Rebell oder Mitarbeiter Gottes? Hildegard von Bingen zu einem bekehrten Umgang mit der Schöpfung

2021 ◽  
Vol 66 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 221-231
Author(s):  
Maura Zátonyi ◽  
◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
Hildegard Von Bingen ◽  
Hildegard Of Bingen ◽  
God's Love ◽  
The World

Rebel or collaborator of God? Hildegard of Bingen about a converted creation approach. Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) describes the consequences of the destruction of nature with surprising modern illustrations. At the same time, she shows ways to change for the better. Instead of rebelling against God and the order of creation, man is invited to take his position in the heart of creation. Obedience frees man to deal with creation in a compliant manner. This way he can respond to God’s love and act with responsibility in the world. Keywords: Hildegard von Bingen, Schöpfung, Gottes Liebe, Freiheit, Vernunft, Verantwortung, Gottesvergessenheit, Umkehr, geschöpfliches Dasein, Gehorsam.

Hospitality at community wells: The life-giving waters of John 4:7–15

2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (4) ◽  
pp. 526-535
Author(s):  
Cindy Bolden
Keyword(s):  
North Carolina ◽  
God's Love ◽  
The World ◽  
The Cost ◽  
The Church ◽  
Samaritan Woman

Jesus’s encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well is a paradigmatic text for the Church, showing new possibilities for how the Church can engage the world, specifically engagement through invitational conversation and acts of charity at modern-day community wells. A Place at the Table is a pay-what-you-can café in Raleigh, North Carolina. Patrons can pay the suggested price, less than the suggested price, redeem a token worth the cost of a meal, or pay by volunteering at the café. Patrons who are able to “pay it forward” can further support the mission by tipping or buying meal tokens for others. At this café, a space reminiscent of an ancient “community well,” thirsty travelers receive the life-giving waters of acceptance, connection, and sustenance. The custom of hospitality is a life-giving and transformational practice for the Church, a viable and tangible way to connect with its neighbor and draw all persons into the experience of God’s love.

scholarly journals Manifesting the Sacred: John La Farge’s The Lampbearer as a Model for Catholic Presence in the World

Lumen et Vita ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin LaBadie
Keyword(s):  
Theological Reflection ◽  
Present Patient ◽  
American Artist ◽  
God's Love ◽  
The World ◽  
Union With God ◽  
The Church

What does it mean for the Church to be in the world? In this paper, I propose that it means for the Church to be sacred, i.e., all Catholics are called to live sacredly. How is the sacred defined? To answer this question, I look to the American artist, John La Farge (1835-1910), whose works are currently being displayed at Boston College's McMullen Museum. The exhibition examines La Farge's "lifelong efforts to visualize the sacred." Given this, I offer a theological reflection on La Farge's painting of the Wise Virgin in order to elucidate what it means to live sacredly: being in tension between the transcendent and the imminent. In other words, to live sacredly means to be attentive, patient, and faithful to the ultimate coming of God's kingdom, yet also to be present, patient, and concerned with the practical worldly challenges of today. This sacredness begins to manifest God's love and kingdom on Earth even if there is still a longing for God’s full glory which is not yet present. This is how the Church is to be in the world. The Church should be attentive to the numerous challenges on Earth while remembering her ultimate end is union with God in Heaven. To forget this latter point would make the Church a mere NGO detached from God while to forget the former would make the Church an arthritic institution detached from those who suffer. Therefore, all Catholics are called to live in the tension between the transcendent and the imminent.

