or anything that we judge being needed for our first person subjective experience to survive, can be emulated, (simulated exactly), at some level of description, by a digital all-purpose computer.

I am not a defender of that hypothesis, but only derive consequences and show them to be testable. Let us say, though, that there are no evidences that this is not the case, and it is used implicitly in many theories, like the theory of evolution to name one. The notion of computer can be made precise through the use of the thesis of Church and Turing, often called by mathematical logicians: Church’s thesis (due to Stephen Kleene actually see [6]).

It is easy to understand that this makes already the person into an immaterial entity, in the sense that once you have an artificial body, you can change, in principle, of body every morning, like you can change of clothes.

So we become like some information pattern, which needs only a body to be able to manifest itself relatively to others and to some physical only a dualist interpretation of Plato. That form of dualism is not retained in most neoplatonist account, where, like in the discourse of the machine described below, a monistic approach makes much more sense.

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology environment. But it go deeper than this, and to explain the point I have to say some words on how the universal purpose computer has been discovered by mathematicians working on the foundation of mathematics. The point is that it is a mathematical discovery, and the notion of digital machines, universal machines, implementations, computations ... have been discovered in many mathematical structures, and later shown provable with very weak theories of arithmetic.

In fact it can be shown that a very weak theory like Robinson Arithmetic (basically the laws of addition and multiplication) is equivalent with a programming language (in the modern sense), and that everything a physical digital computer can do relatively to you in a physical reality can be done and is actually done, in the additivemultiplicative structure of the natural numbers.

Programs like numbers can be seen as syntactical finite mathematical objects, and computations, in the mathematical sense, are given by relations between programs and data, or, by the fact mentioned here, arithmetical relations between numbers. It can be explained that no universal Turing machine can decide by introspection, from only her first person experience, if she is emulated by a physical reality or by any Turing universal structure, like the number’s structure.

The digital mechanist hypothesis entails that the immateriality of the person will extends itself in some necessary way to the immateriality of the physical environments. Once we have any Turing universal structure, like Robinson Arithmetic, or the lambda expressions, we can enumerate the sequence of instructions, and enumerate, with possible repetitions, the corresponding partial computable functions from N to N: φ1 that is φ0, φ1, φ2, φ3, φ4... We enumerate the syntactically correct description of the algorithm/machines, to get the φ1, and their domain the Wi. Church’s thesis asserts this gives all intuitively (partial) computable functions from N to N, and is usually well accepted by the scientists, for two reasons: first that all attempts to define the computable functions lead provably to exactly the same class of functions; secondly, the strong closure of that set, notably for Cantor transcendental diagonalization procedure (see [19] for more on this). From this we can prove the existence in arithmetic of universal dovetailers, which are programs generating all programs, and executing them little pieces by little pieces. If

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φzx (y) denotes the first zth computational steps of the computation of φx (y), hen a Universal Dovetailer, which existence is assured by the existence of a universal number, and thus by Church’s thesis, is given by the simple procedure described below, with x, y, and z representing natural numbers: FOR ALL x, y, z non negative integers: - compute the z first steps of the computation of φx (y), that is compute φzx (y).

END. An argument, in 8 questions, the Universal Dovetailer Argument (UDA), then explains that whatever the physical reality can be, it needs to emerge from a statistics on all first person experiences associated to such computations, seen from different perspective or modalities.

I take the following resume from a paper published recently [19]: 1. Do you accept, assuming the computationalist hypothesis, the use of teleportation as a mean of locomotion? You are cut in one place, and pasted in another place.

2. Do you think you might be aware of a delay in the reconstitution (pasting) when not given any external clues?

3. What if you are pasted in two places at the same time? Do you agree that before this happens, knowing the protocol, you are unable to predict where you will feel to be after the double pasting? That is the computationalist First Person Indeterminacy (FPI). This step is the crucial test. Mechanism makes our bodies in principle duplicable, with the actual state, in a third person way, making our future first person experience indeterminate on our reconstitutions. Attempts to refute this are easily shown to be due to a confusion between third person description and first person experience.

Third person descriptions can be defined by the content of the diary of someone describing the duplication from outside, and first person experiences can here be described simply by the content of a diary taken by the experiencers with itself. See [23, 27, 26] for more on this.

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4.

Do you think that such an indeterminacy

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy would be different if the pasting delay is bigger on one of the branch?

5. What if you are read only, and pasted in two places? Do you agree that this is equivalent with a triplication?

6. What if you are “pasted” in a virtual environment, instead of “real” one. You are “re-implemented” in a (physical) computer.

Would that change any answer to the preceding questions, asked in this new virtual setting?

7. Assuming there is a (never ending) execution of a UD in the physical universe, do you see that your next first person experiences are determined by a statistics on all computations, made by that UD, going through your actual current states?

8. Do you think that assuming the existence of a small primitively real physical universe would help to avoid the consequences of the step 7, with “small” meaning that the physical universe cannot run any significant portion of UD* (the UD’s computation) ?

At step seven, the reader is supposed to understand that if computationalism is true, and if we are in a physical universe running a UD, then the physical science are reduced, by the FPI (step 3) to a statistics on infinitely many finite pieces of computations, all realized and seen from some first person points of view. Here, by “realized” we mean the usual implementation in the physical universe which can be assumed to exist.

This leads to a serious white rabbits problem, that is a possible inflation of predictions, with too many aberrant hallucinations. We will see in the next sections how the incompleteness phenomenon, and the whole theology of the universal machine, offers freely those phenomenological first person points of view, and how that might hunt the white rabbits away out of the apparent physical reality.

The step 8 is more subtle, and is addressed to the person who reifies the physical existence assumed here, and believe that a Turing machine has to be emulated materially in the physical universe (that he assumes to be primitively existing, part of the ontology) to be able to support consciousness. Up to the seventh step,

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such person can still save the epistemological consistency of that idea by assuming the existence of a small primitive physical universe, which would be incapable to run any statistically significant part of the UD. After step 8, we can grasp that this does not solve the white rabbit problem, or the measure problem, as the step 8, namely the Movie Graph Argument, implies that we are confronted with the non-material dovetailing implicit in arithmetic or in any first order specification of any Turing complete (Turing universal) theory. An argument can be used to show that those invoking an ontological small universe need some magic to do that in a way preserving any reasonable meaning to the computationalist hypothesis. That follows from the Movie Graph Argument (MGA) or Paradox ([20, 26]), see also Maudlin [28] for a similar argument. For a more detailed treatment of the UDA, see [21, 22]. A detailed treatment of the UDA including the MGA, in the frame of Integral Biomathics [30] can be found in [26]. Somehow, a universal Turing machine, even physical, cannot distinguish between an arithmetical realization of a computation from a physical one, except, and that is the point, if given external clues. The quantum empirical clues happens to be serious hints that the physical emerges from an internally defined statistics on the numbers first person experiences or computations seen from inside. This is even more remarkably close if we follow Everett’s formulation of QM, which avoids the non-intelligible reduction of the wave packet [9, 11, 10, 8].

III. THE CANONICAL NEOPLATONIC THEOLOGY OF THE UNIVERSAL TURING MACHINE Now we have the complex task to sum up neoplatonic theology, and the logic of provability used to translate the UD Argument above in pure arithmetic.

Let us begin with the logic of provability (Godel, Lob, Solovay, [14, 18, 34]) With Church’s thesis computability is an absolute notion. It does not depend on the choice of the Turing universal system. Once such a system is chosen, like the language Lisp, or the logical specification of a computer, or elementary arithmetic, we probably get the same class of

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology computable functions from N to N. That is not the case for the notion of formal provability.

A formal theory like Robinson Arithmetic RA2 will prove less arithmetical propositions than PA (see the footnote), and PA will prove less arithmetical propositions than a rich powerful theory like Zermelo-Fraenkel theory. There is no equivalent “Church’s thesis” for the notion of provability. Godel has shown that we can defined the notion of formal provability in the arithmetical language, which leads to justifying some introspective ability for the machines or the formal system. We can define provability in ZF, or by ZF (if we mean by ZF a theorem prover based on ZF, something which can be done for all axiomatizable theory) in the language of arithmetic. A very weak theory like RA can already prove that ZF can prove its theorems, including RA’s consistency. This does not mean that RA can believe what ZF is saying. I illustrate this below.

In particular we can define the notion of provability by PA in the arithmetical language used by PA, and look in this manner to what PA can prove about its own provability ability. This was basically what Godel did in his famous 1931 paper. Given the mechanical character of the checking proof procedure, and the mechanical richness due to the Turing universality of elementary arithmetic, we can defined in arithmetic (using the logical symbols, and the symbol of arithmetic, 0, +, x) the provability predicate of Godel : Beweisbar(x). That predicate is applied to sentences or propositions encoded themselves in arithmetic. Provability is a modal 2 Robinson Arithmetic is formalized by some presentation of classical logic + the following simple arithmetical axioms :

0 ≠ s(x)

s(x) = s(y) → x = y

x = 0 V Ǝy(x = s(y))

x+0=x

x + s(y) = s(x + y)

x×0=0

x × s(y) = (x ×y) + x s(x) represents the successor function (x + 1). Peano Arithmetic (PA) contains the same axioms as RA, but has infinitely many induction axioms, i.e. the formula {F(0) Λ ∀x(F(x) →F (x + 1)} →∀xF(x) with F put for any arithmetical formula.

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notion, and let us abbreviate Beweisbar(x) by Dx. Modal logic was introduced by Aristotle, for a metaphysical purpose, and will happen to have an arithmetical interpretation through Godel study of formal or mechanical self-reference. Let us abbreviate the modal dual of the box Dp, that is — D— p by Op, (— is the usual logician symbol for negation) as it is common to do in classical modal logic. Let us also abbreviate by f and t some constant propositional boolean false and true respectively. Then Godel’s second theorem can become the assertion that if a theory or a machine is consistent then it cannot prove its own consistency. This means that if Df is true, then the machine (represented by its provability predicate) cannot prove that it is the case that Df. It means that Df, or equivalently Ot entails DOt. As Godel already realized, a formal theory or machine as rich as PA can already proves its own Godel theorem: PA proves Ot ^ DOt. In fact such machine are essentially undecidable: not only are such theories undecidable (cannot prove all true propositions in their domain), but all the effective consistent extensions will suffer of the same limitation. Some consistent extension of PA can prove the consistency of PA, but they will not been able to prove the consistency of themselves. Let us note this: a theory as weak as RA is already able to prove that PA can prove the consistency of RA. From this it does not follow that RA can prove its own consistency. In fact RA can only imitate PA proving RA consistency, without understanding or proving the beliefs (propositions) that PA needs to prove the consistency of RA. This is similar to a situation that we can meet in philosophy of mind. Searle argues that a machine cannot think, by showing that if we were machine, a human would be able to imitate a Chinese conversation by imitating the Chinese brain, and yet we know he would not understand what he is imitating. But this is a confusion between computation/imitation and provability/understanding. RA does not become PA by imitating RA. RA just kindly lend her cognitive ability to emulate PA, so RA can have a conversation with PA, and if PA told RA that RA is consistent, that might be encouraging for RA, but not yet RA believable. Similarly I might in principle be able to imitate Einstein by emulating his brain neurons by neurons, and that would allow me to discuss with Einstein about relativity, but I might still not been able to understand what Einstein tells me. This is

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy very important in our context, as we will see that at the propositional level, the modal logic corresponding to one of Plotinus’ hypostase can imitate all other hypostases, but this will not make them all collapse into only one logic/ theory.

Obviously RA are simple formal theories that we trust. Mathematicians uses usually stronger theories, implicitly or explicitly. No one seriously doubt that PA is sound for arithmetic.

But by Godel’s theorem we know that PA’s consistency, although true, cannot be proved by PA. So we see that incompleteness forces us to distinguish provability and truth. RA and PA are essentially incomplete. Essential incompleteness makes this distinction inherit by all effective consistent extensions, so that if PA happens to learn a new axiom, and to change itself into a new richer theory, that new theory will need to take that distinction into account too. It can be argued that the mechanist hypothesis makes us into such hopefully consistent extension. A natural question would to see if the provability modality obeys some modal logic. Is there a finite axiomatic modal logic which would capture all the theorem in arithmetic involving the modality? Let us not quantified inside the scope of a provability predicate, and so we can ask the question for the modal propositional level. The answer is positive, and it happens that a normal modal logical system, often called G, or GL, does indeed axiomatize completely what a self-referentially correct machine can prove about itself. That has been proved by Solovay in 1976. Solovay found also a (non normal) modal system axiomatizing what is true about its own provability (like the consistency Ot) but which is not provable by the machine, and the corresponding system is known as G*, also GLS, for Godel, Lob, and Solovay. See my paper [19] for the precise translation between the modal logic and arithmetic. Here it will be enough to see the box and diamond as abbreviation for provability and consistency, when translated into arithmetic. That means that if some formula, like DA ^ DDA say, is a theorem of G, then all its translation in arithmetic, with Godel’s provability predicate playing the role of the box, and with A playing the role of any arithmetical sentence (closed formula) is a theorem of the machine. Obviously, it will be also a theorem of G*, which, by soundness must extend G. But by

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incompleteness, G* will extend G properly. Some sentences, like Ot will belong to the annulus G* minus G, as they are true for PA (or any correct machine) yet non provable by the machine. That makes clear the important distinction between provable and true. G and G* are the following modal logics. The first is said to be normal, as it admits a Kripke semantics, unlike the second one, but this3 does not need to be explain further to arrive at the arithmetical interpretation of Neoplatonism. G is: AXIOMS : □(A → B) → (□A → □B) K

□A → □□A 4

□ (□A → A) → □A L RULES : A , A→B MP

B

A

□ A NEC And G* is: AXIOMS : Any Theorem of G

□A → A RULES : A , A→B

T MP

B

Those logics of self-reference applies to many non equivalent provability predicates by machines, but actually also by many non computable set of true formula, which we might call “gods” or “divine entities” as they are not imitable by any machine, like full second-order arithmetic, with or without infinite inference rules. In particular those logics works, soundly and completely for PA, second-order arithmetic (analysis) and ZF, and for all self-referentially correct machines provability predicates. A machine is self-referentially correct when she is proving modal theorems which are true when translated into their language and applied to themselves.

3 See Smullyan’s book [33] for an introduction to the modal logic G. See Solovay’s original paper [34] for a proof that G and G* are decidable and arithmetically complete. Solovay found a representation theorem of G* in G, which in fact has a similar look to a version of toy computationalist philosophy [21]. Good textbooks on self-reference are the one by Boolos and Smorynski [1, 3, 31, 32].

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology After the important distinction between computability and provability, the difference between G and G* introduces the second most important distinction. I will use it to interpret in arithmetical terms an important distinction brought by Plato and Plotinus and other Neoplatonists, and which is the general distinction between Earth or Terrestrial and the Nous, that is Plato’s divine World of Ideas, or the neoplatonist ‘Divine Intellect”.

Before doing this, we might ask ourself what plays the role of God, or of the neoplatonist “One”. As I said in the introduction, I follow Hirschberger in considering that Plato’s God is Truth, and that concept can be defined, up to an important nuance explained below, in arithmetical terms by the collection of all true arithmetical sentences.

The nuance is that no arithmetical theory, in fact no machine (having enough beliefs and being Platonic and thus believing in the excluded middle principle) can even express or define in its language such vast notion of Truth. By incompleteness such set is highly not computably enumerable. It escapes all effective theories. But for the neoplatonists, this is a good news, as it corroborates the key fact that God has no name, and that it does not admit any description in the language of the machine.

It makes sense to see such a truth as a God, in the frame of both the mechanist hypothesis and neoplatonic theology, as such a truth is both simple, need to be assumed, and will implicitly justify the existence of all the Plotinus hypostases. Many slight differences will appear, but are arguably less great that the nuance existing between the neoplatonist themselves.

By some aspect, the machine’s introspection is perhaps even closer to some Neopythagorean, like Moderatus of Gades4 : So we have an arithmetical interpretation of the first two primary hypostases of Plotinus, or Moderatus of Gades : the ONE, arithmetical truth, and the Divine Intellect, the truth about the man, or intellect G*.

That interpretation is relative to the choice 4 The resemblance between Plotinus, Moderatus of Gades, and Parmenides five affirmative Hypotheses is even more striking if we read the successive Enneads V.1, V.2, II.4 in that chronological order [35, 29].

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of a universal machine, with an ’’enough rich” introspective ability, generally provided by having enough induction axioms, like PA, ZF (but not RA). The digital numbers/machine universal numbers believing in those induction can be proved to exist, and be emulated by RA. RA plays the role of a code for the universal dovetailer, written in the arithmetical language, and the universal machine believing in induction, the Löbian number (as I call them), can play the role of the discursive reasoner or “rational human believer”, sometimes called the “man” by Plotinus. ”belief” is used in its epistemological or doxastical and rational sense, and not in the sense of the religious faith, which will be introduced later.

Yet, neoplatonism follows the hellenic tradition of having three Gods, and Plotinus describes three primary hypostases. The One, sometimes called God, the Divine Intellect, which corresponds closely to the world of ideas of Plato—the Nous, and the World-Soul, or Universal Soul, or sometimes also called the Inner God in the greek mystical tradition. What could be the machine notion corresponding of that notion of soul?

Here, I might make a move sometimes explicitly critized by some scholars, like Gerson ([13]), but perhaps hinted by some other scholars, like Brehier (the first to translate the entire Ennead, actually in French) and which consists in defining the Soul by a Knower, and to define the Knower by using Theaetetus’ idea of connecting the believer with God, alias the Truth (I recall that both are not non nameable by the machine).

The miracle here is that not only incompleteness separate provability from truth, and thus the human belief from the One itself, but by doing so, it introduces a separation between (rational) belief (provability) and the notion of knowledge as defined by Theaetetus.

Socrates was asking to Theaetetus to define what knowledge is, and one of his attempts consists in defining knowledge by true opinion, or true justified belief. By interpreting the belief or the justified believability of A in arithmetic by Godel beweisbar (┌A┐), that is □A, we might define knowledge by □A Λ A for all arithmetical proposition A. An apparent better solution

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy would be something like (□A Λ true(A)), but by a well-known result of Tarski, also found

by Goodel, the machine is unable to define such a truth predicate. This will guaranty that the knower associated to the machine, or the machine’s universal soul, will not be a machine, nor actually be even definable in any third person terms or by any arithmetical formula. Yet, for each individual arithmetical proposition A the machine can grasp the particular □A Λ A, a n d proves some formula about it.

Note that if we accept, that PA is arithmetically sound (what it proves is actually true) then we accept that □A is extensionally equivalent with □A Λ A. They both “see” the same arithmetical reality. This facts is captured by the divine intellect: G* proves □A ↔ (□A Λ A) But the machine cannot proves its consistency, and thus cannot prove that □ f → f, and thus cannot prove □A →A for arbitrary A, and so we know that from the machines position □A and □A Λ A will obey different logics. Put in another form: G does not prove that true equivalence. Then the math shows that indeed OA Λ A will obey another modal logic S4, which is indeed a typical modal theory of knowledge. Incompleteness makes Theaetetus’ definition of knowledge available to the machine. The mathematics confirms also that such a predicate of knowledge cannot in any way be defined in the language of the machine ([17]).

We get actually a richer theory than S4, known as S4Grz, defining the universal soul, common to all effective sound extensions of the machine or PA. The logic of machine’s knowledge given by S4Grz is axiomatized by: AXIOMS : □(A → B) → (□A → □B) K

□A → □□A 4

□ (□A → A) → □A L

□(□(A → □A) → □A) → A) → A) (Grz) RULES : A , A→B MP

B

A

□ A NEC

Grz is for Andrzej Grzegorczyk, who introduced an equivalent modal formula in the context of intuitionistic logic and relational (modal) systems (see [15, 2]). Actually both the formula T and 4 can be derived from K and Grz, like the formula 4 can be derived from K and L. It is not a problem to give slightly redundant

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axioms. Not the curious name “4”, which has historical reasons. The experts in the logic of name are not very good at naming important formula!

This gives our arithmetical interpretation of the three primary neopythagorean (Moderatus of Gades) or neoplatonist (Plotinus, and others) hypostases: p Truth The One □p provability The intellect □p Λ p knowability The Soul

Incompleteness makes the machine looking inward incapable of avoiding those true nuances when staying sound in that introspective (arithmetical) “process”. But incompleteness forces also a horizontal nuance, between what the machine can prove about its provability and consistency predicates, and what is true about them, and this divides the Intellect into the terrestrial effective discursive reasoner and the Divine Intellect: p

□ p

□p □p Λ p

or written with the corresponding modal logics, which does not really exist for the notion of Truth: Truth

G

G* S4Grz

Let us write []* for the truth on the arithmetical box [], in the large sense explained above, which we get with the interpretation of the self-referential logic, G, or its intentional variants. So if [] represents G, [] represents G*.

It is not obvious, and even amazing that S4Grz does not split along the horizontal nuance separating provable and true. We can write that S4Grz* = S4Grz. For a proof of this see the book

by Boolos ([3]. The discursive reasoner, God, and the first-person knower are all agreeing and none of them add anything. Like an intuitionist, with an epistemological reading of the boxes, the soul do confuse reality and its knowledge

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology of, making it into an internal solipsiste. We can argue that in the terrestrial human evolution, as well as in the evolution of the infant, the soul, in which both the intellect and god (truth) participates, precedes the civilized intellect and truth, and this can be used to explain the emanation/conversion processes explained in the neoplatonist literature.

choices, taking into account that the law □A → A, when true or provable for arbitrary A entails in classical logics the law □A → ◊A :

What about the two matters? And what is matter? According to both the MiddlePlatonist Neopythagorean Moderatus of Gades (accepting Porphyry account, according to Simplicius), and Plotinus (who was lucky that Porphyry succeeded in transmitting to us the full work, unlike what happened to his own work), matter emanates eventually from God. For the platonists and neoplantonists, but also apparently for some neopythagorean like Moderatus of Gades, matter is almost a synonym of evil, and is seen as the last emanation of God. Put it roughly, matter appears where God lose control. The physical is almost the border of the Divine Mind.

