 |
Paul J. Griffiths | |
|---|---|
| Born | 12 November 1955 London, England |
| Nationality |
|
| Spouse | Judith Heyhoe (m. 1975) |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | |
| Thesis | Indian Buddhist Meditation-Theory [1] (1983) |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | |
| Sub-discipline | |
| Institutions | |
Paul J. Griffiths (born 1955) is an English-born American theologian. He was the Warren Professor of Catholic Thought at Duke Divinity School.
Griffiths was born in London,England,on 12 November 1955. Griffiths has held appointments at the University of Notre Dame,University of Illinois at Chicago,and the University of Chicago. A scholar of Augustine of Hippo,Griffiths' main interests and pursuits are philosophical theology and the philosophy of religion –particularly Christianity and Buddhism. He received a doctorate in Buddhist studies in 1983 from the University of Wisconsin–Madison,and his early works established him as one of the most incisive interpreters of Yogācāra Buddhist philosophy.[ citation needed ] His works on Buddhism include On Being Mindless (Lasalle,IL:Open Court,1991) and On Being Buddha (Albany:SUNY Press,1994). After converting from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism and accepting the Schmitt Chair of Catholic Studies at UIC,he has largely given up his work in Buddhist studies. His recent books include:Problems of Religious Diversity (Oxford:Blackwell,2001);Philosophy of Religion:A Reader (co-edited with Charles Taliaferro) (Oxford:Blackwell,2003);and,Lying:An Augustinian Theology of Duplicity (Grand Rapids:Brazos Press,2004). His latest book deals with curiositas and the nature of intellectual appetite;its title is:Intellectual Appetite:A Theological Grammar (Catholic University of America Press). According to the faculty pages at Duke Divinity School,Griffiths has published ten books as sole author and seven more as co-author or editor.
Griffiths resigned from Duke Divinity School in May 2017 after being reprimanded by Duke Divinity School administration. [2] The reprimand stemmed from his response to a faculty-wide mass-email urging members to participate in voluntary Racial Equity training. Griffiths had replied with his own mass-email that called such training "anti-intellectual",that it had "illiberal roots and totalitarian tendencies",and that such "(Re)trainings of intellectuals by bureaucrats and apparatchiks have a long and ignoble history." [3] [4] When disciplinary proceedings began over the professionalism of his conduct,Griffiths sent out another email saying that the proceedings were an effort "not to engage and rebut the views I hold and have expressed about the matters mentioned,but rather to discipline me for having expressed them. …In doing so they act illiberally and anti-intellectually;their action shows totalitarian affinities in its preferred method,which is the veiled use of institutional power." [3] He lambasted those behind the proceedings saying "The convictions that some of my colleagues hold about justice for racial,ethnic,and gender minorities have led them to attempt occupation of a place of unassailably luminous moral probity. That’s a utopia,and those who seek it place themselves outside the space of reason. Once you’ve made that move,those who disagree with you inevitably seem corrupt and dangerous,better removed than argued with,while you seem to yourself beyond criticism. What you do then is discipline your opponents." [3] He called on them to "reconsider,repent,make public apology to me and our colleagues for the damage done,and re-dedicate themselves to the life of the mind." [3]
In an essay about his resignation Griffiths stated that his words and behavior were "in critique of university diversity policies and practices,in support of particular freedoms of expression and thought,and against legal and disciplinary constraints of those freedoms. My university superiors,the dean and the provost,have been at best lukewarm in their support of these freedoms,preferring to them conciliation and accommodation of their opponents." [5] He held that élite universities no longer have "tolerance for argument." [5]
Griffiths coined the term Buddhist hybrid English as an analogy to Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit to designate the often incomprehensible result of attempts to faithfully translate Buddhist texts into English. [6] This effort often involves the creation of entirely new English phrases for Sanskrit,Pali,Tibetan,Chinese,or Japanese phrases,the use of English words in uncharacteristic ways,and heavy reliance on calques.
