Indeed, just as the Eucharist, as the sacrament of a future glory, is always a subtle reminder of its own failure of ultimacy, so Bernardez's poem, as a poetic allegory of the Eucharist, is also a reminder of its own failure of ultimacy, its constitutive inability to narrate the unnarratable, to make present, in language, a reality that always and ultimately resists linguistic description.

Given the generally accepted definition of theology as "faith seeking understanding," to seek to understand the issues of ultimacy surrounding climate change and interpret these issues in light of faith traditions and in language understandable to the general public is an important role.

The way of contemplation, the intentionality of contemporary forays into its orbit, brings with it these two derived metaphors from the Latin compound: contemplation involves openness and ultimacy. The vitality of contemplation for both Merton and Borgmann is the conjunction, "with" (con).

(51.) I have dealt with this in detail in my "Absolutism to Ultimacy: Rhetoric and Reality of Religious 'Pluralism,'" Theological Studies 73 (2012) 55-81, at 74.

The social sciences can also be prescriptive in conveying values and metaphors of ultimacy. For example, Skinnerian behaviorism rests on a vision of social cooperation by accepting the "relentless power of natural selection" in a fashion that "takes on the proportions of a Calvinistic theory of predestination" (Browning & Cooper, 2004, pp.

Styles (1982), later cited in Jacobs (2000, p2), defines collegiality as "the sharing of responsibility and authority with colleagues and is based on ultimacy (sic) and leads to respect".

"The Jesus Dialogues" demonstrates that there is truth and a way to ultimacy in all religions.

Research findings of an evolutionary psychologist, for example, will not convince a Christian psychologist of the non-existence of God nor of the ultimacy of nature.

Consider, for example, this list of passages from Atlas Shrugged, each of which seems to assert some ultimacy for the term in bold (10):

In Hume's account, the philosophical act of thought is structured by three principles which I call ultimacy, autonomy, and dominion.

While preferring Spirit language to that of the Nicene Creed, Thomsen still sees the necessity of affirming what he calls a "fusion of ontological ultimacy with historical-teleological finality" in the church's confession.

The ultimacy of change and the injunction to not consider one's current state as definite do not only urge Kunga to reconsider and reformulate his Buddhism (beyond any fixed ideas or rituals) but also anticipate the Tibetan exodus.

Apophatic pluralism "consists of purely negative, or apophatic, critical observations that deflate inclusivist illusion about the epistemic prowess, normativity, and ultimacy of cataphatic religious doctrines." The book debunks all criticism against pluralism and asserts that it is the only viable model in our globalized world.

Even William Bevis's seminal defense of the poem's meditative logic--in which he affirms its performance of "detachment" (34), its non-pathetic "harmony" (35) with an environment, and its near attainment of "ultimacy and enlightenment" (36)--concludes that the poem "is a dead end" (68), which Stevens corrects, nuances, or improves in his late work.