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The focus of this thesis is demonstrating how the conceptual difference between secularity and religion is a foundational presupposition of the modern academic and political discourse. The thesis will focus on a critical analysis of Charles Taylor's philosophical work, particularly A Secular Age. Taylor's work is a telling example of how the current academic discourse about religion and secularity describes the two phenomena as radically different, two different “states of existence” that appeal to different contents of human consciousness. Taylor's philosophy has to rely on a fundamental presupposition of reality, so that he can describe the history of Western civilization as an unavoidable epistemic gain that has reached its peak with the development of the modern understanding of the world. Despite his attempt to develop a “positive” story to explain the development of secularity, Taylor has to rely on a moment of “loss” to make sense of his historical narrative. In the second part of thesis, I will present the argument that the concept of “faith” can be understood as a fundamental form of relation that connects individuals and societies to an ontology of the world. In pre-modern societies, the concept was understood as a normative source for the ethical and existential understanding of a society in both religious and nonreligious contexts, not just as a mystical connection to a transcendental source of truth. With modernity, the understanding of the concept has changed. However, this different understanding has not been followed by a disappearance of the attitude of “faith” in non-religious contexts. The “attitude of faith” can be understood as the fundamental connection a society/civilization establishes with its Weltaanschauung, its metaphysical world-view. More than being a “religious” connection to the transcendent, faith would be the form of connection through which human beings substantiate the ultimate nature of their claims.

This thesis is study of the principle of good faith in contract law. In the last fifteen years enormous attempts have been made by contract lawyers, especially those in common law systems, to consider the question of good faith in contracts. But the approach that has been taken by those lawyers in dealing with this important question is unsatisfactory and incapable of producing a coherent understanding of the role of good faith in contracts. Instead of considering the essential question of good faith in contracts, especially commercial contracts, the debate has turned out into a battle between common law and civil law. This approach creates a polarized debate. This study will concentrate on the applications of good faith in arm 's length contractual relationships. This will no doubt concentrate the analysis on its operation in contracts generally, without involving other theories that may explain the courts' concern over the problems of bad faith conducts. Examining good faith as a general requirement in contracts is vitally important in order to reach a coherent understanding of its implications for contracting parties. This study will examine in depth the most important issues regarding the operation of the good faith principle in contract law. I will examine the rationality of this principle in pre-contractual negotiations. This area of contract raises difficult questions in many common law legal systems. The Introduction of the principle of good faith at the stage of negotiation under the PECL and the UNIDROIT Principles has strengthened the role of that principle at the formation of contracts. The interaction between the principle of good faith and express terms in contracts will also be examined in an attempt to identify the limits of the parties' freedom in the enforcement of contract terms. In addition to dealing with the operation of the principle of good faith throughout the life of the contract, it is also vitally important to analyse the general provisions of good faith in the PECL, CISG, UCC and the UNIDROIT Principles. Examining these general provisions of good faith will help us to understand its role in commercial contracts.

M.A. (Psychology) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

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What is faith? And who has it? Traditional arguments suggest that "faith" means: "faith in God" or "faith in gods" and therefore that faith is an idea reserved only for religious communities. The unfortunate implication is that those who do not "have faith" in God have "no faith" at all. It is the author's thesis that "faith" can be seen in a broader context and that the implications of this broader perspective hold important implications for ministry with at risk and street-involved youth. Relying heavily on the foundational work of James Fowler, the project describes faith as a process of "meaning-making" and applies this understanding to the author's work with street-involved youth in downtown Toronto. Through a survey of current research, developmental theory, theological frameworks, biblical themes and surveys with street-involved youth the study draws important conclusions for ministry with street involved youth and other marginalized groups not traditionally associated with the church. The author argues that street-involved youth share many of the core values traditionally associated with "faithful" living and that these shared values provide significant opportunities for street-youth and church communities to grow in faith. / Dissertation / Doctor of Ministry (DMin)

The central purpose of this work is to present an inter-disciplinary conception of faith development that honours the strengths introduced by James Fowler's Faith Development Theory, while simultaneously suggesting both paradigm and process correctives that seek to update it. To that end, the following chapters present two main arguments: 1. Fowler's Faith Development Theory (FDT) is in need of revision. Although the three founding principles on which FDT is based (those of the importance of experience, the centrality of symbolic representation, and the grounding concept of knowing/construal) are considered cogent, they do not find sufficient operational expression within the exposition of faith stages. The elucidation of a depth model of faith development that corrects this gap in FDT is required, in order to provide the field of pastoral care a more coherent framework through which to pursue the growth of faith with their careseekers. It is for this reason that we state that FDT is in need of revision. 2. The required correctives to FDT are addressed and constructively resolved in the concept of Faith Constitutive Pastoral Care (FCPC) -a depth model of faith development that is focused on questing and soul care while remaining integrous to current inter-disciplinary thought in ministry, ego psychology, and epistemology. Faith Constitutive Pastoral Care (FCPC) presents a construct of relational, intersubjective balance that, while holding to the same three founding categories of concern as FDT, retains the strengths of Fowler's larger original intention while correcting the deficiencies inherent in FDT's formulation. Spiritual leaders can use Faith Constitutive Pastoral Care as a practical guide m shepherding careseekers towards faithful maturity and growth. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

