Living Freely before God

2019 ◽  
pp. 183-235
Author(s):  
Jens Zimmermann
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Call To Action ◽  
Ethical Realism ◽  
The World ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Responsible Action ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Participation In Christ

Chapter 6 outlines the main features of Bonhoeffer’s Christian Humanist ethics. Bonhoeffer’s ethical realism and rejection of moralistic legalism is based on ethics defined as participation in Christ whose incarnation and person structure reality as a whole. The chapter begins by showing that the personal and eschatological structure of this Christological realism exonerates Bonhoeffer from the charge of collapsing reality into Christ. The next section delineates the goal of Bonhoeffer’s ethics as Christformation with its essential aspects of renewal into the divine image through the work of the Holy Spirit, through ecclesial communion, through Christian action in the world, and by means of the sedimentation of Christian virtues in cultural traditions. Next, the chapter takes up from the previous one the hermeneutic element of discernment in describing ethics with Bonhoeffer as realistic responsible action. Realistic responsible action denotes the call to action in response to concrete circumstances within a creation oriented toward Christ. Such realistic action includes the risk of freedom along with the assumption of guilt. Realistic responsible action explains the meaning of this famous and often misunderstood concept of guilt bearing in Bonhoeffer rooted in his sacramental, participatory ontology. The chapter ends with a summative description of Bonhoeffer’s Humanist ethics as living freely before God.

Hippolytus' Conception of Deification

1959 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 388-399
Author(s):  
Dietrich Ritschl
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Union With Christ ◽  
Mystical Union ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Participation In Christ ◽  
Doctrine Of The Church ◽  
The Church

It is true that the theology of Tertullian and Novatian has linfluenced later trinitarian conceptions much more than Hippolytus has. His ecclesiology and soteriology, however, are an important point of transition from Irenaeus' doctrine of the Church and of Union with Christ towards the later conceptions of a mystical sacramental understanding of Union with Christ. Hippolytus is in many ways responsible for the development of a doctrine of participation in Christ expressed as deification or mystical union. His theological interest is limited to a part of Trenaeus' doctrine of participation: to the καινòς ἂνθρωπος, and hence to the Church as the assembly of the saints, the baptised, the just, who possess the Holy Spirit, and are connected with the apostles through the hierarchical episcopate.

Moral Formation in Christ, the Beautiful Beloved

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Stewart-Kroeker
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Moral Formation ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Loving Relationship ◽  
Falling In Love

Christ’s healing of humanity consists, crucially, in forming human beings for loving relationship with himself and others. In this respect, Christ also takes the role of the beautiful beloved. Believers become pilgrims by falling in love with the beautiful Christ by the initiative of the Holy Spirit, who cleanses their eyes to see him as beautiful and enkindles desire in their hearts. By desiring and loving the beautiful Christ, the believer is conformed to him and learns to walk his path. Desiring the beautiful Christ forms a believing community shaped aesthetically and morally for a particular way of life: pilgrimage to the heavenly homeland. Formation is both earthly and eschatological, for so too is the journey and the activity of the pilgrim.

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’.

John Carroll and the Appeal to Evidence: A Pragmatic Defense of Principle

1988 ◽  
Vol 57 (3) ◽  
pp. 298-309
Author(s):  
Joseph M. McShane
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Religious Liberty ◽  
Divine Providence ◽  
Active Intervention ◽  
The World ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
New Republic ◽  
John Carroll ◽  
The Church

Throughout his career John Carroll supported the American religious settlement with surprising and consistent enthusiasm. Indeed, his enthusiasm for the religious liberty of the new republic seemed to be boundless. Thus he never tired of celebrating and advertising its benefits. He assured American Catholics that it was “a signal instance of [God's] mercy” and a product of the active intervention of Divine Providence and the Holy Spirit, who have “tutored the minds of men” in such a way that Catholics could now freely worship God according to the “dictates of conscience.” Flushed with pride, he even predicted that if America were wise enough to abide by the terms of this providential arrangement, the nation would become a beacon to the world, proving that “general and equal toleration…is the most effectual method to bring all denominations of Christians to an unity of faith.” Finally, confident that the extraordinary freedom accorded American Catholics would make the American church “the most flourishing portion of the church,” he urged European states and churches to follow America's inspired lead.

scholarly journals Knowing the Father

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
David. T. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
Evolutionary Process ◽  
Charismatic Movement ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Greek Thought ◽  
The World ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Doctrine Of The Trinity ◽  
The Trinity

