Cette thèse est consacrée à l'étude de la<br />stabilité de petits états stationnaires d'une équation d'évolution<br />non linéaire issue de la mécanique quantique relativiste :<br />l'équation de Dirac non linéaire.<br /><br />Tout le long de notre étude, les équations non linéaires sont vues<br />comme des petites perturbations non linéaires de systèmes linéaires.<br />Une partie de cette thèse est donc consacrée à l'étude de problèmes<br />linéaires. Nous montrons que, pour un opérateur de Dirac n'ayant pas<br />de résonance aux seuils ni de valeur propre aux seuils, le<br />propagateur vérifie des estimations de propagation et de dispersion.<br />Nous en déduisons également des estimations de régularité au sens de<br />Kato et des estimations de Strichartz.<br /><br />En faisant des hypothèses ad hoc sur le spectre discret d'un<br />opérateur de Dirac, nous construisons des petites variétés formées<br />d'états stationnaires. Puis en faisant varier ces hypothèses, nous<br />faisons apparaître des phénomènes de stabilisation et d'instabilité<br />orbitale pour certains de ces états.

This thesis examines the texts of Paul's letters which historically have been used to support the doctrine of universalism. Section One: Chapter I discusses Paul's judgement terminology (wrath, destruction and death) and concludes with a sociological study of group boundaries. These terms portend annihilation or hell because they contain no sense of eschatological reformation. Group boundaries confirm the exclusive nature of Pauline belief that there exist two classes of people, insiders who look forward to a glorious salvation with Christ, and outsiders who will be destroyed in the eschaton. Chapter II considers the possibility that a person might compensate for his sins by some form of postmortem remedial suffering; this is deemed unlikely. Chapter III examines the tension between grace and works and whether Paul would permit an unbeliever to be saved on the basis of his works. Paul requires a profession of faith to be saved, with one exception: Gentiles who earnestly seek after God. Section Two: Chapter I shows that salvation in Rom. 11:26, 32 is better understood as corporate mercy than individual salvation. Collectives (Jews and Gentiles), not individuals are promised salvation. Chapter II reads 1 Cor. 15:22 restrictively; only those who belong to Christ will be made alive. Reasons for this conclusion are derived from the context and from the possibility that Paul expected a resurrection of only the righteous. Section Three: Chapter I examines Rom. 8:19-23 and its Jewish background, the Renovation of nature. The text itself limits salvation to certain sectors of the cosmos. This agrees with the essential element of the Jewish Renovation which is a removal of the wicked. Chapter II investigates Eph. 1:10 and Phil. 2:10 f. Both texts set Christ up as divine ruler of the cosmos, but neither implies that cosmic lordship imparts saving benefits. The passages are better understood in terms of cosmic conquest than cosmic salvation. Chapter III argues that the cosmic scope of the reconciliation in Col. 1:20 is curtailed in the Pauline redaction of the hymn as well as elsewhere in Colossians. Conclusion: Paul's judgement terminology and his use of insider/outsider language strongly support particularism. This conclusion is sustained by the universalist texts themselves which often fit into particularist themes.

This thesis argues that Satan is essentially a literary figure and that he is best understood in the context of narrative. This study furthermore establishes what the literary figure of Satan can contribute to the understanding of evil and how his portrayal has changed as we move into the 21st century. I suggest that the interdisciplinary reading of theology and literature offers the best approach to the character of Satan. The focus of the study lies on novels from the last 100 years, focusing on the implications of the historic, philosophical and theological changes in the late modern landscape on the figure of Satan. Underlying this study are three primary aspects: Firstly, the literary character of Satan raises the question of the nature of evil. Satan has long been cast as evil personified and this work tries to explore the relationship between the abstract concept of evil and the character of Satan: in an attempt to asses whether evil has a face. The literary figure of Satan can be seen as one approach to the abstract concept of evil that is a reality in human life but that cannot be understood in its being, only through expression. Secondly, the diabolical appears as part of any story; the powers of creation and destruction are connected. The figure of Satan is ambivalent and despite all its destructive elements, the character appears as the driving force behind the story. I want to show how Satan can be understood to be the facilitator of the story. Finally, any narrative is based on relation, and Satan is essentially a relational character. We can speak of a ‘mutual dependency’: Satan needs the human mind – we embody him, we give him his form, but equally are we in need of a scapegoat for all that is dark and undiscovered in us. The character of Satan is therefore personal and relational, best approached in the context of the story, with its inherent relationship between form and content.With this work, I am trying to establish a dialogue between theology and literature through the character of Satan, who transgresses boundaries and facilitates discussion, and therefore is by definition a truly interdisciplinary character. In my introduction I will examine the origins of the satanic figure in the theology of Christianity, starting with the Serpent in Genesis 3:1 and its development into a powerful character in myth and story. I also place the focus of this work on the inderdisciplinary reading of Satan, set against the conceptual approach of systematic theology. Part one of this work will shed some light on the dwelling place of the character, discussing the role of Satan as a symbol (of evil) and the difficulties connected to the definitions of Satan. Beginning with the Scriptures and then further elaborating the function of Satan in the story, I will focus on the relation between Satan and the text. Part two discusses six aspects of satanic characters in recent or contemporary novels, focusing on the function that the satanic image can contribute to the discussion of evil in the post-modern world. The novels chosen for this discussion are from 20th and 21st century European or North American writers and their reading is put into context with the Christian concept of Satan in the West. With The Wandering Jew by Stefan Heym, I look at Satan as the restless wanderer, discussing the concept of spiritual homelessness and alienation. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad approaches Satan as the shadow, taking into consideration the modern contributions of psychoanalysis to the understanding of Satan. The discussion of Siegfried by Harry Mulisch centres upon the physical being or nature of Satan, from nothingness, to parasite, or historic figure. With Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy I will discuss the role of Satan in an apocalyptic context, focusing on the reversal of roles in an antinomian world. The discussion of The Testament of Gideon Mack by James Robertson and The Great Bagarozy by Helmut Krauser examines the attributes of a ‘domestic’ devil, with the focus of boredom and identity crisis. The Master and Margarita by Michail Bulgakov concludes with a discussion of the terms reality and fiction in the context of Satan. In the conclusion, I will bring together the thoughts of the previous chapters to suggest an image of Satan that finds its essence in the story, addressing the possibility of redemption for the satanic figure and at the same time, locating him in the realm of the excess. I will identify Satan as the Other and ascribe to him a necessary function in the context of the story.

