Essays Hegelian and Ecumenical: What has been at stake

Scientific Essay from the year 2008 in the subject Philosophy - Philosophy of the 19th Century, grade: keine, , 73 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: When we question the reality of time we do so in favour of something richer, measuring morefully up to experience, not something poorer. Timelessness, therefore, signifies indeed anabsence of time, but in favour of something else which will be more and not less dynamic. Wecould not, for example, accept a view which represented us vibrant human beings as likeimmobile statues.One reason for our confidence in saying this is that, contrary to popular assumption, thedoctrine of God was never one of immobility, even where it was one of immutability. InWestern and Christian thought God is necessarily a Trinity, a universe of relations, that is tosay. Here the Father speaks the Word, the Word proceeds, their mutual love pours forth(spirates) perpetually. Such uttering, equated with begetting or generation, is what the Fatheris. He was not, is not, anything prior to this generating.Therefore any event that we experience, be it our own perception of something, or any eventat all, is so to say undercut and supported by, as having at its heart, this eternal utterance orgeneration of the Word in which all things are contained. The very newness of things reflectseternal novelty and freshness, and thus time is eternal reality's image and cipher, not itsnegation merely.If therefore anyone would replace this religious view with, as in absolute idealism, a universeof immortal spirits, ourselves, in perpetual mutual relation, then should he or she not say, aspreserving the insight of theology, that we in some way generate one another perpetually? Wedo not just find ourselves passively there. How could we? But nor is the individual aloneresponsible for all else. Rather, we must be as necessary to the whole community as thecommunity is necessary to us. It could not exist without me, or you, and nor could I withoutit. We are begotten from one another, yet each has his own energy which is yet one withthat of the whole.[...]