This cannot be enough if we want translate the Universal Dovetailer Argument in terms of numbers and sets of numbers, we have yet to limit the arithmetical interpretation of the atomic propositional variable of the modal logics on the sentences representing halting computations, or finite pieces of non-terminating one. This can be done by limiting the arithmetical interpretation of the atomic propositional variables on the so called arithmetical ∑1-sentences. An arithmetical sentence is ∑1, if it can be shown equivalent with an existential sentence asserting the existence of some number having some verifiable or decidable (recursive) predicate. They have the following shape ƎxP(x), with P representing a recursive (decidable, ∑0) formula. When we use provability in some theory as a programming language, Turing universality is characterized by the ability to prove all true ∑1-sentences.

So the modal formula p → □p is true for the universal machines (with p representing arbitrary E1-sentences). The “sufficiently rich in introspective ability” machines to which G and G* apply can indeed be characterized by the fact that not only the formula p → □p is true (with p representing arbitrary ∑1-sentences), but p → □p is provable by the machine for such ∑1 p. I have called the corresponding modal logic Z1 (*) and X1(*), respectively for the arithmetical provability-and-consistency modal logics, and for the arithmetical provability-and-consistencyand-truth modal logics. Actually, due to the presence of the consistency predicament ◊t, the Z1 and X1 logics splits horizontally, unlike the corresponding S4Grz1, which remains equal to S4Grz1*.

The Universal Dovetailer Argument sketched above does not give us much choice for what can be physics. Physics has to be a statistic calculus for predicting our computational extensions on the domain of all computations, or finite pieces of computations, terminating or not. This looks like Plato’s Timeaeus “bastard calculus”, that Plotinus use in its own platonic correction of Aristotle theory of matter, where matter is almost defined by the negation of the intellect.

The bastard calculus is a calculus of probability.

At first side, using another important theorem of Godel, the completeness theorem of predicate calculus, provability is equivalent with true in all models, or, here, true in all effective consistent extensions. But this cannot work. Indeed due to incompleteness, the provability of A does not entail the existence of a model satisfying A, and the provability of t, does not guaranty the consistency of t, that is simply the consistency. To have a modal account of probability calculus, we need at the least the modal law □A → □A, so as we don’t get the trivial classical probability one in the case there are no consistent extensions (see also [12].

So, to get the “bastard” (probability) calculus of Plato and Aristole-Plotinus from the machine’s justifiable beliefs, we have three main

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-

□A Λ A

-

□A Λ ◊t

-

□A Λ ◊t Λ A

Then as expected and hoped, we get reasonable logics of the observable of the Löbian Universal Machine, at the star level []*. The logic of observability corresponds to the logic of the probability one on the consistent extensions.

Here by Löbian I mean ’’universal machine having a rich enough provability predicate” as explained above. Indeed we get a weakening

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy and strengthening of the modal account of quantum logics, like S4Grz gives a strengthening of the Intuitionist logic. Using S4Grz, we have an epistemological and arithmetical interpretation of intuitionist logic by interpreting □A by “knows A”, with the box obeying to the knowledge logic S4Grz*, and S4Grz1*, or Z1* and X1* similarly, provides quantum logics (the first one being an intuitionnistic quantumm logic). Such logics already provides many clues on the shape any physical reality can have, with a symmetrical structure at its logical bottom (the domain of the ∑1-sentences, or computations) and breaking of symmetries brought by the higher level selfreference. The hope is that the self-referential constraints justifies the notion of physical dimension and that the number of dimension is greater than three so as to apply the known theorem of Gleason justifying the uniqueness of the probability measure, and, with some luck a bit of the standard model of physics, or some valuable alternatives. This approach makes the classical computationalist theory of mind that is the neoplatonist theology of the self-referential machine amenable to empirical refutation.

To sum up, we see that incompleteness, and the machines’ ability to justify their own incompleteness from the conditional of selfconsistency, makes the machine distinguishing reasonable account of Plotinus three main primary hypostases, and Plotinus-Moderatus of Gades five hypostases or “hypotheses”. The miracle here is truly provided by incompleteness which makes possible to translate faithfully neoplatonist theologies into the selfreferential discourse of ideally correct machine.

Incompleteness separates the different intensional nuances, and separate some of them along the true or just provable parts. Let me give the lexicon (more is explained in the paper [24, 25]. We have the 8 primary hypostases: p Truth The One □p provability The Intellect □p Λ p knowability The UniversalSoul And the “two matters” : □p Λ ◊t □p Λ ◊t Λ p

The Intelligible Matter Bet/Prediction The Sensible Matter Qualia

from those five intensional distinctions. p

□ p

p □ p Λ ◊t □p Λ ◊t Λ p

□p Λ p

□p

□p Λ ◊t □p Λ ◊t Λ p

All those hypostases are precise modal logical systems, which can be faithfully represented in one of them: the modal logic G, making them all decidable at the propositional level. When we consider the material hypostases, we need to add the axiom p → □p to G, to capture the restriction of the arithmetical propositions to the computable, or UD-accessible, ∑1-sentences.

This self-referential trip can be seen as a near inconsistency experience. But computer science and mathematical logic shows us how to avoid inconsistency, by distinguishing the hypostases.

Many confusions in philosophy and theology might be reducible to a confusion between two hypostases.

Examples: 1. The separation between science and theology, and which gives sense to the dialog, can lead easily to making science into a religion itself which would be a confusion between G and G*. This is discussed further below.

2. The Penrose-Lucas Godelian argument can be seen as a confusion between G and S4Grz. Note that S4Grz, and only it, can confuse G and G* at its level, because it can be proved that unlike the material hypostases, it does not split along provable and true : S4Grz = S4Grz*.

3. Most, if not all critics of the Mechanist First person Indeterminacy I have heard of are due to a confusion between G and S4Grz, that is between third person and first person descriptions of the self, as is common in natural language where the pronoun “I” is used for both.

This is also the basic error of he eliminativist materialists which believe that there is no mindbody problem arguing that there is no mind, nor consciousness, nor persons (above negating their personal sensible data).

Three of them split along the G/G* differentiation, which gives eight hypostases

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology IV. WHY A DIALOG? If non confessional theology comes back to science, does it still make sense to defend a dialog between science and theology, or between science and religion? The mechanist theological answer is that not only it is possible, but it is necessary. Indeed, curiously enough, Mechanism, by the separation between G and G* literally forbids the use of the theoretical theology of the self-referentially correct machine in any systematic or normative way. Such a behavior would be like considering all theorems of G* like if they were theorems of G, and that would be like claiming that we know that we are self-referentially correct, which the theory justifies as being not knowable, nor justifiable.

What we, or machines, can do, is the study of the (complete at the propositional level) theology of a simpler machine, judge correct, like PA, and then only hope to be correct itself to lift the modal theology of the simpler machine to itself. But as we, or the machine cannot known, nor even express, our own correctness, the machine can only hope, and pray, to be correct, notably when making public communication to others machine. As G* is decidable, it is easy to conceive an inference inductive machine which would guess the theorem of G*, but when communicates to others such G*-proposition, they should be accompanied with an interrogation mark. Avoiding it would be a sin of vanity, and a confusion between the terrestrial (effective) and divine (true) realm. So, somehow, the discourse of the universal machine prevents the confusion between the theoretical science of the ideally correct machine, and any of its possible terrestrial applications. For the same reason, we can understand that truth itself cannot be invoked or name. Again, we can do that for a much simpler than ourselves, but doing this relatively to ourselves directly leads to either an inconsistency, or would transforms ourselves into a richer machine for which such notion of named truth can no more be applied.

This means that in practice, religion can only use parables and none of it can be interpreted literally. It leads to a resolution of a problem asked by Protagoras: can we teach the virtues?

The universal machine’s answer (modeling the rational belief by provability) is negative: we can’t teach virtue as a subject matter, but we can teach most of them by exemplars behaviors,

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when, hopefully being able to apply them ourselves. Morality or Meta-morality: for correct machines, it is immoral to do moral to others.

Another important reason why the dialog between science and religion have to continue and be encouraged, and which follows from what we have just explained is that computationalism might be wrong, and the fact that no machine can know which machine she is, nor its own substitution level. Yet, computationalism, and the Neoplatonism of the universal machine, can be used as a precise formal etalon to compare the many human theologies. It also provide a motor to build counter-examples to many claims made in the field, by believers as well as non-believers in this or that form of theism, and so provide an help in the infinite dialog between science and religion.

Let me insist on something where people are often wrong. Mechanism is not a reductionism.

Indeed Digital Mechanism, or computationalism, shows the failure of our attempts to develop a reductionist conception of the machine, and of the numbers themselves.

The universal machine is a universal dissident, capable of refuting all complete theories made about itself. That makes Mechanism, which is often felt as a reductionism, and which becomes a nihilist reductionism indeed when put together with (weak) Materialism, into a quasi-constructive vaccine against reductionism and again person eliminativism. The person, on the contrary, becomes the conceptual building block from which everything else is derived, except that its existence is assured and derived itself from elementary arithmetic. Eventually, I think personally that religion might be the only valuable goal, and science might be the only mean REFERENCES [1] G. Boolos. The Unprovability of Consistency.

Cambridge University Press, London, 1979.

[2] G. Boolos. Provability in Arithmetic and a Schema

of Grzegorczyk. Fundamenta Mathematicae, 96 :41-45, 1980.

[3] G. Boolos. The Logic of Provability. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1993.

[4] P. S. Churchland. Neurophilosophy. A Bradford

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy book, MIT, USA, 1986.

[21] B. Marchal. Conscience et Mecanisme. Technical

[5] L. Couloubaritsis. Histoire de la philosophie

ancienne et médiévale. Grasset, Paris, 1998.

[6] M. Davis, editor. The Undecidable. Raven Press, Hewlett, New York, 1965.

[7] D. C. Dennett. Consciousness Explained. Allen Lane The Penguin Press, Harmondsworth Middlesex, England, 1991.

[8] B. S. DeWitt and N. Graham, editors. The ManyWorlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics.

Princeton University Press, Princeton, New-Jersey, 1973.

[9] H. Everett III. “Relative state” formulation of quantum mechanics. Review of Modern Physics, 9(3) :454- 462, 1957.

[10] H. Everett III. “Relative state” formulation of quantum mechanics. Review of Modern Physics, 9(3) :454- 462, 1957. Also in DeWitt and Graham 1973.

[11] H. Everett III. The theory of the universal wave functions. In B. DeWitt and N. Graham, editors, The Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, pages 3-140. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1973.

[12] M. Fattorosi-Barnaba and G. Amati. Modal Operators with Probabilistic Interpretations i.

Studia Logica, XLVI(4) :383-393, 1987.

[13] L. P. Gerson. Ancien Epistemology. Cambridge University Press, UK, Cambridge, 2009.

[14] K. Godel. Uber formal unentscheidbare sâtze der principia mathematica und verwandter systeme i. Mo- natsh., Math. Phys., 38 :173-198, 1931.

Traduction americaine dans Davis 1965, page 5+.

[15] A. Grzegorczyk. Some relational systems and the associated topological spaces. Fundamenta Mathematicae, LX :223-231, 1967.

[16] J. Hirschberger. Kleine Philosophiegeschichte.

Verlag Herder, Freiburg-Basel-Wien, 1987.

[17] D. Kaplan and R. Montague. A Paradox Regained.

Journal of Formal Logic, 1 :79-90, 1960.

[18] M. H. Lâb. Solution of a problem of Leon Henkin.

Journal of Symbolic Logic, 20 :115-118, 1955.

[19] B. Marchal. The Universal Numbers. From Biology to Physics. Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology. available online : http ://dx.doi. org/10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2015.06.013.

[20] B. Marchal. Informatique Theorique et Philosophie de l’Esprit. In Actes du 3ème colloque international de l’ARC, pages 193-227, Toulouse, 1988.

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Report TR/IRIDIA/94, Brussels University, 1994. http ://iridia.ulb.ac.be/ marchal/bxlthesis/ consciencemecanisme.html.

[22] B. Marchal. Calculabilité, Physique et Cognition.

PhD thesis, Universite de Lille, Departement d’informa¬tique, Lille, France, 1998. Editions Universitaires Europennes, 2010.

[23] B. Marchal. The Origin of Physical Laws and Sensations. In 4th International System Administration and, Network Engineering Conference, SANE 2004, Amsterdam, 2004.

[24] B. Marchal. A Purely Arithmetical, yet Empirically Falsifiable, Interpretation of Plotinus’ Theory of Matter.

[25] B. Marchal. La Machine Mystique. Logique et Analyse, 218 :165-183, 2012.

[26] B. Marchal. The Computationalist Reformulation of the Mind-Body Problem. Prog Biophys Mol Biol, 113(1) :127-40, 2013.

[27] B. Marchal. The Amoeba’s Secret. Charleston, SC, USA, 2014.

[28] T. Maudlin. Computation and Consciousness.

The Journal of Philosophy, pages 407-432, 1989.

[29] Plotinus. The Enneads. Larson Publications, NewYork, 1994.

[30] P.L. Simeonov, L. Smith, and A.C. Ehresmann.

Integral Biomathics : Tracing the Road to Reality.

Springer¬Verlag, Heidelberg, 2012. ISBN : 978-3642-28110-5.

[31] P. Smorynski. Fifty Years of Self-Reference in Arithmetic. Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, 22(4) :357- 374, 1981.

[32] P. Smorynski.

Self-Reference and Modal Logic. Springer Verlag, New York, 1985.

[33] R. Smullyan. Forever Undecided. Knopf, New York, 1987.

[34] R. M. Solovay. Provability Interpretation of Modal Logic. Israel Journal of Mathematics, 2 5 :287-304, 1976.

[35] R. T. Wallis. Neoplatonism,. Gerald Duckworth & Co., London, 1972. Second Edition, 1995, Hackett Publishing Company.

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Contingency in complex systems and eastern trinitarian divine action in creation Arvin M. Gouw, PhD.

Science, Religion & Culture Program Harvard University School of Divinity Cambridge, USA

Abstract: Divine action and the contingency of creation on God have been an ongoing topic of discussion between theologians and scientists. This paper begins with an introduction on contingency by presenting two models of contingency: topdown and bottom-up contingency models (section 1). I then proceeded to make the connection between contingency and causation (section 2).

With the discourse of causation, contingency can be approached starting from either the cause or the effect.

I propose to approach the issue by starting neither from the cause nor the effect, but from the system (section 3). This systems approach has the following logical flow. The first step is to consider the system in itself (section 4). There is a continuum of system complexity from simple to complex. The second step is to delineate the differences between simple and complex systems by considering four factors (section 5). Third is to locate the contingency of both systems (section 6). By using the cell as an example of a complex system, I demonstrated that modeling complex systems as a network is superior to the serial linearization method. Then I proceed to determine the nature of God based on this new proposed systemic relational contingency model (section 7). I find Lossky’s Essence-Energies Trinitarian formulation of divine action in creation is compatible with the

quantum randomness contingency model and the relational systemic contingency model. Moreover, in comparing the Trinitarian doctrines of Lossky with Barth, I argue that Eastern Trinitarian model in general overcomes both theological and scientific problems better than Western Trinitarian models. In conclusion, I argue that the relational contingency model overcomes problems of the previous models, provides novel implications that fits with the eastern concept of trinitarian divine action, and is open to future theological and philosophical development.

Keywords: divine action, contingency, complex systems, trinity, essence and energies

I. Preface This paper seeks to address several questions pertaining to contingency: Wherein does contingency lie? Is it fundamentally located in the quantum world of probabilities? If so, what implications does this have on theology proper?

Many have wrestled with the aforementioned fundamental questions in the field of theology and science, and I will begin by discussing some prominent concepts in the field. I will first discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the various models of contingency that have been

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a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy the Di alog u e between Sci en c et haen Di d Th eol ogy proposed thus far. Then, I will propose a systembased approach to locate contingency with the hypothesis that the nature of the system will determine the nature of the contingency of that system and that different systems will reveal different contingencies. Finally in the second half of the paper, I will discuss how a systems approach to contingency will fit better with Eastern Orthodox doctrine of Essence and Energies, especially that of Vladimir Lossky when compared to Western Trinitarian models, especially that of Karl Barth.

II. Introduction to Contingency Christian theologians would mostly agree that God creates the universe, and sustains it, such that the universe is contingent upon God. The question is then how the universe is contingent upon God. There are two major models: contingency on natural laws that I call the “top-down” model, and contingency on randomness as openness to God that I call the “bottom-up” model.

The top-down contingency model claims that the universe is governed by natural laws, which are put in place by God. Therefore, the universe is contingent upon God via these natural laws [1]. Scientists and theologians have embraced this concept, especially during the reign of mechanistic classical physics up to the first half of the twentieth century. However this model of contingency is not without its critics from the fields of both science and theology.

Theologically, deism arises from this model, because it seems that God sets some natural laws to govern the universe then lets it run by itself. If one would like to avoid Deus ex machina and maintain God’s activity within this lawgoverned universe, one has two options. The first option would be to consider divine intervention as merely a human subjective experience of seemingly natural laws. Schleiermacher is one of the major proponents of this subjective notion of miracles and divine intervention [2]. The second option is to maintain the objectivity of divine intervention, where one has to concede that God sometimes breaks natural laws in His act of intervention.

“top-down” contingency model, scientifically, natural laws begin to be questioned with the rise of quantum mechanics in the second half of the twentieth century. The predictability and deterministic nature of classical physics falls apart in the microscopic world. Quantum physics gives the fundamental constituents of matter a highly probabilistic and statistical nature. In other words, classical natural laws are nothing but the statistical average of the much more dynamic, probabilistic nature of the microscopic world.

The rise of quantum physics gives room for a novel “bottom-up” model of contingency, where the randomness of the quantum world is the very ground for God’s creatio continua in the universe. In other words, there is no reason for any particular event to take place, but certain things always happen in a certain way, thus God has faithfully guided randomness to produce consistent outcomes, ergo laws. From the viewpoint of scientists, there is nothing that underlies such randomness, simply because science is unable to address the question of ‘why’ things are the way they are. On the other hand, theologians are allowed to posit agency, the ‘why’, behind natural laws despite their underlying randomness.

However, just like any model, this bottomup contingency model has some disadvantages.

First, God’s role in sustaining this bottom-up contingency has been considered as another example of “God of the gaps”. As Russell correctly clarifies, this could be an epistemic gap that God is filling in, or an ontological one [1, 3]. He argues that this bottom-up contingency is a problem only if it posits God to fill in the ontological gap. Other than the theological problem, there is a second scientific problem with this bottom-up contingency model. Placing contingency at the quantum mechanical level is very limiting, because quantum physics applies only at the subatomic and atomic levels, as opposed to classical physics, which is applicable to the macro world. Extrapolating contingency bottom-up from the quantum world to the macro world is not trivial.

In addition to theological challenges to this

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology III. Causation as part of the definition and criteria for contingency upon God Having discussed the two major models by which theologians find contingency in nature, I would like to first reflect on their approach and clarify certain concepts. In both models, it is safe to say that the task in finding contingency involves finding the cause behind the behavior of a certain system, and ultimately behind the whole universe. I find the discussion of contingency within the context of causation to be more helpful, because it better clarifies what contingency relates to. Moreover, discussing contingency with the language of causation allows us to use the abundant philosophical resources that have been well established in the discourse of causation. Specifically, I will use the probabilistic theory of causation as a means to discuss the top-down and bottom-up contingency models.

The probabilistic theory of causation states that if it is more likely for B to happen in the presence of A instead of in the absence of A, then A is most likely the cause of B. When applied to our particular case of contingency on God, we can say that an event is contingent on God only if given the existence of multiple possibilities and randomness, it is more likely for the event to happen if it was contingent on God than if it was not. In other words, 1.

Ǝx (possibilities A,B,C,…)

2.

P(A) > P(~A)

3.

P(A |God) > P(A | ~God)

4. Therefore God => A and A is contingent on God This probabilistic theory of causation is commonly accepted and consistent with the Copenhagen school interpretation of quantum physics. Thus for the purposes of this paper, though I acknowledge that there other causation theories that could be used, I choose to use the probabilistic theory of causation.

3.

Possible Approaches

Having delineated the working definition and criteria for assessing contingency using the probabilistic theory of causation, I will first discuss two approaches to this contingency

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problem. Upon analyzing the top-down model of contingency where the universe is contingent on God-given natural laws, I argue that the logic of the reasoning starts from the cause to the effect. Their reasoning goes as follows: (a) God is omniscient and omnipotent, (b) God is provident and orderly, (c) God sets natural laws to govern creation, (d) thus creation is contingent on God’s natural laws. Though this deductive top-down approach has proved to be very powerful, it is difficult to deny that a priori reasoning on God’s nature could be quite arbitrary.

The second, bottom-up contingency model begins with the effect, or natural phenomena, then proceeds to assess the cause. The logic of reasoning goes as follows: (a) In nature we see statistical mechanics and quantum mechanics governing the microscopic world, (b) There is no explanation why one outcome happens as opposed to the other possibilities, (c) thus there must be a God who modulates the quantum probabilities to generate the directed outcomes.

This inductive approach is less subjective and circular than the previous top-down approach.

However, as previously discussed, statistical mechanics and quantum mechanics may not always play an important role in the system that is being analyzed due to the microscopic scope of quantum mechanics. This approach may result in overimposing quantum physics on everything (biology, psychology, etc).

Thus it seems that the top-down approach begins with the cause and explains best macroscopic systems within the realm of classical physics. On the other hand, the bottomup approach begins with the effects and explains best microscopic systems within the realm of quantum physics. Neither approach begins with the system itself. Due to the importance of the nature of the system that is being considered in deriving contingency and causation, I propose a third approach to contingency that will start with the system itself.

