God In History Research Articles

Wolfhart Pannenberg’s Theological Method and Metaphysics

After the rise of logical positivism, even in the realm of theology, there was a trend to give up on accepting the actions of God in history as objective acts and to create an atmosphere of separating faith and reason. Wolfhart Pannenberg’s work presents a compelling integration of theology with the rational and empirical rigors of the scientific age. Through a comprehensive theological method, he aimed to establish a dialogue between faith and scientific inquiry, challenging the exclusivity of logical positivism by proposing a theological metaphysics grounded in the concept of retroactive ontology. Pannenberg’s approach is distinguished by its systematic application of hermeneutics, considering the totality of history as the context for divine revelation, and positioning the resurrection of Jesus Christ as a pivotal event that embodies God’s influence on the world. His innovative ontology, which enables one to consider divine action as objective, seeks to validate theology as a science, engaging with natural sciences to foster a mutual enrichment between faith and reason. Pannenberg’s methodological rigor and metaphysical framework offer a robust foundation for a theology that is both intellectually defensible and deeply rooted in Christian faith, advocating for a theology of nature that reconciles the divine with the empirical world.

God, Religion and History: The Significance of Schelling’s Philosophy of Religion for Determining the Concept of Religion

This article discusses Schelling’s contribution to the definition of the concept of religion in post-Kantian philosophy. In three lines of argument, it is shown that Schelling’s late lectures on the philosophy of mythology and revelation place religion in a history of development in which religion is successively understood as religion. Schelling assumes that religion is independent of reason and is based on a real relationship with God that is connected to the nature of man. This makes the philosophy of religion an independent academic discipline. Schelling links the historical development of religion and the history of God in his concept of monotheism. This is the content of Schelling’s formula that God is the Lord of being.

What to Expect from the God of History

What to Expect from the God of History

Giovanni Moioli's Theological Portrait. The 40th Anniversary of the Milanese Theologian's Deat

Father Giovanni Moioli, who died prematurely on 6 October 1984, is one of the outstanding theologians of the 20th century and a representative of the so-called Milan School of Theology. He left behind many theological works, especially on the theology of spirituality, Christology, sacramentology and eschatology. The vast majority of them were published in Opera Omnia, while minor unpublished ones have been deposited in an archival collection dedicated to him. Undoubtedly, at the center of his theology is the revelation of Jesus the Son of God in history an exceptional and one-of-a-kind individual. The acceptance in faith of this particular Jesus determines not only the shape of theology as a science, but also the experience of spiritual life. The article presents a synthetic look at the history of his life, scientific legacy, wishing to encourage the reader to learn more about him and his scientific achievements, which is further provoked by the 40th anniversary of his unexpected death.

В.Я. Брюсов, Н.Ф. Федоров и деятели Федоровианы 1900–1920-х годов: вопрос о смысле и целях искусства. Статья первая. О чем спорили Брюсов и Федоров в доме Ю.П. Бартенева

The article is the first part of the study of the problem of spiritual and creative dialogue between the founder of Russian symbolism V.Y. Bryusov and the philosopher of common cause N.F. Fedorov. In the works of Russian and foreign researchers, this dialogue was studied by V.Y. Bryusov, in terms of the poet's interest in cosmic themes, in the context of his theory of scientific poetry. In this study, the focus is on the question of the meaning and purpose of art. For the first time, with the involvement of new, including archival sources, the reaction of N.F. Fedorov to the meeting with V.Ya. Bryusov, held on April 20, 1900 in the house of Yu.P. Bartenev, is considered, it is shown how the ideological dispute that arose during this meeting was reflected in the late work of the philosopher. The content of the dispute and the interrelation of its two themes – the possibility/impossibility of overcoming death and the attitude to the ideas of F. Nietzsche are revealed. Fragments of articles and notes written by N.F. Fedorov, in which his dispute with V.Y. Bryusov is mentioned, are analyzed. N.F. Fedorov's perception of decadence is reconstructed, the philosophical complex of which, as well as the ideas of the new religious consciousness, the philosopher associated with the spiritual crisis of the fin de siècle era, contrasting them with the idea of active Christianity, man's cooperation with God in history. It is shown how N.F. Fedorov's liturgical aesthetics is formed in the polemic with Nietzschean aesthetics and decadence aesthetics, in the center of which is the image of art as an extra-temple liturgy. The relation of N.F. Fedorov to the current of symbolism, to which he opposed the religious understanding of the symbol, is considered.

