https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/41664 Mon, 06 Apr 2026 14:40:46 GMT 2026-04-06T14:40:46Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/32353 Title: Human rights with a future : cultural and counter-cultural aspects from an Eastern Christian viewpoint Abstract: The concept of "rights offuture generations" may seem to be fully incompatible with the Christian east, often depicted as all lost in wonder with little interest for the pressing concerns of the immediate. So the present paper tries to cull disparate elements from an eastern Christian viewpoint to show the concept's possible roots in the east itself or, at least, its applicability to it. Given the methodological need to restrict ourselves to a few but central examples, the paper limits itself to a period in which interest in social justice became dominant and was related, positively or negatively, to the Christian outlook. In a first part, 1. Pravda, truth-justice, or the Questfor Justice, the brute awakening of independent thinking, or philosophy, in a Russia where serfs were freed only in 1861 is seen to coincide with the desire to attain social status overseas and emancipation at home, with the result that the conceptual tools to promote the cause of social justice are refined but remain open to criticism. This theoretical framework receives a concrete test in a comparison between Vissarion Belinskij and Nikolaj Fedorov, a comparison that shows elements of pluralism, namely: 2. A two-way future orientation: the filture of future generations and the foture of past generations. Though this struggle was at first carried out mainly by baptized Christians, different concepts of what social progress is and of what being a Christian means led to a head-on clash between two great Russian thinkers, Konstantin Leontiev and Vladimir Soloviev, towards the end of the last century; this forms the theme of the third section, 3. Social Justice and Eschatology in the Crucible. Finally, a fourth part, 4. Dialogue between Unequals, or the Scramble for the Future, tries to work. out some of the epistemological implications of this particular search for social justice in the future, especially in view of the collapse of an atheistic experiment which lasted seventy years and which came crashing down under the weight of its own untruthfulness, but from under whose rubble some of the most penetrating cries for future emancipation have become history. Mon, 01 Jan 2007 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/32353 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/32349 Title: Saydon : biblista u studjuz tal-Malti [Book review] Abstract: A review of the book "Saydon : biblista u studjuż tal-Malti", written by Carmel Bezzina. Mon, 01 Jan 2007 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/32349 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/32348 Title: A close reading of Hebrews 3,7 - 4,11 and Logos as Christ in Hebrews 4,12 Abstract: Current exegesis of the Epistle to the Hebrews is well-nigh unanimous in holding that the logos ofHeb 4,12 is the word of God in Scripture, not the Word of God as God, that is, as presented, for example, in the prologue of the Fourth Gospel. The present note is written from the contrary, minority point of view. The first half of the note will present a new argument which points to the logos of 4,12 as Logos, that is, as being the same as the Logos of the prologue of the Fourth Gospel; this new argument is based on a close reading of3,7 - 4,11. The second part of the note will rehearse the arguments previously given for this understanding of the Logos and will situate them in the new context provided by the argumentation in the first part of the note. Mon, 01 Jan 2007 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/32348 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/32343 Title: Man's capacity for self transcendence : on "conversion" in Bernard Lonergan's method in theology Abstract: The concept of "conversion", while seldom used in his writings until the late 1960's, constituted the major interest of Bernard Lonergan (1904-1984) for more than a generation. For him, the core of conversion itself is the transformation of the "subject". It is man's call to the realisation of ever higher levels of self-transcendence putting into action the cognitive, ethical and affective response to the religious object. Especially in his Method in Theology, Lonergan explains that only in undergoing a series of conversions - intellectual, moral and religious - culminating in the experience of the love of God (Rom 5,5) by obeying the transcendental precepts that the subject can progressively expand his horizons. In studying the relationship among the different conversions, this essay shows that even if the religious conversion can indeed enjoy a priority over the others, still one is in relation to the other and yet so meaningful on its own. It is a three-dimensional process of self-transcendence taken in whatever order. Mon, 01 Jan 2007 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/32343 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z