Church And The World

Front 1

Discuss the significant developments of the premodern and modern eras.

Back 1

Pre-modernism begins with the conversion of Constantine (316). Truth is founded on theism and revelation (general and special). It is objective and not cultural. Three great thinkers are: Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas. Two great movements are the Renaissance and Reformation. The Modern era (1600-1950) can be described as an age or progress. The two great movements are the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. The enlightenment stressed the unaided and unlimited potential of human reason. Theism> Deism, Deism> Atheism, Denial of noetic effects of sin. Foundationalist view of knowledge. Science becomes the authority. Scepticism about supernatural. Optimism, Individualism, Consumerism, and Liberalism.

Front 2

What are the general characteristics/tendencies associated with the modern
era?

Back 2

Modernism- foundational view of knowledge. Science as authority. Skepticism about supernatural. Progress. Optimism. Consumerism. Individualism. Liberalism (political and theological).

Front 3

Explain the role that divine revelation has in the premodern and modern eras.

Back 3

In the premodern era Divine revelation was the source of ultimate truth. It came in a limited sense through general revelation, and in a supernatural sense through special revelation. The modern era rejected the supremacy and even the validity of divine revelation. It supplanted it with human reason using logic and the senses. Science became the final authority for all truth.

Front 4

What are the problems related to the philosophy of René Descartes?

Back 4

For Descartes, man was the starting point and not revelation. He separated knowledge of God and knowledge of man.

Front 5

Explain the metaphysics of David Hume.

Back 5

Hume believed that all knowledge must come from sense experiences. You haven't seen a miracle so you can't believe them. We can't know anything about metaphysics.

Front 6

What was Immanuel Kant's "Copernican Revolution" in epistemology?

Back 6

The world of our experience is a world of our own making. Our world orbits our mind, rather than our minds orbiting the world. 1) The human mind is active in knowledge. 2) The empirical world is constructed by our minds. We actively shape and order our sense experience. We impose meaning and rational. Kant made causality subjective.

Front 7

What was Kant's interpretation of the Christian religion?

Back 7

Religious truths can't me known in the normal way, but must make them to live. Must adopt there is a God, as highest good. We have free will. We must make choices if we can't make choices we can't make moral choices. The soul is immortal, there is a time of judgement and reward based on how we live.

Front 8

Discuss G. W. F. Hegel's response to Immanuel Kant.

Back 8

Hegel did away with the numenal all together. "The rational is the real an the real is the rational. Metaphysical idealism: The material is a product of the mental. The concept of Spirit or mind (geist)- - Goal of the spirit is actualization, all processes are part of this overall process.

Front 9

Rene Descartes

Back 9

The Rationalist
Agenda: needed to answer skepticism
Method: methodological doubt, "I think therefore I am," I cannot doubt that I exists, because if I doubt then I must exist.

Front 10

David Hume

Back 10

The Skeptic
Agenda: all knowledge comes from senses
Method: applies empiricism to theological arguments.
All we have are reports of miracles. You haven't seen a miracle so you can't believe in them.

Front 11

Immanuel Kant

Back 11

The Revolutionary
Agenda: Needed to reconcile our scientific (Newtonian) view of the world with our religious (moral) view, wanted to make room for faith.
Method: We actively shape and order our sense experience. We impose meaning and rationale. Divide the world into the noumenal (causal but we can't know it's there) and the phenomenal (appearances, what we experience).

Front 12

G. W. F. Hegel

Back 12

The Progressivist
Agenda: response to Kant, do away with the noumenal
Method: "the rational is the real and the real is the rational," metaphysical idealism: the material is a product of the mental. Also, the dialectical method: third idea arises from the synthesis of A and Non-A.

Front 13

What was Friedrich Schleiermacher's agenda?

Back 13

To save Xianity from its Enlightenment and Romanticist critics.

Front 14

Discuss Schleiermacher's main contribution to Liberal thinking. How is this
contribution summarized in his work, The Christian Faith?

