This chapter examines Jean-Yves Lacoste's reading of Heidegger in Être en danger (2011) where he questions Heidegger's determination of anxiety as the affective tonality par excellence. In Lacoste's view, no single mood discloses all of what it means to be human, and others (e.g., peace, joy, innocence) each have the capacity to bring Dasein face to face with the meaning of its being. There is a knowing whose domain is that mode of being which is life. Moreover, Lacoste observes that Heidegger does not allow for the possibility of a spiritual life that might be known by means of affective tonalities, even if such experience cannot provide certainty. Lacoste's reading helps to open up phenomenological approaches that intersect with theology.

‘The Leuven Project: Enhancing Catholic School Identity?’ appeared in the May 2022 edition of ITQ. 1 Motivated by concerns that the article misrepresents the Enhancing Catholic School Identity (ECSI) research in the academic forum and fundamentally rejects the theology of the Second Vatican Council from which it springs, I write to clarify some of its misconceptions and critique some of its theological assumptions. In particular, Dr McGregor’s claims that the ECSI Research has a ‘very novel account of revelation and especially of the meaning of “symbol”’ (2) colour the entire article and preempt its construal of the authors on whose work it comments: Didier Pollefeyt and Lieven Boeve.

Modern TheologyVolume 38, Issue 4 p. 817-820 Book Reviews The Catholic Reception of Continental Philosophy in North America, edited by Gregory P. Floyd and Stephanie Rumpza ( Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2020), ix + 335 pp. Robyn Horner, Robyn Horner robyn.horner@acu.edu.au orcid.org/0000-0001-9189-1600 School of Theology, Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry, Faculty of Theology and Philosophy, Australian Catholic University, Melbourne Campus (St Patrick’s), 6.10, 250 Victoria Parade, East Melbourne, VIC, 3002 AUSTRALIASearch for more papers by this author Robyn Horner, Robyn Horner robyn.horner@acu.edu.au orcid.org/0000-0001-9189-1600 School of Theology, Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry, Faculty of Theology and Philosophy, Australian Catholic University, Melbourne Campus (St Patrick’s), 6.10, 250 Victoria Parade, East Melbourne, VIC, 3002 AUSTRALIASearch for more papers by this author First published: 25 August 2022 https://doi.org/10.1111/moth.12815Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume38, Issue4October 2022Pages 817-820 RelatedInformation

Belief and credal commitment sometimes seem to make less and less sense in the West. A kind of 'cultural amnesia' has taken hold, where formal religious adherence begins to seem almost unthinkable. This is especially so for the idea of divine revelation. Robyn Horner argues this means we need to re-evaluate how theology proceeds, focusing not so much on beliefs but on experience. Exploring ways in which the experiential might open human beings up to divine possibility, the author turns to phenomenology (especially in the French philosophical tradition) because it seeks to examine unrestrictedly what is given through involved encounter. Bringing phenomenology and poststructuralism together, Horner develops the idea of revelation as an 'event' wherein God interrupts and exceeds human experience, affecting and transforming it. This striking concept, named but largely unexplored by theology, articulates a notion of supernatural revelation which now starts to appear both coherent and plausible.

This study examined associations between school sector (Government, Catholic or Independent) and depressive symptomology over the secondary school years. Six waves of data collected annually from a representative Australian sample were examined. Multilevel piecewise linear and logistic regression controlling for a variety of demographic variables and protective factors was undertaken. In all sectors, depressive symptomology decreased between 10 and 13 years of age, but significantly increased for girls at age 13. Adolescents in Catholic schools reported significantly fewer symptoms of depression compared to those in Government and Independent schools. Adolescents in Catholic schools were less likely to report clinical levels of depressed mood compared to adolescents in Government schools.

