scholarly journals God’s Providence and the Plurality of Religions

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-59
Author(s):  
Vojtěch Novotný
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Abu Dhabi ◽  
World Peace ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Natural Religion ◽  
Living Together ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Greater Good ◽  
Creative Will

The ‘Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together’, co-signed on 4 February 2019 by Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al Azhar, Ahmad Al-Tayeb, states: ‘The pluralism and the diversity of religions, colour, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings.’ The article presents the starting points of correct hermeneutics of this statement. It points out that it is a positive reformulation of the anti-discrimination human rights declarations, which list the criteria according to which people cannot be discriminated. It shows the compatibility of the statement with the Quran, which presupposes a plurality of successive and graded revelations of God and religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It then represents the reactions with which Catholic theologians responded to the statement: the accusation of the Pope of heresy; the claim that while God’s creative will has instilled a natural religion in human beings, it does not positively seek a plurality of religions; the claim that non-Christian religions are an evil by which God allows to achieve greater good; the claim that all religions are wanted by God’s Providence in what is true, good, and beautiful in them as the preparation for the salvation of man in the encounter with Christ. In the end, it discusses the idea of St. John Paul II, who, for several years before the creation of the Abu Dhabi declaration, combined this last idea with the work of the Holy Spirit.

The Goodness of Home

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalia Marandiuc
Keyword(s):  
Attachment Theory ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
The Self ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Divine Love ◽  
Modern Life ◽  
Middle Term ◽  
Human Love ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Theological Argument

The question of what home means and how it relates to subjectivity has fresh urgency in light of pervasive contemporary migration, which ruptures the human self, and painful relational poverty, which characterizes much of modern life. Yet the Augustinian heritage that situates true home and right attachment outside this world has clouded theological conceptualizations of earthly belonging. This book engages this neglected topic and argues for the goodness of home, which it construes relationally rather than spatially. In dialogue with research in the neuroscience of attachment theory and contemporary constructions of the self, the book advances a theological argument for the function of love attachments as sources of subjectivity and enablers of human freedom. The book shows that paradoxically the depth of human belonging—thus, dependence—is directly proportional to the strength of human agency—hence, independence. Building on Søren Kierkegaard’s imagery alongside other sources, the book depicts human love as interwoven with the infinite streams of divine love, forming a sacramental site for God’s presence, and playing a constitutive role in the making of the self. The book portrays the self both as gifted from God in inchoate form and as engaged in continuous, albeit nonlinear becoming via experiences of human love. The Holy Spirit indwells the attachment space between human beings as a middle term preventing its implosion or dissolution and conferring a stability that befits the concept of home. The interstitial space between loving human persons subsists both anthropologically and pneumatologically and generates the self’s home.

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.

Desires of the Spirit

2020 ◽  
pp. 183-231
Author(s):  
Simeon Zahl
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Transformative Power ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Culturally Embedded

This chapter examines the work of the Holy Spirit in the transformation and sanctification of Christians. It argues that accounts of sanctification that build upon the idea of an instantaneous implantation of new moral powers in the Christian upon receipt of the Spirit have significant problems. It then turns to Augustine’s theology of delight and desire to provide an alternative theology of sanctification that is experientially and affectively more persuasive. The second half of the chapter shows that this “affective Augustinian” approach has a number of further advantages. It can account for the fact that sanctifying experience of the Spirit exhibits variability and that human beings are often a mystery to themselves; it can affirm a qualified role for practice and habituation in Christian sanctification without overestimating the transformative power of Christian practice; and it directs attention to the social as well as materially and culturally embedded dimensions of sanctification. The chapter concludes by arguing that an “affective Augustinian” vision of Christian transformation can also account effectively and compassionately for the persistence of sin in Christians.

The Sunsum of Onyame: Akan Perspectives on an Ecological Pneumatology

2012 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 251-261 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Owusu Agyarko
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Theological Reflection ◽  
Natural State ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Dynamic Equivalent ◽  
The Many ◽  
The One

Abstract The Akan notion of sunsum may form the basis for an ecological pneumatology. Sunsum may be understood as the central, unifying vitality which integrates various elements in Akan thought. Amongst the Akan, God has Sunsum and anything which exists in its natural state has sunsum, a spark from God. The concept of sunsum expresses how the “one” (Onyame) and the “many” (nature including human beings) are related. It is the dynamic equivalent of the Holy Spirit in the Akan Twi Bible. Sunsum is energy, life, communicating itself and transcending itself. It is absolute spirit, who enlivens the whole universe. The Akan concept of sunsum suggests the possibility of a union of the concrete with the universal. The concept of sunsum may therefore enable one to speak of the Holy Spirit and its relation both to God and to nature. This proposal may also enable one to understand the Holy Spirit as cosmic in nature and as divine in being. This contribution offers theological reflection on the implications of the notion of sunsum for ecotheology.

scholarly journals SAKRAMEN BAPTIS SEBAGAI SAKRMEN KESELAMATAN DAN PERSEKUTUAN PARA MURID KRISTUS

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-128
Author(s):  
Ola Rongan Wilhelmus
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Good News ◽  
Evil Spirit ◽  
Disciples Of Christ ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Spirit Baptism ◽  
The World ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
God's Grace

Baptism is a sacrament instituted and used by God Himself through Christ to purify, sanctify and to save human being out of  the power of evil spirit. Baptism celebration maintaining in a proper and faithful manner will be brought about the fullness grace and favor of God to the Catholic faithful. The experiences of the Catholic faithful regarding God’s grace and favor should not be only responded by full faith but also be properly responded by full action to bring it to the entire nations and human races. The Catholic Church as a communion of Christ disciples has been sent and guided by the Holy Spirit to spread out such grace and favor of God to all nations. Pastoral assembly of Surabaya Diocese conducted in 2019 strongly articulated that Baptism is a mean exactly used by God Himself to channel His grace and salvation to the entire human beings. Hence, the Disciples of Christ have to fully respond it by full faith and opened hart.  Christ Himself has sent His disciples to collectively spread out the grace, favor and salvation of God to all over the world.  This good news has to be brought firstly to the inner circle of the Catholic families, neighbours, communities, parishes, and diocese then to the society in general.