Back 14

Spearheaded a shift in religious thinking from revelation/ reason to sense/ experience. Religion is feeling close to God or having absolute dependence on him. Religious doctrines are accounts of religious experiences. Anti-supernatural. Proper theology is about God experiences and not God. Jesus was not divine, but had a superlative God- consciousness.

Front 15

How would you describe the theological method of Ritschl? What was the
major distinctions that characterized it?

Back 15

To distinguish between 'scientific' knowledge (factual/metaphysical judgments) and 'religious' knowledge (value judgments). - Religion tells us "ought" or "man's highest good". What is it? The KOG as revealed in JC. He distinguished the kingdom of God from God. The kingdom is the highest goal and good- for God and man.

Front 16

Discuss Harnack's understanding of the gospel.

Back 16

To separate the 'kernel' of Christianity ("Gospel") from the 'husk of historical religion (both NT and early church tradition). "The kingdom of God and its coming" (cf. Ritschl)

Front 17

Why did Harnack ultimately reject the gospel of John?

Back 17

Christianity from the outset polluted by Greek philosophy ("acute Hellenization") Gospel of John dismissed as unhistorical, because too philosophical -too Greek!

Front 18

Friedrich Schleiermacher

Back 18

The Father of Modern Liberal Protestant Theology
Agenda: to save Christianity from its Enlightenment and Romanticist critics
Method: shifted the focus of religious authority from revelation/ reason to feeling/ experience, "the feeling of absolute dependence"

Front 19

Albert Ritschl

Back 19

The Classical Liberal Theologian
Agenda: to defend Christianity from it's modernist critics and to resolve the conflict between religion and secular science
Method: To distinguish between 'scientific' knowledge (factual/metaphysical judgments) and 'religious' knowledge (value judgments)
- Focuses on the Kingdom of God, rather than God as such

Front 20

Adolf Harnack

Back 20

The Liberal Popularizer
Agenda: To separate the 'kernel' of Christianity ("Gospel") from the 'husk of historical religion (both NT and early church tradition)
Method: Realized eschatology, man builds the KOG

Front 21

What are the characteristic themes of Liberalism?

Back 21

"Accommodating Christianity to the modern mind"
1. Reconstructing Christian beliefs in light of the modern mind
2. Christian thinkers are free to criticize/ reconstruct traditional Christian beliefs
3. Emphasis on the practice ethical dimension of Christianity
4. Scripture is no longer the infallible rule of faith and practice
5. Emphasis on divine immanence over divine transcendance
6. The true religion and true Jesus are behind the gospels

Front 22

For what reason(s) would Reformed conservatives find the Fundamentalist
movement problematic?

Back 22

They would find it problematic because it came from a Dispo, pre-mill perspective, and they did not all agree to the inerrancy of the Bible.

Front 23

What were Machen's criticisms of Liberalism?

Back 23

1. Liberalism was anti-supernatural and anti-doctrinal
2. Jesus is not a divine savior, but a moral teacher
3. It has too low a view of God and too high a view of man
4. It is founded on Christian experience and not the word of God
5. Jesus is the example of faith and not the object of faith
6. Jesus was the imperfect man, not the God-man
7. It views salvation as the act of man (moral reformation) rather than an act of God (moral transformation)
8. The church is the brotherhood of man, rather than the brotherhood of the redeemed

Front 24

What was the fundamentalist response to liberalism?

Back 24

"A Testimony to the Truth" financed by Lyman and Stewart
- 90 essays by Christian scholars that affirmed evangelical beliefs
- The existence of God, inspiration and authority of Scripture, the virgin birth, the deity of Christ, etc.

Front 25

J. Gresham Machen

Back 25

Basic Thesis: Liberalism is a different religion than Biblical Christianity

Front 26

What are the characteristics of Neo-Orthodoxy?

