Authors & Affiliations: Wessell L.P.
Pages: 7 - 41
Abstract: Since the acension of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio to the office of the papacy as Pope Francis, uncase to unrest and now to open conflict has suffused the Catholic Church, from lay to clcrics to even the Vatican. Various Catholics wonder, suggest and even argue diat a paradigm shift (cf. Thomas Kuhn) in Catholic theology has taken place. Wherever a paradigm shift occurs, the reason between die pre-sifters and the post-shifters becomes one of incompatibility, of being incommensurate, such that a mutually excluding fissure takes places., die divided house will fall. Has that been happening to Catholicism? It has been suggested dial die thinking of Bernard I-onergan SJ exhibits the same cognitive dynamics as that of Pope Francis. In order to attempt a judgment as to whether continuity or rupture structure the Catholic Church of today, focus is directed to Lonergan and his own view of what is transpiring in current Catholicism. One discovers quickly that Lonergan sees traditional Catholicism as classicist, conservative, normative and Aristotelian in orientation whereas the renewal dieologians are modern, liberal, and distincdy historicist, a theme amply developed by Lonctgan himself. The conclusion of this study is die traditionalists and modernizes do indeed constitute the incommensurable prongs of a paradigm shift such that currently Catholicism is a 2-in-one church, Le., two validly baptized groups of believers between whom a irreconcilable conflict rages. ,,,,,,. © 2024 Chung Yuan Christian University. All rights reserved.
Keywords: 2-in-l-church; Catholicism; classicist vs modernist; I.onergan; paradigm shift
Authors & Affiliations: Chen J., Guangdong Ocean University, China
Pages: 43 - 72
Abstract: How to seek refoge of faith in the era of religious secularization, Kierkegaard's interpretation of Abraham's son-killing sacrifice offers us a way out of thought. This story intrigues us in how individuals can reach incommensurable sacred beliefs beyond the level of public ethics and rituals. This way of believing fits with Freud's conception of unconsciousness, that salvation as a miracle of spiritual healing of life must go beyond group conventions and cultuire to the individual unconsciousness in lasting private struggle. Moreover, this salvation manifests the existence of the unconscious dynamic of the Way of Life and the spirit of the universe, which will surely dissolve the worldly Other and be present in the absence of consciousness, reason, libido, signifier. At the same time, we will refute the three misunderstandings in turn from the opposition between the unique and the universal, self-sacrifice and scapegoat-sacrifice, silence and speech through dissecting Sartre, Derrida, and Žižek's biased reading of the story: faith is neither subordinate to universal legislation acting by free choice, nor does it point to ethical relativism guided by individual preference or to political terror movements obeying the Other. © 2024 Chung Yuan Christian University. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Derrida; Fear and Trembling; Sartre; Žižek
Authors & Affiliations: Mingguang X., Beijing Foreign Studies University, China
Pages: 73 - 97
Abstract: Taking a perspective of historiography, this paper compares Mingde" in Da Xue with its translation, lumbre natural by the Italian Jesuit Michele Ruggieri. In doing so, it intends to explore how the Jesuit missionaries in China rendered the Confucian concept "Mingde" in Western languages and built connections between them. Besides, this paper takes a deep dive into the traditional Christian thoughts in the West and discusses how the translation of "Mingde" responds to the Christian theology since Thomas Aquinas. Finally, this paper makes an attempt to disclose Michele Ruggieri's missionary philosophy in China and its practical significance. Michele Ruggieri; "Mingde"; "lumbre natural"; Translation of Confucian Classics; Christian Theology. © 2024 Chung Yuan Christian University. All rights reserved.
Keywords: "lumbre natural"; "Mingde"; Christian Theology; Michele Ruggieri; Translation of Confucian Classics
Authors & Affiliations: Teng H., School of Philosophy, Fudan University, China
Pages: 99 - 119
Abstract: This paper argues against the thesis that "happiness delays to afterlife," as originally developed in "Augustine and the Delay of Happiness" {Sino-Christian Studies, no. 22, 2016). To begin with, I will summarize the main arguments in this paper and point out this thesis is based on the excessive interpretation of Augustine's early texts and Peter Brown's research paradigm of "two Augustine." I will argue that Augustine has never stated that human can achieve happiness in this life, as he continuously emphasizes that human is influenced by the flesh in this life, and only through Christian faith, hope and love can people achieve happiness in the next life. © 2024 Chung Yuan Christian University. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Augustine; happiness; Neoplatonism
Authors & Affiliations: Qiu Y., Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, China
Pages: 121 - 153
Abstract: The literary nature of 19th-century Protestant missionary novels with "dialogue" as the main structure and narrative content has been questioned, and its basic appeal of "elucidating the holy religion" makes it easier to be judged as "monophonic." However, a closer look at the internal mechanism of the long debates or questions and answers between the Christian side and the one or more parties representing Chinese culture in these novels reveals that rationality is used as a prerequisite for the dialogue; moreover, both sides of the dialogue can fully understand themselves and the other, so that both sides can fully elaborate themselves and examine each other. Even each side of the dialogue can also reflect, criticize and even adjust itself under the other party's questioning and refutation, that is to say, one side of the dialogue can keep different degrees of openness to the other side, thus bringing about real agitation or blending between heterogeneous ideas. Therefore, the "dialogic style" is not only a formal level, but also a dialogic one which transcends the "monolingual" set by itself. As far as its literary effect is concerned, this is the victory of poetry over philosophy; in terms of its significance of ideological history, it reflects the inevitability of Christianity's contextualization in China. © 2024 Chung Yuan Christian University. All rights reserved.
Keywords: contextualization; dialocality; dialogue novel; protectant missionary; rationality
Authors & Affiliations: Li W., Sun Yat-Sen University, China
Pages: 155 - 196
Abstract: This article examines Gützlaff's mission in Siam and his three voyages on the coast of China in the years 1831, 1832, and 1833. These three voyages were turning points for Gützlaff's personal destiny and even for China's modern history. In just over two years, Gützlaff not only achieved his objective of entering China due to his language talent and his "hometown"connections in Fujian, but also assisted the East India Company and the opium merchant William Jardine in exploring coastal areas of China. His and Hugh Hamilton Lindsay's records of the "Lord Armherst"voyages were clearly exaggerated but became the key evidence for the British Parliament to abolish the monopoly right of the East India Company's to conduct trade with China, and finally initiated an era of new policies towards China led by the "country merchants". His "Sylph"voyage not only opened up opium smuggling channels for British merchants in the coastal areas northeast of Guangdong, but also increased the amount of opium entering China by 60 percent within a short time. Gützlaff's three voyages were the trigger of a series of major adjustments in British policies towards China in the 1830s. They also caused a rapid spread of opium misusage in China. The relationship between the Qing and the British thus entered a vicious circle that could not be reversed, and eventually led to the outbreak of the First Opium War. Copyright © 2023 Chung Yuan Christian University.
Keywords: Karl Gützlaff; Opium Import; Sino-British relation; Voyages along the Chinese Coastline