Responsibility and the Moral Subject

2021 ◽  
pp. 126-150
Author(s):  
Gerald McKenny
Keyword(s):  
Characteristic Feature ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Moral Subject ◽  
The One ◽  
Taking Responsibility

For Barth, responsibility is the characteristic feature of the human being as the hearer of God’s command. In its address to human beings, God’s command constitutes them as subjects who are answerable to it. Jesus Christ is the one to whom the command of God is addressed and who answers it; as such, he is the responsible subject on behalf of and in the place of other human beings. Yet in taking responsibility for other human beings in this way, God also makes them responsible—for being in their conduct those for whom God has taken responsibility. Insofar as God has taken responsibility for our responsibility, Barth rejects the tendency of modern responsibility to presume that everything is up to us. Yet insofar as God also makes us responsible, and thereby constitutes us as subjects, Barth retains another key feature of modern responsibility, which is its urgency. While answerability or accountability is the key aspect of responsibility, Barth also leaves room for the imputability of actions to agents and the liability of persons for the effects of their actions. One problem with Barth’s account of responsibility is that his insistence that we are constituted as responsible from outside ourselves, by God’s command, he leaves unclear how it is truly we who are responsible. Another problem is that if we are made responsible by the responsibility Jesus Christ has taken for us, it appears that only Christians know themselves to be responsible.

scholarly journals The search for oneself: Introductory notes on ethics and anthropology

2013 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
J.P. Labuschagne
Keyword(s):  
Moral Agent ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Moral Conduct ◽  
The One ◽  
Taking Responsibility

Human beings make choices, and get caught up by their choices. One cannot escape the choices one has made. Your choices draw the picture of who you really are. Sometimes you are haunted by the dire consequences of the choices you have made. Where does the necessity of taking responsibility for yourself, and the choices you have made, take you? Ethics and moral conduct make sense only in conjunction with the moral agent – humankind. This article is an introductory reflection on ethics and anthropology. The argument develops mainly from the view of a human being as a relational being. People are inescapably relational beings – always being in relation with other human beings, and never able to sever the lifesaving ties to God as the human being’s Maker. Human beings become themselves in relation to other human beings, and ultimately in relation to the One Other, God their Creator and Re-creator.

El Protagonismo Dialéctico-Social del Ser Humano en el Desarrollo Intelectual de Rodolfo Mondolfo

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (13) ◽  
pp. 125-144
Author(s):  
Jesús Víctor Alfredo Contreras Ugarte
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Role ◽  
Academic Work ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Future ◽  
The One ◽  
Descriptive Method

Summary: Reflecting on the role humans take into nowadays society, should be of interest in all our social reflections, even for those that refer to the field of law. Any human indifferent and unconscious of the social role that he ought to play within society, as a member of it, is an irresponsible human detached from everything that surrounds him, regarding matters and other humans. Trying to isolate in an irresponsible, passive and comfortable attitude, means, after all, denying oneself, denying our nature, as the social being every human is. This is the reflection that this academic work entitles, the one made from the point of view of the Italian philosopher Rodolfo Mondolfo. From a descriptive development, starting from this renowned author, I will develop ideas that will warn the importance that human protagonism have, in this human product so call society. From a descriptive development, from this well-known author, I will be prescribing ideas that will warn the importance of the protagonism that all human beings have, in that human product that we call society. I have used the descriptive method to approach the positions of the Italian humanist philosopher and, for my assessments, I have used the prescriptive method from an eminently critical and deductive procedural position. My goal is to demonstrate, from the humanist postulates of Rodolfo Mondolfo, the hypothesis about the leading, decision-making and determining role that the human being has within society. I understand, to have reached the demonstration of the aforementioned hypothesis, because, after the analyzed, there is no doubt, that the human being is not one more existence in the development of societies; its role is decisive in determining the human present and the future that will house the next societies and generations of our historical future.

