Natural Theology and the Ministry of the Word

1948 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 258-271
Author(s):  
Gwilym O. Griffith
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Distinctive Character ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
Ministry Of The Word ◽  
The World ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Theological Thought ◽  
Made In

We understand that if Theology in general means the systematised interpretation of Divine truth, Christian Theology means the systematised interpretation of the redemptive revelation of God in Christ. That is its subject, and its method is the exposition of Holy Scripture. Natural Theology differs from Christian Theology both in subject-matter and in method. Its subject is the revelation of God in Nature and in the world of man, and its method is the exposition of that revelation in the light of human reason and conscience. Of course this is not to say that there cannot be a Christian Natural Theology. That would be to prejudge an issue which is sharply dividing Protestant theological thought on the Continent at the present time and which is the occasion of this paper. But I think that, without prejudging that issue, it can be said that if the exposition of Nature and man's world be made in the light and under the authority of the Christian revelation, then, in a not unimportant sense, Natural Theology loses its distinctive character. For though, in that case, it continue to interrogate Nature and Man, it derives its decisive answers from the revelation in Christ, and thus becomes distinctively Christian and Scriptural.

Towards a Theology of Nature

1964 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-145
Author(s):  
W. A. Whitehouse
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Systematic Theology ◽  
Evolutionary Aspect ◽  
Physical Universe ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject

The phrase ‘a theology of nature’ is an abbreviation for ‘a theological account of natural happenings’—happenings which are properly investigated in the first instance by appropriate ‘natural sciences’. A Christian theology of nature seeks to provide a systematic appreciation of the physical universe, its items and occurrences, from a Christian theological point of view. If it is to rank as a serious contribution to human wisdom, it must be a disciplined effort to understand in appropriate terms the object of interest. One version of the discipline would be to produce an extension of the natural sciences, to cover topics—God, freedom, immortality—which fall outside their scope by a ‘metaphysical’ science which links these topics to the subject-matter of natural sciences in a theoretical account of ‘being as such’. This would have the effect of reintroducing ‘Natural Theology’, reshaped and revitalised, into the fabric of Christian systematic theology. This project is not being advocated in this article. It is mentioned solely in order to distinguish the present topic, a ‘theology of nature’, from what is traditionally known as ‘natural theology’. The purpose of this article is to explore afresh the structure of Christian intellectual response to the wonder of the world, as it is now being analysed by science, with particular attention to the ‘evolutionary’ aspect of things, appreciation of which has radically affected modern sensibility.

Creation

2019 ◽  
pp. 178-195
Author(s):  
Matthew Puffer
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
New Creation ◽  
Limited Role ◽  
The World ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Access To Knowledge ◽  
Good And Evil ◽  
The Church

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theology of creation is rooted in the confession that Jesus Christ is the mediator. Apart from Christ’s mediation human beings cannot perceive God’s creation, because our postlapsarian world manifests only a fallen creation in which good and evil are confused and intermixed. Whereas Bonhoeffer in his student years affirmed a limited role for the orders of creation, his subsequent writings on the theology of creation can be read as a response to and reaction against the orders of creation. Although human beings have no unmediated access to knowledge of God’s creation, and know the world as fallen creation only through Christ’s redemption, in Christ they are empowered by the Spirit, incorporated into Christ’s body the church, and made a new creation. Only in light of the hoped-for eschatological fulfilment of the new creation may Christian theology speak of the beginning of God’s ways as Creator.

History, Phenomenology, and Theology

2019 ◽  
pp. 306-322
Author(s):  
John Behr
Keyword(s):  
Human Being ◽  
Word Of God ◽  
The Past ◽  
Temporal Properties ◽  
The World ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Passion Of Christ ◽  
Spatio Temporal ◽  
Heaven And Earth ◽  
Made In

This chapter brings together the presentation of Michel Henry’s reading of John in Chapter Six with themes explored in the previous two parts of the work. In particular the connection is made in the concern of both theology and phenomenology with ‘apocalypse’, that is, ‘unveiling’, ‘revelation’, ‘appearance’. This unveiling results in a doubling: the way Scripture had been read before the Passion (as narratives about the past) and now in the light of the Passion (as speaking about Christ); and following this unveiling: the identity of Christ, no longer known as the son of Joseph and Mary, but the eternal Word of God; the Eucharist, which appears in the world to be bread and wine, but is consumed as the life-giving flesh of Christ; and ourselves, not simply as bodily children of our parents, but, as living flesh, sons and daughters of God, with a body not made by hands, eternal in the heavens. Sharing the Passion of Christ, recalled from absorption in the world to the pathos of life, is our entry, in and with Christ, into the divine reality of God, in which, while remaining what we are by nature, created beings, we share in the properties of God, uncreated and eternal, just as iron, when placed in a fire, remains what it is by nature but is now only known by the properties of the fire. And in turn, the divine fire, while remaining unchanged, is now embodied, but in a body no longer known by spatio-temporal properties as it appears in this world. The economy of God, understood in an apocalyptic key, brings together heaven and earth, the beginning and the end, in Christ, the first human being, the theanthropos.

