THEOLOGICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL
BIOGRAPHY AND GLOSSARY

NAIVE REALISM
  • Also called Common-sense realism.
  • Things are perceived directly as they are.
NATURAL SELECTION
NATURALISM
  • Every aspect of human experience can be adequately accounted for in terms of human existence as a product of biological and cultural evolution.
  • Also see Religious Humanism
Nazianzus
Neander, Johann August Wilhelm
(1789-1850)
Johann Neander

Johann Neander

  • German church historian
  • founder of modern church historiography

NECESSARY
NECESSARY KNOWLEDGE
Nee, Henry (Watchman [pseud.])
(1903-1972)
Watchman Nee

Watchman Nee

  • Chinese preacher
  • wrote
    1. The Normal Christian Life and many other books.

Neill, Stephen Charles
(1900-1984)
  • British Anglican missionary, educator, writer.
NEO-ARISTOTELIANISM
NEO-FREUDIANISM
  • "Religion is any system of thought and action shared by a group which gives the individual a frame of orientation and an object of devotion" (Fromm)
  • Also see Freudianism

NEO-KANTIAN
  • An updated version of Kant's view
NEO-ORTHODOXY
  • Derived from the existentialism of Kierkegaard.
  • Stresses the existential and psychological aspects of religion.
  • Opposes biblical literalism, propositional revelation, natural theology, and all forms of religious humanism.
  • "Scripture is only revelation when conjoined with God's Spirit in the present" (Brunner).
  • Knowledge of God is not grasped by reason but through an act of God's personal self-disclosure (Word of God).
  • Reasserts and reinterprets the role of sin in religious understanding and in the problems of the human situation.
  • It says religion is man's striving to make himself righteous before that which he recognizes as ultimate and decisive (Barth).
NEO-REALISM
  • The objective world known is neutral, that is, it consists of mental and material entities and objective relations as well.
NEO-SCHOLASTICISM
NEO-THOMISM
  • also called Neo-Scholasticism.
  • Restates the philosophy of religion of St. Thomas Aquinas.
  • Religious knowledge is a product of reason completed by revelation.
  • An independently real world is known by independently real minds.
  • Stresses natural theology and theism.
  • Teaches that God possesses all the qualities of perfection.
  • The Bible as interpreted by the Church is authoritative.
NESTORIANISM
  • They said Jesus Christ was two persons in one body
  • These two persons were morally in agreement in purpose and action.
Nestorius
(d. 451)
  • Patriarch of Constantinople
  • confronted heretics
  • died in exile
NEW ARISTOTELIANISM
NEW KANTIANISM
NEW MATERIALISM
  • The objective world known is material.
  • Also see Materialism
NEW REALISM
  • The objective world known is neutral, that is, it consists of mental and material entities and objective relations as well.
Newman, John Henry
(1801-1890)
John Henry Newman

John Henry Newman

  • Anglican pastor
  • converted to Roman Catholic in 1845
  • wrote hymn "Lead Kindly Light."

Newton, Isaac
(1642-1727)
Isaac Newton

Isaac Newton

  • Christian scientist loyal to the Bible
  • wrote commentaries on the Bible, which he considered to be his greatest work
  • known for his book Mathematical Principles of Natural Theology
  • showed universal force called gravity
  • time and gravity were absolute
  • view was held until Einstein

Newton, John
(1725-1807)
John Newton

John Newton

  • Anglican pastor
  • former slave trader
  • influenced Wilberforce against slavery
  • wrote "Amazing Grace."
  • Wrote autobiography: Out of the Depths.

Newton, Joseph Fort
(1880-1950)
  • US pastor
  • changed from Southern Baptist to Congregational to Episc.
Nicholas of Cusa
(1401-1464)
Nicholas of Cusa

Nicholas of Cusa

  • German philosopher and cardinal
  • mystic
  • advocated superiority of council over the pope
  • tried to reunite Roman Catholic with Eastern Orthodox.

