Modern Thinkers
The kenosis debate resurfaced in the 20th century through Kierkegaard, who argued that, rather than something to be rationalised, Christ’s emptying was the paradoxical revelation of God as a servant. He linked the kenosis with man’s consciousness of truth. God freely emptied himself and became man in order to reveal truth to mankind, because He is the source of all truth and the means by which man can learn it. In becoming a servant, God overcame the ‘“infinitely qualitative contradiction” between himself and man’. Because man inherently lacks truth, he needs God’s salvation. In Jesus, the divine unified himself with mankind, so reconciling humanity to himself without destroying them.
Kierkegaard considered that God loves man as man, and desires to be unified with him. This was accomplished by the sheer power of his love. Because of man’s depravity, reconciliation would not be possible unless God humbled himself to the lowest state: a servant. As such, kenosis bridges the gap between man’s frailty and God’s love. The challenge of the kenosis to Kierkegaard was that, in becoming man, God became unlike himself, and yet was still God. Kenosis was therefore a paradoxical act of sovereign grace.
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However, Barth did not consider that the Son had become unlike himself as a man because, as God, He is fully God in both his glory and humility. The Kenosis was, therefore, the highest expression of his sovereignty and Lordship over mankind, rather than a loss of divinity or self. Similarly, Barth perceived the fault in Patristic Christology to be the division of divine being and action whereby, being changeless, God could not empty himself, because any kind of limitation would be unfamiliar to his being. Barth suggested that rather than being foreign to Him, limitation was part of God’s nature, and so was freely embraced. The divine action and being are therefore
INTRODUCTION The medieval theologian Julian of Norwich was a mystic, writer, anchoress and spiritual director for her time. She is gaining in popularity for our time as she provides a spiritual template for contemplative prayer and practice in her compilation of writings found in Revelations of Divine Love. The insightful meditations provide the backdrop and basis for her Trinitarian theology’s embrace of God’s
One of the main principles of Christianity is the belief in both the divinity and humanity of Jesus, that these two natures are combined harmoniously in one being. In general, all modern Christians believe that Jesus was human, he was considered to be “The Word was made flesh” (John, I: 14). However, Jesus was more than just a human, despite being subjected to pain, suffering and death like all other human beings, he was sinless and also possessed the power to heal and to defy death in order to ascend, both body and spirit, into heaven. He was all man and all God, a combination of these two elements, remaining distinct but united in one being. The deity of Jesus is a non-negotiable belief in Christianity, which is referred to in many parts of scripture, “God was revealed in the flesh” (I Timothy, 3:16). The Christian faith does not perceive Jesus as God but rather a reincarnation of God, a mysterious deity who is the second person of the Holy Trinity. Throughout history, controversy has surrounded the issue of the humanity and divinity of Jesus, leading to the formation of Docetism, the belief that Jesus was fully divine but not fully human, Arianism, that Jesus was superior to all of creation, but less divine than God, and Nestorius, that there were two separate persons within Jesus. This the proportion of the divine and human within Je...
In this exploration, Di Silenctio – the story’s protagonist – focuses on Abraham’s motivation and rationale in relation to his belief that “God could give him a new Isaac, [and] bring the sacrificial offer back to life” (Kierkegaard Loc. 948). Abraham’s faith was not “that he should be happy in the hereafter, but that he should find blessed happiness here in this world” (ibid.). Abraham’s belief in the absurd serves to illustrate Kierkegaard’s rejection of Hegelian ethics; Kierkegaard uses the story of Abraham as an example of his belief that the religious realm is somehow higher than the ethical realm of Hegelian ethics. It is this religious realm of ethics, wherein a “teleological suspension of the ethical” (Kierkegaard 1267) occurs that Di Silenctio attempts to explain. This teleological suspension of the ethical serves as both a rejection of universal ethics, and an acceptance of the fact that “as soon as the single individual wants to assert himself in his particularity, in direct opposition to the universal, he sins, and it is only by recognizing this can he again reconcile himself to the universal” (Kierkegaard 1225). Additionally, it is Abraham’s paradoxical acceptance of the absurd that allows him to fulfil his “duty to God” (Kierkegaard 403) while acting immorally (Isaac’s sacrifice amounts to murder,) and justifies his decision to not “reveal his intention to the parties
Revelations of Divine Love is a 14th century masterpiece written by Julian of Norwich. This book is an account of St. Julian’s sixteen different mystical revelations in which she had encountered at a time of great suffering and illness. St. Julian focussed on the many “mysteries of Christianity.” Through her many revelations she encountered God’s vast love, the existence of evil, God’s heart for creation, the father and mother-heart of God, and the need to obey her Father in Heaven. Amongst these revelations the most powerful was the revelation of God’s love and character. Revelations of Divine Love is a wonderful source of revelation to connect a reader to the Father.