Back 26

1. Return to divine revelation over human experience, 2. Return to divine grace over human moralism, 3. Respect for Christian creeds, traditions, etc.,

Front 27

What was Barth's primary criticism of Liberalism?

Back 27

Ineffective in pastoral ministry

Front 28

Discuss Barth's distinction between Historie and Geschichte.

Back 28

a. Sharp distinction between Historie and Geschichte. i. Historie: empirical, objective, factual history (what historians
study) ii. Geschichte: events understood in their full Christological significance, b. God reveals himself only in Geschichte and not in Historie
c. Events of salvation occur only in Geschichte and not in Historie.

Front 29

What are the distinctives of Barth's theology?

Back 29

A) Emphasizes the vast ontological distance between God and man; B) Denounces the idea that God can be culturally accommodated, C) Revelation is God's free, gracious self disclosure. iii. Barth's agenda: to re-assert the transcendence and freedom of God, and to restore the Word of God to its proper place of authority

Front 30

What was Brunner's concept of revelation?

Back 30

Revelation occurs as a non-propositional divine-human encounter ('I- Thou'), a. Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ, b. Internal witness of the Holy Spirit 3. Scripture is not divine revelation as such (not the Word of God), a. Scripture is the source and norm for theology, b. Yet Scripture is not verbally inspired, inerrant, ultimate authority.

Front 31

Karl Barth

Back 31

Neo-Orthodoxy
Agenda: to reassert the transcendence and freedom of God, and to restore the word of God to it's proper place of authority
Method: focused on revelation of the Word of God in Christ. Interpreted everything Christologically (Geschichte)

Front 32

Emil Bruner

Back 32

Neo-Orthodoxy
Agenda: to counter the drift of modern theology into hyper-immancene
Method: revelation occurs as a non-propositional divine- human encounter (I-thou)

Front 33

Discuss the theological 'agenda' of Bultmann.

Back 33

Bultmann's agenda: to present the Christian gospel in a way that is credible to modern people. The modern man of science could not accept the ancient myths of the Bible.

Front 34

What is meant by Bultmann's demythologization of the NT?

Back 34

Bultmann considered a myth to be what you get when you take universal transcendent truths expressed in a premodern ancient worldview. He sought to unearth the Kergyma from the myth of Xianity.

Front 35

How does Bultmann refer to faith in the historical Jesus?

Back 35

It is unimportant and unattainable

Front 36

How does Tillich classify his own view of God?

Back 36

Tilich saw God as the infinite power of being. It is not personal or impersonal, because he transcends being.

Front 37

Explain Tillich's "method of correlation"

Back 37

Philosophy asks the question of modern man and theology provides the answer.

Front 38

What is Tillich's view of the biblical doctrine of the Fall?

Back 38

The Fall was not a historical event, but an objective principle that just is. The Biblical account of the fall is a symbolic representation. In the fall the essence (ideals) and the existence (fallen actualities) separated.

Front 39

Rudolf Bultmann

Back 39

Existentialist
Agenda: to present Christianity in a way that is credible to the modern man
Method: Gospel (kerygma) must be extracted from mythology of NT writers and translated into contemporary theological idiom (i.e., from 'ancient' to 'modern' worldview), used form-criticism

Front 40

Paul Tillich

Back 40

Existential
Agenda: to develop a theology that genuinely addresses the question of "secular man"
Method: method of correlation- philosophy is indispensable to theology. Philosophy raises the questions (form) and Theology provides the answers (content)

Front 41

What is the central idea behind Process philosophy?

Back 41

The central idea behind process philosophy is that he fundamental building blocks of reality are processes (events) rather than substances (things)

Front 42

Summarize Process Theology's attempts to correct the 'mistakes' to classic theism.