Nicole, Roger
Roger Nicole

Roger Nicole

  • Professor of theology at Gordon-Conwell Th. Sem.
  • Wrote:
    1. Moyse Amyraut: A Bibliography
    2. editor of B. B. Warfield: A Bibliography
    3. Inerrancy and Common Sense

Nicoll, William Robertson
(1851-1923)
  • Scottish Presbyterian pastor
  • edited
    1. Expositor's Bible
    2. The Expositor's Greek New Testament
Niebuhr, Helmut Richard
(1894-1962)
  • US theologian
  • taught at Eden Seminary and Yale
  • US version of neo-orthodoxy
  • wrote
    1. The Meaning of Revelation
    2. The Social Sources of Denominationalism
    3. The Kingdom of God in America
    4. Christ and Culture
    5. Radical Monotheism and Western Culture
  • younger brother of Reinhold.

Niebuhr, Karl Paul Reinhold
(1892-1970)
Reinhold Niebuhr

Reinhold Niebuhr

  • US pastor
  • older brother of Richard
  • taught at Union (NY)
  • taught ethics at Yale
  • Neo-orthodox
  • main area was ethics
  • wrote
    1. Moral Man and Immoral Society
    2. Christian Realism and Political Problems
    3. The Nature and Destiny of Man

Niemoller, Martin
(1892-1967)
Martin Niemoller

Martin Niemoller

  • German protestant opposed Hitler
  • imprisoned at Dachau
  • member of World Council of Churches.

Nietzsche, Friedrich
(1844-1900)
Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche

  • German philosopher
  • atheist
  • early existentialist
  • Hitler used his view of "superman."
  • wrote
    1. The Birth of Tragedy
    2. Beyond Good and Evil
    3. The Genealogy of Morals
    4. Thus Spake Zarathustra
    5. The Will to Power
  • Western man has been corrupted by two major evils: intellectualistic philosophy and the idealization of weakness by Christianity.
  • Both deny the natural human spirit.
  • A transvaluation or reversal of values is needed:
    • instead of sympathy and pity -- contempt and aloofness
    • instead of neighbor love -- egoism and ruthlessness
  • Why? "Life is precisely Will to Power the fundamental fact of all history."
  • But the transvaluation is for "free spirits" only, for the Superman.
  • The everyday man is a "bridge," a something to be "surpassed."
  • The new morality is "beyond good and evil," beyond the values of the "common herd," who sublimate their resentment of the naturally superior in the form of a conventional morality that makes the virtue of superiority "evil" and their own weakness "good."
  • Altruism is a typical "slave" ideal.
  • The new morality embodies the realization of the natural virtues of strength and power.
  • "The noble type of man regards himself as a determiner of values."

Niles, Daniel T.
(1907-1970)
  • Methodist
  • ecumenical leader
Nitzsch, Karl
(1787-1868)
  • German Lutheran theologian
Noetus of Smyrna
(c 220-c290)
  • philosopher
  • held monarchianism (stressing the unity of God) and patripassianism (Jesus was actually God the Father manifested in a different form thus the Father died on the cross in the person of the Son)
  • God is substantially one, but nominally three.
NOMINALISM
NON-COGNITIVIST ETHICS
  • a Metaethical theory that denies that ethical terms are informative.
  • Includes
    • Emotivism
    • Imperativism
    • Prescriptivism
    • Good Reasons Theories
NON-COGNITIVE MEANING
NON-COGNITIVE
NON-CONTRADICTION, LAW OF
  • No entity can be both what it is and not what it is with the same specification.
NON-NATURALISM
Norbert
(1080-1134)
Norbert

Norbert

  • German Roman Catholic canonized saint
  • founded a monastic order

NORMATIVE ETHICS
  • an attempt to identify the universal principle(s) of morality to which all men ought to appeal to guide or to justify their behavior, i.e., an ideal or true code of morality.
  • May be distinguished as teleological or deontological or varying combinations of both.
Nott, Eliphalet
(1773-1866)
Eliphalet Nott

Eliphalet Nott

  • US Presbyterian President of Union College for 62 years.
NOUMENA
  • A term used by Plato to distinguish one side of the divided plane. On one side is the noumena where all is spirit. On the other side is the phenomena where all is material
  • That which cannot be detected by the five senses
NOUS
  • Greek word for "mind" as used by Anaxagoras
  • Used by counselors for "nouthetic counseling"
Noyes, Morgan Phelps
(1891-1972)
  • US Presbyterian
Nyssa