Theological Work Research Articles

Conceptualization of the Church Legal Order in the Modern State

The article analyses the church legal order as a component of the general social legal order. It is determined that the unique nature of ecclesiastical law and ecclesiastical legal order is the basis for a new reading of the problem of the relationship between the spiritual and legal principles of society. With the help of a set of modern methodological approaches, the Holy Scriptures and Holy Tradition, codes of canons and social concepts of the Orthodox and Catholic Churches, works of theologians, national legislation and international legal acts, sociological data, press materials are analyzed. The ecclesiastical legal order, and the general social one, is combined with spirituality in that the sphere of the spiritual includes all the intellectual and moral forces of man, his desire for freedom and order. Comprehending the spiritual origins of law and the legal order, the authors assume that they are, above all, spiritual value. The functioning of the church legal order is an argument in opposition to those doctrinal positions that derive the legal order from the law and legality, and emphasises the appeal to the law as its real and reliable basis. Therefore, the concepts of legal order and church legal order are correlated as interrelated, but at the same time different phenomena. Legal regulation of church relations has a dual nature. It is carried out both by legal acts of the church and by the legislation of the state. Such a double dependence creates a vulnerability of the church legal order to the nature and quality of secular law. The subjective structure of the church legal order is also ambivalent. In Ukraine, as in a multi-confessional society, a separate (autonomous) church legal order is inherent in each denomination. Relationships, differences between denominations, interaction or contradictions between them in one way or another affect the state of the church legal order in society, including – the general legal order

Deep Interdisciplinarity and the Work of Political Theology

Deep Interdisciplinarity and the Work of Political Theology

Malay Epistemology as seen in Malay Theological Works Written in Jawi from the 17th to the 19th Century

This paper intends to investigate the issue of knowledge and ways of acquiring that knowledge as it is seen in the writings of Malay scholars in Jawi. Malay scholars chosen here are those who have written on this issue via their many writings. Malay writings on Islam are known simply as kitab, denoting their Islamic heritage and background. Within this kitab genre there exist writings on theology (aqidah), jurisprudence (fiqah), and Sufism (tasawwuf) amongst others. For the sake of this paper, this study is limited to the texts mainly in theology. The aim here is to study issues connected to knowledge to come to the epistemology of Malay thinkers. It is presumptuous to think that Malay thinkers are uniform in their thinking and monolithic in their interpretation of religion. The facts speak for themselves that Malay thinkers comprised of a mixed bunch with many from different backgrounds and teachers, thus making one unified epistemology difficult, if not impossible. This research include those texts which are still being published and read by many around the country and in many instances are influential in the formation of the Malay Muslim mindset. The formation of concepts within the mind and thus making a particular view on Islam had begun with the teaching of these primary texts. Perhaps with the study of this aspect of Islamisation, people would be better equipped to understand the Malay Muslim mind of today.