Apollinarius, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian E. Daley, SJ
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Single Agent ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
Gregory Of Nyssa ◽  
Divine Wisdom ◽  
The World ◽  
In Christ

Apollinarius of Laodicea argued that the divine wisdom, in Christ, took the place of a human reason, and so that the human Christ has existed eternally, as part of the Logos’s person. So even the humanity of Christ is in some sense divine, for the Apollinarians, and we are transformed by imitating him or being sacramentally united with him. Against this view, Gregory of Nazianzus came to insist that Christ must have a complete and authentic humanity if he is our savior; his must be a “double” reality, in which creator and creature are mingled” in the actions and consciousness of a single agent. Gregory of Nyssa also emphasized the need for Christ to be fully human if he is to save us. He suggested that human nature is gradually being transformed by the divine qualities Jesus brings into the world. Human changeability is the condition of salvation.

Thomas' Proofs as Fides Quaerens Intellectum: Towards a Trinitarian Analogia

1978 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-132
Author(s):  
George Kuykendall
Keyword(s):  
Natural Theology ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
The West ◽  
Divine Nature ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
Natural Knowledge ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
The World ◽  
First Cause ◽  
God The Father

Thomas Aquinas argued that, while revelation alone can supply knowledge of the divine nature, unaided human reason can infer the divine existence from the world's existence. His proofs of God's existence are, in principle, extensions and elaborations of the patristic natural theologies. The Fathers believed that Neoplatonic and Hellenistic speculations about the eternal One, the arche of the cosmos, constituted a ‘natural’ knowledge of God the Father and his creation. God's selfrevelation in the incarnation was placed in the context of this natural theology. Augustine's version of natural theology both summed up the patristic achievement for the West and laid the foundation for Western medieval exploration of the natural knowledge of God. Like Augustine, Thomas believed one could reason naturally from the sensible world to God's existence; unlike him, Thomas reasoned with Aristotle and not Plato. Thomas' ordering of the natural and revealed knowledge of God repeats, then, the patristic sequence: first one proves that God is the first Cause of the world, and then one reasons from revelation about God's redemptive and reconciling relation to the world.

scholarly journals Structures of Violence and the Denigration of Law in Christian Thought

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara U. Meyer
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Complex Phenomenon ◽  
World Today ◽  
The World ◽  
Interreligious Violence ◽  
Christian Thought ◽  
Theological Thought ◽  
Made In ◽  
Realized Eschatology

This article examines three major patterns of violence in Christian theological thought traditions: supersessionism (the idea that Christianity replaced Judaism), realized eschatology (the presentation of a promised future of reconciliation as basically already present in the world today), and inclusivism (the Christian impulse to integrate others as a universalist aim). Previous scholars have examined these patterns separately, but they have not previously been discussed in a comprehensive effort to analyze Christian thinking habits of degrading others, in particular Judaism.The author's inquiry into structures of thought suggests methodologically that interreligious violence is a highly complex phenomenon that can actually be reduced or increased.  Indeed, much progress has been made in the last third of the twentieth century by mainstream churches to renounce supersessionism. But while the discourse with regard to realized eschatology and inclusivism still needs to be developed, one of the key findings here is that all three patterns entail a denigration of law, which in itself still remains at play in Christianity’s relation to Judaism but also in its relation to Islam.

scholarly journals SOME ASPECTS OF THE CONTROVERSIAL NEXUS BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-44
Author(s):  
Alexandru-Corneliu ARION ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Orthodox Christian ◽  
Creation Theology ◽  
The World ◽  
Ex Nihilo ◽  
Doctrine Of Creation

The present paper takes into consideration a few aspects related to the relation between the two disputed domains of knowledge: science and religion. After having pointed out the main eight warfare and nonwarfare models of interaction between science and religion, the study focuses on the motives of Eastern and Western Christianity breach, which resides on the very different attitude to Science and Nature. The main part of depicting the nexus between the two fields of research is focusing on the doctrine of creation, the one Christian theology truly revolutionized. The Christian Weltanschauung was so new in comparison with Greek cosmology that it had to raise new questions and make radical modifications, especially regarding the understanding of space and time. The Fathers of the Orthodox Church were happy to use the science and philosophy of their time in their theological thinking. However, they did not pursue a natural theology in the sense the term is often now understood based on scholastic theology. According to the Orthodox understanding, the intellect provides not knowledge about the creation but rather a direct apprehension or spiritual perception of the divine Logos (Word) incarnate in Christ, and of the inner essences or principles (logoi) of the cosmos components created by that Logos. The arguments of Orthodox Christian theology proof that the quantum universe was created out of nothing and that it is kept in existence only by God's relationship with creation through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. In relation to itself, the universe is reduced to nothing, because God is in Himself, while any other created thing is dependent upon Him, into an indissoluble connection with Him. According to creation theology, God gives the world its rational, intelligible structure as described by the laws of nature through the transcendent and eternal act of bringing the world into existence ex nihilo. As immanent creator, God also continues to create (creatio continua) and providentially direct processes and events towards their consummation in the eschaton. Overall, there is a poignant reason for keeping science and religion together once “science without religion is lame and religion without science is blind” (Einstein).