Vulner-ability: A Systematic Theological Approach to an Ambivalent Term

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 397-415
Author(s):  
Miriam Leidinger
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Son Of God ◽  
Pain And Suffering ◽  
Jon Sobrino ◽  
Guiding Questions

Abstract The term vulnerability is en vogue, both in theology and in mission studies. This contribution systematically analyses the concept and phenomenon of vulnerability and discusses its different aspects; namely materiality and embodiment, pain and suffering, and resilience and resistance. From a Christian theological point of view, these aspects of vulnerability resonate with key theological questions that lead to a closer look at the Christologies of Jürgen Moltmann, Jon Sobrino, and Graham Ward. The guiding questions are: How can we speak about the vulnerable human being in his or her relationship to Jesus Christ, the Son of God made flesh? And how is it possible vice versa to speak about the incarnated God in light of the vulnerability of all human beings? Finally, the argument culminates in a plea for a vulnerable theology in a wounded world.

Teaching the Faith in Early Christianity: Divine and Human Agency

2020 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-164
Author(s):  
Peter Gemeinhardt
Keyword(s):  
Christian Education ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract The present paper investigates the relationship between divine and human agency in teaching the Christian faith. While Christian education actually was conveyed by human beings (apostles, teachers, catechists, bishops), many authors claimed that the one and only teacher of Christianity is Jesus Christ, referring to Matt 23:8-9. By examining texts from the 2nd to the 5th century, different configurations of divine and human teaching are identified and discussed. The paper thereby highlights a crucial tension in Early and Late Antique Christianity relating to the possibilities and limitations of communicating the faith.

Baptism “Into Christ Jesus” and the Question of Universalism in Paul

2011 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-61
Author(s):  
J. Ross Wagner
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
1 Corinthians ◽  
Universal Salvation ◽  
The One

AbstractThis essay adopts Paul’s occasional theological reflections on the concrete social practice of baptism as a vantage point from which to investigate the question of universalism in the apostle’s thought, examining passages from 1 Corinthians, Galatians, Romans, and Colossians. In these texts, Paul variously conceptualizes salvation as incorporation into “the one body of Christ”; “the seed of Abraham”; “the children of God”; or “the new humanity,” whose representative is Christ, the last Adam. Despite the different metaphors, it is clear in each case that it is the singular identity of the man Jesus Christ that is determinative for the collective identity of redeemed humanity; it is precisely—and only—with respect to union with him that diverse human beings become “one.” The essay concludes by considering briefly the implications of Paul’s christologically determined anthropology for the question of universal salvation and for the idea of the enduring election of Israel as God’s peculiar possession.

scholarly journals Modernitetens modsigelser. Konfigurationskonflikter og samfundstænkning i Grundtvigs »Om Mennesket i Verden«

1998 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 142-156
Author(s):  
Henning Eichberg
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Life ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Time Space ◽  
The World ◽  
The One