Twenty-five Years: Logos and My Catholic Life

Twenty-five YearsLogos and My Catholic Life David Paul Deavel Key Words religious conversion, Logos Journal This is the final issue of Logos for which I have served as editor. By the time you are reading this issue, I will have departed from St. Paul, Minnesota, to join the theology department at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas. Leaving the University of St. Thomas for the University of St. Thomas sounds like the verbal equivalent of an M. C. Escher painting or perhaps the plot teaser for a bit of Philip K. Dick fanfiction written by a pious millennial nerd. I am long used to confusions of this sort. The editor of Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies is Adam Deville. Logos, Logos; Deavel, Deville. Confusions aside, I like to think of my move, however, as on one level just an inverted outdoor activity strategy. It’s not quite true, but some people say that everywhere you go, you spend about four months trying to stay indoors as much as possible. In Minnesota that period is the winter, while in Texas it is the summer. The truth is that I am extraordinarily excited about my new position and the possibilities inherent in it. St. Thomas in Houston is a newer (1947) and smaller (about 2,700 undergraduates and 1,300 graduate students), but very dynamic institution. As a member of the theology department, I will have as colleagues Logos contributors [End Page 5] Thomas Harmon, Randy Smith, and Sr. Albert Marie Surmanski. My teaching will be in the graduate theology program, the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston’s St. Mary’s Seminary, and the undergraduate core curriculum. I hope to contribute something to the work of Logos contributors James Matthew Wilson and Joshua Hren, who both joined the university last year to co-found a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program that is “committed expressly to a renewal of the craft of literature within the cosmic scope, long memory, and expansive vision of the Catholic literary and intellectual tradition.”1 There is a lot more to say about my new destination, but this essay is about this journal and my own life as a Catholic, both of which are celebrating their twenty-fifth anniversary this year. The saying, often attributed to Albert Einstein, is, “Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.” I cannot help but think that the coincidence of the first issue of Logos being issued in spring of 1997 and my own being received into the Catholic Church almost simultaneously has to do with the mischievously hidden workings of a God whose Providence puts things together in ways that are often not seen till much later. I will not say that my destiny was to pull the Red Pen Excalibur from a rock and preside at the Round Table of Logos editorial meetings, but one of the reasons I have loved every second of my nineteen years working on this journal (the last six as editor-in-chief) is that the vision that animates it—of seeing how the glory of Christ radiates from and illuminates both Catholic culture specifically and all human culture—is a large part of what drew me to Catholic faith specifically. My first recollection of Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture came a little more than a year after I had been received into the Catholic Church. In the fall of 1998, I was beginning my second semester of graduate work in theology at Fordham University. That time seems another world in more ways than one. Then the internet was beginning to be useful to scholars but had not quite dominated our reading habits in the way it has now. I still had the habit of (and time for) wandering through the current periodicals section [End Page 6] of the university library and flipping through journals, magazines, and newspapers to see what there was in the wide world to know. After assembling a little stack of materials with articles I wished to read rather than skim, I would plop myself down into a chair, spread out, and feast intellectually for an hour or two...

Schleiermacher's Plato by Julia A. Lamm

