The Personal Imperative of Revelation: Emil Brunner, Dogmatics and Theological Existence

2012 ◽  
Vol 65 (4) ◽  
pp. 421-434
Author(s):  
Cynthia Bennett Brown
Keyword(s):  
Primary Source ◽  
Special Consideration ◽  
Central Position ◽  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Full Disclosure ◽  
The Bible ◽  
In Christ ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Theological Task

AbstractBased on the theology of Emil Brunner, this article seeks to demonstrate the relevance, even the imperative nature, of personal encounter both for the work of dogmatics and for theological existence. In particular it assesses what impact the personalness of God's self-revelation should have, not just on one's doctrinal conclusions, but also on one's self as a theologian. A range of Brunner's writings forms the backdrop for this focused study of a paradigm which shapes his theology and methodology: personal encounter. I start by introducing the broader context of Brunner's presuppositions about the theological task, including his regard for divine self-communication. With this in mind, attention will be paid to the relationship between revelation and scripture, and in particular to the Christocentric, personal and enduring character of God's unveiling. Brunner's regard for the apostolic witness as the authoritative testimony to God's full disclosure in Christ is high and determines the position that he affords the Bible throughout his work. A summary of Brunner's treatment of the divine-human encounter will follow, with a view to understanding him on this subject in his own terms. His small publication by the same name, The Divine-Human Encounter, serves as the focus of this examination. The term ‘personal correspondence’ requires special consideration for the central position it enjoys in Brunner's conception of divine revelation and its relationship to dogmatics. Further expressions related to this theme will come to light in the process of answering two questions regarding the connection between personal encounter in scripture and the work of theology. First, how true is our doctrine when its expression becomes distanced from the language of divine-human encounter which characterises revelation? Second, what is the relationship between scripture as theology's primary source and the ongoing revelation of God to the believer in personal encounter? The suggestion that theology cannot be restricted to intellectual pursuit will not be universally applauded, but the proposal that God's self-unveiling obliges a change in existence and not just an adjustment in knowledge is one that Brunner deems unavoidable. In this light I conclude by suggesting that the personal encounter of revelation issues an imperative for both individual and communal existence which must be considered by all who undertake the theological task.

scholarly journals Reconciliation in Deuteronomy

2005 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 263-274
Author(s):  
H F Van Rooy
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Central Position ◽  
Promised Land ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The People ◽  
God's People ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Different Parts ◽  
The Way

The Book of Deuteronomy holds a central position in the Old Testament, and indeed in the Bible as a whole. It provides a summary of what the faith of Israel in the Old Testament is all about. It speaks about the covenant God made between himself and his people, about faithfulness to that covenant and of  the implications of breaking the covenant. This covenant had implications not only for the way the people of Israel had to live as God’s people in God’s land, but also for the relationship among the members of the covenant. This article discusses the structure of the book of Deuteronomy, and then the way in which reconciliation appears in each of the different parts. The theme of reconciliation is not dealt with explicitly in all the passages discussed, but it does form a part of the subtext of the book of Deuteronomy. The people could only experience the Lord’s blessings in the promised land after He had brought about reconciliation between Himself and them. To keep on experiencing the Lord’s blessings, they had to remain faithfull to Him, obey his commandments and live within the boundaries He prescribed.

The Covenant of Grace Fulfilled in Christ as the Foundation of the Indissoluble Solidarity of the Church with Israel: Barth's Position on the Jews During the Hitler Era

1999 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 476-503
Author(s):  
Eberhard Busch
Keyword(s):  
Word Of God ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
The Bible ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Nazi Era ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

How might Karl Barth's engagement with the question of the relationship of the church to Judaism during the Nazi era help us today as we seek to revise that relationship? It is obvious that we cannot simply repeat his statements today. But the reference to Barth would be unproductive if it consisted solely in the assertion that the opponent of anti-Semitism at that time was in fact in league with his adversaries. Protestants all too willingly take on an air of self-importance, imagining the distant past to be the proverbial night in which all cats are gray. It would also be insufficient to find in this theologian some good initial ideas, to the extent that they agree with one's own views, in order then, when one differs from his thinking, to identify all the logical flaws that one believes to have been successfully overcome. In neither case would we learn anything, but only confirm our own position. If our encounter with a teacher of the church is to be fruitful, we must enter into a conversation in which we are not only the questioners, but also those who are questioned. True, such a teacher, whom we may critically question, is only an authority subject to the Word of God. But a proper teacher of the church is an authority under the Word of God, and his or her question to us, therefore, is whether we, as we move ahead, are following the Word of God as attested in the Bible or only our own authority.

