Wolfhart Pannenberg, Openness to the World, and the Sensus Divinitatis

2021 ◽  
pp. 002114002110177
Author(s):  
Andrew Hollingsworth
Keyword(s):  
Theological Anthropology ◽  
The Other ◽  
John Calvin ◽  
Alvin Plantinga ◽  
Human Identity ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
The World ◽  
Innate Knowledge ◽  
Sensus Divinitatis ◽  
Wolfhart Pannenberg

One of the foundational concepts for Wolfhart Pannenberg’s theological anthropology is his notion of ‘openness to the world.’ Openness to the world, according to Pannenberg, is essential to human identity in that one’s identity is established in their openness to the world, to the other, and, ultimately, to God. I aim to bring Pannenberg’s openness to the world into dialogue with the concept of the sensus divinitatis as articulated by John Calvin and further developed by Alvin Plantinga. The question driving this paper is whether or not Pannenberg’s openness to the world can rightly be understood as the sensus divinitatis, and, if so, what might be some benefits of it. I conclude that Pannenberg’s understanding of openness to the world is a fruitful way of understanding the sensus divinitatis and a fruitful way of arguing for and explaining humanity’s innate knowledge of God.

Predestination

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
George I. Mavrodes
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
The Other ◽  
John Calvin ◽  
Eternal Life ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Equal Condition ◽  
Divine Grace ◽  
The World ◽  
The Will ◽  
Determining Factor

Predestination appears to be a religious or theological version of universal determinism, a version in which the final determining factor is the will or action of God. It is most often associated with the theological tradition of Calvinism, although some theologians outside the Calvinist tradition, or prior to it (for example, Augustine and Thomas Aquinas), profess similar doctrines. The idea of predestination also plays a role in some religions other than Christianity, perhaps most notably in Islam. Sometimes the idea of predestination is formulated in a comparatively restricted way, being applied only to the manner in which the divine grace of salvation is said to be extended to some human beings and not to others. John Calvin, for example, writes: We call predestination God’s eternal decree, by which he compacted with himself what he willed to become of each man. For all are not created in equal condition; rather, eternal life is foreordained for some, eternal damnation for others. Therefore, as any man has been created to one or the other of these ends, we speak of him as predestined to life or to death. (Institutes, bk 3, ch. 21, sec. 5) At other times, however, the idea is applied more generally to the whole course of events in the world; whatever happens in the world is determined by the will of God. Philosophically, the most interesting aspects of the doctrine are not essentially linked with salvation. For instance, if God is the first cause of all that happens, how can people be said to have free will? One answer may be that people are free in so far as they act in accordance with their own motives and desires, even if these are determined by God. Another problem is that the doctrine seems to make God ultimately responsible for sin. A possible response here is to distinguish between actively causing something and passively allowing it to happen, and to say that God merely allows people to sin; it is then human agents who actively choose to sin and God is therefore not responsible.

scholarly journals Knowledge and the Fall in American Neo-Calvinism: Toward a Van Til–Plantinga Synthesis

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Bálint Békefi
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Alvin Plantinga ◽  
Philosophical Thought ◽  
Christian Worldview ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Sensus Divinitatis ◽  
Cornelius Van Til ◽  
Van Til

Abstract Cornelius Van Til and Alvin Plantinga represent two strands of American Protestant philosophical thought influenced by Dutch neo-Calvinism. This paper compares and synthetizes their models of knowledge in non-Christians given the noetic effects of sin and non-Christian worldview commitments. The paper argues that Van Til’s distinction between the partial realization of the antithesis in practice and its absolute nature in principle correlates with Plantinga’s insistence on prima facie–warranted common-sense beliefs and their ultimate defeasibility given certain metaphysical commitments. Van Til endorsed more radical claims than Plantinga on epistemic defeat in non-Christian worldviews, the status of the sensus divinitatis, and conceptual accuracy in knowledge of the world. Finally, an approach to the use of evidence in apologetics is developed based on the proposed synthesis. This approach seeks to make more room for evidence than is generally recognized in Van Tilianism, while remaining consistent with the founder’s principles.

