Theological Judgment Research Articles

Preface to theology: Christology and theological method

Preface to Theology: Christology and Theological Method. By John Howard Yoder. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Brazos Press. 2002. Pp. 431. $34.99. That Brazos Press has published John H. Yoder's Preface to Theology: Christology and Theological Method is a mark of boldness of their commitment to publishing substantive theological works. Originally written as content for a course Yoder taught at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminaries from 1960 to 1981, Preface saw limited circulation outside classroom in a paperback edition marketed by seminary bookstore. This edition is given a lengthy and helpful introduction by Stanley Hauerwas and Alex Sider. They do a masterful job of explaining significance of these lectures for an understanding of Yoder, and also helpfully explain aspects of book that are somewhat dated by fact that they represent Yoder's thought and state of scholarship circa 1960. They are right on target in suggesting that reader whose primary knowledge of Yoder is exegetical and ethical work The Politics of will get a much fuller picture of his thought by reading this work, which is a sustained, patient engagement with history of doctrine. The editors have also done valuable work in adding footnotes that clarify some obscure points or references in text. In an Introduction written for A.M.B.S. bookstore publication in 1981, Yoder makes it clear that he is serious about theology and does not accept modern subjectivization of theological judgments. Instead, he writes, ... it is our duty to come to terms with existence of a solid and sizable body of tradition: a host of terms whose precise definition makes a difference, a wealth of experience with ideas whose validity is not strictly correlated with whether they happen to turn me on or not, and a story of both intellectual combat and consensus that challenges our capacity for insight and empathy in most creative cross-cultural (43) No one is a more capable practitioner of this kind of research. Preface is a workbook, and is most profitably read as such. Most chapters begin with a preparation guide, which may consist of questions about assigned scriptures, or questions about supplementary readings in systematic theology textbooks that his students were required to read alongside Preface. Part 1 of book is a sketch of development of Christology in New Testament. Part 2 is a study of post-apostolic development of canon, forms of ecclesial authority and creeds. In Part 3 Yoder deals with eschatology, atonement and revelation, using conventional format developed by Reformed tradition of addressing work of Christ under headings of King, Priest and Prophet. It is noteworthy that Yoder's treatment of New Testament begins with a study of Acts and apostolic kerygma. This should lay to rest misunderstanding that Yoder really operates on basis of a Jesus hermeneutic. His who calls and teaches disciples is who is proclaimed as risen Lord. Particularly brilliant and worthy of close study are chapters 4 and 5, where he traces how writers of Ephesians, Colossians, Hebrews and John contextualize particularity of within their respective cosmologies. (1) One of unifying themes that Yoder traces through various strands of New Testament is what he often calls the of solidarity; that is, literature always assumes unity of disciple-believer with Christ. (2) What he is pointing to is obviously correct, but one wonders whether semantics of phrase logic of solidarity doesn't skew his reading of this reality and not do justice to some aspects of faith union between Christ and believers. What if instead one were to use phrase new life through indwelling power of Holy Spirit? Certainly Yoder would be quite capable of giving this phrase definite historical Christological rootage, concrete ethical content and communal character, and protecting it from subjectivistic and individualist misreadings. …

Moritz von Sachsen, evangelischer Christ und Judas zugleich

Because Duke Maurice of Saxony allied with Emperor Charles V in the Smalkaldic War and did not adopt the attitude of the Ernestine and Magdeburg theologians, his personal religiosity has been called into question. This article shows that, in contrast to such claims, Maurice understood himself as a Christian and Protestant prince. He had his new castle in Dresden decorated with meaningful Protestant images and built a castle church modeled on the church in Torgau. His letters to his wife prove that he was privately also a Christian who prayed to God regularly. When he was mortally wounded during the battle of Sievershausen, he confessed, received Communion and died putting his faith in the Bible. As a Protestant prince he was not only striving for power, but acted out of conviction. As today, the term Judas was used in the sixteenth century to refer to someone who was regarded as a traitor. Maurice was, however, not yet called Judas when he fought on the Emperor's side in the Smalkaldic War, but only after the Diet of Leipzig in December 1548. During his imprisonment at the imperial court, the former Elector John Frederick was regarded as a martyr of the Protestant faith, especially because he refused to accept the Augsburg Interim. When Maurice seemed to carry out the Augsburg Interim by the church order submitted to the Diet of Leipzig and by laying siege to Magdeburg, he could be construed as being the exact opposite of John Frederick. In the interpretation put forward in sermons, theologians and councilors who advised their princes against Protestantism were called Judases. This appellation was transferred to Maurice of Saxony. In popular polemics, not in the writings of theologians or in political correspondence, Maurice was compared to Judas and John Frederick was compared to Jesus. It seems that it was only in the nineteenth century that this theological judgment was turned into a political judgment against Maurice as Judas of Meissen.

