In contrast to theologians who think economics has little or nothing to teach us, and economists who balk at the strictures a nonnative discipline like theology might seek to impose, this essay explores the prospects for interdisciplinary research between theotogy and economics over the next quarter century and beyond. Theology needs economics because piety is no substitute for technique, according to Etienne Gilson. Economics needs theology because man does not live on GDP per capita alone. And, theology and economics find their reconciliation in the mediating and nonnative discipline of ethics, which shows why the question of virtue ethics and the marketplace is a particularly promising area of future research on the connections between theology, economics, and ethics.

The need for integration may be the singie most important issue facing social science, the humanities and their subdisciplines, especially given the scope of the social/behavioral problems facing humanity. One path toward integrating disciplines, sub-disciplines, and micro-macro levels is suggested by Spinoza's idea of part/whole methodology, moving rapidly back and forth between concrete instances and general ideas. Any discipline, sub-discipline or level can serve as a valuable stepping-off place, but to advance further, integration with at least one other viewpoint may be necessary. This essay links three hitherto separate subjects: role-taking, meditation, and a theory of emotion. The idea of role-taking plays a central part in sociological social psychology. Meditation implies the same process in terms of a self able to witness the ego. Drama theories also depend upon a witnessing self that establishes a safe zone for resolving intense emotions. All three approaches imply that the everyday ego is largely automated. In one of her novels, Virginia Woolf suggests three crucial points about automated thought: incredible speed, how it involves role-taking, and by implication, the presence of a witnessing self.

This essay seeks to exploe the nature and effects of the new Post-Industrial Revolution as epitomized by the digital universe, the fusion of synthetic biology and cybenetics, and the promise of genetics, engendering new hopes of a techno-utopian future of material abundance, new virtual worids, human-like robots, and the ultimate conquest of nature. Central to this prefect is the quest for transcending human limitattons by changing human nature itself, consciously directing evolution toward a posthuman or transhuman stage. Less well understood is the utopia-dystopia syndrome illuminated by ttw dystopian imagination refracted in science-fiction literature in such famous twentieth-century dysopias as Yevgeny Zamyatin's We, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, and George Orwell's 1984, cautioning that utopias may lead to their opposite: dystopia, totalitarianism, dictatorship. The thrall of techno-utopia based on technology as a prosthetic god may lead to universal tyranny by those who wield political power. The essay concludes that what humanity needs is not some unattainable Utopia but rather to cherish and nurture its God-given gifts of reason, free will, conscience, moral responsibility, an immortal soul, and the remarkable capacity of compasston to become fully human.

This essay describes possible futures that may result from accelerating technological advances and the challenges these futures present to psychotherapists. In the next 100 years, human beings will be likely to increasingly use computers and artificial intelligence and become extremely dependent on this relationship. Chip and stem cell implants may provide people with greater memory capacity, computational capacity, and skill sets. Genetic engineering, cryonics, and cloning may allow dramatic increases in the human life span these developments occur, they will challenge what it means to be a human being and have a soul. Although psychotherapists will acquire new tools for assessment and intervention, they will face the daunting task of addressing these changes and challenges to personhood with their clients.

Futurology is an inherently interdisciplinary field. Anderson and Melnik's essay deals with how likely technological developments will affect both the process and the subject matter of psychotherapy. It is optimistic about the future of psychology as the profession enters a revolution in technological applications as potentially discipline-changing as medicine underwent with the development of antibiotics, high-tech prosthetics and diagnostic tools, and new surgical, life-saving, and life-enhancing techniques. All these innovations will bring new options for treatment, but also new temptations and dangers. This essay adds social, economic, and theological perspectives concerning the proper ethical home for cyber-psychology. While technological developments can benefit individuals, groups, and society, pitfalls include temptations of power, intergroup conflict, and diagnostic creep. Proper preparationfor the future requires encouraging human virtues like altruism and intellect, restraining human flaws like error proneness, ignorance, selfishness, and harmful competition, as well as avoiding the accidental misuse of technology, and mobilizing newfound powers in the service of the common good.

The promise and perils of technology rightly provoke awe, thanks, and hope, but also the dread of man-caused natural and social disaster. Technology, and the remarkable mathematical view of nature upon which it is founded, are implicated in raging rifts among nations, rooted indiffering images of human nature, freedoms, and ends. The philosopher Hans Jonas achieved key insights into organic life in its relations to technology and mathematics, culminating in critical and cautionary calls for responsible use of technology. This essay explores Jonas' thought on mathematics, technology, and human nature, and its relevance for a critique of transhumanism's image of man and human transcendence. Inspired by Jonas, the essay sketches an alternative image of human nature and self transcendence in four theses on reason and value, the world, responsibility, and transcendence.

Given the exponential growth and increasing sophistication of biotechnology, the possibility of one's continued existence without a human body is not only a logical possibility, but is fast becoming a natural one as well. The theistic concept of the separation of the body and the soul at death is a coherent, plausible hypothesis that may be explored philosophically in light of technological advemcements and without direct reliance upon faith and Scriptures, A case is made through the dissection and defense of Rene Descartes' Real Distinction Argument to illustrate that human nature consists of a separate mind and body, coupled with an examination of current biotechnological accomplishments, to show that it is both logically and naturally possible that one can continue to exist without the human body.

