Jorge A. Colombo

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:RAHNER AND HIS CRITICS: LINDBECK AND METZ J. A. COLOMBO University of San Diego San Diego, California HE "TRANSCENDENTAL MOMENT" has been he hallmark of Rahner's theology as well as the focus of ontroversy and criticism. This essay treats the criticisms of Rahner's theology by George Lindbeck and Johann Metz. Though Lindbeck and Metz represent very different theological positions, their critiques share a common focus : the transcendental moment in Rahner's theology. For Lindbeck, this aspect of Rahner's theology is symptomatic of a theological reductionism: the specificity of Christian faith is reduced to a cultural expression of some universal, prethematic experience. For Metz, the transcendental moment immunizes the contents of Christian faith against the challenges, dangers, and threats of history and society. This essay is divided into two parts. The first part is an exposition of Rahner's understanding of the relation between nature and grace.1 Through this focus both the theological context of the notion of transcendental revelation and Rahner's under'standing of the essence of Christianity as " the religion of imme1. References to Theological Investigations, 21 vols., various translators (New York: The Seabury Press, 1%1-88) are abbreviated by Tl, followed by the volume number. The major extended discussions of nature and grace can be found in "Concerning the Relationship between Nature and Grace," Tl, I, pp. 297-317; "Some Implications of the Scholastic Concept of Uncreated Grace," TI, I, pp. 319-346; "Reflections on the Experience of Grace," TI, III, pp. 8690 ; "Nature and Grace,'' TI, IV, pp. 165-188; "Questions of Controversial Theology of Justification," TI, IV, pp. 189-218; Nature and Grace. trans. Diane Wharton (New York: Herder and Herder, 1961); and Foundations of Christian Faith, trans. William Dych (New York: Seabury Press, 1978), pp. 116137. 71 72 J. A. COLOMBO diacy to God in his self-communication." 2 may be seen most clearly. In the second part the criticisms of George Lindbeck and Johann Metz are examined. After summarizing their criticisms, I seek to argue two points : Lindbeck has ignored the specifically Christian theological context of the transcendental turn in Rahner's theology, and Metz has misdirected his criticism, for his basic dispute with Rahner lies not with the transcendental turn in theology per se but in their differing notions of the essence of Christianity. -ICharacteristic of Rahner's theology is the close correlation he posits between Christology and anthropology. This correlation has often evoked the criticism that Rabner simply accommodates Christology to the demands of an anthropology which has a foundation independent of Christian revelation.3 Yet from his earliest essays on Christology, Rabner has insisted upon the mutual conditioning and qualifying of each theme by the other.4 In the hermeneutical structure of " retrieval," which for Rabner constitutes the essence of historical knowledge,5 the nontheological preunderstanding (i.e., anthropology) which guides one's inquiry as an anticipation of meaning is corrected in the process of confronting and bringing to speech the theological subject matter (i.e., Chris2 Foundations, p. 125. As indicated at the close of the essay, I use the category " essence of Christianity" solely in Ernst Troeltsch's sense of the term: as a way of naming the necessary synthetic moment by which the systematic theologian heuristically construes the point or center of the Christian tradition:. While Rahner himself never used the language of the " essence of Christianity," his reflections on the necessity of a contemporary Kurzformel in an age characterized by " gnoseological concupiscence " in fact converge with Troeltsch 's understanding of the function of the "essence of Christianity." See, "The Need for a 'Short Formula' of Christian Faith," TI, XI, pp. 230-46, and the "anthropological creed" in Foundations, pp. 456-7. a See, e.g., Walter Kaspar, Jesus The Christ, trans. V. Green (New York: Paulist Press, 1976), pp. 60£. 4" Current Problems in Christology," TI, I, pp. 158f. 5 Ibid., p. 150. The best description of the nature of "retrieval" as distinct from pure historical inquiry can be found in Spirit in the World, trans. William Dych (New York: Herder and Herder, 1968), pp. xlix-lv. RABNER AND HIS CRITICS 73 tology}. Preunderstanding and subject matter condition one another and...

Se plantea LA NECESIDAD DE REVISAR CONCEPTOS BÁSICOS DE LA EDUCACIÓN FORMAL Y SU RELACIÓN CON EL POTENCIAL DE COMPORTAMIENTOS CREATIVOS. ¿SE PLANTEA, ACASO, COMO DISYUNTIVA DE HIERRO CREATIVIDAD O SOCIALIZACIÓN (CON RIESGO DE DOMESTICACIÓN)? HABRÁ QUE RECURRIR A LA CREATIVIDAD PARA RESOLVERLA Y A CONSTRUCTOS SOCIALES CAPACES DE CONTENERLA Y PROMOVERLA. Las políticas públicas educativas que propugnen el conocimiento, el ejercicio de la imaginación y el pensamiento divergente o la expansión conceptual sólo pueden ser eficaces si son integradas a la equidad en la construcción social y a la optimización de la libertad individual. La indigencia, la pobreza, el privilegio y el prejuicio de clase son sus poderosos contrincantes.