Seeing All Things in Relation to God

This essay argues that a theology of the intellect is key to understanding the being and calling of a Christian University. It seeks to provide an understanding of the unique foundation and shape of Christian learning by showing that the intellect is a divine gift. Christian thinking and scholarship begins with the mystery of the triune God because the principal object of Christian thinking is the triune God and God’s action in and through Christ. Setting the intellect within the history of God’s reconciliation of all things in Christ lays bare the underlying rationale for Trinity Western University’s guiding vision: “every graduate is equipped to think truthfully, act justly, and live faithfully for the good of the world and the glory of God.”

Осмысление исторического процесса в богословском наследии Оригена Александрийского

Introduction. Origen of Alexandria is a large Christian thinker who worked in line with the philosophy of Platonism, Neoplatonism and the emerging Christian tradition. He is a significant figure, both in Christian theology and in the history of philosophy, who especially strongly influenced the medieval period of the development of philosophical thought. Although the theologian did not leave an integral historical concept, he constantly addressed the problem of history in his numerous works. A special feature of Origen’s theological ideas about history is the combination of literal and allegorical approaches to it. Theoretical analysis. The author attempts to recreate a holistic picture of Origen’s ideas about the world-historical process on the basis of preserved works. The providential action of God in history is described. The central role of the Divine Logos – Christ is highlighted. Origen’s eschatology is considered separately as the doctrine of the end of world history. The role of the doctrine of universal salvation as the restoration of the original world order and the meaning of the entire world historical process is revealed. Conclusion. The author concludes that human history, according to Origen, is a part of the world cosmological process and the reflection of it on the Earth. It is the result of a global catastrophe and should contribute to the restoration of the original order.

Los rostros bíblicos de María: Exégesis y hermenéutica bíblica feminista by Mercedes Navarro Puerto

Reviewed by: Los rostros bíblicos de María: Exégesis y hermenéutica bíblica feminista by Mercedes Navarro Puerto Barbara E. Reid mercedes navarro puerto, Los rostros bíblicos de María: Exégesis y hermenéutica bíblica feminista (Estudios Bíblicos; Estella: Verbo Divino, 2020). Pp. 335. Paper €32. This splendid book is the fruit of decades of study by Mercedes Navarro Puerto, beginning with her studies at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, which resulted in her first publication, María, la mujer: Ensayo psicológico-bíblico (Madrid: Ediciones Claretianas, 1989). This new book aims to give coherence and systematization to the work that has been done in the intervening decades, offering perspectives on Mary that are liberative. Navarro Puerto's method is primarily narrative, while also incorporating the fruits of historical criticism and other newer methods. Her hermeneutical lenses are feminist and psychological. The latter approach is important in that cognitive psychology now recognizes the critical role that narrative plays in the organization of the mind and the ways in which we process reality and construct identity and social interaction. The ways we construct the narrative about Mary are as important, N.P. argues, as how we tell the story of Jesus. N.P. notes that the Mary that most Christians construct is based on cultural memory and a composite of brief mentions of her in the Gospels. Thus, N.P. examines carefully each reference and allusion to Mary in the NT texts, showing quite distinct portraits that emerge. [End Page 504] She pays attention to both the cultural context from which the texts emerge and that into which the texts are inserted now. Throughout, she urges her readers to resist portraits of Mary that serve to advance patriarchy and sexism. Part 1 treats the Gospel of Mark and is titled "Socio-Familiar Ruptures and Transformations." At the outset, Mary is grouped with family members, characterized as mother and the one who heads the family delegation to confront her son (3:31). As Jesus redefines his family (3:33–35), mother is situated with brothers and sisters in a community of equal relations. Mother is no longer defined biologically but is a vocation defined in relation to followers of Jesus. Reading "Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses" in 15:40 and "Mary, the mother of James" in 16:1 as Jesus's mother (in light of 6:3), N.P. sees Mary as having made the choice for discipleship. Part 2 is devoted to Matthew: "At the Crossroads of Life." N.P. gives the bulk of her attention to the infancy narratives. From the genealogy, the reader sees Mary as one in a long line of women whose refusal to remain victimized calls attention the divine presence in the history of God's people, a presence that is not limited by patriarchal structures. The genealogy has an anticipatory function, preparing the reader for categories of discipleship proposed by Jesus that distances his group from familiar structures. Going forward from chap. 2, Matthew orients the characterization of Mary in relation to her son. She is mother above all. As in Mark, Mary moves from being identified as mother to becoming a disciple. The "other Mary" in 28:1 is Jesus's mother, identified as "Mary the mother of James and Joseph" who witnessed the crucifixion (27:56), and the "other Mary" who saw where the body was laid (27:61). In the third part, N.P. treats the works of Luke: "Lights and Shadows of a Woman." Like other feminist scholars, she sees Luke 1:26–38 as both an annunciation of birth and a call story to a prophetic vocation, as exemplified in 1:39–56. Mary's role as interpreter is underscored in 2:19, 51. As one who hears the word and puts it into practice, she moves, as in the other Synoptic Gospels, from mother to disciple. Located in the center of the disciples at Pentecost (Acts 1:14), Mary holds the living memory of Israel, the memory of Jesus, as his mother, and the memory of his new family of followers, for whom she exemplifies...

