The Distortion Of Nature S Image

The global ecological crisis is upon us. From global warming to the long-term implications of ocean acidification, air and water pollution, deforestation, and the omnipresent dangers of nuclear technology the future of our planetary home is threatened. Yet in the midst of the unfolding crisis, the conventional ideologies of the twentieth century and their representations of nature remain unchallenged by both the defenders of capitalism and capitalism's most radical critics. The Distortion of Nature's Image illustrates how the anti-naturalism of late capitalist society, in which nature is reified into the emptiness of mere matter, simply a thing to be dominated, is subtly complemented by the failure of the Left to go both beyond the historic limitations of Marx's ninteenth-century viewpoint and beyond anarchism's blind faith in "natural law." However, an alternative for comprehending nature and the ecological crisis as historical and social phenomena remains open in the dialectical naturalism of Western Marxism and Murray Bookchin's social ecology. By examining in closer detail how Bookchin's social ecology politicizes the concept of nature, as well as how precursory models in Western Marxist thought provide a foundation for this, Damian Gerber illustrates how the notion of an ecological society remains a decisively political question.

This book constitutes refereed proceedings of the 4th Maple Conference, MC 2020, held in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, in November 2020. The 25 revised full papers and 3 short papers were carefully reviewed and selected out of 75 submissions, one invited paper is also presented in the volume. The papers included in this book cover topics in education, algorithms, and applciations of the mathematical software Maple.

The Westminter Dictionary of Christian Theology is an important reference for any pastor, scholar, or student of theology. The articles are clearly written, historically informative, and conceptually clarifying. The entries are arranged alphabetically for ease of use.

In our current pluralist context, there is no clearly designated means of valuing or defining the human person. Matthew Drever shows that in the writings of St. Augustine we find a concept of the human person that is fluid, tenuous, prone to great good and great vice, and influenced deeply by the wider spiritual and material environment. Through an examination of his account of the human relation to God, Drever demonstrates how Augustine can offer a crucial resource for a religious reorientation and revaluation of the human person. Drever focuses particularly on the concepts of the imago dei and creatio ex nihilo, significant for their influence on Augustine's understanding of the human person and for their potential to bridge his and our own world. Though rooted in Augustine's early work, these concepts are developed fully in his later writings: his Genesis commentaries and On the Trinity in particular. Drever examines how in these later writings the origin (creatio ex nihilo) and identity (imago dei) of the human person intersect with Augustine's understanding of creation, Christ, and the Trinity. Image, Identity, and the Forming of the Augustinian Soul constructs an interpretation of Augustine's view of the person that acknowledges its classical context while also addressing contemporary theological and philosophical appropriations of Augustine and the issues that animate them.