God's Heavenly Kingdom and his Servants the Angels: An Account of Kirchliche Dogmatik III/3 §51 by Karl Barth

1951 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 376-382 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. A. Whitehouse

Modern exponents of the doctrine of creation skate as lightly as possible over the thesis that God is Maker of heaven as well as of earth. And St. Matthew's habit of referring to the Kingdom of Heaven does not commend itself as important to most scholars in their elucidation of the Kingdom of God. For Barth, whose doctrine of Providence was outlined in the last issue of this Journal, “God's Kingdom which comes to us on earth is the Kingdom of Heaven; and when God's will is done on earth as it is in heaven, that is not only a divine event, i.e. one established, governed, and consummated by God, but also a heavenly event, i.e. one worked out in the presence, power, co-operation, and co-revelation of heaven on earth” (p. 558). Though this is a secondary aspect of the event, a theology which ignores it is gravely impoverished. And a proper recognition of this aspect entails a further recognition that man's encounter with God in His saving act is also an encounter with the angels of God, the creatures who inhabit heaven. Schleiermacher wrote a notable appendix Of the Angels (§§42–43 in the Second Edition of The Christian Faith) which dismissed the topic from Protestant theology for 150 years, but now it has come back in a treatise which will surely rank with the other two great monuments of angelology, the Celestial Hierarchy of Pseudo-Dionysius, and the Summa Theologica of Aquinas (1.50–64, 106–114), both of which are sympathetically evaluated.

2016 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-87
Author(s):  
Kris Brown

In his gospel, Luke is caught up in the power of metaphor, in Jesus’ assertions that the kingdom of heaven is here. In Acts, on the other side of Jesus’ ascension, Luke is left with here where the kingdom of heaven just was. If the miracles of Acts suggests that the kingdom of heaven keeps popping out again, what Luke narrates in Acts is his discovery/rediscovery of this kingdom, outside of metaphor, fact by fact. Acts makes meaning for us as we begin to see how we might connect what is right in front of us to the kingdom of God.


Open Theology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 320-331
Author(s):  
Barnabas Aspray

Abstract While the French philosopher Paul Ricœur is not usually thought of as an existentialist, during his early career he engaged deeply with existentialist thought, and published two articles on the relationship between existentialism and Christian faith. Ricœur’s attempts to relate philosophy and theology often led to great personal distress, which he occasionally referred to as “controlled schizophrenia,” in which he struggled to remain faithful to both philosophical and theological discourse without compromising one for the sake of the other. This essay first explores the influence of existentialist philosophy on Ricœur before surveying how Ricœur understood existentialism, and how in his view it transforms the relationship between philosophy and theology. It then shows how Ricœur is ultimately able to retain his “dual allegiance” to both discourses through active hope in how the Christian doctrine of creation ex nihilo testifies to their original and final unity.


1978 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 275-290
Author(s):  
N. H. G. Robinson

In his book on Karl Barth Professor T. F. Torrance spoke at one point of ‘the great watershed of modern theology’. ‘There are,’ he wrote,1‘two basic issues here. On the one hand, it is the very substance of the Christian faith that is at stake, and on the other hand, it is the fundamental nature of scientific method, in its critical and methodological renunciation of prior understanding, that is at stake. This is the great watershed of modern theology: either we take the one way or the other – there is no third alter native… one must go either in the direction taken by Barth or in the direction taken by Bultmann.’


2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Lyonhart ◽  
Jennifer Matheny

Guillermo Del Toro’s The Shape of Water (2017) restages the biblical narrative of Ruth in Cold War America, crystallizing the parallel through setting numerous scenes at a local cinema that is playing The Story of Ruth (1960). The book of Ruth tells the tale of how a non-Israelite outsider could be welcomed into the kingdom of God and ultimately into the lineage of Christ. Likewise, del Toro populates his tale with multiple outsiders—multiple ‘Ruths’—including a mute woman, an African American cleaner, a Russian Communist, and an elderly homosexual male. However, these are merely reflections of the ultimate outsider, Del Toro’s ‘Monster’. A new and anthropomorphic species of fish has been caught by the government, and these four outsiders must bind together in order to return him to the sea. During this process, the mute Elisa and the Monster make love, transgressing multiple sexual norms of the age and symbolizing true unity with ‘the other’ (all while being equally as ribald as Ruth at the foot of Boaz’ bed). This ‘otherness’ is contrasted throughout by the main antagonist, Strickland, who quotes bible verses about power in order to justify his own abusive behaviour, suggesting that the central ideological tension in the narrative is between a theology of power and a theology of liberation. The film then ends with the villain dying, while the mute Elisa is resurrected and given the promise of “happily ever after,” paralleling the coming of Christ from the line of Ruth and suggesting that the only way into the kingdom of heaven is through embracing ‘the other’. This parallel is likely intentional, for del Toro similarly ended Pan’s Labyrinth (2007) with the protagonist resurrecting to heaven. Thus, del Toro—himself a Mexican immigrant—has used film and theology to craft a modern version of Ruth that transgresses multiple boundaries in a way similar to the ancient version. Further, in making his modern Ruth into a sea-monster, he not only hints at ethnic, normative and cultural liberation for humans, but the embracing of a trans-human liberation that could include animals and possibly even the future rights of AI.