What a fascinating adjustment in perspectives, motive, and determination from the once deeply connected to God the unprofessed theologian. The man who we admired for his crafty dexterity to be a Christian Apologetic emerges to be torn from the foundations of his faith and experiences of how to respond to the unspecified. This book is openly troubling for the believer because all too often we know that this is a very real situation that our author is experiencing. However, while it may appear that a staunch believer has lost his way were hastily reminded that this not the case at all. In the book "A Grief Observed" by C. S. Lewis we see, what I call, a defining mature Christian transition, disruption to the norm, or bump in the road all Christians
Barth’s opening thesis is a view that everything that can be known with confidence about God or divine things is known only or primarily by faith, as opposed to a coherent or cognitive. In addition, existential, in the sense that Barth affirms that scripture has an objective significance, even before considering it through faith and reason. According to Barth, “This circumstance is the simple fact that in the congregation of Jesus Christ, the Bible has specific authority and significance” (p. 56) and without the congregation it becomes only historical. It becomes important to uphold and defend the Bible’s authority and the power does not come from any simple measure employed by us individually. It is up to the congregation to openly confess the analytical propositions without fear and become actively engaged in the faith and obedience of which it asks (p. 56).
...is composed of two natures, one external, one internal, one divine the other human, one invisible and one visible. “For notwithstanding this supreme and divine state, he experienced swaddling clothes, the crèche, childhood and the powerlessness of childhood, flight and persecution” (pg 144). God experienced the lowliness of human nature. Even though Jesus experienced all these states he was truly God-man. However, the glory of the Father wasn’t established in him yet. It was deferred by the plan of God for his son. This division only existed in Jesus. It was for the sole purpose of representing and erasing the separation that occurred between God and his creatures through sin. Jesus was separated from glory due to love. So its our duty to love Jesus in his love. It was due to love he gave his divinity to humanity. The mystery is love and only can be love.
Later, after much study and introspection, Augustine discovers that he has been mistaken in attributing a physical form to God. Yet, he still presses on to reconcile his mind to the true precepts of Christian ideology. But what does he...
...s. The first mode is Jesus Christ. The history of God’s acts is surrounded by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Transcendent believers believe that the knowledge of God is not about human nature or experience but God gives his knowledge to Jesus Christ who they look at as God and human. The second mode is the Scriptures because it represents a privilege to witness the divine revelation. The last mode is the church’s proclamation of the gospel. Through these modes we understand what God’s works but it does not explain the miracles that take place on earth. Through transcendent theology we focus more on the divine God than question the human understanding. Therefore Karl Barth’s theology has recovered the transcendence of God.
...s distributed in Theology 101 at the University of Notre Dame, Fremantle on 22 April 2008.
Søren Keiekgaard was one of the greatest inspritational philosphers of his time and most of his inspirations came from The Holy Bible. He was born on May 5, 1813, in Copenhagen, Denmark, Søren Kierkegaard went on to pursue work as a philosopher, where he critiqued dominant Christian ideology and Hegelianism. He soon became the founder of Extenilism which “is the belief that the world has no intrinsic meaning or purpose and, consequently, that individuals alone bear the responsibility for their actions and decisions”. (Ref) His opinions differed from the mainstream thorolions of his time because his focus was more on the individual and there personal relationship with God, he didn’t think that God could be understood or found by logic. In his opinion, “God was greater than, not equicalent to, logic”. Therefore the only way to understand God, is through the leap for faith which is the opposite of reason. For it demands that one embrace the abusudity of the unexplaiable. Kierkegaard's faith is one that he refers to as authectic faith because it relies on one knowing that the it is impossible to explain and there is no reason for s...
Kierkegaard was a Danish philosopher in the mid 1800s. He is known to be the father of existentialism and was at least 70 years ahead of his time. Kierkegaard set out to attack Kant’s rational ethics and make attacks on the Christianity of our day. He poses the question, how do we understand faith? He states that faith equals the absurd. In “Fear and Trembling”, he uses the story of Abraham and his son Isaac to show an example of faith as the absurd. The story of God asking Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac signifies a break in the theory that ethics and religion go hand in hand. He shows how the ethical and the religious can be completely different. “I by no means conclude that faith is something inferior but rather that it is the highest, also that it is dishonest of philosophy to give something else in its place and to disparage faith” (Fear and Trembling, 12).
Barth's answer was the dialectical method. The truth of God must be expressed in statement and counter-statement. So, when speaking of the revelation of God in the creation, we must immediately speak of God's hiddenness in creation. When speaking of humanity as created in the image of God, we must immediately speak as well of human sin and frailty. Since all human statements about God are inadequate, we can speak no final word about God.
In Abraham's story, Isaac is not sacrificed. God appears to Abraham and tells him that he can sacrifice an animal instead of his son. In continuation, Kierkegaard shows that a hero, whom has become a skándalon to his generation and is aware that he is in the middle of an incomprehensible paradox, will cry out defiantly to his contemporaries, "The future will show I was right (Kierkegaard, 91)." According to Kierkegaard, those who talk and think like him live secure in their existence. They have a solid position because they understand that everything can only be judged by the end result.
Corley, Lemke and Lovejoy (2002) agree with the importance of the two contexts defining theological hermeneutics as, the process of thinking about God, thinking after the event of revelation in the...