In both top-down and bottom-up approaches, the starting point of the approach is crucial in determining the contingency of the system. Since my systems approach begins with the system, I hypothesize that the nature of the system will determine the nature of the contingency of that system and that different systems will reveal different contingencies.

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy The systems approach that I am going to use in this paper can be outlined as follows: a. Consider the system in which we seek to locate contingency and causation: simple vs. complex (section 4). b. Delineate the differences between simple and complex systems (section 5). c. Locate the contingency of both systems (section 6). d. Determine the nature of the God based on this contingency (section 7).

IV. Consideration of systems Fundamentally there is a continuum of complexity of systems from simple to complex.

For example, a simple system could be a ball rolling down a hill, and a complex system would be a dividing cell.

Let us first consider a simple system of a ball rolling down the hill. There are certain conditions and boundaries for this system: the initial push, mass of the ball, surface of the hill, and degree of decline. In this particular example, both the topdown and bottom-up models of contingency are applicable.

Let us now consider a complex system of a dividing cell. There are various conditions for this system: DNA content, nutrient availability, biomass availability, membrane availability, and the correct cellular program to execute the cell division. First a cell must receive a proliferating signal either internally or externally, then it needs to increase its biomass prior to doubling, which is possible only if there are enough nutrient resources to do so. Last but not least, the whole process needs to be orchestrated in an orderly manner. Upon looking at this particular system, some have argued that the major and primary cause of this system is the DNA. Thus the contingency lies with the DNA make-up of the cell which is quite specific given the enormous possibilities of various DNA sequences within the ‘sequence space’ (Bernd-Olaf Kuppers in [3]). I argue that in the particular example of a dividing cell above, the DNA is not the primary cause. In fact, it is difficult to pinpoint any one cause as the primary cause, because the system processes are

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very complex. Neither the top-down nor bottomup contingency model fit because neither could find the cause behind this complex system.

V. Delineating factors contributing to the complexity of a system This then prompts me to carefully consider the factors that make the second example, a complex system, while the former, a simple system. I propose the following four factors: I. Number of initial conditions or factors and causes II. Distance between cause and effect within the system III. Interactions between various conditions – possibility of network or feedback loops IV. Closed, or openly interacting system Let us now consider these four factors within the two previous examples. (I) The number of initial conditions of the rolling ball are few: the initial push, mass of the ball, surface of hill, and degree of decline. However, the conditions of the dividing cell are many: DNA content (46 chromosomes must be in good shape with no damage), nutrient availability (the increased uptake of nutrients may involve the orchestration of multiple metabolic pathways), biomass availability (every organelle in the cell has to be doubled), membrane availability (the phospholipid membrane along with the various channels and transporters need to be doubled), and cell division program (involves a timely and ordered sequence of cellular processes).

It is obvious that the complex system has dramatically more conditions than the simple system. (II) The distance between cause and effect is quite direct for a rolling ball, namely the initial push directly causes the rolling of the ball down the hill. On the other hand, the distance between cause and effect is much greater in a dividing cell because of the multiple layers of chains of events that need to take place in a dividing cell. (III) Interactions between conditions in the case of a rolling ball are also quite simple, compared to the orchestration that is required in the case of dividing cell. Last but not least (IV), the rolling ball can be considered as a closed system that receives an initial push

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology to roll down the hill. However, a dividing cell cannot be considered purely as a closed system, because the assurance that the DNA content has no damage and nutrient availability depends largely on microenvironmental conditions.

Thus far, I have shown that complex systems have more initial conditions/boundaries (I), more distance between cause and effect (II), more interactions between the various conditions (III), and more open interactions with factors external to the system (IV). With these differences in the four factors in mind, now I would like to employ the previously described probabilistic causation theory to both systems to test if my hypothesis holds true that different systems will reveal different modes of contingency.

VI. Finding the contingency within the cause and effect of various systems A. Causation in complex systems To locate the primary cause in this complex scenario, we first identify a specific state, say D, then find its directly influencing factors, namely A, B, C, then determine P(A), P(B), and P(C), then assess the likelihood of D happening in the absence of A, B, and C. However, given a complex system, it is difficult to say whether A, B, C are causes, because there are often feedback loops from D backwards. Suppose there is a feedback of (D,C) -> B, implying that D could be both a cause and an effect simultaneously in this dynamic system. Instead of focusing on any particular variable, as ‘effect’ to determine the ‘cause’ and the status of its contingency, I argue that there is no ‘cause’ or ‘effect’ but only relations between events and propositions.

Thus the causation takes place not within any cause or effect but in the relations between the propositions and events within the system.

As previously mentioned, philosophers and theologians often place contingency on the variability of the DNA sequence itself. It is indeed quite common to model a complex system by linearizing a series of simple systems, thus expanding the distance between the cause and the effect (Factor II). For example, subatomic particle properties -> atomic properties -> molecular properties -> DNA properties -> protein level interactions -> cellular level ->

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organ level -> organismal behavior. From this linearization modeling approach, though new properties emerge at different levels, the indeterminacies at each level ultimately arise from the indeterminacies at the quantum level. I consider this a common problem in the bottomup model of contingency from randomness, namely, the fact that in complex systems QM oftentimes do not play a major role.

To overcome this problem, I argue that there are additional ways of modeling and analyzing a complex system (by looking at factors I, III, & IV).

One can do more than simply lining up a series of simple systems into complex systems, but one can create relations between simple systems in a network. This would be better because first, it is impossible to find the ‘primary cause’ within a complex system because there are multiple causes (factor I). Second, it is impossible to locate the ‘cause’ within a complex system because of the fact that complex systems often involve feedback loops (factor III) which then blur the distinction of cause and effect. Third, in a complex system we also have interactions across layers in the emergence pyramid scheme (factors III & IV) which means one cannot simply say that ontologically quantum indeterminacies of the molecules of the DNA are prior to everything else (as proposed by Kuppers and Russell).

B. Example against the Serial Linearization modeling of complex systems Since serial linearization modeling of complex systems is becoming quite a common practice, especially in interpreting biological phenomena, I will provide an example to demonstrate the problem in biological systems.

DNA seems to be the primary cause behind other cellular programs, which are dictated by the specific DNA sequence. Contingency then is located in the ‘sequence space’ [3] of the various possibilities of DNA sequences that could be manifested in a cell. This is valid only because one assumes that this complex system of a cell is a linear series of simple systems that begins from the DNA to RNA to proteins to organelle to cell.

However, let us consider a particular DNA sequence in a human cell, which would

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy constitute about 20,000 to 30,000 genes. Let us consider that gene X, an oncogene that causes cancer, is present in this DNA. Gene X is not necessarily transcribed into messenger RNA (mRNA) despite its presence. The expression of gene X depends on several factors and several layers of regulation. First, DNA is not stretched out open for transcription all the time, in fact DNA strands are wound around histones, causing certain regions of the DNA to be in ‘open’ or ‘closed’ conformation [4-6]. If gene X happens to be in a closed conformation due to the histone-DNA architecture on gene X, then that gene X will never be expressed and will not cause cancer. Second, the histone changes of opening and closing the gene X locus could be effected by various factors such as metabolite availability and histone modifiers [7, 8]. Third, even when gene X is in open conformation, upon transcription, the mRNA of gene X may be degraded by mircoRNAs, preventing it from becoming an oncoprotein that causes cancer or vice versa [9-12]. These are just three simple ways by which the presence of gene X in the DNA of that particular cell does not dictate that cell’s fate to become cancer. Epigenetics, metabolism, and posttranscriptional modifications, among many others, contribute to the possibility of gene X in causing cancer [13, 14]. The complexity grows exponentially as we consider the fact that the histone modifications both affect and are affected by microRNAs and metabolism of the cell [7, 15]. This fine balance of networks make it impossible to say that the contingency and primary cause of a certain event lies in the DNA sequence alone. This is not to deny the quantum phenomena behind a specific DNA sequence, but the system is dramatically more complex than that. It is precisely the interactions between these various factors (metabolism, epigenetics, post-transcriptional modifications) that create infinite possibilities for the fate of the cell. Though each of the aforementioned factors (metabolism, epigenetics, posttranscriptional modification) will have their own quantum contingency by themselves, their relationship amongst each other adds multiple layers of contingencies that are not quantum mechanical in nature.

In conclusion, instead of the top-bottom and the bottom-up models of contingency that depend on finding the cause within the system,

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I propose a systemic contingency model where contingency lies neither at the top (with the laws) nor at the bottom (with quantum randomness), but within and through every layer of a complex system. This alleviates the need to find the primary cause, and leads to an understanding that the complex system is interconnected and allowing contingency to be found throughout the whole system.

VII. Theological models of God that will interact with various contingency models Provided the proposed novel ‘systemic relational’ contingency model, I now turn to theology to seek for the best possible divine action model for this systemic contingency model. Various contingency models will definitely influence our thinking on how God interacts with creation. In turn, His mode of interaction with the world will tell us something about His nature. Having demonstrated the novelty of the systems-approach to finding a ‘relational and systemic contingency’ model in complex systems, I would like to proceed to consider what theological models of God would fit with the relational systemic contingency model that I proposed.

Though one’s concept of contingency need not influence one’s theology proper, we can see that top-down and bottom-up contingency models naturally fit with certain theological models of God and divine actioin. The top-down natural law contingency model fit better with an omnipotent, omniscient God who is the Designer or the Watchmaker. Such a God interacts with the universe through natural physical laws. On the other hand, an evolving God of process theologians would work well with the bottomup randomness contingency model where the universe and God are in a creative dialectic with creation between chaos and order. This then begs the question: which theological model of God and divine action would be most compatible with the systemic relational model of contingency? Moreover, since the systemic model of contingency does not negate, but simply adds to the quantum contingency model, then ideally the theological model of God should be compatible with bottom-up contingency model as well. Here I would briefly compare and

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology contrast western and eastern Trinitarian model of interacting with the world. I will further argue that the Eastern Orthodox doctrine of Essence and Energies fit very well with systems contingency model that I proposed.

A. Eastern Orthodox relational model of God through His energies Given the scope of the paper I will focus on one of the best proponent of the doctrine of Essence and, Vladimir Lossky, a great Orthodox theologian. I will briefly compare his theology with Karl Barth’s as an example of a western theological model. Lossky has always sought to interpret the interaction of the universe with its creator in a less dialectic and opposing manner than western theologians, i.e. Barth. Losky’s Essence and Energies distinction is a reaction against the overemphasis on cataphatic ways on the one end and apophatic ways on the other.

Lossky’s doctrine of divine action in creation is intricately bound to the classic eastern doctrine of Essence and Energies. Lossky argues that God is unknowable in His Essence, but the triune God has decided to be present in His Energies, which are knowable to us [16]. God is present with creation in His Energies. Through His presence in Energies, we may know God as Love, Wisdom, etc [16]. Thus the Energies are the attributes of God. However, Lossky maintains that there is no distinction in quality between the attributes of God as Energies and the Essence of God. God is not part in Essence and part in Energies. God is whole in Essence and whole in Energies. It is just that the Essence is the mode of existence of God where He is unknowable[16]. The Energies make God knowable.

Thus he proposes that Energies penetrate the whole creation in that it gives the whole creation “rationality”- making it possible for us as God’s highest creation to make sense of creation at every level from subatomic to macrolevel [16]. To overcome cataphatic and apophatic ways in theology, Lossky proposes that there is something spiritual in every material phenomenon, since God’s Energies penetrates every level of creation and sustains them.

Interestingly enough, Lossky avoids the tendency of western theologians to overemphasize the Holy Spirit in interacting with the world. Instead, Lossky uses the Trinitarian doctrine and Energy

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and Essence doctrine to preserve the Trinitarian transcendence, order where the Father is arche, while allowing the Triune God to be immanent in the universe [16].

B. Eastern Trinitarian model of interacting with the universe Now, having discussed generally the concepts of Essence and Energies, I will present Vladimir Lossky’s Trinitarian view. Lossky begins by arguing that God is unknowable [16]. Lossky argues that the cataphatic approaches to God are false, because we are projecting our imperfect nature to God [16]. Following Gregory Palamas, Lossky believes that in order to look into the mystery of God, we need the apophatic approach, however he will transcend this as well in mystical union [16]. Lossky points out that the apophatic approach is not simply the negation of the cataphatic approach. Negation of a sentence has the same level of knowledge as the negated sentence. To say that God is not evil would be meaningless if we do not know how good is opposed to evil. Thus inherent to every negation is a positive knowledge such that all true theology is fundamentally apophatic [16]. This theological epistemology then leaves us only to God’s descent (katabasis) as our only means to know God (anabasis) [17].

God has made Himself knowable in His Energies through His redemptive act. Thus, like Barth, Lossky seeks to explain the triune God in light of atonement which involves renewal of all creation. Lossky sees there are two fundamental acts: redemption and deification [17]. Redemption, related to katabasis, can be attributed to Christ while deification, related to anabasis, can be attributed to the Spirit [17].

The two acts are different, but they are not unrelated. The underlying doctrine that Lossky uses to explain redemption and deification is kenosis. The act of emptying is done by the Son to perform redemption. The Son leaves His divine nature to take human nature and created nature so that we can be redeemed. But in deification, there is also the kenosis of the Spirit, because the Spirit hides Himself behind the created universe to bring creation to harmony with the divine nature through the Energies [17].

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy Lossky uses the dichotomy of hypostasis and physis to explain the relationship between the Son and the Spirit. Moreover, the kenosis of the Son and the Spirit are interrelated to the kenosis of the Father where the Father has hidden His Essence in His Energies. Thus Lossky follows Iraeneus in that the Son and the Spirit are the two hands of the Father in the act of salvation [16]. This monarchy of the Father should not be understood as subordination, because this monarchy only points out to the mon-arche, one source, of personhood. The monarchy of the Father brings unity to the Godhead[16, 18].

In summary, Lossky begins with a denial of cataphatic theology. But he explains clearly that negative theology is not apophatic theology.

Apophatic theology transcends affirmation and negation. Thus there is no way to know God other than through His descent. Since God is Love, He has decided to present Himself in His energies.

Though we will not be able to know God fully in His Essence, we can have his full presence in His energies[16]. The doctrine of the Trinity that comes out of this is that the energies cannot be attributed to any single Person. The Energies and attributes of God must be appropriated to the being of God as a whole, all three Persons. The distinction of the Persons comes when we see God’s act of atonement. God’s atonement is in two parts: redemption and deification. The Son redeems humanity by assuming human nature and hiding His divine nature. The Spirit deifies human nature by assuming the human person and hiding His divine person. But, these two interdependent processes of kenosis are both dependent upon the Father’s kenosis where in revelation He has decided to be present in His Energies and hide His Essence. Thus, the distinction of the Persons is known to us from the works of God, while the unity of God is known to us in the monarchy of the Father[16].

C. The Essence and Energies vs. the Holy Spirit as a model for God to interact with Creation.

Lossky argues that the Western notion of the Spirit as the medium by which the physical realm of the universe is affected by God is imbalanced, which we can find in the pneumatologies of Barth and also Moltmann, Pannenberg, and Congar. The reason that is imbalanced is that throughout the Scripture, we see various

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Persons of the Trinity interacting with the universe. In the Old Testament, we see God the Father interacting with Israel. In the gospels we see the second person of the trinity interacting with this world [16]. In fact, the Holy Spirit does not play major role in interacting with the people until the church age. Such an interaction of the three persons with the universe also predisposes western theologians to an overly speculative cataphatic theologies as can be seen in medieval theology.

There are several strengths of arguing that the universe is contingent on Energies. First, it works with the field ontology of modern physics, where most philosophers of physics would agree that the most fundamental fabric of the universe is field-based and energy-based.

Though quantum physics could work with particle ontology, field ontology is superior to particle ontology because field ontology can explain particle ontology but not vice versa [19, 20]. In other words, physicists could explain particles as quantization or corpuscles of fields [21]. This would make the notion of energies and fields more compatible with the aforementioned quantum model of contingency.

Second, the notion of Energies gives plausibility and room for interactions between the Energies and networks of relations within complex systems. It is more plausible to think of interacting Energies as opposed to interaction between a network and a spatiotemporally embodied entity [22]. In addition to supporting the quantum contingency model, this would support the relational model of contingency as well.

Last but not least, the concept of Energies can illustrate God’s creatio continua in the world in preserving grace, sovereignty, and ecclesiastical life. It works with classical Biblical notions of Gods immanence that is better balanced as previously discussed.

Third, theologically, western theologians, especially Protestant theologians like Barth argues that we cannot know God primarily because of human depravity. Lossky argues that we cannot know God primarily because God is ineffable[23]. For Barth, the depravity in knowledge is overcome when Christ is revealed. For Lossky, the ineffability of God is

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology not overcome just because God is present in His Energies. This difference in epistemology brings us to a disagreement in revelation. For Barth, God has revealed Himself fully in Christ, such that the economic trinity and the immanent trinity are identical. But inherent in Lossky’s doctrines of Energies and trinity, there are three levels in the existence of the trinity. First, the immanent trinity exists within the Godhead in its divine Essence, completely unknowable to us.

Second, as an outflowing of this divine Essence, the trinity exists as three persons in the divine Energies. Third, the economic trinity exists in relation to creatures through the divine Energies, knowable to us[24]. Thus, through apophatic theology we can only leap from the economic trinity to the level of the Energies, where we can somewhat fathom the immanent trinity, but not in its fullness in the divine essence. The third and second levels of existence are congruent, but the first level of existence is far beyond our reach, even after deification [25].

While Barth uses the Holy Spirit as source of revelation and divine action to overcome human depravity, Lossky uses the concept of Energies to allow God to do that. However, in doing so, Barth’s third person of the Trinity becomes overemphasized in the Trinitarian order, and might jeopardize the ineffability and transcendence of God. On the other hand, Lossky preserves the Trinitarian order and transcendence while allowing all three Persons to relate immanently within creation.

Conclusions Having discussed everything above, I would like to conclude with some advantages of the relational contingency model. It overcomes the disadvantages of the previous models because of several reasons. First, the relational contingency model would avoid having God intervene at the quantum mechanical level all the time, and therefore avoid the ‘God of the gaps’ critique. Second, this model would avoid superimposing quantum physics to complex systems which often happens with the quantum contingency model. Third, the relational model would not view supernatural events as the unnatural breaking of some physical laws or properties of a system’s constituents. Rather, supernaturalness comes from the relation that

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a system has with something outside of its natural system or network. The novel dynamic relations that a complex system has with the supernatural is what brings it from the natural to the supernatural (this would be in line with Aquinas’ notion of the supernatural as not being unnatural). This is thus another supportive proposal for Russell’s Non-Interventionist Objective Divine Action (NIODA) model.

In addition to overcoming issues of the previous two contingency models, the systemsapproach contributes several implications that are novel and unique to this relational model.

First, though quantum mechanical properties are the fertile grounds for contingency for both simple and complex systems, a complex system has contingency that can be found within its network of interactions. Second, God does not have to act or intervene physically via a linear, downward causation from culture to our thoughts, to our brain, to neurons, to our cells, then to our genetic make-up. God can interact with us relationally as an open system which then changes the dynamics of the whole system.

Third, this model proposes a God who is more relational and not spatiotemporally localized, tampering with various causes as means to interact with the system.

However, just like any model, there are interesting areas for further development. First, the system considered here is predominantly biological, therefore we do not know how this would change as we consider more complex systems such those found in sociology, or psychology. But I would speculate that the various contingencies considered by Robert J. Russell would work well with my proposed relational contingency model. Second, it would also be interesting to explore the notion of downward causation of the emergence paradigm with this network relational model of contingency. Third, it would be challenging to construct a model by which the Energies and fields interact within various networks in the universe, but perhaps that is beyond the realm of science altogether.

In summary, I began by giving an introduction on contingency by presenting two models of contingency: top-down and bottom-up contingency models (section 1). I then proceeded to make the connection between contingency

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy and causation (section 2). Under the lens of causation, contingency can be approached starting from either the cause or the effect.

Both approaches have severe limitations, and I decided to approach the issue by starting from the system (section 3). This systems approach has the following logical flow. The first step is to consider the system in which we seek to locate contingency and causation (section 4). There is a continuum of system complexity from simple to complex. The second step is to delineate the differences between simple and complex systems by considering the four factors (section 5). Third is to locate the contingency of both systems (section 6). Locating causation and contingency depends largely on how one models complex systems: as a linear series of simple systems or as a network of simple systems (section 6.2). By using the cell as a complex biological system, I demonstrated that modeling complex systems as a network is superior to the serial linearization method. Fourth is to determine the nature of God based on this contingency (section 7). I then proceed to argue that Lossky’s Essence-Energies Trinitarian formulation of divine action in creation is compatible with the quantum randomness contingency model and the relational systemic contingency model. Moreover, in comparing the Trinitarian doctrines of Lossky with Barth, I have shown that Eastern Trinitarian model in general overcomes both theological and scientific problems better than Western Trinitarian models. In conclusion, I argue that the relational contingency model overcomes problems of the previous models, provides novel implications, and is open to future theological and philosophical development.

Thus if we are to take contingency of complex systems seriously and how such contingency informs our theology of divine action in creation, then I argue that the relational Trinitarian model of Lossky fits very well with such complexsystems contingency. Moreover, the doctrine of Essence and Energies preserves God’s transcendence in His immanence. This avoids the pantheistic, process God that is often associated with quantum “bottom-up” contingency model on one end, and this also avoids the deistic God that is often associated with “top-down” lawgoverned contingency on the other extreme.

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References [1] Russell, R.J., et al., Chaos and complexity :

scientific perspectives on divine action. Series on “Scientific perspectives on divine action”. 2000, Vatican City State, Berkeley, Calif. Notre Dame, Ind.: Vatican Observatory Publications; Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences; Distributed (except in Italy and Vatican City State) by The University of Notre Dame Press. 416 p.

[2] Russell, R.J., N.C. Murphy, and C.J. Isham, Quantum cosmology and the laws of nature : scientific perspectives on divine action. A Series on Divine action in scientific perspective. 1993, Vatican City State, Berkeley, Calif.: Vatican Observatory ; Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences. 468 p.