A truly interdisdplinary approach to the topic of human enhancement requires input not only from the natural and social sciences, but also from the humanities. This interaction involves the reading of literary texts that raise retevant questions. H. G. Wells' The Island of Doctor Moreau is a text that artistically explores interspecies experimentation for the creation of chimeras. By examining the novel in relation to chimeras of ancient literary myth and their correlative scientific manifestations, important questions arid fresh insights may be gained, contributing to the conversation at large. Interdisciplinary aporoaches receive affirmatton increasingly among supporters of higher education, scientific experimentatton, and human enhancement, including Nick Bostrom, a leader in the transhumanist movement However, Brostom's rhetoric betrays itself and highlights the relevance of an authentic interdisciplinary interface drawing on the humanities and even science fiction.

This essay proposes that Socrates practiced various spiritual exercises, induding meditation, and that this Socratic practice of meditation was habitual, aimed at cultivating emotional self-control and existential preparedness. Corntemporary research in neurobiology supports the view that intentional mental actions, including mediation, have a profound impact on brain activity, neuroplasticity, and help engender emotional self-control. This impact on brain activity is confirmed via technological developments, a prime example of how technology benefits humanity, Socrates attains the balanced emotional self-control that Alcibiades describes in the Symposium because of the sustained mental effort he exerts that direct impetus his brain and his emotional and philosophical life. The essay concludes that Socratic meditative practices aimed at manifesting true dignity as human beings within the complexities of a technological world offer a promising model of self-care worthy of embracing today.

Postmodemism's censure of metanarratives expresses a moral claim and moral concern about those who have spawned injustice in the name of Truth. Ironically, while this censure is an indictment against the historic failures of the Christian church, it is also a corroboration of Christian theology. On postmodernism, a moral claim must be understood either instrumentally (emotivism or prescriptivism) or ideally (subjectivism or intersubjectivism), and neither is adequate. Rather, the moral claim requires moral realism. Moral realism, however, is best explained by theism. While sharing many of postmodemism's moral concerns, theism—especially Christian theism—can best enable and satisfy these concerns, whereas postmodernism can only frustrate them. Thus, theism uniquely enables moral accountability, communication, and tolerance. Moreover, Christian theism, in virtue of the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus, uniquely redeems moral concerns from futility and offers hope to those concerned for justice.

John Paul II's encyclical, Fides et Ratio, describes a profound and causal connection between the teaching of modem Western philosophy and contemporary spiritual dilemmas. The Pope argues persuasively that modem philosophy has led modern man to a loss of faith in the nobility of human reason and the possible existence of meaningful human truths. Modem political philosophers wanted to bring the divine law of revealed Scripture into service of modem philosophic principles of the autonomy of human reason and freedom. John Locke sought to reorganize family life in accordance with such modem principles. Locke clearly modified Biblical teaching to allow for more liberty for the autonomous individual in his imagined liberal democratic society of the future. John Paul II is among those who urge Christians in the West to examine our present social disintegration in light of the foundational ideas that have formed modem liberal societies. We must understand how these ideas have contributed to our present social problems, and determine how to chart the best course for liberal democracy in the new Millennium.

Drawing on C. S. Peirce's notion of an "unlimited community of investigators," Jürgen Habermas seeks to construct binding moral norms apart from independently existing moral absolutes. But Habermas fatally compromises the usefulness of an unlimited community for his project. Where Peirce relied on the notion of a uniform "outward clash" with external reality or "secondness" to lead all members of his unlimited community of investigators to a "predestinate" point of convergence, Habermas lacks any notion of an independent moral reality to bring about this convergence throughout his unlimited community of constructors. Apart from devising a substitute secondness to replace the clash with external moral reality, Habermas' unlimited community will spin apart into countless divergent moral constructs, Habermas' attempts to devise a substitute secondness fouruier on a lifeworld dilemma he never resolves, Habermas' difficulties are instructive, suggesting a possible way forward.

Martin Heidegger, an influential twentieth-century philosopher, attempted to transcend previous metaphysical understandings. Rejecting his Catholic heritage, his ontology sought to free itself from any objective ethical standard Nonetheless, he was unable to reject ethical matters entirely. Before Hitler's rise to power, Heidegger championed authenticity as a quasi-ethical concept. Later, he condemned technology as the source of human suffering. Neither led him to condemn the Holocaust explicitly. Such a condemnation was warranted in light of Heidegger's enthusiastic early support of National Socialism and his silence at its collapse. Ultimately, Heidegger's silence reflected the unacceptably high price of amoral thought intent upon celebrating only itself Heidegger's conception of the human being in a world where transcendental standards do not exist reveals the spirit of postmodern man, rooted in nothing larger than himself.