The Sidney Sperry/Heber Snell Debates: Critical Biblical Scholarship and Mormon Tradition

The Sidney Sperry/Heber Snell Debates: Critical Biblical Scholarship and Mormon Tradition

Tungdunge Mundhum Establishes a Link Between the Sen and the Samba Dynasties

Mundhum is knowledge. Kirat's Mundhum is comparable to the Hindu Vedas. Some even consider it folklore. The culture of Kirat was formed by combining Mundhum's wisdom and philosophy with faith. Tungdunge Mundhum is the story of Kirat Samba's ancestral relationship, empowerment, and travel details. Tungdunge used to be their ancestral deity to be worshipped every three years. Kirat Limbu is an indigenous group living in Eastern Nepal, India, Bhutan, and abroad. Different surnames identify them, and one of them is Samba Phyang. The study attempted to examine facts to connect the epic and genealogy. This research investigated the historical, archaeological, and biological context. King Kokaha-Baraha used to be considered a god in history and genealogy. Tungdunge was the youngest son of King Kokaha-Baraha in Koshi Baraha region. He belonged to the Sen dynasty. His journey described in the myth began from Koshi-Baraha to the Mewa Khola in the 17th century. In the Socio-biological approach, the gene directs the path to kinship. He had travelled to Mewa Khola searching for his brother, and Samba welcomed him. This Mundhum attests to the Sen and Samba families' ties. It was a historical case of Eastern Nepal similar to the socio-biological model explained. The Shreng and Samba lineages arose from the Sen dynasty, according to history and mundhum. As a result, the Sen dynasty is the forefather of Samba families, including Phyang.

Catholic Doctrines on the Jewish People after Vatican II by Gavin D'Costa

Reviewed by: Catholic Doctrines on the Jewish People after Vatican II by Gavin D'Costa Lawrence E. Frizzell gavin d'costa, Catholic Doctrines on the Jewish People after Vatican II (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019). Pp. 240. €80. The potential for the impact of biblical scholarship on the modern world is profound and wide-ranging. Since the 1950s the collaboration among scholars of various religious heritages has been enriching in many ways. This has included a fruitful contribution by Jewish experts on the Hebrew Bible and its interpretation, moving from the varied literature of the Second Temple period to the rabbinic era and beyond. Now theologians are reviewing [End Page 132] the impact of these insights on the way the Christian message intersects with the Jewish people and their heritage. The book under review tackles a number of issues that flow from the Second Vatican Council's application of biblical studies to the Catholic faith with an impact on contemporary Catholic–Jewish relations. The four Constitutions of the Second Vatican Council laid the foundation for the spiritual life and practices of Catholics. From these flowed the Decrees and Declarations regarding Christian ecumenism and interreligious relations. All the texts are addressed to Catholics, but many other people are affected by the integration of the council's teachings into the worship and moral life of Catholics. The interpretation of the sacred Scriptures in scholarly settings has an impact on the prayer and practices of the faithful. In many areas the council documents lay a foundation for guiding Catholics into a deeper appreciation of the church's teaching. Gavin D'Costa has explored the developments of the council's insights, especially the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium) and the Declaration on the Church's Relation to Non-Christian Religions (Nostra aetate). He draws attention to the series of documents that interpret and apply Nostra aetate to the teaching of Catholic doctrine. He studies these texts in detail, along with papal encyclicals, statements, the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992), and the Pontifical Biblical Commission's The Jewish People and Its Holy Scripture in the Christian Bible (2001). D'Costa's conclusions are summarized as follows: "The full authority of the magisterium stands behind the biblical teaching that the covenant with biblical Israel, God's people, is irrevocable (Romans 11:29)." This prepares for a doctrinal implication: "The cultic religious rituals of Rabbinic Judaism are alive and lifegiving, not dead and deadening," as was taught by Augustine and Aquinas (p. 188). The land is central to the covenantal promises to Israel. D'C. favors "a minimalist Catholic Zionism." This means that the founding of the State of Israel may be the working of God in history in relation to God's chosen people. However, this position "cannot underwrite any form of Israel government or political messianism . . . nor can it keep quiet about the just cause of a Palestinian homeland" (p. 189). The question of mission to the Jewish people is placed within "the necessity of witness to all those who do not know Jesus Christ and his Church. This witness cannot compromise the freedom of religion or be coercive in any manner. . . . [The] emerging Jewish Catholic ecclesia has a special witness to offer; it is possible to follow Yeshua and remain a Jew and be a Catholic . . . within the Catholic Church that is qualitatively made up of "the church of the circumcision and the church of the gentiles" (p. 7) (see Gal 2:7). D'Costa presents the magisterial authority for his conclusions flowing from the council in developments grounded in the teachings of the last three popes and three written statements of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity in 1974, 1985, and 2015. D'C. studies these documents and that of the Pontifical Biblical Commission. "They point to a trajectory that is supported by a range of existing magisterial teachings. They are advanced in this book as strong candidates for how the Church might develop its doctrinal teachings about God's Jewish people, both in their reaction to such theologies and more importantly from their faithful following of God's demands. In this process, the Church is also slowly discovering...

