«Sophia» XII (2020)

Abstract: According to Barth, theology withdrew from what was “authentically theological” in Hegel’s thought. Understanding the adjective “theological” to be what qualifies the form of knowledge determined by the situation of existence established by Revelation, this article intends to identify what makes such knowledge practicable in Hegel. It is – in his language – the «element» or «ether» where the truth of Being can be accessed. Hegel seems to be oriented toward identifying this «element» in Christian mysticism. This means not denying thought as such, but rather transferring it into the region of being inaugurated by the event of Jesus Christ.

Keywords: philosophy and theology – Hegel – revelation – mysticism

Read full article in Italian: «Sophia» XII (2020-1) 11-25

Abstract: Vitiello rereads the Hegelian reflection about time in the light of the verse from the Fourth Gospel, “…a time is coming and has now come”, comparing it with the di­verse interpretations of the relationship between the to­tality of the temporal horizon (Hóra) and the “moment” (nýn) of its “revelation”, occurring over the course of his­tory – from Augustine to Nietzsche and Borges, proceed­ing to Hölderlin and Dostoyevsky. The outcome is a real true passage from the primacy of the Hóra to that of the nýn, no longer seen as a “moment” within the Hóra, but as an in-stant suspended between the real movement of time and the possible tranquillity of the Nothingness of time. This ‘in-stant’, and this alone, which opens up the mystery of the Possible, today merits the Hegelian defi­nition of the “spiritual day of the presence”.

Keywords: philosophy – Hegel – history – time

Read full article in Italian: «Sophia» XII (2020-1) 27-37

Abstract: What we have tried to show in this essay are the extraordinary affinities between the first three categories of Hegelian logic (in particular the logic of Being) and the forms of the Christian Trinity as it is theorized by Gregory of Nyssa in the context of a precise and peremptory response to the heresy of Eunomio. Even if the “non” of Trinitarian dialecticism is absolutely not reducible to the sense of the Hegelian aufhebung.

Keywords: theoretical philosophy – Hegel – logic – Trinity

Read full article in Italian: «Sophia» XII (2020-1) 39-53

Abstract: More than a speculative thesis, a comparative analysis of the beginning and end of Hegel’s Science of Logic may represent a privileged position for observing peculiar nuances of that topic so dear to much of the whole central philosophical tradition in the development of classical German philosophy – freedom. Even though the concept of freedom cannot be distinguished from the processes of its concrete achievement according to Hegel, I will try to demonstrate the theoretical structures that partly precede and partly guide the different forms of its execution.

Keywords: philosophy – Hegel – freedom – liberty

Read full article in Italian: «Sophia» XII (2020-1) 55-66

Abstract: Hegel presents his philosophy of history as a reformulation of Leibniz’s “theodicy”, a justification of evil in history from the point of view of Reason. This legitimation of the negative renders Hegelian providence radically different from Christian providence. If good presupposes evil then even the formation of the ethical community presupposes the dialectic of the negative. The state arises to overcome the internal enemy – the individualistic atomism of the economic sphere, and the external enemy – all the other states. War with the external enemy is the tool through which the internal ethic is reconstituted. In this way Hegelian theodicy is nourished on the friend-enemy dialectic which constitutes political theology’s form for Carl Schmitt.

Keywords: philosophy – Hegel – evil – history

Read full article in Italian: «Sophia» XII (2020-1) 67-80

Abstract: The purpose of this article is to retrace the useful elements for delineating the proprium of Hegelian thought as thinking of the true, also through Augusto Vera’s interpretation – the idea as content and therefore as the inevitable “premise” emerging from Hegel’s thought.

Key words: philosophy – Hegel – truth

Read full article in Italian: «Sophia» XII (2020-1) 81-93

Abstract: This article, written in German, wants to point to important aspects of the question of God in Hegel’s oeuvre. The first part introduces Hegel’s dialectic that finds its peak in Hegel’s Science of Logic. The second part tries to delineate the main results of Hegel’s first major work, The Phenomenology of Spirit, and argues that God can be understood there as the sphere in which the subject points beyond itself toward its other. The third part demonstrates that the language of the Logic is not denotative, as it does not aim at mirroring a world outside or within language. The absolute is shown to express itself in the successive sublation of the object of language and fixations attributed to it. Thus, the absolute Spirit in Hegel’s Logic is not only understood as the logos of language itself – as proclaimed in the metaphysical tradition -, but at the same time as its crisis, and therefore He is the not representable “Other” in relation to our symbolic orders who reveals Himself in freedom and creativity.

