Church Dogmatics Research Articles

Reconceiving Trinitarian Creatorship and Redeemership through a Dialogue between Robert Jenson and Karl Barth: Soteriological Panentheism

In this article, I explore the significance of the protological and eschatological dimensions of the Trinity, critiquing and building upon the Trinitarian doctrines of Karl Barth and Robert Jenson. The traditional doctrine of the Trinity tends to separate the Triune God’s saving economy, which Barth attempts to reconcile via reclaiming their inseparability in his Church Dogmatics. However, Jenson critiques Barth for continuing to abstract the eternal life of God from God’s act in history and instead proposes an eschatological view of the immanent Trinity as the temporal fulfillment of God’s economic actions. By placing Barth and Jenson in mutual dialogue, I argue for a balanced integration of Barth’s and Jenson’s perspectives, asserting that both the primordial existence and the eschatological fulfillment of the Trinity are critical to understanding the Triune God as the Creator and Redeemer. At the end of the article, I propose a soteriological panentheism that aims to reconcile these dimensions. This scheme highlights the continuous, dynamic interaction between God’s eternal nature and temporal creation.

Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics for Everyone: Volume 1, The Doctrine of the Word of God, by Marty Folsom

Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics for Everyone: Volume 1, The Doctrine of the Word of God, by Marty Folsom

A TUDOMÁNYOK FEJLŐDÉSE AZ OLMÜTZI EGYETEMEN A 17-18. SZÁZADBAN

The Jesuits founded a grammar school in Olomouc in 1566, adding a philosophy faculty in 1576 and a theology faculty in 1582. The document describing the Jesuit educational system, Ratio et institutio studiorum, divided education into three stages, the highest of which was called studia superiora, and included philosophy and theology. From the second year onwards, students studied mathematics, astronomy and geography, and in the third year, from 1637 onwards, ethics. The Jesuits did not pay much attention to the teaching of the natural sciences, as these subjects undermined the authority of the Church and contradicted fundamental Church dogma. As a result, in the second half of the 17th century and the early 18th century, only very sporadic research and education in the sciences developed. Nevertheless, the University of Olomouc did have professors engaged in mathematical, physical and astronomical research, including a number of foreign-born scientists. In scholastic disputations, topics approved by the ecclesiastical authorities, mostly controversial, were discussed. Nonetheless, we do find here scientific topics in philosophy, biology, chemistry, physics and mathematics, although not in as large a number as would have been desirable.

Barth on ‘Preaching Toward Truth’

Karl Barth’s doctrine on “Jesus Christ, the True Witness,” in Church Dogmatics IV/3, is an extremely rich and complex text which – strangely enough – still awaits proper reception within both systematic theology and homiletics. Therefore, this paper introduces Barth anew to us, and then in essence explores this well-kept secret in Barth’s oeuvre. In doing so, it provides a few important keywords which may reveal some deeper truth(s) in Barth’s doctrine of reconciliation and the question of preaching toward truth.

The Sign of Jonah

Abstract The dialectical-theological origins of the politically- and ethically-charged concept of alterity are well-known within the philosophy of religion. Intellectual histories of this concept tie it too exclusively to the notion of distance or διάστασις in Karl Barth’s early Römerbrief, however, and so miss Barth’s Trinitarian reinterpretation of God’s otherness in his later work. Taking as my hermeneutical key a cipher, the ‘sign of Jonah,’ that emerges in Church Dogmatics IV/1, I show that Barth’s mature doctrines of temporality and filiation understand alterity as a moment of divine life. Jesus’ agony in the garden of Gethsemane marks the climax of Barth’s self-reinterpretation: world history inheres within the Christological situation of paternal abandonment. The political-theological conclusions Barth draws from the ‘sign of Jonah’ dovetail with alterity discourses’ antitotalitarian aspirations but suggest that these aspirations’ structural coherence rest on the magisterial Reformers’ Christological and ecclesiological commitments.

“A Special Form of Derangement”: Karl Barth’s Approach to Sport Rooted in Prayer

In The Christian Life, his unfinished volume of Church Dogmatics, Karl Barth describes sport as “a special form of derangement”. Barth identifies sport as a lordless power, an element of society that humans believe they control, but ends up dictating the terms of engagement. Situating his discussion of these powers in his discourse on the third petition of the Lord’s Prayer, Barth calls on Christians to revolt against these things. Readers may shake their heads at Barth’s rhetoric regarding sport and the labeling of it as ‘lordless power’; however, in situating his remarks on the topic in the Lord’s Prayer, Barth provides a new lens through which Christians might view sport. This paper focuses on Barth’s approach to sport, suggesting that Christians can, through invocation and correspondence, rebel against the lordless power that is sport. It begins by situating Barth’s approach to sport within the context of the sport and Christianity interface, the wider corpus of Barth studies, and his own work. After assessing Barth’s writings on sport, the paper shifts to a discussion of what Barth suggests God does and what we, as humans, are called to do when we pray “Thy kingdom come”. The paper concludes with reflections on how Barth’s approach to sport, rooted in prayer, can affect our understanding of the subject.