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[8] Gupta, V., et al., Interplay between epigenetics & cancer metabolism. Curr Pharm Des, 2014. 20(11): p. 1706-14.

[9] Mets, E., et al., MicroRNA-193b-3p acts as a tumor suppressor by targeting the MYB oncogene in T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Leukemia, 2014.

[10] Vire, E., et al., The breast cancer oncogene EMSY represses transcription of antimetastatic microRNA miR-31. Mol Cell, 2014. 53(5): p. 806-18.

[11] Tanaka, M., et al., EVI1 oncogene promotes KRAS pathway through suppression of microRNA-96 in pancreatic carcinogenesis. Oncogene, 2014.

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[12] Li, Y., et al., MYC through miR-17-92 suppresses

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology specific target genes to maintain survival, autonomous proliferation, and a neoplastic state.

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[16] Lossky, V., The mystical theology of the Eastern Church. 1976, Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press. 252 p.

[17] Lossky, V., In the image and likeness of God. 1975, London: Mowbrays. 232 p.

[18] Hunt, A., The Trinity : insights from the mystics.

2010, Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press. xv, 190 p.

[19] Healey, R., Gauging what’s real : the conceptual foundations of gauge theories. 2009, Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press. xix, 297 p.

[20] Auyang, S.Y., How is quantum field theory possible? 1995, New York: Oxford University Press. viii, 280 p.

[21] Kuhlmann, M., H. Lyre, and A. Wayne, Ontological aspects of quantum field theory. 2002, River Edge, N.J.: World Scientific. xi, 362 p.

[22] Maudlin, T., Philosophy of physics : space and time. Princeton foundations of contemporary philosophy. 2012, Princeton: Princeton University Press. 183 p.

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[24] Bradshaw, D., Aristotle East and West : metaphysics and the division of Christendom. 2004, Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press. xiv, 297 p.

[25] Reid, D., Energies of the spirit : trinitarian models in Eastern Orthodox and Western theology.

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1997, Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press. xiv, 149 p.

interest is in the intersection between science, theology, and ministry. He served as associate pastor in Harvest Fellowship of Churches during which he did his fellowship on science and theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. He received his Ph.D. in pathobiology from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, M.Phil in philosophy from University of Pennsylvania, M.A. in theology from St. Mary’s Seminary & University’s Ecumenical Institute of Theology, B.A. & M.A. in neuroscience from UC Berkeley.

Dr. Gouw serves as the director of the BeHEARD (Help Empower & Accelerate Research Discoveries) division of Rare Genomics Institute where he leads crowdfunding efforts for rare disease personalized medicine research predominantly for children. Dr. Gouw is also the senior editor for biological sciences at Cancer InCytes Magazine, a magazine that discusses the healthcare needs of disadvantaged populations, especially victims of human trafficking and slavery. Dr. Gouw has been an active member of several professional societies: American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Academy of Religion, Society for Biblical Literature, and Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences.

Biography Arvin M. Gouw, Ph.D. is a Research Associate at Harvard University School of Divinity, Fellow at Stanford University, Visiting Scholar at University of California, Berkeley, and Adjunct Faculty at San Francisco State University. His main

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The Church’s mission in the face of great challenges that come from the sphere of modern and postmodern science Gheorghe ISTODOR, Professor PhD Faculty of Theology “Ovidius” University Contanta - Romania pr_george_istodor@yahoo.com

Abstract: Paradigm shifts within the contemporary sciences are likely to help realize Christian Orthodox teaching and faith, in the context of an increasingly secularized society. A new scientific paradigm is evident within the material sciences, their disparity, compared to sciences of life, being about seven decades. These paradigm changes enable today’s Orthodox Christian to bean “intellectually fulfilled believer”, with the help of postmodern sciences.

Key words: scientific paradigm, material sciences, life sciences, mission orthodox, scientific knowledge, secularism, postmodernism.

I. Preliminaries The modern period, beginning with the Renaissance, would bring about radical changes within Western societies regarding religion, religiousness and the Church. The Christian God Himself, the Living and Personal One, the One involved in the life and salvation of man and of the world, became denied and condemned to a “transcendental” marginalization, and religion and the Church began to be considered as belonging solely to the private sphere, only to human subjectivity, not being any longer validated and recognized as institutions worthy

to carry out public activities. Modernity proved itself aggressive to God and the Church wanting to dismantle the Christian God of the Middle Ages; on the other hand postmodernity proved itself to be tolerant of the Christian religious phenomena, but a tolerance offered as a poisonous “gift”, which actually encouraged religious syncretism, by rendering the Christian faith and its axiological system relative and even.

The place of the church and its theology in modern and postmodern society was taken by some scholars to be an extension of science that had begun to deny religious tutelage of the Church and showed signs of becoming increasingly autonomous. In fact, there was nothing new under the sun, modern science resumed – in another coordination – the old process of “disenchantment”, initiated in the old world with the so-called “atomic theory” of Leucippus, Epicurus and Lucretius. This “atomic theory” ideologically presented as “the dawn” of rational thinking presents the genesis of the world as actual random interactions of elementary components which are atoms; the theory being directed primarily against the gods who would not interact at all with the world[1].

The Renaissance preoccupation that

reintroduces the concerned ancient

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology philosophical-scientific materialists, but at the same time operates a revival of ancient pagan values. It must be said that this process of “disenchantment”, the world” is the foundation of the “old scientific paradigm” that states and affirms science as the autonomous guarantor of the overall progress of humanity without God[2], and as a major condemner of religiosity, identified with the period of total ignorance, and gnosiological darkness as an obsolete period called pre-scientific.

“Disenchantment of the world” and the “old scientific paradigm” put to the test the strength of Christian theology - especially Western theology – and leads to a harmful process in which both secular Western philosophy and Western Church have made their share of “contributions”. Within the scope of Western Christian philosophy we have two moments that led to the imposition on the Western conscience, that God should be reduced to a mere abstract rational, that He has succumbed to Westernisation and be expelled in a quasi-delusional transcendence. The first moment is the imposition of a strongly antiChristian philosophical concept called “deism”.

While, although not rejecting the existence of God and formally accepting the quality of God’s ‘creation’, just like the “atomistic period” to which I referred, God would not interact at all with man and the cosmos, being trapped in a transcendence stronger than himself, the world and man living by the laws of the universe created by God; it was such a big step towards the theory of a fundamental mechanistic universe as in the “old scientific paradigm”.

Also in the sphere of modern and postmodern philosophy we have the famous theory of “death of God” by Nietzsche[3], showing that the profane and even deChristianization of the West has already started, the theory mentioned is merely indicative of the value of the symptoms of these anti-Christian processes. Worse still is that - and now we move on to the ecclesial as elements outlined in the “old scientific paradigm” - the theory appears as a reaction to the declaration of the Pope and his decisions “ex cathedra”, as being infallible, and St. Justin Popovich, speaking of the connections between the two events, explains the causal link, why only twelve years from Vatican I (18691870) the theory “death of God”[4] appears.

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The idea is clear: God is “dead” and now exists a substitute on earth in the person of the pope as the Vicar of Christ, and he has received Divine attributes, such as infallibility. This connection has helped the Catholic Church through the confusion between God’s transcendence and His absence from creation – the absence of refilling the consciousness of Westerners regarding the pope’s infallibility - confusion generated by rejecting the teaching of Palamite about uncreated energies that could explain both transcendence and immanence of God in a convincing way. Cataloging the teachings of Palamite as “the greatest innovation supported by the Orthodox Church”[5] has made it possible to implement the “old scientific paradigm” with the foundation “disenchantment of the world”, with direct reference to the period of religion as one of pre-scientific and marked by ignorance.

But the height of folly within the socalled Christian theology comes from a liberal Protestant theologian, “theology” by Dietrich Bonhoeffer[6], (promoter of Christianity without religion), who decreed a “theology” of the death of God, revealing no connection with the teaching of the Christian Church.

Thus, it was the “old scientific paradigm” that would transform science into ideology and bringing science into the cruel bondage of, “quadrilateral ideological death”: materialism, naturalism, atheism and scientism. This old paradigm will be purely deterministic, materialistic and atheistic, and it will reign absurdity, non-sense and be hazardous.

II. Paradigm changes in the material sciences. The new scientific paradigm.

In the old scientific paradigm, the religious system eliminates human axiologic and God becomes an “unnecessary hypothesis.”[7] God is replaced by a “Daimon” which is an omniscient spirit, theoretical, and by virtue of Laplacian determinism he must know all past and all future. Of “Daimon’s” Laplacian writes that - according to the “old scientific paradigm” – in the so-called “final solution” of Hilbert, his ideology proclaims that the logic of mathematics and any mathematical system solves all that can be true or false. Hilbert’s mathematics number theory which, was based on axioms, on logic

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy and mathematics meant to be trapped in a logic of factual ideological determinism. In physics, astronomy and astrophysics the “old paradigm” takes as a norm, Jaques Monodcu’s vision of life, “life is an unlikely accident”[8], or „man finally knows that he is alone in the vast indifferent universe that arose by chance”[9], a highly relevant vision of the capabilities of knowing ideological science, especially to serve man.

Also in this respect, we have a Nobel physics laureate - Steven Weinberg with his meaningless worldview: “The more we understand the world so it seems more meaningless”[10].

represents the speed of light which presupposes movement, and movement implies the existence of time, and when we talk about time, we talk about creating the Universe. Following this scientific certainty, that the universe had a beginning, we have the theory of the “Big Bang” of Friedmann and Lemaitre,who developed the anthropic principle of Carter with its forms: strong, weak and finalist, and who speaks from the perspective of astrophysics and the need for a Creator of the universe and a universe full of meaning rather a meaningless one as described

by Weinberg.

Just from these few examples we understand that the meaning and purpose of human life and the universe were reduced to random chance, nonsense, etc., in an ideological approach you replace a genuine scientific approach based on experimental research. “The new scientific paradigm” is formed because of mutation / major changes in physics, mathematics and astronomy, referring only to material sciences.

A significant blow had been given to the “old scientific paradigm”, and chaos theory introduces us to a world that was probabilistic and not deterministic and Poincaré’s phenomena of non-linearity shows that interaction in a system of three bodies cannot be predicted term long, a cruel blow to the mechanistic vision of the entire autonomous universe.

The physics of quantum mechanics have a physical dimension and show that energy is emitted from the particle in packets (quanta) and not continuously. This mode of manifestation of energy is considered as a break with traditional science concepts, which could not conceive of situations where, for example, the temperature goes from 21 degrees Celsius to 23 degrees Celsius without passing through 22 degrees Celsius. Then we have Albert Einstein showing from where light comes together with Young’s contribution showing that light is made of particles with zero mass and called photons.

Moreover, Steven Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle was formulated by demonstrating that we cannot know both the position and velocity of a particle, and this proved to be a fatal blow to the classical determinism “old scientific paradigm”. “The new scientific paradigm” goes further and shows that not only light, but also matter has a dual nature, undulating and corpuscular. Likewise, Niels Bohr would show that there are links between the two mysterious particles that transcend both time and space.

Einstein’s theory of relativity is a landmark of “new scientific paradigm”. His famous formula E = MC2 scientifically demonstrated that there is time, that the universe is not eternal as stated in the “old scientific paradigm”; the constant ‚C’

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In mathematics we have the great scientist Kurt Gödel who, following the ideological, logical mathematics of Hilbert, showed - by extension - that in this way the human spirit itself was enclosed in a logical determinism or totalitarianism. In 1931 he demonstrated that a logical system, although it is complete, will in fact be inconsistent. He introduces the notion of truth in mathematics being higher than demonstrability[11].

I have pointed out a few relevant aspects of the “new scientific paradigms” within material science to show a scale paradigm shift operated in the sciences; fundamental changes must alter the relationship or the dialogue of theology with science today.

III. Paradigmatic changes in the life sciences. The new scientific paradigm.

The old scientific paradigm has affected, through determinism and factual ideology of Laplacian’s “Daimon’s”, and Hilbert’s “final solution” of life sciences and corresponds to Changeux’s “man neuronal”[12], which eliminates the spiritual life of man, so that man no longer had will and free will, but was at the mercy of decisions of his own brain. But biology and genetics are by far the biggest challenges of “life

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology sciences” in the “old scientific paradigm”. Thus, Darwinian evolution is based on the struggle for survival on natural selection and adaptation to the environment. These were based on “faith” that the universe is eternal, and so is time and space. All this has led - unfortunately - the twentieth century totalitarianism (Nazism and Communism) and social Darwinism.[13] The “new scientific paradigm”, biology, although it remains integral in itself throughout evolution[14], denies Darwin; the new vision of biology being represented by Christian De Duve, who talks about life as “inevitable and joined through the laws of the Universe”, an “imperative cosmos”[15]. Michael Denton shows that there is no contradiction between biology and theology, current biology agreeing with theological teachings. Denton reached extraordinary conclusions that biology valorizes the incarnation of Christ, and emphasizes the Christian anthropocentric vision strictly in the context of the human role in the universe[16].

We must emphasize here that although scientists remain naturalists, open to new interdisciplinary perspectives, dialogue with theologians is something exceptional. Moreover the scientists; Rosine Chandebois and Andras Paldau showing that DNA and our genes are not all-powerful in explaining the phenomenon of heredity.[17] Also Brian Goodwin and Remy Chavin demonstrated the limitations of natural selection presented as a panacea by Darwinists, and Anne Dambricourt showed the limits of environmental influences in life; environmental adaptation to the environment being a focal point of Darwinism and the “old scientific paradigm”. Moreover, the scholar Ben Libet showed that man has free will and free choice, his experience demonstrating that man does not live by a dictatorship of the brain, such a distinction is made between “man neuronal” and “man mentally”: the latter deciding the level of free will, the mind and human reason not being reduced, or depleting the brain’s biological level. One second before an action our brain is ready to perform. We take note of our decision dictated by the brain 0.2 seconds before it occurs. Scientific experiments have demonstrated , that freedom is not an illusion, our brain decides for itself and for us, but Libet showed that before a man performs an act, with his will, he can stop the process initiated by the

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brain.[18] I have pointed out some of the more notable examples demonstrating paradigm changes made in life sciences. However, we should mention that there is a gap between material sciences and life-sciences, of approximately 7 decades in favor of the former as a process of liberation from ideological quadrilateral bondage which I have mentioned. This explains why any life sciences paradigm shift is so difficult.

Even so it is great for theology and for dialogue with the sciences that these structural changes, offers a real scientific revolution with the release of ideological influences that science claim.

Conclusion Living in these times, a period considered by some ideologues and Western philosophers as post-modern and worse post-Christian, where science and scientists, together with bankers, and to a lesser extent philosophers – and because a desacralisation phenomena and even de-Christianization - marks present society, it is naturally of missionary concern regarding science and the challenges coming from this area. We reviewed those challenges coming from the sphere of material sciences, and those coming from the field of life sciences and I did so because of fractured dialogue between relational theology with science which manifested itself in these two plans: material sciences plan there was generated a breakdown of matter by “Gallilean business” and in the life sciences plan fragmentation caused by “Darwin business.”

This paradigm shift - beyond which is given a new chance of dialogue with theology - shows that science is in constant change, we need to affirm together with honest scientists – the limits of scientific knowledge rather than to absolutize sciences as in ideological scientism. The limits of scientific knowledge were shown with great clarity and power by the Christian scholar and academician Alexander Mironescu[19], and is recognized by scholars today. To celebrate the birth of Lord Kelvin sec XX, (to whose name is given the scale of absolute temperature), a famous conference was held in 1900, in which he stated that physics explains everything except the two “little black clouds” blighting

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy yet clear skies of science: the experience of Michelson and Morley and black body radiation when heated.[20] It turned out that these little “dark clouds” turned into two storms that ravaged the classic science vision of the world, and, through disciplines such as general relativity and quantum mechanics helped create a “new scientific paradigm”.[21] So then we have many mysteries of the universe and of life that science cannot explain.

For convincing proof I will offer examples in the complex science requiring knowledge boundaries.

1) The Higgs particle, called the “God particle” is a hypothetical particle that could - if it was observed during experiments - help complete the Standard Model of particle physics. But proving the existence of this particle is difficult because the particle has a very small decomposition time so that its existence is very short and there is no evidence of its degradation. Scientists believe strongly that if the particle is established that they will be able to answer questions such as: how the universe was created, or the model of how the whole universe functions.

2) The mystery of gravity, which is a force always acting on objects. What is known is that less force is one of the weakest forces in the universe, and physicists have not yet explained exactly how it works.[22] According to the standard model, gravity must have its own particles called gravitons. These are hypothetical elementary particles which must mediate gravitational interactions. Although they have not been detected, the presence of these particles is felt through various changes in kinetic energy, speed and energy of the rest of the bodies on which interact directly or indirectly. It is a challenge for scientists to concretely detect these mass-less particles.

3) Dark matter in the cosmos, a little known substance and composed of undetected particles whose existence was experimentally determined, theoretically. It is important to scientists because it is believed that it is responsible for creating galaxies. Although its share in the universe is huge, its existence cannot be proven experimentally because it does not emit radiation. We see that regarding the knowledge of the universe scientists

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know nothing, with the limitation of scientific knowledge, the so-called Plank’s Wall, and the mystery of dark matter. The Big Bang theory explains nothing. We remember and value this, in the context of the material sciences, in recognition of the fact that our universe is created, has a beginning and is not eternal.

4) And regarding the end of the universe, modern science knows very little. We have developed theories that seek to harmonize three things: the shape of the universe, dark matter contained and how the density of dark energy will respond to the expansion of the Universe; one of the theories relates to the indefinite expansion of the universe and, because of which, it will disappear. Another theory is the Big Crunch, a total contraction caused by gravity after maximum expansion of the universe.

5) Particles faster than the speed of light. It has been demonstrated at CERN near Geneva that the speed of light can be exceeded by subatomic particles called neutrinos. If they validate these experiments, Einstein’s relativity theory itself could be compromised and all the scientific research so far would be virtually canceled.

It is important to recognize that Christian missionaries and theologians, and modern and postmodern science is not absolute but relative, and also to understand their importance in secular society, but also the challenges that come from them. Paradigm change in the sciences are important to us, as missionaries, because it opens new possibilities for dialogue with scientists and those who appreciate contemporary scientific progress. Richard Dawkins[23] said that there could not be an “intellectually fulfilled atheist” before the publication of “The Origin of Species” in 1859, a theory to explain by purely natural and material causes the origin of living beings.

Changes within science today make it possible for a man to have an “intellectually fulfilled faith”, and religion and religiosity should not be regarded as a prescientific and absurd concept.

[24] Scientific challenges must train and instruct contemporary Christians to to live and to witness in equal measure, and so be jointly contemplative and active, ascetically aware, competent and professing the Christian life today. So this

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology eliminates the risk of being faithful as a pseudoreligious automat, being gullible in a universe marked by ignorance of spiritual and intellectual darkness and superstition. Our Saviour’s commandment to be “salt of the earth and light of the world” (Matthew 5, 13) and dare to be so in front of everyone because, truly, Jesus Christ came “to overcome the world” (John 16, 33).

References [1] In

this sense also see Bernard Pullman, L’atome dans l’histoire de la pensee humaine, Fayard,Paris,1995 [2] Cf.Jean Fourast, Ce que je croi, Grasset, Paris,1981 [3] Firedrich Nietzsche is considered as the philosopher that progressed from modernism to postmodernism, see, “Thus spoke Zarathustra”, edited by Humanitas, Bucharest, 2012.

[4] See Iustin Popovici, “Omul si dumnezeul om”, edited by Deisis, Sibiu, 1997.

[5] See Prof. Dr. Vasile Mihoc, “Predica la Dumnica a doua din Postul Mare”, in, “Predici exegetice la duminicile de peste an”, edited Teofania, Sibiu, 2001, pp.279-283.

[6] See Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “A Testament to Freedom: The Essential Writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer”, HarperOne, New York,2009.

[7] With reference to the famous dialogue between an atheist French astronomer Laplace and Napoleon III. The astronomer presents the king with his system of omitting God totally. The king asks: “Where is God in this system” and the arrogant and proud astronomer replies: “No need for God in my astronomical system. God is an unnecessary hypothesis. “Thus we have a sample of mechanistic self-sufficiency based on a materialist atheist! See, Stuart Gillespie, Philip Hardie, “The Cambridge Companion to Lucretius”, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2007, p. 274.

[8] See in the same sense, Jaques Monod, “Le hazard et la necessite”, Le Seuil, Paris, 1970.

[9] Ibidem [10] See Steven Weinberg, Les trios premieres minutes de l’Univers, Le Seuil, Paris, 1980.

[11] See, Hao Wang, Kurt Godel, Armand Colin, Paris, 1990.

[12] See, Jean Pierre Changeux, L’homme neuronal,

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Odile Jacob, Paris, 2004.

[13] See in the same sense, E.O. Wilson, Sociobiologie,

Le Rocher, Monaco, 1987. Social Darwinism was popular in the late nineteenth century until the end of the Second World War. Supporters used Social Darwinism to justify social inequality as the meritocratic origin.

[14] After the rejection of Darwinian transformism a new theory was formulated the so-called “synthetic theory of evolution” by Ernst Mayr, De la bacterie la om. Evolutia lumii vii, Humanitas Publishing House, Bucharest, 2008.

[15] See, Christian de Duve, Poussiere de Vie, Fayard, Paris, 1996.

[16] See, Michael Denton, L’evolution a t-elle un sense?, Fayard, Paris, 1997.

[17] See in the same sense, Andras Paldi, Le Figaro, 16 July, 2002, p.25.

[18] See, Benjamin Libet, Revue de metaphysique et de morale, Paris, 1991.

[19] See, Alexandru Mironescu, Limitele cunoasterii stintifice, Harisma Publishing House, Bucharest, 1994.