God in the Old Testament

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brent A. Strawn
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Final Analysis ◽  
Direct Result ◽  
Religious Literature ◽  
Forthcoming Article ◽  
The Bible ◽  
God's Love ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Character Of God

This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion. Please check back later for the full article. The God of the Old Testament (or Hebrew Bible) is arguably one of the most fascinating deities in all religious literature: complex and multifaceted; prone to great acts of mercy and kindness, although not above brutal acts of punishment and wrath; consumed with care for the world and its inhabitants; capable of changing direction or mind; inexplicably in love with God’s people and deeply concerned with their ways in the world. This robust picture of the character of God in the Old Testament emerges in the aggregate: from viewing the library of books that is the Old Testament as a whole and trying to reckon with their literary complexity at a higher order of reflection. Inordinate attention to specific parts of the Old Testament—this verse, say, or that one, especially when divorced and isolated from all others—can produce a completely different (mis)perception such as that found in some ungenerous estimations that see the God of the Old Testament as petty or unjust, vindictive or bloodthirsty, misogynistic or genocidal. Such estimations are as old as the second-century arch-heretic Marcion but are also found in works of more recent vintage. Some—although certainly not all—of these negative descriptors can be applied to the God of the Old Testament in certain passages, but a portrait consisting solely of them will end up being little more than a caricature that will not hold up to close scrutiny because it systematically ignores every piece of contrary data found in the Bible. To be sure, accounting for what might be called “polarities” in God’s presentation (God’s love versus God’s wrath) is a challenging intellectual task, literarily as much as theologically. Not all readers are up to the job (witness Marcion). But this task must be engaged if one wishes to write a complete character description (not to mention analysis) of God from the biblical texts. Indeed, the complexity of any more fulsome portrait of God in the Old Testament—marked, for example, by tensions, a vast array of metaphors, and alternative presentations—should be one of the primary results of such an endeavor. The God of the Old Testament is, after all, first and foremost, according to the description above, complex and multifaceted. The complexity of God’s portrayal in the Old Testament is the direct result of the diversity of the Bible itself—a term that derives from a Greek plural, ta biblia, “the books.” Not only are the books of the Bible several and different at a synchronic level, but also they come from different periods and are themselves (that is, within each particular book) the result of long diachronic processes. This two-layered diversity that marks the Bible adds yet further difficulty to the task of describing God therein, even as it suggests that more than one approach can and must be (and has been) utilized in the attempt. In the final analysis, it seems safe to say that the complexity of God’s portrayal in the Old Testament has functioned not only to make this deity endlessly fascinating in the history of civilization but also to underscore—at some literary level, if nothing else—that the God of whom the texts speak is truly a divine character: not able to be captured, controlled, or managed by the human characters in the stories and not even by the sacred literature itself. Only a robust approach to the biblical literature that pays attention to both synchronic and diachronic aspects can hope to do justice to such a fascinating deity.

scholarly journals Divine Love as the Reason for Creation in Islam—An Exploration of Nursi’s Epistles of Light

Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 667
Author(s):  
Nasrin Rouzati
Keyword(s):  
Final Section ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Spiritual Journey ◽  
Divine Love ◽  
God's Love ◽  
The World ◽  
Magnum Opus ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Shed Light

This paper aims to answer the question “why did God create the world” by examining Bediuzzaman Said Nursi’s magnum opus, the The Epistles of Light (Risale-i Nur), to demonstrate that, from a Nursian perspective, divine love is the raison d’etre for the creation of the world. The first section will investigate the notion of divine love as reflected in the wider Muslim scholarly literature. This will be followed by a discussion on the theology of divine names, with special attention to Nursi’s perspective, illustrating the critical role that this concept plays in Nursian theology particularly as it relates to cosmic creation. The third section will explore the metaphysics of love, the important implications of God’s love in the creation of the world, and its role as the driving force for the dynamism and activities within the structure of the universe. The Qur’anic presentation of love, maḥabba, as well as the significance of the reciprocal nature of love between God and humankind will be explored next. The final section will shed light on the synergy between divine love and the Qur’anic notion of ibtilā, trial and tribulation, to demonstrate its instrumentality in man’s spiritual journey.

scholarly journals For hendes ansigt skinnede som solen

1997 ◽  
Author(s):  
Britt Istoft
Keyword(s):  
Virgin Mary ◽  
Hildegard Of Bingen ◽  
Central Figure ◽  
Spiritual World ◽  
The Feminine ◽  
The World ◽  
Anima Mundi ◽  
Feminine Divine

