This study is about Reinhold Niebuhr's notions of meaning, mystery, method, and mystagogy. Niebuhr's understanding of myth is the binding thread through these notions, and it is to be found in issues dealing not only with protology (the idea of creation and the biblical accounts of the 'beginnings'), but also with eschatology (the biblical idea of the ends of time and history) and the relevance of this idea for Christian faith today. The first chapter highlights Niebuhr's basic premise regarding meaning, namely the conviction that mystery does not obstruct, but augments, the meaning of life, history, and human existence. The second chapter deals with the notion of God as mystery and symbol, and with Niebuhr's emphasis on the close correspondence, indeed profound unity, between ultimate meaning and ultimate mystery. The analysis of the text "Incoherence, Coherence, and the Christian Faith" in the last section of this chapter aims at deepening the relation between partial fulfillments, incomplete meanings, and the problem of truth as presented at the end of chapter one, thus paving the way for considerations concerning method. This is the issue of chapter three. After a critical examination of various attempts to characterize Niebuhr either as a liberal, a neo-orthodox, a dialectical, or a biblical thinker, emphasis is put on Christian Realism as the guiding principle in Niebuhr's thought and action as a Social Gospel theologian both belonging to, and critical of, the Social Gospel movement. Niebuhr's Christian Realism, though, does not provide the final answer to the question pertaining to the center of his theological method. Niebuhr's preaching, writing, and teaching activities from the times of his appointment as pastor in Detroit up to his work at Union Theological Seminary in New York can all be summed up in the term 'mystagogy'. This approach is characterized and developed in chapter four. Niebuhr b / Cette thèse doctorale porte sur les notions de sens, de mystère, de méthode et de mystagogie telles que comprises et développées dans l'œuvre de Reinhold Niebuhr. Elle montre dans quelle mesure la compréhension originale du mythe chez Niebuhr constitue la toile de fond de ces notions et se retrouve dans les questions concernant autant la protologie (l'idée de création et les récits bibliques des 'commencements') que l'eschatologie (l'idée biblique de la fin des temps et de l'histoire) et l'importance de cette idée pour la foi chrétienne aujourd'hui.Le premier chapitre illustre l'option fondamentale de Niebuhr concernant le sens, notamment la conviction que le mystère n'obscurcit pas, mais au contraire augmente le sens de la vie, de l'histoire et de l'existence humaine. Le deuxième chapitre traite de Dieu en tant que mystère et symbole ainsi que de l'insistance de Niebuhr sur l'étroite corrélation, voire la profonde unité, entre le sens ultime et le mystère ultime. Dans la dernière section de ce chapitre, l'analyse du texte concernant les thèmes de l'incohérence et de la cohérence en rapport avec la foi chrétienne selon Niebuhr vise un approfon-dissement des rapports entre accomplissements partiels, sens incomplets, et la question de la vérité tels qu'abordés à la fin du premier chapitre, et prépare ainsi les considérations concernant la méthode, objet même du chapitre trois. Après l'examen critique de diverses manières de situer Niebuhr comme penseur libéral, néo-orthodoxe, dialectique, ou encore biblique, l'accent est mis sur le Réalisme Critique en tant que principe de base de la pensée et de l'action de Niebuhr en tant que théologien qui, à la fois, appartient au mou-vement dit du Social Gospel et critique ce mouvement. Toutefois, le Réalisme Critique de Niebuhr ne peut constituer une réponse définitive à la question du centre même de sa méthode théologi