This essay explores an interdisciplinary framework for the comparative study of genocide. It traces the Other Holocaust of communist genocide in the twentieth century, with an estimated 100 million victims. Both the Nazi Holocaust and communist genocide raise major ethical dilemmas concerning individual and collective responsibility. The central underlying dynamic common to the Nazi Holocaust, communist and other genocides is the radical discounting of human life and dignity, and denial of the intrinstic worth of each individual human being. Hence the moral equivalency of evil Mass crimes against humanity run counter to the ethical precepts of all major religions, in particular the Judaeo-Christian tradition which considers man inviolable, created in the image of God Those who would honor and remember the victims of past genocides, whether Christians or Jews, believers or nonbelievers, need to rededicate their efforts to prevent such atrocities in the future by defending human rights and the persecuted in the present.

C. S. Lewis acknowledged Rudolf Otto's influence in his use of the term numinous to describe the uniqueness of religious experience, the experience of awe and with it the reality of absolutes, in contrast to prevailing naturalistic, materialistic, and subjectivist interpretations of morality and religion. Otto hints at and Lewis develops in more detail the idea of the numinous in human relationships. In Lewis' personal life, he does this in his relationship to his wife, Joy Davidman Lewis, In his writings, he does this in Till We Have Faces and other works. In each case, Lewis provides apt illustrations of how the numinous is at the heart of what by almost any staruiards are meaningful and satisfying relationships. Intense personal relationships become ideal environments for the experience of the numinous, even in situations of tragedy and loss. This is a message that a postmodern, secularized world needs to hear.

There are universal Christian ethics that should be applied in economics. Christian ethics in economics stresses free will; the immense value, dignity, and unique talents of the individual; individual accountability for the use of resources, charity, and the exercise of justice; the relevance of the family and community; and a role for the state in the adjudication of economic justice, the enforcement of contracts, and the facilitation of competition and minimization of exploitation in product and resource markets. Civil authorities are to be obeyed until they set themselves in opposition to divine law, while the individual is prior to the state and the social order. Among economic systems. Christian ethics favors mvced democratic capitalism, rejecting non-democratic socialism and authoritarianism. Strictly utilitarian, consequentialist, or contractarian approaches to economic policy are unacceptable, since they reject the other-regardedness of God's law. While Christian ethics establishes certain clear economic objectives, final policy choices require a synthesis of reasoning research, and practical application.

This essay examines the complex nature of sport today and considers how sport can transcend social, political, and economic divisiveness through a union with Judaeo-Christian ethical and spiritual values. Although religion and sport both involve the synthesis of the mind, body, and spirit, there are valid questions about the uses and abuses of sport in society. The central issues concern proper professional and sports conduct. The significance of competition and winning among athletes, coaches, and fans presents a challenge to the integration of ethical principles between sport and religious faith. Some sports practitioners are able to make this bond successfully, exemplified by the Christian witness of individuals like Nile Kinnick, Eric Liddell, and John Wooden. Relevant to any consideration of the symbiotic relationship between religion and sport is the potential for sport, nurtured through the sacredness of faith, to serve as a means for developing various aspects of human virtue.

In Einstein's theory of relativity, the speed of light is deemed an absolute value because it is indifferent to the motion of material bodies. Nothing we do can "take a bite" out of its measured velocity of 186,000 miles per second: it is an irreducible quantity. Similarly, our minds cannot race ahead quickly enough to reduce or convert light to everyday understandings. Indeed, modem physics portrays light as having an infinite aspect. Leading to talk of the spaceless, timeless character of light, this aspect permits the suggestion that light resonates spiritual possibilities, and this resonance supports the traditional religious view that light is a symbol or expression of divinity. It also provides a basis for affirming absolutes in ethical life. The relativist stance is thus countered on two fronts—scientific and sacred—with light shining through the veil or barrier that has historically divided the two.

This essay suggests that literary studies have a crucial role to play in the liberalisation of professional and vocational education and training. Prose and poetry contents of current literature syllabuses demand rigorous moral and ethical explication. Instructive in this regard was the societal interplay of professional texts in medicine with journalistic and fictional works, specifically in relation to spes phthisica, in the nineteenth century. Thus, the works of Willian and Henry James, with their synergies and antipathies, extended the discussion from medical to theological texts. The lectio divina in general and the Carmelite mystics in particular influenced the writings of both James brothers. These considerations highlight the relevance of liberal arts education in the twenty-first century.

This essay explores the conceptual foundations of C. S. Lewis' pilgrimage to a Christian worldview and its implications for Christian scholarship in the Third Millennium. C. S. Lewis' essential Christian worldview has three distinct yet complementary strands: The Tao, Natural Law, or the moral sense; the ecumenical inspiration of Mere Christianity; and the quest for truth and authentic values in the real world. These three strands converge in Lewis' own pilgrimage and witness to the immediacy and relevance of religious experience. Curiously, the reality and truth of the Christian vision finds eloquent exposition in Lewis' lucid prose In the recounting of this consummate storyteller, the Christian worldview emerges as both real and transcendental or "numinous," whose truth is found in historical evidences and lived experience. It is for this reason that Lewis is aptly called an apostle to the sceptics. Lewis' literary imagination thus provides inspiration for a Christian humanist paideia as propaedeutic to renew both liberal arts education and the culture of liberalism.