The Gernman abbess and mystic Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) developped a richly nuanced theology of the feminine. At the heart of her spiritual world stands the numinous figure she called Sapientia or Caritas: Wisdom or Love, a theophany of the feminine aspect of the divine. In Hildegard's visionary work De operatione Dei, "The Book of Divine Works", written between 1163-1173, Caritas/Sapientia plays an important part. She is the central figure in five out of the ten visions, that comprises De operatione Dei. The first two visions picture Caritas as Anima Mundi, the world soul - the divine presense in the cosmos - and Creatrix, who creates the world by existing in it as an eternal, circling motion. The eighth vision presents Caritas/Sapienta as the "living fountain", that both quickens and reflects all creatures, and inspires the prophets, including Hildegard herself. The theme of the ninth vision is "Wisdom's vesture". Because Wisdom is both a cosmic and a microcosmic figure, her garb can represent the workmanship og either God or man. In the tenth vision Caritas rests in the center of the wheel of eternity and history, and is presented as the eternal archetype of the Virgin Mary. Besides being a theological necessity as mediator of creation, incarnation and salvation Hildegard's feminine divine also serves as a model for women, particularly consecrated virgins, who represent the feminine divine on earth.

‘Evil, Love and the Left Hand of God’: The Contribution of Luther’s Theology of the Cross to an Evangelical Theology of Evil

2002 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
pp. 215-234
Author(s):  
Veli-Matti Karkkainen
Keyword(s):  
Theology Of The Cross ◽  
The Real ◽  
Left Hand ◽  
Human Love ◽  
Real Presence ◽  
God's Love ◽  
The World ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
The Cross ◽  
Evangelical Theology

Luther’s leading theological idea, the theology of the cross, is based on his distinctive view of God’s love and its relationship to suffering and evil. Luther argues that God’s actions in the world are ‘crossformed’. The new Finnish Luther interpretation offers methodologically and thematically fresh perspectives on Luther’s understanding of God’s love and its relation to human love and to evil. The idea of the ‘real’ presence of Christ in the believer receives special highlight. On the basis of these considerations, this essay attempts to open up new perspectives for Evangelical theology on the problem of evil and God’s love.

scholarly journals Mistério da Encarnação no Magistério do Papa Francisco: fundamento da missão da Igreja

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
José De Souza Paim ◽  
Pedro Iwashita
Keyword(s):  
Central Nucleus ◽  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Second Vatican Council ◽  
Pope Francis ◽  
Vatican Council ◽  
Dei Verbum ◽  
God's Love ◽  
The World ◽  
Theological Study ◽  
The Church

Resumo: Este é um estudo teológico sobre o mistério da Encarnação do Verbono pensamento do Papa Francisco como fundamento sobre o qual ele se apoiapara propor, a partir da Evangelli Gaudium, uma renovação eclesial inadiável1,uma Igreja em permanente estado de missão2, a partir do Evangelho, núcleocentral do anúncio, para a manifestação da beleza do amor de Deus, reveladoem Jesus Cristo morto e ressuscitado3. Para o desenvolvimento desta pesquisaserá feita a análise de alguns números da Constituição Dogmática Dei Verbumcom o fim de melhor explicitar a revelação divina e a encarnação como ápiceda revelação. O resultado desta pesquisa é ajudar na percepção que o Papatem do Concílio Vaticano II sobre a Igreja e sua dimensão pastoral no mundo ecomo ele, nos passos do Concílio, propor uma renovação eclesial.Palavras-chave: Revelação. Papa Francisco. Evangelii gaudium.Abstract: This is a theological study on the mystery of the Incarnation of the Wordin the thought of Pope Francis as the grounds on which he relies to propose,from Evangelii Gaudium, an unchanging ecclesial renewal (EG 27), a Church in permanent state of mission (EG 20), from the Gospel, the central nucleus ofthe announcement, for the manifestation of the beauty of God’s love, as well asrevealed in Jesus Christ died and resurrected (EG 36). For the development ofthis research some numbers of the Dogmatic Constitution Dei Verbum will beanalyzed in order to better explain divine revelation and incarnation as the apexof the revelation. The result of this research is to help understand the Pope’s per-ception of the Second Vatican Council on the Church and its pastoral dimensionin the world and how he proposes an ecclesial renewal in the steps of the Council.Keywords: Revelation. Pope Francis. Evangelii gaudium.