Creativity has been associated with cognitive and behavioural disinhibitory processes (Martindale, 1999; Carson, 2014). Nevertheless, inhibitory mental processes are not only fundamental to rational behaviours but also socially adaptive practices. Hence, the promotion of creativity must overcome the limits imposed by socialization. An undue imbalance of both domains will tense both processes. This notion cannot be reviewed without considering ab initio our construction of the concept of ‘freedom’ or, more accurately, of our ‘degrees of freedom’ (Colombo, 2013) and our self-awareness of the construction of inhibitory codes and rules in our socialization process. It is a process that this author finds too close to domestication and fencing creativeness. This book has been inspired by the multiple sources of evidence imposing on vast segments of our world community a cognitive deprivation on the construction of identity, the access to critical knowledge, and the construction and expression of the creative potential (Colombo, 2007, 2015). Also, it is dangerous to build up a segmented or balkanized humanity as opposed to a globalized one, based on limited or no access to fundamental human values and needs, as well as to critical knowledge and information. Cultural banalization, poverty/indigence/marginalization of vast populations, social prejudices and privileges, and a prevalence of financial, ideological, and religious fundamentalisms are at the base of such unethical and counter-evolutive, regressive engines (Colombo 2010, 2013, 2015). These represent the instruments for domestication and suffocation of the species’ creative potential, which pave the road towards the emergence of fundamentalisms and the surrender of identity.

Assertions regarding attempts to link glial and macrostructural brain events with cognitive performance regarding Albert Einstein are critically reviewed. One basic problem arises from attempting to draw causal relationships regarding complex, delicately interactive functional processes involving finely tuned molecular and connectivity phenomena expressed in cognitive performance, based on highly variable brain structural events of a single, aged, formalin-fixed brain. Data weaknesses and logical flaws are considered. In other instances, similar neuroanatomical observations received different interpretations and conclusions, as those drawn, e.g., from schizophrenic brains. Observations on white matter events also raise methodological queries. Additionally, neurocognitive considerations on other intellectual aptitudes of A. Einstein were simply ignored.

Which and how much of our current drives –individually and as a global community– are driven by ancestral, inherited traits or imprinted on our animal condition? An attempt to approximate this intriguing query is explored here. It pertains to our identity, social constructions, and our ecological interaction. The origin of our species has its roots in ancestral habits, behaviors and a survival drive, transformed from changing environmental conditions. We were not born in a mother-of-pearl cradle nor were protected by magical agents. We grew on the thread of time within the complex nature of bio-ecological interactions. They carved our identity, our genetic expression and the possible origin of our beliefs, resulting in an arch of various behaviors and cultural phenotypes. The biological nature of our construction dragged through millennia through species trials with variable rates of survival times provided traces of inconstant and multiple evolutive chains. Our modern cultural contexts –norms, priorities, values– appear as newly born. Yet, socio-cultural ecology upon which our brain organization and behavioral constructs derive include shared basic behavioral drives with non-human primates. The emergence of humans with a sophisticated language allowed the development of complex virtual constructs based on symbolism and the instruments of culture. This has enhanced cognitive capacity and emotional interaction supported by processes anchored in neural networks distributed within cortical and subcortical levels. Basic, essential neural connectivities were preserved during the evolutionary development of the species. The biological matrix and inheritance are usually segregated from the social and cultural construction. Sophistication of our cultural development tends to set up a divisive fault from primitive foundations of non-human animal behavior (survival, territory, reproduction, prevalence, access to nutrients). These are basic templates and underlie essential individual and group basic drives, and cultural constructs. Humans have not ceased from being territorial (whether applied to virtual or material dimensions). Various forms of social inequities have been expressed in our time and through human history. On evolutive terms, the notion of individual social status within the social structure of a gregarious community generated the probability of an individual ascending or descending that hierarchy. Thus, becoming a potential figure of leadership, or the subordinate or the marginalized. Is there an evolutive antecedent for human social inequities? How do we construct a different future? Post-industrial societies became increasingly dependent on material consumerism and technological cultures, to the point of embraining them; conceptually becoming technological hybrids. Are these a developmental must, or an uncontrolled spin-off of human inventiveness affecting our future? Construction of supernatural agents played a significant role in the socialization/domestication processes. Agents’ intentionality flourished through altered states of conscience, or under fear of natural phenomena attributed to supposed inhabitants of the Natural Kingdom or virtual beings. This imaginary universe, reinforced by ritual behaviors, contributed to control personal/collective distress of various possible origins and conditioned our degrees of emotional and cognitive freedom.