Montaigne on Aging

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cynthia Skenazi
Keyword(s):  
Old Age ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Philosophical Investigation ◽  
Human Identity ◽  
Cognitive Capacities ◽  
The World

Scholars have long seen in Montaigne’s turn inward, toward a psychological and philosophical investigation of human identity a mark of the modernity of the Essays, but they have focused on a static conception of the self, without taking into account Montaigne’s emphasis on his decline. This article discusses the essayist’s pervasive references to his old age as a way to relate to oneself, the other, the world, and to his literary endeavor. The portrait of the writer as a man growing old is embedded in the systems of knowledge of the day, yet Montaigne’s pragmatic reflections on how to adjust to the damages of time on his physical and cognitive capacities still speak to us.

Cultivating the “unquiet heart”: Ecology, education, and Christian faith

2017 ◽  
Vol 74 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer R. Ayres
Keyword(s):  
Practical Theology ◽  
Theological Anthropology ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Educational Theory ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Ecological Context ◽  
Human Identity ◽  
Ecology Education ◽  
The World ◽  
Theological Language

In his 2015 encyclical, Pope Francis argued that Christianity stands in need of an “ecological conversion.” Conversion is an urgent kind of theological language, urging a resilient and ecologically grounded faith, a faith that turns on the capacities necessary to inhabit God’s world well. Drawing on the eschatological tension described by Jürgen Moltmann as the “unquiet heart,” this essay builds a practical theology for nurturing Christian faith in our vulnerable and changing ecological context. Engaging generative questions from the fields of theological anthropology, educational theory, and practical theology, it reframes the work of human life as becoming good inhabitants in God’s household. As such, it reexamines the shape of human identity and vocation in relationship to the world and to God’s promised future. It concludes with modest proposals for practices and educational approaches that might cultivate what Larry Rasmussen has called an “earth-honoring faith.”

Orthodoxy, rationalism and the world in eighteenth-century Holland

1973 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 173-192
Author(s):  
J. Van Den Berg
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Other ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
The Road ◽  
Age Of Reason ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The World ◽  
Revival Movements

As far as the protestant countries are concerned the eighteenth century, the ‘age of reason’, might as well be called ‘the age of revival’. On the one hand, we meet with a strong desire to escape the snares of this world by concentrating upon the mysteries of salvation: the road to sanctity is a narrow road, to be trodden in fear and trembling. On the other hand there are those for whom this world is a world full of new and unexpected possibilities, a world to be explored and to be made instrumental to the fulfilment of the divine plan with regard to the development of humanity in its secular context. Naturally, also in the eighteenth century ‘sanctity’ and ‘secularity’ were not seen as in themselves mutually exclusive concepts. While many revivalists looked forward to the enlightenment of this world by the knowledge of God, many men of the enlightenment saw before them the prospect of the sanctification of the world by the combined influences of reason and revelation. Some of the fathers of the enlightenment - notably Locke and Leibniz - were essentially committed to the cause of Christianity, while on the other hand protagonists of the pietist and revival movements such as Francke and Edwards cannot in fairness be accused of an anti-rational attitude and of a lack of interest in the well-being of this world. Nevertheless, within the circle of eighteenth-century protestant Christianity there were conspicuous differences with regard to the evaluation of and the attitude towards the world in which the Christian community, while living in the expectation of the kingdom, still had to find its way and its place.

scholarly journals Apakah Aku Penjaga Saudaraku?: Mencari Etika Ekologis Kristiani yang Panentheistik dan Berkeadilan

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 167
Author(s):  
Paulus Sugeng Widjaja
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
The Other ◽  
Ecological Ethics ◽  
Continuous Transformation ◽  
Human Identity ◽  
Material World ◽  
The World ◽  
In Christ ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Universe

