scholarly journals The doctrines of original sin and the virgin birth: divine revelation or human construct?

2009 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
I. J. J. Spangenberg
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
World View ◽  
Original Sin ◽  
First Century ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Grand Narrative ◽  
Virgin Birth ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The One

Two South African theologians, Ben du Toit and Anton van Niekerk, recently published books in which they argued that postmodern believers can no longer subscribe to the doctrines of original sin and the virgin birth. According to them both these doctrines reflect a pre-modern world-view which should be regarded as outdated. However, they would not like to take leave of the grand narrative of Christianity. There are some fundamental flaws in the reasoning of both scholars. The doctrine of the virgin birth is intertwined with the doctrine of original sin, and both are important to the orthodox doctrine of salvation. As it is not viable or consistent to tamper with some of the orthodox doctrines and try to keep the rest intact, we are left with two options, either to discard the whole system and start afresh, or to try and keep the whole package intact. However, biblical research since the Enlightenment has ruled out the second option. The paper argues in support of this case and attempts to offer a different way forward for Christians living in the twenty-first century than the one offered by Du Toit and Van Niekerk.

scholarly journals Algemeen of bijzonder Christelijke ethiek in een moderne cultuur

1998 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
W. H. Velema
Keyword(s):  
World View ◽  
The Other ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Moral Issues ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One

In this article the author investigates the relation between faith/revelation on the one hand and ethics on the other; the relation between the "particular” and the “general”. It is argued that Rendtorff and Pannen­berg are basically in agreement that ethics does not depend on Christian faith and divine revelation, although there is a connection between the two. On the other hand, the author of this article (in agreement with Douma) relates faith/revelation and ethics very closely: ethics is directed by a life and world view - a stance illustrated by a discussion on abortion and euthanasia. The issue of consensus on moral issues between Christians and non-Christians should be resolved from the perspective of the general goodness of God and his law, given to all men.

Edwards the Mentor

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rhys S. Bezzant
Keyword(s):  
Jonathan Edwards ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Cultural Engagement ◽  
Mentoring Relationship ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Metropolitan Cities ◽  
The One

Among his many accolades, Jonathan Edwards was an effective mentor who trained many leaders for the church. Though his pastoral work is often overlooked, this book investigates the background, method, theological rationale, and legacy of his mentoring ministry. He does what mentors normally do—meeting with individuals to discuss ideas and grow in skills—but undertakes these activities in a distinctly modern or affective key. His correspondence is composed in an informal style, his understanding of friendship and conversation takes up the conventions of the great metropolitan cities of Europe of his day, his pedagogical commitments are surprisingly progressive, and his aspirations for those he mentors are bold and subversive. The practice of mentoring is presented in this book as the exchange between authority and agency, in which the more experienced person in the mentoring relationship empowers the one in the position of a learner, whose own character and competencies are nurtured. When Edwards explains his mentoring practice theologically, he expounds the theme of seeing God face to face, which recognizes that human beings learn through the example of friends as well as the exposition of propositions. The book is a case study in cultural engagement, for Edwards deliberately takes up certain features of the modern world in his mentoring and yet resists other pressures that the Enlightenment generated. If his world witnessed the philosophical evacuation of God from the created order, Edwards’s mentoring is designed to draw God back into an intimate connection with human experience.

scholarly journals Cosmopolitanism and the German Enlightenment

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franz Leander Fillafer ◽  
Jürgen Osterhammel
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Sense Of Place ◽  
German Society ◽  
Original Sin ◽  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
German Enlightenment ◽  
Innate Ideas ◽  
The Universe

The European Enlightenment has long been regarded as a host of disembodied, self-perpetuating ideas typically emanating from France and inspiring apprentices at the various European peripheries. This article focuses on the idea of cosmopolitanism in the context of the German Enlightenment. There clearly was a set of overarching purposes of emancipation and improvement, but elaborating and pursuing ‘the Enlightenment’ also involved a ‘sense of place’. The Enlightenment maintained that human reason was able to understand nature unaided by divine revelation, but attuned to its truths; many Enlighteners agreed that God, like Newton's divine clockmaker, had created the universe, but thereafter intervened no more. John Locke's critique of primordialism challenged the existence of innate ideas and original sin. This article moves on to explain notions of religion, empire, and commerce, as well as the laws of nation. Transitions in the German society in the nineteenth century and after that are explained in details in this article.

