Marian Hillar

Creationism is an ancient worldview that was incorporated into ancient religious doctrines and survived in the western world due to its domination by religious institution such as the Catholic and Protestant Churches. Slowly, with the development of democratic political systems and science, the church lost its power of dominance over intellectual enterprises, and evolution became accepted by the majority as the inherent process in nature. Nevertheless, creationism is still very much alive among various fundamentalist churches and their organizations in the United States. This article discusses the premises of the creationist movement, its varieties, and confronts it with the basic premises, characteristics, and modus operandi of the scientific enterprise.

The doctrines of the Socinians represent a rational reaction to a medieval theology based on submission to the Church’s authority. Though they retained Scripture as something supra rationem, the Socinians analyzed it rationally and believed that nothing should be accepted contra rationem. Their social and political thought underwent a significant evolutionary process from a very utopian pacifistic trend condemning participation in war and holding public and judicial office to a moderate and realistic stance based on mutual love, support of the secular power of the state, active participation in social and political life, and the defense of social equality. They spoke out against the enserfment of peasants, and were the first Christians to postulate the separation of Church and state. The spirit of absolute religious freedom expressed in their practice and writings, ‘determined, more or less immediately, all the subsequent revolutions in favor of religious liberty.’ The precursor ideas of the Socinians on religious freedom later were expanded, perfected, and popularized by Locke and Pierre Bayle. Locke’s ideas were transplanted to America by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson who implemented them in American legislation. The rationality of the Socinians set the trend for the philosophical ideas of the Enlightenment and determined the future development of many modern intellectual endeavors.

During the last decades evolutionary science has made significance progress in the elucidation of the process of human evolution and especially of human behavioral characteristics. These themes were traditionally subjects of inquiry in philosophy and theology. Already Darwin suggested an evolutionary and biological basis for moral sense or conscience, and answered Kant’s question about the origin of the moral rules postulated by philosophers. This article reviews the current status of such investigations by natural scientists, biologists and psychologists, and compares their models for explanation of human moral behavior with those postulated by philosophers. Today natural scientists postulate cooperation as the third element of evolutionary process after mutations and natural selection. They seem to fully confirm the intuition of philosophers. The thesis on the fundamental status of cooperation in the entire animal world leads to a belief concerning dialogue: dialogue, rooted in a sense in cooperation, is a primary men’s capability, being emerged from the biological essence of humans. Thus the examination of cooperation reveals inter alia biological foundations of dialogue

Creationism is an ancient worldview that was incorporated into ancient religious doctrines and survived in the western world due to its domination by religious institution such as the Catholic and Protestant Churches. Slowly, with the development of democratic political systems and science, the church lost its power of dominance over intellectual enterprises, and evolution became accepted by the majority as the inherent process in nature. Nevertheless, creationism is still very much alive among various fundamentalist churches and their organizations in the United States. This article discusses the premises of the creationist movement, its varieties, and confronts it with the basic premises, characteristics, and modus operandi of the scientific enterprise.

Tertullian was the first to coin the Latin term trinitas for the description of the three divine entities in his doctrine of the Trinity. He translated the Greek term trias which was used in describing the Christian triad. Before Tertullian, Justin Martyr developed the Logos Christology and described the Christian Triad in terms of rank or order of its members. The term goes back to Pythagoras and can be found in many cultures as representing groupings of three divinities. Tertullian’s innovation was that he developed the concept of a triune God applied to the Christian myth and changed the meaning of the original term trias. Tertullian shows in his writings enormous erudition and knowledge of cultures and literatures of his time, a familiarity with Egyptian religion, and mystery religions, Greek as well as Egyptian. He found useful the Egyptian concept of the trinity for interpretation of the Christian biblical mythology and, at the same time, he explained it in metaphysical terms using the Middle Platonic Logos doctrine and the Stoic logical categories. His theory is based on the assumption of unity and unchangeability of the substance i.e., the spirit as the substance of God and the relative distinctiveness of the three members of the divinity.

Judaism was a mythical, strongly tribal religion with anthropomorphic God in which the leading element was the concept of a covenant between God and the exceptional “chosen people.” Such views produced a strong emphasis on tribal unity and attitude of election and moral superiority vis-à-vis the rest of humanity. Philo must have felt inadequacy of the ancient Judaism and its limitations to compete for the minds of Hellenes with their universalistic philosophical thought. Philo represented a trend in Jewish ideology which attempted, in confrontation with the Greek culture, to assert itself as a valid cosmic view to support the existence of a community. He attempted to reevaluate Hebrew ideology found in the scriptures adopting Greek metaphysical, ethical, and religious doctrines to Judaism.The focus of this article is on Philo’s introduction of the Greek concept of Logos, in the modified version of Xenocrates into Judaism. Philo developed this concept further and transformed from a metaphysical entity into an extension of a divine and transcendental anthropomorphic being and mediator between God and men. Thus Philo produced a synthesis of both Hebrew and Greek traditions developing concepts that were used for future Hellenistic interpretation of messianic Hebrew thought by providing foundations for Christianity.