scholarly journals Trinitology towards Challenges of Pluralistic Theology of Religion Systematical, Moral and Theological Reflection

2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (2(16)) ◽  
pp. 167-181
Author(s):  
Ignacy Bokwa

Nowadays pluralistic theology of religion is rightly regarded as one of the greatest threats to Christianity. It specifically concerns Christology. A threat to the Christian belief in the Trinity, which is created by pluralistic theology of religion, is seen more rarely. Many scholars consider pluralistic theology of religion as a further step of the modern fight against Christianity and the Church. The increasing spread of religions of the Far East plays a significant role. Pluralistic theology of religion refers to the basic ideas of Buddhism, trying to create a universal religion of the world. Pluralist theology of religion treats every religion of the world with affection- with the exception of Christianity. It is Christianity that is supposed to be tolerant and to adapt to other religions by means of losing its own identity. Pluralistic theology of religion relativizes the Person of Jesus Christ, undermining the uniqueness of the incarnation of God. Jesus of Nazareth was only a prominent man standing near Reality itself (God). Since Jesus Christ was not an ontological Son of God, the doctrine of the Trinity is being undermined. Representatives of pluralistic theology of religion reject the idea of a personal God, at the same time hitting in all monotheistic religions. From their point of view, God is for the human mind unattainable reality which no revelation is able to bring. Various religions are only stages of searching for the final Reality itself. Father, Son and Spirit are nothing more than a projection of human yearnings and religious pursuits. Faced with such claims, Christian theology cannot remain silent. One should be reminded of development of faith in the Triune God in the life of the Church. This is a theoretical- scientific dimension of the problem. It also has its practical and existential meaning. Although Immanuel Kant claimed that the doctrine of the Trinity has no practical importance, contemporary theological reflection presents a new aspect of this problem. Communio- theology comprehends the mystery of the Trinity as an event of constant communication in which Father gives Himself to the Son and so they create the Holy Spirit. The mystery of diversity reconciled in the unity stands at the beginning of every reality. The mystery of the Holy Trinity has its significance not only inside (life of the Church) but also outside (life of the secular, political and economic community). Nowadays the latter has a special meaning in particular. It is a theological and moral surface of the reflection, showing that one should not be afraid of multiplicity and diversity but treat them as an opportunity. In the era of new conflicts and divisions that are increasing and the renewal of the old traumas, it turns out that appeals of the representatives of pluralist theology of religion are fake and are supposed to challenge the principles of Christianity, whereas Christian theology offers modern societies interesting proposals acceptable not only for those who believe.

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-88
Author(s):  
Robert Farrugia

Michel Henry radicalises phenomenology by putting forward the idea of a double manifestation: the “Truth of Life” and “truth of the world.” For Henry, the world turns out to be empty of Life. To find its essence, the self must dive completely inward, away from the exterior movements of intentionality. Hence, Life, or God, for Henry, lies in non‑intentional, immanent self-experience, which is felt and yet remains invisible, in an absolutist sense, as an a priori condition of all conscious experience. In Christian theology, the doctrine of the Trinity illuminates the distinction between the immanent Trinity (God’s self‑relation) and the economic workings of the Trinity (God‑world relation). However, the mystery of God’s inmost being and the economy of salvation are here understood as inseparable. In light of this, the paper aims to: 1) elucidate the significance of Henry’s engagement with the phenomenological tradition and his proposal of a phenomenology of Life which advocates an immanent auto‑affection, radically separate from the ek‑static nature of intentionality, and 2) confront the division between Life and world in Henry’s Christian phenomenology and its discordancy with the doctrine of the Trinity, as the latter attests to the harmonious unity that subsists between inner life and the world.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 130-143
Author(s):  
Herry Sonya Corneles ◽  
Jefry Yopie Afner Suak ◽  
Veydy Yanto Mangantibe

Abstrak: Artkel ini membahas konsep kristologi penganut krsiten tauhid. Persoalan doktrin Kristologi, khususnya tentang hubungan antara natur keilahian dan natur keinsanian Yesus Kristus sudah ada sejak abad mula-mula, sehingga gereja merumuskan rumusan Chalcedon pada konsili Chalcedon yang diadakan tahun 451. Tetapi persoalan Kristologi tetap berlanjut meskipun gereja sudah memiliki rumusan Chalcedon tersebut. Salah satu ajaran yang menentang Trinitas dan doktrin keilahian Yesus Kristus adalah unitarianisme, yang muncul pada abad reformasi. Paham unitarianisme merupakan paham yang meyakini bahwa hanya ada satu Allah saja, baik eksistensi maupun persona. Dalam ajaran tentang Kristus, paham ini lebih menekankan kemanusiaan Yesus Kristus dan menolak natur keilahian Yesus Kristus. Dibuktikan pada  bagian Alkitab bahwa Yesus adalah Allah dalam beberapa cara. Karena Kristus benar-benar tokoh yang pernah hadir dalam sejarah dunia ini. Penulisan ini menggunakan metode penelitian deskriptif dengan pendekatan kajian literatur, sehingga diperoleh data tentang latar belakang sejarah dan ajaran penganut Kristen Tauhid, presuposisi penganut Kristen Tauhid, pokok-pokok pemikiran Kristologis penganut Kristen Tauhid, analisis terhadap konsep Kristologi penganut Kristen Tauhid dan implikasinya bagi Theologia Kristen.Abstract: This article discusses the christology concept of monotheistic Christians. The issue of the doctrine of Christology, especially regarding the relationship between the divine nature and the human nature of Jesus Christ, has existed since the early centuries, so the church formulated the Chalcedon formula at the Chalcedon council which was held in 451. But the Christological problem continued even though the church already had the Chalcedon formula. One of the teachings that opposed the Trinity and the doctrine of the divinity of Jesus Christ was unitarianism, which emerged in the Reformation century. Unitarianism is an understanding that believes that there is only one God, both existence and person. In the teachings of Christ, this understanding emphasizes the humanity of Jesus Christ and rejects the divinity of Jesus Christ. This writing uses a descriptive research method with a literature review approach, in order to obtain data on the historical background and teachings of monotheistic Christians, presuppositions of monotheistic Christians, the main points of Christological thoughts of monotheistic Christians, analysis of the concept of Christology of monotheistic Christians and their implications for Christian Theology