Reviewed by: Schleiermacher's Plato by Julia A. Lamm F. C. C. Sheffield LAMM, Julia, A. Schleiermacher's Plato. Boston: Walter De Gruyter, 2021. vii + 255 pp. Cloth, $94.99; eBook, $94.99 The contention of this book is that Schleiermacher "changed how we understand Plato." Schleiermacher translated the entire corpus of Plato during a "philological renaissance" in late eighteenth-century Germany that concerned itself with careful translations of classics texts and a historical-critical method. The book shows how that act of translation informed the interpretive principles laid out in his "General Introduction," which proved revolutionary for Platonic studies and informed Schleiermacher's own philosophical and theological work. The book lays out the method clearly, exploring its novelty against the backdrop of Schleiermacher's contemporaries. Four themes emerge. First, there is the "internal method," a philological task informed by historical understanding of the linguistic, literary, and conceptual background. Its significance is set against the backdrop of late eighteenth-century applications of the historical-critical method, which had begun to reject dogmatic commitments, theological agendas, and philosophical systems, in favor of internal evidence and textual interpretation. [End Page 821] Second, where the internal method rejected systematizing dogma, be this in the form of Neoplatonism or "unwritten doctrines," the second emphasized Plato's artistry, which rejected a "piecemeal approach" focused on isolated dialectical arguments. This artistry was the "interpretive key" that exposed the unity of Plato's thought. Following the Phaedrus, a work must be understood as an organic whole; what is scattered must be collected and divided into its natural parts to expose the "natural sequence and necessary relation" in the works. This is applied not just to individual works but to the entire corpus: The dialogues are essentially connected and lead naturally and necessarily from one to the other. So, this came with the commitment that Plato had in mind the full body of material that was to be communicated. Third, Schleiermacher attended to the philosophical significance of Plato's literary brilliance by drawing attention to the relationship between form and content. This rehabilitation of the dialogue form, his most enduring legacy, captured the essentially dialogical, social, and communicative nature of Plato's philosophy. Finally, these principles are deployed to determine the order of the dialogues—by tracing the "pedagogical progression of ideas," which is structured by two series: ethics and physics, of which the Republic and the Timaeus are the culmination. This gave rise to one of the most controversial of Schleiermacher's views: the early dating of the Phaedrus, which contained the seeds of all Platonic doctrines. Though the consensus today largely rejects the early dating, struggling with the difficulties of the Phaedrus was instrumental to Schleiermacher's entire approach and provided clues to the interpretation of the canon. How to read a dialogue was suggested by the image of a logos as a living body, the impulse to philosophy was specified as eros, the method by dialectic, and the ultimate purpose is the kind of communication that brings the student to knowledge, namely, the form of dialogue (whether written or spoken). The suspicion of writing was taken to support Schleiermacher's claim that dialogical form was the essential medium for written texts, offering a model of "truly living instruction." After arguing that these principles shaped a new form of Platonism, the second part of the book turns to how Plato informed Schleiermacher's own work. Lamm takes the Christmas Dialogue first, showing how it manifests the "impulse and method" of philosophy, with "joy" replacing eros as impulse and living, reciprocal, conversation as the method to be celebrated. The Platonic influences are found in formal features, most notably in the overall structure of the Dialogue, which mirrors Schleiermacher's interpretation of the structure of Plato's corpus. Analysis of the second edition of Speeches on Religion (1806) shows how central topics, such as being and existence, opinions versus knowledge, and the association of knowing and acting, were informed by Schleiermacher's decade of engagement with Plato, which motivated fundamental changes to his main argument about "the essence of religion." The Sophist is central: Both the notion of being as generative [End Page 822] and the understanding of...