The Enlightenment and the French Revolutionary Birth Pangs of Modernity

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Wokler ◽  
Christopher Brooke
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
The Other ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Nation State ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Social ◽  
The One ◽  
Modern Nation State

This chapter's overriding objective is to explain how both the invention of our modern understanding of the social sciences, on the one hand, and the post-Enlightenment establishment of the modern nation-state, on the other, encapsulated doctrines which severed modernity from the Enlightenment philosophy which is presumed to have inspired it. It offers illustrations not so much of the unity of political theory and practice in the modern world as of their disengagement. In providing here some brief remarks on how post-Enlightenment justifications of modernity came to part company from their Enlightenment prefigurations, it hopes to sketch an account of certain links between principles and institutions which bears some relation to both Enlightenment and Hegelian conceptual history.

Great projects and crude realities

2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 186-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel Ángel Giménez Martínez
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
The Right ◽  
Universal Schooling

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the circumstances that have conditioned the development of education in Spain from the enlightenment to the present day. Design/methodology/approach – Multidisciplinary scientific approach that combines the interpretation of the legal texts with the revision of the doctrinal and theoretical contributions made on the issue. Findings – From the beginning of the nineteenth century, the history of education in Spain has been marked by constant fluctuations between the reactionary instincts, principally maintained by the Catholic Church and the conservative social classes, and the progressive experiments, driven by the enlightened and the liberals first, and the republicans and the socialists later. As a consequence of that, the fight for finishing with illiteracy and guaranteeing universal schooling underwent permanent advances and retreats, preventing from an effective modernization of the Spanish educative system. On the one hand, renewal projects promoted by teachers and pedagogues were inevitably criticized by the ecclesiastical hierarchy, obsessed with the idea of preserving the influence of religion on the schools. On the other hand, successive governments were weak in implementing an educational policy which could place Spain at the level of the other European and occidental nations. Originality/value – At the dawn of the twenty-first century, although the country has overcome a good part of its centuries-old backwardness, increasing economic difficulties and old ideological splits keep hampering the quality of teaching, gripped by neoliberal policies which undermine the right to education for all. The reading of this paper offers various historical clues to understand this process.

Poisoned chalice? English at an Islamic university in Kerala

English Today ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 15-18
Author(s):  
A. K. Muneer Hudawi
Keyword(s):  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Private Life ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Modern World ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Spare Time ◽  
Changing Times ◽  
The One ◽  
The Impact

Post 9/11, traditional Islamic educational institutions, better known by their Arabic name ‘madrasas’, have been catapulted into the foreground of heated and at times shrill debates on modernization and reform (Malik, 2008; Noor et al., 2008; Riaz, 2008; Hefner, 2009). Discussions on reforming the madrasa system revolve around, among other things, introducing ‘modern’ education in the madrasas and the role of English in this process. Contrary to popular assumptions, however, such tensions are nothing new. On the contrary, the madrasa has witnessed recurrent attempts at reform in Muslim societies during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Since the eleventh century, when it first emerged as the pivotal centre of Islamic higher learning, the madrasa has undergone many changes, adapting in varying degrees to local cultures and changing times (Zaman, 1999). Nevertheless, these changes and reforms may not necessarily conform to the standards set by Western liberalism and it would be a gross mistake to judge the success, merit and relevance of the madrasa through the prism of such a discourse, given that the very raison d'être of madrasas is the production, dissemination, promotion and preservation of Islamic learning in a modern world which has brought into sharp relief the divide between the religious and the private on the one hand, and the secular and the public on the other, a distinction with little precedent in earlier Muslim societies. It is modernity that constructed the notion of religion as occupying a distinct sphere in society. Developments in modern Europe, and especially the impact of the Enlightenment, have led not merely to the subordination of religion to the state or the confinement of the former to the sphere of ‘private’ life but also to ‘the construction of religion as a new historical object: anchored in personal experience, expressible as belief-statements, dependent on private institutions, and practised in one's spare time. This construction of religion ensures that it is part of what is inessential to our common politics, economy, science, and morality’ (Asad, 1993: 207).

scholarly journals Paradigma Holistic Education

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 79-91
Author(s):  
Hasan Sayfullah
Keyword(s):  
World View ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Educational Institution ◽  
Holistic Education ◽  
Ecological Crisis ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Moral Wisdom ◽  
Life Problems ◽  
The Times ◽  
The One

