scholarly journals The Elements of a Christological Anthropology

Perichoresis ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-20
Author(s):  
Rowan Williams
Keyword(s):  
Image Of God ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Material World ◽  
Proper Understanding ◽  
In Christ ◽  
The Image Of God ◽  
The Trinity ◽  
The Way

Abstract Human beings exist in one of two sorts of solidarity, according to St. Paul—the solidarity of sin or alienation ‘in Adam’ or the solidarity of life-giving mutuality in Christ. There can be no Christian theology of the human that is not a theology of communion—which converges with the conviction that our creation in the divine image is creation in relationality. The image of God is not a portion or aspect of human existence but a fundamental orientation towards relation. This understanding of the divine image in turn points to the way in which—as the Orthodox theologian Vladimir Lossky stresses—a proper understanding of the nature of personal being depends upon a proper grasp of the divine image, including the fact that it is always an image of the divine ‘filiation’—the eternal relation of Word to the Father in the Trinity. Our personal flourishing is a filial dependence that liberates and empowers. And what is ‘empowered’ is the human vocation to make reconciled sense of the material world of which we are part, articulating and serving its Godward meaning, so that we may see our humanity as essentially a priestly calling within the reconciling priesthood of Christ, in whom all things cohere.

Maimonides the Universalist

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Menachem Kellner ◽  
David Gillis
Keyword(s):  
Cross Section ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Jewish Law ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Philosophical Reflection ◽  
Legal Code ◽  
Universal Values ◽  
The Image Of God ◽  
The Way

Maimonides ends each book of his legal code, the Mishneh torah, with a moral or philosophical reflection, in which he lifts his eyes, as it were, from purely halakhic concerns and surveys broader horizons. This book analyse these concluding paragraphs, examining their verbal and thematic echoes, their adaptation of rabbinic sources, and the way in which they coordinate with the Mishneh torah's underlying structures, in order to understand how they might influence our interpretation of the code as a whole — and indeed our view of Maimonides himself and his philosophy. Taking this unusual cross-section of the work, the book concludes that the Mishneh torah presents not only a system of law, but also a system of universal values. It shows how Maimonides fashions Jewish law and ritual as a programme for attaining ethical and intellectual ends that are accessible to all human beings, who are created equally in the image of God. Many reject the presentation of Maimonides as a universalist. The Mishneh torah especially is widely seen as a particularist sanctuary. This book shows how profoundly that view must be revised.

Persons Together

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan L. Mittleman
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Political Dimensions ◽  
Market Relations ◽  
The Image Of God

This chapter moves into the political and economic aspects of human nature. Given scarcity and interdependence, what sense has Judaism made of the material well-being necessary for human flourishing? What are Jewish attitudes toward prosperity, market relations, labor, and leisure? What has Judaism had to say about the political dimensions of human nature? If all humans are made in the image of God, what does that original equality imply for political order, authority, and justice? In what kinds of systems can human beings best flourish? It argues that Jewish tradition shows that we act in conformity with our nature when we elevate, improve, and sanctify it. As co-creators of the world with God, we are not just the sport of our biochemistry. We are persons who can select and choose among the traits that comprise our very own natures, cultivating some and weeding out others.

Gandhian Method of Conflict Resolution: Perception of Educated Youths

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (6) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dr. P. K. Kar
Keyword(s):  
Conflict Resolution ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Integral Approach ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Life Itself ◽  
The Image Of God ◽  
Negative Concept

Gandhiji’s method of conflict resolution was based on truth and non-violence. Truth was for him the image of God. He did not believe in personal God. For Gandhi truth is God and God is truth. Life is a laboratory where experiments are carried on. That is why he named his autobiography “My Experiment with Truth”, without these experiments truth cannot be achieved. According to Gandhi, the sayings of a pure soul which possesses nonviolence, non-stealing, true speech, celibacy and non-possession is truth. The truth of Gandhiji was not confined to any country or community. In other words , his religion had no geographical limits. His patriotism was not different from the service of human beings but was its part and parcel(Mishra:102). Gandhiji developed an integral approach and perspective to the concept of life itself on the basis of experience and experiments. His ideas ,which came to be known to be his philosophy, were a part of his relentless search for truth(Iyer:270). The realization of this truth is possible only with the help of non-violence The negative concept of Ahimsa presupposes the absence of selfishness, jealousy and anger, but the positive conception of ahimsa demands the qualities of love ,liberalism, patience, resistance of injustice, and brutal force.

scholarly journals Response to Melissa Raphael

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 23-25
Author(s):  
Ruth Illman
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Human Face ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Jewish Art ◽  
Contemporary Issue ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Image Of God ◽  
Ethical Demand

A response to Melissa Raphael’s article ‘The creation of beauty by its destruction: the idoloclastic aesthetic in modern and contemporary Jewish art’. Key themes discussed include the notion of human beings as created in the image of God, Levinas’s understanding of the face and its ethical demand as well as the contemporary issue of the commodification of the human face in digital media.

‘What Am I in a Boundless Creation?’

