1,720,958 research outputs found
The doctrine of providence in the <i>Institutes</i> of Calvin – still relevant?
Get PDFIn the reformed tradition and theology, the doctrine of provi- dence has always been important and relevant, so much so that it forms an integral part of the reformed confessions. At the same time some of the most difficult theological questions are raised regarding this doctrine, questions like the following: Is God in control of everything? What is the relationship between the providence of God and sin, suffering, man’s responsibility, et cetera? In our times the doctrine as such is questioned or even rejected. What makes this topic even more important is the commemoration of the publication of Darwin’s book, “The origin of species”, coupled with the renewed emphasis on Darwinism, evolutionism and atheism.1 From the perspective of the Calvinistic-reformed theology and in the light of the com- memoration of Calvin’s birth 500 years ago, it is important to determine the relevance of Calvin’s thoughts on a number of important issues in the current debate, e.g. the doctrine on God, providence and creation, sin, suffering, et cetera. It is also determined that Calvin’s thoughts are reflected in the reformed confessions, which is still the living faith of reformed churches all over the world
Belydenisgebondenheid in ’n postmoderne era
Get PDFThe binding to confessions in a postmodern era
We are experiencing a paradigm shift between Modernism and Postmodernism in almost every sphere of life, and also in the sphere of church and theology. This paradigm shift has far-reaching consequences, especially for churches in the reformed tradition and the practice of reformed theology as far as the binding to the confessions is concerned. From the viewpoint of Postmodernism, there is no absolute truth. This applies also to Scripture. As far as their hermeneutics is concerned, they adhere to the principles of deduction as formulated by Derrida. According to these principles, a text has no intrinsic meaning but rather creates meaning. There is nothing outside the text. This leads to radical relativism. Over against the postmodern view, reformed hermeneutics maintain that Scripture is the infallible Word of God and proclaims everlasting truth. In the confessions this truth is formulated. Confessions belong to the very essence of the church. The binding to the confessions therefore applies to every member as well as all office-bearers and also professors in theology. In this regard there can be no compromise with Postmodernism
Violence in post-apartheid South Africa and the role of church and theology
No full textSouth Africa is known as one of the most violent countries in the world. Since the seventeenth century, violence has been part of our history. Violence also played a significant role during the years of apartheid and the revolutionary struggle against apartheid. It was widely expected that violence would decrease in a post-apartheid democratic South Africa, but on the contrary, violence has increased in most cases. Even the TRC did not succeed in its goal to achieve reconciliation. In this paper it is argued that theology and the church have a great and significant role to play. Churches and church leaders who supported revolutionary violence against the apartheid system on Biblical “grounds”, should confess their unbiblical hermeneutical approach and reject the option of violence. The church also has a calling in the education of young people, the pastoral care of criminals and victims, in proclaiming the true Gospel to the government and in creating an ethos of human rights
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
’n Vergelyking van Calvyn se 1545-Kategismus en die Heidelbergse Kategismus oor die Onse Vadergebed
Get PDFA comparison between Calvin’s Catechism of 1545 and the Heidelberg Catechism on their exposition of the Lord’s Prayer
Several studies on the relationship between Calvin’s Catechism (1545) and the Heidelberg Catechism have already been conducted. However, the need for a study of a comparison between the two catechisms on the Lord’s Prayer was emphasised at the South African Calvin Research Conference in 2004. In the sixteenth century Reformation the Lord’s Prayer was a subject of considerable importance. Calvin wrote no less than eight different expositions of the Lord’s Prayer in his commentaries, catechisms of 1538 and 1545 and the different editions of his “Institutes”. In both the Geneva Catechism of 1542/1545 and the Heidelberg Catechism the exposition of the Lord’s Prayer forms an important part. A comparison of these expositions leads to the conclusion that the theological insights of John Calvin played a major role in the formulation of the Heidelberg Catechism. The Heidelberg Catechism is part of our Calvinist heritage and should still be used in the instruction of our children and confessed as our true and living faith
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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