The damage caused by humankind to nature is an undebatable fact. This article challenges the discriminative attitude that has allowed humans to place ourselves apart from nature and to claim a higher dignity over nature. The belief that humankind is imago Dei who has the right to dominate nature for the sake of their interests has worsened the situation. Faced by the problems, this article proposes a panentheistic and just Christian ecological ethics. It starts from the belief that the universe is one union coherent with and in Christ, in creation, in its history, and in its continuous transformation toward the fullness of that union with and in Christ. Incarnation is not mainly God’s salvific work to save humans, but God’s ethical act embracing and being embraced by nature. In incarnation God is not only present in the world, but is also united in and for the material world in the form of an embodied human, Jesus Christ. Hence human identity is always a perichoresis within which the existence of humans and the existence of nature mutually permeate each other. Neither is ontologically higher than the other, even though each has different function, because the two are sisters/brothers. In this light, a just relationship between humankind and nature must be worked out.

scholarly journals John Calvin’s Multiplicity Thesis

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 399
Author(s):  
Daniel Bonevac
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
John Calvin ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
Epistemic Risk ◽  
The Right ◽  
Philosophical Questions

John Calvin holds that the fall radically changed humanity’s moral and epistemic capacities. Recognizing that should lead Christian philosophers to see that philosophical questions require at least two sets of answers: one reflecting our nature and capacities before the fall, and the other reflecting our nature and capacities after the fall. Our prelapsarian knowledge of God, the right, and the good is direct and noninferential; our postlapsarian knowledge of them is mostly indirect, inferential, and filled with moral and epistemic risk. Only revelation can move us beyond fragmentary and indeterminate moral and theological knowledge.

Indonesian Literature’s Position in World Literature

TEKNOSASTIK ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Dina Amelia
Keyword(s):  
World Literature ◽  
The Other ◽  
National Literature ◽  
Western World ◽  
The World ◽  
The One ◽  
The Voice

There are two most inevitable issues on national literature, in this case Indonesian literature. First is the translation and the second is the standard of world literature. Can one speak for the other as a representative? Why is this representation matter? Does translation embody the voice of the represented? Without translation Indonesian literature cannot gain its recognition in world literature, yet, translation conveys the voice of other. In the case of production, publication, or distribution of Indonesian Literature to the world, translation works can be very beneficial. The position of Indonesian literature is as a part of world literature. The concept that the Western world should be the one who represent the subaltern can be overcome as long as the subaltern performs as the active speaker. If the subaltern remains silent then it means it allows the “representation” by the Western.

Experiment role in the world music (based on the «The Road» album of the Ukrainian «Dakha Brakha» band)

2018 ◽  
pp. 215-227
Author(s):  
Iia Fedorova
Keyword(s):  
Folk Music ◽  
World Music ◽  
The Other ◽  
Modern Music ◽  
Musical Practice ◽  
The Road ◽  
Music Practice ◽  
The World ◽  
Binary Oppositions ◽  
Musical Practices

The main objective of this study is the substantiation of experiment as one of the key features of the world music in Ukraine. Based on the creative works of the brightest world music representatives in Ukraine, «Dakha Brakha» band, the experiment is regarded as a kind of creative setting. Methodology and scientific approaches. The methodology was based on the music practice theory by T. Cherednychenko. The author distinguishes four binary oppositions, which can describe the musical practice. According to one of these oppositions («observance of the canon or violation of the canon»), the musical practices, to which the Ukrainian musicology usually classifies the world music («folk music» and «minstrel music»), are compared with the creative work of «Dakha Brakha» band. Study findings. A lack of the setting to experiment in the musical practices of the «folk music» and «minstrel music» separates the world music musical practice from them. Therefore, the world music is a separate type of musical practice in which the experiment is crucial. The study analyzed several scientific articles of Ukrainian musicologists on the world music; examined the history of the Ukrainian «Dakha Brakha» band; presented a list of the folk songs used in the fifth album «The Road» by «Dakha Brakha» band; and showed the degree of the source transformation by musicians based on the example of the «Monk» song. The study findings can be used to form a comprehensive understanding of the world music musical practice. The further studies may be related to clarification of the other parameters of the world music musical practice, and to determination of the experiment role in creative works of the other world music representatives, both Ukrainian and foreign. The practical study value is the ability to use its key provisions in the course of modern music in higher artistic schools of Ukraine. Originality / value. So far, the Ukrainian musicology did not consider the experiment role as the key one in the world music.

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