Damian Thompson
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195178562
- eISBN:
- 9780199785070
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195178564.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter focuses on the small number of textbook millenarians in the congregation — people who were confident that Jesus would return in their lifetimes. It presents the story of Maureen, a woman ...
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This chapter focuses on the small number of textbook millenarians in the congregation — people who were confident that Jesus would return in their lifetimes. It presents the story of Maureen, a woman in her early sixties who not only provided a full account of how she was introduced to the concept of the End Times, but also claimed to have received an apocalyptic message from Jesus. Interview data are used to explore the social and psychological factors that might dispose a member of Kensington Temple to move beyond explanatory millenarianism to belief in an imminent parousia. It is shown that apocalyptic beliefs were influenced by conversion experiences, individual psychology, and degree of subcultural immersion.Less
This chapter focuses on the small number of textbook millenarians in the congregation — people who were confident that Jesus would return in their lifetimes. It presents the story of Maureen, a woman in her early sixties who not only provided a full account of how she was introduced to the concept of the End Times, but also claimed to have received an apocalyptic message from Jesus. Interview data are used to explore the social and psychological factors that might dispose a member of Kensington Temple to move beyond explanatory millenarianism to belief in an imminent parousia. It is shown that apocalyptic beliefs were influenced by conversion experiences, individual psychology, and degree of subcultural immersion.
Jana Marguerite Bennett
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195315431
- eISBN:
- 9780199872022
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195315431.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
This chapter considers states of life in relation to the time “in between” the redemption and the final event in salvation history, known alternately as the eschaton or the Parousia. God continues to ...
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This chapter considers states of life in relation to the time “in between” the redemption and the final event in salvation history, known alternately as the eschaton or the Parousia. God continues to work in this time by reconfiguring married and single households. While Christians cannot know the fullness of what the eschaton will be like, Augustine suggests that there are hints in this world, especially in the life of the church. The church is itself a household, and one that encompasses both the married and the single. The ecclesial household is the ultimate household through which God demonstrates how the smaller daily familial households are to be reconfigured. The church as Household of God demonstrates new, reconfigured household practices particularly through its own household rituals of washing in baptism and eating at the Eucharist.Less
This chapter considers states of life in relation to the time “in between” the redemption and the final event in salvation history, known alternately as the eschaton or the Parousia. God continues to work in this time by reconfiguring married and single households. While Christians cannot know the fullness of what the eschaton will be like, Augustine suggests that there are hints in this world, especially in the life of the church. The church is itself a household, and one that encompasses both the married and the single. The ecclesial household is the ultimate household through which God demonstrates how the smaller daily familial households are to be reconfigured. The church as Household of God demonstrates new, reconfigured household practices particularly through its own household rituals of washing in baptism and eating at the Eucharist.
Morwenna Ludlow
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198270225
- eISBN:
- 9780191600661
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198270224.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
This chapter recapitulates some of the themes of Ch. 6––decision, freedom, grace––at the collective rather than the individual level. This involves examining what Karl Rahner means by individual, the ...
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This chapter recapitulates some of the themes of Ch. 6––decision, freedom, grace––at the collective rather than the individual level. This involves examining what Karl Rahner means by individual, the body, and the unity of human nature. The question of to what extent humanity as a whole can be said to make a free decision for God leads to reflection on the nature of the collective Christian task in working towards a world of greater peace, justice, and love. Rahner distinguishes this task from worldly ideologies and utopianianism, by emphasizing that humans are only at most co‐creators of the future world with God. The chapter concludes by connecting these ideas with Rahner's notions of resurrection, the beatific vision, and the parousia.Less
This chapter recapitulates some of the themes of Ch. 6––decision, freedom, grace––at the collective rather than the individual level. This involves examining what Karl Rahner means by individual, the body, and the unity of human nature. The question of to what extent humanity as a whole can be said to make a free decision for God leads to reflection on the nature of the collective Christian task in working towards a world of greater peace, justice, and love. Rahner distinguishes this task from worldly ideologies and utopianianism, by emphasizing that humans are only at most co‐creators of the future world with God. The chapter concludes by connecting these ideas with Rahner's notions of resurrection, the beatific vision, and the parousia.
G. B. Caird
L. D. Hurst (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- February 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780198263883
- eISBN:
- 9780191603372
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198263880.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
This chapter begins with a review of what New Testament writers say about the resurrection of Christ. It discusses the meaning of eschatology, and Jesus’ future coming — his Parousia. It analyses the ...