The relationship between the priesthood and the church from the perspective of unity

The Church is the extension of the resurrected body of the Son of God in history and in the believers as totality, believers that through baptism and chrismation become her living and active members. The relationship between the sacramental priesthood and the Church can only take place in perfect unity, the Church being absolutely necessary for salvation. Without the historical Church of Christ, namely the laboratory where salvation is being accomplished, humanity would remain subjected to sin and death, unable to know the perfection for which it has been created. Only by getting closer to Christ through the visible hand of the sacramental priesthood in the Church through the Holy Sacraments, the relationship between the Divine and humans acquires a different meaning, and humanity receives a meaning that goes beyond the materiality of the world.

Faith and Evolution: A Grace Filled Naturalism

Faith and Evolution: A Grace Filled Naturalism

Unwrapping the Spectacle

In this article, I explore how Augustine uses sermonic rhetoric to bring about the transfiguration of Babylon, the city of humankind, into Jerusalem, the city of God. Focusing on Enarratio in Psalmum 147, I show how Augustine situates his audience between two spectacles, the Roman theater and games and the eschatological vision of God. Augustine seeks to turn his hearers’ eyes and hearts from the one spectacle to the other, from the love of this world to love of the next. In the process, Augustine wages battle on two fronts: he criticizes pagan Roman culture, on the one hand, and Donatist Christian separatism and perfectionism, on the other. Through his preaching, Augustine stages yet another spectacle, the history of God’s mercy and love, whereby God affirmed the world’s goodness by using it as the means of healing and transfiguration. Indeed, Augustine does not simply depict the spectacle of salvation; he seeks to make his hearers into that spectacle by exhorting them to practice mercy, thereby inscribing them into the history of God’s love and helping gradually transfigure them into the heavenly Jerusalem.

Wiara kształtowana przez Objawienie. Refleksja nad wiarą jako „adekwatną odpowiedzią”


 
 
 Faith is not man’s own project, but his adequate response to Revelation, the personal self-giving of God in history. Because the initiative of Revelation is an absolute condition for the possibil- ity of faith, it gives faith a concrete shape — the specific features of Revelation shape the way faith is formed. The first feature of Revelation is the fact that the Word of God spoke in the human word, that is why faith is not a direct view of the Divine, but it is carried out by reception of what is immanent. The next feature of Revelation is the dialectic of the self-revealing and self-veiling of God. Faith in a natural way is thus stirred with questions, it cannot be manipulated and possessed. The third feature of Revelation, the one that most affects the specific shape of faith, is the fact that it was ultimately accomplished by the Divine Person of the Logos who accepted human nature. Historically becoming the person of Jesus Christ, who is the “universale concretum”, and living in a specific time and space, he embodies in himself the ultimate saving will of God for every human being. The bond with the saving God is accomplished through a bond with Jesus Christ, present today in his Body, which is the Church.
 
 

Konsep Ketuhanan dalam Filsafat Postmodernisme Perspektif Karen Amstrong

<em>Postmodernism is a critical reflection on the paradigms of modernism an the era of the rise of religious spirituality. This study discusses about the concept of God in philosophy of postmodernism. The existence of God and religion has always incited discourses throughout the history of mankind. The unresolved debates spawning a variety of viewa are distinctive one to another and even contradictory. The discussion uses philosophy of divinity in perspective of Karen Amstrong in order to obtain a through and fundamental understanding of the nature of faith in perspective of Karen Amstrong, author of best selling books, “History of God” and “The Future of God”.</em>

The Liturgy of Creation: Understanding Calendars in Old Testament Context

The Liturgy of Creation: Understanding Calendars in Old Testament Context

Learning Theology In The Struggle For Freedom

In his work as a scholar and educator, James Cone developed leaders. He built a network of scholars, clergy, and activists committed to the power of God in history and to the role of the poor and dispossessed in realizing earthly freedom. Cone’s courses began with the situatedness of the theologians being studied and always returned to the problems of the world that theologians sought to answer. He challenged his students to do the same, identifying and answering the crises of our communities, doing theology in the struggle for justice and liberation. This is one of several short essays presented by recent students at a public forum at Union Theological Seminary after his death in 2018.

