Suffering Divine Things : Theology As Church Practice

by Hutter, Reinhard

• ISBN13: 9780802846884
• ISBN10: 0802846882
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-11-01
• Publisher: Lightning Source Inc

Summary

How do Christian beliefs and practices interrelate? What is the nature and task of theology? These questions have reemerged in the contemporary discussion with new vigor. Here Reinhard Hutter explores the link between Christian theory and action, rigorously arguing for a renewed understanding of theology as a distinct church practice.

Using "pathos", -- "suffering" God's saving activity -- as a powerful theological motif, Hutter offers fresh insight into the relationships between the Holy Spirit and the church, doctrine and theology, and beliefs and practices. He also shows how reclaiming "pathos" as a central motif for theology challenges modern and postmodern views focused on human identity, agency, and creativity as definitive of theology's nature and task. This groundbreaking work promises to reclaim theology's crucial role in the life of the church.

Author Biography

Reinhard Hutter is associate professor of Christian theology at Duke Divinity School.

Table of Contents

Preface to the American Edition	xiii
Preface	xvii
Introduction: The New State of Theological Discourse: Unintelligible Profusion	1	(4)
PART ONE
The Issue at Stake: Church --- Doctrine --- Theology	5	(34)
The Eclipse of the Church as Public --- Loss of Doctrine --- the Crisis in Theology	5	(17)
The ``Aroma of an Empty Bottle'' --- or the Church as Public: The Harnack-Peterson Correspondence	5	(10)
Theology in the People's Church: From Doctrinal Commitment to Orientational Hermeneutics of Meaningful Living	15	(7)
The Outline of the Argument	22	(7)
The Pathos of Theology: Beginning in and with the Church	22	(2)
Preliminary Overview	24	(5)
Considerations of Heuristics: Pathos and Poiesis, Praxis and Practice	29	(10)
Pathos	29	(3)
Poiesis	32	(2)
Praxis and Practice	34	(5)
PART TWO
The Pathos of Theology and the Implied Question of Church and Church Doctrine	39	(56)
The Praxis of Faith as the Pathos of Theology	40	(29)
George Lindbeck
Ecumenical Dialogue as Background and Cognitive Guide for the Cultural-Linguistic Proposal	41	(1)
The Two Traditional Ways of Viewing Religion	42	(1)
The Cognitive-Propositional Model: Fides Quae Creditur without Fides Qua Creditur	42	(1)
The Experiential-Expressive Model: Fides Qua Creditur without Fides Quae Creditur	43	(1)
The Cultural-Linguistic Model --- Religion as Verbum Externum: Joining Fides Quae Creditur and Fides Qua Creditur	44	(1)
Poietic Pathos within the Cultural-Linguistic Life Praxis	45	(2)
Experience	47	(1)
The Poietic Pathos of Learning Faith: The Perfection of the Saints	48	(2)
Learning Faith: Catechetical and Intratextual Theology	50	(1)
Excursus: Christus Est Dominus: Performative-Propositional and Intrasystematic Truth	51	(5)
Church Doctrine and Academic Theology: Second-Order Discourse/the Grammar of Faith	56	(3)
Intratextual Theology: Ethnology or Dogmatics?	59	(3)
The Soteriological Center --- beyond Formalized Pathos	62	(3)
Implied Ecclesiology: The Church as a Specific Context of Praxis	65	(3)
Conclusions	68	(1)
The Gospel as the Pathos of Theology: Oswald Bayer	69	(26)
The Fourfold Object of Theology	71	(1)
Theological Existence within the Pathos of Faith	72	(1)
Oratio, Meditatio, Tentatio	72	(5)
Catechetical Systematics: Toward the Practice of Catechetical Meditation	77	(1)
The Pathos of the Promissio	77	(1)
Theology's Constitutive Object: The Promissio	77	(2)