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This chapter begins with a review of what New Testament writers say about the resurrection of Christ. It discusses the meaning of eschatology, and Jesus’ future coming — his Parousia. It analyses the individual aspect of salvation in the form of the redemption of the body, and the belief that in the final days, God will regather the nations into a unit.Less
This chapter begins with a review of what New Testament writers say about the resurrection of Christ. It discusses the meaning of eschatology, and Jesus’ future coming — his Parousia. It analyses the individual aspect of salvation in the form of the redemption of the body, and the belief that in the final days, God will regather the nations into a unit.
Columba Graham Flegg
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198263357
- eISBN:
- 9780191682490
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198263357.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Church History
This book presents the history and theology of a remarkable body of Christians, formed as a result of the revival of interest in the prophetic Scriptures stimulated by the events of the French ...
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This book presents the history and theology of a remarkable body of Christians, formed as a result of the revival of interest in the prophetic Scriptures stimulated by the events of the French Revolution. Here is an example of a charismatic renewal within the mainstream Churches, which was rejected by them, and which hence led to a worldwide body, governed by ‘restored apostles’, with its own structure, liturgy, doctrine, and hierarchy of ministers. It was a movement directed towards the reunion of the Churches, uncompromising in its adherence to Scripture, its typological interpretation of the Old Testament, and in its longing for the Parousia. It sought to bring together all that was best in the various Christian traditions, Eastern as well as Western, in preparation for the return of the Church's Bridegroom in glory. The strong ecumenical purpose of this body; its approach to the reunification of Churches and clergy; the breadth and beauty of its liturgy; its resolution of internal tensions between the charismatic and established hierarchical ministries; and its emphasis on eschatology: all these are of especial relevance to Christians today.Less
This book presents the history and theology of a remarkable body of Christians, formed as a result of the revival of interest in the prophetic Scriptures stimulated by the events of the French Revolution. Here is an example of a charismatic renewal within the mainstream Churches, which was rejected by them, and which hence led to a worldwide body, governed by ‘restored apostles’, with its own structure, liturgy, doctrine, and hierarchy of ministers. It was a movement directed towards the reunion of the Churches, uncompromising in its adherence to Scripture, its typological interpretation of the Old Testament, and in its longing for the Parousia. It sought to bring together all that was best in the various Christian traditions, Eastern as well as Western, in preparation for the return of the Church's Bridegroom in glory. The strong ecumenical purpose of this body; its approach to the reunification of Churches and clergy; the breadth and beauty of its liturgy; its resolution of internal tensions between the charismatic and established hierarchical ministries; and its emphasis on eschatology: all these are of especial relevance to Christians today.
J. A. Cerrato
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199246960
- eISBN:
- 9780191697630
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199246960.003.0011
- Subject:
- Religion, Early Christian Studies
The extant commentaries and fragments name Paul, or allude to him by title, about forty-one times. This is in contrast to Peter, who is named three times, and the ‘twelve’, who are mentioned about ...
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The extant commentaries and fragments name Paul, or allude to him by title, about forty-one times. This is in contrast to Peter, who is named three times, and the ‘twelve’, who are mentioned about seven times. Paul is, therefore, the dominant apostolic figure of the commentaries. The commentaries refer to him in forms and titles common to the early patristic period. He is ‘the apostle to the Gentiles’, the author of the epistles, and the martyr. Parts of Hippolytan commentaries on the epistles are preserved, including the work entitled de resurrectione ad Mammaeam imperatricem. The survey by Carroll D. Osburn of Pauline citations in the extant Greek texts of the commentaries has turned up forty citations of sixty-two separate verses of text. The study of the traditional Greek corpus by John C. Fenton lists more than 280 citations and allusions to the texts of Paul. The commentaries rely on Paul to support doctrines of eschatology, particularly the doctrines of the antichrist, the parousia, and the kingdom of the saints.Less
The extant commentaries and fragments name Paul, or allude to him by title, about forty-one times. This is in contrast to Peter, who is named three times, and the ‘twelve’, who are mentioned about seven times. Paul is, therefore, the dominant apostolic figure of the commentaries. The commentaries refer to him in forms and titles common to the early patristic period. He is ‘the apostle to the Gentiles’, the author of the epistles, and the martyr. Parts of Hippolytan commentaries on the epistles are preserved, including the work entitled de resurrectione ad Mammaeam imperatricem. The survey by Carroll D. Osburn of Pauline citations in the extant Greek texts of the commentaries has turned up forty citations of sixty-two separate verses of text. The study of the traditional Greek corpus by John C. Fenton lists more than 280 citations and allusions to the texts of Paul. The commentaries rely on Paul to support doctrines of eschatology, particularly the doctrines of the antichrist, the parousia, and the kingdom of the saints.
