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Includes bibliographical references

The purpose of this essay is to describe and analyze the debate surrounding the construction of the 2011 years curriculum of the Swedish schools` religious studies. The debate is concerning whether or not Christianity should have a unique position in the curriculum against other religions. The method is to analyze the arguments by an argument analysis. The purpose is also to analyze the argumentation to see how secularization and pluralism have influenced the debate and the different standpoints. The essays material consists of debate articles from the four largest news sites on the internet. The most common argument for Christianity’s unique position is that Christianity has had an important role in the development of the Swedish society, culture and literature and is therefore important knowledge for understanding the Swedish society. The most common argument against Christianity´s unique position argues that Sweden today is a multicultural and pluralistic society and therefore the education should be the same to help the students to understand the society that they live in. The essay shows that the argumentation is largely normative and built by the debaters own views, beliefs and thought of the ideal religious education and cannot therefore be determined whether the argumentation is true or false. The essay also shows that the debate in many ways is characterized by secularized and pluralistic argumentation. The essay shows that the secular climate in Sweden has had an influence on the debaters. They all are of the opinion that the education should be built on a scientific and secular ground. They are also of the opinion that the education should be nonconfessional and that the education should be pluralistic and that it is important to study different religions and other life views.

Contemporary theology is driven by a quest to make the doctrine of the Trinity “relevant” to a wide variety of concerns. Books and articles abound on the Trinity and personhood, the Trinity and ecclesiology, the Trinity and gender, the Trinity and marriage, the Trinity and societal relations, the Trinity and politics, the Trinity and ecology, etc. Recently a number of theologians have suggested that a doctrine of the Trinity may provide the key to a Christian theology of religions. The purpose of this study is to evaluate critically the claim that a proper understanding of “the Trinity” provides the basis for a new understanding of religious diversity. Drawing upon the trinitarian theology of Augustine (principally De Trinitate), I critically examine the trinitarian doctrine in Mark Heim’s trinitarian theology of multiple religious ends, Amos Yong’s pneumatological theology of religions, Jacques Dupuis’ Christian theology of religious pluralism and Raimundo Panikkar’s trinitarian account of religious experience (along with Ewert Cousins’ efforts to link Panikkar’s proposal to the vestige tradition). My Augustinian assessment is structured around three trinitarian issues in the Christian theology of religions: (1) the relationship of the “immanent” and the “economic” Trinity, (2) the relations among the divine persons (both ad intra and ad extra) and (3) the vestigia trinitatis. In conversation with Augustine, I argue (1) that there is good reason to question the claim that the “Trinity” represents the key to a new understanding of religious diversity, (2) that current “use” of trinitarian theology in the Christian theology of religions appears to be having a deleterious effect upon the doctrine, and (3) that the trinitarian problems I document in the theology of religions also encumber attempts to relate trinitarian doctrine to a variety of other contemporary issues including personhood, ecclesiology, society, politics and science. I further argue that contemporary theology is driven by a problematic understanding of what it means for a doctrine of the Trinity to be “relevant” and that Augustine challenges us to rethink the “relevancy” of trinitarian doctrine. / Dissertation

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Since Isaiah Berlin employed his now classic notion of value pluralism for the justification of liberalism, the correlation between the two ideas has long been presumed in the field of political theory during the second half of the twentieth century. However, this Berlinian assertion has aroused a significant amount of criticism in the past ten years. Many supporters of value pluralism argue that due to its ¡§incommensurability¡¨ presupposition, value pluralism not only cannot serve as the foundation of liberalism, it will also endanger the universal status of the latter, and hence produce irresolvable theoretical inconsistency. Instead of using value pluralism to justify liberalism, some theorists are convinced that different types of political projects can be induced from value pluralism. On the other hand, liberals who endorse value pluralism also try to fill the lacunae between Berlinian pluralism and liberalist doctrine. The purpose of this thesis is to summarize the scope of theoretical differences among value pluralists, explore the controversies surrounding value pluralism, and examine different political projects preferred by various value pluralists. Throughout the essay, the following questions will be answered: What are the theoretical implications of value pluralism? Does it contradict with liberalist doctrine? If not, what account of liberalism does it approve of? In short, this thesis tries to map out the theoretical development of value pluralism since Isaiah Berlin.

Thesis (M.A.)--York University, 1997. Graduate Programme in Philosophy. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 101-109). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pMQ27378.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 188-199). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (M.A.)--Rutgers University, 2008. / "Graduate Program in Psychology." Includes bibliographical references (p. 28-39).