The Fundamental Word of Christ’s Eschatological Proclamation

Abstract Whether understood as an expression of the inner attitude or disposition of the Christian, as a description of the kingdom’s inhabitants, or as a Christianizing of virtue theory, the beatitudes have generally been read within the framework of Christian ethics. This is as true of the Protestant tradition as it is of others. This essay considers a notable exception to that general approach: the account of the beatitudes as found in Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics IV/2. Read as a “word of grace,” the beatitudes are understood by Barth to be a deepening of the revelation that God is for us, and ultimately so, as the “total savior.” More specifically, this essay argues that Barth offers a christological-cosmological reading of the beatitudes orientated to the saving advent of God’s eschatological kingdom in a “wounded” cosmos subjected to foreign lords, and that he thereby taps into the “apocalyptic” character of these sayings.

Theology, History, and the Modern German University ed. by Kevin M. Vander Schel and Michael P. DeJonge

Reviewed by: Theology, History, and the Modern German University ed. by Kevin M. Vander Schel and Michael P. DeJonge Walter Sundberg Theology, History, and the Modern German University. Edited by Kevin M. Vander Schel and Michael P. DeJonge. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2021. 358 pp. When I was asked to review this volume, I was intrigued immediately by the title. Few subjects are more important in contemporary Christian theology than the nexus of theology and the discipline of history in the context of German university culture. It is important wherever Christian intellectual life is carried on in the global church. When the volume arrived, I discovered it was a collection of fifteen essays. Reviewing a bunch of essays is like herding cats. The introduction by the editors was helpful and accurate, but not sharply focused. If I had been asked to introduce the volume, I would have said something direct and simple like this: In the Early Church, theological reflection was often led by bishops (e.g., Irenaeus, Augustine). In the Middle Ages, monks took the lead (e.g., Anselm, Aquinas). With the coming of the Reformation, and into the Modern World, theology has become largely the province of the academic professorate. (Think of Luther as the last monk and the first professor.) The professorate [End Page 226] is beholden as much to university culture, with its secular canons of criticism, as it is to the church and its articles of faith. In the emergence of the professorate, Protestant faculties in German universities have dominated. A chief reason for this dominance is the role that the discipline of history has played in the development of modern Christian theology. Church history is the youngest branch of theological study, having been first added to the curriculum at the University of Helmstedt in 1750. The editors call this "the historical turn" whose implications "are reflected in the shifting compositions of university faculties and curricula … as universities themselves grew beyond the medieval organizational structures to become centers of historical scholarship" (1). What does one do when faced with the challenge of historical criticism? One possibility is for history to go on the attack. Historical method assumes explanation by mundane causes. Claims about divine incursion and miracle have no place. Seas do not part; the dead do not return to life. Lessing famously spoke of the "ugly broad ditch" separating "accidental truths of history" from "eternal truths." A possible defense is to concede the public record of events and instead assert the interior life as the locus of religion. "Dogmas and doctrines," said Schleiermacher, are "nothing but general expressions for definite feelings." Troeltsch labeled Schleiermacher's strategy an "'agnostic theology of mediation' which recognized the inexact and symbolic character of religious language" (65). To put it another way, "theology springs from … personal conviction and … without it theology is a mere dead letter" (45). Roman Catholics of the "Tübingen School" (for example, Johann Sebastian Drey) sought to harness history. Yes, history teaches that Christian life in the church, and thus truth, are subject to constant change. But this is the work of the Holy Spirit who leads us to the discovery of further revelation beyond scripture (John 16:13). Eternal truth of revelation is not only "being," it is "becoming." History, Bible, and doctrine join together in harmony because the (Roman) church is nothing less than the continuation of the incarnation. As Drey put it, "the primitive history and the subsequent course [End Page 227] of Christianity are in fact one history … Christianity is itself only one reality" (122). This idea helped to make popular the historical/theological discipline known as "the development of doctrine." For Barth, the public record of Christian teaching in the Bible and the history of doctrine produced a rigorous discipline (Wissenschaft) with definite rules determined by the historic Christian community: "church dogmatics." Writing explicitly against Lessing's ugly ditch, "Barth stressed … that knowing God depends on God's own action; we do not reach this goal through a historical inquiry, even if such inquiry may help us understand that God alone is the source of any human knowledge" (307). These are but three examples. In all the essays, we see...