J. A. Cerrato
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199246960
- eISBN:
- 9780191697630
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199246960.003.0016
- Subject:
- Religion, Early Christian Studies
Several commentaries and commentary fragments include the basic component of ‘thousand-year-ism’. As in most extant chiliastic texts of the second and third centuries, belief in a millennial kingdom ...
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Several commentaries and commentary fragments include the basic component of ‘thousand-year-ism’. As in most extant chiliastic texts of the second and third centuries, belief in a millennial kingdom is accompanied by other doctrines of equal length and significance, including the delayed parousia, the resurrection of the dead, and the final judgement. Millenarism rarely occurs separate from this integrated combination of teachings found also in the representative writers of the age. Patristic historical apocalyptic eschatology was typically developed within a chronological framework, a sequence concluding with the chiliastic ‘kingdom of the saints’. The constituent parts form the core of an early tradition, exemplified in Irenaeus, Tertullian, and the commentaries. Irenaeus, Tertullian, and the commentaries advance a particular chronological schema. Distinctive to early Christianity in this schema is the term ‘antichrist’.Less
Several commentaries and commentary fragments include the basic component of ‘thousand-year-ism’. As in most extant chiliastic texts of the second and third centuries, belief in a millennial kingdom is accompanied by other doctrines of equal length and significance, including the delayed parousia, the resurrection of the dead, and the final judgement. Millenarism rarely occurs separate from this integrated combination of teachings found also in the representative writers of the age. Patristic historical apocalyptic eschatology was typically developed within a chronological framework, a sequence concluding with the chiliastic ‘kingdom of the saints’. The constituent parts form the core of an early tradition, exemplified in Irenaeus, Tertullian, and the commentaries. Irenaeus, Tertullian, and the commentaries advance a particular chronological schema. Distinctive to early Christianity in this schema is the term ‘antichrist’.
Richard Swinburne
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780199257461
- eISBN:
- 9780191598616
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199257469.003.0009
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
Jesus forming a community based on 12 leaders could only be regarded in first‐century Palestine as founding a new Israel, a church. His instituting the Eucharist at the Last Supper implied that he ...
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Jesus forming a community based on 12 leaders could only be regarded in first‐century Palestine as founding a new Israel, a church. His instituting the Eucharist at the Last Supper implied that he expected that church would continue after his death. While he may have hoped that it would absorb the old Israel and that the latter would convert the Gentiles, however, the result was to be achieved, Jesus intended his church for all peoples. He did not teach explicitly that the Parousia (his second coming) would occur in his lifetime, but he did warn his disciples to be ready for its coming. The later church, in teaching the three central Christian doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Atonement, developed the teaching of Jesus.Less
Jesus forming a community based on 12 leaders could only be regarded in first‐century Palestine as founding a new Israel, a church. His instituting the Eucharist at the Last Supper implied that he expected that church would continue after his death. While he may have hoped that it would absorb the old Israel and that the latter would convert the Gentiles, however, the result was to be achieved, Jesus intended his church for all peoples. He did not teach explicitly that the Parousia (his second coming) would occur in his lifetime, but he did warn his disciples to be ready for its coming. The later church, in teaching the three central Christian doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Atonement, developed the teaching of Jesus.
Roy Kay
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780813037325
- eISBN:
- 9780813041582
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813037325.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
The emergence of the figurations of Ethiopia, derived from Psalm 68:31, begin with rabbinic and patristic writings. The readings of Psalm 68:31 in these sources initiate numerous figures of Ethiopia ...