The End of the Word as We Know It

2012 ◽  
Vol 6 (1-3) ◽  
pp. 165-184
Author(s):  
Timothy Beal
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Meanings ◽  
Cultural Icon ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Material Objectivity ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Relationship

This essay attends to a distinction that requires closer examination and theorization in our discourse on iconic books and other scriptures: the difference between iconic object and cultural icon. How do we conceive of relations between the particular, ritualized iconicities of particular scriptures in particular religious contexts and the cultural iconicities of scriptures in general, such as “the Bible” or “the Quran,” whose visual and material objectivity is highly ambiguous? How if at all are the iconic cultural meanings of the ideas of such books related to the particular iconic textual objects more or less instantiate them? These questions are explored through particular focus on the relationship between the particular iconicities of particular print Bibles, as iconic objects, and the general iconicity of the cultural icon of the Bible.

Sigurðr, Þórr and Ragnarök and their Christian Counterparts

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 81-104
Author(s):  
Manu Braithwaite-Westoby
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Systematic Study ◽  
Old Norse ◽  
The Bible ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Stone Sculpture ◽  
Popular Subject ◽  
New Religion

Few scholars would deny that some Old Norse myths have Christian counterparts, a phenomenon first noticed by nineteenth-century archaeologists and antiquarians in their observations of Anglo-Scandinavian stone sculpture in northern England. It is strange, therefore, that despite this long tradition, there is no systematic study on the topic. While this ambition is unfortunately outside the scope of this article, it does seek to address a number of Old Norse myths/legends and place them in conjunction with their Christian counterparts. One of the most important myths for Anglo-Scandinavian craftsmen was probably Sigurðr, who has an obvious parallel in Christ. The apocalyptic narrative in Voluspa known as Ragnarök was also a very popular subject and has a clear cognate in the apocalyptic sections of the Bible. Þórr and the Miðgarðsormr, though less appealing to artists, strongly recalls accounts of the conflict between Christ and Satan or Leviathan. This article uses a theoretical methodology called ‘figural interpretation’ to examine the Old Norse myths and explore how they reflect certain myths from the new religion. While distinctly art historical in approach, this article also invokes some Old Norse texts where relevant, which may themselves have been influenced by Christian thinking.

Divine Words, Female Voices

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerusha Tanner Lamptey
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Theological Anthropology ◽  
Feminist Theology ◽  
Muslim Women ◽  
Divine Revelation ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Women Scholars ◽  
Female Voices ◽  
Divine Words ◽  
Vital Resource

Interreligious feminist engagement is a legitimate and vital resource for Muslim women scholars seeking to articulate egalitarian interpretations of Islamic traditions and practices. Acknowledging very real challenges within interreligious feminist engagement, Divine Words, Female Voices: Muslima Explorations in Comparative Feminist Theology uses the method of comparative feminist theology to skillfully navigate these challenges, avoid impositions of absolute similarity, and propose new, constructive insights in Muslima theology. Divine Words, Female Voices reorients the comparative theological conversation around the two “Divine Words,” around the Qur’an and Jesus Christ, rather than Prophet Muhammad and Jesus Christ, or the Qur’an and the Bible. Building on this analogical foundation, it engages diverse Muslim and Christian feminist, womanist, and mujerista voices on a variety of central theological themes. Divine Words, Female Voices explores intersections, discontinuities, and resultant insights that arise in relation to divine revelation; textual hermeneutics of the hadith and Bible; Prophet Muhammad and Mary as feminist exemplars; theological anthropology and freedom; and ritual prayer, tradition, and change.

Afterword

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria Brownlee
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Popular Entertainment ◽  
Departure Point ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Relationship

The recent upturn in biblically based films in Anglophone cinema is the departure point for this Afterword reflecting on the Bible’s impact on popular entertainment and literature in early modern England. Providing a survey of the book’s themes, and drawing together the central arguments, the discussion reminds that literary writers not only read and used the Bible in different ways to different ends, but also imbibed and scrutinized dominant interpretative principles and practices in their work. With this in mind, the Afterword outlines the need for further research into the relationship between biblical readings and literary writings in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe.