[20] The first “black cloud” consisted of a black body structure when heated. To explain the experimental results, they had made the assumption that energy was emitted from the elementary particles in packets, (quanta), and not continuously. It was a first break with classical scientific concepts. The second “black cloud” Michelson and Morley experienced, which related to the speed of light in a vacuum being constant. It was again a reference to quantum mechanics, a totally intuitive scientific revolution that caught classical concepts on the wrong foot - quoted Jean Staunne, Stiinta si cautarea sensului. Intilnirea dintre cunoasterea cea mai recenta si intuitile milenare, in Basarab Nicolescu si Magda Stavinschi, “Stiinta si religie. Antagonism sau complimentaritate.”, Noua Reprezentare a lumii XXI Eonul Dogmatic Publishing House, Bucharest, 2002, pp. 196-198.

[21] Ibidem [22] It is surprising that, although it is not known how gravity works, it is presented as an explanation of the existence and functionality of the universe, in a vision without God, by astrophysicist and atheist Stephen Hawkins, whose propaganda as a materialist atheist is presented as the new face of Einstein. (Stephen Hawkins, Marele plan, Humanitas Publishing House, Bucharest, 2012.

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy [23] He is the best known atheist scholar, a fervent

propagandist against all forms of theism, who wrote ideological antitheist books: “Dumnezeu – o amagire”, Curtea Veche Publishing House, Bucharest, 2013: “Gena egoista”, Publica Publishing House, Bucharest, 2013; “Caesornicarul orb”, Humanitas Publishing House, Bucharest, 2009.

[24] Cf. Jean Stone, quote p. 280.

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St. Ap. Thomas and steps of faith

Fr. Asist. Prof. PhD Nicolae Popescu The Faculty of Theology, Ovidius University of Constanţa, România preotnicolae@gmail.com

Abstract: There is, in folk tradition, an expression, “Doubting Thomas”, making an obvious allusion to doubts shown by St. Ap. Thomas against the other apostles’ testimonials of the resurrection of Jesus. But we prefer to say that St. Ap. Thomas doubted because he recognizes that the Saviour Himself “believed” only because he saw (Jn 20, 27). But pure faith denies doubt, (evidence shall rebuke the disciples of John, St. Ap. Thomas and the other apostles, who demanded an over-confirmation), and without guile, (showing the condemnation of the Pharisees, scribes and wicked generation, which together “sky sign”), and with aspects which the Saviour added:” Seeing, blessed are those who hear the word of God and obey it “(Lk 11: 28). The Beatitudes are the blessings of the Law of Love as the Commandments are applications of the Law of Moses. The doubt of St. Ap. Thomas, strikingly approaches the existential doubt of the whole being,(while the methodical doubt of Descartes was intellectual), scientists considered this the only legitimate way to access complete certainty. It is thrilling that Descartes wanted to be like a man, who moving through the darkness, and compelled to go slow and be circumspect in all things, as you would do to keep from falling. But he refused to accept any idea before it passed through his reason and without having sought simultaneously, a way to get to know

everything that his spirit is capable of, and being like Adam, who wanted to reach deification by his own powers, without the gift of God. Keywords: Apostle, Thomas, methodical doubt, happiness, judgments, knowledge, Descartes, Apostolic testimony, research, faith

I. BACKGROUND St. Ap. Thomas is not mentioned many times in Scripture. Only St. John the Evangelist speaks about him in chapters 11, 14 and 20, but still we have a tradition with that fixed expression, “Doubting Thomas”, making obvious allusion to doubts shown by St. Ap. to the resurrection of the Saviour.

II. ISSUE The unbelief of St. Ap. Thomas can be likened to temptation striking and searching for a for philosophy, which we know has three stages: surprise, meaning that state of wonder and curiosity that are born of questions and knowledge; doubt the knowledge acquired by critical analysis and an urge to find certainties; disarrangement, disorientation and loss of self, a feeling that compels man to ask serious

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th e Dia l o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and T heology questions regarding himself and his condition of being limited, exposed to existential uncertainty and tragedy.[1] However we need to distinguish between unbelief and doubt, used in different areas, and also for expressing things in a different way.

We prefer to say that St. Ap. Thomas doubted because he recognizes that the Saviour Himself “believed” only because he saw (Jn 20, 27).

About the man who doubts, St. Ap. James says: “He who doubts is like the sea.” (James 1: 6-8) and the Saviour says about St. Ap. Peter, (before the episode with St. Ap. Thomas), “Behold, three men seek thee; Arise therefore, go down and go with them without doubting nothing, for I have sent them. “(Rom 10: 19-20).

So the Apostle Thomas is not the first, nor the only one who showed doubt.

So why is his manifestation so special?

III. POSSIBLE PORTRAIT OF ST. AP. THOMAS As regards, who is St. Ap. Thomas, the Gospel of John says that, when the Jews sought to kill Jesus, he departed from them, then, 4 days after the death of Lazarus the Saviour says to the Apostles to go to his friend Lazarus because he “died”. But the apostles resisted and only St. Ap. Thomas says: “Let us also go to die with him” (Jn 11, 16). So we cannot suspect St. Ap. Thomas, of guile or rebellion against the Saviour, rather we can consider him a faithful devoted body and soul, willing to give his life, but all the more so tormented by doubts.

However, St. Ap. Thomas, called Didymus’, and, (gr.: Didyma), had an unhappy reputation attributed to him because of “unbelief”, and this has been totally undeserved for he was called and came to faith with the publican Matthew (Mt 10, 3; Mc 3, 18; Lk 6, 15).

IV. UNBELIEF OR DOUBT? Whether St. Ap. Thomas had been unfaithful or not, (but he was not because he cared for the Saviour), the reputation attributed to him is unfair because it confers the terms, “already” and “only”, onto St. Ap. Thomas the “unbeliever”; yet none of the other apostles believed in the Resurrection until they saw the Saviour, and no

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one infers if they had the same doubts, until they saw St. Ap. Thomas required proof. In fact, Holy Scripture says that the apostles did not believe in the words of the myrrh-bearing women. And we must remember that only when the Saviour appeared in the midst of the apostles, ONLY THEN did they believe; St. Ap. Thomas was not with them – we don’t know why - but it certainly was not important, otherwise it would have been mentioned in the Scriptures.

So, if we listen to folk tradition, St. Ap. Thomas would not be happy[2], just because he believed only when he saw, but we must remember that the other apostles must also be unhappy, because they also believed only after they saw. Either we learn from Holy Scripture or from Tradition beliefs.

V. HAPPINESS Clearly happiness is only possible with God and people can share this happiness only through being in the likeness of God, and if this is not possible, then happiness cannot be attained in the life of man. But some of the things of God are made possible by wishing to imitate Him[3]. And in this sense happiness is sharing love. Happiness means the futility of law when justice is absolute, and the absolute certainty of the righteousness of the kingdom.

Happiness is a hundred percent altruism.

“Blessed are those who ...” means happy those who help others with something. They are the ones who give up their righteousness to see the joy in some other. Lawfully right means only to have interest in me and what is mine, and not to care for each other. Love is when another wrongs you, but not to return evil for evil but good for evil. And in the same measure, return good for good and bad alike. Part of the intention of the Saviour, we can discern, is when we are resolving situations, that we do so as required by Him. Only after, can we see whether his requirements are met. And maybe some fail to do this in reality, and others only make simulations in their minds. It is important to have a more comprehensive look and we can ascend as many levels (if possible, to God).

The Beatitudes are the spiritual fruits shown as a reward or compensation, not given on merit, but through the light illuminated by the grace of

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology the Holy Spirit, they bear fruit one from another, the life of holiness of Christ in the hearts of the children of the kingdom God, which Christ brought into the world.[4] Let us note, however, that the Saviour taught the people about happiness only after he referred to the teachers of the law, and especially through being a healer.

(Matthew 15, 23-25), so we can assume that this happiness was shown to demonstrate what was needed to become a serious disciple.

For Christian ascetics, by ascending through the 9 Beatitudes, as you climb the rungs of that ladder the ascent eases. But it is not natural for one who has experienced the first happiness and won, to win more, and then even inherit the earth.[5] And “Just as we approach the wisdom of the wise and the pure pureness of The Beatitudes we happily approach the crossing.”[6] Moving through the Beatitudes teaches us that on our path to eternal communion of love of God, we must climb three steps higher. The first step is climbed when we combat the guilt of sin by humility; repentance toward evil deeds committed, and thus acquires gentleness, that serenity of soul. On the second step we ascend when our actions are inspired by the love of God, acts of charity to the needy, taking care of the troubles and infirmities of others. On the third step we ascend when we sanctify life through purity of heart, by acquiring divine lineage as facilitators of world peace. And the topmost rung of holiness is boundless love of God, that we give ourselves completely to Him, to sacrifice our own lives to spread the world of the eternal kingdom, and to enjoy the new gifts from the imperishable,eternal communion with him.[7] The similarity with ascending the ladder that comes from acting for good on your way, but with no stagnancy or setback, just continual going forward, in the words of St. Ap. Paul, “Therefore, the one that seems standing take heed lest he fall “(I Cor 10, 12), since the goal of spiritual life is infinite perfection, modelled on the perfection of God (Mt 5: 48).[8] This is because, unlike in scientific research, happiness is not an objective but the attitude with which we treat the events of life, attitudes arising from the life we lead, and more specifically, the states that we enjoy in the kingdom of heaven -

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and also are promises expressed by the Saviour - if we live, we do “what” and “how” the Saviour requires in those cases. That kingdom has already come, and happiness has already been experienced in the Church, says St. Ap. Paul, in Philippians when a Christian recalls: “Rejoice, and with me be happy!” (3, 18).

It was also said that the Beatitudes are blessings of God, the Saviour makes them known. So when St. Ap. Peter tells the Saviour; “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (Mt 16, 16), Jesus reveals “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, that flesh and blood hath not revealed it, but my Father in heaven “(Mt 16, 17). We thus learn directly from the Saviour that by “flesh and blood” we can acquire spiritual sight, but it is not happiness, because neither through asceticism, nor even by works does a man receive spiritual sight, but by grace, and therefore only God gives happiness.

Faith is pure (evidence shall refute John’s disciples, St. Ap. Thomas and the other apostles, who demanded an exaggerated affirmation) and without guile (showing the condemnation of the Pharisees, scribes and the cunning generation, who together “ask for a sign”), the Saviour added:” Seeing, blessed are those who hear the word of God and obey it “(Lk 11: 28). And, that the believers hear the word and keep it pure by their faith could be a condition for which God shows His mercy, bestowing happiness.

Accused and repudiated by many, the persecution of Christians, expressed in the 8th and 9th, Beatitudes had similarly to the other ‘attempts’ of faith, some beneficial effects in that this persecution functioned like the Saviour’s reprimand sent to St. Ap. Thomas, for rejecting the testimony of the other Apostles about the Resurrection.

Once enough experience and witnessing of martyrdom developed between Christians, a mentality of ‘blessed sufferance’ developed amongst Christians by accepting it voluntary and not out of disgust of this world, because “martyrs did not despise life and the world as such: they knew that this life is good, since it is God’s work. And they were men with hearts that love and suffer with contemplative and admiring souls ... but they knew that this life is temporary: so why not worship. This life will be replaced

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy by a fuller one. This is what the pagan Pionius said when he made his confession: “I know that life is sweet, but we want a better life! Light is beautiful, but we want to possess the true light!

It’s beautiful here and we love the work of God. If we do abandon it, we do not do this in disgust.

But we know that there are greater goods than these.” “This is the Christian life: life moulded by the powers of the ages that should be, an enhanced life under the light of eternity ... “[9] VI. DECALOGUE We know that the Beatitudes are the blessings of the Law of Love as the Commandments are applications of the Law of Moses. As God gave Moses laws that he himself wrote “with a finger on stone” and the Saviour gave the law of love faithful to the Holy Spirit as written on His heart, through the sacraments. And yet, between obedience to the law and Christian liberty there is no contradiction,[10] and in the similarity between the commandments and the Beatitudes, we see happiness and woe in the Beatitudes and in the Gospel of Luke, in which the Saviour gives advice, together with happiness, for those who “listen.” (Lk 6 20-38).

If, in the Old Testament, God gave the Law, for man to live by “The Ten Commandments” (Exodus 20, 2-17; Deut. 5, 6-21),in the “fullness of time” the Saviour gave blessings during New Testament times, by the new Beatitudes that includes law of love in eternal life (Matthew 5: 3 to 11). So we can say that the commandments are similar to, but without overlapping the Beatitudes, because among them there are also differences.

The Beatitudes in the Law of Love is similar to the Commandments in the Law of Moses, and contained in them we see clearly in Christ’s words in Matthew: “Think not that I am come to destroy the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to destroy, but to fulfil.”(Matthew 5, 17, 20-22). Also the Law and Beatitudes together offer the gift of love and God’s care for us, but the distinction between them is shown in the words of the Gospel of John, which says: “The law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ “(Jn 1, 17). And if because of sin, the Law was given to man, by man, ie by Moses on Mount Sinai in the “spirit of

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fear” (Isaiah 11: 3), the “thunder and lightning” (Exodus 19, 16), through a series of prohibitions (Exodus 20, 3-15) aimed at ending the worst fall in the flesh, we were offered the Beatitudes also by man, but this was the perfect man, the Son of God himself made flesh, , so that through the grace, the maker exhorts to raise us to deification through participation, and thus enter the “kingdom of God” (Luke 6, 20). Specifically, if the Commandment is accompanied by suffering for guilt, the Beatitude is accompanied by rewards, but not for merit but as a natural condition that accompanies the believer in Christ for eternity.

In the similarity between the Commandments and the Beatitudes we find that the Beatitudes close with a warning from the Saviour: “Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven...”(Mt 5,19). This is equivalent to the curse of the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 30: 19-20), except that the Beatitudes are not prohibitive, and they say “is not” only to those who try to change the teaching of the Beatitudes and stop a Christian to work for happiness, thus being proactive, affirmative and positive, a total opening an uninterrupted fulfilment of God’s holiness.Therefore the Beatitudes do not condemn, unless they are not followed, because they represent the life of the Holy Spirit who sanctifies the souls of those who cultivate them in a Christ-like way[11].

And if the Commandments which were “from above” were written on tablets of stone in order to be applied by a single “chosen” people in the spirit of meekness, gentleness, mercy and divine peace, the Beatitudes which are for men from all nations “with us “, are written in spirit and bear fruits in love and from a pure heart, through the Son of God who became Man, and from whom we take,” grace upon grace “(John 1, 16); through whom we have received the gift of Beatitudes, embedded theHoly Spirit in our hearts, because they were given to us in the Person of God the Son, in whom we have fullness of grace, and the fulfilment of all the promises because “all the promises of God in Him” - in Christ - are “yes” (II Cor. 1 , 20).

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology We know that Christ has fulfilled the law, because through Christ was manifested the Holy Trinity, meaning the love, and the entire Law is comprised within these two; which, in the first four commandments, was found in the first “commandment” of love : “ Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind “(Mt 22, 37), but also in the last six commandments of the Law, is found the second” commandment “of love “You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (Mt 22, 39).

The Decalogue was and still is the foundation of the human legal system, being formed (as the name implies), out of the Ten Commandments[12] written by God Himself on two stone tablets (Exodus XXI, 18). The name Decalogue, the ten commandments revealed

by God to Moses, is not found in the Bible, but has its foundation in biblical expression “Aseret Haddebarim – the ten words” (Ex. XXXIV, 28; Deut. IV, 13; X 4) and derives from the phrase used in the Greek text of the Septuagint: oί δέκα λόγoι or τά δέκα ρήματα.[13] Retained in the two reviews, (Ex. XX, 1-17; Deut. V, 6-21), being different only in the formulation and motivation of the fourth and tenth commandments, which does not change their religious and moral background,[14] and Holy Scripture tells us nothing about the division of the Ten Commandments on two tablets, about which many different opinions[15] have been formed. In the Orthodox Church, the Decalogue is divided into two groups, the first four commandments representing the duties of the believer to God, and it is believed to have been written on the first tablet; and the next six commandments are duties of the faithful towards his neighbour, and they were listed on the second tablet. Taking the commandments of the Old Testament, the New Testament has not changed them , but by fulfilling the Old Law, the Saviour has expanded the conception regarding ‘neighbour’ to all men, irrespective of race, language, belief and social status, comprising even those who I hate or hurt us (Mt V, 43-44).

[16] VII. FROM THE DECALOGUE TO THE BEATITUDES St. John Chrysostom and other Fathers

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appreciate that the Beatitudes represent the “the tablets of the new law”, laws which the Saviour communicated as some qualities or virtues of the soul through which we arrive at holiness of God, whereby we unite with God. In fact, the very word μακαρος defines Beatitude as that of one that feels consecrated to God. In this case, the beatitudes refer to qualities of the soul through which we can be consecrated with God.[17] The Greek word μακάριος = macarios (happy, blessed)[18] occurs nine times in verses 3-11 of Matthew, verses but verses 10:11 apparently refer to the same part of the Christian experience and, as such, could be considered as constituting a single Beatitude.

And indeed, at first sight between Beatitudes 8 and 9 there are no differences, but, while the 8th Beatitude talks about justice for the persecuted , Beatitude 9 talks about the same martyrs, but that they are persecuted “falsely”, ie false confessions but directed against Christ,[19] therefore, also for the confession of Christ. The difference comes from there being a martyred Christian, through a process that he can be considered to be honest, after the justice of man, he can have the satisfaction of his actions, and he could see even suffering martyrdom as something natural, because it comes from the evil world to his holiness, that’s why he can expect its reward, as for something worthwhile. A believer martyred on false testimony could have dissatisfaction of an injustice, those made on “judicial error” as so many accused under dictatorships; and thus to forget on the one hand the Person and the Sufferings of the Saviour, following His example of such unjust suffering, on the other hand the honour that unjust suffering brings and which will be rewarded even more because it is based on false evidence. Therefore let’s not make confusion between sufferings, and let’s not believe that suffering for faith is ever justified through something from the world, but let’s not believe either that unjust suffering of a martyr means his total lack of sin, because that would be a mistake to equate the injustice of the martyr with the total lack of sin of the Saviour, and “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not amongst us.” (Î 1, 8).

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In conclusion, between Beatitudes 8 and 9,

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy next to suffering it is necessary to add spiritual discernment, to distinguish between legal and religious perspectives to the testimony made by suffering, Beatitude 9 is a plus to the 8th. Let us not confuse therefore the honour of the ministry of Christian witness with justice of criminal proceedings, because the patristic teaching simply asks for the witness of love, without any justification, or reward, but fairly, and with hope in the Saviour’s words, and St. Ap. Paul teaches us that all suffering for the faith will be rewarded

by God, for, “all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution” (II Tim 3, 12), and in fact, the Saviour adds to Beatitude 9[20], that unjust suffering for Christian witness will be all the more rewarding, because the “trials” of faith are harder.

In addition, the hermeneutics of the text reveals as immediate inference that which we can consider reward, with the 9th Beatitude, also those nonbelievers accused and tortured for being Christians. That would mean that God blesses and rewards any unjust suffering, just as the Saviour’s death was unjust. But we don’t have enough arguments about rewarding the non-Christians, and we cannot make justified assumptions in this direction.

The obedience of the commandments can be seen perfectly proven through the life of Jesus Christ, and the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) is nothing but a development of the teaching of the Ten Commandments, although at first glance, the text of “The Beatitudes” seems at least shocking, through the antinomies between the idea of “happiness” and the subjects of “The Beatitudes”, such as: “the poor ...”, “those who struggle ...”, “those who mourn ...”, “the persecuted ...”, “the thirsty ...”, “the reviled” unequivocally pointing to the Passion of Christ.

Throughout the Beatitudes, recounted during the Sermon on the Mount, aspects of the whole but also the final destination of the Christian is thus revealed, because the fulfilment of all the Beatitudes, expressed as a single beatitude – the vigil or the wake - is described by the Saviour as the crowning of faith only from the moment of Parusia, when blessed shall be “those servants whom the master, when he cometh shall find vigil.” (Lk 12, 37-38), and the Saviour reflects this “beatitude” as a summation of all others, at the Last Supper, when He speak to His apostles, and

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of them He eliminates Judah. (Jn 13: 16-18). So He does not refer here to a different beatitude.

VIII. DOUBTS OR DISBELIEF? However, there is still the opinion that St. Ap. Thomas was a doubter, thus unhappy, and in this sense Christ’s words are invoked; the explanation seems to be linked to the charge brought to his faith by the Saviour. But I say “it seems” because we believe that St. Ap. Thomas had only a moment of hesitation, from which The Saviour Himself saved him, lest he be unfaithful, as it happened.

The selective faith Thomas showed is explained through the individualism that characterized the Jewish mentality, which can be explained either by a lack of interest on the views of others, either by a total refusal to listen to the others, based on an assumption of inability or their evil intentions. In other words, Thomas’ prudence points to an absolute individualism and a refusal of communion. St. Ap. Thomas either does not know the communion, or he knows it but he does not care about it, or he hides, and The Saviour says this attitude belongs to transgression which does not come to the light (John 3, 20).

About the risk of missing eternal blessing through conditional faith, meaning exaggerated doubt, which needs an over-confirmation, The Saviour warns the disciples of John and St. Ap. Thomas, criticizing the hesitation in their faith.

For the disciples, of St. John the Baptist and of St. Ap. Thomas, to continue to display conditional faith despite the teaching and discoveries coming directly from the Saviour Himself, it was the same as asking to see the sun in the sky using a candle. Basically The Saviour doesn’t criticize the justified doubts of the people, because the need for facts and evidence is inherent in any deliberation, before the formation of a belief, but He accuses the exaggeration of this doubt, with St. Ap. Thomas ignoring both the spiritual discernment and the testimony of the other apostles, who had seen the Saviour; the conviction produced by acquiring certitudes has as one of its goals to appease “the turmoil triggered by doubt”[21].