The ever-expanding rotation of science, along with the remarkable progress of civilization and human science in this modern age, has arisen multidimensional and multi-complex human life problems and crises, such as: ecological crisis, humanitarian crisis , moral crises (demoralisation), greater social and economic inequality, violence and crime, and other crises. The occurrence of that is because of the enormous inequality between science and technology that developed so rapidly with moral wisdom and humanity that is not developed at all, if not said backwards. Furthermore, if traced the root cause, as a result of the unsuitability between the demands of the times with the world view of the modern world. On the one hand, the flow of globalization has eliminated human relationships in a more open, dialogical, tolerant, and plural climate. The most dominant significance of character change, mindset, attitude, ethics, and morals is endorsed in educational institutions. So when there is a deterioration and anxiety in human life that is definitely blamed is the educational institution. However, on the other hand, the worldview adopted by most modern humans does not allow the dialogical and humanist relations to grow and develop. Based on the concept of holistic education is an offer.

“Dante, Can I Lead You?” South African students write back (across seven centuries and a hemisphere)

2021 ◽  
pp. 97-103
Author(s):  
Chris Thurman
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
World View ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
First Century ◽  
African Students ◽  
Cosmic Order ◽  
The World ◽  
Temporal And Spatial

This account of the essays, poems and stories collected in the present volume reflects on the authors’ diverse forms of engagement with Dante via the implications of proximity and distance. In what ways do these students signal affinity with Dante – his historical context, his writerly persona – and in what ways do they subvert or challenge the world view (or the cosmic order) represented in the Commedia? How does their location in South Africa in the twenty-first century, as a particular kind of temporal and spatial dislocation from Italy in the fourteenth century, enable their creative and critical responses to Dante’s work?

Islamic fundamentalism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Youssef Choueiri
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World View ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Islamic Fundamentalism ◽  
Philosophical Discourse ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Philosophical System ◽  
Sayyid Qutb

The philosophical roots of Islamic fundamentalism are largely the result of a conscious attempt to revive and restate the theoretical relevance of Islam in the modern world. The writings of three twentieth-century Muslim thinkers and activists – Sayyid Qutb, Ayatollah Ruhollah al-Khumayni and Abu al-‘Ala al-Mawdudi – provide authoritative guidelines delineating the philosophical discourse of Islamic fundamentalism. However, whereas al-Khumayni and al-Mawdudi made original contributions towards formulating a new Islamic political theory, it was Qutb who offered a coherent exposition of Islam as a philosophical system. Qutb’s philosophical system postulated a qualitative contradiction between Western culture and the religion of Islam. Its emphasis on Islam as a sui generis and transcendental set of beliefs excluded the validity of all other values and concepts. It also marked the differences between the doctrinal foundations of Islam and modern philosophical currents. Consequently Islamic fundamentalism is opposed to the Enlightenment, secularism, democracy, nationalism, Marxism and relativism. Its most original contribution resides in the formulation of the concept of God’s sovereignty or lordship. This concept is the keystone of its philosophical structure. The premises of Islamic fundamentalism are rooted in an essentialist world view whereby innate qualities and attributes apply to individuals and human societies, irrespective of time, historical change or political circumstances. Hence, an immutable substance governs human existence and determines its outward movement.

Ulster Presbyterianism as A Popular Religious Culture, 1750–1860

2006 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 315-326
Author(s):  
Andrew Holmes
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
World View ◽  
Popular Religion ◽  
Religious Faith ◽  
Modern World ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries ◽  
Religious Aspects ◽  
Superstitious Beliefs

Both the study of popular religion and popular culture in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries suffer from a number of methodological and definitional problems. Historians of religion often assume that popular religion is synonymous with superstitious beliefs that have little or no relation to confessional orthodoxy. It is further claimed that during the nineteenth century superstition was abandoned as a consequence of the modernization of society and the imposition of respectable behaviour. Complementing this tendency, historians of popular culture in this period have generally ignored the religious aspects of everyday life and describe culture primarily in secular terms. This has much to do with the tendency to adopt, consciously or otherwise, a world-view that automatically assumes the subservience of religion to culture in the modern world. According to this view, once the events of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution had cast their spell, organized religion and personal religious faith were jettisoned, often in favour of the nebulous term ‘culture’, and a wedge driven between the sacred and secular. Given the overwhelming amount of evidence to the contrary, it is obvious that this tendency significantly hinders our understanding of the everyday lives and thoughts of our ancestors, especially in the Irish and specifically Ulster context where religion still has an importance that some fail to credit with sufficient patience, let alone understanding. As a result of these problems, the study of popular religion in the modern period lags well behind the advances made by historians of religion in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe.

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