Kurt Appel

Critiques of Master-Representations: The Political Dimension of the Canon between the Bible and the Qur’an

Interdisciplinary journal for religion and transformation in contemporary society, Dec 17, 2018

Political theology is at the serviceofthe critique of power representations.Onthe basis of the ex... more Political theology is at the serviceofthe critique of power representations.Onthe basis of the examinationo fH egelsP henomenologyo fS pirit this papers upports the idea that religioncan be considered arupture in the projectionofthe subjectsclaim to power.This becomes especially apparent in the biblical canon and its core,the name of God YHWH and its New Testament equivalent, the Cross.Inthe finalsectionthe paper presents the idea that, by serving as acorrective of strong Christian modes of self-representation, the Quranhas to be considered as arevelation for Christians. Hegel;Bible;Quran;Canon;Representation;Phenomenology of Spirit Since 2011, Kurt Appel has been aP rofessoro fTheologische Grundlagenforschung (Fundamental Theology) at the Institute for Systematic Theology and Ethics at the Faculty of Catholic Theology at the University of Vienna.HeisSpeaker of the Research Centre "Religion andT ransformation in Contemporary European Society"(University of Vienna;established as aresearch platform in the year 2010). Since 2010 Appel has also been frequently engaged as aV isitingProfessor at the Facoltà teologicadellItalia Settentrionale (Milan), Facoltà teologicad ell'Emiglia Romagna( Bologna), the Dipartimento di lettere ed if ilosofia,

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The Borders of Borders

Interdisciplinary journal for religion and transformation in contemporary society, Jan 21, 2020

This article examines the significance of public space for the European project and reflects on t... more This article examines the significance of public space for the European project and reflects on the contribution of Christianity to the shaping of today's public space. It is characterized by a common and shared symbolic, social, cultural, economic, political and geographical sphere that is potentially accessible and open to all people and welcomes creative participation. Today the specific task of Christianity consists not at least in the concretization of the idea of universal friendship in view of an ethos of empathy and inclusion which is perceptive of migrants and their narratives. The development of a amicable and non-hegemonic coexistence of Christianity, Islam and the secular world in Europe poses a particular challenge. In addition, it is necessary to make one's own traditions and potentials fruitful in such a way that also the dead, who in the secular world are largely excluded, obtain a corresponding presence in the world of the living beyond nihilistic resignation. In this context it becomes apparent that the vocation of Christianity consists in providing an exit strategy to closed social and symbolic worlds. This exit includes the subversion of boundaries. It does not create an abstract boundlessness, but sets in motion a continuous process of creative openings and shifts in which public space becomes concrete as a place of ever new approaches, exits and inclusions.

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Estar-aí-para-outros" como participação da realidade de Cristo: sobre a eclesiologia de Dietrich Bonhoeffer

DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), 2006

Bonhoeffer é vida, reflexão e vida de novo. Revela-se em suas teses de doutorado e habilitação, n... more Bonhoeffer é vida, reflexão e vida de novo. Revela-se em suas teses de doutorado e habilitação, na sua prática de professor na Universidade de Berlim, como pastor em Londres e sua atuação ecumênica, na decisão como Igreja Confessante, na formação de pastores e no livro sobre o seguimento, na ilegalidade, na conspiração contra Hitler, na prisão, nas cartas da prisão e no esboço para a Ética, finalmente com o martírio. Despojamento, autonomia, responsabilidade, representação vicária de Cristo, como "ser-para-outros" e liturgia conseqüente, unindo ação e oração, caracterizam o ser da Igreja.

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Die Zeit als Zeitigung des Seins und die Verabschiedung einer entleerten Zeit in der Monadenlehre von Leibniz

Epilog: Die Eröffnung der Zeit und die gastfreundliche Stadt

Zeit und Gott, 2008

Christianity and a New Humanism

Brill | Schöningh eBooks, Dec 21, 2021

In the following essay I attempt to lay bare a certain perspective on the human condition, which ... more In the following essay I attempt to lay bare a certain perspective on the human condition, which must precede any approach to the question of humanism. The perspective I seek to develop here combines a highly specific understanding of the SACRED with a distinct conception of time and history. My aim is to unify the understanding of God, man, and time, and to this end I will cite excerpts and ideas from three of the most significant texts in human history -the Bible, Hegel's Phenomenology, and Robert Musil's The Man without Qualities. This project not only involves the three disciplines that are intertwined with these texts and the necessary dialogue between them but also three temporal eras (linked with specific regions). First, time from its beginning to its end (connected with the cosmos and heaven), second, Europe's history insofar as it extends to the Enlightenment and its distorsions and thus the present day, and finally, Austria or Vienna for the first half of the twentieth century (Freud, Schönberg, Gödel, Schrödinger, Klimt, Wittgenstein, etc.) as, what we will discover to be, a paradigmatic epilogue to history. All three approaches will be woven together through a category which I will refer to as transition. Together with the theme of the body (or a sphere formed by the body1), and the question of time, this will provide the key to a greatly enhanced understanding of God, history, and the human condition. 1 M. Merleau-Ponty captures this sphere wonderfully in his grandiose "Phenomenology of Perception": "It is a nexus of living meanings, not the law for a certain number of covariant terms." See M. Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of perception, London 2005, 175.