<p>This dissertation introduces readers to the major figures and features of the twentieth-century American prosperity gospel. It argues that these diverse expressions of Christian faith-fuelled abundance can be understood as a movement, for they stem from a cohesive set of shared understandings. First, the movement centered on Faith. It conceived of faith as an "activator," a power given to believers that bound and loosed spiritual forces and turned the spoken word into reality. Second and third respectively, the movement depicted faith as palpably demonstrated in wealth and health. It could be measured in both in the wallet--one's personal wealth--and in the body--one's personal health--making material reality the measure of the success of immaterial faith. Last, the movement expected faith to be marked by victory. Believers trusted that culture held no political, social, or economic impediment to faith, and no circumstance could stop believers from living in total victory here on earth. Though its origins lay in the late nineteenth century, the prosperity gospel took root in the Pentecostal revivals of the post-World War II years. It reached maturity by the late 1970s as a robust pan-denominational movement, garnering a national platform and a robust network of churches, ministries, publications, and media outlets. Using the tools of ethnography and cultural history, this dissertation argues that faith, wealth, health, and victory served as the hallmarks of this American phenomenon.</p> / Dissertation

Institutionalization of curricular or pedagogical innovation or reform occurs at three different levels in an organization, the regulative institutionalization which occurs as compliance by expediency, normative institutionalization which occurs as compliance by moral or legal appropriateness and cognitive institutionalization which occurs as compliance by conceptual correctness. The cognitive level is most the desirable because at that level the values and norms of the organization are manifested in the beliefs and behaviors of individuals in the organization.This research study examined the patterns of institutionalization of integration of faith and learning as a curricular and pedagogical model among faculty members at a private Christian liberal arts university in Nigeria, West Africa. Five patterns of integration of faith and learning emerged from the study compared to eight patterns of institutionalization that emerged in a similar study of four religious research universities in the United States by the team of Ream, Beaty and Lyon (2004). The findings suggest that the level of institutionalization manifested and perceivable in the Nigerian study is at the regulative institutionalization level due to the fact that the beliefs and the behaviors of the faculty members are non-congruent to the expected beliefs and behaviors compatible with the institutionalization of the integration of faith and learning curricular and pedagogical model. Even though the 'fear of God' emerged as one of the dominant themes articulated by some of the faculty members in the study, four other emergent themes articulated the need to find a balance between religious integration and academic excellence. The findings suggest Seventh-day Adventists faculty members struggle between the need to subscribe to the fear of God as a measure for integration and the need to maintain a separation between faith and learning for objectivity in the academy. Being a Seventh-day Adventist male lecturer over the lecturer II rank was found to be a dominant factor in the institutionalization of the integration of faith and learning curricular model at a regulative level at the institution in the study.

The central issue in this study is the question of how insight into the relation between faith and science in the philosophy of CA van Peursen can contribute to the wide ranging faith-science debate in contemporary thought. The study is contextualized by asking how the resultant insight into the relation between faith and science can be brought to bear on the notion of a "Christian science" as it has developed within a specific philosophical tradition. It is argued that CA van Peursen's philosophy relies on the basic distinction between thought and reality, and more specifically, the interrelation between the two. Van Peursen utilizes a broad definition of rationality as networks of symbols with which human consciousness works, in order to facilitate an appropriate response to the challenges of its surroundings. At this point Van Peursen also makes use of the notion of "narrative" to emphasize the dynamic character of the symbolic networks that exist. Objective reality and subjective rationality can never be separated, but they are attuned to each other, and the one should, as it where, be "read off' against the other. A typology of the faith-science debate, that is developed in the initial stages of the study, is subsequently used as a heuristic instrument to draw out the implications of Van Peursen's philosophy for the question regarding the relation between faith and science. It is argued that Van Peursen's thought is consistently non-reductionist, in the sense that he grants both faith and science their own integrity. Faith and science are not equal, however. Faith constitutes a much broader, more immediate and concrete reaction to the challenges of reality than science does. Science strives towards objectivity and abstraction, and therein lies it's power, but it nevertheless always remains bound to the real world of everyday experience. Science therefore has a "relational autonomy". The insights gained into the relation between faith and science problematizes the idea of a separate Christian science that is construed as being antithetical to so called secular science. The notion of Christian science can be salvaged along two ways: Christian science may be seen as a commitment to good science, and it may be seen as a dialogue between the narratives of western science and Christian faith. / Thesis (M.A. (Philosophy))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2004.