Author(s):  
Matthew Puffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theology of creation is rooted in the confession that Jesus Christ is the mediator. Apart from Christ’s mediation human beings cannot perceive God’s creation, because our postlapsarian world manifests only a fallen creation in which good and evil are confused and intermixed. Whereas Bonhoeffer in his student years affirmed a limited role for the orders of creation, his subsequent writings on the theology of creation can be read as a response to and reaction against the orders of creation. Although human beings have no unmediated access to knowledge of God’s creation, and know the world as fallen creation only through Christ’s redemption, in Christ they are empowered by the Spirit, incorporated into Christ’s body the church, and made a new creation. Only in light of the hoped-for eschatological fulfilment of the new creation may Christian theology speak of the beginning of God’s ways as Creator.


Author(s):  
Wolf Krötke

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.


1994 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 273-294
Author(s):  
Patricia Fox

The article explores the Trinity as a transforming symbol for the twenty—first century. It focuses on the recent work of Catherine Mowy LaCugna and Elizabeth Johnson who offer analyses for the “defeat” of the doctrine of the Trinity and also seek to retrieve core understandings of the mystery from Scripture and Christian tradition. The article suggests that the Church today is being challenged to reform itself in the image of the trinitarian God, to become a community for the world.


1964 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-59
Author(s):  
Fred Kirschenmann

In 1848 Horace Bushnell delivered a lecture at Yale College entitled “The Divinity of Christ,” in which he set forth, for the first time, his views on the doctrine of the Trinity. A year later, this lecture and two others (“The Atonement” and “Dogma and Spirit”) appeared in a book entitled God in Christ. The book was prefaced with a preliminary dissertation on language. Almost immediately the critics assailed Bushnell for his Sabellian views on the Trinity. The Christian Observatory charged him with rejecting the “… commonly received doctrine of a proper Trinity in the Godhead, substituting for it a Pantheistic form of Sabellianism.” The Bible Repertory and Princeton Review, concurring in this judgment, indicated that “This, true enough, is the Sabellianism of Schleiermacher—a threefold revelation of God in the world, in Christ, and in the church.”


Exchange ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 227-247 ◽  
Author(s):  
Léon Nguapitshi Kayongo

AbstractAlthough the present publication does completely meet the requirements for an academic article, we have decided to publish it because of the insights it provides into the latest developments within the Kimbanguist Church in Congo. The author is a theologian who was Dean of the Kimbanguist Faculty of Theology in Lutendele near Kinshasa until mid 2003. He was deeply involved in the problems that arose in the beginning of the 21st century. He is also a person who is able to explain diligently the views of the different parties in the Kimbanguist Church. However, due to his own involvement in these developments the article has rather the character of a document written by a well-educated participant observer, who is very familiar with his subject, than that of a publication authored by a scholar who does his utmost to remain neutral.The document explains the theological, religious and contextual backdrops of the doctrine of the Trinity developed in the Kimbanguist Church, for in this church the persons of the Trinity are narrowly connected with the founder of the church and his family. Since 2001 these connections were even made more intense. Interestingly there are some Biblical reasons for it as well, but nonetheless the church seems to loose doctrinal familiarity with the other churches in the world through these new evolutions.


Karl Barth ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 362-382
Author(s):  
Christiane Tietz

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.


Author(s):  
Hendri Mulyana Sendjaja

The intellectual struggles and adventures of Christian thinkers in Alexandria in the first centuries produced an overarching effect to the doctrines of Christian faith, which survived to the present day. One of those doctrines is the doctrine of the Trinity. The study of the thought of Athanasius of Alexandria in regards of God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, through his works such as Contra Gentes-De Incarnatione, Contra Arianos I-III, and Epistola ad Serapionem, speaks for itself the contribution he made to solidify the doctrine of the Trinity. For him, the doctrine expresses the eternal communion among the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, which in effect brings benefi t to us. The construction of the doctrine is inseparable from the Church tradition which owed to the ecclesiastical biblical exegesis, and the construction of the theological methods, and the soteriological perspective.


1996 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 357-370
Author(s):  
A. A. Howsepian

It is widely believed to be a fundamental tenet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (hereafter the LDS, or Mormon, Church) that a plurality of divine beings inhabits the universe. It has often been pointed out, for example, that according to Mormon doctrine Elohim (the Father), Jesus (the Son), and the Holy Ghost are three distinct Gods.1 The traditional Christian doctrine of the Trinity is, thereby, unambiguously rejected. In light of this, it has become commonplace among Christian apologists2 to infer


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