Dooppraxis en gereformeerde theologie

Christian baptism is a so-called concentrated practice; soteriology, ecclesiology and spirituality come together in this central Christian sacrament. Many questions surround the practice of baptism in a late-modern secularised Dutch society. For example, how is classic Reformed theology received in contemporary congregations? We asked four ministers to write a reflection on issues that are significant in the practice of baptism in their congregations. This article reports on their reflections and points to three areas in which the practice of baptism in contemporary Reformed churches needs further theological work: the didactic structure of Reformed baptismal practices, the divergence between personal spirituality and the pivotal notion of ‘covenant’ in Reformed theology, and the inherent theological understanding of the reality of salvation in relation to baptismal practices.

Exploring a Wesleyan Political Theology

Exploring a Wesleyan Political Theology

John the Theologian and His Paschal Gospel: A Prologue to Theology by John Behr

Reviewed by: John the Theologian and His Paschal Gospel: A Prologue to Theology by John Behr Matthew Z. Vale John the Theologian and His Paschal Gospel: A Prologue to Theology by John Behr (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), xv + 388 pp. Father Behr's book defies summary. Its ambitions span several fields—patristics, contemporary biblical scholarship, speculative systematics, phenomenology—and Behr has controversial proposals in each. The book is not (expressly) a work of systematic theology, but its speculative élan and its ambition to give a normative account of Christian theology's beating heart is unmistakable. If a vice of the book is vagueness on questions of burning Christological, protological, and eschatological interest, among its virtues is the verve and vividness with which it provokes such questions to begin with. Behr has written, not a book on John, but a Johannine manifesto on theology. [End Page 989] The book is a "symposium" in three parts, each inviting a different kind of reader of John's gospel. The first is predominantly "historical" (the early Fathers of the Johannine school, reconstructed by modern scholarship), the second predominantly "exegetical" (contemporary biblical studies), and the third "philosophical," with a single guest in Michel Henry. The book's heart is an argument about what "incarnation" means. When it comes to the Incarnation, we labor, Behr says, under what Quentin Skinner calls a "mythology of doctrine," the hermeneutical fallacy of projecting onto a tradition's classical writers positions and whole doctrinal categories developed only later (6–8). The mythology of doctrine Behr opposes is, in fact, a mythological notion of the Incarnation as "an episode in the biography of the Word" (a phrase from Rowan Williams), the episode when a "pre-incarnate Word" is born as Jesus (3, and throughout). To break the ice on this mythology, part 1 reconstructs an original milieu for John's Gospel—a school of John the Evangelist, centered upon an original Pascha celebration—in which "becoming flesh," "Word," and "human being" mean something other than the dogmatic meanings we project back onto them. This Johannine school is not the Johannine "community" posited by historical-critical studies, but the school of John's "hearers" that J. B. Lightfoot traced from Polycarp of Smyrna, Ignatius of Antioch, Papias of Hierapolis, and Melito of Sardis down to Irenaeus (30–31). Behr's reconstruction makes the following proposals. Our evangelist is John the Elder, the beloved disciple, not the Synoptics' son of Zebedee. This John was plausibly an eyewitness to the crucifixion—alone among the evangelists. He authored both the Gospel and the Apocalypse bearing his name, according to near unanimous second-century tradition (76). The Apocalypse was possibly written before the Gospel, perhaps before the Temple's destruction. John the Elder originated the yearly Pascha celebration, and it remained peculiar to his school until the second half of the second century. This feast originally celebrated the crucifixion, burial, resurrection, ascension, and Pentecost as the single event of the Passion, just as in John's Gospel Jesus's ascension (12:32), glorification (13:31–2), and "handing down the Spirit" (19:30) are identified with the crucifixion. Only later was the Passion's simple white light refracted into the liturgical cycle's rainbow of distinct feasts (91–92, 243). This reconstruction is explicitly speculative. Its purpose is to enliven our imaginations about what the evangelist's vision may possibly be. If the mythological picture of the Incarnation is easily recognized as false, our theological traditions still have not entirely exorcised it from their standard narration. Behr proposes a Johannine narration untroubled by this [End Page 990] mythology. The Incarnation is not a novelty occurring for God at some moment. No previously fleshless divine agent undergoes change to become flesh at some time. The Incarnation must instead be understood "apocalyptically," as the eternal mystery of Jesus Christ being revealed for us in time (256-57). The Incarnation is Jesus's eternal identity as the Word being revealed and wrought in time and pro nobis by the Passion (24, 29, 257, 130). John's Gospel should be read, in John Ashton's words, as "an apocalypse—in reverse, upside down, inside out" (4, 99...

Om Religiøse Følelser og deres Teologiske Værd

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.

The Serious Work of Political Theology

ABSTRACT Political theology has much to contribute toward unraveling the threads that uphold carcerality. As a negative project, political theology offers us grounding for critique. As a positive program, it can help us to stitch together old fragments into new patterns that might nudge us towards an abolitionist horizon. As a mode, political theology is theoretical and practical, historical and futuring. It is multifaceted and capacious. Through this journal issue, we hope to inspire continued pursuit of questions: How might theological discourses and religious practices help to prefigure a world without prisons? How can political theology help dream another world into being? How can political theology against human caging embody a praxis that is legible within the academy but is in full solidarity with those who are in the cages? How might these words on a page be given life in and beyond the practices of writing, teaching, and learning?

Beyond Literal Idolatry: Expectations and Hope in the Field of Narrative Theology

This article examines the role of hope relative to the unexplored potential of narrative theology as a particular mode of thinking. The first section provides a brief introduction. The second section begins by discussing the world of experience as postulated by Alfred North Whitehead: I argue that literal idolatry forms as a specific technology based around the use of symbols. The third section explores the resources of narrative as a centrifugal model of metaphor that serves as a robust alternative literal idolatry: I argue that narratives develop the intellect through pattern recognition and the imagination through empathetic recognition, and then describe how narrative theory’s emphasis on focalized perspectives opens hopeful expectations of the future. The fourth section explores Ricoeur’s work in narrative theology, defining it as a “field” whose dynamic emphasis on tension provides an alternative to the static, “closed circuit” of religious symbols. The final section looks at Colson Whitehead’s The Intuitionist as a contemporary novel that seems to fit with Ricoeur’s stipulations for what generates a field of narrative theology.