Not a Nevertheless, but a Therefore: Following Philippians 2 with Karl Barth

Abstract This article offers an account of the development of Karl Barth’s interpretation of Phil 2:1–11, from his early commentary on Philippians to his mature reading in §59 of Church Dogmatics IV/1. Philippians 2:1–11 exists at the intersection of two significant loci in Barth studies: one seeking to examine the significance of exegesis in Barth’s theology, and another focusing on Barth’s explication of the command-obedience relationship between the Father and Son in §59 in order to offer insight into the relationship between Trinity and election in Barth. This article finds a major shift in Barth’s exegesis of Phil 2:1–11 in CD II/1. Here, Barth finds in Paul’s “Therefore” (Phil 2:9) indication that the history of Jesus Christ, as narrated by this passage, reveals the essence of divinity. It is argued that when Barth claims in §59 that Christ’s economic obedience must be grounded in his eternal being as Son, he is employing the same interpretive strategy he uses in CD II/1, a strategy which finds its exegetical basis in Paul’s “Therefore” (Phil 2:9).

Репрезентация христианской теологической нормы в кинематографе

The article discusses ways of representing the normative provisions of Christian theology in modern cinema. It is shown that the use of cinematic language for the symbolic display of church dogma does not contradict the Christian tradition, the entire history of which is filled with the search for symbolic means of expressing the gospel kerygma and church dogma. The historically established dominance of philosophical means of representing church dogmas prevents us from seeing this. However, it is hard not to notice that fine and performing arts (of course, in the archaic and medieval sense of them) have always played a significant role in the religious life of Christians. The advent of cinema gave Christian thinkers and artists additional means to interpret theological norms. It should be noted at the same time that the influence of Christian meanings on European culture is so great that the authors of a number of cinematic masterpieces do not necessarily broadcast these meanings intentionally. The review of foreign and domestic cinematography reveals the main themes of Christian teaching, which filmmakers most often turn to: providenciology, soteriology, Christology, and triadology. At the same time, the genre range of Christian and crypto-Christian cinema is quite wide, ranging from realistic dramas to fantasy films. Scriptwriters and directors show extraordinary ingenuity in visualizing the supersensible: divine providence, the co-presence of the divine and human natures in the Person of the Savior, and the Persons of the Divine Trinity. Although it must be admitted that not always their artistic interpretations remain within the framework of the dogmatic norm, it is important to note that the secrets of the success of many cinematic techniques are contained in the practice of church art, in particular in the canonical Orthodox iconography.

Barth's Repetition*

AbstractIn chapter three of volume 1.2 (§19‐21) of the Church Dogmatics, Karl Barth provided one of his most thoroughgoing accounts of the concept of scripture. Throughout, he held in tension the Word of God with the frailty of the Bible's human words. As Barth explored this two‐fold aspect of the Bible, he relied upon the concept of repetition. However, what has not been fully appreciated is how repetition was at work not just in Barth's account of the Word and letter of the text, but also the Bible's book form. In response, the following essay concentrates upon these three aspects of repetition in Barth's thought. First, it evaluates trinitarian repetition and circular imagery throughout the Church Dogmatics. Second, it clarifies how repetition featured in Barth's hermeneutics of the interior letter of the text. Third, it demonstrates how despite Barth's ambiguities on these matters, repetition also included the physical book. The result reframes Barth's relevance to the material study of the Bible, which when viewed in this light can inform critical debate about the openness of technological information cultures today.

Does Barth's understanding of sexual difference conflict with his theological anthropology?

AbstractFaye Bodley-Dangelo argues that in his passive depiction of Eve in the Church Dogmatics Karl Barth truncates the agency of all women, thereby creating conflict between his theology of sexual difference and his theological anthropology, and denying women image-bearing humanity. This article challenges Bodley-Dangelo's characterisation of ideal agency as active self-assertion and self-determination, arguing that for Barth the ideal agent – for which the paradigm is Christ – is one who self-dispossesses in response to the determining claim of the peculiar other.