‘This nation under God’: The broadcast and film commission of the national council of churches and the new medium of television

Throughout American history that form of Protestantism that designates itself and is publicly conceived as “old‐time religion” has regularly been the innovator in the area of media. In stark contrast, its more staid establishment counterpart has tended to be antagonistic to these new media, dismissing them with harsh theological and aesthetic judgments. In this process, the self‐proclaimed theological conservatives actually behaved in remarkably adaptive and imaginative ways, while the self‐proclaimed liberal establishment often acted as the cultural conservator, pressing for the preservation of the status quo. This article seeks to understand why those Protestants who define themselves as “modernist” and “adaptive” have been far less successful in using the media than their conservative “anti‐modernist” counterparts. The focus is upon a case study—the reception of television by the Broadcast and Film Commission of the National Council of Churches. The conclusion is ironic: those Protestants who depended upon “modern,” “social scientific” criterion to guide their television policies fundamentally misunderstood the power of television and its impact upon society.

The Technological Factor: Redemption, Nature, and the Image of God

This paper begins from the premise that being in the image of God refers humanity neither to nature nor to its technology but to God. Two positions are thereby rejected: (1) that nature should be treated as a source of salvation (Heidegger), and (2) that redemptive significance may be ascribed to technology (Cole‐Turner, Hefner). Instead, theological judgments concerning technologyrequire the reconstruction of theological anthropology. To this end, the image of God (imago dei) is reconceived in terms of sociality, temporality, and spatiality to show how humanity may be understood as imaging God in a technological society.

Die ›subjektivitätstheoretische‹ Bestimmung von »Orthodoxie« bei Joachim Justus Breithaupt (1658—1732)

Article Die ›subjektivitätstheoretische‹ Bestimmung von »Orthodoxie« bei Joachim Justus Breithaupt (1658—1732) was published on January 1, 1999 in the journal Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie (volume 41, issue 3).

Ian Markham's Plurality and Christian Ethics

Ian Markham's contribution to the Cambridge New Studies in Christian Ethics considers plurality rather than pluralism. The distinction is important for Markham. The latter concept is identified with the relationship of Christianity to world religions and with the thought of john Hick. The former is concerned with the fragmentation of culture, both intellectually and morally. Can there be a distinctive, if not exclusive, Christian position in such a world? Plurality is therefore defined phenonemologically: “the reality of differing and conflicting traditions (or world views) arising in differing communities with different histories”. The definition appeals to the divergence of communities, each with distinctive worldviews and identities. Propositional beliefs form only a part of such an identity. Nor does it carry any theological judgment on its desirability.

The First Tractarian Bishop

The Scottish Episcopal Church emerged in 1689-90 when the Catholic King James VII of Scotland and II of England was ousted in favour of his Protestant daughter Mary and her Dutch Calvinist husband William of Orange. Although he preferred episcopacy to presbytery as an ecclesiastical system, no doubt for supposed ease of political control and rather against his theological judgment, William allowed the reformed Church of Scotland finally to rid itself of its episcopalian element. He had very little option, since the bishops felt that they could not break their oath to the deposed and exiled monarch. For that matter, it was only a small minority among the ministers who had presbyterian convictions. At the time, furthermore, it must have seemed that a fresh turn in political events might soon lead to a restoration of episcopacy. Anyway, led by a General Assembly drawn entirely from the south of Scotland, the convinced presbyterians succeeded in forcing out hundreds of ministers in ‘the most drastic purge the Church [of Scotland] has ever known’ (Rosalind Mitchison). It took years to establish Presbyterianism in Aberdeen and the northeast. In and around Edinburgh, however, a fairly fanatical Presbyterian party rapidly prevailed. The grim measure of their fanaticism may be estimated by their success in 1697 in having Thomas Aikenhead, an Edinburgh University student, aged about eighteen, hanged for blasphemy.