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The emergence of the figurations of Ethiopia, derived from Psalm 68:31, begin with rabbinic and patristic writings. The readings of Psalm 68:31 in these sources initiate numerous figures of Ethiopia that will reverberate in first white and then black Protestant letters in America. This chapter is broken into two main sections. The first presents figural reading and history in patristic literature through an explanation of Auerbach's essay, “Figura.” Second, rabbinic and patristic readings of Psalm 68:31 are mapped and analyzed. While the rabbis read Psalm 68:31 as a sign of Ethiopia's conversion to Judaism, the church fathers have a grander understanding of the verse. Ethiopia is a synecdoche for all Gentile nations, and physical blackness cloaks the sin of Gentile idolatry. The conversion of Ethiopia prefigures the salvation of all Gentile peoples who come to Christ and hence hasten the Parousia.Less
The emergence of the figurations of Ethiopia, derived from Psalm 68:31, begin with rabbinic and patristic writings. The readings of Psalm 68:31 in these sources initiate numerous figures of Ethiopia that will reverberate in first white and then black Protestant letters in America. This chapter is broken into two main sections. The first presents figural reading and history in patristic literature through an explanation of Auerbach's essay, “Figura.” Second, rabbinic and patristic readings of Psalm 68:31 are mapped and analyzed. While the rabbis read Psalm 68:31 as a sign of Ethiopia's conversion to Judaism, the church fathers have a grander understanding of the verse. Ethiopia is a synecdoche for all Gentile nations, and physical blackness cloaks the sin of Gentile idolatry. The conversion of Ethiopia prefigures the salvation of all Gentile peoples who come to Christ and hence hasten the Parousia.
Jean-Yves Lacoste
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- October 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198827146
- eISBN:
- 9780191866050
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198827146.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion, Theology
The nine essays in The Appearing of God are situated on the fluid border of philosophy and theology, and follow a path leading from classic modern philosophical discussions of experience to some ...
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The nine essays in The Appearing of God are situated on the fluid border of philosophy and theology, and follow a path leading from classic modern philosophical discussions of experience to some leading themes in contemporary phenomenology. After an introductory exploration of Kierkegaard’s classic text that straddles the border between philosophy and theology, the reader is introduced to Husserl’s account of perception, with its demonstration that the field of phenomena is wider than that of perceptible entities, allowing phenomena that give themselves primarily to feeling. Husserl’s theory of reduction is then subjected to a critique, which identifies phenomena wholly resistant to reduction. John Paul II’s encyclical on Faith and Reason elicits a critical rejection of its attempt to reify the boundary between natural and supernatural, the author asserting in its place that love is the distinguishing mark of the knowledge of God. This theme is continued in a discussion of Heidegger’s Being and Time, where a passing reference to Pascal invites interrogation of the work’s “methodological atheism,” which is found to leave more room than appears for love of the divine. The next three chapters deal with the themes of Anticipation, Gift, and Self-Identity, all exploring aspects of a single theme, the relation of present experience to the passage of time, and especially to the future. The final chapter, which is also the most personal, draws the main themes of the book together in asking how theology as an intellectual enterprise relates to the practice of worship.Less
The nine essays in The Appearing of God are situated on the fluid border of philosophy and theology, and follow a path leading from classic modern philosophical discussions of experience to some leading themes in contemporary phenomenology. After an introductory exploration of Kierkegaard’s classic text that straddles the border between philosophy and theology, the reader is introduced to Husserl’s account of perception, with its demonstration that the field of phenomena is wider than that of perceptible entities, allowing phenomena that give themselves primarily to feeling. Husserl’s theory of reduction is then subjected to a critique, which identifies phenomena wholly resistant to reduction. John Paul II’s encyclical on Faith and Reason elicits a critical rejection of its attempt to reify the boundary between natural and supernatural, the author asserting in its place that love is the distinguishing mark of the knowledge of God. This theme is continued in a discussion of Heidegger’s Being and Time, where a passing reference to Pascal invites interrogation of the work’s “methodological atheism,” which is found to leave more room than appears for love of the divine. The next three chapters deal with the themes of Anticipation, Gift, and Self-Identity, all exploring aspects of a single theme, the relation of present experience to the passage of time, and especially to the future. The final chapter, which is also the most personal, draws the main themes of the book together in asking how theology as an intellectual enterprise relates to the practice of worship.
Craig Nichols
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823225316
- eISBN:
- 9780823236893
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823225316.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
This chapter explores what might be called the incarnate historicity of the phenomena of the life, death, and potential rebirth of the “same” God of the Western ...
