Dr Neville Buch
Divine Fire and Human Construction: Roerichism and Non-Realism
Abstract
This essay provides a supportive and friendly critique of Joshua Kyle T. Rovero’s “Beyond_God. On the Basic Theology of Roerichism” (2026), contrasting its “Panenergetic” theology with the non-realist scholarship of Dr. Neville Buch and the Sea of Faith in Australia (SOFiA). Rovero presents Roerichism as a genuinely novel Asian new religion that centres on the “Divine Fire” and the spiritual appropriation of the concept of “Evolution”. While Rovero posits God as an “abstract entity” existing within an Immaterial world, Dr. Buch’s SOFiA scholarship emphasizes religion as a “human cultural construction” used to navigate the social lifeworld. The critique explores how both thinkers seek to resist “denoetization”—the mechanical liquidation of judgment—through different paths: Rovero via the disciplined ascent toward the “Cosmic Fire” and Buch through the “POLICE model” of reflective self-criticism and human authorship.
PDF Article: Joshua Kyle T. Rovero and Neville D. Buch
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Neville Buch
Latest posts by Neville Buch (see all)
- Agency, Cultural Construction, and Synoptic Vision: On Matt Patterson’s Comprehensive Examination in Sociological Theory (2009) – September 20, 2026
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- Salus Populi Suprema Lex Esto. Ciceronian Statecraft, Spinozan Toleration, and Prophetic Praxis – September 19, 2026
