The “Self”, its vicissitudes and possibilities: An essay in theological anthropology

1986 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
James N. Lapsley
Keyword(s):  
Theological Anthropology ◽  
The Self

Review of Wolfgang Vondey’s Pentecostal Theology: Living the Full Gospel

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-31
Author(s):  
Steven M. Studebaker
Keyword(s):  
Theological Anthropology ◽  
The Self ◽  
Systematic Theology ◽  
Spirit Baptism ◽  
Pentecostal Theology ◽  
The World ◽  
Full Gospel ◽  
The Individual ◽  
New Phase

Wolfgang Vondey’s Pentecostal Theology is a creative, constructive, and far ranging contribution to the development of Pentecostal theology. Grounded in the Pentecostal experience of the full gospel, it provides both a fundamental Pentecostal theology and a Pentecostal perspective on major categories of systematic theology. The book marks a new phase of efforts to develop a comprehensive or systematic Pentecostal theology by starting with Pentecostal concerns and developing a theology in terms of them. This review focuses on Vondey’s discussions of creation (ch. 7) and theological anthropology (ch. 8), in which he argues that a Pentecostal theology of creation and eschatology does not conclude with God razing the world, but with the Spirit’s renewing creation. Furthermore, although Spirit baptism transforms the individual, the purpose of that individual transformation is to lead beyond the self and to create a community of sanctified life. Spirit baptism leads those who receive it into the world to live for all people.

scholarly journals Memory, embodiment, ethics: In conversation with Wentzel van Huyssteen’s work on theological anthropology

2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Vosloo
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Personal Identity ◽  
Theological Anthropology ◽  
Paul Ricoeur ◽  
Memory Studies ◽  
The Self ◽  
The South ◽  
Theological Discourse ◽  
Paul Ricœur ◽  
Key Features

This article focuses on Wentzel van Huyssteen’s work on theological anthropology, attending especially to his emphasis on the temporal and narrative dimension of personal identity. In this regard, Van Huyssteen draws on the thought of Paul Ricoeur, including his view that memory is the gateway to the self. With this in mind, the first part of the article highlights some key features of Van Huyssteen’s engagement the last decade or two with the question what it means to be human, namely the affirmation of interdisciplinarity, embodiment and vulnerability. The argument is put forward that Van Huyssteen’s work invites and displays the need to uphold the interconnections between embodiment, memory, vulnerability, imagination and empathy. It is furthermore claimed that his constructive proposals ‘in search of self’ should be seen as inextricably connected with its crucial ethical and theological motivation and contours.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article focuses on the South African theologian Wentzel van Huyssteen’s work on theological anthropology. He is internationally renowned, and this article discusses key features of his views and brings it into conversation with the work of the philosopher Paul Ricoeur and perspectives from memory studies. As such, it presents a novel engagement that can enrich systematic theological discourse.

scholarly journals Gratitude to God: Jonathan Edwards and the Opening of the Self

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-131
Author(s):  
Kyle Strobel
Keyword(s):  
Theological Anthropology ◽  
The Self ◽  
Jonathan Edwards ◽  
Divine Love ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Recent Interest ◽  
Natural Counterpart ◽  
God's Grace ◽  
To Receive ◽  
Meaningful Research

Abstract: The study of gratitude has become an increasingly important topic among psychologists to address the nature of human flourishing. Of more recent interest is how gratitude to God specifically functions within an account of human flourishing, with theologians seeking to provide a distinctively Christian account of the nature of gratitude. This article enters into the ongoing conversation by attending to Jonathan Edwards’s (1703-1758) theological anthropology and development of natural and supernatural gratitude. In particular, Edwards’s anthropology includes within it an account of how the self can, and should, enlarge to receive another in love. This “enlargement” is the creaturely mirror of God’s self-giving and is the supernatural response to the creature who has received God’s grace and been infused with divine love. As a supernatural response based on God’s action in the soul, this account of gratitude differs from its natural counterpart. On Edwards’s account, therefore, there is a need to develop studies that differentiate natural and supernatural gratitude. Furthermore, this article ends with a suggestion for a study that could pick up this task based on recent psychological studies that attend to how gratitude affects self-relation. On Edwards’s account of the enlargement of the self, as well as his notion of supernatural gratitude, there is meaningful research to be done on how these can help assess development in the formation of gratitude and human flourishing.