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.

Luther, Martin (1483–1546)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
M.A. Higton
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Good Works ◽  
Protestant Churches ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Church Hierarchy ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Justification By Faith ◽  
The Holy Spirit

Martin Luther was an Augustinian monk who found the theology and penitential practices of his times inadequate for overcoming fears about his salvation. He turned first to a theology of humility, whereby confession of one’s own utter sinfulness is all that God asks, and then to a theology of justification by faith, in which human beings are seen as incapable of any turning towards God by their own efforts. Without preparation on the part of sinners, God turns to them and destroys their trust in themselves, producing within them trust in his promises made manifest in Jesus Christ. Regarding them in unity with Christ, God treats them as if they had Christ’s righteousness: he ‘justifies’ them. Faith is produced in the sinner by the Word of God concerning Jesus Christ in the Bible, and by the work of the Holy Spirit internally showing the sinner the true subject matter of the Bible. It is not shaped by philosophy, since faith’s perspective transcends and overcomes natural reason. Faith, through the working of God’s Holy Spirit within the believer, naturally produces good works, but justification is not dependent upon them – they are free expressions of faith in love. Nevertheless, secular government with its laws and coercion is still necessary in this world because there are so few true Christians. Luther’s theology brought him into conflict with the Church hierarchy and was instrumental in the instigation of the Reformation, in which the Protestant churches split from Rome.

Augustine on the Will

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Han-luen Kantzer Komline
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Biblical Story ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
The Will ◽  
A Chain ◽  
Universal Definition ◽  
Basic Features ◽  
The Trinity

By analyzing a variety of texts from across Augustine’s career, the book traces the development of Augustine’s thinking on the human will. Augustine’s most creative contributions to the notion of the human will do not derive from articulating a monolithic, universal definition. He identifies four types of human will: the created will, which he describes as a hinge; the fallen will, a link in a chain binding human beings to sin; the redeemed will, which is a root of love; and the fully free will, to be enjoyed in the next life, when perfection is made complete. His mature view is theologically differentiated, consisting of four distinct types of human will, which vary according to these diverse theological scenarios. His innovation consists in distinguishing these types with a detail and clarity unprecedented by any thinker before him. Augustine’s mature view of the will is constructed in intensive dialogue with other Christian thinkers and, most of all, with the Christian scriptures. Its basic features shape, and are shaped by, his doctrines of Christ and the Holy Spirit, as well as creation and grace, making it impossible to abstract his views on willing from his account of the central Christian doctrines of Christology, Pneumatology, and the Trinity. The multiple facets of Augustine’s conception of will have been cut to fit the shape of his theology and the biblical story it seeks to describe. From Augustine we inherit a theological account of the will.

Friedrich Schleiermachers Erwählungslehre und ihre Fortschreibung in der Theologie Karl Barths

2012 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Gockel
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Critical Evaluation ◽  
Kingdom Of God ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Friedrich Schleiermacher ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Divine Will ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Doctrine Of Election

AbstractThe article compares the doctrine of election in the theology of Friedrich Schleiermacher, particularly his magisterial essay on the topic from 1819, and the theology of Karl Barth between 1920 and 1925. It argues that both positions are strikingly similar, in regard to both their critical evaluation of the tradition and their constructive proposals for a new foundation. Both theologians offer a theocentric reassessment that shuns the particularism of previous approaches and affirms the unity of the divine will. Schleiermacher defends the Augustinian-Calvinist view of election as a bulwark against Manichaeism and Pelagianism. Still, he criticizes the idea of eternal damnation and argues that the concept of reprobation instead should be understood as a temporal ‘passing over’. The kingdom of God is realized gradually, not in one instant. Similarly, for Barth predestination is not a pre-temporal decree that divides human beings into two separate groups of persons but is actualized ever anew in history, when God’s address entails the miracle of faith through the work of the Holy Spirit. The twofold possibility of faith and unbelief is constitutive for the human encounter with God, and it concerns believers and unbelievers alike, since no person is forever exclusively elect or reprobate. Barth also insists that the relation between reprobation and election is non-dualistic and teleological: predestination is a movement

Trust and Aspiration

2020 ◽  
pp. 157-186
Author(s):  
Hillary Kaell
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Divine Love ◽  
Christian Organizations ◽  
Audit Culture ◽  
Participatory Techniques ◽  
The World ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Successful Outcomes ◽  
Short Section

This chapter traces how Christian sponsorship organizations adapt secular audit culture. It begins by exploring how sponsors frame aspirations for foreign children's futures. The chapter then turns to modes of verification. Since sponsors cannot personally verify the results of their giving, they expect detailed facsimiles in the form of audits, graphs, and Better Business Bureau or Charity Navigator reports. Yet very few sponsors actually consult these documents. Instead, they and the organizations they support cultivate multifaceted modes of trust-creation using measures of success that might at first seem divergent, such as financial audits, answered prayers, and children's smiles. Sponsors also rely on aspirational talk and on affective participatory techniques. The chapter concludes with a short section about sponsors' hopes and fears for the world as a whole. Throughout, it underlines God's bridging power: U.S. Christians view the (Holy) Spirit and (divine) Love as the forces that keep Christian organizations honest, animate sponsor–child relationships, and move human beings toward successful outcomes.

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