In this thesis I am investigating the religious ideas of Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, H. P. Blavatsky and Annie Besant as examples of early approaches to religious pluralism. In this context, the term ‘religious pluralism’ refers to the belief that all religious traditions are paths to genuine religious ends. Thus, religions other than one’s own are considered to be of significance to people of all faiths and even to those who are not believers. I relate the appearance of these early notions of religious pluralism to the historical and ideological setting in which they were proposed, particularly the late nineteenth-century debate about science and religion in the West and its spheres of influence. I argue that theories of evolution, in addition to the emerging field of historical biblical criticism, presented a serious challenge to traditional understandings of religion. Together, these two strands of thought made a strong case for a purely materialistic worldview and for the further development of modern sciences on such a basis. In response to this crisis of religion, the four thinkers proposed religious teachings inspired by their own intense religious experience. They emphasised the experiential aspect of these teachings in order to claim an epistemic status of religious knowledge equal to that of scientific or empirical knowledge. In order to universalise this claim, they appealed to religious experience and religious knowledge originating in all faith traditions. In my assessment of these arguments I suggest that the two main thinkers, i.e. Ramakrishna and Blavatsky, may have been led towards pluralistic ideas of religion through their endorsement of the esoteric traditions of Tantrism and Hermeticism, respectively. Moreover, I trace the impact of the British colonial presence in India on the content, presentation and reception of the teachings of all four thinkers. I conclude that the teachings of Ramakrishna et al. represent early attempts to engage with the fact of religious plurality from a religious perspective. Thus, the four thinkers encouraged people to relate to the beliefs and practices of other faiths and to explore them in relation to their own life. These early efforts in interreligious understanding represented the initial steps towards our current debates about religious pluralism and interreligious dialogue.

The study will analyse how Anglo-American evangelicals' antipathy towards slavery spread and transformed in the context of the transatlantic evangelical network. Many researchers have treated antislavery sentiment as a spontaneous reaction, or as one of a number of background moods influencing those who started the abolitionist movement. However, this sentiment spread in the Atlantic world as result of evangelical activities throughout the eighteenth century. The formation of the transatlantic evangelical network is central to understanding the spread of antislavery sentiment. Stimulated by the Great Awakening in the 1730s and the 1740s, Anglo-American evangelicals began to travel between both sides of the Atlantic. Much evidence suggests that a religious and ideological sense of unity was being forged during this process. Importantly, the evangelical network offered a channel of transatlantic communication allowing Anglo-Americans to debate common issues. Although in itself not antislavery, it had the potential to develop antislavery sentiment among its members. Many historians have not traced the development of antislavery ideals in the mid-eighteenth century as there seemed no public self-identifying antislavery movement. However, close examination of 'proslavery' literature reinvents this period into years of transformation of evangelical attitudes to slavery, far from a 'dark age' of unquestioned proslavery expression. Below the surface, fledgling antislavery sentiment was spreading in the Atlantic world before the American Revolution. In the tense atmosphere of the American Revolution in the 1770s, antislavery sentiment became transformed into moral conviction. Many members of religious communities on both sides of the Atlantic lost their confidence in the imperial system, and were fearful for their moral health. As part of this process, ill-feeling towards both the inhumanity and religio-moral inconsistencies of slavery became transformed into a moral ideology. Furthermore, the Revolution stimulated evangelical abolitionism and participation in wider secular political activities. After the Revolution, the evangelical network seemed to be reinvigorated, responding to new territorial and economic circumstance. However, conflicts within the transatlantic evangelical community caused by disestablishment debates stimulated the process of division, and influenced the developmental process of the antislavery movement in the transatlantic evangelical network. Consequently, evangelicals in each area developed individual abolitionist movements, producing different outcomes. This reflects that the transatlantic evangelical network's mission for a transatlantic channel for the antislavery cause was finishing.