2014 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-50
Author(s):  
Hilary Marlow
Keyword(s):  
Life Forms ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Ecological Perspective ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Ethical Challenges ◽  
Environmental Pressures ◽  
Ben Sira ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Image Of God

Drawing on insights from the field of ‘ecocriticism’ within literary studies, this article examines the creation poem of Ben Sira (16.26-17.14) from an ecological perspective. The text is significant for such a purpose because of its reuse of the Genesis creation accounts, in particular the notion of human beings as the image of God and with dominion over creation, which has caused some critics to label the biblical accounts as exploitatively anthropocentric. Preceding sections of Sirach include discussion of human significance ‘in a boundless creation’ and human free will and moral responsibility, and these themes are developed in the poem itself. The poem’s description of the creation of humankind suggests both human finitude, a characteristic shared with other life forms, and the uniqueness of the divine image in human beings. These characteristics are set within the context of the cosmos as a stable and ordered whole, obedient to God, and of the responsibilities stipulated in the Torah to deal rightly with one’s neighbour. Reading this text from an ecological perspective invites recognition of the ambiguity of human place in the world, transient yet earth-changing, and of the ethical challenges in caring for global neighbours in the face of growing environmental pressures.


Naive Experience, Religious Root Unity, and Human Identity

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
James W. Skillen
Keyword(s):  
Cosmic Time ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
The Other ◽  
Common Denominator ◽  
Human Identity ◽  
Human Community ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Image Of God ◽  
The Way

Abstract Resolving Dooyeweerd’s temporal/supratemporal dialectic opens the way to a deeper appreciation of naive experience and human identity as the image of God. This essay makes a case for that proposition, building on my critique of Dooyeweerd’s idea of cosmic time published previously in this journal. There I hypothesized that time—temporality—should be recognized as the first modal aspect rather than as a transaspectual common denominator of the other aspects. The religious root unity of the human community is not a supratemporal, spiritual concentration point but rather humans themselves in their generations answering to God in all that they are and do. Humans are not temporal bodies directed by imperishable souls but whole persons-in-community, subject to all the modal laws and norms (including the temporal), living by faith in the true God or in false gods throughout this age, which opens to creation’s fulfillment in the age to come.

Known by God: C. S. Lewis and Dietrich Bonhoeffer

2005 ◽  
Vol 77 (4) ◽  
pp. 343-352
Author(s):  
Brian S. Rosner
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
The Other ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Human Relationship ◽  
Dietrich Bonhoeffer ◽  
Introductory Essay ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Pastoral Value ◽  
The Image Of God

Whereas knowing God is central to every version of Christian theology, little attention has been paid to the other side of the divine-human relationship. This introductory essay approaches the subject via the brief but poignant remarks of two twentieth-century authors appearing in a work of fiction and in a poem. If C. S. Lewis recognizes the primacy of being known by God, Dietrich Bonhoeffer helps define it and underscores its pastoral value. Both authors accurately reflect the main contours of the Bible’s own treatment. Calvin’s view of the image of God, which T. F. Torrance defines as ‘God’s gracious beholding of man as his child,’ may be of assistance in defining what it means to be known by God.

scholarly journals Karl Barth’s male-female order: A kingpin of dogmatic disparity

2007 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yolanda Dreyer
Keyword(s):  
Gender Disparity ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Reformed Theology ◽  
Gender Perspective ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Genesis 1 ◽  
Gender Perspectives ◽  
The Image Of God

Karl Barth’s gender perspective is often analysed with reference to his so-called “theoethics” or “creational theology”. This perspective perpetuates an asymmetry in gender relations that was prevalent in Biblical times, throughout Christianity and to some extent still is visible today. He based his view on the subordination of women on an exegesis of Genesis 1:27 as “intertext” of Ephesians 5:22-23. Barth’s asymmetrical gender perspective is a product of his embedment in Western Christian tradition which in turn, is rooted in early Christian patriarchal theology. The aim of this article is to focus on Barth’s ontological reframing of the traditional understanding of the Biblical notion of human beings as created in the “image of God”. The article consists of four sections: (a) Luther’s and Calvin’s gender perspectives; (b) the Enlightenment failure to achieve emancipation; (c) gender disparity in Reformed theology; and (d) a feminist alternative.

Mystical Theology and Christian Self-Understanding

2020 ◽  
pp. 7-24
Author(s):  
Rowan Williams
Keyword(s):  
Christian Theology ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Mystical Theology ◽  
Central Tension

The beginnings of a distinctive Christian theology lie in the conviction that human beings had been granted a new level of access to or presence to the God of Israel through the death and rising of Jesus: they were introduced into the heavenly sanctuary and accorded the dignity of priests and the intimacy of access to God as sons and daughters of the Father of Jesus. This prompts both doctrinal definition and definitional reserve: some new things must be said about God, but there is an intensified sense of what cannot be said of God, and of the truth that God cannot be an object among others. This becomes a central tension in the tradition of ‘mystical’ writing and reflection, but is congruent with central theological affirmations about the encounter of finite and infinite action in Christ and in Christ’s people. In both individual and corporate prayer, this is understood as a present anticipation of eternal relatedness, so that the ‘mystical’ is essentially an eschatological category.

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