Wolfhart Pannenberg’s Semiotic Doctrine of the Church: A Peircean Corrective

Author(s):  
Andrew Hollingsworth

Abstract This paper aims to explore and critique Wolfhart Pannenberg’s use of semiotic concepts in his understanding and explanation of the church. He defines the church as “the fellowship of individual believers,” and a “sign of the future fellowship of humanity under God’s reign,” i. e. the future Kingdom of God. As he continues to articulate his doctrine of the church, Pannenberg employs semiotic concepts to articulate this notion of the church as a sign of the Kingdom of God. In this paper, I aim to explore Pannenberg’s use of semiotic concepts as they concern his understanding of the church and provide critique and a new way forward of understanding the church as a sign of the Kingdom of God. Though Pannenberg is right to employ semiotic concepts and terminology to expound upon and clarify this concept, he is wrong in the semiotic model of the sign and approach he chooses to employ. In what follows, I first summarize and explicate Pannenberg’s semiotic understanding of the church, and then I provide a critique and corrective of his semiotic preferences with the semiotic work of American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce.

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-41
Author(s):  
Aurelius Fredimento ◽  
John M. Balan

The development and the progress of media communication at the present is a fact of the knowledge and the technology development that must be accepted. It presence like the flowing water which has a fast current that brings also two influences both positive and negative that must be accounted for the members of the Catholic Students Community Of St. Martinus Ende (KMK St. Martinus Ende). Both positive and negative influences the media community like a kinetic energy or a power attraction that attract  them in a tiring ambiquity. Let them walk alone without escort of a decisive compass where they should have a rightist attitude and responsible. On the point, the guidance and assistance of the church is an  offering  if the church will be born a generation  of the future  of the  church  that is mature and has a certain quality  based  on the growth  and the development  of acuteness and inner  to determine the attitude to the development of media communication. The process of sharpening of mind and the sharpeness of the participants can be realized by giving some activities such as: awareness, deepening and even  the sharpeness of the actor of  media communication as an  alternative of reporting work of the God Kingdom for human beings. It becomes the main moving spirit or activator  for the board of KMK Of St. Martinus Ende  to plan and boring  about the activity of catechism. The activity rise the method of Amos.  By this method, the participants are invited to build a deeply reflection that based on thein real experiences about the media communication, while keep on self opening to the God planning will come  to them  and  give them via  the commandment of God.  The commandment  of God  come to light, inspiration, motivate, power and critics to the  participants about the using of the media communication as a media of the commandment of the kingdom of God  to the world that is more progress and development lately.


1950 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-56
Author(s):  
C. I. Scharling

The Second Coming of Christ and the Resurrection of the Body. Grundtvigs Eschatology. By C. I. Scharling. This essay shows how Grundtvig, in contrast to his contemporaries in the Church, laid great stress upon the eschatological hope of the future. He may have been partly inspired by Scandinavian mythology (the myth of Ragnarok) and partly by Schellings theories about the great drama of existence (the coming forth of ideas from the Absolute and their returning thither). But the essential point is that the eschatological hope grew forth naturally from his personal understanding of life and death, of the meaning and object of human life, and from his faith in the living, risen Christ as Lord and victor over the powers of darkness and death. It is remarkable that while after 1825 Grundtvig lived with such intensity in the experience of the realisation of the Kingdom of God here and now in the Church’s fellowship with the risen, present Saviour, at the same time, both in his hymns and in his preaching, he gives such powerful expression to the eschatological hope of the future. The author finds the explanation of this in the fact that for Grundtvig (unlike many others) it was not the need and distress of the time that gave life to the Biblical promises of the Second Coming of Christ and the setting*up of the Kingdom of Glory at the Last Day, but his very joy in God’s great Salvation, experienced in the Church. Thus the peculiar thing about Grundtvig’s eschatological expectation is that the tidings of the Second Coming of the Lord are for him an evangel in the full sense of the word; his feelings about the Last Day are far removed from the feeling of fear and horror which meets us in many of the mediaeval frescoes of the Lord’s Return to Judgment or in the old hymn, “Dies irae, dies ilia”. Characteristic of him, too, is his stress on the contin uity between the present world, which came into being at the Creation, and the world to come; the old world shall not be destroyed, but reborn and transfigured; its for this reason that he lays so much stress on faith in the resurrection of the body. On the other hand the author rejects the theory put forward by the Norwegian writer, Paulus Svendsen, that Grundtvig was a Chiliast and “believed in an external, perfect Kingdom of God on earth” ; he refutes it by reference to the fact that Grundtvig explicitly rejected Edward Irving’s conception of the millennium.


