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Starting-point of this book is that for Origen the object of religious knowledge is a mystery. Therefore he shrinks from using 'definitions', by which in his opinion the mystery is literally 'restricted'. This also applies to the Church. About her can only be spoken 'in a manner of speaking' and by means of images. The Bible itself leads the way in this respect. Therefore one must not stick to the literal meaning of the text, but one must try to understand it spiritually. Origen traces the meaning of the biblical images of the Church. Sometimes he elaborates them or puts them in a new context. But he also creates new images to describe the Church and already detects in the Old Testament all kinds of types of the Church. Analyzing all these images the author gives insight in Origen's ecclesiology.
On 31 October, 1999, exactly four hundred and eighty-two years after Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses to the church door in Wittenberg, the Roman Catholic Church and the Worldwide Lutheran Federation signed a historic joint declaration on the doctrine of justification. Recent agreements between Lutheran, Reformed, and Episcopalian churches have also expressed a shared commitment the doctrine of God's grace in Christ. But what does it mean for churches today? Persuaded that the "doctrine" of justification is also "gospel" -- the good news of life in Christ -- the contributors to "The Gospel of Justification in Christ" engage broadly with this crucial doctrine, addressing such topics as the unity of the Church, justification's relation to social justice, and its significance for interfaith dialogue.
Can we know that Satan exists as a particular, disembodied spirit? Current Catholic teaching insists that Satan exists as a person, a fallen angel who has instigated the Fall of humanity, continues to influence humans today, and constitutes a singular nemesis to God. How, one might ask, could human beings know such a thing with certainty? In response, this book seeks to rescue the mythical language in which the doctrine of Satan is rooted so that it is freed from the unreasonable expectation that it affirms the existence of a particular creature, and can instead express theological truth that is of relevance to all free-willed creatures. In doing so, it addresses thorny questions concerning the interpretation of Scripture, the relationship between God and evil, between doctrine and truth, between the Church and modernity, and between the condemnatory impulses apparent in Christian thought and the doctrine of an omnipresent God of infinite mercy. The book detects in the doctrine of Satan the expression of fundamental truths concerning the Creator-creature relationship—truths that are too easily obfuscated in current formulations that invite either fundamentalism or incredulity.
This is the first volume of Ferguson's collected essays, and includes some of his most memorable work, especially on "laying on of hands."
What do Christian communities imagine when they think of themselves as “church”? And how do these ecclesiological imaginations inform Christianity’s past and present entanglements with violence and injustice? Intercommunal Ecclesiology addresses these questions by examining the distinctive role intergroup dynamics play in shaping Christian collective behaviors against the “other” that are incongruent with Christian theological principles, such as love of neighbor. Through interdisciplinary engagement with social psychology, systems theory, biblical criticism, and studies in the early history of Christianity, this book makes a case for a theological re-envisioning of the church at the three-way intersection of an anthropology of intergroup dynamics, a soteriology adequately rooted in God’s historical salvation plan, and a Christology sensitive to Christ’s collective embodiment. The book argues that within God’s plan of historical salvation, the church is supposed to function as God’s communal response to intercommunal disunity, a role it fulfills with integrity only when and where it enacts itself as a counterperformance to aggression, conflict, and indifference between human communities.
In the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) the Catholic Church for the first time recognized non-Christian religions as entities which the Church should respect and with which Christians should enter into dialogue. There are, however, conflicting views in Catholic interpretations of Conciliar theology: to what extent did the Council see other religions as means to salvation? The author offers The Catholic Doctrine of non-Christian Religions according to the Second Vatican Council as the first comprehensive and analytic piece of research on Conciliar teaching concerning the nature of other faiths. His study is based on the original Latin and covers Conciliar and pre-conciliar documents, with special focus on the Declaration on the relation of the Church to Non-Christian religions, (Nostra aetate). In his detailed and careful analysis Ruokanen demonstrates that Vaticanum Secundum understood non-Christian religions as naturally good entities, part of human culture. Religions express in many ways and to varying degrees the natural cognition of God and of natural moral law. Except for Judaism, they do not, however, possess the status of being considered channels of divine revelation or salvific grace. The seeds of truth present in other faiths must be purified and perfected by the fullness of grace and truth given in Christ and entrusted to the Church.
Over the course of the past two centuries, Augustine's ecclesiology has been subject to interpretations that overdraw the distinction between the visible and invisible dimensions of the church, sometimes reducing the church to a purely spiritual, invisible reality, over against the visible church celebrating the sacraments; the empirical community is incidental, at best, and can be discarded. By contrast, this book argues that the church is a mystery that is visible and invisible. Far from discarding the visible, Augustine places greater emphasis on the empirical church as his thought develops. This study traces Augustine’s ecclesiology from early writings to later works in order to demonstrate this thesis. His early thought is heavily influenced by Platonism and tends to focus on the ascent of the individual soul. After his study of Scripture in the 390s, Augustine gives priority to participation in the visible, sacramental community. In his mature thought, the church is one mystery (mysterium, sacramentum) revealed by Scripture, with visible and invisible aspects. This book explores Augustine’s exegesis of biblical images of the church, such as body of Christ, bride of Christ, city of God, and sacrifice, in order to show how the visible community is intrinsic to the mystery of the church.
Drawing from the living font of divine Revelation, the author of The Father's Son intends to clearly present the timeless truths about the God-Man, Jesus of Nazareth - truths as they are given to us in scripture and tradition and interpreted by the Church. The Father's Son will be of value not only to seminarians and college students, but to anyone else interested in learning more about Jesus Christ, the Son of God - true God and true man.
This book proposes to offer a solution to the tension in the Church around the teaching of Pope Paul VI in Humanae Vitae that continues to this day. The book covers the dissent that began immediately and develops a theology of magisterium that justifies dissent from non-infallible teaching in the Church. The book then goes on to examine the encyclical and reaches the conclusion that Pope Paul was correct in his judgment on the substantive issue but that there is a flaw in the reasoning of the encyclical that explains, at least in part, the on-going dissent.