Pistis, fides, and propositional belief

2018 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 585-592
Author(s):  
DANIEL HOWARD-SNYDER

AbstractIn my contribution to the symposium on Teresa Morgan's Roman Faith and Christian Faith, I set the stage for three questions. First, in the Graeco-Roman view, when you put/maintain faith in someone, is the cognitive aspect of your faith compatible with scepticism about the relevant propositions? Second, did some of the New Testament authors think that one could put/maintain faith in God while being sceptical about the relevant propositions? Third, in her private writings, Saint Teresa of Calcutta described herself as living by faith and yet not believing; even so, by all appearances, she was an exemplar of faith in God. Would people during the period of your study tend to see her as an exemplar of faith in God?

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 289-298
Author(s):  
Judith M. Lieu

In Roman Faith and Christian Faith Teresa Morgan brings a classicist’s sensitivities to a subject that lies at the heart of the New Testament but that is often taken as self-evident. This article engages in a conversation with its insights, with particular reference to the Johannine literature. It suggests that more nuancing might be needed, not least from a recognition of the demands of the genre of the gospel, but also finds much to provoke further reflection.


1989 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 288-298
Author(s):  
Joel Marcus

“While Pride and Prejudice is certainly not a primary source for reconstructing the world of the New Testament, the vivid way in which it takes us into one person's crisis of perception can, I believe, allow us to enter imaginatively into the crisis of first-century people on their way to Christian faith.”


Horizons ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 130-141
Author(s):  
William M. Thompson

“Distinct but not separate” is a venerable formula whose origins go back to the Council of Chalcedon's confession of 451 that Jesus' humanity and divinity are each distinct realities, yet at the same time united in the one person of the Savior himself. Jesus' singular personhood (= “not separate”) protected the New Testament insight that God really united himself with all humans in their historical and earthly condition through the deeds and words of Jesus himself. God's utterly personal oneness with Jesus was the way in which God became adoptively one with the whole human family and world. But this could only be a true union between God and humans if neither was swallowed up in the other, or reduced to the other. Union (we might say communion as well) presupposes oneness and difference. And so Chalcedon speaks of Jesus' divinity and humanity as remaining distinct. By our adoption in grace through Jesus (Rm 8:14–17) we ourselves are not pantheistically swallowed up in God, but retain our distinctiveness as humans as well.


2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gottfried Orth

Martin Luther’s writings contain a waelth of economic analyses and perspectives on the beginning capitalist changes in the economy and society of his time. In this case, his economic considerations did not pertain to areas of ethics or ethics in the area of economics, but explitely theological analyses and perspectives, ones that originated from the First Commandment: they are about god or false gods, the god of the Christian faith or the mammon of the emerging „for profit“ economy. With this, Luther takes up the Jesuanic alternative version of god or mammon emphasized in the New Testament. The author outlines Luther’s deliberations and, in the context of the „Radicalizing Reformation“ project, further calls for contemporary critical perspectives on capitalism as well as conceptions of god in the vein of and in line with Luther’s theology, which can support current faith orientations in the engagement with economic and social developments.


2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-38
Author(s):  
Daniel Horatius Herman

Christian witness in Indonesia, in an encounter with Islam, experienced rejection. The message about Jesus Christ (or Isa Al Masih) is acknowledged exist in Islam’s scripture, Al Qur'an, but has several different parts and even contrary to the New Testament. Some teachings about Jesus in the Qur'an are interpreted differently: 'Isa is the Kalimatullah (a word from God),' Isa is mercy, 'Isa will come again,' Isa is a justice Judge at the end of time and others, all that is different from the New Testament’s teachings. Christians, in their testimonies, tried to interpret and used the same terms. This gives rise to debate and is of course contrary to the ethics of faith, where religious teachings cannot be explained by the perspective of other religions. This study aims to obtain an objective view of Jesus Christ from the Islamic view to form an initial understanding for the preaching of the Christian faith, but this study is not intended to seek justification (or verification) of the Christian faith. This study only seeks an explanation of the Islamic version of Jesus Christ.Kesaksian Kristen di Indonesia, dalam perjumpaan dengan Islam, mengalami penolakan-penolakan.  Berita tentang Yesus Kristus (atau Isa Almasih) diakui ada dalam kitab suci Islam, Al Qur’an, tetapi pada beberapa bagian berbeda dan bahkan bertolak belakang dengan Perjanjian Baru. Beberapa ajaran tentang Yesus dalam Al Qur’an dimaknai secara berbeda: Isa adalah Kalimatullah (firman Allah), Isa adalah rahmat, Isa akan datang kembali, Isa adalah hakim yang adil di akhir zaman dan lain-lain, semua berbeda dengan ajaran Perjanjian Baru.  Orang Kristen, dalam kesaksian, mencoba menafsirkan dan menggunakan kesamaan terminologi-terminologi tersebut.  Hal ini menimbulkan perdebatan dan tentu saja bertentangan dengan etika iman, dimana ajaran sebuah agama tidak dapat dijelaskan dari perspektif agama lain. Penelitian ini bertujuan memperoleh pandangan obyektif tentang Yesus Kristus dari pandangan Islam untuk pembentukan pemahaman awal untuk pemberitaan iman Kristen, tetapi penelitian tidak dimaksudkan untuk mencari pembenaran (verifikasi) terhadap iman Kristen. Penelitian ini hanya mencari penjelasan dari versi Islam tentang Yesus Kristus.


