Epistemology

• logos
  13 November 2005

  A principle originating in classical Greek thought which refers to a universal divine reason, immanent in nature, yet transcending all oppositions and imperfections in the cosmos and humanity. An eternal and unchanging truth present from the time of creation, available to every individual who seeks it. A unifying and liberating revelatory force which reconciles the human with the divine; manifested in the world as an act of God’s love in the form of the Christ.
  Logos - Longer definition: (...)

• incarnation
  13 November 2005

  A central doctrine of the Christian faith which affirms that God took human form in the body of Christ. In other words, God was ’in-carnated’ in human flesh. This doctrine is based on the fundamental paradox that because God was incarnated in Christ, Christ was both fully human and fully God at the same time. Of course, there were rival opinions regarding the exact nature of God’s incarnation. For example, some claimed that Christ was not fully embodied by the divine (Arianism), while others (...)

• immanent
  13 November 2005

  Immanent
  Something existing in the realm of the material universe and/or human consciousness.
  See also
  transcendent

• imago dei
  13 November 2005

  Imago Dei ("image of God")
  ("image of God"): A theological term, applied uniquely to humans, which denotes the symbolical relation between God and humanity. The term has its roots in Genesis 1:27, wherein "God created man in his own image. . ." This scriptural passage does not mean that God is in human form, but rather, that humans are in the image of God in their moral, spiritual, and intellectual nature. Thus, humans mirror God’s divinity in their ability to actualize the unique qualities (...)

• holistic
  13 November 2005

  A wide-reaching term, designating views in which the individual elements of a system are determined by their relations to all other elements of that system. Being highly relational, holistic theories do not see the sum of the parts as adding up to the whole.
  In addition to the individual parts of a system, there are "emergent," or "arising," properties that add to or transform the individual parts. As such, holistic theories claim that no element of a system can exist apart from the system (...)

• entropy
  13 November 2005

  A measure of the disorder or unavailability of energy within a closed system. More entropy means less energy available for doing work.

• determinism
  13 November 2005

  A far-reaching term, which most widely states that all events in the world are the result of some previous event, or events. In this view, all of reality is already in a sense pre-determined or pre-existent and, therefore, nothing new can come into existence. This closed view of the universe sees all events in the world simply as effects of other prior effects, and has particular implications for morality, science, and religion. Ultimately, if determinism is correct, then all events in the (...)

• mechanics
  13 November 2005

  Classical Mechanics

• deconstructionism
  13 November 2005

  A term tied very closely to postmodernism, deconstructionism is a challenge to the attempt to establish any ultimate or secure meaning in a text.
  Basing itself in language analysis, it seeks to "deconstruct" the ideological biases (gender, racial, economic, political, cultural) and traditional assumptions that infect all histories, as well as philosophical and religious "truths."
  Deconstructionism is based on the premise that much of human history, in trying to understand, and then (...)

• atomism
  13 November 2005

  A highly reductive theory of the structure of the world, in which all things are made of an infinite number of randomly moving indivisible cells (corpuscles).
  The Atomists
  Leucippus (about whom almost nothing is known) and Democritus (of Abdera, in Thrace, born about 460), held that void (space with no matter) exists (against the Eleatics, who held that what is not there cannot exist) and that this void contains an infinite number of indivisible units (atoma , which means "indivisibles") (...)

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