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This chapter explores what might be called the incarnate historicity of the phenomena of the life, death, and potential rebirth of the “same” God of the Western ontotheological tradition. It holds that for the multivalent advent concepts, or in metaphysical parlance, parousia concepts, of the Western tradition are the indispensable conditions of a present return to the God-who-may-be through the God-who-was. The discussion looks into the eschatological theogonies of the God-who-was and the God-who-may-Be. By recasting Kearney's project in the terms of a Hegel–Heidegger, or system-deconstruction, tension, and by defining this ambiguous middle place as an eschatological theogony, it attempts to clarify the tension necessarily remaining in Kearney's own “onto-eschatological” discourse. It also suggests that Kearney's discourse must necessarily lean more closely to the romantic side he insists that if the God-who-may-be turns out to be a monster when expectation turns to realization, or possibility to actuality.Less
This chapter explores what might be called the incarnate historicity of the phenomena of the life, death, and potential rebirth of the “same” God of the Western ontotheological tradition. It holds that for the multivalent advent concepts, or in metaphysical parlance, parousia concepts, of the Western tradition are the indispensable conditions of a present return to the God-who-may-be through the God-who-was. The discussion looks into the eschatological theogonies of the God-who-was and the God-who-may-Be. By recasting Kearney's project in the terms of a Hegel–Heidegger, or system-deconstruction, tension, and by defining this ambiguous middle place as an eschatological theogony, it attempts to clarify the tension necessarily remaining in Kearney's own “onto-eschatological” discourse. It also suggests that Kearney's discourse must necessarily lean more closely to the romantic side he insists that if the God-who-may-be turns out to be a monster when expectation turns to realization, or possibility to actuality.
Elliot R. Wolfson
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780823255702
- eISBN:
- 9780823260911
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823255702.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter examines recent attempts to harness the apophatic tradition of Western neoplatonism together with Derridean deconstruction in order to construct a viable postmodern negative theology. It ...
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This chapter examines recent attempts to harness the apophatic tradition of Western neoplatonism together with Derridean deconstruction in order to construct a viable postmodern negative theology. It is reasonable to argue that we must marshal the best metaphors in an effort to imagine what technically cannot be imagined, but such efforts ensnare the human mind in representing the unrepresentable and imaging the imageless by the production of images that, literally speaking, are false, and in so doing, the very allure to the alleged transcendence is severely compromised. Rather than expanding the analogical imagination in envisioning transcendence, the epochal duty is the need to overcome it, to rid monotheism not only of the psychological tug to personify the impersonal but also of what Corbin called the “pious illusion of negative theology” and the pitfall of “metaphysical idolatry.” If we were to apply the unrestrained smashing of all idols without political prejudice or psychological need, then the more fruitful use of the apophatic rhetoric in our moment would be to get beyond the anthropocentric bias to undo both the masculine and the feminine imaginaries that have informed our depictions of the deity. On hermeneutical grounds a genuine unknowing, unencumbered by a theopolitical agenda, should yield a twofold agnosis that would it make it difficult, if well-neigh impossible, to speak of any doxa about matters divine. The more radical negation presumes neither a presence that is absent nor an absence that is present; there is simply nothing of which not to speak, and hence it should occasion the end of God-talk, even of an apophatic nature, a mode of speech predicated on the seemingly absurd proposition that what is said is never what one is saying. The exigency of the moment—to subjugate the theistic anthropomorphization of God and the corresponding egoistic theomorphization of self—demands a sweeping and uncompromising purification of the idea of infinity from all predication, including the ecological tendency to deify the cosmos in incarnational language as the embodiment of a gift of transcendence. Structurally, givenness requires giving and the given, but not everything given is a gift. To portray the latter in postmodern terms as a bestowal on the part of divinity liberated from the straightjacket of ontotheology does not mitigate the problem of presuming that what is given is a gift, which in turn rests on the even more laden assumption that the giving is expressive of some form of generosity or grace on the part of the giver.Less
