Prorocká úloha církve: Boží jednání v dějinách jako komunikativní dění

Abstract

This study, which was presented at a symposium on Josef Smolík, first analyses how this author understood the prophetic role of the Church. According to Smolík, the prophetic charism makes it possible to discern God’s will for the congregation, the church, and the individual. Smolík, however, refuses to understand the prophetic role of the church as the ability to deduct God’s action from history, or even to look into the details of God’s intentions for the world. Rather, the role of prophecy is to encourage the believer to find his place in a complex world and to develop the right attitude toward it. It seems that the issue of prophecy is not very prominent in the current theological discussion. This is due, among other things, to the great upheavals that the doctrine of providence has undergone in the last century under the pressure of historical catastrophes. Theology has not only learned to be reluctant to attempts at a theology of history, but has also challenged the traditional doctrine of God’s action in the world. Several models of God’s action can be distinguished in today’s debate, of which the communicative model, resting on God’s appeal and human response to it, has gained much resonance. This also brings the topic of prophecy back into play, albeit in a different context. The communicative model succeeds in defending God’s action against the objections of natural science and in giving adequate space to human free action, but at the cost of abandoning the traditional notion of God’s rule over history.