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Concerns about the future of creation order
Get PDFThe theological background to the notion of the law of nature/ creation order is indispensable to the reformational tradition, which recognises that these laws are the Creator?s will, and therefore holds a “necessity” view of these laws. There has, however, been a longstanding debate about the nature of law within the reformational tradition, where its origin and its status as boundary between God and creation have been questioned. In this article I will investigate how Trinitarian theology, specifically that of Robert W. Jenson, relates to process philosophy and theology, and how together they create some theological concerns about the future of creation order. Some of the concerns include the following: that the necessity of order is questioned (the disappearance of a Creator who wills these laws); that order is temporal and in constant change; and that the boundary between God and creation is weakened. I will raise some objections to these aspects, but will also highlight some questions the reformational tradition has to answer in terms of its understanding of the immanence of God and of the implicated theological basis for the creation order. These questions are of the utmost importance for the understanding of the future of creation order
Editorial
No full textThe Editorial Board is pleased to announce that Koers: Bulletin for Christian Scholarship will appear in an exciting new format. From the next issue onwards, all articles will be published online and in open access mode by AOSIS (African Online Scientific Information Systems). This means that all articles will be available free of charge to anybody with access to the Internet
Head as metaphor in Paul
Get PDFSince the 1980s there has been a debate among New Testament scholars about the meaning of the Greek word “kephal?” (“head”) in the Pauline epistles. Some scholars defend the traditional view that it means “leader”, while others argue that it should be understood to mean “source”. One result of this debate is that it is now clear that both the traditional and the new interpretation of kephal? have very little support in general Greek usage before the New Testament. This article seeks to advance the debate by showing that the phenomenon of “semantic borrowing” can explain why the meaning “source” is effectively limited to one passage in Herodotus,and the meaning “leader” is only found in Greek works written by bilingual Jews. The passage in Herodotus probably reflects a semantic loan from Old Persian *sar while various places in the Septuagint, Philo, Josephus and Paul reflect a semantic loan from Hebrew “ro’sh” (or Aramaic “re’sh”). Because the latter semantic loan (“head” meaning “leader”) is embedded in the Greek Bible (both in the Septuagint and Paul),the authority and prestige of the latter can account for the fact that the new meaning of kephal?, though unknown in previous pagan Greek writings, gradually became widespread in postbiblical Greek as Christianity spread
Jesus’s direct experiences of God the Father: a paradox within Jewish theology and gateway to human experience of God
Get PDFWith the unavailability of a consistently similar and collectively accepted biblical definition of a „direct experience of God?, this article sets out to explore Jesus?s direct experience of God the Father within the Hebrew environment, which states that no one can see God „face to face? and live (Exod. 33:17-20). An immediate or direct experience of God is no doubt biblically rooted, but the nature and understanding thereof is largely a product of philosophers and theologians within the context of their worldviews. This article makes the case that Jesus had immediate experiences of God the Father, and this operates from the position that a direct experience of God is a fundamental property of the human reality. It sets out to explore the intimate nature and characteristics of Jesus?s immediate experiences of God the Father. This is done in the light of the paradoxical religious considerations of the Israelites (Gen. 32:30; Exod. 33:20) where God said to Moses: „You cannot see my face; for no one can see me and live.? But Genesis 32:30 records Jacob as saying: „For I have seen God face to face and my life is preserved.? While the paradox is furthered by John 1:18: „No one has seen God at any time …?, Christians in Paul\u27s time appear to have departed from such Hebraic reticence. The article sets out to identify some characteristics of Jesus?s direct experiences of the Father and use these as a yardstick to measure the plausibility of human experiences of God. Complying with the limitations imposed on the scope of this article, the vastness of this topic has been restricted to what is reasonable within these confines
The return of religion