Bonhoeffer and Bowen Theory: A Theological Anthropology of the Collective-Person and its Implications for Spiritual Formation

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 176-192
Author(s):  
Jeremy M. Rios
Keyword(s):  
Systems Theory ◽  
Spiritual Formation ◽  
Theological Anthropology ◽  
Family Systems Theory ◽  
The Self ◽  
Bowen Theory ◽  
Common Practices ◽  
Sanctorum Communio ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Theological Vision

Accounts of spiritual formation which depend overmuch on individualism are likely distorted by that individualism, and this article argues that an account of collective-personhood can provide a necessary corrective to this anthropological distortion. The article begins by diagnosing the problem of individualism in formation, utilizing Charles Taylor’s Sources of the Self, and critiquing several common practices of spiritual formation. Following this, we consider Bonhoeffer’s theological vision for the collective-person from his first book, Sanctorum Communio. Next, we examine Murray Bowen’s Family Systems Theory to help us envision, from a social scientific perspective, how such a collective-personhood might look. The article concludes with a provisional model for spiritual formation of collective-persons.

Issues of naturalism and supranaturalism in Tillich's correlation of religious with psychological healing

1997 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
John P. Dourley
Keyword(s):  
Theological Anthropology ◽  
The Self ◽  
Existential Anxiety ◽  
Religious Healing ◽  
Psychological Healing ◽  
Method Of Correlation

This article shows that Tillich's understanding of the relation of religious to psychological healing rests on the theological anthropology which informs his method of correlation and his understanding of the relation of essence to existence. Through these categories Tillich understands religious healing as essentialization and psychological healing as removing pathological responses to ontologically inescapable existential anxiety. The article summarizes the three locations in his work where Tillich establishes the above positions, argues that they are too clearly drawn and contends that the correlation of his own thought with contemporary psychologies of the self would effect a happier understanding of the relation of religious to psychological healing.

Between Religiosity and Spirituality: Christianity and the Reemergence of the Immanentist Spiritualities

2018 ◽  
Vol 75 (2) ◽  
pp. 234-247 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Chinedu Nweke
Keyword(s):  
Theological Anthropology ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
The Self ◽  
First Century ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
The West ◽  
Spiritual But Not Religious ◽  
Spiritual Theology ◽  
Religiosity And Spirituality ◽  
New Age Spirituality

The reemergence of immanentist spiritualities, from New Age spirituality to African traditional spiritualities, has been indicative of the twenty-first century. The influx of these spiritualities in the West has ripples of implications to Christianity. At the least, spirituality has been separated from religiosity, with some people identifying themselves as “spiritual but not religious” (SBNR). This work explores the triangular formulae of new spiritualities (the self, nature, divinity) to understand the intricacies of this divergence between religiosity and spirituality, and the implications for Christianity. It argues that theological negligence might not have directly caused the reemergence of many spiritualities, but it warranted the exit of many Christians into the new spiritualities. Through the appraisal of theological anthropology, natural theology, and spiritual theology, it suggests a reprioritization of Christian theology and a constructive relationship with the new spiritualities.

Human and Divine Love Cocreating the Self

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalia Marandiuc
Keyword(s):  
Theological Anthropology ◽  
The Self ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Divine Love ◽  
Human Subjectivity ◽  
Universal Love ◽  
Human Desire

In conversation with Kierkegaard, the chapter argues that human and divine loves interweave to cocreate the self. Referring to Plato’s thought that love is a union between need and desire, the chapter suggests that underneath the gospel commandment to love one’s neighbor as oneself, which channels human desire, lies a powerful need for love. It is argued that Kierkegaard’s bilayered theological anthropology corresponds to his theology of love whereby universal love for human beings forms a ground from which preferential loves grow and gives birth to human subjectivity through the Spirit’s mediation. The chapter distinguishes between universal neighbor love, which Kierkegaard counts as Kantian duty, and particular love attachments, which home the self and anchor its freedom. Kierkegaard inherits from Scotus the framework of dovetailing human and divine loves and uses it to portray one’s love for God as a letter sent with a forwarding address to another human being.

Reforming Calvinism

2021 ◽  
pp. 607-624
Author(s):  
Shannon Craigo-Snell
Keyword(s):  
Theological Anthropology ◽  
The Self ◽  
Performance Theory ◽  
Intended Function ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The Mind

This chapter explores the rationalist slant of Calvinism, identifying its roots in the Reformation and its enmeshment with modern epistemology. Overly rational Calvinism participates in a disintegrated theological anthropology in which the mind is set as guard over the unruly emotions, will, and body. In conversation with performance theory, the author argues that the Reformed emphasis on texts has not served its intended function as a safeguard from superstition and idolatry, but rather contributed to myriad forms of oppression. A more integrated vision of the self, embodied in whole-personed religious disciplines, would be more consistent with Calvin’s theology, with the goals of the Reformation, and with the biblical tradition of prophets as those who resist religious abuse and idolatry. In particular, practices of prayer and intentional formation to instil Christian affections could continue the ongoing reformation of Calvinist traditions.

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