Dialog Teologic VIII/15 (2005),
Adevăr și moralitate în spațiul public, 269 p., 17×24, 9 RON.
Wilhlem DANCĂ
Ce facem cu adevărul în spaţiul public?
Every man is searching to find out the truth. But in the public life the truth has turned into a relative conception and can be interpreted in every way one wishes, whether is for the advantage of some or for the disadvantage of others. In a world in which, among other things, it is pursued to have an ethics without truth, a metaphysics without fundaments, a Christianity without Christ, a sincerity without truth, a holiness without God and a politics without principles, peoples are still searching for the truth. There are many people wondering between the quick-sands of scepticism finding satisfaction only in the partially and casually truths. But there are also those who, willing to authentically and adequately study the truth, are helping the society to open itself towards philosophy and to philosophize and also, are supporting the Church in its mission of beeing in the service of the Truth. The returning to the recta ratio, to the normal, dialogical, opened towards the others and the Other rationality is possible and the participants to the International Congres „Truth and morality in public life” have been trying to point out this fact.
COMUNICĂRI
Î.P.S. Dr. Ioan ROBU
Biserica Catolică în Europa, astăzi
What is really the New Europe and what Christian values is still accommodating? What advantages and disadvantages presents a Europe who gives the felling that the man is able to manage without God? In today’s Europe a breakdown is revealed between the technical possibilities and moral strength: moral strength has not been developed along with the scientific development. If it is necessary that from the New Europe the respect of the human dignity and the respect of what is sacred for the other to be present, in the same way is necessary that in the united Europe to be developed a profound and clear dialogue with the other religions, dialogue that has to reflect and show to everyone the true nature of the Church.
Î.P.S. Dr. Daniel CIOBOTEA
Biserica Ortodoxă în Europa, astăzi
Romania joining European Union will be the biggest country with the Orthodox majority member of the European Union. The Orthodox Christians are watching the European Union either full of fear, either full of hope. Beyond these shared opinions, the Christian Churches from Romania together with the Judaic religion have expressed their support for Romania’s adhesion to the European Union. This adhesion is wanted with the hope that, next to what she will to receive, Romania will contribute to the enrichment of the spiritual and cultural European patrimony. The development work of the united Europe is seen as a new chance and challenge to express the fidelity to the Gospel, and in this way the Churches have to be together, have to be united.
P.S. Petru GHERGHEL
Omul de lângă noi, omul între bine şi rău
The man is capable to make real miracles of life and of history, but also a lot of disasters. What is man: an angel or devil? What is the role of man in the society and what is his purpose? The man carries in his soul, in his all being God’s image, becoming in this way the masterpiece and the crown of all creation. Regarding the nature of man, Bishop Petru Gherghel is referring to the affirmation of the Fathers of Church: Irineu from Lyon, Leon the Great and Thomas Aquinas. The morality of the human acts depends of the chosen object, of the followed purpose and in the circumstances of his action. The true value of the man of nowadays stays in his moral conscience. The Church must give all his riches of values and teachings for perfection of the man next to us.
Wilhelm DANCĂ
Morala comunicării adevărului. Dialogul dintre filozofie, teologie şi ştiinţă
The world where we live in suffers because of moral inertness which has at its basis at least the following crisis: the tragedy of atheist humanism, the dispute on universality and stability of moral laws and the separation between science and metaphysics. This world has to develop a dialogue between philosophers, theologians, science mans, and thanks to this dialogue every domain remains what is called to be: science – science, religion – religion. Globalization, the new scientific discoveries, the neutrality of science, the dangers of agnosticism and relativism are only some of the motivations which sustain the necessity of such dialogue. Communicating the truth is depending on the every human person’s basic exigencies. In this sense the article sustains the need for new ways of communicating the truth and the urgency of recovering the dialogue between philosophy, theology and science.
Edward McLEAN
Adevăr şi moralitate. Adevărul este cheia integrităţii
According to father McLean we are all, in our own way, seekers of truth. There are many pathways to truth. Science, philosophy, theology take us only so far on the search for that Truth which touches the heart and changes the lives of everyone. The words of the Master are not to be understood, but to be listened. The basic truth for our world today is that we are all children of the One God. The fact that we belong to the same family is the key to Morality, Integrity and Right Conduct within the family of God.
Yuriy PIDLISNYY
Adevăr, valoare şi proliferarea drepturilor
Francis Fukuyama said that rights spring directly from an understanding of what man is. The birth of proliferation of rights transformed political process and the notion of political life. It seems there is no more place reserved for the distinction between good and evil, right and wrong. Making good and evil, right and wrong equal in rights makes those who practice good and evil equally correct. Not only history accounts for man’s identity, but also his search for truth, authentic and good. If society legalizes all lifestyles, behaviors and practices, it abolishes distinction between good and evil, automatically introduces the only possible good: its own will. Today, for many, the question of truth is nothing but a question of taste.