1995 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 217-274
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Albinus Glenthøj

The Development of Grundtvig ’s Theology until about the Time of the Composition of .The Land of the Living. About the Eschatological Tension in the Understanding of the Kingdom of GodBy Elisabeth Albinus GlenthøjIn order to characterize briefly Grundtvig’s ideas about the Kingdom of God, the following statements are crucial: The Kingdom of God will break through visibly at the Second Coming of Christ. Until then the Kingdom is present to Faith and Hope through the Holy Spirit.The tension between the eschatological, visible Kingdom of God and the presence of the Kingdom now is a common theme in Grundtvig’s hymns. This study seeks to trace the development of Grundtvig’s theology towards his fully developed view of the Kingdom of God. The subject of the study is the great hymn, .The Land of the Living., from 1824, which contains beginnings of Grundtvig’s more elaborated view. The basic texts of the study are sermons by Grundtvig from 1821 to 1824, the period in which the eschatological tension emerges.Sections I to II.A. bring a chronological outline of the development of Grundtvig’s theology during the period until and including the year 1824. Section II.B. examines »The Land of the Living«  in the light of this outline. Throughout the study the emphasis is on the emergence of the eschatological tension.From his parents Grundtvig inherits a belief in a Kingdom of God hereafter, but as Grundtvig experiences the presence of the Lord through the Holy Spirit - in his own life and in the Church - the theology develops towards an understanding of the Kingdom of God as already present to Faith and Hope through the Holy Spirit. The future visible Kingdom illuminates the life of the Church already. Thus the eschatological tension emerges.The continuity between the future and the present Kingdom of God is found in the union with Christ through the Holy Spirit. This union is granted in Baptism and is nourished first and foremost through the Eucharist, and, next, through prayer and words of praise. Grundtvig’s experience of Pentecost underlies »The Land of the Living«: The Holy Spirit builds up the heart of man to become a temple for the Father and Son (stanza 12). Stanzas 7 to 11 elaborate the content of this unity with the Trinity. From here originates the life of the Church in the love of God and of one’s neighbour, a life which, through the Holy Spirit, takes man closer to the likeness to Christ; the goal is reached in Eternity. Wherever the love of God prevails, the Kingdom of God is present (stanza 13); that is where men are »co-operating witnesses to the divine struggle of the Spirit against the flesh«, against everything »which seeks to ... wipe out His image, destroy His temple within us« (Eighth Sunday after Trinity, 1824).


MELINTAS ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 31
Author(s):  
Fabianus Sebastian Heatubun

Pope Francis’s statement “I am the Vatican II” sounds a manifesto. To which direction is the wind blowing the Church’s ark, we might have already guessed. The existing dichotomy between the liberal and the conservative as well as the tension between the primacies of the pastoral and the dogmatic will yet be conflicting and colliding with each other. After 50 years, the 2nd Vatican Council and the ongoing future discussions about the basic pastoral directions within the Catholicism are to this day white-hot. The Pope could be anyone. But theologians, for these are who make the <em>lineamenta</em> of a new document, will continue to colour the trend of the Church in giving responses to the signs of the time. The future of Catholicism will not be viewed as limited as the lens of the Vatican II. The future humanism will challenge the Church with wider and more complex considerations rather than dwelling on the problems of dialogue with other religions apologetically or racketing with traditionalism, liberalism, and sekularism. There are pressing matters such as ecology, global warming, terrorism, and the sprawling gap between the poor and the rich. Macro-ethics has become more imperative than micro-ethics. The Catholic Church is called out to create “a better world for all” – the Kingdom of God that is inclusive and at a stroke pluralistic.<br /><br />


2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 539-557
Author(s):  
Abraham Van de Beek