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The Self-Evidence of Illusion. Alternative Truth by Schelling and the Gospel of Marc

The question of verity in our day's discourses within society, culture and religion challenges ph... more The question of verity in our day's discourses within society, culture and religion challenges philosophy in the face of fake news, manipulations and the virtual. This paper addresses, via an exploration of the later philosophy of F.W.J. Schelling and the Gospel of Mark, whether the illusionary of history ought to be recognised as a form of truth. In his "Positive Philosophy", Schelling claims that history is characterised by a loss of meaning that cannot be compensated for by philosophy, morality and sciences, and which is caused by a thinking-mode of "presentness", that knows no true past and future. As a contrast, he proposes the "illusion" of eschatological-utopian thinking, as paradigmatically laid down in the biblical idea of kenosis. The Gospel of Mark also refers to the traumatic character of history, and in its final chapter imparts the notion of a possible counter-history.

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Vernunftfähiger-vernunftbedürftiger Glaube : Festschrift zum 60. Geburtstag von Johann Reikerstorfer

Welche Vernunft fordert christlicher Glaube in der Gegenwart? Und welche inhaltlichen Elemente ko... more Welche Vernunft fordert christlicher Glaube in der Gegenwart? Und welche inhaltlichen Elemente koennen sich daraus fur die heutige Fundamentaltheologie ergeben? Entlang dieser Fragen entfalten die Beitrage der Festschrift Motive, die im Zusammenhang mit dem Denken des Wiener Fundamentaltheologen Johann Reikerstorfer stehen. Leitend ist dabei vor allem die Leidenserinnerung einerseits sowie die Aneignung grosser Denkgestalten der neuzeitlichen Geistesgeschichte andererseits - beides wird bezogen auf die Frage nach dem einen Gott und seiner Bedeutung fur die Menschen heute.

The Self-Evidence of Illusion

Interdisciplinary Journal for Religion and Transformation in Contemporary Society

The question of verity in our day’s discourses within society, culture and religion challenges ph... more The question of verity in our day’s discourses within society, culture and religion challenges philosophy in the face of fake news, manipulations and the virtual. This paper addresses, via an exploration of the later philosophy of F.W.J. Schelling and the Gospel of Mark, whether the illusionary of history ought to be recognised as a form of truth. In his “Positive Philosophy”, Schelling claims that history is characterised by a loss of meaning that cannot be compensated for by philosophy, morality and sciences, and which is caused by a thinking-mode of “presentness”, that knows no true past and future. As a contrast, he proposes the “illusion” of eschatological-utopian thinking, as paradigmatically laid down in the biblical idea of kenosis. The Gospel of Mark also refers to the traumatic character of history, and in its final chapter imparts the notion of a possible counter-history.

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Das Testament der Zeit: Die Apokalyptik und ihre gegenwärtige Rezeption

Quaestiones disputatae, 2016

The Price of Prayer

In Praise of Mortality, 2021

This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.

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The Self-Evidence of Illusion

The Self-Evidence of Illusion. Alternative Truth by Schelling and the Gospel of Mark 16:1–8, 2022

The question of verity in our day's discourses within society, culture and religion challenges ph... more The question of verity in our day's discourses within society, culture and religion challenges philosophy in the face of fake news, manipulations and the virtual. This paper addresses, via an exploration of the later philosophy of F.W.J. Schelling and the Gospel of Mark, whether the illusionary of history ought to be recognised as a form of truth. In his "Positive Philosophy", Schelling claims that history is characterised by a loss of meaning that cannot be compensated for by philosophy, morality and sciences, and which is caused by a thinking-mode of "presentness", that knows no true past and future. As a contrast, he proposes the "illusion" of eschatological-utopian thinking, as paradigmatically laid down in the biblical idea of kenosis. The Gospel of Mark also refers to the traumatic character of history, and in its final chapter imparts the notion of a possible counter-history.