Osman BILEN
Etica ecologică şi relaţia sa cu adevărul
The desire to live in a more healthy and peaceful world is part of this growing consciousness of environmental problems we face today. The concept of truth must meet the demands of moral choices we make regarding the environment. The human environment means both natural and social world we live in. In Koran we find that nature is the only place we live in, but its also a theater of moral life. Nature is created to receive the good results of moral activities of man and to aid man in its efforts to moral perfection.
Abelardo LOBATO
Antropologie şi acţiune politică. Preambul etic la politica justă
Is it possible the existence of a „true” politics which serve the man’s good and the society outside the ethic? Or, otherwise, can we talk about a politic deprived by ethics? The present conference tries to underline the report which must exist between ethic and politic: they must not be confused, neither completed separated, but they must be seen as distinct and complementary. Over this line of thinking, started by Aristotle and continued by Thomas Aquinas, must be placed the thinking and the political action of our days. It is necessary that every person in his political-ethical action must spotlight the pre-eminence of the ethic in the political activity. The man, individual human and the subject and the object of politic, must find his horizon, in which he is placed, for saving him from death: because after the death of God has been declared also the death of man. For saving him self, the human being must use his absolute liberty and all his other rights.
George McLEAN
Adevăr, bine şi moralitate
In the past morality has been seen as a set of prohibitions. In order to pursue real goods in a real manner it is essential that we judge things as they are in themselves. Truth is the essence of justice and justice is the essential context of the good, the sign of peace in social life. According to Kant, with regard to morality, it is a breakthrough to begin to appreciate the role and the responsibility of the human not only for responding to reality, but for shaping it also. Like a pair of glasses values do not create the object, but focus attention upon certain goods rather upon others. According to Aristotle, in order to make sense of the practical dimension of our life, it is necessary to identify the good or the value toward which one directs one’s life. The moral truth is the reason regarding whether the act makes the person and society good, meaning to fulfill, in an authentic way, the individual or the society. Moral freedom consists in the ability to follow our own conscience.
Gabriela BLEBEA NICOLAE
O viaţă adevărată sau o propoziţie adevărată
The present conference does not undertake to contradict the conjunction (mediated by «and») between a true sentence and a true life. It only seeks to see to what extent a true life is absolutely dependent on veracity. In other words, this paper’s aim is to find out whether or not truth-telling (i.e., sincerity) is the condition for leading a true life (evidently, a true life actually refers to a good, morally valid life). This question may seem naive or simplistic but it actually stems from the dramatism surrounding the fact that communist experience imposed denunciation as a norm for practical action. If the denunciation means giving true information, could the telling of truth be morally acceptable even when the life of an innocent person is endangered? I am going to carry this question over into an analysis of St. Augustine’s De mendacio. By analyzing through this text the distinction between betrayal and heroism, I hope to make it clear how the telling of truth under the circumstances of the communist kind of regime might either land us in the sinful area of betrayal or under the sign of courage, in the space of virtue.
Zbigniew WENDLAND
Problema obiectivităţii valorilor într-o lume pluralistă şi dialogală
The crisis of the present-day world is in its very essence a crisis of reason. The fall of reason is treated as the most important symptom and, simultaneously, the cause of the downfall of the whole Western civilization. It has come a time when we must look for another kind of rationality than metaphysical rationality or instrumental rationality which could better correspond to existing challenges of mankind. The professor’s proposal is to label this new kind rationality with the term dialogical rationality. Present-day philosophers arrive at the common conclusion that one will not succeed to reach something like the correspondence with the Absolute or with the reality like it is in itself. This does not mean that people will live, and should live, without any concept of objectivity, that is to say, without objectively grounded values.
Anton CARPINSCHI
Cultura recunoaşterii şi orizonturile adevărului
After presenting truth’s horizons and after demonstrating the need of comprehension, the conference underlines that the path towards the truth of self-recognition and recognition of another presupposes the permanent meeting of reason and faith. We find out that at the base of comprehensive truths’ configuration stands the profound connection between comprehension and recognition. The third part of the conference remains over the fallible man, over the hypostasis of human and the comprehensive truth, showing that the variety is the key of human nature, a plastic and malleable. Eventually our attention is drawn upon a culture of confession, being underlined again the importance of the connection between truth and comprehension. Of all this the culture of confession appears as a cultural synthesis of a mature humanity.