scholarly journals W służbie Chrystusowi. Błogosławieni prezbiterzy i osoby zakonne Archidiecezji Poznańskiej

2019 ◽  
pp. 249-266
Author(s):  
Zdzisław Kijas
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Contemporary Culture ◽  
Happy Life ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Life On Earth

The subject-matter of the article is the issue of sanctity which the author considers in the context of the lives of seven men and one woman. All of them belong to the Poznań Church. Their heroic lives provide an opportunity to scrutinize contemporary culture, which is characterized by a process of disenchantment of the world, i.e. humanization of what formerly used to be divine, what belonged to God or led to Him. Today we witness a tendency to sanctify things human, things which are the work of man and enhance human pleasure, enjoyment of life and cheerful disposition... At the same time things divine and those that lead to God are dismissed or even forgotten.Modern man has become increasingly autonomous. He no longer needs God seeing Him as unwanted or even redundant. Prayer, which animates saints, is now considered mere waste of time while obedience to God’s commandments is deemed ridiculous. This process also impacts our attitude to the saints. In Christian theology they are the teachers of the faith, witnesses of God and His truth. They are the good Samaritans that lift up those who fell, reminding them of their dignity received from God and encouraging them to go ahead to meet God. But many of our contemporaries, believ- ers included, no longer perceive saints in this way. They do not expect from the saints lessons on life, but miracles in order to have a rich, healthy and happy life themselves. They look for miracle workers not witnesses and teachers of God’s truth, the prophets of a different world. As God’s wit- nesses the blessed and saints can “hold back” the process of disenchantment of the world and give the world a new eschatological dimension, the lost sacrum without which life on earth can change into a drama.

Natural Theology and Natural Law in Martin Luther

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Knut Alfsvåg
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Medieval Theology ◽  
Natural Knowledge ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
Creative Power ◽  
The World ◽  
Correct Understanding ◽  
Gospel Message

For Luther, the understanding of the world is determined by his theology of creation, according to which the world is created as an expression of the creative love of the eternal God. Natural theology, then, is the ability to interpret all created phenomena as gifts of the Creator, and natural law is the ability to align one’s life with this principle of lovingly serving everything created. However, in a sinful world afflictions and anxiety makes it impossible to maintain an attitude of unconditional trust toward God based on natural reason. In spite of the possibility of reaching a fairly correct understanding of God as the giver of gifts, one will therefore never learn through natural reason alone to trust God as one’s savior. The re-creation of a trusting attitude toward God is only possible through God’s presence in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The creative power of the gospel message thus entails the rediscovery of the significance of the natural knowledge of God and morality. A full appreciation of the natural is therefore dependent on having one’s trust in God re-established by an action of unconditional divine love. From within this perspective, natural law retains its traditional and positive significance. In this way, Luther integrates aspects of late medieval theology without being fully aligned with any of its prevailing schools of thought. Like the nominalists, he understands God as activity, not as substance, but not in the sense that God can be seen as arbitrary. For Luther, the trustworthiness of God’s promises is what anchors Christian theology. Luther’s understanding of the hidden God is therefore quite different from the nominalist idea of God’s absolute power. For Luther, theology’s dialogue with philosophy is important. He maintains, however, that rationality that is not explicitly grounded in a theology of creation will never develop an adequate worldview. Following his emphasis on the theology of creation, in his evaluation of the natural Luther was always looking for thought structures that would let the discontinuity of grace be fully appreciated.

scholarly journals Literature Review - Dani Ploeger, Deserted Devices and Wasted Fences: Everyday Technologies in Extreme Circumstances

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Hunt
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Mobile Phones ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Consumer Culture ◽  
The World ◽  
Political Deliberation ◽  
Guided Tour ◽  
Made In

Deserted Devices and Wasted Fences is acaptivating critique on consumer culture and the role technology plays, and canplay, in our understanding of the world around us and ourselves. Dani Ploeger’scollection of essays offer a guided tour of items and memories, like a livingmemory box. These writings probe our relationships with devices and what they representin our culture; from mobile phones to projectors, from smart fences to strap-ondildos. Ploeger’s provocation unravels from the journey of a device; to theintertwining of the human and non-human technology, shifting gears to the symbolismand mythology of military and state devices of control, closing with thecultural interaction with architectural decisions made in urban landscapes.Although seemingly grand, and without a doubt ambitious, in subject matter,Ploeger evokes the tone of memoir, incorporating reflections of his travels andpersonal happenings, with philosophical and political deliberation; bringing inkey thinkers to ratify and expand his unique perspectives.

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