The emergence of the Charismatic movement has generated a new awareness and interest in the Person and work of the Holy Spirit, but has also brought a realisation that there is a still-neglected Person of the Trinity, the Father. Part of the reason for this lies in the historical development in the doctrine of the Trinity, which led to a belief that external actions of God are not differentiated between the Persons, and also in the fact that the Father only generally acts in the world by Son and Spirit, so has no clear role. It seems natural to attribute creation to the Father, but even here, the Bible sees the Son as the actual creator. Nevertheless, the Father can be seen as the source of the concepts and means behind the material; interestingly there are hints of this in classical Greek thought and other faiths. This is ongoing, perhaps particularly in the evolutionary process of the world. Thus, paralleling the incarnation, the Father is present in the material universe, as its ethos. He can also be seen to be affected by creation, sharing in its nature in his kenōsis, and in its suffering. Creation then inspires a sense of wonder not only from its existence, extent and nature, but from its interactions and underlying concepts; this is worship of the Father. Sin is then when this is overlooked, or when actions disrupt it; these are an offence to the Father.

scholarly journals Martin Luther and Justification

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olli-Pekka Vainio
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Sacramental Theology ◽  
Union With Christ ◽  
Good Works ◽  
Essential Question ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
The Media ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Well Function ◽  
The One

The doctrine of justification is an account of how God removes the guilt of the sinner and receives him or her back to communion with God. The essential question concerns how the tension between human sin and divine righteousness is resolved. Luther’s central claim is that faith alone justifies (that is, makes a person righteous in the eyes of God) the one who believes in Christ as a result of hearing the gospel. This faith affects the imputation of Christ’s righteousness that covers the sins of the believer. In contrast to medieval doctrines of justification, Luther argues that Christ himself, not love, is the form, or the essence, of faith. Love and good works are the necessary consequences of justification even if they are not necessary for justification. However, the inclination to love and perform good works is present in the believer through Christ, who is present in faith, but these characteristics do not as such, as renewed human qualities, have justifying power. Luther’s doctrine of justification cannot be classified with simplistic categories like “forensic” and “effective” (see the section “Review of the literature” below). Often these terms are used to refer to differing interpretations of justification. However, several recent traditions of scholarship perceive this categorical differentiation as simplistic and misleading. Instead, these terms may well function to designate different aspects of God’s salvific action. In the narrow sense, justification may refer to the forensic and judicial action of declaring the sinner free from his or her guilt. A broader sense would include themes and issues from other theological doctrines offering a holistic and effective account of the event of justification, in which the sinner believes in Christ, is united with Christ’s righteousness, and receives the Holy Spirit. Depending on the context, Luther may use both narrow and broad definitions of justification. Here Luther’s doctrine of justification is approached from a broader perspective. On the one hand, justification means imputation of Christ’s alien righteousness to the believer without merits. On the other hand, faith involves effective change in the believer that enables one to believe in the first place. This change is not meritorious because it is effected by Christ indwelling in the believer through faith. Thus, Christ gives two things to the sinner: gratia, that is, the forgiveness of sins, and donum, that is, Christ himself. The media through which Christ offers his mercy are the word and sacraments. Thus, Luther’s sacramental theology, Christology, and soteriology form a coherent whole. Because justification involves union with Christ, which means participation in Christ’s divine nature, Luther’s doctrine of justification has common elements with the idea of deification.

“I Will Not Leave You Orphaned”

Pneuma ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 370-394
Author(s):  
J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Critical Importance ◽  
The World ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Simple Question ◽  
Global Movement ◽  
World Christianity

Abstract This article responds to a simple question: What are the distinctive contributions of Pentecostalism to the making of world Christianity? We cannot touch on every conceivable point in the discussion, and thus for our purposes I identify seven major interrelated areas that ought to stimulate our thoughts in reflecting on Pentecostalism as a global movement influencing world Christianity today. This article is devoted neither to global pentecostal statistical returns, as important as that may be, nor to the different types of pentecostal/charismatic movements in the world. Rather, I focus on the critical importance of the experience of the Holy Spirit as the religious core of this stream of Christianity and the practical ways in which the Spirit has inspired pentecostal activity in the world.

Experiencing the Spirit

2020 ◽  
pp. 48-79
Author(s):  
Simeon Zahl
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Systematic Theology ◽  
Emotional Impact ◽  
Temporal Specificity ◽  
The World ◽  
The Holy Spirit

This chapter argues that a constructive recovery of the category of “experience” in Christian theology is best accomplished through the lens of the theology of the Holy Spirit. Thinking about experience in terms of the work of the Holy Spirit helps specify what we mean when we talk about Christian “experience,” while also avoiding the problems that arise in appeals to more general concepts of “religious experience.” The chapter shows how a pneumatologically informed theology of experience draws attention to a problematic tendency towards abstraction and disembodiment in much modern systematic theology. It then argues that the work of the Spirit is likely to take forms that are “practically recognizable” in the lives of Christians in the world, exhibiting temporal specificity as well as affective and emotional impact, and that pneumatologies that cannot take account of such practically recognizable effects are deficient.

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