[Excerpt] The present volume has come about because of the conviction that it is timely to look anew at the question of atheism. Of course, there are already many fine books that have been written about atheism, but very often, they come down to an argument about whether or not one can reasonably believe in “God”—or in what one substitutes for God.[1] Such a polarization of views leads only to a stalemate, so that in the end there is nothing very interesting left to say. In late 2016, a group of scholars from Australia, Europe, and North America met in Rome to discuss the possibility that one can approach atheism otherwise, and very quickly it became evident that for many of us, it was not even clear what we meant when we used the term. There are many atheisms: some of these atheisms actually inhabit theism or are even seen to live out theism’s ends. Between 2017 and 2019, three further meetings were hosted by Australian Catholic University at the campus in Rome to extend the work of that first group. This book arises in large part from the final seminar in 2019, where we pursued the question of the relationship atheism bears to experience. Why experience? Because in our view, as editors, while there are plenty of intellectual arguments to be made about atheism, atheism is not first a question of conceptual knowledge. People rarely argue themselves entirely to belief or unbelief in God; more commonly, they have already crossed a particular threshold before they begin to make such arguments—or at least, before they have reached their conclusion. We ventured to begin the conversation with the idea that atheism (or theism) is a way of finding oneself in the world, a characteristic of experience that is perhaps first affective rather than thetic. So, with this in mind, we asked our interlocutors to reflect on what the experience of atheism might look like.

In the Catholic Church, which includes in its mission the provision of school education, the significant rise of "no religion" in Western societies prompts serious new questions about how this mission can be lived out. An important response can be found in the Enhancing Catholic School Identity Project, which provides empirical evidence of the lived faith dispositions of members of Catholic school communities and recommends the enhancement of Catholic school identity through the recontextualisation of faith in dialogue. We argue that the dispositions of teachers are a vital factor in the development of a Catholic Dialogue School. Using aggregated data in Australia, we illustrate the importance of a teacher disposition that is intentionally and explicitly open to Catholic faith.

The enduring legacy of Saint Ignatius Loyola is that he experienced the passing of God in his everyday life, and showed the way for others to discern this passage and live accordingly. This extraordinary understanding of the possibility of a truly personal relationship with God is a beacon of hope for the ordinary person who, not drawn to a contemplative commitment, still longs to be caught up in the love that is promised as the meaning and dynamism of Christian existence. Moreover, it affirms unequivocally the value of the secular, not as that to be defined negatively against what is apparently sacred, but as the locus of God’s care and concern, and the sphere of God’s activity. In 1956, Karl Rahner argued that the Spiritual Exercises were deserving of greater theological consideration, and it is my view that this is still the case, not least in terms of the theological recontextualization of revelation for today.

The question of methodology in theology is sometimes vexed. In this article I seek to offer a hermeneutic phenomenological methodology for theology, utilising the insights of recent French phenomenology. Such a methodology demands that we refrain from making judgments in advance about the kinds of phenomena it is possible to encounter. Not only does this enable us to re-frame questions about the distinctions between philosophy and theology, but it also frees theologians from the problematic requirement of assuming a methodological atheism, particularly as they undertake practical theological research.

Much of the contemporary discussion of religion seems to do away with the very possibility of revelation. In this article, I use Lacoste’s phenomenology of la parole to rethink a theology of revelation in terms of God’s personal self-giving in experience. After examining Lacoste’s views of the relationship between philosophy and theology, his liturgical reduction and what this means for an understanding of experience and knowledge, and his thought of la parole more broadly, I give critical consideration to how he thinks the possibility of God’s address to humanity. Lacoste maintains that God’s presence in experience may be known through affection, and, indeed, that the word may so move us that we are able to recognise that presence. He uses the notion of self-evidence rather than the usual phenomenological category of evidence to evince the reasonableness of this response. I argue that while Lacoste accords due deference to a traditional understanding of revelation as the repetition or unfolding of a word addressed to us in the past, his thought also allows us to think revelation as a contemporary event, the hermeneutics of which allow us to know God in ways that are new.

In this chapter, Robyn Horner offers important methodological reflections on phenomenology while also examining the function of visibility in John 8:2-11. Horner juxtaposes the visibility of the woman with the “invisability” of Jesus. The text obscures Jesus even as it invites us to look at him. Yet, while Jesus is ungraspable, the woman is extremely visible, perhaps too visible. In the course of the narrative, Jesus transforms the woman’s pornographic visibility into a visible mirror of God’s love and mercy.