Back 42

1. Aims to be both rationally satisfying and religiously satisfying- God is co-creator with others, temporal, mutable, suffers, actualizes his will by persuasion ('wooing'), dependent, reactive and affected, relatively perfect, embodied (through the world), necessarily limited and dependent, rejects creation ex nihilo (world is eternal), rejects natural/supernatural distinction: everything is 'natural', no divine intervention or miracles, emphasis on creaturely freedom ('real' decisions, 'real' creativity, co-operation, etc.)
ix. Emphasis on open (indeterminate) future, Addresses "the problem of future contingents". A natural theology rather than a revelational theology (no appeal to Scripture, etc.), Evolutionary themes (not just biological - also cosmological and cultural)

Front 43

What is Process Theology's response to the problem of evil? What are the problems with its response?

Back 43

Distinctive answer to the problem of evil 1. God is not omnipotent (in the classical sense), 2. God is not omniscient (in the classical sense), 3. But these 'limitations' of God are virtues, not vices! Still doesn't offer a psychological comfort or hope to the sufferer. Just tries to get God "off the hook."

Front 44

Summarize the theology of Jürgen Moltmann.

Back 44

Moltmann
- Agenda : Moltmann's agenda: to develop a theology in answer to the question, "Where do we find hope?"
- Methodology: Grounds theology in present history, analyzes the future
- Legacy: Moltmann's legacy: an emphasis on eschatology (futurity) in theology and on God's immanence in history (to the point of panentheism)
- Distinctives: God reveals himself through historical events (collapses gen. and spec. revelation), rejects monotheism and adopts a "social trinitarian view" constituted on the cross, God is the power of the future, the Christ is the dialectic between the crucifixion and the resurrection, Resurrection gives substance and direction to Christian hope.

Front 45

Summarize the theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg.

Back 45

Pannenberg
- Agenda: Pannenberg's agenda: to navigate a path between liberal (esp. Schleiermacher) and conservative (esp. Barth) theology that integrates it with other academic disciplines (history, science, etc.)
- Methodology: Theology must be defended as a rigorous academic discipline, Theology must make an objective defense of its truth-claims (apologetics), Theology must be rational, historical, and eschatological
- Legacy: a concern to give theology (and the church) a strong voice in the public square
- Distinctives: Emphasis on self-disclosure of God in historical events (decisive divine acts), rejects virgin birth, God is "the power on which all finite reality depends," Christology "from below," future hope rests in the perfect future kingdom of God (weak on the details of this and resurrection)

Front 46

What relevance does the work of Moltmann and Pannenberg have for Evangelicals today?

Back 46

Moltmann strongly influences left wing politics and liberation theologies. Pannenberg offers a more consistent theological methodology to the theologies of hope and offers a stronger focus on history. However, both are not orthodox and do not advance the orthodox views of revelation, God, Christ, and Eschatology.

Front 47

Discuss the background, themes, and proponents of Liberation Theology.

Back 47

1. Liberation theology developed out of the civil rights movement of the 1960's. Most of it's proponents were influenced by Moltmann's theology of Hope, Dietrich Bonhoffer, Marx and Martin Luther King Jr. It developed as a reaction against the Protestant Academic theology that tended to stay in the ivory tower rather than address problems of the common man. Themes include: orthopraxy, liberating the oppressed from the oppressors, culturally conditioned theology, identifies with the "poor," and the church is the agent of change.

Front 48

What are the various forms of Liberation Theology discussed in class?

Back 48

2. Latin American Liberation theology- developed with RC priests in light of the poverty and impression in Latin America, Gustavo Gutiérrez (1928-)José Miguez Bonino (1924-)José Porfirio Miranda (1924-2001) Juan Luis Segundo (1925-96), CELAM II 1968. Black Liberation Theology- developed during the American Civil Rights Movements, Cone, Theology of Blackness. Feminists- Rosemary Radford Ruether (1936-), empahsizes women's rights against traditional Xianity, developed in the 1960'. LGBT- 1990's, "*****" theory, Marcella Althaus-Reid

Front 49

What are the cultural characteristics of Postmodernism?