Revelation, Tradition, and Culture

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald O’Collins, SJ
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Human History ◽  
Present Experience ◽  
Lower Case ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
In Christ

Tradition as process and as object needs to be understood in the light of divine revelation and the inspired Scripture. Primarily interpersonal or relational and secondarily propositional or cognitive, revelation involves a past fullness in Christ, a present experience, and a future, definitive consummation. As process, tradition is pre-given and always part of us, collective, richly polymorphous, sacramentally communicated through words and actions, often in tension with present experience, open to change or reform, and ending only with the close of human history. At the heart of innumerable traditions (plural and in lower case) is the Tradition (singular and in upper case), the risen Christ made present through the Holy Spirit, not an object we possess but a reality by which we are possessed. While they frequently overlap, ‘culture’ differs from tradition by not being so clearly an ‘action word’.

scholarly journals Michael O’Brien’s Theological Aesthetics

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 451
Author(s):  
Rebekah Lamb
Keyword(s):  
Primary Source ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Theological Aesthetics ◽  
Art Practice ◽  
Devotional Art ◽  
The Arts ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Extensive Collection ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Contemporary Artists

This essay introduces and examines aspects of the theological aesthetics of contemporary Canadian artist, Michael D. O’Brien (1948–). It also considers how his philosophy of the arts informs understandings of the Catholic imagination. In so doing, it focuses on his view that prayer is the primary source of imaginative expression, allowing the artist to operate from a position of humble receptivity to the transcendent. O’Brien studies is a nascent field, owing much of its development in recent years to the pioneering work of Clemens Cavallin. Apart from Cavallin, few scholars have focused on O’Brien’s extensive collection of paintings (principally because the first catalogue of his art was only published in 2019). Instead, they have worked on his prodigious output of novels and essays. In prioritising O’Brien’s paintings, this study will assess the relationship between his theological reflections on the Catholic imagination and art practice. By focusing on the interface between theory and practice in O’Brien’s art, this article shows that conversations about the philosophy of the Catholic imagination benefit from attending to the inner standing points of contemporary artists who see in the arts a place where faith and praxis meet. In certain instances, I will include images of O’Brien’s devotional art to further illustrate his contemplative, Christ-centred approach to aesthetics. Overall, this study offers new directions in O’Brien studies and scholarship on the philosophy of the Catholic imagination.

Canons to the Left of Him: Brevard Childs, his Critics, and the Future of Old Testament Theology

1997 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iain Provan
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Biblical Theology ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Probable Origin ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

It is well known that the seeds from which the modern discipline of OT theology grew are already found in 17th and 18th century discussion of the relationship between Bible and Church, which tended to drive a wedge between the two, regarding canon in historical rather than theological terms; stressing the difference between what is transient and particular in the Bible and what is universal and of abiding significance; and placing the task of deciding which is which upon the shoulders of the individual reader rather than upon the church. Free investigation of the Bible, unfettered by church tradition and theology, was to be the way ahead. OT theology finds its roots more particularly in the 18th century discussion of the nature of and the relationship between Biblical Theology and Dogmatic Theology, and in particular in Gabler's classic theoreticalstatementof their nature and relationship. The first book which may strictly be called an OT theology appeared in 1796: an historical discussion of the ideas to be found in the OT, with an emphasis on their probable origin and the stages through which Hebrew religious thought had passed, compared and contrasted with the beliefs of other ancient peoples, and evaluated from the point of view of rationalistic religion. Here we find the unreserved acceptance of Gabler's principle that OT theology must in the first instance be a descriptive and historical discipline, freed from dogmatic constraints and resistant to the premature merging of OT and NT — a principle which in the succeeding century was accepted by writers across the whole theological spectrum, including those of orthodox and conservative inclination.

Soteria

1953 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 406-416
Author(s):  
R. McL. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Good News ◽  
Early Church ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The World ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Love Of God ◽  
Wrath Of God

In the Gospel according to St. John it is written that ‘God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have ever-lasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.’ In these familiar words is summed up the message of the Bible as a whole, and of the New Testament in particular. In spite of all that may be said of sin and depravity, of judgment and the wrath of God, the last word is one not of doom but of salvation. The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is a Gospel of salvation, of deliverance and redemption. The news that was carried into all the world by the early Church was the Good News of the grace and love of God, revealed and made known in Jesus Christ His Son. In the words of Paul, it is that ‘God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself’.

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