Naming Pharaoh's World and Ours

Naming Pharaoh's World and Ours Mary Emily Briehl Duba (bio) I teach a course called Who is God? and, to echo another theologian, "only fools [could] do it without fear and trembling."1 The class is designed to introduce undergraduates to Christian faith and practice and to invite them to consider further theological study. Like all courses at our Christian liberal arts university, it also seeks to form persons for lives of integrity, justice, and compassion in our world. In my Who is God? class, we follow a pattern inspired by Letty Russell's "spiral methodology" of theological reflection and action.2 Together, we cycle among questions of who we are (reflection on self and world), who God is (reflection on biblical and theological traditions), and how we're called to live (action and practice) in a continually thickening spiral. Reading the creation stories of Genesis, for example, we encounter who God is as Creator, which sends us into new articulations of who we are as relational and vocational creatures, and how we are called to lives of ecological care and kinship. Entering this spiral requires skill building. It takes practice for students to read biblical texts theologically, and it also takes practice for students to reflect well on their own world: to perceive the world clearly, to name it truthfully, and to do so as an act of critique, freedom, and transforming love.3 One way my students do this work is in guided theological journal exercises. This semester, one journal prompt provoked particularly rich insight for both students and teacher. We were reading about the exodus and who God is [End Page 179] as Liberator. Students nodded along as we read about Moses parting the sea and leading the people out of Egypt into freedom. In our discussion, it became clear that while students followed the narrative, they were not able to connect this image of a Pharaoh-pestering, liberating, way-making God to our own world and its systems of domination. They weren't making the move from who God is to a deeper account of who we are as people made for full humanity, but who nevertheless keep recreating systems of dehumanization and exploitation—again and again. My students weren't making the move, I soon realized, because I was trying to "name the world" for them, to tell them about our world and the hunger for freedom and full humanity. They needed to do this world-naming, consciousness-raising work for themselves.4 The next day, we returned to the book we were reading together: Daniel Erlander's Manna and Mercy: A Brief History of God's Unfolding Promise to Mend the Entire Universe. The book is filled with Erlander's whimsical and theologically potent hand-drawn cartoons. In the chapter on the exodus, Erlander illustrates the system of Pharaoh's Egypt. At the top of the triangle-shaped hierarchy of power is Pharaoh himself, richly enthroned and ordained by a god figure. Beneath him on the pyramid of power, we find the royal family, then the administrators and other "big deals," then ordinary citizens, and, at the wide bottom, "slaves, slaves, slaves, slaves, slaves." Along the left side of the pyramid is a representation of the priesthood blessing this system of domination and, along the right, a depiction of the military defending it. "This is the way it is," the caption proclaims, "and the way it will always be."5 My students dug in, engaging questions of critical analysis. How is power arranged in this system? Is this the way it always has been? Who benefits from thinking that it is? Who is the god who blesses this system? It wasn't long before one student said under his breath: "Sounds familiar." That night, I asked them to draw their own pyramids of power in their journals, this time depicting our own world, as they see it. Then they were to describe why they drew it the way they did. Who has power? Who longs for life and freedom? Who blesses and defends this system? What vision of god ordains it? Is this the way it has always been, the way it always...

“I am Dark and Lovely”: Let the Shulammite Woman Speak

ABSTRACTIn this article, I not only interrogate black Pentecostal women’s complex engagement with their bodies through traditional ideas of holiness but also construct more liberative ways forward in thinking about sexual desire, sexual agency, and the celebration of black women’s flesh through engaging a scriptural resource, the Song of Songs. A part of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible, Song of Songs introduces the reader to a woman who is “black and lovely,” who initiates sexual encounters, who roams the streets looking for her lover, who speaks openly about her sexual desires, and who does not refer to herself as married in this quest for sexual freedom and communion. Drawing on womanist biblical scholarship, this text holds eroticism within the history of God, centring black women’s sexual agency. The Song of Songs offers critical theological resources that can critique and expand the present Pentecostal imagination surrounding black women’s sexuality.