Let us recall here that the other apostles believed only after they saw The Saviour

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology with their own eyes and saw the signs of the crucifixion on his body, therefore the Saviour doesn’t reprimand St. Ap. Thomas for this kind of faith, (especially since St. Ap. Thomas was the only one not present when the Risen Saviour came among the apostles), but the Saviour berates St. Ap. Thomas for his lack of communion with the other apostles, for the lack of respect he showed them, and for the distrust he shows in their words. Because St. Ap. Thomas did not accuse and nor did he cast explicitly the testimony of the Holy Apostles, but he requires an over-confirmation on those witnessed by them; and precisely this attitude is very dangerous as it is not an intelligent belief in opposition to blind faith, but poor faith because “He who hears you, heareth me; and he that shall deny you, denies me; and he that shall deny me, denies the One Who sent me “(Lk 10, 16). As an Apostle, St. Thomas the Apostle has the obligation to believe the testimony of the other Apostles without asking for a personal confirmation of the claims. And St. Ap. Thomas does not believe, from the conviction that we discover that he imposed on himself, to verify over rigorously anything, which was useless for the level of spiritual discernment, the apostles, including St. Ap. Thomas himself, had.

“A conviction - says a teacher of philosophy is that belief which, faced with doubt, opens itself to reasoning, does not escape from difficulties by obscure emotional axioms, but it remains concerned with the consistent motivation for choices and moral gestures. Of course, persistent inquisition and excessive questioning can lead to spiritual conflicts, but pushing forward the fragility and possibly the relativity of sympathy and / or adoration for specific meanings, even debunking the force of attraction of an ideal; But nevertheless conviction proves to be a valuable experience at a different level than simple belief; His attachment is “smart”. These assertions would be too good to be true. Reading on though we can find the error, because they say: “Faith maintains an outer rapport between the individual and ethics: rules, advice and duties are perceived only as institutions which have to be obeyed (???). This conviction however, establishes moral relationships through personal involvement (!!!): taking by his own benchmark the collective ideal, an option motivated by and based on reality[22]”. This philosopher omitting

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that the “reality” he speaks of is an illusion, in continuous change, and the things he talks about are only heard of by him as a philosopher, not in a Christian life.

For this mistaken conviction, for this bias, for this undeserved and unjustified doubt towards the testimony of some believers endowed with spiritual discernment, the Saviour shows His concern, and also in the situation of John the Baptist to whom He sends word through his disciples: “... blessed is he who does not stumble on account of me “(Mt 11: 6).And likewise He shows his concern about the excessive doubts of Thomas: “ Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. “(John 20: 27-29). In both cases it is a question about the risk of falling into excessive unbelief, a very high risk in the case of conditional faith, and the Saviour therefore does not respond directly and explicitly, for anyone to understand, but only for the ears of St. John the Baptist, which shows that he already assumes Jesus is the Christ is waiting.

So do not waste time and choose one truth, because he has sufficient evidence to make the right solution for the problem that troubles him; while the Saviour warns not to err, just because the risk is to lose his entry into the Kingdom, and we understand because the Saviour says: “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven is taken by force, and those who make the attack gain a conquest. “(Mt 11, 12). While conditional faith, or exaggerated doubt risk creating disincentives for even those who fight when they recognize the signs of the time of entry into the kingdom; while the Saviour confirmed this: “And if you accept it: he is Elijah, who is to come. “(Matthew 11, 14), because with the return of the prophet Elijah, things happen which, according to prophecy, shows the coming of the kingdom,”… the blind see and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the poor have good news preached “(Mt 11, 5). And the Saviour, just to support the understanding of “joyful”” in this “age”, says happiness belongs to those who recognize Him from Malachi’s prophecy and believe that He came to establish the kingdom (see Mat 4, 4-5 ).

Compared to them, blessed are those who have stumbled, doubted, and either did not see,

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy or denied or concealed that He is the Light, and because of this they are unhappy and judgment is on them because: “The light came into the world and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. That whoever does evil hates the light, neither cometh to the light, that their deeds might not be exposed; but he that doeth truth cometh to the light, lest his deeds show that they are committed in God “(John 3, 19-21).

But let’s examine the real situation in St. Ap. Thomas’ case. The Saviour says, “Put your finger here you; and see my hands; and bring your hand and put your into my side; and be not faithless, but believing!” Responding, Thomas said,” My Lord and my God! “Jesus said,” Because you have seen, you have believed; blessed are those who believe without having seen. “(John 20: 27-29).

So the Saviour did not reproach him for unbelief as St. Ap. Thomas thought, but simply because the controversy was almost unbelief. However, that which has been seen as “unbelief”, as he is charged with in the folk, leads to discussions on unbelief which are not completely open.

Although saved, Thomas the Apostle could have had a serious problem when he risked being “an unbeliever,” and only on the advice and supporting evidence of his Saviour “believed” and was “saved”. It’s true that, after he “saw” evidence, i.e.: only after receiving confirmation, he believed and glorified the Saviour, and so was saved.

Interestingly St. Ap. Thomas requires proof, not because he would not have known the power of the Saviour, for he had seen miracles and the Saviour came to the St. Ap. through the door just to show them that He had risen.

So we have evidence that certified his power, instead it required evidence to prove his Saviour’s love. Basically he talks about the signs of suffering. Rather, Ap. Thomas seemed to fear the appearance of a spirit, but signs of wounds would have been able to dispel his doubts, probably signs that were well known only to a few close friends that buried the Saviour.

Even so, St. Ap. Thomas ‘thought’ as other Hebrews, demanding evidence (signs or miracles), embodying a state of mind common to all the apostles and disciples, which seems to demonstrate a specific human need, and would constitute just one explanation of the

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Incarnation[23].

And this could be a serious problem for the Apostles, after a similar situation in Matthew 12, 38-39, which the Saviour treats very sternly: “Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered,” Teacher, we want to see a sign from you “... And he answering, said to them:” Lecherous, cunning nation that requires a sign, but no sign will be given, except the sign of Jonah the prophet. “ And then, although it is true that the situation of St. Ap. Thomas is not identical to the other Jews, for he has shown faith; however, the Saviour seems to be further dissatisfied and accuses St. Ap. Thomas regarding the way in which He expressed faith and we discover a hidden reproach through which the Saviour shows dissatisfaction to the Apostle: “Because you have seen me - says the Saviour – you believed; (but - Ed) blessed are those who believe without having seen. “(John 20: 27-29).

But this happiness is not born as a result of unbelief of St. Ap. Thomas, and the Saviour says of the unbelief of Thomas, from today those who will believe without seeing will be rewarded. But then, what is St Thomas accused of by the Saviour? Mainly that the quality of his faith is too conditional. In other words, the Saviour reproached St. Ap. Thomas because he did not believe the words of the other apostles, he did not even believe His own words about the resurrection, he has not believed in the possibility of miracles, the Saviour’s resurrection even though he saw and listened to his teachings. An explanation would be the lack of grace of the Holy Spirit and faith based solely on human wisdom but do not forget that there were “believers” even with the lack of evidence before Pentecost. So is this the accusation?

Researching “mistrust” for which the Saviour reproaches St. Ap. Thomas, we discover a surprising thing related to the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount. Namely that the blessed are the Christians who were added to the church without being witnesses of the Saviour, for they believed, “without seeing” and happiest are the people who “believed” before Pentecost, that believed even before they had the Holy Spirit; from the patriarchs, Moses and the prophets, to St. John the Baptist, St. Mary, and others

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology like them. Therefore, we must assume that Ap. Thomas was almost guilty of unbelief, but this idea may even breakdown because it was permitted because he did not yet have the Holy Spirit and was of the “chosen.” The Saviour permitted the apostles this and other equally serious mistakes before Pentecost. So, it’s not too easy to blame the hesitation of St. Ap. Thomas, because he lacked the grace of the Holy Spirit. Let us remember St. Ap. Peter who denied the Saviour three times? Let us remember St. Ap. Paul who persecuted the church before he had the grace of the Holy Spirit? Let’s remember Philip? And we can continue.

Also note that the Saviour taught the existence of “blessed” of people who have not yet received the grace of the Holy Spirit, which leads us to the assumption that the Saviour expected, wanted and recommended this faith “without evidence”, and later added that happiness. But also when he spoke to the crowds, the Saviour spoke to us, to us who reject the Church’s witness today, who are seen as an indirect witness, yet ask for personal evidence.

Through the expression “Blessed” and “Blessed are those who ...” the Saviour teaches Christians future laws of love and also reveals blessed are those who do these things. Similarly we find in Deuteronomy, to “choose life”, and by this the Saviour expressed an implicit meaning, “Choose Happiness” for instance, in that it means eternal life. And those who demonstrate opposition to happiness are warned that, after the model: if you reject happiness, then you choose death and are cursed.

Regarding this symbolic means of speech hidden in rituals, prophecies, parables, and in other ways, Jesus reveals to us that this speech is intentional and he uses it or not, according to the spiritual state of the recipient, because it is founded upon God’s mercy and aimed at salvation of sinners, those for whom God wants happiness, those who have purified the soul and gained spiritual insight, meaning that discernment with which they see the signs and do the things required by the Saviour to receive salvation; while the Saviour says of sinners that, while they continue to see material things, they remain blind to the spiritual (Matthew 13, 13).

Regarding St. Ap. Thomas, God shows his great mercy at his exaggerated doubt

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by not responding symbolically but directly, reprimanding him not to be unfaithful, which means receiving spiritually the testimony of the other Apostles. We believe that the Saviour does so, to keep him among the blessed, for reasons known only to God he is kept among those chosen for the ministry of the Apostles and the faithful.Those who have not been blessed to hear explicit confirmation, things hidden, received, because of their spiritual eyesight coming through purification of their souls, like the holy apostles, God has blessed them: “ But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. “ (Matthew 13, 16; Lk 10, 23). And the Saviour can give vision and hearing to those who seek Him (Lk 10, 22).

Researching St. Ap. Thomas’ “hesitation”, we will discover how faith expected by the Saviour should be, and which was revealed only because it could not be otherwise.

“St. Ap. Thomas’ distrust “ is a venture of faith that we consider important and which could be explained to a man lacking the grace of the Holy Spirit, even partly, and the “consequences” that St. Ap. Thomas exaggerated doubt implies are expressed even today, therefore many centuries later than Nietzsche, who concludes that, “a deep and old trust changed in doubt”; “All must collapse now that this foundation of faith has been shaken, because it was built on it, leaning on it or intertwined with it, such as our entire system of European ethics”; a “long line of demolition, destruction, tearing, upheavals that await us” heralding the rigors of a “logic of fear”.[24] St. Ap. Thomas’ doubt strikingly resembles the route of existentialist systematic doubt, of all beings (Descartes’ methodical doubt refer to only reason), considered by scientists the only legitimate way to complete certainty, personal subjectivity reduced to rational dimensions, each man putting - with or unwittingly – questions to his own life and what is beyond himself and what others think of him and beyond his views of himself.[25] The trouble is that Descartes, as he himself confesses, wanted to learn as a man, moving through the darkness, and was forced to go slow and be circumspect in all things, as would keep him from falling. But he refused to accept

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy any idea before it passed through his reason and without having sought simultaneously, a way to get to know everything of which the human spirit is capable, doing like Adam, who had also wanted to reach God by his own powers, without the gift of God. This may be so, and St. Ap. Thomas’ doubt had the exact same consequences as did Descartes’ methodical doubt, that has proved the existence of thinking, not the existence of objective reality about which the Holy Apostle doubted “methodically”.

The first rule of, “Discourse on the Method”, is based in fact on Cartesian rationalism, and requires all the knowledge to be passed through the clear light of reason and to be accepted as true unless, clearly and obviously, we see it to be true. The other three rules, namely: analysis, synthesis and enumeration are true methods methodology, which can be determined clearly to be true and upheld, and applying these rules, in which “Speech” prescribes the human mind and Descartes believes that man has full - ie absolute - possibility to know and there will be nothing, “however remote, that we cannot reach, and no matter how hidden, that we cannot discover.

[26]” Similarly, we can imagine some circumstances which have led to “mistrust” or “highly conditional faith” of St. Ap. Thomas : - Perhaps St. Apostle Thomas was not used to and did not accept help because he did not want to be indebted to anyone and preferred to do only what needed to be done, which led to a disinterest in statements outside of his frame of thought, including such information as: “He is the risen Saviour. We have seen “.

- Or maybe teh Holy Apostle, for reasons unknown to us, considered others unable to provide real and useful information. And so he ignored them - perhaps so often, until everything was disregarded - as a matter of principle.

- But perhaps the Holy Apostle became so used to finding evil intention from others that he tried to find any other confirmation when they met, before deciding in any way. Do not blame the Apostle too easily because it is only thanks to his continuous questions, such as “Lord, we know not whither thou goes; and how

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can we know the way? “(Jn 14: 5), that we get a definitive statement from the Saviour: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If ye had known me, you would have known my Father ; but now you know Him and you have seen Him “(Jn 14: 6-7).

Therefore, questioning is characteristic of Him, (“Ask and ye shall receive; seek and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened” Lk 11: 9), so St Thomas is not accused by the Saviour. And only through searching he sees the Saviour, and in Him the Father.

- Finally, this may be the reason, we cannot know, nor guess, but it may be enough for him to be cautious of others’ claims.

So maybe St. Ap. Thomas’ “doubt” was “prudence”, and maybe through this we find a reason why the very rigorous St. Ap. Thomas was sent to evangelize India’s population which was overwhelmed by magic, illusions and apparitions, and, our concern should not be the avoidance of rightful questions or unjust doubt; and not only in matters of faith, but in any investigation.

But St. Apostle Thomas was not accused by the Saviour of prudence, because if we are to believe in the idea of a, ”prudent St. Apostle Thomas” we would reach aberrant conclusions, which we now know are not correct. Such prudence would actually demonstrate that God is the source of evil, and in that case St. Apostle Thomas does not trust that God is wellintentioned; or because he knows he is guilty and stained, he does not believe that God will help, but have it in mind to punish him, ridiculing him and unmask him and insult him, etc. If you would but believe God, you would know that He wants only good, and believe His words. If again, St. Ap. Thomas was selfless, he did not believe the apostles because they had no evidence, or because they also ignored the witnesses of the resurrection. Or they are insane or incapable of discerning real information. The fact is that he did not trust them as people. But worse is that he did not even trust the Saviour who had said he would rise. Basically it annoyed him that the Saviour had even risen. In fact, St. Ap. Thomas does not seem to expect the Saviour to rise. He believed the miracles while he was alive, but believing in the resurrection was much larger believe, it is not it because, “they do not believe if someone rises from the dead” (Lk 16: 30-31).

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology However, prudence is not just a characteristic of St. Ap. Thomas, for it is not only the Apostle Thomas who asks the Saviour to believe without seeing, but, in contrast, we have numerous examples that “we walk by faith not by sight” (2 Cor. 5: 7; I Peter 1: 9; Hebrew 11: 1; Romans 8: 24-25; et. a.)

In fact – what do we seek when we cautiously interpret a text, an event, a reality?

Do we limit the scope of interpretation? Or do we research without preconceptions and draw conclusions on what we find? But do we find all that is communicated? When the agent of communication is “the word”, it is clear that we are interested in researching meanings. But when the meaning is used to determine attitude, reaction, response, adaptation, adjustment, with or without feedback, then we must observe other aspects, not just those involving language and word. And here, unlike science, religion creates no theories verifiable in practice, but communion between people, (in the flesh, in the body of an angel or disembodied, like God), and the communion has as its purpose love between people.

That is why today the problems of knowledge can be expressed by the relationship between the two perspectives of the researcher: with the man of philosophy, science or art there is only one reality, one in which the subject of knowledge is alive, a world is observed and influenced from “within”. While, with the theologian, along with the reality in which he lives, there is another reality, where observations regarding the first reality are being made, somehow from the “outside”. As a consequence the scientists, by researching, influence the “logos” and the reality in which they live, through their “thinking process” which “observes”, and through this process they influence the observed reality, which explains the large number of sciences, a number that fits both the large number of opinions that are generated by theses sciences, as well the changes in the same science. While the theologians research, interpret and verify the “thoughts” received from Someone outside the reality that is being “observed”, and theologians are influenced through their “thinking processes”, only the reality in which he lives in, together of course with the interpretations of the “thoughts” received from

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the outside, “thoughts” that are not changed through the human will.

CONCLUSION Because I have prioritized theological arguments, people might accuse me of deriving a conclusion already included in the premise, so that’s why, we will mention in the closing Husserl’s concept. He cannot be accused of being a theologian, and he believes that scientific query bases itself on realities, considered wrongly, by scientists, as absolute entities nowadays. As a consequence these entities and the world itself should never be questioned, but must be taken as the foundation from which scientific inquiry must go forward. In other words the empiricist positivist scientists query scientific origins, believing that the world should be its own axiom[27], which is their fundamental error, because when we approach philosophy inductively, empirically or more apodictically, “naturalism refutes itself “[28].

But this is a theoretical absurdity that leads to a similar absurdity in practice, which becomes effective when we observe that the naturalist is the “dominated with the purpose of considering scientific knowledge (epistemology) as always an authentic truth”,[29] on the other hand induction and deduction. For example, as scientific methods do not establish the certitude of the law observed by science, “but only a greater or lesser probability of it; and the probability, and not the law in this way, is established.”[30] Husserl also says, “He who sees only empirical science will not be bothered by absurd consequences, sometimes they cannot be proved empirically and contradict natural facts”,[31] but that does not mean he argues against modern science. Because, on the contrary, he says that, “in modern life there is no idea stronger, more irresistibly progressive, than that of science.”[32] ,(in other words science, is not wrong but self-regulating, either through falsifying hypotheses - Popper[33] - or by changing paradigms - Khun).[34] The 9 beatitudes are not paradigms of science because they actually show 9 Christian virtues, although, they are not axioms decreed by human wisdom, but Godly gifts revealed to people by

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy Jesus Christ, because the Beatitudes actually describe 9 Christian virtues, although,”not all virtues, except for those essential and specific to the new Christian life, to which others can be added, or they themselves are based on others.”

For example, the three theological virtues, which determine the Christian life do not appear listed.” [35] Humility, crying, gentleness, (po) repentance, justice, mercy, purity of heart, peace of mind, persecution and suffering for Christ and their achievement is: “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven!” (Mt 5, 12).

We can say in conclusion that St. Ap. Thomas was a believer and an unbeliever at the same time, without it being a paradox. These words indicate only the limited humanity of St. Apostle Thomas, as shown by all the Apostles , before the descent of Holy Spirit; that they still lacked the full knowledge and were thinking according to human teaching and mentality.

Until Pentecost, the Holy Apostles were not very much different spiritually from other believers and even some of the faithful, (ie Samaritan), showed greater faith; however, unlike other believers of the time, the Holy Apostles received the mysteries that have been revealed to them and through them they have surpassed all believers since.

It’s true, we can say that St. Ap. Thomas was faithful to the Saviour, that he was wellintentioned and did not resist him, nor did he have thoughts of rebellion or separation from the Saviour. But his mind was still limited and in this regard, he acted as an unbeliever, because he rejected the testimony of the other apostles who had told him about the Resurrection.

The fact that the other apostles were sceptical of the women who witnessed the Resurrection, has not been considered a mistake, as women could be regarded as not having enough discernment and God has not blamed them for this. He allowed prudence, and didn’t reproach them at all, not even Sf. Apostle Thomas, because it was justified, and the evidence is that the Saviour answered the request, pointing out the “evidence” that the other apostles had seen already, but only St. Ap. Thomas had not seen.

So in this aspect, his suspicion was justified, even if the women had told him once again about the Resurrection, it could still be considered

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insufficient as proof, but, the fact that St Thomas refused to believe the Apostles, when he himself was an Apostle, was such a big mistake, that it could have led him to unfaithfulness.

But St. Ap. Thomas was instead unfaithful towards the other apostles, because he rejected their testimony, and that is precisely the mistake for which the Saviour accuses Holy Apostle Thomas. The consequences of this excessive “doubt” could be serious both for him and for we fellow believers, for if he, who was an Apostle together with others, did not believe the testimony of the other Apostles, how could other believers agree with the testimony of others or other apostles? If he, as an expert, rejected the Apostolic testimony, then, any believer could then reject any Apostolic witness. From this perspective it was a serious exaggeration of St. Ap. Thomas, and if he had persisted in it, it may have become unbelief. Today this “prudence” could be categorized as a schism, even disobedience to the Holy Church. After, with the Beatitudes, those who believed without seeing could be seen as the joy of believers because they have heard and obeyed the Holy Church. Is it possible that obedience to the Church, as represented by the communion of the Holy Apostles, could be the 10th Beatitude? In a formal way we could express this ‘10th Beatitude’ as: “Blessed are those who believe without seeing!!!” It would include all the believers who were convinced, not by sight, or other “tangible/ measurable” evidence, as Happiness of Christians born until the Parusia. There will undoubtedly be those religious scholars who have come to believe in God using integrity of heart, a power that God has placed in man.

The Saviour reproaches Ap. Thomas that he did not understand this, but not because it was available to everyone, but because the Saviour Himself, had said before, to all the apostles: “… he who hears you, heareth me ; and he that shall deny you, deny me; and he that shall deny me forsakes Him that sent me “(Lk 10, 16).

The fact that St. Ap. Thomas did not yet have the Holy Spirit, and he was thinking just with his human mind, without the light of the Holy Spirit, led the Saviour to allow his exaggerated doubt, as proven by the “over-confirmation” that He was raised, in addition to the Apostolic witness. In the reproach made by the Saviour, St.

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology Ap. Thomas learned about the concern that the Saviour showed to all Holy Apostles, for them to change their wrong attitude, which leads to the idea that the humanistic mind and education of the Holy Apostles was maintained even after receiving the Holy Spirit. And this shows us that the Holy Spirit compels Christians to confess regardless of their faith, as did the prophets, because unlike the prophets, Christians are free.