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Charles William Morris (1901-1979) was a student of George Herbert Mead in the early 1920s when Mead was involved in the Chicago School. Inspired by his mentor, Morris wrote extensively on semiotics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, aesthetics, axiology and religion. Morris has received wide acclaim for his writings on semiotics. However, his writings pertaining to religion--the study of which preoccupied him throughout his life--have been all but entirely overlooked. / Morris first presented the "Maitreyan path" in his Paths of Life: Preface to a World Religion (1942). The expression "Maitreyan path" is derived from the Sanskrit name Maitreya (Metteyya in Pali) meaning "the friendly one." Morris' understanding of this symbol is unorthodox and must be differentiated from traditional Buddhist conceptions. According to him, the Maitreyan path is best understood in terms of the paradoxical expression "generalized detached-attachment." At the centre of this expression is the idea of overcoming. Yet it is not a symbol in the traditional sense of the term. It is beyond all form yet open to all forms; it neither prescribes nor ascribes any path, yet it is open to all particular paths. / If the Maitreyan path is without any specifiable form or content, how can it be an effective symbol for self-overcoming? In answering this question this study will apply Morris' well-known theory of signs to his little-known study of religious behaviour. This being done, it is then possible to analyze the Maitreyan symbol in terms not only of overt behaviours, but also of sign functioning. Based on the preceding analysis, this study argues that self-overcoming is achieved not via negativa by diminishing the self through the negation and abandonment of language, but rather via positiva by increasing the self through the affirmation and reclamation of language.

Two texts by Nishitani, written ten years apart, reflect a very different position on the nietzschean question of the overcoming of nihilism. Although a student of Heidegger's at Freiburg between 1936 and 1939, Nishitani shows no evidence of a heideggerian influence in The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism. In this period (1949), he considers, contrary to Heidegger, that the affirmative aspects of nietzschean philosophy constitute a radical overcoming of nihilism. It is only in What is Religion? (1961) which appears in 1982 as Religion and Nothingness (English translation) that his view changes, reflecting more closely a heideggerian position. Nietzsche's concept of the Will to Power is evidence for Nishitani that Nietzsche enmeshed still in a philosophy of "Being", remains within traditional Western metaphysics. Because in Nishitani's view, Western metaphysics is nihilist, he finally concludes that Nietzsche did not overcome nihilism. / This development in Nishitani's thought is considered, in a concluding perspective of the present text, as evidence of the markedly more profound influence of Heidegger on the later, more mature work of Nishitani.

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In dealing with the Pauline concept of the church as the body of Christ (s oma Christou), numerous New Testament scholars and others have tried to come to grips with a fundamental but yet unresolved issue--the nature of the relationship between Christ via his own body and the church as body. Embedded in much of the discussion is the implicit assumption that s oma Christou as ecclesiological language does point to Christ's once crucified but now risen body in some direct way. / This thesis examines that basic assumption in the light of the 18 ecclesiological references to soma found in the Pauline corpus. We argue that such an assumption is implausible and we conclude that it is simply the human body (any human body) which acts as a metaphorical signifier for the church; further, that Christ's personal body, crucified and risen, becomes relevant only in a larger Christological and soteriological sense.

The dissertation is an exercise in the application of the philosophical hermeneutics of Paul Ricoeur and the biblical hermeneutics of John Dominic Crossan to the aesthetics of religious cinema. / The thesis defines religious cinema as virtual religious experience; therefrom a theory of religious cinema is derived. This derivation depends on a discussion of the essential elements of the cinematic experience and permits the expansion of the category of religious cinema beyond its traditional frontier. Throughout the dissertation, a dialogue is maintained with general cinema theory on the one hand and religious cinema criticism on the other. The purpose of this dialogue is to increase credibility (in the former case) and to demonstrate originality (in the latter case). / Finally, extrapolating from a specific dialogue between Crossan and Ricoeur, a critical method is developed, then applied to Werner Herzog's Herz aus Glas, a transcription of which is included as an appendix.

The purpose of the present study is to recover from selected Hindu and Buddhist texts ideas and images of aging and illumine their historical, semantic and metaphysical dimensions. The results of this endeavor indicate that as cultural adaptive systems, both religion and gerontology share a common concern in seeking to provide aging with purpose and meaning. Further, the internal logic and semantics expressing this relationship in the texts examined are governed by the formal and literary modes of simile, metaphor and myth. The analysis of such age-sensitive concepts as jara (aging), asrama (stages of life), kala (time), parinama (change), karma (determinate actions), kama (desire), and vaja (rejuvenatory and revitalizing force) suggest that the bond between the traditional Indian values of life and gerontology is particularly close and mutual.