This chapter examines recent attempts to harness the apophatic tradition of Western neoplatonism together with Derridean deconstruction in order to construct a viable postmodern negative theology. It is reasonable to argue that we must marshal the best metaphors in an effort to imagine what technically cannot be imagined, but such efforts ensnare the human mind in representing the unrepresentable and imaging the imageless by the production of images that, literally speaking, are false, and in so doing, the very allure to the alleged transcendence is severely compromised. Rather than expanding the analogical imagination in envisioning transcendence, the epochal duty is the need to overcome it, to rid monotheism not only of the psychological tug to personify the impersonal but also of what Corbin called the “pious illusion of negative theology” and the pitfall of “metaphysical idolatry.” If we were to apply the unrestrained smashing of all idols without political prejudice or psychological need, then the more fruitful use of the apophatic rhetoric in our moment would be to get beyond the anthropocentric bias to undo both the masculine and the feminine imaginaries that have informed our depictions of the deity. On hermeneutical grounds a genuine unknowing, unencumbered by a theopolitical agenda, should yield a twofold agnosis that would it make it difficult, if well-neigh impossible, to speak of any doxa about matters divine. The more radical negation presumes neither a presence that is absent nor an absence that is present; there is simply nothing of which not to speak, and hence it should occasion the end of God-talk, even of an apophatic nature, a mode of speech predicated on the seemingly absurd proposition that what is said is never what one is saying. The exigency of the moment—to subjugate the theistic anthropomorphization of God and the corresponding egoistic theomorphization of self—demands a sweeping and uncompromising purification of the idea of infinity from all predication, including the ecological tendency to deify the cosmos in incarnational language as the embodiment of a gift of transcendence. Structurally, givenness requires giving and the given, but not everything given is a gift. To portray the latter in postmodern terms as a bestowal on the part of divinity liberated from the straightjacket of ontotheology does not mitigate the problem of presuming that what is given is a gift, which in turn rests on the even more laden assumption that the giving is expressive of some form of generosity or grace on the part of the giver.
Christina M. Gschwandtner
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780823242740
- eISBN:
- 9780823242788
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823242740.003.0009
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
Jean-Yves Lacoste’s phenomenology of liturgy is the subject of Chapter 8. Closely following and at times vigorously criticizing Heidegger’s philosophy, Lacoste has developed a phenomenological ...
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Jean-Yves Lacoste’s phenomenology of liturgy is the subject of Chapter 8. Closely following and at times vigorously criticizing Heidegger’s philosophy, Lacoste has developed a phenomenological analysis of prayer and liturgy as our “being-before-God,” which he suggests goes beyond Heidegger’s “being-in-the-world.” He also attempts a recovery of “presence” as a useful phenomenological term by focusing on the mystery of the Eucharist. For him, liturgical experience and presence are always also closely linked to the expectation of the parousia. Like Chrétien, Lacoste is very interested in phenomenologies of prayer and of the body. He also emphasizes the communal aspect of religious faith far more than some of the other thinkers.Less
Jean-Yves Lacoste’s phenomenology of liturgy is the subject of Chapter 8. Closely following and at times vigorously criticizing Heidegger’s philosophy, Lacoste has developed a phenomenological analysis of prayer and liturgy as our “being-before-God,” which he suggests goes beyond Heidegger’s “being-in-the-world.” He also attempts a recovery of “presence” as a useful phenomenological term by focusing on the mystery of the Eucharist. For him, liturgical experience and presence are always also closely linked to the expectation of the parousia. Like Chrétien, Lacoste is very interested in phenomenologies of prayer and of the body. He also emphasizes the communal aspect of religious faith far more than some of the other thinkers.
Wolfe Judith
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199680511
- eISBN:
- 9780191760549
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199680511.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion, Religious Studies
This chapter examines Heidegger’ssearch(1915-9) both for an alternative understanding of religious experience and for a philosophical-theological method adequate to describing it. It gives a critical ...
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This chapter examines Heidegger’ssearch(1915-9) both for an alternative understanding of religious experience and for a philosophical-theological method adequate to describing it. It gives a critical account of Heidegger’s continuing reading in Protestant theology and philosophy—particularly Luther and Schleiermacher—, and its creative impact on his developing understanding of Husserlian phenomenology. In addition, it argues that Heidegger’s developing Protestantism is itself inflected by his reading (and writing) of Romantic poetry, particularly Hölderlin. The result, for Heidegger,is a new conception of authentic religious experience as centrally defined by affliction. This conception culminates in Heidegger’s re-reading,in his 1920/1 lectures on the Phenomenology of Religion, of St Paul’s call to the Thessalonians to await the parousia.Less
This chapter examines Heidegger’ssearch(1915-9) both for an alternative understanding of religious experience and for a philosophical-theological method adequate to describing it. It gives a critical account of Heidegger’s continuing reading in Protestant theology and philosophy—particularly Luther and Schleiermacher—, and its creative impact on his developing understanding of Husserlian phenomenology. In addition, it argues that Heidegger’s developing Protestantism is itself inflected by his reading (and writing) of Romantic poetry, particularly Hölderlin. The result, for Heidegger,is a new conception of authentic religious experience as centrally defined by affliction. This conception culminates in Heidegger’s re-reading,in his 1920/1 lectures on the Phenomenology of Religion, of St Paul’s call to the Thessalonians to await the parousia.