Get PDFReligion is back in Philosophy as a respectable subject. Part 1 first charts what MacIntyre, Taylor and Derrida have meant in this regard. Subsequently, it turns to the Enlightenment to determine what constituted the breakthrough. It is found that even where the Enlightenment gave maximum room to religion i.e. as a civic religion and as “religion of the heart”) it still excluded a constitutive relation to a transcendent revelation. Part 2 centres on the religion-faith distinction in reformational philosophy. Similar to the Enlightenment, religion is understood as part of human nature. However, human nature itself is conceived as intrinsically religious and depending for its light on revelation. Secondly, “religion” in this context also encompasses idols and religious substitutes. Thus, it directs attention to shopping malls, football stadiums, health policy, et cetera, as possible contexts of a return of religion. Examples show that this has become a popular approach. However, most of the publications surveyed fail to distinguish between an “analogical” and a “pistically qualified” use of religion, and are open to exaggerations (the shopping mall and football stadiums as temples, etc.). At this junction, the relevance is shown of the religion-faith distinction as well as of Elaine Botha’s theory of metaphors. The epilogue offers an integration of parts one and two
Knowledge for sale? The impact of a consumerist hermeneutics on learning habits and teaching practices in higher education
Get PDFThe impact of the commercialisation, if not the corporatisation of higher education institutions in a globalised economy, has been widely discussed in recent literature with regard to the ethos of institutions, management, research, as well as teaching and learning. Indeed, in the „knowledge industry? knowledge is offered for sale. This article makes a contribution to this discourse by exploring the impact of consumerist hermeneutics on the basis of critiques of consumerism in Christian discourse, drawing especially on the work of Vincent Miller, „Consuming religion? (2003). The notion of consumerist hermeneutics is related to the impact of culture commodification in a consumer society. Given the overload of information, consumers have to adopt shallower forms of attention as a survival strategy. If such a shallower engagement is applied to virtually all cultural products,this leads to a reductionist understanding of knowledge. The impact of such consumerist hermeneutics on learning habits and teaching practices in undergraduate university education is then discussed briefly. In conclusion, some possibilities for resisting the hegemony of a consumerist ideology are noted
Rhizoids, technicism and economism
Get PDFA highly differentiated society requires integration. Dooyeweerd refers in this regard to science and technology. Intersocietal linkages play a key role in this process. They are affected, however, by technicism and economism. Rhizoids are configurations or distinct patterns of intersocietal relationships, linking activities in society to the kingdoms of material things, plants and animals. A delineated theory of rhizoids is given, especially configured as technical-economic relationships. The article defines elements of rhizoids such as flows, stows and transformations. In principle, rhizoids enable all important economic dispositions, including non-monetary ones, to be accounted for. This is important if economising is to take place within ecological limits. The presence and impacts of technicism and economism may be discerned in the shape and operation of rhizoids. An application to the treadmill problem in agricultural production for world markets is outlined. This is followed by a brief discussion of the spirit of capitalism, as reflected in technicism and economism (the earth is seen as a machine). They trigger a dialectical movement, leading to the establishment of smaller local rhizoids as alternatives to global ones. Schuurman?s plea for a paradigm shift towards seeing the earth as a garden-city offers a way of escaping from such dialectics
(Oor)aftelbaarheid
Get PDF(Non)denumerability The focus of this article is the rise of modern set theory which, according to Meschkowski, coincides with the first proof given in 1874 by Cantor of the non-denumerability of the real numbers. Later on he developed his well-known diagonal proof, which occupies a central position in this article. The argument of this article is directed towards the implicit supposition of the diagonal proof, to wit the acceptance of the actual infinite (preferably designated as the at once infinite). Without this assumption no conclusion to non-denumerability is possible. Various mathematicians and mathematical traditions of the twentieth century questioned the use of the actual infinite. A closer investigation is conducted in respect of two opponents of the actual infinite, namely Kaufmann and Wolff. The circular reasoning contained in their approach is highlighted and as alternative a non-circular understanding of the at once infinite is explained. At the same time the assumed exact nature (and neutrality) of mathematics is questioned (in the spirit of „Koers? as a Christian academic journal). This contemplation disregards the question of what mathematics is (for example by including topology, category theory and topos theory), which would have diverted our attention to contemporary views of figures such as Tait, Penelope and Shapiro who, among others, acts as the editors of and contributors to the encompassing work „Handbook of Philosophy of Mathematics and Logic? (2005)
Technology and religion: Islam, Christianity and materialism
Get PDFThe Western world and the world of Islam share a history, but they also differ greatly. The rise of terrorism has once again made us fully aware of that. In these tense times I would like to consider a question that is rarely raised today, yet which may be very relevant and very revealing: What attitude do these two worlds take toward technology