Rev Dr John Owens

DPhil  (Munich)
PhL  (Angelicum)
BA  (Cant.)

Role at Te Kupenga: Lecturer in Philosophy

My particular academic interests include twentieth-century philosophy and its relation to Plato, Aristotle and Aquinas. Outside of academic life, I play the flute (after a fashion) and am a keen cycle-camper. My research interests have lately centered around contemporary authors developing an account of the human situation which avoids large notions of transcendence (i.e. metaphysical notions of God, Good, Truth, Reality), in particular Richard Rorty, Martha Nussbaum and DZ Phillips.

Favorite quote/scripture:

They will see him face to face. It will never be night again and they will not need lamplight or sunlight, because the Lord God will be shining on them.  Rev. 22.4-5.

PUBLICATIONS:

“Freedom and the Personal,” Pacific Journal of Theological Research, Vol. 17, No. 1, May 2022, pp. 31-41.

“Aquinas’ Fifth Way,” New Blackfriars, Vol. 101, Issue 1094, May 2020, pp. 356-370

Rorty, Religion, and Metaphysics (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2019).

“Creation Paradise Lost and Modernity” Logos 20/4, 2017, 39-53

“Martha Nussbaum on Ethics and ReligionColloquium 49/1, 2017, 48-60.

Review of Thinking About Political Things: An Aristotelian Approach to Pacific Life, by Andrew Murray (Adelaide: ATF Press 2016), in The Australasian Catholic Record, July 2016, 93/3, pp.381-2.

“C.S. Lewis’s Argument Against Naturalism in A Myth Retold: Re-encountering C. S. Lewis as Theologian,  (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 2014) ed. Martin Sutherland, 57-68.

Dei Verbum and the Philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer” in God’s Word and the Church’s Council: Vatican II and Divine Revelation, eds. Mark O’Brien OP and Christopher Monaghan CP (Adelaide: ATF Theology, 2014) 179-191.

“Recycling the Soul”, in Taking Rational Trouble Over the Mysteries: Reactions to Atheism (Wipf and Stock, 2013) ed. Nicola Hoggard Creegan and Andrew Shepherd, 79-92.

Without God, Truth, or Nature” in God, Freedom and Nature , eds. Ronald S. Laura, Rachel A. Buchanan, Amy K. Chapman ( Sydney , New York, Boston : Body and Soul Dynamics, 2012), 99-104.

Recycling the Soul: The Physicalist Anthropology of Nancey Murphy”  Colloquium 2011, 169-182.

Nietzsche and the Christians Australasian Catholic Record 88, 2011, 191-201.

“Philosophy in Theological Institutions – New Zealand,” in A Companion to Philosophy in Australia and New Zealand, ed. Graham Oppy and Nick Trakakis (Melbourne: Monash University Publishing, 2010), 549-51.

Creation and End-Directedness Sophia 49, 2010, 489-498.

“Paley, Aristotle, and the Artefact Analogy” Colloquium , Vol. 41, No.2, 2009, 204-215.

Animals, Ontology and Rorty’s Giraffe Colloquium Vol 39 (2) 2007, 170-184.

“Dissenting from Reality: The Denials of Evil” Logos, Volume 7, Number 4, Fall 2004.

The God Whereof We Speak: DZ Phillips And The Question of God’s Existence” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly Vol 78 (1) 2004.

“Religion Within The Limits Of Our Talk: DZ Phillips And The Question of God’s Reality” Colloquium Vol 35 (2) 2003, 115-129.

“Two Possibilities of Existence: Sophism, Plato and Metaphysics” in Talking Theology 2001-2002 proceedings (Auckland: Carey Baptist College, 2003).

“Transcendence and the Human” Colloquium Vol 33 2001 121-134.

“The Obligations of Irony: Rorty on Irony, Autonomy and Contingency” The Review of Metaphysics 2000 27-41.

“A Creaturely Ethic: Veritatis Splendor and Human Nature” The Linacre Quarterly, August 2000 11-21.

“The Sign and its Trespass: Signs, Presence, and Metaphysics in Kevin Hart” Sophia Vol 38 1999 36-53.

Te Kupenga - Catholic Leadership Institute

Enrolment for Certificate and Diploma programmes is ongoing. Our offices are closed for the holiday. We will be back on 06 January 2025. Meri Kirihimete me nga mihi o te Tau Hou. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
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