Contradictions of Modernity. Conflicting Configurations and Societal Thinking in Grundtvig's »The Human Being in the World«A Worm - a God. About the Human Being in the World. Ove Korsgaard (ed.). With contributions of Niels Buur Hansen, Hans Hauge, Bosse Bergstedt, Uffe Jonas and Knud Bjarne Gjesing. Odense Universitetsforlag 1997.By Henning EichbergIn 1817, Grundtvig wrote »Om Mennesket i Verden« which can be regarded as a key to the understanding of his philosophy and psychology, but which is difficult to place in relation to his later folkelig, societal engagement. A recent reedition of this text together with some actual comments by Grundtvig researchers is an occasion to quest deeper about this relation.However, it is not enough to ask - as Grundtvig research has done for a long time - what Grundtvig wanted to say, but his text can be regarded as a document of how modem orientation in the world is characterized by conflicting linguistic and metaphorical patterns, which sometimes may tell another story than intended.On the one hand, Grundtvig's text speaks of a lot of dualistic contradictions such as life vs. death, light vs. darkness, truth vs. lie, God vs. devil, human fall vs. resurrection, body vs. spirit, nature vs. history and time vs. eternity. In contrast to the author's intention to produce clarity and lucidity - whether in the spirit of Christianity or of modem rationality - the binary constructions give rather a confusing picture of systematical disorder where polarity and polemics are mixed, antagonism and gradual order, dichotomy and exclusive either-or, paradoxes and dialectical contradictions. On the other hand,Grundtvig tries again and again to build up three-pole imaginations as for instance the threefold human relation to time, space and truth and the three ages of spiritual seeing, feeling and conceptualization resp. of mythology (childhood), theology (youth) and history (adult age). The main history, Grundtvig wants to tell in his text, is built up around the trialectic relation of the human being to the body, to the spirit and to itself, to the living soul.The most difficult to understand in this relation seems to be what Grundtvig calls the spirit, Aanden. Grundtvig describes it as Aandigt Samfund mellem Menneske og Sandhed, »the spiritual community between the human being and the truth«, and this may direct our attention towards samfund, meaning at the same time association, togetherness and society. Aanden is described by threefold effects - will, conscience and faith, all of them describing social relations between human beings resp. their psychological correlate. The same social undertone is true when Grundtvig characterizes three Aande-Livets Spor (»traces of spiritual life«): the word, the history and love. If »the spirit« represents what is larger or »higher« than the single human being and what cannot be touched by his or her hand, then this definition fits exactly to society or the sociality of the human being. Social life - whether understood as culture, social identity or folk (people) - is not only a quantitative sum of human individuals, but represents another quality of natural order. Thus it has its logic that Grundtvig places the human being in between the realms of minerals, plant and animal life on the one hand and the »higher« order on the other, which can be understood as the social existence.In this respect, the societal dimension is not at all absent in his philosophy of 1817. However, it is not enough to state the implicite presence of sociality as such in the earlier Grundtvigian thinking before his folkelig break-through. What was the sociality, more concretely, which Grundtvig experienced during the early modernity? In general, highly dichotomous concepts are dominating the modem discourse as capitalism vs. feudalism, materialism vs. idealism, modernity vs. premodemity, democracy vs. absolutism or revolution vs. restoration; Grundtvig was always difficult to place into these patterns. Again, it might be helpful to try a trialectical approach, transcending the dualism of state and market by civil society as a third field of social action. Indeed, it was civil society with its farmers' anarchist undertones which became the contents of Grundtvig's later folk engagement.

The Spirit

2019 ◽  
pp. 293-308
Author(s):  
Wolf Krötke
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Doctrine Of The Trinity ◽  
The One ◽  
Bear Witness ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Trinity

This chapter presents Barth’s understanding of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Jesus Christ. It demonstrates the way in which Barth’s pneumatology is anchored in his doctrine of the Trinity: the Holy Spirit is understood as the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, the One whose essence is love. But Barth can also speak of the Holy Spirit in such a way that it seems as if the Holy Spirit is identical to the work of the risen Jesus Christ and his ‘prophetic’ work. The reception of the pneumatology of Karl Barth thus confronts the task of relating these dimensions of Barth’s understanding of the Holy Spirit so that the Spirit’s distinct work is preserved. For Barth, this work consists in enabling human beings to respond in faith, with their human possibilities and their freedom, to God’s reconciliation in Jesus Christ. In this faith, the Holy Spirit incorporates human beings into the community of Jesus Christ—the community participates in the reconciling work of God in order to bear witness to God’s work to human beings, all of whom have been elected to ‘partnership’ with God. Barth also understood the ‘solidarity’ of the community with, and the advocacy of the community for, the non-believing world to be a nota ecclesiae (mark of the church). Further, to live from the Holy Spirit, according to Barth, is only possible in praying for the coming of the Holy Spirit.

scholarly journals Synthetic biology ethically evaluated: The creating God and co-creating human

2014 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Riaan Rheeder
Keyword(s):  
Synthetic Biology ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Absolute Value ◽  
God's Image ◽  
The One ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Image Of God