An English translation of a recovered article by the Dutch theologian Oepke Noordmans, Kerk en Toekomst (Church and future) is presented. The relevance of this article for the present context, especially in South Africa, is discussed against the background of Noordmans’ theology. Noordmans is not concerned about the future of the church (which in the final analysis is not meant to last forever), but calls for participation in the Kingdom of God. Noordmans’ theology is highly critical of tendencies in churches to escape from hard reality and responsibilities (Noordmans calls this weak ascesis), or to claim easily manageable solutions. He calls for a more critical attitude in accordance with the eschatological call of the Kingdom, and for a closer unity of human beings as fallible people who are united because they share a life at the foot of the cross (strong ascesis).


2019 ◽  
Vol 72 (285) ◽  
pp. 5
Author(s):  
Nicolau João Bakker

Falar de socialismo religioso tem algo de ambíguo. Existem muitos socialismos na história e na atualidade. O objetivo deste artigo é demonstrar que, tanto na Revelação bíblica quanto na Tradição Cristã, alguma forma de socialismo está claramente presente. Javé se revela um Deus que se coloca do lado dos escravos, em oposição ao Faraó, e se compromete com eles. Jesus rejeita o legalismo do Templo e retoma o profetismo que exige fidelidade à Aliança, expressão de justiça social e amor aos desvalidos. O Reino de Deus se refere a uma “nova” sociedade a ser estabelecida na terra, mas cuja concretização final está no porvir. Este mesmo socialismo religioso está presente na Tradição Cristã e na história da humanidade. Hoje, perigosamente, o pêndulo da Igreja pende novamente para o lado do Templo. Manter o socialismo religioso, a busca pela “nova” sociedade, continua um dos grandes desafios da pastoral dos nossos dias.Abstract: To speak about religious socialism is somewhat ambiguous. There are a lot of socialisms in history and at present. The scope of this article is to demonstrate that, in biblical Revelation and in Christian Tradition, some kind of socialism is visibly present. Yaweh reveals himself as a God who remains on the side of slaves, in opposite of Pharaoh, and commits himself to them. Jesus rejects the legalism of the Temple and renews the prophetic promise that requires fidelity to the Covenant, symbol of justice and love for the helpless. The Kingdom of God refers to a “new” social order to be established on this earth, but whose full realization lies always in the future. This same religious socialism is to be found in Christian Tradition and mankind´s history. At present, the pendulum of the church, dangerously, tends once more to the side of the Temple. Maintain the religious socialism and the search for a “new” social order, continues to be one of the greatest challenges of pastoral ministry in our day.


2019 ◽  
Vol 66 ◽  
pp. 327-334
Author(s):  
Inga V. Zheltikova ◽  
Elena I. Khokhlova

The article considers the dependence of the images of future on the socio-cultural context of their formation. Comparison of the images of the future found in A.I. Solzhenitsyn’s works of various years reveals his generally pessimistic attitude to the future in the situation of social stability and moderate optimism in times of society destabilization. At the same time, the author's images of the future both in the seventies and the nineties of the last century demonstrate the mismatch of social expectations and reality that was generally typical for the images of the future. According to the authors of the present article, Solzhenitsyn’s ideas that the revival of spirituality could serve as the basis for the development of economy, that the influence of the Church on the process of socio-economic development would grow, and that the political situation strongly depends on the personal qualities of the leader, are unjustified. Nevertheless, such ideas are still present in many images of the future of Russia, including contemporary ones.


Author(s):  
Gregory Stevenson

This chapter argues that the concept of evil in the book of Revelation is defined in terms of opposition to the kingdom of God and is, therefore, closely tied to the book’s social situation. Some scholars argue that the oppression of faithful Christians by Rome is the underlying context; this has led to a view that evil is primarily external to the church. Other scholars argue that compromise and accommodation with Roman culture is the underlying context, which has led to a view that evil is both internal and external to the church, but it does not involve overt oppression. This chapter suggests that Revelation addresses both the oppressed and the compromised through the use of a warfare metaphor. Revelation posits that victory over evil occurs through faithful witness, both of Christ and of his followers, and the faithfulness of God to his creation.


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