The Worship Locus of the Promissiones: Proclamation of the Gospel, Baptism, Lord's Supper	79	(1)
Formal Theology as Doctrine of Language and Form	80	(2)
Bayer, Austin, and Luther	82	(5)
Theologia Militans as Communicative Judgment	87	(2)
Theology as the Church's Discursive Practice of the Vita Passiva?	89	(1)
Implied Ecclesiology	89	(1)
Toward an Understanding of Theology as a Discursive Practice of the Church	90	(1)
The Ambivalent Place of Church Doctrine	91	(1)
Conclusion: Sic et Non	92	(2)
Summary and Transition	94	(1)
PART THREE
The Church's Rooting in the Spirit: The Core Practices and the Doctrina Evangelii	95	(52)
Church Doctrine as the Pathos of Theology: The Peterson-Barth Controversy	95	(20)
Erik Peterson's Query, ``What Is Theology?'': Theology in the Pathos of Dogma	96	(7)
Karl Barth's Response, ``Church and Theology'': The Pneumatological Grounding of Church Doctrine and Theology	103	(12)
The Pathos of Faith: Holy Spirit --- Church --- Theology	115	(32)
The Pneumatological Dimension of the Church in the Communio-Ecclesiology	116	(1)
The Trinitarian God and the Pathos of Personal Being in Communion	116	(2)
The Two Pneumatological Aspects of the Church	118	(3)
Excursus: The Problem of Anticipation	121	(3)
Conclusions	124	(1)
The ``Mission'' of the Church in the Trinitarian Economy: The Public of the Holy Spirit	125	(1)
The Holy Spirit and the Church	126	(2)
The Core Practices of the Church: Poiesis of the Holy Spirit	128	(1)
Luther's Treatise ``On the Councils and the Church''	128	(3)
The Marks of the Church as Core Church Practices	131	(1)
The Core Practices of the Church: ``Enhypostatic'' in the Spirit	132	(1)
Summary	133	(1)
Church Doctrine and the Core Church Practices --- Together in the Spirit	134	(1)
Doctrina in Luther	134	(2)
Doctrina and Core Practices: The Holy Spirit's Modes of Actualization	136	(1)
The Pneumatological ``Enhypostasis'' of Doctrina and the Core Practices	137	(1)
The Interrelation of Doctrina and the Core Practices	137	(1)
Doctrina and Canon	138	(1)
Doctrina and Church Doctrine	139	(1)
Church Doctrine, Theological Doctrine, and Theology as Practice: Anticipatory Considerations	140	(4)
Conclusions	144	(3)
PART FOUR
Theology as Church Practice	147	(48)
The Pathos of Theology as Church Practice: Participation in God's Freedom and Truth	147	(11)
The ``Royal Freedom'' of Christians: Participation in God's Liberum Arbitrium in the Holy Spirit	148	(2)
Assertiones --- the Freedom of the Holy Spirit	150	(2)
The Freedom of Theology as a Church Practice	152	(1)
Freedom and Truth in Theology as a Church Practice	153	(5)
The Church as Public, and Theology as the Practice Inherent to Its Telos	158	(13)
A Structural Concept of Public	160	(3)
Difference from the Polis: Church as ``Polis'' and ``Oikos''	163	(1)
The Church as the Public of the Holy Spirit	164	(1)
The Church as Public and Its Genuine Discursive Practice	165	(1)
Theology as Discursive Church Practice --- at the University?	166	(2)
Excursus: The Church and Public --- or the Church as Public?	168	(3)
The Actualization of the Pathos of Theology as Church Practice	171	(24)
The Discursive Aspect: Fides Quaerens Doctrinam as ``Accounting for the Ground of Hope'' (1 Pet. 3:15)	176	(4)
Theological Discurrere: Unfolding God's Economy of Salvation Argumentatively	180	(4)
Theological Discurrere: Finite, Provisional, Definite	184	(2)
Conclusions	186	(1)
The Aspects of Theological Perception and Theological Judgment: The Dokimazein (Rom. 12:2)	187	(2)
The Presentative-Communicative Aspect: Catechesis as Ad Hoc Apologetics	189	(6)
Notes	195	(88)
Bibliography	283	(27)
Index	310