An example Buddhist Hybrid English phrase is "own-being" to translate Sanskrit svabhāva in contexts where it is used as a technical philosophical term,equivalent to English essence. [6]
 |
| Year | Review article | Work(s) reviewed |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Griffiths, Paul J. (January 2023). "Mourned or lamented?" . Commonweal. 150 (1): 54–56. [lower-alpha 1] | Jonathan Lear (2022). Imagining the end : mourning and ethical Life. Harvard University Press. |
———————
Philosophy of religion is "the philosophical examination of the central themes and concepts involved in religious traditions". Philosophical discussions on such topics date from ancient times, and appear in the earliest known texts concerning philosophy. The field is related to many other branches of philosophy, including metaphysics, epistemology, logic and ethics.
Theology is the study of religious belief from a religious perspective. More narrowly it is the study of the nature of the divine. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the supernatural, but also deals with religious epistemology, asks and seeks to answer the question of revelation. Revelation pertains to the acceptance of God, gods, or deities, as not only transcendent or above the natural world, but also willing and able to interact with the natural world and to reveal themselves to humankind.
Marilyn McCord Adams was an American philosopher and Episcopal priest. She specialized in the philosophy of religion, philosophical theology, and medieval philosophy. She was Horace Tracy Pitkin Professor of Historical Theology at Yale Divinity School from 1998 to 2003 and Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford from 2004 to 2009.
Āstika (IAST: Āstika) and Nāstika are concepts that have been used to classify the schools of Indian philosophy by modern scholars, as well as some Hindu, Buddhist and Jain texts. The various definitions for āstika and nāstika philosophies have been disputed since ancient times, and there is no consensus. One standard distinction, as within ancient- and medieval-era Sanskrit philosophical literature, is that āstika schools accept the Vedas, the ancient texts of India, as fundamentally authoritative, while the nāstika schools do not. However, a separate way of distinguishing the two terms has evolved in current Indian languages like Telugu, Hindi and Bengali, wherein āstika and its derivatives usually mean 'theist', and nāstika and its derivatives denote 'atheism'. Still, philosophical tradition maintains the earlier distinction, for example, in identifying the school of Sāṃkhya, which is non-theistic, as āstika (Veda-affirming) philosophy, though "God" is often used as an epithet for consciousness (purusha) within its doctrine. Similarly, though Buddhism is considered to be nāstika, Gautama Buddha is considered an avatar of the god Vishnu in some Hindu denominations. Due to its acceptance of the Vedas, āstika philosophy, in the original sense, is often equivalent to Hindu philosophy: philosophy that developed alongside the Hindu religion.
Graham M. Schweig is an American scholar of comparative theology of religion, philosophy, and the history of Yoga and Bhakti. He was born in Manhattan, New York and raised in Washington, DC. He joined the faculty at Christopher Newport University in Virginia, in August, 2000, and is currently Professor of Religion and Director of Studies in Religion there. He is also Distinguished Teaching and Research Faculty at The Center for Dharma Studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, beginning June, 2017.
Mark Allan Noll is an American historian specializing in the history of Christianity in the United States. He holds the position of Research Professor of History at Regent College, having previously been Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame. Noll is a Reformed evangelical Christian and in 2005 was named by Time magazine as one of the twenty-five most influential evangelicals in America.
Denys Alan Turner is an English philosopher and theologian. He is Horace Tracy Pitkin Professor of Historical Theology emeritus at Yale University having been appointed in 2005, previously having been Norris–Hulse Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge. He earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree in philosophy from the University of Oxford. He has written widely on political theory and social theory in relation to Christian theology, as well as on medieval thought, in particular, mystical theology and Christian mysticism.
The University of Chicago Divinity School is a private graduate institution at the University of Chicago dedicated to the training of academics and clergy across religious boundaries. Formed under Baptist auspices, the school today lacks any sectarian affiliations.
In Hinduism, the concept of God varies in its diverse religio-philosophical traditions. Hinduism comprises a wide range of beliefs about God and Divinity, such as henotheism, monotheism, polytheism, panentheism, pantheism, pandeism, monism, agnosticism, atheism, and nontheism.