God did not create once and then put an end to it. Testimony from Scripture shows that God continuously establishes or creates new things. Humans can therefore expect to always see and experience new things in creation. With this pattern of reasoning, one can anticipate that the human being as image of God will continuously establish new things in history. Although nature has value, it does not have absolute value and therefore it can be synthesised responsibly. The thought that humans are stewards of God is no longer adequate to, theologically put into words, the relationship human beings have with nature. New biotechnological developments ask for different answers from Scripture. Several ethicists are of the opinion that the theological construction of humans and created co-creators can help found the relationship of the human being to nature. Humans developed as God’s image evolutionary. On the one hand, this means humans themselves are a product of nature. On the other hand, the fact that humans are the image of God is also an ethical call that humans, like God, have to develop and create new things throughout history. Synthetic biology can be evaluated as technology that is possible, because humans are the image of God. However, it should, without a doubt, be executed responsibly.Sintetiese biologie eties geëvalueer: Die skeppende God en medeskeppende mens. God het nie net eenmaal geskep en daar gestop nie. Uit Skrifgetuienisse kan afgelei word dat God voortdurend nuwe dinge tot stand bring of skep. Daarom kan die mens verwag om gedurig nuwe dinge in die skepping te sien en te beleef. Hiermee saam kan verwag word dat die mens as beeld van God voortdurend nuwe dinge in die geskiedenis tot stand sal bring. Alhoewel die natuur waarde het, het dit nie absolute waarde nie en kan dus verantwoordelik gesintetiseer word. Die gedagte dat die mens rentmeester van God is, is nie meer voldoende om die mens se verhouding tot die natuur teologies te verwoord nie. Nuwe biotegnologiese ontwikkelinge vra na ander antwoorde vanuit die Skrif. Verskeie etici is van mening dat die teologiese konstruksie van die mens as geskepte medeskepper kan help om die mens se verhouding tot die natuur te begrond. Die mens het deur ’n evolusionêre proses tot God se beeld ontwikkel. Aan die een kant beteken dit dat die mens self ’n produk van die natuur is. Aan die ander kant is beeldskap ook ’n etiese oproep dat die mens, soos God, nuwe dinge in die geskiedenis moet ontwikkel en skep. Sintetiese biologie kan gesien word as tegnologie wat moontlik is omdat die mens na die beeld van God geskape is. Sonder twyfel moet sintetiese biologie egter verantwoordelik beoefen word.

scholarly journals Who is the sinner? The view of Karl Barth

2007 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
F.J. Van Zyl
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Death Of Jesus ◽  
The Cross

This article focuses on Karl Barth’s view of the human being as sinner. In accordance with his christological approach to all theological matters, the article aims to argue that Barth describes the image and character of the sinner as mirrored by the obedient suffering and vicarious death of Jesus Christ on the cross in the place of all sinners of all times – past, present and future. According to Barth, the price that God paid in surrendering God’s only Son to such suffering indicates the enormous guilt and existence of every sinner. All human beings are hopelessly in debt and can only be delivered from sin through God’s graceful remission of sin.

The Prologue as a Paschal Hymn

2019 ◽  
pp. 245-270
Author(s):  
John Behr
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Gospel Of John ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Third ◽  
John The Baptist ◽  
The World ◽  
In Christ ◽  
New Interpretation ◽  
The One

On the basis of the analysis of the Gospel of John given so far, and in particular the celebration of Pascha that began with him, this chapter offers a radically new interpretation of the Prologue to the Gospel of John. Rather than a pre-existing hymn to the Word adopted and modified by the Evangelist, or a Prologue to the Gospel written by the Evangelist himself, explaining how the Word became flesh as the prelude to the narrative that follows, it is argued that the Prologue is best understood as a Paschal hymn in three parts. The first verse celebrates the one who is in first place, the crucified and exalted Jesus Christ, on his way to God, and as himself God. Verses 1:2—5 speak not of creation and the presence of the Word in creation before his sojourn on earth, but of how everything that occurs throughout the Gospel happens at his will, specifically the life that comes to be in him, a light which enlightens human beings, that is, those who receive and follow him. The third part, verses 1:6—18, are a chiastically structured celebration of what has come to be in Christ, where 1:14, ‘the Word became flesh and dwelt in us’ refers to the Eucharist, the flesh that he now offers to those who receive him and so become his body, following on from baptism in verses 1:12–13; the chiastic center of this section is 1:10–11, his rejection by the world but reception by his own, and the beginning and end of this section is the witness provided by John the Baptist.

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