Author(s):  
Balázs Siba

"The Hopeful Past and the Chosen Inheritance. Living in a given historical place and time, we inherit stories, and by filtering them through our lives and experiences, we transform them into parts of our own story. In this article, we examine the relatedness between our stories and the story of the Kingdom of God. The metanarrative of the God–human relationship is a continuously changing system with permanent perspectives, a tradition that offers a system of rules to Christian communities and, on the other hand, interprets the individual’s life and integrates it into the history of salvation. Christian life appears in front of us as a study process, a search, but it is hope as well. We should not forget about the eschatological dimension of Christian faith: the hope in God, who saved us in the past and will hold us in the future. Keywords: Christian spirituality, tradition "


2006 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Kober

It will be shown that Wittgenstein's philosophical approach to religion is substantially shaped by William James' . For neither during the period nor later does Wittgenstein thematise religious doctrines, but rather struggles to determine what it means for a sincere person to have a specific religious (James called these attitudes "experiences"). Wittgenstein's almost exclusive focus on attitudes explains, (i) why he is able to strictly discriminate between scientific and empirical claims on the one hand and religious utterances on the other, (ii) why religious and mythical narrations should not be understood as promoting (pre-scientific) theories, (iii) why Wittgenstein non-cognitively interprets religious utterances such as "This is God's will" as avowals, and (iv) why he seems to promote fideism. Wittgenstein's one-sided way of reflecting on religious matters, however, should not be understood as adumbrating or even promoting any more specific account of religion, especially bearing in mind that many of his remarks concerning religion are connected to or motivated by reflections on his own life. This thesis is meant to imply that Wittgenstein does not, as the usual understanding holds, offer a theology for atheists.


Exchange ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 144-155
Author(s):  
Susanne Hennecke

AbstractThis contribution deals with the thinking of the Buddhist philosopher and Christian theologian Katsumi Takizawa (1909-1984) on incarnation. Firstly, it gives a short biographical and theological introduction to Takizawa, who was influenced not only by the "father" of the so-called dialectical theology, Karl Barth, but also by one of the famous figures of the Kyoto-school, the philosopher Kitaro Nishida.This contribution concentrates, secondly, on Takizawa's the-anthropological re-interpretation of the incarnation. It is argued that for Takizawa incarnation has to be seen as an awakening of the historical Jesus (or other historical phenomena) to what he calls the original fact: the eternal relationship between God and man.Thirdly, this contribution discusses the the-anthropological thinking of Takizawa about incarnation in five short points. Apart from the positive challenges of Takizawa's thinking especially for the theology of Karl Barth, it marks clearly the most thrilling point between Takizawa's thinking on the one side and that of scholars in Barthian theology on the other side. The open question that comes up is if incarnation really can be thought without a historical mediation or mediator, as Takizawa seems to claim.


1973 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 266
Author(s):  
Dieter Mueller

Daímon ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 171-184
Author(s):  
Julián Barenstein

En este trabajo nos proponemos poner de manifiesto un aspecto poco estudiado del Contra los griegos de Taciano (circa 170); nos referimos a la introducción del discurso historiográfico en la apologética cristiana. En cumplimiento de nuestro objetivo daremos cuenta, por una parte, del carácter idiosincrático de la producción de este apologista en el contexto de la defensa de la fe cristiana en el s. II y analizaremos, por otra, lo que de acuerdo con nuestra línea de investigación es lo más relevante de su controvertido modus cogitandi: el rechazo de la Filosofía como via regia de acceso al Cristianismo para las gentes de alta cultura y la introducción del discurso historiográfico como garantía de veracidad. In this paper we propose to highlight a little studied aspect of the Discourse Against the Greeks of Taciano (circa 170); we refer to the introduction of historiographical discourse in Christian apologetics. In fulfillment of our objective we will give account, on the one hand, of the idiosyncratic character of the production of this apologist in the context of the defense of the Christian faith in the s. II and we will analyze, on the other hand, what according to our line of research is the most relevant of his controversial modus cogitandi: the rejection of Philosophy as a way of access to Christianity for people of high culture and the introduction of the historiographical discourse as a guarantee of truthfulness.


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