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Selbstverwirklichung als Entäußerung – Geist und Sittlichkeit in Hegels „Phänomenologie des Geistes “Max Gottschlich

Eine Lektüre von Hegels Phänomenologie des Geistes

Die Grenze der Grenzen. Christentum, Abrahamitische Religionen, Zivilgesellschaft und die Neubestimmung des öffentlichen Raums in Europa

Ingeborg Gabriel ist ein herausragender Ve rtreter 1 katholischer Intellektualität mit universale... more Ingeborg Gabriel ist ein herausragender Ve rtreter 1 katholischer Intellektualität mit universalem Horizont. Sie verbindet eine tiefgründige Theologie und Spiritualität, die aufb iblischenW urzeln basiert, mit weitreichenden philosophischen, wirtschaftlichen und politischen Kenntnissen.Dabei reichtder Horizont ihres Wirkens weit überden deutschsprachigen und sogar europäischen Raum hinaus. Vo nihrem Denkansatzher ist sie ein "Kind der Aufklärung", das deren Errungenschaften gegen fundamentalistische Regressionen und postmoderne Beliebigkeiten verteidigt, ohne die Aporien und die Probleme, die sich mit der Aufklärung verbinden, ausdem Blick zu verlieren. Ihre Begegnungen mit zahlreichen Persönlichkeiten ausP olitik, Religion und Wissenschafts owie ihr Engagementi nd er Ökumene und im christlich-islamischen und interreligiösen Dialog habendazu beigetragen, dass sie wiewenige Theologen unserer Zeit die Zeichen der Zeit zu lesen vermag.ImFolgenden soll einem bedeutendenAspekt ihres intellektuellen Profils Rechnung getragen werden, nämlich dem Eintreten füre in Europa demokratisch bestimmter öffentlicher Räume, verbunden mit einer offenen Zivilgesellschaft 2 ,z ud eren Konstitution das Christentum bzw. Religionsgemeinschaften überhaupt einen wesentlichen Beitrag leisten. 1I mFolgenden wird fürdie Berufs-und Funktionsbezeichnungen das grammatikalische Geschlechtv erwendet. Der Autor bittet, darin sowohl das männliche als auch das weibliche "natürliche" Geschlechtmitzulesen. 2I ngeborg Gabriel schreibt:"One of the importantconsequences of modernconstitutionalism is the creation of the civil sphere."

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Desacralizzazione come santificazione della Chiesa. La diagnosi di Rosmini delle piaghe della Chiesa e la loro rilevanza attuale

In the first part of the essay, the author examines the five plagues of the Church that are prese... more In the first part of the essay, the author examines the five plagues of the Church that are presented by the great Catholic intellectual Antonio Rosmini in 1848 in a text entitled Delle Cinque Piaghe della Santa Chiesa which was very influential for Italian Catholicism in the 20 th century. The author argues that the text is not simply a diagnosis of the unsatisfying state of Catholicism but also refers to the question of the sacred and the holy. Holiness is to be linked the unpronounceable Tetragrammaton YHWH designating something inaccessible to human power. Rosmini, conscious of the power mechanisms of society and their totalitarian grasp, imagined a lovingly devoted Church to have the task of renunciating earthly regimes of power, thereby remembering its evangelical origins. The author shows that each of the plagues designates a critique of Church's claim to worldly power. In the second part, he examines a conception of holiness in which the holy designates man as oscillatin...

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Prospettive filosofiche cristologiche a partire da Hegel

Nel saggio viene preso in considerazione la Fenomenologia dello spirito e in particolare l´aspett... more Nel saggio viene preso in considerazione la Fenomenologia dello spirito e in particolare l´aspetto caratteristico del capitolo sulla religione come punto di partenza per una rilettura di motivi cristologici. Qui si dimostrera che il panteismo, spesso assegnato a Hegel, non rimane la sua ultima parola su Dio. Piuttosto si accena a una concezione molto originale che da motivi decisivi per un nuovo sguardo su motivi cristologici.

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Wissen und Bildung : zur Aktualität von Hegels Phänomenologie des Geistes anlässlich ihres 200jährigen Jubiläums

Hegel, Hölderlin and the «Open» of the Question of God

La conversione come evento assoluto

Entsakralisierung als Heiligung der Kirche. Rosminis Diagnose der Plagen der Kirche und ihre gegenwärtige Aktualität

In the first part of the essay, the author examines the five plagues of the Church that are prese... more In the first part of the essay, the author examines the five plagues of the Church that are presented by the great Catholic intellectual Antonio Rosmini in 1848 in a text entitled Delle Cinque Piaghe della Santa Chiesa which was very influential for Italian Catholicism in the 20 th century. The author argues that the text is not simply a diagnosis of the unsatisfying state of Catholicism but also refers to the question of the sacred and the holy. Holiness is to be linked the unpronounceable Tetragrammaton YHWH designating something inaccessible to human power. Rosmini, conscious of the power mechanisms of society and their totalitarian grasp, imagined a lovingly devoted Church to have the task of renunciating earthly regimes of power, thereby remembering its evangelical origins. The author shows that each of the plagues designates a critique of Church's claim to worldly power. In the second part, he examines a conception of holiness in which the holy designates man as oscillatin...

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