Back 49

a. Subjectivism b. Relativism c. Skepticism d. Nihilism

Front 50

What effect has Postmodernism had on modern theology?

Back 50

Postmodernism has forced modern theology to deal with a more extreme version of modernity. The increased skepticism about the language of revelation, relativism of all world religions, a rejection of anything objective, especially God, and a pragmatism that reduces religions claims to anything that "works.

Front 51

Describe the Christian reponse to the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche.

Back 51

Nietzshe wrote, "Death of God" and "implies death of objective truth, value, and meaning and All human thought is radically perspectival: "No facts, only interpretations." The christian would say that N claims are self referentially defeating. If N claims no objective truth then modernism itself is untrue and we shouldn't believe it. It's also an argument of absurdity.

Front 52

What are the major characteristics of Postliberal Theology?

Back 52

#1- Dissatisfaction with both the liberal and fundy approach to scripture. Both looked for a meaning behind the text. Either metaphysical truths or moral. The real meaning is in the text itself. #2- The religious meaning comes from within the religious community. There is no universal rationality or common religious experience. #3- The Bible is not source material for doctrinal propositions. Focuses on the narrative. #4- Examines the biblical narratives on their own terms. Consequent lack of interest in the historical accuracy or relevance to the text. #5- Doctrines are " grammars of the Christian faith." Not first order metaphysical statements (i.e. about God, reality, etc.). They are second order statements about language and the practice of the church.

Front 53

How does Postliberal Theology relate to Liberalism and Fundamentalism?

Back 53

Agenda: to locate a "third way" for Christian theology between liberalism and conservatism, centered on the idea of narrative and interpreting biblical narratives "on their own terms"

Front 54

What, if anything, can Evangelicals learn from Postliberal Theology?

Back 54

Positive insights
- The text itself takes primacy. Our doctrines are true because the match the text.
- Narrative has power to move people in a different way.
- Xian faith is not just about believing a set of propositions or truths. It believes that and more.
- Xian truths do regulate our vocabulary. But not just that. They also made metaphysical claims.

Front 55

Explain the agenda of Radical Orthodoxy.

Back 55

Agenda: to develop a "post-secular" Christian theology is both premodern (faithful to the early Christian traditions) and postmodern (renouncing accommodation to modernist thought)

Front 56

What are the characteristics of Radical Orthodoxy?

Back 56

#1- Renunciation of modernism, secularism, neutrality, and autonomy, #2- Refusal to "dialogue" with secular disciplines, #3- Rejection of theological dualisms: sacred/secular; nature/grace; material/spiritual, #4 An "ontology of participation" (broadly Neoplatonist) God= being (arrow down) creation. Everything is important because everything participates in this divine being, #5 Emphasis on sacraments, liturgy, and aesthetics (celebration of the
material/sensible), #6 Enthusiasm for both cultural criticism and cultural transformation, #7 Fundamentalism (=Evangelicalism) is considered just as modernist as Liberalism, #8- rejection of "Constantinian Christianity" (including its modern manifestations), #8- enthusiasm for socialism over capitalism (the latter often equated with consumerism)

Front 57

What are John Milbank's contributions to Radical Orthodoxy?

Back 57

3. Critical of modernism and enlightenment. Return to historic creeds. Tries to advocate and use it's theology in the public sphere.

Front 58

What are the origins of Post-Evangelicalism?

Back 58

1. Agenda: to reconstruct or "re-envision" Evangelical theology and practice so as to make Christianity more intellectually and culturally credible to postmoderns. Post-evagngelicalism is to evangelicalism what post-modernism is to modernism.

Front 59

What are the characteristic themes of Post Evangelicalism?