Katholische Konzilsidee im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert by Hermann Josef Sieben

Katholische Konzilisdee im 19. und 20. Jahrbundert. By Herman Josef Sieben. Konziliengeschichte, Reihe B: Untersuchungen. (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schoeningh. 1993. Pp. XX, 432. DM 128,-.) The well-known church historian and specialist in councils, H. J. Sieben, has already published major monographs for the series Konziliengeschichte illustrating how councils were understood in the Early Church (1979), in the Latin Middle Ages from A.D. 847 to 1378 (1984), and from the Reformation up to the Enlightenment (1988). In this final volume he tackles the daunting task of describing theological judgments about the nature of councils before, during, and after the First and Second Vatican Councils. The study is a mine of information, replete with numerous astute insights and usual factual data. The book is organized into thirteen chapters. The first of the opening five chapters treats the startlingly modern views of the Italian ex-Jesuit Giovan Vincenzo Bolgeni (1733-1811), whose teachings about the nature of councils anticipated by more than a century emphases on episcopal collegiality that emerged in the writings of Vatican Council II. Chapter two establishes how a gradual shift in the way theologians and historians in the first half of the nineteenth century contextualized Constance's decree of 1415, Haec sancta, prepared the way for Vatican Council I. Chapters three and four contrast the opposing theological assessments of councils first by Henri Maret (1805-1884), the Liberal dean of the Sorbonne theology faculty, in sharp contradistinction to his Ultramontane counterpart, Johann Baptist Heinrich (1816-1891), professor of dogmatic theology at Mainz. The fifth chapter cites numerous articles and editorials from the Jesuit review Civilta Cattolica,, which during the papacy of Pius IX served as a semi-official mouthpiece for the pope's personal theology of councils. Chapter six shows how various new accents shifted the traditional idea of a council's significance that gradually emerged after the papal convocation of Vatican Council I in 1868. After some 00 years without a council, theologians now began to consider a council as holding significance not only for the Church but also, in God's providence, for society at large. A council was now considered to bear witness in the presence of, in opposition to, and for the sake of the world (vor, gegen und fur die Welt). Chapter seven focuses specifically on the years between 1870 and 1908 to show how the dogmatic assessment of the nature of a council actually shifted as historical-critical studies clarified who had de facto convoked councils. …

Critical Junctures: Theological Education Confronts its Futures

During the 1980s, an extensive literature critical of North American theological education appeared. It challenged basic and widely accepted premises of theological study: its orientation toward clerical tasks, its conceptions of theory and practice, and the way studies were structured in a fourfold pattern of Bible, theology, history, and practice. Deploring the fragmentation that clericalism, theory-practice dualism, and disciplinary dispersion had produced, many of the authors called for a unifying theological emphasis, by which they meant that theological study should form habits of intellect and character that enable a person to make theological judgments. In the same period, however, social trends and developments pushed theological schools to diversify, offering new specialized programs for ministers and laypersons as well as new program formats for older, less mobile students. The call for unity and coherence and the countervailing trend toward diversification and diffusion will force theological schools to make choices in the 1990s that will influence the shape of religious life and leadership in the century to come.