The Theological Thought on the Holy Places in the Writings of Palestinian Hagiographers of the 6th - 7th Centuries: Themes, Origins, Tradition. Part II

2020 ◽  
pp. 294-315
Author(s):  
Елена Владимировна Копыл
Keyword(s):  
Living Environment ◽  
Theological Reflection ◽  
Holy Land ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
God's Love ◽  
The World ◽  
Holy Places ◽  
Theological Thought ◽  
Holy City

Во второй части статьи продолжается исследование богословской мысли о святых местах Палестины, представленной в сочинениях выдающихся агиографов палестинского монашества VI-VII вв.: в «Житии прп. Феодосия Киновиарха» авторства епископа Феодора Петрского, в серии житий, составленных Кириллом Скифопольским, и в «Луге духовном» блж. Иоанна Мосха. В свете патристической традиции рассматривается содержание нравственно-аскетических и экзегетических тем этого раздела богословия, среди которых: 1) святые места как жизненная среда палестинских подвижников; 2) поклонение святыням, бегство от мира и стремление к безмолвию как тройственный фактор притяжения подвижников в Палестину; 3) Авраам (см. Быт. 12, 1) как библейский прообраз монашеского удаления в Святую Землю и духовного странничества в свете тропологическо-буквальной экзегезы; 4) любовь Божия как нравственно-мистическое основание для пребывания вблизи Святого Града; 5) важность молитвы у святых мест, участия в таинствах и обрядах, а также поста как подготовительного подвига ко встрече со святыней; 6) нравственно-аскетические ограничения на пребывание у святых мест. Анализ нравственно-аскетических и экзегетических тем богословия святых мест выявляет в житийной литературе множественные следы интертекстуальности, позволяющие говорить о корпусе этих текстов как о проявлениях последовательной и живой патристической традиции. Обе части исследования позволяют сделать вывод о том, что её истоки следует видеть в богослужебной, экзегетической традиции, практике почитания святынь, а также догматическом и нравственно-аскетическом богословии палестинских и иных патристических авторов христианского Средиземноморья. The second part of this article continues the exploration of theological reflection on the holy places of Palestine in the works of these eminent hagiographers of Palestinian monasticism of the 6th-7th centuries: the Life of St. Theodosius by Theodore of Petra, a series of Lives compiled by Cyril of Scythopolis, and the Spiritual Meadow by John Moschus. In the light of patristic tradition a diverse range of moral, ascetical and exegetical topics of this theological field is examined, including: 1) the holy places as the living environment of Palestinian ascetics; 2) the veneration of the holy places, the flight from the world, and the desire for hesychia as a threefold factor of attraction to Palestine for ascetics; 3) Abraham (Gen. 12, 1) as a biblical typos of monastic retreat to the Holy Land and of the spiritual xeniteia in the light of tropological and literal exegesis; 4) God’s love as a moral and mystical basis for living near the Holy City; 5) the importance of prayer at the holy places, participation in sacraments and rituals, and fasting as a preparation for encounter with the holy places; 6) moral and ascetic restrictions on living at the holy places. This analysis of moral-ascetical and exegetical topics within the theology of the holy places attested in hagiographical literature shows multiple traces of intertextuality, which enables us to state that this theological reflection is a manifestation of a coherent and living patristic tradition. The two parts of this article seek to show that the origins of this theology flow from liturgical and exegetical traditions, the practice of venerating the holy places, and the dogmatic, moral, and ascetic theology of Palestinian and other patristic authors of the Christian Mediterranean.

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