Language of Ukrainian Apocrypha as a Cultural Code

The purpose of the article is to reveal the communicative aspect of apocrypha recoding in the field of Ukrainian culture. The research methodology. According to the research strategy, a set of general scientific methods and methods of linguistic cultural studies have been used in the work. The conceptual methodological core of the study is the dialogical method, through which the connection of the apocryphal code with the code of a particular culture is analysed; the process of reinterpretation of Ukrainian apocryphal literature is investigated in the chronotope. Scientific novelty. For the first time it was scientifically proved that the Ukrainian Apocrypha is an open system oriented to the dialogue of cultures with different codes, one of the forms of coding, which allows to identify a particular cultural slice, intertext, which integrates an invariant complex of texts based on church dogmas, as well as a variant text complex, determined by the conditions of social life in a particular time period. Conclusions. The reserach is devoted to the communicative aspect of the language of the Ukrainian Apocrypha as a cultural code. The hypothesis of the Apocrypha as an intertext has been put forward and verified.The algorithm of Ukrainian apocrypha encoding dynamics in the chronotope has been traced. The concept of the East-West dichotomy in the linguistic modeling and storylines of Ukrainian apocrypha has been developed and the factors of this dichotomy have been determined. Key words: apocrypha, cultural code, invariance, variability, communication, reinterpretation.

Die verwantskap tussen khôra en die mistiek in M.M. Walters se gedig ‘Die groot stilte’

The relationship between khôra and mysticism in M.M Walter’s poem ‘Die groot stilte’. In view of M.M. Walters’ recent death (28 Julie 2020), it is timeous to pay homage to him by focusing on a lesser-known aspect of his poetry, namely mysticism. This article aims to demonstrate the relationship between the mysterious and enigmatic Platonic concept khôra and mysticism, and to subsequently indicate how this is expressed in the poem ‘Die groot stilte’ (in the volume Sprekende van God). Walters (1929–2020) was mainly a satirist, but also a poet of religious verse. However, he differentiated himself as an unconventional religious poet and alternative seeker of God. He opposed church dogma and believed that Christ should be sought in ways that go beyond simply accepting the church’s teachings. The article opens with a brief survey of the mystical tradition in Afrikaans poetry, after which the poetry of Walters is briefly described. Subsequently, the reception of his anthology Sprekende van God is discussed. After an introductory discussion of the khôra concept, his poem Die groot stilte is analysed in detail, and the relationship between khôra and mysticism explained. Pieter G.R. de Villiers (2020) maintains that Walters created striking poems with mystical content, and that he was often misunderstood by the clergy and orthodox believers as an enemy of religion and the church. Countering this, De Villiers observes that Walters was driven to seek a genuine, credible spirituality. De Villiers finds it unfortunate that this aspect of Walters’ poetry is not sufficiently recognised.Contribution: Based on the analysis and interpretation of ‘Die groot stilte’, the conclusion is reached that Walters can indeed be described as a mystical poet and that his mystical poetry can be regarded as part of the relatively small yield in mystical Afrikaans literature. This article adds to the equally small corpus of academic literature on mysticism in Afrikaans.

Conceiving Mary's Agency: Towards a Barthian Mariology

AbstractThis essay argues for the possibility of a ‘Barthian’ Mariology particularly through an analysis of human agency. I first show that Karl Barth's articulation of Mary in I/2 of the Church Dogmatics marginalizes Mary's agency in part due to his anti‐Roman Catholic polemic and his gender binary. I then correct Barth with Barth by showing how his mature Christology advances an account of human agency commensurate with Mariology. With this Christological account of human agency established, I construct a genuinely ‘Barthian’ Mariology that shows her as the eschatological and prototypical human agent.

Filsafat Islam pada Masa Golden Age dan Kontribusinya dalam Dunia Pendidikan

This study aims to look at the history of the development of Islamic philosophy which in its time influenced world civilization, to find out the famous Islamic philosophy figures and make a very large contribution to this day, some of the theories put forward by Muslims are still used in the modern era such as the ideas of Ibn Sina on tuberculosis (TBC) and ethanol, Al-Khwarizmi's thoughts on mathematics Al-Gebra, discovering the number zero (0), astronomy and many other meritorious scientists. The research method used in this article is a literature study by digging up information about the Golden Age of Islamic Philosophy from various works of literature such as books, journals, articles, and other scientific papers. The results of this study are in the 9th century to the 12th century Islam developed rapidly and influenced world civilization. The development of Islam succeeded in giving birth to Muslim scholars and competing with the West at that time in the Dark Age phase because it was influenced by Church dogma and the inquisition which slowed down intellectual and technological development. Philosophy greatly influences the world of education. Islamic educational institutions developed rapidly through madrasas and higher education institutions at a time when Europe was experiencing its dark period. Islamic education and science in the Middle Ages were supported by Islamic scholasticism, which tried to reconcile Greco-Hellenistic thought with Islamic religious teachings, which reached its peak during the time of Al-Ghazali, and the impressive progress of Islamic civilization in the Middle Ages through Muslim philosophers such as Al-Kindi, Al-Farabi, Avicenna, Omar Khayyam, and others.

