MF CASR Publications

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Recent Book Releases

A Basic Theory of Everything: A Fundamental Theoretical Framework for Science and Philosophy

What are the basic building blocks of the world? This book presents a naturalistic theory saying that the universe and everything in it can be reduced to three fundamental entities: a field, a set of values that can be actualized at different places in the field, and an actualizer of the values. The theory is defended by using it to answer the main questions in metaphysics, such as: What is causality, existence, laws of nature, consciousness, thinking, free will, time, mathematical entities, ethical values, etc.? The theory is compared with the main alternatives and argued to solve problems better than the existing theories. Several new theories are suggested, such as how to understand mental causation, free will and the truth of ethics and mathematics.

Det livssynsåpne samfunn

«Det livssynsåpne samfunn» er blitt et nøkkelbegrep i diskusjonen om religion og politikk i Norge og ligger til grunn for den nye Lov om tros- og livssynsamfunn, som gjelder fra 2021. Men hva er et livssynsåpent samfunn?

«Det livssynsåpne samfunn» representerer en bestemt, ny begrunnelse for politisk myndighetsutøvelse overfor tro og livssyn i samfunnet, ifølge forfatteren. I denne boka beskriver han hvordan det livssynsåpne samfunn er blitt til gjennom politisk debatt, utredninger og lovgivning, og han vurderer modellens sterke og svake sider. Han drøfter også prinsippene for et livssynsåpent samfunn i møte med dagsaktuelle utfordringer knyttet til likestilling, menneskerettigheter, symbolbruk og vold.

Invisible Manuscripts: Textual Scholarship and the Survival of 2 Baruch

In this critical exploration of the role of manuscripts in textual scholarship, Liv Ingeborg Lied studies the Syriac manuscript transmission of 2 Baruch. These manuscripts emerge as salient sources to the long life of 2 Baruch among Syriac speaking Christians, not merely witnesses to an early Jewish text. Inspired by the perspective of New Philology, Lied addresses manuscript materiality and paratextual features, the history of ownership, traces of active readers and liturgical use, and practices of excerption and re-identification. The author's main concerns are the methodological, epistemological and ethical challenges of exploring early Jewish writings that survive only in Christian transmission. Through engagement with the established academic narratives, she retells the story of 2 Baruch and makes a case for manuscript- and provenance-aware textual scholarship.

Pilgrimage, Landscape, and Identity: Reconstructing Sacred Geographies in Norway

Grau's book explores the ritual geography of a pilgrimage system that arose around medieval saints in Norway, a country now being transformed by petroleum riches, neoliberalism, migration, and global warming. The study maps how pilgrims, hosts, church officials, and government officials participate in reshaping narratives of landscape, sacrality, and pilgrimage as a symbol of life journey, nation, identity, Christianity, and Protestant reflections on the durability of medieval Catholic saints.

Tracing the Jerusalem Code, Volumes 1-3: Edited by Kristin B. Aavitsland, Line M. Bonde, Eivor Andersen Oftestad, Joar Haga, Ragnhild J. Zorgati, and Anna Bohlin

With the aim to rewrite the history of Christianity in Scandinavia with Jerusalem as a lens, this book investigates the image – or rather the imagination – of Jerusalem in the religious, political, and artistic cultures of Scandinavia through most of the second millennium. Jerusalem is conceived as a code to Christian cultures in Scandinavia. The first volume deals with the different notions of Jerusalem in the Middle Ages, the second with Jerusalem's impact on Protestantism and Christianity in Early Modern Scandinavia, and the third  with Jerusalem's the impact on Scandinavian Christianity from the 18th to early 20th centuries.

Ethical Teachings of Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī, Economics of Happiness: Sami Al Daghistani

This book studies the interplay of economic philosophy and moral conduct as reflected in the writings of one of the most renowned scholars in Islamic history, Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Ghazālī (d. 1111). As is well known, Imām al-Ghazālī, nicknamed “the proof of Islam”, contributed immensely to Islamic theology, philosophy, and Sufism or Islamic mysticism (taṣawwuf). Strikingly enough, al-Ghazālī also made seminal contributions to the field of economic thought, but this contribution has been largely neglected, although al-Ghazālī dedicated many chapters to what he considered just and Sharī‘a-based economic conduct in (Muslim) society. This book aims to analyse and revive al-Ghazālī’s understudied contribution to economic thought by emphasizing his economic philosophy and its correlation between Sharī‘a’s moral law and the tradition of taṣawwuf, as well as to situate his thought within the context of modern economic theories.