https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/41126 2026-04-04T21:18:43Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/32705 Title: Method in the social teaching of the church Abstract: When Leo XII dealt with the labour question, he raised the question and tried to solve it on the basis 'Of a theory of society, even if such a theory was moo:-e implied rather than explicitly stated. Pius XI was perhaps even more conscious than his predecessor ,of the need to approach the labour question in the context 'of an explicit social theory. Much of the criticism that was leveled in the sixties against the earlier social teaching tradition in the Catholic Church centered on the difficulties inherent in the concept of social systems in general. it was pointed out that human life is too complex a 'reality to fit any conceptual scheme and that history is continuously bringing new insights and technical possibilities which necessitate a critical and open attitude toward social systems. 1982-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/32703 Title: Memory and forgetfulness : a theme of christian metaphysics Abstract: This paper aims at a critical theology of communications. It is based on Hegel's presentation of few point of the story of western metaphysics: Its inability to "hold on to death". The power ,of that critical presentation of the metaphysical-scientific project derives from a communicatively, i.e. relatingly conceived Absolute which has taken death, difference and finiteness into itself: Only by relating himself in finite terms, can God communicate adequately. In doing so, he tells not only his, but also the world's story. Presenting himself, he presents also the world's nature; placing critique, negation and death into his self, he criticizes death-forgetful and God-defensive mankind. In telling the world's story, a story which is forgetful .of death, and therefore defensive against the dying God, God tells his own story. Reminding man of himself, he also reminds of metaphysics' God-amnesia. The paper leans strongly .on Theunissen's theological Hegel-interpretation and argues on the basis of the "atheism", disclosed at the end of western metaphysics, as a constitutive moment of theological reflection. 'It is :critical of contemporary religions 'Of "meaning-bestowal" and "nomizing" "holiness", dmwing from the sociology of knowledge or from nineteenth century Kantianism. It is also critical of theologies standing close to' these movements. But this critique becomes apparent only toward the end of the paper, after the dialectic of memory and forgetfulness has been elaborated as a central issue of western metaphysics in the first part. The second shows how that dialectic is closely associated with the conception of a deathless God, which conception triggers the compensate: foreknowledge 'Of death and definite having been repressed, ideological meaning now has to be produced. The third part of the paper indicates how in Hegel's thought the termination of western metaphysics is disclosed with its inner logic. This logic is characterized by the intimate relation 'of God-amnesia and a 'repression ,of the knowledge of death. This dose association having been "elevated" as the inner working of western metaphysics at its end, the fourth part develops Hegel's theologic as a narrative source of critique, which in the fifth and final portion is shown to have trinitarian structure. 1982-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/32699 Title: Melita Theologica : volume 33 : issue 1-2 Abstract: 1/Forte, B. - La teologia Europea di fronte alle sfide del pensiero moderno e dei mutamenti ecclesiali -- 2/AHLERS, R. - Memory and forgetfulness: a theme of christian metaphysics -- 3/GRIMA, G. - Method in the social teaching of the church -- 4/SERRACINO INGLOTT, P. - The rights of future generations: some socio-philosophical considerations 1982-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/32682 Title: The rights of future generations : some socio-philosophical considerations Abstract: The American Philosophical Association, in the February 1973 issue of its Bulletin (No. 14), :requested contributions on the topic: "Can it be asserted that future generations have rights, for example, to pure air?" The response raised two second-order questions: (a) why did the participants find so little explicit discussion of the problem to work upon? Cb) why did they find so much interest in it now? The paradox in the conjunction of these two questions is not very difficult to resolve:the problem has only become real recently. The reasons for its late emergence, however, may well deserve stating. 1982-01-01T00:00:00Z