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.

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 Tjaart van der Walt: slaaf van Christus – δοῦλος Χριστοῦ

2011 ◽  
Vol 45 (2/3) ◽  
Author(s):  
E.J. Smit ◽  
Fika J. Van Rensburg
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Vice Chancellor ◽  
The One ◽  
As If ◽  
Successes And Failures

Tjaart van der Walt: slave of Christ – δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Tjaart van der Walt has carried an array of titles: from Boy, to Young Man, to Mister, to Reverend, to Doctorandus, to Doctor,to Professor, to Rector, to Vice-Chancellor, to CEO, to Ambassador! But the one title he gladly accepts, is “slave of Christ” – or in the Greek he loves so much: δοῦλος Χριστοῦ (doulos Christou)! This has become typical of him and his life: a slave taking his instructions from Jesus Christ as his Owner, his Κύριος (Kurios), being willing to – in each situation and in relationship with any person or organisation – put on his slave clothing, roll up his sleeves, and serve! In this narrative of the life of Tjaart van der Walt we do not want to share lists of successes and failures, but rather we survey the serving life of this “slave of Christ”, as if from an Archimedes vantage point. The present, November 2011, is this Archimedes vantage point.

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.

Païdeia et Sport

1998 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Leo-Paul Bordeleau
Keyword(s):  
Social Practice ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Modern Education ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The World ◽  
The One

Can sport claim to be an educative means, and what becomes of Greek paideia in the world of sport? The author intends to answer these questions through the use of a semantic and historical clarification of the notions of sport and education. Indeed, on the one hand, sport appears like a social practice not much propitious to education; on the other hand, modern education seems to have deviated from the Greek paideia’s trajectory. Therefore, to take into account this deviation and, by doing so, to make precise the idea of education, and then demonstrate that sport carries all characteristics of modern rationality which has produced it, will allow the author to conclude that sport could be considered one of the preferential means of human beings’ formation. Nevertheless its educative function more likely belongs to the nature of "poïèsis" than to the nature of "praxis."

Apokatastasis and apostolicity: a response to Oliver Crisp on the question of Barth's universalism

2014 ◽  
Vol 67 (4) ◽  
pp. 464-480 ◽  
Author(s):  
David W. Congdon
Keyword(s):  
Karl Barth ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Effective Work ◽  
Universal Salvation ◽  
Divine Freedom ◽  
Modal Distinction ◽  
The One ◽  
Objective Side ◽  
Subjective Contingency ◽  
Bear Witness

AbstractOliver Crisp argues that Karl Barth is incoherent on the question of universal salvation. Making use of a modal distinction between contingent and necessary universalism, Crisp claims that Barth's theology leads to the view that all people must be saved, yet Barth denies this conclusion. Most defences of Barth reject the view that his theology logically requires the salvation of all people; they try to defend him by appealing, as Barth himself seems to do at times, to divine freedom. This article argues that, even though his theology does lead necessarily to the conclusion of universal salvation, it is still coherent for him to deny universalism on his own methodological grounds, since the necessity and the denial operate at different levels. Barth has other commitments in his theology than mere logical consistency. To support this claim, I argue that the necessity which belongs to God's reconciling work in Christ coincides with a double contingency: (a) the ‘objective’ contingency of Christ's particular history and (b) the ‘subjective’ contingency with which this reconciliation confronts particular human beings and calls them to participate in the apostolic mission of Jesus. In each case, necessity coincides paradoxically with a kind of contingency, such that, within Barth's theology, we can speak of what Kevin Hector calls ‘contingent necessity’ or what Eberhard Jüngel calls ‘eschatological necessity’. Most debates over universalism focus on the objective side. There the question is whether the necessity of Christ's universally effective work compromises divine freedom. But Barth's concern on this point is whether the necessity is ‘transcendent’ or ‘immanent’, that is, whether it is determined by God or the creature, and since God can indeed will the salvation of all, this poses no problem in principle for affirming universal salvation. Barth's central concern has to do with the issue of ‘subjective’ necessity. Barth denies that theology is ever a matter of describing what is objectively or generally the case regarding God and the world. On the contrary, he situates theology within the existential determination and subjective participation of the one called to bear witness to Jesus Christ. For this reason, he rejects all worldviews, including universalism. The rejection of universalism is the affirmation of apostolicity.

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.

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.

scholarly journals The Challenge of the Unity of Christ Based on the Letters of 1 Corinthians 3:3-9 Its Relevance in Local Church Ministry

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (9) ◽  
pp. 330
Author(s):  
Enny Irawati
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
1 Corinthians ◽  
Church Ministry ◽  
The Core ◽  
God's People ◽  
Differences Of Opinion ◽  
Corinthians 3 ◽  
The One ◽  
The Church

The research objective that the author means is to find out how the unity of the body of Christ in the church can be carried out properly according to 1 Corinthians 3: 3-9. moving on from the core written in the text above, the author wants the whole congregation to understand the unity of the body of Christ correctly today, given the importance of the unity of the body of Christ in the church, so that some of the more mature congregations in the faith must support the congregation that is not yet mature faith. This writing is intended so that all God's people understand well that the unity of the body of Christ is not to become divided because of disagreements, divisions and differences of opinion. but the body of Christ is the one that brings God's people better together. Some of the things that concern the author in this study are how the congregation can understand the unity of the body of Christ correctly.

“The White Whale”

Karl Barth ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 362-382
Author(s):  
Christiane Tietz
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Word Of God ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Church Dogmatics ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The World ◽  
Doctrine Of The Trinity ◽  
Doctrine Of Creation ◽  
The One ◽  
The Trinity

Barth’s Church Dogmatics is the most extensive theological work of the twentieth century. Barth worked on it from 1932 until 1967, reconceptualizing theology from the very foundations. He distinguishes three forms of the Word of God, avoiding a biblicistic reading of the Bible. The doctrine of the Trinity is a consequent exposition of the concept of God’s self-revelation in Jesus Christ. This God is the one who loves in freedom, that is who relates to human beings because of grace. Barth therefore completely transforms the Reformed doctrine of double predestination. The doctrine of creation as well has to be derived from God’s self-revelation; God created the world because God wanted a covenantal partner. To this creation belong shadow sides as well as nothingness. God in Jesus Christ entered the confrontation with nothingness and reconciled the world with God. Only from reconciliation can we understand the essence of sin.

scholarly journals Justice sociale et luttes pour la reconnaissance: la question de l’agapè

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sébastien Roman
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Mutual Recognition ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Justice Sociale ◽  
The Social ◽  
Dialectical Relationship ◽  
The One

In The Course of Recognition, Paul Ricœur pays special attention to Honneth’s social theory, on the one hand, because it is devoted to the important issue of the struggles for recognition and, on the other hand, because Axel Honneth proposes a convincing neo-Hegelian conception of social justice. However, while adhering to Honneth’s project, Ricœur establishes a dialectical relationship between love and justice, in order to correct an inherent defect of Anerkennung. The reference to agápē would provide the only way out of the endless struggle, by demonstrating that human beings are capable of mutual recognition through the social practice of gift/counter-gift. Ricœur presents agápē as a simple add-on to the Honnethian project. The present paper returns to this assertion, and demonstrates that, on the contrary, the use of agápē alters the struggles for recognition, and does not help us to arrive at a conception of social justice, which is capable of revealing experiences of injustice and combatting them.

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