At the beginning of the twentieth century we find novelists using their medium to express doubt in both the Judeo-Christian narrative as archetype and the possibility of purposive narrative in their own work. Often these writers took well-recognized paradigms of purposive narratives, such as 'the quest', or 'historical narrative' and adapted them to show them failing to reach their purposed denouement. The work of these novelists was paralleled by that of contemporary poets. Although the poets' concerns were less immediately affected by the specific challenges to Judeo-Christian narratives, their concern for the efficacy of language was motivated by a similar sense that language no longer possessed the edenic quality of reaching the thing it aimed at. Furthermore the frameworks of art themselves (perspective, rhyme, formal representation, and so on) were found to be unstable. Literary responses to the failure of language and narrative were varied. In a radically simplified form they may be located on a continuum between two points: at one end a desire to fill the void left by an absent God; at the other a fascination with the possibilities of the void. My thesis situates the work of Conrad in particular, as well as Forster, Eliot, Woolf, Imagism and Dada, on this continuum, during the period of, roughly, 1899-1925. The works of these individuals and groups are considered individually and comparatively through detailed readings of texts and images. Through such consideration it becomes apparent that the fascination of the void, which attracted all these writers to varying extents, also brought them to realize new aesthetic possibilities that seemed to fill the void. In particular, the modernist texts under consideration developed an aesthetic of aperture, that is to say an aesthetic of the momentary, more specifically, the moment prior to comprehension, the moment of experience. In fiction this aesthetic grew out of a deconstruction of purposive narrative in favour of imagistic presentation; in poetry and the visual arts the poem or picture abstracted its object from reality and yet equivalenced reality by presenting an inherent internal logic. That logic apparent in the poem or picture was often placed beyond the grasp of the reader or viewers' understanding, representing the sense that the logical operations of the world or the divine machinations of God, were either beyond comprehension,if not non-existent altogether. This aesthetic of aperture is once again illustrated through detailed examination of particular texts and images. In the works considered this reinstatement of the possibility of purposive narrative and language through an aesthetic of aperture is figured mystically, presented in negative-theological terms of absence, silence and the unknowable. The mysticism identified appears at odds with the predominantly practical theological debates in Europe at the time and yet finds philosophical parallels in Wittgenstein's Tractatus. The thesis concludes that the return, in modernist works, of attempts to fill the void is the result not only of aesthetic, but also of social and personal (in particular the repercussions of world war), desires for at least the possibility of purposive narrative and language.

This thesis will argue that information technology (IT) has given rise to a cultural mythology which offers a competing theological model to the model offered by kerygmatic Christian theology. The theological model advocated by IT culture regards human technical creativity and material culture to be the means by which ultimate concern can be mediated and satisfied. This model will be judged inauthentic, when theological authenticity is measured in terms of a theology’s ability to point beyond itself – to the transcendent and the infinite – as they symbol of that which is truly ultimate. This inauthentic ‘techno-theology’ purveyed by IT culture will be contrasted with a theology of technology, which seeks to engage technology hermeneutically by finding the meaning of technology at the nexus of its use and invention, and by judging the appropriateness of technology against the norm of the Christian kerygma. It is hoped that by contrasting techno-theology with a kerygmatic theology of technology, that an ethics of technological practices may be approached. The context for this thesis will be the contemporary information technology culture, running from roughly the mid 1980’s to the present, with specific attention given to the phenomenon of posthuman discourse to which this culture has contributed. Of the four types of information technology examined in this thesis (actual/realistic, idealised, imagined, and speculative), examples of actual IT will be taken from cybernetics research and computer science; examples of idealised IT will be taken from philosophical and theological treatments of virtual reality, cognitive science and artificial intelligence research; examples of imagined IT will be taken from science fiction literature and film; and examples of speculative IT will be taken from speculative science with a specific interest in posthumanism and radical life extension.

IN THIS THESIS I ARGUE THAT DAVID HUME DEVELOPED A PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION AS AN EMPRICIST AND A NATURALIST PHILOSOPHER, AND DEFENDED HIS PHILOSOPHY AGAINST THE RATIONALIST TRADITION.

Mestre -- Escola Nacional de Saude Publica, Rio de Janeiro, 2000.

Mestre -- Escola Nacional de Saude Publica, Rio de Janeiro, 2001.