Om Religiøse Følelser og deres Teologiske Værd

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to give a constructive proposal of how to understand the role of Christian affections for theological reflection and work with systematic theology. The last decades have seen an increased interest within different academic disciplines, including theology, in the topic of emotions, feelings and affections, and their significance for human rationality. In a Norwegian theological context, the question of the significance of Christian affections is accentuated by the 250th anniversary of the revivalist and social reformer Hans Nielsen Hauge (1771-1824). Within Pentecostal theology, a consensus has emerged that Christian affections are necessary for right doctrine and right practice to be sustained coherently. However, more work to spell out their relationship in detail is needed. In the first part of the article, I will present a theological understanding of Christian affections, based on the work of Steven Land and Simeon Zahl, exemplified and illuminated by the historical testimonies of Hans Nielsen Hauge and the Thomas Ball Barratt. In the second part, I will give my constructive proposal where I employ «the somatic marker hypothesis» of Antonio Damasio to explain how Christian affections and their positive significance for theological reflection can be understood, in that the bodily conditioned emotional markings of mental images function more properly, which enables the theologian to make more rational choices in her theological work.