From these observations we can understand that reasonable doubt is needed in research, sufficient and possible even without the grace of the Holy Spirit, so much so that man can know God’s will. And, until the receipt of the gifts of Pentecost, the Saviour modelled the Apostles’ reasoning as free and clear. This means one of the highest human wisdom, and every time this was necessary, and it couldn’t be otherwise, the Saviour taught people everything necessary to their needs, but not more than necessary for them to understand; so that these ones need to work it out for themselves, as much as possible, through their own choice.

Moreover the Saviour taught, in this manner, the Holy Apostles, who were allowed to know the mysteries of the kingdom, precisely so that they were fulfilled, not to just fulfil the job of a postman who just delivers letters: they do not understand and do not know. Because they have been witnesses of the Saviour, and not just interpreters of stories, those chosen by the Saviour Himself to be apostles, know, understand and choose with discernment the things given to them to manage, through their reason, and not only by the power of human reason, but confirmed and helped by the light of the Holy Spirit. And if in those circumstances, the testimony of an Apostle is believed, and then the Saviour Himself is believed, while, when the apostolic testimony is rejected, the Saviour Himself is rejected. St. Ap. Thomas risked breaking his bond with the Saviour when he did not find sufficient proof in the testimony from the other Apostles, but was saved from falling into unbelief through the Saviour’s admonition when he told him “Put your finger here you; and see my hands; and bring your hand and put your into my side; and be not faithless, but believing “(John 10, 27). The Saviour doesn’t reproach Ap. Thomas, [not to be “any longer” unfaithful], but, [not “be” unfaithful, but faithful]. These words

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might look like this, if the explanation of the Saviour would have been to the extent of the exaggerated doubt of St. Apostle Thomas: Do not act like the unfaithful, Thomas, rejecting “out of principle”, or just as “ method of research” some allegations, but act as a believer, because - unlike the unfaithful – you have discoveries from Me about the Mysteries and My teachings, and you are an apostle together with them. So you know what it would mean for My witness if they were not to honest, because the apostles are My witnesses. If you don’t want to believe Mary Magdalene and you need to ask her for evidence, I will tolerate that, because maybe she does not have enough discernment in your eyes, but when you disconsider the words of your partners, you have already forgotten the service that I have given you, and you do not understand that you have passed on a bad example to other believers, who have not been given the knowledge of the mysteries of the Kingdom.

Therefore, Thomas, “do not be without faith, but be faithful.”

References [1] Karl

Jaspers, Introduction a la philosophie (Introduction into philosophy), translated from German by Jeane Hersch, Librarie Plon, 1998, p.15; and pp.16-18; cited Prof. univ. Dr, Vasile Macoviciuc, Filosofie (Philosophy), Bucharest, 2000, p.8 [2] The Saviour associates happiness with eternal life and eternal death with torment. Basically eternity it is described as “happiness” or “ordeal”. The Greek word for happiness is eudaimonia. This word also means prosperity, success in doing good. Eudaimonia means to live well, happy, but also to do good. Ethical treaties, and moral talk about a specific Eudaemonism as a Greek antiquity that makes happiness the ultimate goal of man.

Happiness is the goal of all our activities. Thus, all our goals are means to achieve happiness.

Only happiness is sought for itself, it is complete and self sufficient, focused only on itself and for no other purpose, it is strictly individual in the sense that children cannot inherit this. It includes pleasure, but not exclusively. Your ultimate goal is happiness, but this is not identical to identifying

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy happiness in some thing: in wealth, fame, honor, pleasure, etc. For the Greeks happiness can only be touched through cultivating virtue. As Aristotle said, virtue is the middle way, cultivating an average between two excesses. Happiness coincides with shaping itself by cultivating the soul to perfection. Therefore, in the intellectual virtues, called dianoetice, cultivation of the upper soul through art, morals and philosophy, are identified with real happiness.

[3] Sf. Grigorie de Nyssa, Opt omilii la Fericiri (Eight Sermons at Beatitudes), translation and biographical sketch of Fr. Sandu Gh. Stoian, col, “Comorile Pustiei (The Treasures of the Desert)”, Anatasia Publishing House, 1999, p.10 [4] Fr.Prof. PhD. Sorin Cosma, Fericirile si Sainta Triada (The Beatitudes and the Holy Trinity), Banatica Publishing House Resita,1999,pp.31-32.

[5] Sf. Grigorie de Nyssa, Opt omilii la Fericiri (Eight Sermons at Beatitudes), p.21 [6] Ibidem p.65 [7] Fr. Prof. PhD. Sorin Cosma, op.cit., p.194 [8] Ibidem, p.193 [9] His Reverence Nicolae Mladin, Martiriu si Mistica (Martyrdom and Mystic), in “Anuarul Academiei Teologice Andreene (The Yearbook of the Andreen Theological Academy)”, Sibiu, 1946-1947, p.20 [10] Fr. Prof. PhD. Sorin Cosma, op.cit.,p.28.

[11] Ibidem p.31 [12] Chialda, Diac., Assistant Mircea, Indatoriri moralsociale dupa Decalog, in “Studii Teologice” ( The socio-moral duties according to the Decalogue in Theological Studies), nr 9-10, 1959, p.603 [13] Ibidem [14] Bogdaproste Gheorghe, Cinstirea aproapelui dupa Decalog, in Studii Teologice (Honouring your brother, according to the Decalogue, in Theological Studies) nr9-10, 1069, p 700 [15] Fr. Prof. V. Prelipceanu; Pr Prof N Neaga; Pr Prof M Chialda; Pr Prof. Ghe. Barna, Studiul Vechiului Testament (The Study of the Old Testament), nr IV, 2008, Renasterea Publ. House p 251 [16] Bogdaproste Gheorghe, Cinstirea Aproapelui dupa (Decalog Honouring your brother, according to the Decalogue), p 712-713 [17] Fr. Prof. PhD. Sorin Cosma, op.cit., p 31 [18] Colin Brown, (ed) The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, vol 1 (A-F)6th printing, Zondervan Publishing House,

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Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1985, p. 215 [19] Fr. Prof. PhD. Sorin Cosma, op.cit., p. 184.

[20] See Ibidem, p. 186. ”This happiness doesn’t

actually repeat, but continues the previous one, in the sense that it brings some supplementary information, by accentuating the spiritual joy felt by the ones that have been insulted, chased and belittled in His name.”

[21] Charles S. Peirce, Semnificaţie şi acţiune (Meaning and Action), Foreword: Andrei Marga, Selection of text and translation in English: Delia Marga, Humanitas, Bucureşti, 1990,pp. 139-140 [22] Univ.Prof.PhD Vasile Macoviciuc, op.cit., pp. 186187 [23] N. Steinhardt, Dăruind vei dobândi (Giving leads to receiving), ed. 1992, pp. 183-187 [24] Friedrich Nietzsche, Ştiinţa voioasă [“la gaya scienza”]. Genealogia moralei. Amurgul idolilor (The Joyful Science. Genealogy of Morals. Dawn of Idols.), Humanitas, 1994, p. 212.

[25] Univ. Prof. PhD. Vasile Macoviciuc, op.cit., p. 58 [26] See René Descartes, Discurs asupra metodei de a ne conduce bine rațiunea și a căuta adevărul în științe (Discourse on the methodology of good reasoning and search for the truth in science), Scientific Publ.

House, Bucharest, 1957, p. 19.

[27] The principle of incertitude created by physician Werner Heisenberg, shows that in the quantum theory a small unobserved object – such as an electron or photon- it exists just in a diffuse state, unpredictable, without a well defined location or movement, until the moment it is observed. Furthermore the experiments show beyond a reasonable doubt, that just by looking at such an object, its nature modifies. Practically the „Óbserver, through his act of observation, produces the wave or corpuscular manifestation of phenomena”. (See Roland Omnès, “Interpretarea mecanicii cuantice (The Interpretation of Quantum mechanics)”, The Technical Publishing House, Bucharest, 1999, p. 90) As a consequence, within a universe considered to be objective, and a reality which seemed immutable to the scientist, and even absolute (in certain aspects) before it is measured, it is concluded through experiments, that in fact the physical, observable and palpable reality is unpredictable, and more precisely it is predictable but, through the attributes of the observer. This idea explains that statement that there are as many sciences as there are opinions, or observers. On

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology the other hand, theology, being the reflection of a single supernatural reality and truly immutable, it is always singular, and by managing a single predictable reality, it will always stay constant and true to itself.

[28] Husserl Edmund, op.cit., p. 80 [29] Ibidem pp 80-81 [30] Ibidem p 99 [31] Ibidem pp 81-82 [32] Ibidem p 82 [33] See Popper, K., Logica cercetării (The Logic of Research),ed. Științifică și Enciclopedică, Bucharest, 1981, p.83 [34] See S. T. Kuhn, Structura revoluţiilor ştiinţifice (The Structure of Scientific Revolution), Bucureşti, Scientific and Enciclopedic Publ House, 1976. In essence, „the paradigms are scientific realizations universal renown, which for a while they offer problems and model solutions to a community of practitioners” (Cf. L. Urse, Inovaţia în ştiinţele sociale. Calitatea Vieţii (Innovation in Social Sciences. Quality of Life), XX, No. 1-2, p. 41).

[35] Fr. Prof. PhD. Sorin Cosma, op.cit., p. 192.

Bibliography [1] The Orthodox Study Bible. New Testament and Psalms New King James Version, Nashville, Tennessee, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1993; 33 [2] Blakburn, Simon, Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, Bucharest, Encyclopedic Universe 1999 [3] Bogdaproste, George, Honouring your brother, according to the Decalogue, in Theological Studies no.

9-10, 1969.

[4] Brown, Colin (ed.), The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, vol. 1 (AF), 6th printing, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, 1985, p. 215 [5] Chialda, Deacon., Assistant Mircea, The sociomoral duties according to the Decalogue in Theological Studies no. 9-10, 1959.

[6] Cosma, Fr. Prof. PhD. Sorin, Happiness and the Holy Trinity, Banat Resita Publ. House, 1999.

[7]Descartes, Rene, Discourse on the methodology of good reasoning and search for the truth in science), Scientific Publ. House, Bucharest 1957 [8] Husserl, Edmund, Philosophy as Rigorous Science, 1911.

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[9] Jaspers, Karl, Introduction into philosophy, translated from German by Jeane Hersch, Librairie Plon, 1998 [10] Kuhn, ST, the Structure of Scientific Revolution), Bucureşti, Scientific and Enciclopedic Publ House, 1976 [11] Macoviciuc, Vasile, Univ. Prof. PhD., Philosophy, Bucharest, 2000 [12] Manolescu, Gorun, Why is Phenomenological form of Radical Reduction Meditation?, Vol. XI, 2012.

[13] His Reverence Nicolae Mladin, Martyrdom and Mystic, in “The Yearbook of the Andreen Theological Academy)”, Sibiu 1946-1947.

[14] Nietzsche, Friedrich, [“at Gaya Scienza”]. The Joyful Science. Genealogy of Morals. Dawn of Idols.), Humanitas,1994 [15] Peirce, Charles S. Meaning and Action, Foreword: Andrei Marga; Selection of text and translation in English: Delia Marga, Humanitas, Bucureşti 1990.

[16] Popper, K., The Logic of Research, Scientific and Encyclopedic Publ. House, Bucharest, 1981 [17] Prelipceanu, Fr. Prof. V .; Fr. Prof. N. Neaga; Fr. Prof. M. Chialda; Fr. Prof. Gh. Barna The Study the Old Testament, nr.IV, 2008 Renasterea Publ. House [18] St. Grigorie de Nyssa, Eight Sermons on the Beatitudes, trans. and biographical sketch by Fr. Sandu Gh. Stoian, col. “The Treasures of the Desert)”, Anatasia Publishing House 1999 [19] Steinhardt, N., Giving Leads to Receiving, Words of Faith ( The Romanian Orthodox Episcopate of Maramures and Satu Mare Publ. House, Baia Mare, 1992).

[20] Ursei L. Innovation in the social sciences, mag.

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy BIOGRAPHY Born on 09/01/1977.

Following courses of the Theological Seminary (1992-1997), Faculty of Theology (1997-2001) and the Faculty of Law (2000-2005), graduated from the same faculty and graduate level courses (Theology - 2001-2002) and (Law 2003-2004).

Since 2007 Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Theology, University “Ovidius” Constanta Published along with Pr. Prof. Dr. Emilian Corniţescu three works : “Old Testament and timeliness “ and “The Old Testament - cultural and social moral religious issues” at the Publishing House Europolis in Constanta in 2008, and “Biblical Studies” at the Publishing House Archdiocese of Tomis in 2015 as well as other books, studies and articles.

PhD in Theology from 27.11.2009.

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The pastoral care and the priest profile in the study “On the Priesthood” of Saint John Chrysostom Assist. Prof. Dr. Pr. Iulian ISBĂȘOIU Department of Theology Ovidius University of Constanta Constanța, Romania iulianisbasoiu@yahoo.com

Abstract: Saint John Chrysostom is one of the most remarkable personalities of the forth century of Christianity, also known as “the golden century”.

His missionary and writing activity left a peerless treasure to the Church. His theological compositions enriched the cultural heritage with an innovative and clear way of approaching the topic of Christian ministry. The following study will present the Saint’s vision on the mission of the Church and the profile of the “soul’s shepherd”, nobody else but the priest, as he describes it in his treaty “On Priesthood”. We will discuss this subject starting from the statements used by the Saint to justify his refusal of becoming a priest. Therefore, we will analyze the moral and missionary profile of the priest, the cultural and social circumstances in which he has to perform, and all the difficulties he must face. We will reach the conclusion that the mission of the priests during the first centuries is not any different from the one of today, so the teaching given by the Saint is eternally valid.

I. INTRODUCTION Living in the 4th century after Christ, Saint John Chrysostom enjoyed the education received in the main schools of the time, under the instruction of the best teachers. He was set to be commemorated in the Orthodox Church, together with two other titans of the Christian theology: Saint Basil the Great and Saint Gregory of Nazianzus.

Key words: priesthood, pastoral, mission, sermon, eloquence, erudition, authority, morality, personal example

This mission will be accomplished by those who have enjoyed the highest honor that can be received from God, the gift of priesthood. This investment was firstly received by the Apostles of Jesus Christ, when He breathed on them and said: “Receive the Holy Spirit, whom you will

The three “great teachers and hierarchs of the world” as they are called in the church hymns, “were not only unsurpassed preachers of justice and of Christian mercy, but at the same time they sealed the facts with their beliefs”[1]. As regards Saint John, he was remarked especially for his talent as a preacher, a quality that brought him the nickname ”Chrysostom” and made the researchers affirm he was born an orator[2]. He realized that ”true worship and glorification of God cannot be achieved without man’s service, because God’s love manifests through the love for people”[3].

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th e Dia l o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and T heology forgive the sins of, they will be forgiven them and those kept, kept will be...” (John 20: 19-20), an instance which represents the establishment of the Sacrament of Ordination. The Sacrament was intended to be administered by the activity of the followers of Jesus Christ, the Saints Apostles, in every city, through the ordination of worthy men to receive this great gift.

Priesthood gives to the recipient great honor and great responsibility. The history of Christianity reminds us of personalities who have assumed the responsibility of priesthood and have shown that the trust they have received from Christ has been respected and put into practice in the service of the Church and of its members. We mentioned honesty and responsibility as consequences of God’s trust in the one who receives the gift of the priesthood.

These two features have awakened some people’s fear to get this secret Sacrament, a fear that would create the most important works about priesthood written so far, composed by the Holy Hierarch John Chrysostom[4].

The Saint’s Confession of his work titled “Treaty on Priesthood” is the most striking proof of the way in which the mission that the priest receives must be approached when he is chosen to be pastor of souls and creator of the Sacraments of God, a theme which is the subject our work.

II. ”THE FLIGHT” OF PRIESTHOOD The first feeling that Saint John Chrysostom tried when he heard that he was chosen to be a priest was fear. His fear was followed by flight.

This flight was interpreted in many ways by his contemporaries, most of them claiming that he chose this path due to pride and to the desire to pursue vain glory. The Saint tried to defend by writing. He did it in a unique way, his defense turning into the marvelous treaty on priesthood.

Two main reasons caused Saint John to run from priesthood. First, as he says, was the love for Christ. In the dialogue he had with ”Great Basil” he says that he fears “to take over Christ’s thriving and well nourished flock, and I, because of my lack of care, to injure and turn against me the anger of God, who loves so much his flock that he gave Himself for its salvation and redemption (John 3:16)”[5].

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The love for Christ proves through the choice he was going to make, reporting his worthiness to be a priest, not to the opinion of the community, but based on the spiritual qualities that he has, according the criteria of Saint Apostle Paul (I Timothy 3.1-6). ”The love for Christ” must be testified as Saint Peter the Apostle did, when he was asked by the Savior if he loves Him. Peter’s testimony is the commitment he made towards the entrusted flock. Christ wanted to show everyone around how much He loves people, because the question: “Peter do you love Me?“ (John 21, 15) wasn’t asked ”because he needed to know if His disciple loves Him, but due to His will to show His overwhelming love for the unreasoning flock”[6].

The second reason for his flight of priesthood was the desire to protect those who elected him so that the latter are not accused of simony. He logically eliminates this accusation, saying that it is impossible for someone who “spends money to acquire honor to let to others, while he should receive it”. That would be ”like a ploughman who would bear many pains with the ground work in order that his field be covered with rich harvest, like his presses to pour wine, after many labors and spending much money, would leave that plenty of harvest just when to mow down the fields and collect the grapes”[7].

Defending himself this way, Saint John also defends the Church leadership of the frequent accusations brought, of which the worst was simony. The accusers claimed that for money were ordained priests without taking into account age (usually for this mission older people were chosen). Saint John tells them however, that “the skill should not be judged by age, that an old man should not be known by the white hair, and that, surely, not the young must be stopped, but the neophyte from such a service. Great is the difference between one and another”[8].

III. PASTORAL DIFFICULTIES In the second book of his work, Saint John approaches the subject of the difficulties faced by the priest in his pastoral activity. The priest’s first attempt is spirituality. The pastoral tact while the confession is the key to the success of a good confessor, so he must know how to

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology eradicate the sin without affecting in any way the personal integrity of the penitent[9].

The canon should be given after the sinner’s mood, taking into account that those with a frivolous life can be turned from sin only through “good talk and little by little”, often without giving them a canon. The shepherd of souls is forced to use his capacity with thousands eyes, to see from all sides the sinner’s mood.

Another difficult task of the priest is to bring the faith to those who are not members of the Church and to return to the Church those wandered. To achieve this, the priest must have “a big heart” and to be brave. These qualities rise from the mission that he has in the world, because between the priest and the Christian who fulfills his duties towards others there is a big difference, that “between body and soul”.

The common man cares for his salvation, but the priest cares for all the people. The priest must teach people to practice peace with themselves, with God and with the others[10].

The servant of God received gifts that make from priesthood ”a terrible thing”, because he commits the bloodless sacrifice instituted

by Jesus Christ at the Last Supper. The words that Saint John uses when he talks about the happiness that the one ordained has when he does the Eucharistic Sacrifice, cannot be discussed because they are incomprehensive: “May you still count that you’re human and that you still stay on earth, and when you see the Lord standing as sacrifice on the Holy Table, and the priest praying next to the sacrifice? ... The priest stands before the Holy Table, he doesn’t take fire from heaven, but the Holy Spirit; he is praying for a long time for the flame from above not to go down, not to devour those put forward, but to come down with the grace for sacrifice, to illuminate with it the souls of everyone and to make them brighter than red hot silver”[11].

The priest should realize the power he has received from God is either to celebrate the Holy Sacrifice, or to bind and untie the sins of men.

The latter “links the souls and crosses the sky; God up in heaven strengthens those made by priests down to earth. The Lord strengthens the judgment given by slaves. What else did God give to priests rather than all the heavenly power?”[12] Saint John speaks about the gift of

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priesthood, presenting it as the most important gift that man can receive from God, because through it is brought ”the spiritual conception”, ”the dressing with Christ”, ”and the burial with the Son of God”. This gift makes the priests be more “honest and beloved than (bodily n.n.)” parents[13]. Our bodily parents give birth to us for the earthly life, while priests are empowered to make us be born for the eternal life. They forgive the sins not only by offering us the Saint Baptism (at the new birth), but our whole life through the sacrament of the Holly Confession.

They often quench the authorities’ ”anger” and save the “children” of punishment, which the bodily parents are unable to fulfill. Bringing these arguments, in support of the sublimity of the priesthood, Saint John Chrysostom builds the defense before those who accused him of fleeing priesthood because of pride saying that: “I believe that those said I have planted in my listeners’ souls a fear so great of priesthood that they will boldly accuse of pride and of boldness not those who flee from priesthood, but those who, from their own initiative approach it and strive by all means to gain this honor”[14].

IV. THE PROFILE OF THE SHEPHERD OF SOULS IN THE VISION OF SAINT JOHN CHRYSOSTOM A. The priest must be honest, skillful, hardworking and modest Wanting to have a closer profile of God’s will, Saint John presents the example of Saint Paul, who realized the difficulty of the priestly mission and warned those who were to receive the investiture to not distract the faithful ones who will be entrusted, as he wished too and as a missionary of Christ (2 Thessalonians 3:9). The priest should do his actions in service for the faithful people, not for personal use, because ”if he lacks this virtue of Paul, so long as I’m, well, such man deserves to be hated, not when he runs from priesthood, but when he receives priesthood”[15]. So the first quality that the priest must fulfill is sincerity in actions.

He also must be worthy or skillful for the entrusted mission. Speaking about competence, Saint John says that you can not delegate this great responsibility, as priesthood, to anyone,

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy but only to someone who is ready to fulfill it.

Continuing to defend against the accusations, he says that ”if someone led me to a big ship, with many rowers and loaded with goods of great price and he would command me to sit at the helm of the vessel, to pass the Aegean Sea or the Tyrrhenian Sea, I would refuse him from the first word. And if someone asked me why I do this I would answer him: not to sink the ship”[16].