Cultural View on the Scheme of the Dome and Altar Painting of the Orthodox Church

The purpose of the work is to show the difference and interdependence between the schemes of paintings of the dome and the altar of the Orthodox Church and their purpose as the most sacred spaces. The research methodology consists in the application of a number of approaches. The analytical method is used to comprehend the literature on the topic of the article; the interdisciplinary method helps to comprehensively study the factual material and obtain new knowledge; and the systemic approach with a whole range of methods (semiotic, culturological, iconographic, field (namely, collection of visual material), hermeneutic, descriptive, comparative, and theoretical generalisation). The scientific novelty of the study is that for the first time the dome and the altar of the Orthodox Church are considered as identically sacred parts of it and at the same time as the most sacred temple spaces, which is reflected in the schemes of their paintings. Conclusions. In the inner space of the Orthodox Church, religious ideas about the ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ world, about the sacred and profane space are concretised with the help of architecture and sacred images recorded in the monumental church painting. In the temple, which is sacred in its purpose, however, there are differences in the expression of holiness. These differences from the point of view of the cultural approach can be marked by the binary opposition "sanctus – sacer". Thus, both the domed and the altar space of the Orthodox Church reflect the main church dogmas and doctrinal truths, which emphasises their sacredness in the sense of sanctus. At the same time, the painting of the sacred space of the dome reflects the Orthodox teachings open to every Christian, while the painting of the altar emphasises that this place of service of the "initiates" is available only to priests, performers of church rites, mainly the Eucharist.
 Key words: sacred space, temple painting, dome, altar, temple painting scheme, sacred, iconographic theme.

God's definite command? Some theological thoughts on a puzzling theme in Barth's ethics

AbstractOne of the most puzzling features of Barth's ethics is the insistence that God's divine command encounters us so definitely and concretely that it simply requires immediate and unquestioning obedience. This article offers an interpretation of these comments by reading them through the framework of Barth's description of the secularity, one-sidedness and spirituality of God's Word in Church Dogmatics I/1. Such a reading suggests that Barth's comments are not promoting a foolproof and immediate way of adjudicating ethical quandaries but orient us to the commanding Lord who goes before us.

Lordless!

Re-reading and interpreting Karl Barth’s narrative of the “Lordless Powers” (Church Dogmatics IV/4: Lecture Fragments/The Christian Life) for our contemporary times of crises, the article argues that prayer indeed leads the faithful towards active engagement with the world and, as Barth puts it, towards a revolt against the disorder of the world. The subversive power of prayer arising from the Christian life as a life in prayer is understood here as a guide from contemplation to action, introducing a new realism and establishing a connection between theological insights and political analysis. The good news this subversive power of prayer brings to light is the Gospel news that neither humanity nor creation are forsaken, but that there is “another possibility” given by God, which does not have to be created by humanity, but which humanity can hasten to meet through the work of the Holy Spirit.

Поэма Ивана Карамазова «Великий инквизитор»: отклик Достоевского на протест архимандрита Феодора (А.М. Бухарева)

The article suggests that the chapter “The Grand Inquisitor” in F.M. Dosto­evsky’s novel “The Brothers Karamazov”, which raises the question of the ne­cessity/undesirability of strict administration in the field of church and social life, is a reflection of the views of Archimandrite Theodore (A.M. Bukharev), for his protests against the infringement of the human right to choose a religious model and social freedom subjected to bullying by conservative circles. In a num­ber of his books throughout the 1860s Bukharev insisted on the need to abandon authoritarianism, he questioned the inviolability of church dogmas in favor of a free spiritual search of a person not constrained by restrictions. Contempo­raries, including A.I. Herzen, commenting on this issue, spoke of Bukharev’s persecutors from the Synod and the “Domashnaya beseda” magazine (The Home Conversation) as “inquisitors” who dealt with the philosopher in the same way as the Spanish religious police did. Bukharev’s main idea was the need for the country and the whole world to move from the generally accepted Old Testament model of political and trade relations between people based on the idea of “an eye for an eye” to benevolent positive ties based on the principle of brotherly love, commanded by Jesus Christ. Dostoevsky laid this idea at the foundation of the ideology of “pochvennichestvo”, as was reported in the “Announcement” about the publication of the magazine “Time”, the organ of the socio-cultural project created by him. The motives and the basic structure of Bukharev’s logic, the idea of the saving power of Christian love, were used by Dostoevsky in all his works written after Bukharev’s death. It was used with the greatest force in the novel “The Brothers Karamazov” for modern readers at the level of hidden allusion, and for contemporaries it was done in the form of an open allusion.