Kant's Political Philosophy (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 265 an absolute guarantee of truth. The theory of possibility fails as a replacement for the axiom because it does not fit well into Hume's epistemology: it is not empirical. Kreimendahl turns his attention to Hume's "fork" (relations of ideas and matters of fact), and finds its sources in Leibniz and the theological debates of Tillotson, who was particularly concerned with the question of the certainty of theological judgments . Kreimendahl asks how mathematical ideas, which are not based on previous impressions, can be reconciled with Hume's empiricism, and how it is possible for Hume to distinguish a priori between relations of ideas and matters of fact without violating his empiricism. He concludes that Hume's inconsistency reflects the different and disparate sources he drew upon. To show once again that Hume was inconsistent is to batter down an already open door. Kreimendahl's contribution is to show that this inconsistency has its roots in Hume's rationalism. The most interesting part of the book, to my mind, is Kreimendahrs historical detective work. Kreimendahl overstates, however, the influence some writers had on Hume. To show that Abb~ Pluche and Tillotson held views parallel to those held by Hume is not to show that they influenced him. It is by no means unheard of for two philosophers to come to similar conclusions quite independently. HAMILTON BECK Oklahoma State University Howard L. Williams. Kant's Political Philosophy. New York: St Martin's Press, 1983. Pp. xii + 29u. $3o.oo. In the past fifteen years, a number of books have been published on Kant's politica! philosophy: Murphy (197o), Saage (1973) , Saner 0973), Shell 098o), Riley (a983), and the text of some lectures by Arendt (1981). Howard Williams correctly notes, however, that none of them has succeeded either in showing "how Kant's views on politics square with the major tenets of his critical philosophy" or in establishing Kant as "a political philosopher of the first rank" (vii). In my judgment, Williams's book also leaves those tasks unaccomplished. Nevertheless, it makes a significant contribution to the literature on the topic and compares well with any of the books listed above. It is inappropriate of Williams to advertise his book as showing how Kant's political thought relates to the critical philosophy as a whole, for almost any of the books mentioned above does a better job of that. Williams's book is deliberately written in a "simple" and "modest" fashion, assuming little knowledge of Kant or of political philosophy (vii). This may account in part for the impression of philosophical naivet6 the book often gives. But the objective of showing how Kant's political thought arises out of his critical philosophy is hindered by the author's apparent lack of much knowledge of Kantian metaphysics and by his superficial treatment of Kantian moral philosophy. The book's strengths lie elsewhere, in Williams's thorough knowledge of the Kantian texts on political philosophy, and in his good judgment about the strengths and weaknesses of the ideas expressed there. Williams also refers regularly 266 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY and helpfully to other major political philosophers (such as Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau , Hegel, occasionally also Plato and Aristotle, Burke, and T. H. Green) and illuminates Kant's views by comparison with theirs. Williams begins with a comprehensive, well-written chapter on Kant's philosophy of history which provides the perspective from which he views Kant's political thought. The second chapter on Kant's moral philosophy and the relation of morals to politics is less strong. The next three chapters expound some of the main themes in the First Part of the Rechtslehre: Kant's conception of justice (Chapter 3); his theory of property (Chapter 4); and three other themes in the theory of Privatrecht--punishment , contract, and marriage (Chapter 5)Williams claims that his discussion of Kant's distinction between noumenal and empirical concepts of property "deals neatly with a seemingly intractable difficulty in liberal property theory" (viii). He also claims that "Kant expresses some surprising views on the role of women" (ix). These advertisements, however, appear only to set the reader up for disappointment. The difficulty in liberal...

The Philosophical Interest of the Hebrew-Christian Moral Tradition

THE PHILOSOPHICAL INTEREST OF THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MORAL TRADITION I. INTRODUCTION I BORROW this essay's title from the book I intend to discuss, Alan Donagan's The Theory of Morality, where it serves as the heading of an important section.1 It is striking to find a philosopher of Donagan's stature devoting an entire book to the reconstruction and defense of the moral content of a religious tradition. A survey of ethical theory would show that the question of why one might want to subject such a tradition to detailed ethical scrutiny has rarely been posed in this century, let alone answered in terms that would be convincing to a secular audience. Theologians, when addressing the faithful, usually either assume the answer will be obvious or give an answer only the faithful could take seriously as a source of motivation. The same theologians, when addressing a general audience on a specific moral problem, typically search £or common assumptions in a way that blurs whatever distinctive contribution their religious tradition might make. Secular students of religious ethics tend either to attempt value-free description or to argue on philosophical grounds that the relationship between religion and morality is basically invariant and can he discovered a priori. They thus either studiously avoid giving readers reasons for being interested in their subject or make historical investigation of actual religious traditions seem relatively insignificant.2 1 Alan Donagan, The Theory of Morality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Phoenix edition, 1979), p. !'l6. In the remainder of this article page references to Donagan's book will be given in parentheses in the text. 2 These tendencies in religious ethics are discussed in my book, The Flight from Authority: Religion, Morality and the Quest for Autonomy (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981), chap. IO. 165 166 JEFFREY STOUT Theologians and those secular academicians who specialize in the field called religious ethics have, of course, studied the ethical aspects of the religious traditions; they have, however, said rather little to show why such study might be justified on grounds that are neither theological nor antiquarian. Philosophers , on the other hand, have, throughout most of this century, felt free to dismiss religious ethics as plainly fallacious and therefore not worthy of extensive historical study from a philosophical point of view. It was possible for many years to defend this dismissal merely by citing famous arguments from Plato, Hume, Kant, and G. E. Moore. These arguments demonstrated, so most philosophers thought, that religion must depend logically upon morality, as opposed to the other way around, and that attempts to derive moral judgments and concepts from theological judgments and concepts could not possibly succeed. Not everyone accepted all the arguments: occasional doubts were raised especially about the ones drawn from Hume and Moore, which seemed to threaten not only religious ethics but much else besides. Yet almost everyone accepted at least one of the arguments, and accorded religious ethical traditions a kind of neglect one could hardly term benign . Meanwhile, logical positivism and related doctrines gave independent reasons for deeming religious propositions meaningless or, at 'best, false. On many counts, then, religious ethics seemed an unlikely contender for philosophical attention. Virtually all those who did attend to it did so with polemical intent reminiscent of the Enlightenment's struggle with superstition . Most theologians either ignored the polemics entirely or were too busy retreating to put up a fight. Recently, however, much has changed in philosophy. The same developments in philosophy of language and epistemology that have undermined positivistic critiques of religion, and have thus helped revive philosophical theology as an acceptable vocation for professional philosophers, have also undermined confidence in the standard dismissals of religious ethics.q The 8 For an account of these developments and their impact upon philosophy of religion and ethics, see ibid., parts II and III. THE HEBREW-CHRISTIAN MORAL TRADITION 167 result has by no means been mass conversion of the moral philosophers. Nonetheless, the ethical interest of what Donagan calls the Hebrew..:Christian moral tradition does seem to have re-emerged as a philosophically respectable topic over the past two decades or so. One set of reasons for ascribing philosophical...

