Theological Politics and the Davidic Monarchy: Three Examples of Theological Exegesis

2008 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-162
Author(s):  
Michael Allen
Keyword(s):  
Karl Barth ◽  
Divine Action ◽  
Divine Judgment ◽  
Scriptural Exegesis ◽  
Walter Brueggemann ◽  
Davidic Monarchy ◽  
Theological Politics ◽  
The Way

AbstractKarl Barth, Oliver O'Donovan, and Walter Brueggemann explicitly link their constructive political projects to extensive Scriptural exegesis. I will investigate their different readings of the Davidic monarchy within the life of Israel as a means by which to exposit and critique their respective accounts of centralized governmental authority. Along the way, three important judgments will be suggested from their theological exegesis for the task of theological politics: the analogical subordination of human government to divine judgment, an encouragement of prophetic counter-politics to ward off imperial idolatry, and affirmation of a positive creaturely witness to divine action.

On the Way from Schleiermacher to Barth: A Critical Reappraisal of Isaak August Dorner's Essay on Divine Immutability

2000 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 490-510 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Gockel
Keyword(s):  
Special Reference ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Reciprocal Relation ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Doctrine Of God ◽  
Historical Life ◽  
The Way

The theme of this article is the reconstruction of the doctrine of God offered by the German theologian and historian of doctrine Isaak August Dorner (1809–84), in his treatise ‘On the Proper Conception of the Doctrine of God's Immutability, with Special Reference to the Reciprocal Relation between God's Suprahistorical and Historical Life.’ Although the theme of God's immutability has received wide attention in the last years, Dorner's essay has gone largely unnoticed, and its contribution to the current debate still awaits appreciation. The following argument shall provide some building-blocks for this goal. It presupposes that Dorner's theology was shaped in dialogue with the thought of Schelling, Hegel, and Schleiermacher, but it will extend this perspective and ask for the particular systematic-theological link between Schleiermacher and Karl Barth that Dorner's essay represents.

The Divine Trinity

2018 ◽  
pp. 39-53
Author(s):  
William J. Abraham
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Divine Action ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Attributes Of God ◽  
Vision Of God ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Trinity ◽  
The Way

The Christian vision of God is that God is three Persons in one Substance. This vision went beyond Scripture in order to do justice to Jewish monotheism, encounters with Jesus as an agent of divine action, and personal and corporate experiences of the Holy Spirit. Objections based on entanglement with Greek metaphysics and on certain feminist claims about male language fail. Loss of the Trinity involves serious impoverishment of the life and work of the church. Its continued embrace prepares the way for the exploration of the attributes of God.

Divine Love, Divine Holiness, and the Atonement

2021 ◽  
pp. 188-211
Author(s):  
Mark C. Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Divine Action ◽  
Divine Love ◽  
Penal Substitution ◽  
Union With God ◽  
The Way

The chapter contrasts what we should expect and require from a theory of Atonement if we take divine action to be governed by the holiness framework and if we do not. The primary foil is Eleonore Stump’s unqualifiedly and exclusively love framework account of the Atonement. Stump’s way of categorizing theories of the Atonement based on whether the obstacle to union with God is in us or in God is inadequate; rather, the appropriate distinction is between views that take the obstacle to be psychological (as Stump’s own view does) or normative (as satisfaction and penal substitution views do). By Stump’s own lights, the way in which past sin is an obstacle to union with God requires a normative treatment, and the holiness framework provides a plausible explanation of this: so long as such past sin is not dealt with, it normatively precludes the fuller unity with God that is constitutive of our good.

scholarly journals Downward Causation – The Way How Mind and Matter Interact?

Open Theology ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Losch
Keyword(s):  
Best Approximation ◽  
Downward Causation ◽  
Divine Action ◽  
The Best Approximation ◽  
Matter Interaction ◽  
The Way

AbstractThe paper analyzes Karl Popper’s and John Eccles’ account of mind-matter interaction and compares their use of the concept of downward causation with other more recent accounts of it, especially those of Nancey Murphy and George Ellis. The argument includes John Polkinghorne’s take on Divine action, as it provides an interesting version of downward mind/matter-interaction. It will be argued that while downward causation is a speculative concept, it nevertheless remains the best approximation to a scientific perspective on mind/matter interaction that we can obtain. As a result, Popper’s and Eccles’ account seems to be more interesting in these regards than usually assumed, and should not continue to be overlooked in the debate.