Matthew V. Novenson
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190255022
- eISBN:
- 9780190255046
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190255022.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
Gershom Scholem is perhaps its best-known modern proponent, but the essentializing distinction between the Jewish messiah (earthly, political, delivers from oppression) and the Christian messiah ...
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Gershom Scholem is perhaps its best-known modern proponent, but the essentializing distinction between the Jewish messiah (earthly, political, delivers from oppression) and the Christian messiah (heavenly, spiritual, delivers from sin) goes back as far as Justin Martyr. In this chapter it is argued that this familiar and influential distinction is fatally undermined by counterexamples on the one side as well as the other. Many Jewish messiah texts bend the messiah myth to accommodate contingent historical developments and persons, while many Christian messiah texts obstinately maintain utopian aspects of the messiah myth despite their nonfulfillment in the career of Jesus. It is argued, furthermore, that the enormous popularity of the Jewish messiah–Christian messiah distinction has always been a result, in large part, of its rhetorical utility for religious self-definition and interreligious dialogue.Less
Gershom Scholem is perhaps its best-known modern proponent, but the essentializing distinction between the Jewish messiah (earthly, political, delivers from oppression) and the Christian messiah (heavenly, spiritual, delivers from sin) goes back as far as Justin Martyr. In this chapter it is argued that this familiar and influential distinction is fatally undermined by counterexamples on the one side as well as the other. Many Jewish messiah texts bend the messiah myth to accommodate contingent historical developments and persons, while many Christian messiah texts obstinately maintain utopian aspects of the messiah myth despite their nonfulfillment in the career of Jesus. It is argued, furthermore, that the enormous popularity of the Jewish messiah–Christian messiah distinction has always been a result, in large part, of its rhetorical utility for religious self-definition and interreligious dialogue.
Grant Macaskill
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- November 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198799856
- eISBN:
- 9780191865039
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198799856.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
This chapter considers in greater detail the personal disruption central to the New Testament accounts of Christian cognitive identity. It focuses on the authors’ conviction that they participate in ...
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This chapter considers in greater detail the personal disruption central to the New Testament accounts of Christian cognitive identity. It focuses on the authors’ conviction that they participate in a new eschatological reality that is centred on the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. This conviction acknowledges the necessary limits of the human potential to know God apart from his own deliberate and concrete self-disclosure in the person of Jesus. Such limits involve both earthly finitude and the distortive power of sin. The chapter involves a particularly close engagement with scholarship on the ‘apocalyptic Paul’, which has rightly identified these epistemic elements in the apostle’s thought, but has frequently failed to recognize the continuing importance of the Old Testament to Paul’s moral theology. The continuing significance of the Old Testament to Paul’s thought, particularly the wisdom literature, is important to Christian theologies of intellectual virtue.Less
This chapter considers in greater detail the personal disruption central to the New Testament accounts of Christian cognitive identity. It focuses on the authors’ conviction that they participate in a new eschatological reality that is centred on the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. This conviction acknowledges the necessary limits of the human potential to know God apart from his own deliberate and concrete self-disclosure in the person of Jesus. Such limits involve both earthly finitude and the distortive power of sin. The chapter involves a particularly close engagement with scholarship on the ‘apocalyptic Paul’, which has rightly identified these epistemic elements in the apostle’s thought, but has frequently failed to recognize the continuing importance of the Old Testament to Paul’s moral theology. The continuing significance of the Old Testament to Paul’s thought, particularly the wisdom literature, is important to Christian theologies of intellectual virtue.
Grant Macaskill
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- November 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198799856
- eISBN:
- 9780191865039
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198799856.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
This chapter examines the practices with which intellectual humility is enmeshed in the Christian life: patience and gratitude, which are both manifested in prayer. The discussion recognizes that ...