Arts of Memory, Ancient Manuscript Technologies, and the Aims of Theology

This article explores how ancient rhetorical theories about the improvement of human memory were applied to manuscripts in the form of paratextual ordering systems. It then considers the intellectual implications of these technological changes in the management of textual knowledge. A sequentially ordered system for dividing textual information into “chapters” or “verses” proved powerful for both mnemonic arts and textual arts. The article next explores a specific example of paratextual technologies in Priscillian of Avila’s fourth-century CE Canones Epistularum Pauli Apostoli, which is one of the most sophisticated cross-referencing systems ever produced prior to printed texts. The article concludes by reflecting on the implications of textual divisions and citation schemes for the work of theology. The test case for this is Priscillian’s “versification” of the Pauline corpus for purposes of textual abstraction (the extraction and reorganization of numerically divided textual parts) in service of theological abstraction (the attempt to create systematic wholes out of the newly reorganized parts).

Fahaman Ibn Taimiyah dan Pengaruhnya dalam Tradisi Kalam

This paper analyzes the ideas and doctrines of Ibn Taimiyah (661-728/1263-1328), an acclaimed Muslim jurist, theologian and reformist in medieval Islam. His juristic opinion and influential kalam and classical school had substantial impact on contemporary Islamic religious outlook, as well as his ideology that deeply impacted the modern salafis movement. This study was conducted based on descriptive and analytical method, deriving its material from library sources, mainly from Ibn Taymiyah’s critical and groundbreaking works as well as from primary and secondary work on him. The finding shows that his theological works had intense and profound impact on classical and contemporary writings of Islamic theology that extensively derived from his fatwa (religious verdict) that informed dynamic understanding of Islam and its religious ideal.

Imagination, theology, and literature (D. W. D. Shaw memorial lecture 2022)

In the first annual D. W. D. Shaw memorial lecture, delivered on 9 February 2022 Prof Paul Fiddes considers the human capacity for imagination, theology, and the literary arts. Looking at the interplay between creativity and order, Fiddes underscores the indispensable role that images play in theology alongside its commitment to concepts, and argues for the necessity of imagination for the work of theology as a response to God’s self-revelation. Without it, he contends, theology finds itself devoid of movement and life, stuck in an attempt to enforce complete conceptual control on imagination’s creations.

Mind, Value, and Cosmos: On the Relational Nature of Ultimacy

Mind, Value, and Cosmos: On the Relational Nature of Ultimacy

Hong Kong Protestant Theologies in the 1980s and 1990s Responding to the Handover of Hong Kong to China

By closely studying primary theological works in Hong Kong during the 1980s and 1990s, this article argues that a uniquely local Hong Kong theology emerged during that period. This local theology developed in response to an unprecedented fear and an ambiguously hybrid identity in face of the imminent transition from British colonial rule to the Communist Chinese administration. Moreover, it was stamped by three distinct marks: first, the negotiation between two competing theological visions, the “prophetic” and the “priestly” voices; second, the shadow of liberation theology and its Asian progeny; and third, the seeds of postcolonial theory, which commanded increasing influence toward the turn of the century.

Проблема «эллинизации христианства» в немецкой теологии и русской религиозной мысли конца XIX – начала XX века: кн. С.Н. Трубецкой и А. фон Гарнак

