Knowledge of God as Assimilation and Participation: An Essay on Theological Pedagogy in the Light of Biblical Epistemology (original) (raw)
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The concept and doctrine of theosis is almost unknown among evangelical churches. Theosis is a historical doctrine, well documented in the patristic writers and the Eastern Orthodox Church, but the concept is also traced in the writings of Protestant reformers and their successors. A recent resurgence of interest in this doctrine has been noted in certain Western protestant and evangelical theologians. Theosis is explicitly supported by several biblical texts, and implicitly by many others. This paper aims to introduce evangelical Christians to the concept of theosis, sometimes also called “deification” or “divinization.” In short, it means “becoming Godlike”, but there is a number of proposed longer definitions. I will provide definitions of this concept, specify its main biblical texts, explain the cruciality of Christ, and show where it appears implicitly in the writings of Paul and John. I will proceed to present a short overview of theosis in Church history, and describe where it stands today. Finally, I will write about how to avoid heresy, and conclude with potential strengths of the doctrine.
A STUDY OF THE ROLE THEOLOGY AND EDUCATION ARE INTEGRATED.
Faith and knowledge may appear to be two distinctly different disciplines but an the contrary they are not. This research is base on the integration of faith and learning, basing its ideas in the fact that education is usually devoid of a Christian morality. Hence the research will make use of literature that will show the “how” and the “why” Christ should be included in the classroom. This being highlighted by a symbiosis of faith and knowledge.
THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION AT CROSSROADS: LOOMING QUESTIONS
Theological education is a process by which the students and pedagogues learn God's doings and interventions in the struggles of faith communities that are striving and aspiring for human dignity, social, racial and gender equality, economic equity and parity, justice and fairness in all facets of their existence. As they move on they tend to locate and capture how and in what ways God responded to them and how to weave God's response to their context specifics. The learning process primarily revolves around faith experience of people and communities as written and narrated in the Christian Scriptures and its relevance to their lives and existential experience. In theological education students and teachers learn to articulate about the Word of God and the ways with which God responded and intervened to the cries and agony of people in different epoch of biblical history in systematic and coherent manner. Classical or systematic theologies have their place in theological education. Philosophical frameworks are being used to systematically explain the God-factor. The Western scholars to a large extent played remarkable part and significant role. However, in the 1970s and 1980s the contextual theologies emerged not as against systematics but more in response to the questions that were asked by the context: the faith communities and base congregations kept asking: What God is doing in our suffering and plight? In what ways is the biblical God relevant to their histories ―here and now‖? Is God of the Bible being silenced or silent to their cries and sufferings? To these questions those who were seriously engaged in theological education and pastoral/ministerial engagement were forced to respond. At this point of juncture critical theologies emerged across the continents. Voices from the margins came out strongly and loudly that had to be answered and responded. The voices could neither be silenced nor the people who raised their voiced be trampled upon. Their terrains from where the voices emerged and the context that raised questions need to be responded. The responses have not been at superficial levels but theologically grounded. As a result numerous theologies emerged from the unheard pockets and neglected terrains across the world. The theologies that came out from the margins and rustic terrains articulated God to their contexts and in the process their relevance to the faith communities reflecting in what ways God continues to hold and dictate the destinies of them. The contextual theologies invigorated their faith and reposed meaningful insights to their struggles and sufferings. They also ignited new hope and vigor to their existence. More importantly, these contextual theologies have brought about new levels of consciousness and horizons of understanding to move on in life in faith despite all sorts of horrendous hurdles and pitfalls.
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In the conservative evangelical Church, a growing argument has been made for a hierarchical Trinity in which the Son is eternally subordinated to the Father in role and function, which pits itself against the trinitarian doctrine established by the early Church through the Nicene Creed. This conception of a hierarchical Trinity is often known as subordinationism or functional subordinationism, which brings into question the nature and role of Christ within the Godhead and in relation to humanity. The Council of Nicaea in 325 CE solidified and legitimated the beginnings of Trinitarian doctrine, established the nature of Christ, and yielded the Nicene Creed, which made the Church’s stance on the Trinity permanent: the Godhead is of one substance. Subordinationism believes in tandem with Christ’s subordinate role that women are to be subordinate to men, which has deep reverberations in the personal lives of Christians, the greater Church, and society. Two case studies will be analyzed: the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson ruling, which overturned Roe v. Wade, and evangelical “role relationship” theology. This thesis has both theological and philosophical goals. The theological goals are to firmly establish an understanding that the Triune God exists through the relationship of the three divine Persons by using the works of modern Protestant, Catholic, and eastern Orthodox theologians and to explore the nature and soteriological work of Christ. Philosophically, this work looks to Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel to understand the nature of Christ expressed through the Infinite’s desire for reconciliation of the finite via the incarnation. This work finds overwhelming support for a relational Trinity established through theological and philosophical thought and connects the two through Christ to explain how our understanding of Christ’s role in the Trinity reverberates into our own lives and that the Trinity acts as a model for human relations. Lastly, this work will look toward the eschaton and the missional role of the Triune God in reconciliation, which has profound implications for understanding our God in relation.
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Interdisciplinary education" has become a catchphrase among Christian educators, but what does such a practice look like in reality? The authors, a systematic theologian and a biblical scholar respectively, reflect on their shared experiment in teaching students the doctrine of God. Their findings invite a rethinking of the nature of theological education, from the point of view of both the epistemological virtues necessary for learners and the collaboration of disciplines as resources for learning. They call for scholars to strive to talk together across disciplinary boundaries in order to foster students who think in theologically sophisticated ways.
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Theological education can no longer operate according to a modernistic epistemology if it is to equip students to minister in a postmodern world. This article explores the possibility of developing a theological epistemology which does not blindly reflect the presuppositions of either modernism or postmodernism. It is argued that the theological notions of faith, hope and love provide a unique approach to truth that frees theological epistemology from fideism, fundamentalism and triumphalism. Faith renders theological theories vulnerable to being challenged by experiences of lived-through reality and alternative interpretations of that reality, while hope sets truth within the context of critical transformational actions based on relational commitments marked by love. A meta-theoretical model for theological education is constructed to indicate how this epistemological approach may be realized in educational praxis.
The Implications of Epistemology for the Integration of Faith and Learning
The efforts in the Christian school to effectively integrate faith and learning lead one to consider foundational theories of knowledge. Defining knowledge raises questions about the knower and the known, the relationship between experience and knowledge, and the certainty of knowledge. The purpose of this paper is to examine the literature as it relates to theistic (specifically Christian) and non-theistic epistemologies and their impact on the integration of faith and learning. Kant, Pearson, Russell, and Dewey presented theories that attempted to ensure objective knowledge. Polanyi, Gill, and Palmer supported the view that knowing is always personal. Polanyi’s theory of tacit knowing was especially important. The modern debate has roots in ancient theological formulas regarding the relationship between faith and reason. Kuyper, Bavinck, and Van Til presented a revelational epistemology founded in the Dutch Reformed tradition. Finally, the author examined a model of integration based on these ideas and discussed the implications.