Valerius M. CIUCĂ / Paul TIBULEAC
De unde ar trebui să preia dreptul definiţia vieţii umane: din religie, morală ori din filozofia ştiinţei?
Thanks to the apparition of new phenomena and thanks to the fact that the yesterday unimaginable has become possible the juridical definition of human life is now imposed. But who is the most adequate to offer this definition: the priest, the philosopher or the scientist? Or in other words: religion, morality or the philosophy of science will offer the real definition of human life? The entire conference suggests, on an optimistic-realistic tone, the necessity of everyone’s collaboration since the answer falls on them in equal measure: there has to be a fruitful collaboration between the priest, philosopher, jurist and science man. Through their collaboration human life will have to receive its true definition.
Lucian FARCAŞ
Evaziunea morală. Omul între etică şi factologie
In the first part of this study, with a marked theoretical character, it is analyzed the condition of man called to live together with his neighbors. The quality of common life is offered by people’s fidelity given to truth, which, thus, becomes the foundation of communion between people. Further on, it is noticed the danger which threatens truth avowal in the social life, the gravest situation being the neighbor’s discrediting and, trough this, jeopardizing the common life. Understanding and avowing truth must cont of biblical exigencies concerning truth. This exigencies refer both to itself truth and to the importance of its avowing, to person’s and community good. Than it is analyzed what is not and what is lie and this is denounced like a grave form of destroying a culture which has to promote an authentic human pro-existence. The second part of the study, more practical, has in view the delicate situation in which the man can be forced at deceiving by necessity. There are not forgotten the conditions in which social-political mechanism practices an oppression of truth, and, trough this, a systematic destruction of man and of society. It is mentioned the importance of truth in publicity and in propaganda actual forms, emphasizing the good and the bad they could do. Finally, there are shown the special situations in which the professional secret and the persons who detain it must be protected.
Isidor CHINEZ
Tentaţia neîntreruptă a minciunii şi foamea de adevăr
Any moral value has its foundation in truth because good is the manifestation of good. The problem of truth and lie has been considered as having great importance in man’s life of all times. Man is measured by truth. The first lie is the simulation of truth by man himself. Man is tempted by lie and accepts the temptation of denying his ontological truth. Since the man is endowed with freedom, he is self-possession, trusted to him and disposing of him, but he did not offered by him this self-possession, instead he owns it to another. God puts his own infinite freedom in relation with the finite freedom of man. With his sinful presumption of wanting to be like God man has denied the truth of his being. For the modern man, his person has become the trustful point of reality. Lie knows today a collective and public dimension which amplified thanks to the social communications.
Alois BIŞOC
Misiunea Bisericii în lumea contemporană
In order to better involve in the life of nowadays world the Church must know this world and must take into account in its pastoral work of the social-cultural pluralism. A very complex phenomenon that characterizes the contemporary world is the secularization, an ambivalent phenomenon that has a global influence over Christianity. There aren’t few those who, thanks to the secularization process have ended to oppose the human primacy as an alternative to the primacy of God. Within a context in which the main problem is the report between the man’s primacy and admitting God’s existence, the Church must remain the one who shows man the plan of God with humankind, the meaning of man’s life and the purpose of its role in the world. Even if the post-modern world considers itself sometimes post-Christian, the Church remains capable to give man the most adequate answers.
MASĂ ROTUNDĂ I
Omul între adevărul credinţei şi adevărul raţiunii
The discussions have focused, in the beginning, over the elite: can we adumbrate a portrait of the elite, of a man who has truth as base and moral treasure as light? Continuing the discussion on this idea, the following problem came up: how much is supposed a leader, a personality to open up? It has to be open to anything and to anyone or it is too much in the present day? Another theme of the discussions has been the report that has to exist between the elite and the institutions. The report person-institution is important since without institutions, without structures, the elite, a personality may disappear. But, in the same time, we must keep in mind that not all the elites prefer the shadow of the institutions and therewith not all the institutions promote elite.
MASĂ ROTUNDĂ II
Omul între legea politică şi legea morală
The direction of this debate has been set by father Dancă through the following questions: How are able to dialogize the civil society and the Church, the State (political law) and the Church (revealed law)? What does the dialogue with others, with us, with God mean? Which are the dialogue’s conditions between the public and the private sphere? The discussions concentrated over the self-preservation perspective, over the task of philosophers, over the meaning of understanding the other, over the fact that nowadays man has lost the moral sense of good and evil, over the dialogue between the Church and the civil society on the line of truth, over the elegant way in which persons and institutions must dialogize. An interesting idea is the underlining of the three conditions: of space, of time and opening towards another, that are necessary for the meeting between those who are having a dialogue to have place.