Anthony Costello

This paper looks at Daniel Dennett's version of the evolution of religious belief as naturalistic phenomena as argued in his book "Breaking the Spell." It then challenges one part of his naturalistic account of the origins of religious belief, namely that animism was the earliest form of religious belief. This is done by presenting Winfried Corduan's defense of Wilhelm Schmidt's "Urgotttheorie" or "High God Theory" of early, or original, monotheism.

Unity in diversity, individuality in community; this dialectic reality is the wellspring of some of history’s greatest achievements (e.g. Universal Declaration of Human Rights) and some of its greatest tragedies (e.g. National Socialism). As fallen beings, if we push too hard in one direction the hunger for unity can mutate into faceless uniformity. Push too hard in the opposite, and the cacophony of individual voices drowns out the common good. It is a classic, philosophical enigma, one that haunts every generation. For what, if anything, ultimately unites us? And, if united, must the self be sacrificed? In his letter to the Romans (Rom 12:4-5), the church in Corinth (1 Cor 6:15-20; 12:12-13, 27), and his general epistle to Ephesus (Eph 4:4-6), the apostle Paul offers an answer: it is the Holy Spirit of God, who, in His infinite wisdom and power, unites all who have believed in the Son into the very body of Christ, a single body that is the Church. But, is this body merely a metaphor for the spirt-empowered horizontal relationships that exist between believers, or is there a way we can understand the Body of Christ as an ontologically robust reality? This paper will explore key passages in the NT that hint at something more metaphysical than metaphorical and then offer a philosophical model for one possible candidate for this reality that is the Church.