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This chapter examines the practices with which intellectual humility is enmeshed in the Christian life: patience and gratitude, which are both manifested in prayer. The discussion recognizes that intellectual humility does not function in isolation, as a virtue in its own right, but is expressed through, and fed by, other practices within the life of faith, as the minds of believers are rightly ordered with respect to God. Patience and gratitude are not represented within the New Testament simply as dispositions, but as deliberate volitional activities, by which the lordship and the goodness of God are acknowledged and behaviours modified accordingly. The chapter traces the key ways in which faithful servants are represented as ‘waiting upon God’ and giving thanks to him, and considers the ways that that these practices are represented as bearing on the epistemic and volitional characteristics of those servants.Less
This chapter examines the practices with which intellectual humility is enmeshed in the Christian life: patience and gratitude, which are both manifested in prayer. The discussion recognizes that intellectual humility does not function in isolation, as a virtue in its own right, but is expressed through, and fed by, other practices within the life of faith, as the minds of believers are rightly ordered with respect to God. Patience and gratitude are not represented within the New Testament simply as dispositions, but as deliberate volitional activities, by which the lordship and the goodness of God are acknowledged and behaviours modified accordingly. The chapter traces the key ways in which faithful servants are represented as ‘waiting upon God’ and giving thanks to him, and considers the ways that that these practices are represented as bearing on the epistemic and volitional characteristics of those servants.
Jean-Yves Lacoste and Oliver O’Donovan
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- October 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198827146
- eISBN:
- 9780191866050
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198827146.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion, Theology
AbstractStarting from Husserl’s account of perception, this chapter argues that every perceptual experience is fragmentary, so that the perception of any “thing” goes beyond the moment-by-moment ...
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AbstractStarting from Husserl’s account of perception, this chapter argues that every perceptual experience is fragmentary, so that the perception of any “thing” goes beyond the moment-by-moment appearances. The realm of phenomena is wider than that of perceptible entities; it includes values, numbers, etc., and some appearances that present themselves to feeling. God may appear in the realm of feeling, where love has priority over knowledge. Unclarity and incompleteness are essential to an experience that lays claim to the presence of the Absolute. That presence is not a “parousia”; its appearing is understood only in relation to its transcendence of appearance.Less
AbstractStarting from Husserl’s account of perception, this chapter argues that every perceptual experience is fragmentary, so that the perception of any “thing” goes beyond the moment-by-moment appearances. The realm of phenomena is wider than that of perceptible entities; it includes values, numbers, etc., and some appearances that present themselves to feeling. God may appear in the realm of feeling, where love has priority over knowledge. Unclarity and incompleteness are essential to an experience that lays claim to the presence of the Absolute. That presence is not a “parousia”; its appearing is understood only in relation to its transcendence of appearance.
Jean-Yves Lacoste and Oliver O’Donovan
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- October 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198827146
- eISBN:
- 9780191866050
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198827146.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion, Theology
The chapter distinguishes two experiences often conflated in discussion of anticipation, a commonplace pre-experience of the future accompanying every appearance, and an experience of promise that ...
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The chapter distinguishes two experiences often conflated in discussion of anticipation, a commonplace pre-experience of the future accompanying every appearance, and an experience of promise that gives ground for a hope. In “enjoyment” present experience takes possession of consciousness and prevents real anticipation; but enjoyment is intermittent, and when it is gone there can be a fidelity to the experience, born of desire for permanence, and a sense of absence, which may convey the thought of a reappearance. Presence cannot be “parousia.” Anticipation is lived out in unfulfilment. But the idea of conclusive experience is not ruled out, and may have a critical role in exposing incomplete experience. We may receive anticipations of what cannot be given definitively within world-time, and “the” end may be the only key we have to the status of nearer ends.Less
The chapter distinguishes two experiences often conflated in discussion of anticipation, a commonplace pre-experience of the future accompanying every appearance, and an experience of promise that gives ground for a hope. In “enjoyment” present experience takes possession of consciousness and prevents real anticipation; but enjoyment is intermittent, and when it is gone there can be a fidelity to the experience, born of desire for permanence, and a sense of absence, which may convey the thought of a reappearance. Presence cannot be “parousia.” Anticipation is lived out in unfulfilment. But the idea of conclusive experience is not ruled out, and may have a critical role in exposing incomplete experience. We may receive anticipations of what cannot be given definitively within world-time, and “the” end may be the only key we have to the status of nearer ends.