Literature and Theology: A Note on some Suggestions of F. D. Maurice

Like the Cambridge ladies of e.e. cummings’ poem, who ‘believe in Christ and Longfellow, both dead’, we most of us indulge in the interdisciplinary performance of literary and theological study. Walking home from the Sunday morning service we appraise both the englishing of the liturgy and the structure of the homily without much thought of whether we are right to mix literary and theological judgments. In this we ought to be encouraged. And we ought to encourage others.It is, perhaps, for such encouragement that an undergraduate asks when he puts his name down for a course advertised in ‘Literature and Theology’ like that proffered at the University of Kent. My acquaintance with such young men and women suggests to me that for them literature and theology are not at first differentiated as autonomous disciplines, for they are experienced as modes and moments of one conversation. Their centre is in the undergraduate talking.Yet the self spinning at the centre is not enough. Those works of literature and theology about which the young people talk witness to the experiences of others and thus become encouragements for them to think of those others. The ‘blessed rage for order’ proclaimed by the poet and the theologian communicates to the undergraduate a sense of their strivings and of his own unordered existence. And, though I intend to indicate here only that ordering of experience which may be suggested to those who attend to literature and theology, I am aware that something of the same discontent affects men in many disciplines and that these have all an interest in the new order.

NOTES ON ISLAM AND DEVELOPMENT

AbstractIn the present paper we are not concerned with a religious appreciation or a theological judgment of Islam, or parts of it. Our starting-point is that of the study of religion, as carried out in history and phenomenology, in sociology and anthropology, in psychology or other disciplines like the study of literature, art and also economy. We are concerned with what Muslims believe about God and His revelation, but instead of giving an opinion we rather listen to what they say about Islam in a time of rapid change which affects all religions of mankind. In these pages we shall deal, after a more general introduction about the Muslims' world (I), first with what Muslims have to say about their own development and some new interpretations of Islam which correspond with it (II). In the second place we shall take into consideration what some specialists have to say about the development of Muslim countries and the role of Islam therein (III).In both cases, of course, we shall have to restrict ourselves to examples referring to some specific countries. In the third place we shall deal with what Christians who are living together with Muslims in Third World countries have to say about "Islam and Development". On closer consideration, however, it became evident that hardly anything on this subject has been written by them, so that this section had to remain rather short (IV). The "Notes" end with some considerations on development and religion in general, including Islam and Christianity (V).

Appeals to Scripture in Theology

Previous articleNext article No AccessAppeals to Scripture in TheologyDavid H. KelseyDavid H. Kelsey Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Religion Volume 48, Number 1Jan., 1968 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/486098 Views: 25Total views on this site Citations: 1Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1968 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Allen Verhey THE USE OF SCRIPTURE IN ETHICS, Religious Studies Review 4, no.11 (Jan 1978): 28–39.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-0922.1978.tb00137.x