2019 ◽  
pp. 57-73
Author(s):  
Bożena Czech-Jezierska

Borys Łapicki (1889–1974) was a Roman law scholar whose works contained many references to the correlations between Roman law and ethics. The article provides an overview of B. Łapicki’s writings and discusses his views on the concept of misericordia and on the influence of that concept on Emperor Justinian’s criminal legislation. A definite and clear-cut thesis emerges from this analysis. Borys Łapicki declares that although Justinian was an emperor who considered himself and was considered to be the great defender of the Christian faith, his legislation was influenced by the principle of utilitas rei publicae, rather than by Christian misericordia and by the humanitarian principles of the New Testament ethics. This is particularly evident in his criminal legislation. This leads B. Łapicki to conclude that it was “not Christianity that influenced Justinian, but on the contrary, he exercised his influence on Christianity so that it could serve his political purposes.”


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-63
Author(s):  
Matija Stojanović

This article will try to uncover the stance which the early Christian Church held on the legal system of the Roman Empire, in an attempt to reconstruct a stance which could apply to legal systems in general. The sources which we drew upon while writing this paper were primarily those from the New Testament, beginning with the Four Gospels and continuing with the Acts of the Apostoles and the Epistoles, and, secondarily, the works of the Holy Fathers and different Martyrologies through which we reconstructed the manner in which the Christian faith was demonstrated during the ages of persecutions. The article tries to highlight a common stance which can be identified in all these sources and goes on to elaborate how it relates to legal order in general.


2021 ◽  
pp. 102-138
Author(s):  
Donald Senior

A unifying motif of the New Testament and one that renders it sacred in the eyes of Christian faith is its assertion of the unique identity of Jesus Christ. While much of modern biblical scholarship has attempted to reconstruct the actual historical circumstances of Jesus in his first-century Jewish context, the New Testament writings themselves find their sacred character in their affirmation of the unique character of the Jesus of faith as both human and divine. This is affirmed in a variety of ways in the Four Gospels as they consider in diverse ways the ultimate origin of Jesus, the “theophanies” that occur during Jesus’s ministry, various titles assigned to him, and the nature of his death and resurrection. While biblical scholarship legitimately explores the historical context of Jesus’s life and teaching, Christians strive to see the intrinsic connection between the historical circumstances of Jesus’s life and the faith affirmations of early Christianity about his unique identity.


2021 ◽  
pp. 206-232
Author(s):  
Donald Senior

Because of their intense focus on both the earthly and transcendent figure of Jesus as viewed by Christian faith, the New Testament books have a “sacred” character for the community of faith. But like any other proclamation or preaching, these New Testament portrayals of Jesus are not abstract or speculative. The purpose of their proclamation is to compel the recipients of their words to respond to what they hear, to transform their lives, and to discover the path to individual and communal holiness. The goal of this chapter is not to present a full study of New Testament ethics, but to offer enough examples, especially from the Four Gospels and Paul’s writings, to demonstrate that the books of the New Testament anticipate that the Christian readers will discover within these texts guidance on how to live a life of holiness, both individually and as a Christian community.


2014 ◽  
Vol 40 (128) ◽  
pp. 349
Author(s):  
Norbert Fischer

A fé cristã, que se baseia no Novo Testamento e, por conseguinte, se apoia em uma nova história da salvação, motivou eminentes pensadores como Agostinho, Mestre Eckhart e Emanuel Kant, a investigar, também filosoficamente, a verdade desta mensagem. Agostinho estava convencido de que filosofia (como desejo da sabedoria) e religião não estão mutuamente em uma irreconciliável oposição (Vera rel. 8); Mestre Eckhart procura compreender a verdade supratemporal da doutrina da encarnação e Kant vê a fé cristã como uma “admirável religião“, que “na grande simplicidade de seu relato enriqueceu a filosofia com concepções, bem mais definidas e puras, da moralidade, do que as que até então ela tinha conseguido fornecer” (KU B 462 nota). A religião cristã deve hoje de novo confrontar-se com objeções críticas a respeito de sua verdade. Os autores aqui tratados fornecem orientações, que até agora não foram suficientemente consideradas e merecem ser recordadas.Abstract: The Christian faith, based on the New Testament and, therefore, on a new history of salvation, instigated eminent thinkers such as Augustine, Meister Eckhart and Immanuel Kant to investigate even philosophically the truth of the Gospel’s message. Augustine was convinced that philosophy (as the desire for wisolom) and religion are not necessarily in an irreconcilable opposition (Vera rel. 8); Meister Eckhart sought to comprehend the supratemporal truth of the doctrine of incarnation and Kant believed the Christian Faith to be a “wonderful religion“that in the great simplicity of its statement enriched philosophy with far more definite and purer concepts of morality than philosophy itself could have previously supplied“ (KU B 462 footnote). The Christian religion today is, once again, being confronted to critical objections concerning its own truth. The authors herein mentioned provide us with insights which, until now, have not been considered enough and deserve our attention.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document