The article compares the philosophical-theological and historical-religious ideas and concepts of Prince S. N. Trubetskoi, a religious philosopher of the circle of V. S. Solovyov, a historian of philosophy and religion, and A. von Harnack, the largest representative of Protestant liberal theology of the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries, famous for his concept of the "Hellenization of Christianity". The first part of the article establishes the basis for comparing the ideas of the two authors, identifies their starting points and preconditions, and discusses their place in the history of Christian thought in the context of the idea of religious crisis and the dialectic of confessionalization and deconfessionalization. Further, on the basis of recently published "Philosophical Correspondence" of the Trubetskoy brothers, the question of personal acquaintance of the thinkers and its role in the reception of Harnack's ideas in Russian thought is discussed. In the third part, the author reveals the elements of the positive reception of Harnack's ideas by Trubetskoi - on the basis of the data of the same Correspondence and the article "Ethics and dogmatics". The article points to Trubetskoy's perception of Harnack's critique of Orthodoxy, compares their understanding of the significance of historical research for philosophical and theological work, and their interpretation of the religious ideal of the kingdom of God.Part 4 outlines the main points of Trubetskoi's polemic with the German thinker - on the basis of the data from Correspondence, his article "Ethics and Dogmatics", and the major historical theological work of the philosopher, "Doctrine of the Logos in its History". The focus is on questions of Old Church Christology and the problem of the "Hellenization of Christianity," an argument related to the notion of the Jewish origin of Gnosticism. The author emphasizes the significant role of V. Solov'ev's personality and ideas in shaping Trubetskoi's attitude toward Harnack. In conclusion, general conclusions are made about the relationship between Trubetskoi's and Harnack's ideas and about the role of the reception of the German theologian's ideas in the formation of Trubetskoi's own position and the history of Russian religious thought as a whole.

Christic witnessing: a practical response to ecological trauma

ABSTRACT Suffering in the ecological realm exhibits structural parallels with diagnoses of human trauma. Viewing ecological suffering as traumatic allows for recent work in trauma theology to be applied in an ecological context. This article focusses specifically on the breakdown of communication that characterises traumatic events. In the ecological case, this is often a human failure to attend to suffering in the rest of the ecosphere. What is required is a witness to this ecological trauma. Following Shelly Rambo, such witnessing is not about proclamation or imitation, but rather entails simply remaining with the suffering. For Christians, Christ can be one such witness. In his life and his death, he bears witness to the traumas of the earth—especially in his refusal to abandon our wounded world at the crucifixion. And this Christic witnessing provides a blueprint for our own, practical response: not imitating the self-sacrifice, but following the witness. One, tangible example of this is given by the Stations of the Forests resource. Here, the fourteen stations of the cross are recast as a witness to the traumas of contemporary deforestation. Resources like this illustrate how a model of Christic witnessing can constitute a practical response to ecological trauma.

Givenness, ‘Mystery,’ and the Question of Nature and Grace: Reading Marion with the Help of Josef Pieper

AbstractThis essay argues that Jean‐Luc Marion’s theology of nature and grace provides a lens through which to assess his entire project. It considers his thought with attention to the nouvelle théologie movement and issues that arise for a contemporary theology of nature and grace—focusing on the question of a shared human ‘nature.’ The article demonstrates how problematic emphases of Marion’s phenomenological account of the self’s givenness mirror a conflation of nature and grace in his explicitly theological work. It then points briefly to what Marion’s project might gain through the intervention of a key insight from Josef Pieper’s The Silence of St. Thomas. Marion and Pieper engender two versions of apophaticism with divergent approaches to the mystery of our shared human nature. In the light of this, I show how Pieper offers a corrective to Marion’s theology that could make his overall project a better resource for theologians. The analysis results in a constructive proposal for approaching nature and grace through dialogical engagement with the disciplines of phenomenology and theological metaphysics.

Education, Gift, and Freedom: C.S. Lewis’s Idea of a University

This article traces C.S. Lewis’s principles of education, articulated consistently through his fiction, academic writing, and theological works. It argues that, working within the tradition of his Oxford ‘Greats’ education, and through influences like Newman and Tolkien, Lewis envisions education primarily as a form of ‘Gift-love’ between persons. For Lewis, then, the qualities of the teacher and the developing habits of the student are of paramount importance at the earlier stages of education. Lewis, however, distinguishes learning from education to mark the later stages of the student’s progress, a transition from dependence on the teacher to independent exploration of a particular field in which, ideally, the student becomes the teacher’s equal and friend. For Lewis, education aims not primarily at data, research, or self-expression; rather, the end of education is intellectual freedom.