The priest should also beware of “vain glory and of sins that arise from it”[17]. All the sins that come from pride are called “beasts”[18]. The priest should not be lazy, but he must use all the received gifts from God and make them work[19].

This working devotion must be observed by the higher hierarchy of the Church who choose and ordain those worthy for the priests’ mission.

The Bishop must think well when he decides to ordain someone, because there are many willing but unable and do anything to reach the “high dominion”[20]. He advises priests to be honest and brave as when they realize that they have committed a sin which worths as sanction the punishment of defrocking, to not wait for the judgment of others, but to leave by their own this ”high service”. This attitude will bring them God’s mercy.

B. The priest must be masterful, strong, compassionate, pious, moral and authoritative Saint John judges especially the desire to become a priest in order to be a strong master.

The one who does not want with any price this honor becomes free and his actions will arise from his pure Christian soul. The other, who is afraid of losing the governor, shall be a slave of his wishes and will suffer “a real slavery, full of troubles and often forced to sin towards men and God too”[21].

He urges the priests who are unjustly punished not to grieve, because those who unfairly who judged will be punished, and he will be rewarded, because: “happy will be when they will revile you...” (Matthew 5, 11-12)[22]. He must show strength and dedication, to include in his heart all those whom God has entrusted, without ignoring his personal care, because he has to be strong to fulfill his mission. When he talks about power and self control, Saint John says he “saw many people who easily suffer the harshness of a fasting or of a tormented

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life, but when it comes to the attitude towards disgrace, oppression, heavy words, the banter of the youngest, some done without bad intention, others rightly justified, the unjustified and undeserved rebukes from superiors and inferiors too”[23], they become beasts, lose their temper and seek revenge. Some of these should not enter the clergy. Anger is an attitude that is causing a lot of harm: to the one who is driven by it and also to those over whom it pours.

Anger is more injurious than the indulgence of food, than not fasting. Anger is likened to a soul disease which is worse and more crushing than the bodily pleasure. It destroys the whole health of the soul. Anger, as I said, has an impact on those around us as good deeds are an example and an encouragement for them[24]. It should be known that anger triggers anger “and should therefore be the beauty of the soul of the priests to shine in all circumstances in their life and could at the same time, joy and light of souls of the concern”, because no good deed, neither sin are measured by their size, but with dignity to him that the public commits[25].

The priest must be strong to face the destroying fire of envy. People perceive the priest as “an angel freed of any human weakness”, even though he is also a “man and he also is traveling the most deceptive ocean of this life”[26]. Saint John notes that the most dangerous traitors are those closest to us, who expect a little mistake to judge us. They are most convincing when it comes to bringing complaints, because being close to the priest they are easy to believe. Therefore, to war must be sent the brave and strong ones, strategic and in faith unfailling ones.

Another situation that Saint John observes is the choice of the candidate for priesthood. To strengthen his beliefs, he gives an example of how the Bishops’ elections were made. He says there are many criterias in the voters’ mind that propose a person or another one: “because he belongs to a brilliant nation, another voter says to be chosen that one, because he is very rich and he does not need to live from the church incomes, another voter propose another one, because he came to us from heretics; another voter proposes another one because he is a friend to him; another elector the other one because he is related to him; and another voter

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology proposes another one who flatters him, but no voter proposes the most worthy, nor puts on challenge his soul”[27]. He says he would not propose for the episcopate other than the one who has piety and great skill, regardless of his age. The Bishop must show wisdom and skill when he chooses the candidates for ordination, because “if the bishop receives in the clergy those who do not deserve, in order to please the protectors, to the detriment of his salvation, then for them he becomes an enemy of God”[28].

Therefore, the bishop, according to Saint John, must be a devout, but devoid of pride; feared, but loved; authoritarian, but popular; just, but broad-hearted; humble, but not servile; harsh, but rational[29].

Another duty of the priest is the pastoral visit. They are considered by Saint John a primary need, because “the bishop will visit not only the sick, but also healthy ones”[30]. They can also bring many shortcomings. The problems arise from the judgment of men who personaly interpret the more frequent visits to certain people from certain social groups. Saint John points out that not only the visits, but also the density of greetings, “the way how he searches with the eyes”, “the most ordinary gestures: the tone of the voice, the facial expression, the laughter strength”[31], all are analysed as different from those who surround him. If he is considered innocent, the accused one must stand with courage towards the sadness caused by these accusations[32].

The fourth book presents a dialogue between Saint John and Basil about priests who commit sins after they were ordained[33]. Basil asks him how serious are the sins of those who tried to enter by their own in the clergy versus the sins of others who were forced by others to become priests. Bringing examples from the Saint Scripture, Saint John replied him that “they are defenseless, if they are wrong, not only those who try by all means to become priests, but also those who become priests by efforts of others. If people who ran of priesthood, although God ordained them, they were punished so much and nothing was able to save them from that danger, neither Aaron, nor El, nor Moses, that happy man, the saint, the holy prophet, the marvelous, the best man on earth (Numbers 12: 3), the man who spoke with God

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as with a friend (Exit 33, 11), so if such people did not escape the punishment, much less we, who are far from Moses’ virtue will be able to have a sufficient defense for the awareness that we did not walk after priesthood, especially when many of these ordinations are not done with the grace of God, but with the diligence of men[34]. Saint John’s answer proves that the one who wants to become a priest must examine very well his conscience, because he won’t be absolved of sins, not even if he reached priesthood by free will, nor if whether he was forced by others to access there. Consciousness must help him choose the best option and, when he is forced to become a priest, to find the resources to decline, in order to avoid the judgment for all the commited sins and of which he would exonerate, defending by the fact that he was forced to be ordained. The saint also states that those who ordain undeserving people receive the same punishment as those ordained, because they did not sufficiently investigate or due to other reasons they chose them[35].

C. The priest should be a good preacher [36] Starting from bodily suffering that man can have in his life and giving the therapeutic methods the doctor uses to cure the helpless one, Saint John reaches the spiritual suffering that affects “the Body of Christ”, and observes that no material cure was dicovered for healing.

He says that besides the example by action, priests have only one way for healing: the teaching of the word, the preaching[37]. As in the hospital, where the doctor administrates the patient’s medication, in the Church, the priest is the one who “administrates the properly cure for the sufferer”[38]. To be a good preacher, the priest must be armed with the Word of Christ, the main weapon of enemy’s confrontation and defeat. To win, you must know very well the one who attacks you, because like a skillful soldier you are forced to use different weapons and perform different tasks, “the same man should be and archer too, and threw the slingshot, and the captain and the soldier, and general and foot soldier and trooper; to know how to fight by sea and on ramparts”[39].

The priest’s science must be like the walls of a city, to surround and protect those who live in it[40]. To be prepared to fight Greeks and Jews

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy and heretics, because some of them even if they fail to take the city, if they succed to make a crack in the wall, then it becomes vulnerable. The priest is not allowed to be categorical in the statements against certain enemies, because they may encourage other hostile army, to us and to those we attacked. Therefore we could hurt ourselves with our own weapon. This is why the Church of God also avoids the both exaggerations, “walking on the middle path”[41]. The example given by Saint John to reinforce the previous statement is that about the Law of Moses. If we say that it should not be respected any more, we encourage the heretics who definitely want to give it up. If we praise and admire it, considering it “absolutely necessary”, then we encourage the Jews. To succeed in getting the message of Christ, the priest must well master the dialectics [42], as no other before his time, possessed it than Saint Paul. He succeeded by his oratory art to avoid the too inquisitive questions and in the same time the labeling of “proud or stupid” as Saint John classifies it[ 43].

Saint John manages to encapsulate in a sentence the preacher’s profile: “...so I do not ask the priest neighter one or the other of these characteristics (he refers to the sweet speeches of majesty Demosthenes, the gravity Thucydides, the height of Plato n.n.). I require neither the adorment song of pagan orators nor am I interested in his or her sentence and style.

The priest must be honest in words! To simply arrange his words in the sentence without any craft! Nobody should be unskilled in science or in the accuracy of dogmas, or to take from Paul the majority of his goodness, the head of his praises or the science to cover his own laziness!”[44]. Following the Apostle Paul, the one who raised the word to a level of art, the priest must practically show much eloquence in his preaching, in order to be convincing and a healer of the suffering soul. A preacher becomes perfect when he succeeds, through what he does and teaches, to lead the entrusted flock to the happy life[45]. Otherwise, the believers will suffer when you offer only the example of a perfect disciplinary life and you cannot replace it with the word[46]. To become a good preacher requires much effort and care. You should avoid copying the other preachers’ words and ideas, offering them as yours, or to repeat yourself too often, because you stand in front of the most

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severe critics. The priest must fight ”to restrain this senseless and useless pleasure of the believers and to be able to focus his attention to listeners towards what is useful to them, so that the people follow and obey him, and not be led by the wishes of his audience”[47].

The preacher must despise the eulogy and be convincing in his word, because then “he can blame and console all his faithful ones with as much authority he wants”[48]. He must be fair and fight when he must defend his dignity[489].

Saint John notes that the priest is also human and he can have weaknesses because, he says, “I do not know a man who isn’t enjoying when he is praised, but if he enjoys because he wants to acquire compliments and if he wants to obtain them, then he obligatory must grieve, be angry, embitter and suffer when he does not acquire them”[50]. The most important effect of the sermon is that it should be acceptable to God, because ”the one who has received the task to fight for Christian teaching, not to listen to compliments of his faithful people, nor to become dejected when he is not praised, but to make his sermons so that they please God. God must be his only digest and the only guide to his complete composition of his sermons, not the applauses or the praises”[51].

CONCLUSIONS Saint John Chrysostom, an important personality of the ”golden century” of Christianity left to the Christian Church his pastoral activity and his unparalleled treasure and writing. His work has enriched the theological cultural wealth of the Church in the homilies that made him famous with the nickname ”Chrysostom” and through the clarity with which he addressed the issue of priestly ministration in his work “Treatise on Priesthood”. The great Patrology father Professor John G. Coman said that “his Treatise ‘On Priesthood’ is the classical book of Christianity on the Divine Mystery of Ordination, which has inspired, encouraged, guided and continuously raised millions of Christian priests throughout all ages”[52].

In his attempt to justify his refusal to accept the dignity of a priest Saint John made the most beautiful and complete work on pastoral care and sketched the profile of the pastor of souls.

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t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology He presented the moral and intellectual profile of the missionary priest, in a socio- cultural context in which he has to operate, and also the difficulties encountered during his mission.

We thus realise that the priest’s mission in the first centuries is not different from that of today and therefore the teachings offered by Saint John Chrysostom remain timeless. He remains the cleric living example of one who “naturally electrified and attracted, who filled the churches, who built the soul, who certified and admirably illustrated by all means the presence of Christianity in the world...”. He was “in his time everything best the Church had, all the better the world had”[53].

References [1] Prof. Constantin C. Pavel, The attitude of The

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

Three Hierarchs towards the moral issues of their times (Atitudinea Sfinților Trei Ierarhi față de problemele morale ale vremilor), in rev. Studii Teologice, an XXIX (1977), nr. 3-4, p. 229.

Pr. Prof. I. G. Coman, The personality of Saint John Chrysostom (Personalitatea Sf. Ioan Gură de Aur), în rev. Studii Teologice, nr. 9-10, an 1957, p. 595.

Vasile, Episcopul Oradiei, Advice from The Three Hierarchs for the actual problems of the Church (Învățături ale Sf. Trei Ierarhi pentru problemele actuale ale Bisericii), în B.O.R., an XC (1972), nr.

1-2, p. 126.

Speaking about the Ascension to the antiochian school, the patrolog Irénée Rigolot says that she reached the climax with Diodor de Tars and Theodore of Mopsuestia, but “her most illustrious figure is Saint John Chrysostom. John Chrysostom is primarily an ascetic, a “monk” who rooted in the spiritual and Christian life with the price of taugh and authentic austerity (12 years of monastic life, from 374 until his ordination in 386), hard study of the Scripture led him to the source of Christian life in a familiar and existential report with Christ ... so he becomes an authentic “soul sheppard “, gifted with the charismatic gift of the word”. P. Irénée Rigolot, Course of Patrology and Patristic Theology (Cours de Patrologie et de Théologie Patristique), tome 2, Kasanza, 2008, p. 54.

Sf. Ioan Gură de Aur, Sf. Grigorie de Nazianz, Sf. Efrem Sirul, On the priesthood (Despre preoție), Editura Sofia, București, 2004, p. 61.

Ibidem, p. 53.

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[7] Ibidem, p. 69.

[8] Ibidem, p. 70.

[9] ”If you behave gently with a sinner who needs

harshness and you do not make a gash in the soul of the one who needs of such a cut, then you made the cut but you didn’t cut the evil. Conversely, if your cut the evil appropriately, the patient because of pain, often renounces, and throws everything at once, and drugs and the dressing too, breaks the yoke, the bandages and looses himself”, Ibidem, p. 58.

[10] Prof. Constantin C. Pavel, The attitude of The Three Hierarchs... (Atitudinea Sfinților Trei Ierarhi...,) op. cit., p. 231.

[11] Sf. Ioan Gură de Aur, Sf. Grigorie de Nazianz, Sf. Efrem Sirul, On the priesthood (Despre preoție), op. cit., pp. 75-76.

[12] Ibidem, p. 77.

[13] Ibidem, p. 78.

[14] Ibidem, p. 81.

[15] Ibidem, p. 82.

[16] Ibidem, p. 83.

[17] Ibidem, p. 84.

[18] These are: “anger, sadness, envy, strife, blasphemy, pear, lying, hypocrisy, conspiracy, acting against those who have done nothing wrong to us, the love to be praised, the sadness and the soul discontent caused by the success and well-being of others, the desire of honor positions - of all the passions that lead most to the loss of the human soul, the sermons uttered to please the faithful ones, the flattery compliments, the slight of the poor, the sycophacy of the rich, the honors undeserved, the hurtful decisions that bring danger and those who make them and to those who receive them, the lack of boldness and the fear servile, worthy only of the most wicked servants, the false humility, not the true humility, the removing of dispute and the reflection, better said the dispute of those humble, but towards strong people not dare to open the lips”, Ibidem, pp. 84-85.

[19] „Knowing how to get used to all the circumstances and keep your personality intact requires however a dexterity that only those imbued with the sense of duty and respect for the task they perform have”.

Pr. Emilian Gălușcă, The essential charactierisics of the priest in Saint John’s Chrysostom perception (Trăsăturile esențiale ale chipului preotului ortodox după Sf. Ioan Gură de Aur), in rev. M.M.S., an LVIII (1982), nr. 10-12, p. 759.

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t h e Di a l ogue b et ween Sci en c e a n d Th eol ogy [20] Sf. Ioan Gură de Aur, Sf. Grigorie de Nazianz, Sf.

Efrem Sirul, On the priesthood (Despre preoție), op. cit., p. 87.

[21] Ibidem, p. 88.

[22] ”The priest must be moderate, watchful, to be careful because he lives not only for him, but also for a large crowd”, Ibidem, p. 89.

[23] Ibidem, p. 91.

[24] Ibidem, p. 93.

[25] Ibidem, p. 94.

[26] Ibidem, p. 95.

[27] Ibidem, pp. 97-98.

[28] Ibidem, p.103.

[29] Ibidem.

[30] Ibidem, p. 113.

[31] Ibidem, p. 114.

[32] Ibidem.

[33] “Saint John Chrysostom puts before all not a moral middle level target, but great purpose of Christian perfection. He believes that the Christian name makes us follow Christ and be like Him”. Ierom.

Prof. Nicolae Mladin, Saint John Chrysostom “About the Christian perfection” (Sf. Ioan Gură de Aur, Despre desăvârșirea creștină), in rev.

Ortodoxia, an IX (1957), nr. 4, p. 585.

[34] Sf. Ioan Gură de Aur, Sf. Grigorie de Nazianz, Sf. Efrem Sirul, On the priesthood (Despre preoție), op. cit., pp. 121-122.

[35] ”If they have ordained for some one reason a man whom they knew he is unworthy, they are punished too like the the ordained one. But perhaps a greater punishment is given to the one who ordained the unworthy”, Ibidem, p. 126.

[36] Saint John Chrysostom “happily summarized the sheppard of souls, enlightened, balanced, thoughtful, calm speaker, adroit, who makes from the word the weapon to execute his pastoral program”, Pr. prof. dr. I.G.Coman, Patrology (Patrologie), Sfânta Mănăstire Dervent, 2000, p.

138.

[37] ”Through preaching we raise the despairing soul; through sermon we vail one’s unhumble soul; through sermon we cut what is additional; through sermon we fulfill the missing ones; through preaching we connect all that help us heal the soul”.

Sf. Ioan Gură de Aur, Sf. Grigorie de Nazianz, Sf. Efrem Sirul, On the priesthood (Despre preoție), op. cit., p. 130.

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[38] Pr. Prof. D. Belu, The preacher in Saint John’s

Chrysostom view (Predicatorul în concepția Sf. Ioan Gură de Aur), în B.O.R., LXXVII (1959), nr.

3-4, p. 361.

[39] Sf. Ioan Gură de Aur, Sf. Grigorie de Nazianz, Sf. Efrem Sirul, On the priesthood (Despre preoție), op. cit., p. 132.

[40] „A thorough knowledge of the Scriptures will always keep awake the conscience of the priest for the main purpose of his mission: thetraining and education of believers for salvation...”. Pr. prof. D. Belu, The preacher ... (Predicatorul în concepția...), op. cit., p. 369.

[41] Sf. Ioan Gură de Aur, Sf. Grigorie de Nazianz, Sf. Efrem Sirul, On the priesthood (Despre preoție), op. cit., p. 134.

[42] „Through his speeches the preacher is not addressingg to man in general, to the abstract man, but to some particular people: to those subordinated in his flock. That brings the priest the obligation to closely know his believers, to know their individuality, the aperceptiv background, their living conditions”, Pr. prof. D. Belu, The preacher ... (Predicatorul în concepția ...), op. cit., p. 371.

[43] Ibidem, p. 138.

[44] Ibidem, p. 142.

[45] Ibidem, p. 146.

[46] Ibidem, „The believers who are not quite firm in faith if they would see that the adviser is defeated andthat he can not respond to adversaries, they do not blame the defeat due to his ignorance, but to the fragile teaching. And so because of the ignorance of one man, the majority of people are thrown in the deepest chasm of perdition”, Ibidem, p. 148.

[47] Ibidem, p. 150.

[48] Ibidem, p. 152.

[49] ”They must no fear nor exceedingly tremble because of unfounded criticism - and it is inevitable that Patriarch also suffer unfounded criticism - but nor is it good to overlook, he must try to immediately extinguish them, if they are unfounded and start of incompetent people”, Ibidem, p. 153.

[50] Ibidem, p. 154.

[51] Ibidem, pp. 158- 159.

[52] Pr. prof. dr. I.G.Coman, Patrology (Patrologie), op. cit., p. 138.

[53] Prof. Teodor M. Popescu, The era of Saint John Chrysostom (Epoca Sf. Ioan Gură de Aur), in rev.

Ortodoxia, an IX (1957), nr. 4, p. 553.

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DIALOGO 2.1 (2015)

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CONFERENCES & JOURNAL

t h e D i al o gue be t we e n Sc i enc e and Theology BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. Belu, Pr. Prof. D., “The preacher in Saint John’s Chrysostom view” (Predicatorul în concepția Sf. Ioan Gură de Aur), in B.O.R., LXXVII (1959), nr. 3-4, pp. 357-384.

problemele actuale ale Bisericii), în B.O.R., an XC (1972), nr. 1-2, pp. 121-126.

2. Coman, Pr. prof. dr. I.G.., Patrology (Patrologie), Sfânta Mănăstire Dervent, 2000.

3. Coman, Pr. Prof. I. G., “The personality of Saint John Chrysostom” (Personalitatea Sf. Ioan Gură de Aur), in rev. Studii Teologice, nr. 9-10, an 1957, p. 595-616.

4. Gălușcă, Preot Emilian, “The essential charactierisics of the priest in Saint John’s Chrysostom perception” (Trăsăturile esențiale ale chipului preotului ortodox după Sf. Ioan Gură de Aur), in rev. M.M.S., an LVIII (1982), nr. 10-12, pp. 744-761.

5. Mladin, Ierom. Prof. Nicolae, Saint John Chrysostom “About the Christian perfection” (Sf. Ioan Gură de Aur, „Despre desăvârșirea creștină”), în rev. Ortodoxia, an IX (1957), nr. 4, pp. 560-585.

6. Nișcoveanu, Pr. Magistr. Mircea, “Aspects of the Christian life in Saint John Chrysostom commentary about the pastoral letters” (Aspecte din viața creștină în comentariul Sf. Ioan Gură de Aur la epistolele pastorale), în rev.

Glasul Bisericii, an XXIII (1964), nr. 7-8, pp. 671684.

7. Pavel, Prof. Constantin C., “The attitude of The Three Hierarchs towards the moral issues of their times” (Atitudinea Sfinților Trei Ierarhi față de problemele morale ale vremilor), in rev. Studii Teologice, an XXIX (1977), nr. 3-4, pp. 222-232.

8. Popescu, Prof Teodor M., “The era of Saint John Chrysostom” (Epoca Sf. Ioan Gură de Aur), in rev. Ortodoxia, an IX (1957), nr. 4, pp. 531-554.

9. Rigolot, P. Irénée, Course of Patrology and Patristic Theology (Cours de Patrologie et de Théologie Patristique), tome 2, Kasanza, 2008.

20. Sf. Ioan Gură de Aur, Sf. Grigorie de Nazianz, Sf. Efrem Sirul, On the priesthood (Despre preoție), Editura Sofia, București, 2004.

11. Vasile, Episcopul Oradiei, “Advice from The Three Hierarchs for the actual problems of the Church” (Învățături ale Sf. Trei Ierarhi pentru

14. General Topic

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