Theological engagement with quantum mechanics has been dominated by the Copenhagen interpretation, failing to reflect fact that philosophers and physicists alike are increasingly moving away from interpretation in favor of other approaches. One such approach, Hugh Everett's so-called Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI), is being taken seriously. As MWI's credibility grows, it imperative metaphysic...

This paper tracks the fortunes of the debate on whether children playing at baptism can actually administer and receive a valid sacramental baptism from Rufinus of Aquileia (late 4th to early 5th century) through ca. 1300. Theologians and canonists who addressed this question arrived at no consensus. They often disagreed with their own masters, applied Rufinus to a range of issues he never took...

Recent months have witnessed a lot of Catholic writing about POLST, with some bishops and theologians critical of the POLST program2 and others cautiously supportive.3 This controversy has been helpful in raising some important issues regarding the conceptualization and implementation of the POLST paradigm in various states. The controversy might also be an occasion for Catholic health care eth...

Ethicists, scientists, lawyers, theologians, and journalists responded with colorful scenarios when Dr. Ian Wilmut announced that he successfully cloned an adult mammal. In an effort to ethically fathom Dolly's significance, they imagined cloning as (1) a foreign despot's technique for creating a master race; (2) a greedy entrepreneur's technique for producing "celebrity" embryos for sale; (3) ...

Eder and Ramharter [7] propose requirements to be satisfied by formal reconstructions of informal arguments and illustrate these with their own reconstructions of Anselm’s Ontological Argument: one in classical (higher-order) logic, and one in modal logic. I reproduce and mechanically check their classical reconstruction in the PVS verification system and present this as an illustration of the ...

Medical ethics in the Federal Republic of Germany is characterized by two recurrent themes: a deontological emphasis on the physician's duty; and a conception of the patient as needy and help seeking, morally and biologically inferior to the physician. The philosophical and historical underpinnings of contemporary German attitudes toward euthanasia and the physician-patient relationship are d...

theory about the origins, process and structure of the universe. Theologies and cosmologies outline how the universe happened, how it works and how it continues to happen. Consider how the Medieval world worked, according to both theologians and scientists. The universe was a three-story apartment building. Heaven on the penthouse, full of stars and God. Earth on the middle floor, housing peopl...

This article attempts, first of all, to define the concept of human dignity in tandem with a Christian ethics of responsibility. The views on human dignity, held by some proponents of a Christian ethics of responsibility, and a number of South African and Dutch theologians who participated in two joint consultations, are discussed and critically evaluated. Second, this article addresses the fol...