Back 59

- Antipathy toward foundationalism (preference for coherntism or contextualism)
- Skepticism about "absolute truth claims",
- Skepticism about "objective interpretations" of texts (especially Scripture)
- Preference for "stories" over theories, doctrines, creeds, confessions, etc.
- Rejects orthodox doctrines such as PSA, Hell, Inerrancy, Salv. by faith alone, etc.
- Reduces Christians to anyone trying to follow Jesus.
- Incorporates diff. worship styles.
- Incarnational.
- Skepticism about evangelical ethics.

Front 60

Who are the significant figures in Post-Evangelicalism discussed in class?

Back 60

Brian McClaren, Doug Pagitt, Tony Jones, Peter Rollins

Front 61

What are Post-Evangelicalism's criticisms of Evangelicalism?

Back 61

Captive to a modernist paradigm; too preoccupied with doctrinal orthodoxy, objective truth, certaintity; tend toward either "easy-believism" or "spiritual McCarthyism"; often reflect "spiritual consumerism" rather than "authenticity"; rely on discredited methods of apologetics (especially evidentialism); unsympathetic to honest doubters/seekers and give pat answers; insufficiently concerned about matters of social justice and equality; compromised by ties with the Religious Right (Moral Majority, etc.)

Front 62

1. Are Niebuhr's definitions of "Christ" and "Culture" appropriate and useful?

Back 62

Problem: authorities is problematic because Christ is over culture, not a pole. Not an authority. X is the ultimate authority. Christ: Doesn't seem to consider the biblical definitions. Allows for mere mental ascent and nominal Christians. very thin definition of believer. Includes Gnostics. Lacks Lordship aspect. Culture: pretty good definition. "World" needs a better definition. Not used as synonymous with culture in scripture.

Front 63

Which of Niebuhr's five types do you find most defensible? Why?

Back 63

Christ transforms culture- more biblical Rom. 8 :the whole creation groans for the sons of man revealed. If you take the fifth view, there are a whole range of views within it. You could take a number of different approaches to transforming culture.

Front 64

To what extent does Niebuhr offer a critical evaluation of each type? To what
extent do you concur with Niebuhr's evaluations?

Back 64

First two- one worldly. Thinks of things as two worlds. Christ against culture- can't do because we can't escape culture. Christ of Culture- popular theology condensing the whole of Christian thought into the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of Man. Self-reliant humanism rather than grace. Christ above Culture- wants to harmonize, but ends up harmonizing with a particular culture. Christ in paradox- Leads to antinomionism. Don't reform culture under the authority of Christ. Can't bring the law of Christ under the law of culture. Christ the transformer- no criticism. Tendency towards universalism in Maurice's interpretation. Elements of social gospel. Could even tend towards theonomy.

Front 65

What is your assessment of Niebuhr's use of Scripture? What can you infer
about Niebuhr's doctrine of Scripture? Does you own doctrine of Scripture
suggest a different approach?

Back 65

Critical view of the scriptures. Doesn't see the Bible as a whole. Eclectic view of scripture. No deep engagement with scripture. Doesn't touch the usual passages. Pits 1 John against John's gospel. Doesn't recognize the storyline of the Bible. Can't answer this question without having a correct Biblical framework.

Front 66

Are Niebuhr's historical representatives fitting choices for each type?

Back 66

Yes and no

Front 67

Where do you see examples of Niebuhr's five types today?

Back 67

Christ against culture- fundamentalism, Amish, Mormon's and JW. Christ of Culture- Emergent church, Liberalism, Jesusanity (cultural Christianity). Christ above culture- RC church. Christ and Culture in Paradox- Lutheranism (law and gospel antithesis or two kingdoms view). Christ the transformer of Culture- modern evangelicalism (i.e. James Dobson), theonomy.

Front 68

What are some of the limitations of Niebuhr's typology? Do you think there
should be a sixth type that is superior to Niebuhr's five?

Back 68

Sixth type- Christ the Lord and Redeemer of Culture. Lord- gives Christ authority. Redeemer- points to the work of Christ, a driving force. Does Christ just redeem people? People create culture. If you redeem people, then you will redeem culture. Needs an eschatological view.