Theologians have described Sergius Bulgakov as one of the greatest theologians of the 20th century. Bulgakov is an ‘optimistic panentheist,’ someone who embraces a combination of panentheist metaphysics and an optimistic attitude that God’s eschatological will (an essential desire of God) will necessarily be accomplished in the future, when all evil will be eliminated. This paper fleshes out a practical problem affecting ‘optimistic’ versions of panentheism like Bulgakov’s, using Bulgakov’s own views as an example. Not only is there no good way for panentheists to infer that God’s essentially good nature or desires (such as an essentially good will) will ultimately ‘win out’ over the bad consequences of His nature or desires, but their view implies that God only allows evil because its possibility is a metaphysically necessary consequence of God’s essence or desires. As God’s essence is eternally the same, it cannot then be that evil ceases to be so necessary at any point in God’s life. In sum, we will defend the conclusion that ‘pessimism’ is the only coherent position for panentheists to take, given their metaphysical commitments. Moreover, we will conclude by generalizing these insights to panentheism generally and Christian panentheism particularly.
This article examines Muhammad Iqbal’s ambitious yet ultimately strained attempt to synthesize three major philosophical and religious traditions—modern Western thought, Islamic Sufism, and Hindu metaphysics—into a coherent vision of selfhood. Through a close reading of Iqbal’s major works, including Asrar-i-Khudi, Ramooz-i-Bekhudi, and The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, the paper argues that Iqbal’s project, though courageous and creative, remains internally unstable. The modern Western and Hindu traditions both affirm human autonomy and liberation often without reference to a transcendent God, while Islamic metaphysics grounds human dignity in servanthood before the Divine. Iqbal’s valorization of Khudi, his rejection of traditional Sufi "technologies of the self," and his politicization of mystical concepts reflect the profound pressures of postcolonial identity formation. Using insights from intertextuality theory and Michel Foucault’s analyses of spiritual technologies, the article shows how Iqbal’s reconstruction navigated but also internalized the contradictions of modernity. His struggle reveals both the possibilities and the tragic limitations faced by Muslim intellectuals seeking to renew tradition amidst historical dislocation. Rather than a final synthesis, Iqbal’s work remains an open invitation to reconsider the complex dynamics between tradition, freedom, and authenticity in the modern world.
Humeanism about laws of nature—the view that the laws reduce to the Humean mosaic—is a popular view, but currently existing versions face powerful objections. The non-supervenience objection, the non-fundamentality objection, and the explanatory circularity objection have all been thought to cause problems for Humeanism. However, these objections share a guiding thought—they are all based on the idea that there is a certain kind of divergence between the practice of science and the metaphysical picture suggested by Humeanism. I suggest that the Humean should respond to these objections not by rejecting this divergence, but by arguing that it is appropriate. The Humean should distinguish between scientific and metaphysical explanation. And they should leverage this into distinctions between scientific and metaphysical fundamentality and scientific and metaphysical possibility. We can use these distinctions to respond to the objections that the Humean faces.
Pathet is one of the most important parts in a puppet performance. Unfortunately, discussions about pathets, especially from a metaphysical perspective are very rarely found so that the wayang metaphysics is not comprehensive. This study examines the metaphysical dimensions in the puppet performance pathet in Anton Bakker's metaphysical perspective, with the aim to complete the existing puppet metaphysics studies. This research uses the methodical method of assessment, namely interpretation; induction and deduction; internal coherence; holistic; historical continuity; idealization; comparison; heuristics; inclusive or analogous language; and description, and reflection. The results of this study indicate that: first, pathet is a representation of the concept of harmony in puppet shows. Pathet is a transcendental ontological norm in puppet shows. Transcendental ontological norms, in the perspective of Anton Bakker's ontology thinking, are called harmony. In other words, it can be said that the pathet is a representation of harmony or ontological norms that apply in a puppet show. All aesthetic elements of the show are returned to the pathet, and must remain in the corridor of the applicable pathet.
Secular Buddhism is coalescing today in response to two main factors. First, it rejects the incoherence of Buddhist modernism, a protean formation that accommodates elements as far afield as ancestral Buddhism and psychotherapies claiming the Buddhist brand. Second, it absorbs the cultural influence of modern secularity in the West. Historically understood, secularity has constituted a centuries-long religious development, not a victory of "science" over "religion." Today's secularity marks a further stage in the cultural decline of "enchanted" truth-claims and the intellectual eclipse of metaphysics, especially under the aegis of phenomenology. In Buddhism as in Christianity, secularity brings forth a new humanistic approach to ethical-spiritual life and creative this-worldly practices.
Human in man can be considered from ethical and metaphysical points of view. In metaphysical terms, humaneness stands for the free development of the creative spirit of man manifested in the totality of his being. The author considers man as an opportunity to become a man, to find humaneness. In other words, the man who is the aim and the project for himself, has yet to fulfill his potential in its otherness. This is a project of the self or sketch presence. The possible in man has not yet become the real existence, it is a part of his being which is slipping away from him every time. The man himself sets priorities and ways of achieving his humaneness. He produces a draft of his existence scheduled for construction in the future and corrected in the course of life. Martin Heidegger redefines the meaning of humanism, exposing it to criticism from the perspective of fundamental ontology. The author, having agreed with the principal statements of Heidegger's phenomenology, does not share some of its provisions, namely: the idea of the rule of thought by being, the thesis about man's dependence on the location of being, characterization of existence as human substance. In particular, the article argues that the human in man is determined not by being as such, but free choice of the individual. Man himself accounts for his existence, and it depends only on him how well he follows his essence, recognizing or rejecting the demands of being.