Sarah Anne Coakley is an English Anglican priest, systematic theologian and philosopher of religion with interdisciplinary interests. She is an honorary professor at the Logos Institute, the University of St Andrews, after she stepped down as Norris–Hulse Professor of Divinity (2007–2018) at the University of Cambridge. She is also a visiting professorial fellow at the Australian Catholic University, both in Melbourne and Rome.
Anne Carolyn Klein is an American Tibetologist who is a professor of Religious Studies at Rice University in Houston, Texas and co-founding director and resident teacher at Dawn Mountain, a Tibetan temple, community center and research institute.
Graham John Ward is an English theologian and Anglican priest who has been Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford since 2012.
Francis Xavier Clooney is an American Jesuit priest and scholar in the teachings of Hinduism. He is currently a professor at Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Charles Taliaferro is an American philosopher specializing in theology and philosophy of religion. He is an emeritus professor of philosophy at St. Olaf College, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Faithful Research, and a member of the Royal Institute of Philosophy. He is the author, co-author, editor, or co-editor of twenty books, most recently The Image in Mind; Theism, Naturalism and the Imagination, co-authored with the American artist Jil Evans. He has been a visiting scholar or guest lecturer at a large number of universities, including Brown, Cambridge, Notre Dame, Oxford, Princeton, and the University of Chicago. Since 2013 Taliaferro is editor-in-chief of the journal Open Theology.
Philip Sheldrake is a religious historian and theologian with additional background in philosophy and political theory. His main work has been as a leading scholar in the overall multi-disciplinary field of spirituality. In particular, Philip Sheldrake has been closely involved internationally in the emergence of Christian Spirituality as an academic discipline. Sheldrake is a past president of the international Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality, linked to the American Academy of Religion (AAR). He has written or edited seventeen books, with another book pending, as well as numerous book essays and journal articles. His publications have mainly focused on the meaning of "spirituality", the interface of spirituality and religious history and spirituality in relation to contemporary society and culture. He has also written on the theme of human and religious reconciliation and, more recently, on a spiritual vision for cities in dialogue with history, philosophy, theology, social sciences and urban studies. Sheldrake recently published a book (2019) which offers a contextual study of the theology of Julian of Norwich, the Fourteenth Century English mystical writer and the first woman known to have written in English. He is currently working on a sequel to his city book concerning the cultivation of critical public virtues with a chapter on the nature of public leadership and what makes the "good leader".
The Samaveda, is the Veda of melodies and chants. It is an ancient Vedic Sanskrit text, and is one of the sacred scriptures in Hinduism. One of the four Vedas, it is a liturgical text which consists of 1,875 verses. All but 75 verses have been taken from the Rigveda. Three recensions of the Samaveda have survived, and variant manuscripts of the Veda have been found in various parts of India.
David Curtis Steinmetz was an American historian of late medieval and early modern Christianity.
Mark D. Jordan is a scholar of Christian theology, European philosophy, and gender studies. He is currently the Richard Reinhold Niebuhr Research Professor of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School and Professor of the Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
Luke Bretherton is a British author and theologian. His work addresses contemporary moral and political questions, particularly as these relate to the relationship between religion and democracy. He is currently Robert E. Cushman Distinguished Professor of Moral and Political Theology at Duke University in North Carolina (2012–present). Previously he taught at King’s College London (2004-2012) and St Augustine’s College (2001-2004). Alongside his scholarly work, he writes in the media on topics related to religion and politics, has worked with a variety of faith-based NGOs and churches around the world, and is actively involved in forms of grassroots democratic politics, both in the UK and the US. He hosts and writes the Listen, Organize, Act! Podcast.
Bruce D. Marshall is a Catholic theologian and Lehman Professor of Christian Doctrine at Southern Methodist University. His work focuses primarily on Trinitarian theology, Christology, the relation of philosophy and theology, and the links shared between Judaism and Christianity.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