Keywords: philosophy and theology – dialectics – Hegel – language – metaphysics

Read full article in German: «Sophia» XII (2020-1) 95-110

Abstract: What driving significance and perspectives are offered by Chiara Lubich’s “mystical journey”? To answer this question, it is necessary to use a phenomenological method intent upon interpreting the experience as it is given in the wide-ranging parabola drawn out by it. This is done from two different vantage points: that of examining the selfawareness expressed by Chiara and that of looking upon the mystagogy she obtained from it to then transmit the same experience. Four steps can be distinguished a posteriori, and they are shown to be articulated coherently.

Keywords: Mysticism – Trinity – Jesus Forsaken – Charism of unity – Mary

Read full article in Italian: «Sophia» XII (2020-2) 157-183

Abstract: The question “What is metaphysics?” it runs through the history of philosophy and finds a singular intensification in the last century by the hand of thinkers such as M. Heidegger and X. Zubiri. In the possible answer to this question, there is a, in some ways unexpected yet evident, “fusion of perspectives” with the mystique. Chiara Lubich’s experience in “Paradiso ‘49”, interpreted by the German theologian and philosopher K. Hemmerle as an “ontology of Claritas”, presents itself as a “place” where mystical experience and metaphysical intellection find a fertile exchange and mutual enrichment of unexplored virtuality.

Keywords: Mysticism – Metaphysics – Claritas – Diáfano

Read full article in Spanish: Sophia» XII (2020-2) 185-202

Abstract: First of all, the author offers a biblical excursus on the theme of claritas. In the second, she dwells on Chiara Lubich’s experience, described in terms of great luminosity: fire, flames, light. Short texts by the young woman from Trento are exposed, from which emerges the conviction that she will receive from the Father, through her charism, the same Light of Jesus. It is Claritas, which illuminates all that is human. It is the Holy Spirit.

Keywords: Chiara Lubich – Glory – Claritas – Light – Word of God

Read full article in Italian: «Sophia» XII (2020-2) 203-216

Abstract: This study is meant to shed light on the importance of Chiara Lubich’s charism of unity for ecclesiology. Recognized by the Catholic Church, it is a charism of life and light emerging from the life of a group of young women around Chiara. They put the Word of life into practice, discovering the points of the spirituality and making a commitment with the pact of 1949.
The vision of the Church that prevailed between the Council of Trent and the Second Vatican Council can find its Mystery and model in it: the sacramental dimension, the awareness of the Risen One’s presence even in a little community, a paschal ethic based on “Jesus forsaken” lived in fraternal communion, the vocation to the universal dimension and to the Trinitarian life.

Keywords: Jesus Forsaken – Unity – Agape – Chiara Lubich – Eucharist

Read full article in Italian: «Sophia» XII (2020-2) 217-231

Abstract: Recent epistemological gains tend toward a new vision of the natural world. Even though this vision is based on the true, valid content of the natural sciences, it is open to contributions from other fields of knowledge. This essay presents a study of some passages of Chiara Lubich’s writings concerning natural reality, showing how they can contribute to the constitution of a post-scientistic vision of the world.

Keywords: Nature – Creation – Kenosis – Agape – World vision

Read full article in Italian: «Sophia» XII (2020-2) 233-247

Abstract: Chiara Lubich wrote in 1946 that she wanted to live for universal brotherhood. The horizon of most Catholics at the time usually did not reach beyond their own parish. Personalities from all the great religions testified in front of her coffin in 2008 about what they had received from her along the path to universal brotherhood. What can sociology teach us about this “prophet” of interreligious dialogue?

Keywords: Interreligious dialogue – Axial age – Charism – Catholic Church

Read full article in Italian: «Sophia» XII (2020-2) 249-262

Abstract: One of Chiara Lubich’s writings from 1949 makes an unusual affirmation: “Jesus Forsaken is motherly love”. The article sets out to ascertain whether this affirmation is secondary to the rich legacy of thought and spirituality left by Chiara Lubich or is consistent with it. The personal and collective experience that gave rise to this affirmation are explored, as are its roots in Scripture.

Keywords: Jesus Forsaken – Generative love – Feminine – Divinization

Read full article in Italian: «Sophia» XII (2020-2) 263-276

Abstract: The article considers Chiara Lubich’s mystical experience of “participation,” as recorded in the Paradise ’49 writings, from the viewpoint of the discipline of mereology (a formal study of parts). It illustrates how the pattern of participation described by Chiara can find rational support (in the sense of not being conceptually impossible) in a non standard version of mereology.

Keywords: Part – Participation – Mereology – Creation – Divine life

Read full article in English: «Sophia» XII (2020-2) 277-291