Karl Barth's ecclesiology reconsidered

2004 ◽  
Vol 57 (3) ◽  
pp. 287-299 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas M. Healy
Keyword(s):  
Karl Barth ◽  
The Other ◽  
Divine Action ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Universe

The essay begins by noting some of the things Karl Barth might have said to defend himself against Stanley Hauerwas's criticisms, in the otherwise largely appreciative discussion in With the Grain of the Universe, of Barth's anthropology and pneumatology and the consequent problems in his ecclesiology. I then discuss some issues that Barth himself might have wanted to raise with regard to Hauerwas's own ecclesiology, especially in reference to its comparative lack of emphasis upon divine action and the difference that makes to an account of the church's witness. I argue that Barth and Hauerwas differ to some degree in their understanding of the gospel and of Christianity, with Hauerwas emphasizing rather more than Barth the necessity and centrality of the church's work in the economy of salvation. Barth, on the other hand, sees the need rather more than Hauerwas of situating the church's activity within a well-rounded account of the work of the Word and the Spirit. I offer some concluding remarks to suggest that this particular aspect of Barth's ecclesiology is worth preserving as an effective way of responding to modernity.

The Humanity of Man in Karl Barth's Thought

1975 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-147
Author(s):  
Stuart D. McLean
Keyword(s):  
Karl Barth ◽  
Dynamic Form ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Way

One purpose of this article is to explicate what Karl Barth means by the man-to-man relationship, or, in his terms, ‘humanity’, and to discuss the variety of forms involved in this basic dynamic-form. Another purpose is to make the reader aware of the way dialectical-dialogical thought functions in describing the relationship between God and man, and man and man.

Texts in quarantine: Karl Barth, biblical interpretation and imaginative resistance

2018 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Angela Dienhart Hancock
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Word Of God ◽  
Adequate Account ◽  
Imaginative Resistance ◽  
Biblical Texts ◽  
The Way

AbstractThis essay explores the overlapping territory between the phenomenon known as ‘imaginative resistance’ in literary, psychological and philosophical circles and Karl Barth's theological hermeneutic. Imaginative resistance refers to the way readers are willing to give consent to all sorts of implausible things in the context of a fiction, but become uneasy when asked to imagine that something they consider morally or ethically reprehensible is good. The essay offers an overview of the current scholarly theories regarding the origins of the phenomenon of imaginative resistance, arguing that none of them provide an adequate account of imaginative resistance in relation to a text read as ‘Word of God’. The essay suggests that Karl Barth's theological hermeneutic does not offer a ‘solution’ to imaginative resistance in relation to scripture, but rather deepens and redescribes it in meaningful ways by acknowledging the appropriateness of the interpreter's resistance while encouraging continued engagement even with the claims of challenging biblical texts.

Karl Barth

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul T. Nimmo
Keyword(s):  
Karl Barth ◽  
Church Dogmatics ◽  
Contemporary Work ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Way

This chapter explores the epistemology of theology that is described and deployed in the theology of Karl Barth. Drawing primarily on the second volume of the Church Dogmatics, the chapter first considers Barth’s understanding of the epistemology of theology with reference to the roles of Word and Spirit, the primary and secondary objectivity of God, and the place of analogy. It then turns to examine the impact of Barth’s position upon the way in which the discipline of theology engages in dialogue with other disciplines, observing Barth’s practice in respect of the conversations he conducts with general ethics and general anthropology. The chapter concludes by suggesting ways in which the work of Barth may have ongoing importance in respect of contemporary work in the epistemology of theology.

'My spirit' in Genesis 6.1-4

2011 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 232-251
Author(s):  
Robin Routledge
Keyword(s):  
Close Link ◽  
Primary Motivation ◽  
New Creation ◽  
Divine Judgment ◽  
Indirect Relationship ◽  
The Way

AbstractGen. 6.1-4 is widely thought to stand in an indirect relationship to the flood narrative as an example of the wickedness (v. 5) that resulted in divine judgment. This article argues that Gen. 6.1-8 forms a unified introduction to the flood story and thus that 1) the withdrawal of the divine in 6.3 presages the flood and the destruction of everything that has the 'breath of life'; and 2) the 'sons of God, daughters of humankind' episode in Gen. 6.1-4, which points to human presumption in seeking to attain immortality through illicit liaisons with heavenly beings, is a primary motivation for that divine judgment. The designation of in 6.3 as belonging to God also indicates a close link with Gen. 1.2 (the only other such reference in the primaeval history) and suggests that has also a cosmological significance, playing a role in the divine victory over the chaotic waters (1.2), and when withdrawn (6.3) allowing those waters to return. is allows us to set Gen. 6.1-4 within the wider context of the primaeval history. It also has implications for the way we understand the role of the Spirit in creation; and so, too, in renewal and new creation.

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