Salvation - Canon Law

Theology of Salvation

23/09

23/09
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07/10
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21/10
28/10
04/11
18/11
25/11
02/12
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16/12

The world is changing so rapidly that the classical approaches of theology aren't adequate. 15 backgrounds in class is an asset, but it is a challenge if we are willing to engage it. Logbook to be done after each class - 300 word max. Can't imagine doing theology in a way that there is a fixed block of knowledge that is valid always and everywhere.

Church of Auvers

Van Gogh: Church of Auvers - color blind view. Sometimes the view of what is a sin is different.
Words come out of narratives.: Don't think that by using a theological concept that you know what it means. What does salvation mean to you? Do you need to be saved.
Pont.Comm J&P is defining new sins: environmentalism. Eg the wine means different things in different regions, it is not so available - what about using beer in Flanders. Try to save the proposition first - don't immediately think they are wrong. And also ask what in me is opposing this idea, behavior. Exam - 20 questions proposed, 5 given at exam, 3 chosen. Not knowing forces the other to explain. Archimedies a scientist from Syracuse in Sicily. This is a narrative that underlies understanding of theological ideas.
Heuristics: comes from Greek. College of three languages founded by Erasmus in the Vis Markt. They attacked the city, and Archimedes used parabolic mirrors to set the ship on fire. Eureka - ppl of euriske - the heuristics is searching - Hermeneutics - is like a table - we know that because we have a concept of it and a story - it could be a pirate ship. Phenomenology. Calvin & Hobbs. Transmographier.
Matter has form,: things have interpretation. Lightening becomes electricity. I can has cheeseburger (ceiling cat). Some frames of interpretation don't work. Reader reads the Text. Agatha Christi brings you through the whole plot - the whole explains the parts, but the parts are explained by the whole. Like the internet.
Frame of interpretation: / experience / and the play between them is the hermeneutical process. What is the context of your frame of interpretation (frankfurt school)? This influences the interpretation of reality. When you realize it, then you can work with it, but if you don't realize it, then it can be dangerous. Calling something / someone intrinsically evil is problematic - it affects how you think - you act on hatred, disrespect. Be careful how I and others interpret christianity. We are never free of frames of interpretation - there is no uninterpreted christian faith; no word about God that is not always OUR word.
Ser / Estar: In spanish there are uniquely 2 words for to be - this is important to the historical development of liberation theology. Experience and ontology are linguistically separate. Spanish invites us to pay attention to experience. Flemish has great words for mysticism. The person who looks and interprets produces a new texts - this is read by another person who brings their interpretive framework to the text as well. What do we want to take from the bible - historical Jesus, letter of the text, how I relate to the person of Jesus. Jesus didn't know about cars or redlights so he didn't speak to it, and likewise with other moral issues. Feminists also understand the context as well.
In the name of the mother and of the daughter and of the holy spirit.: God is not afraid of open cans of worms and unpacking interpretive frameworks and meeting us where we actually are. If the church brings symbols, it has to life and explain them. The course is about understanding the words salvation. Augustine: getting rid of sin. coming out of his context, awareness of personal sin. In the east salvation is becoming like God - taking on the image of God. Theosis is more central. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin - Army nurse in WWI (WWs are crucial to understand European theology) - All males over 16 shot at railway station. EU is a Christian enterprise. Horror wwi, concentration camps wwii. Europeans went to war saying God is with us. Bonhoeffer. Theological Dictionaries of NT / OT are marked by German anti-semitism. Chardin speaks of evolution into Christ, but where is the balance of the WWs? Theology may be seen as too easy, or as too dark. The balance isn't ever finished. Salvation fits in this tension. Think about when I speak of salvation, what do I need to be saved from? How do I imagine a saved world? Saved from / saved for?

30/09

Eschatological Tension: Salvation fits in this tention. Think about when I speak of salvation, what do I need to be saved from? How do I imagine a saved world? Saved from / saved for.
There is a double dimension when we look at what salvation means saved from (contrast experience, this world, addressed with prophetic language) and saved for (vision, kingdom of God, not yet - outstanding - but already existent in my life, addressed with sapiential language). These two elements are important. The vision is expressed in the midst of the broken reality. Situation and mode of theology will influence where you start. El Salvador, e.g. Ellacurilla (with Sobrino): last words - this is injustice; a sociologist - questioned what are the requirements of life together, how do I dream of justice. Peace researchers say first question is what do you understand by peace - understanding the vision is important; what are the expectations. Peace is an heuristic attractor - there is no definitive definition, but we use it and we imagine a meaning, sometimes out of a contrasting experience. It has content, but it maybe has too much content.
Coffee Table in Heaven.: Imagine people you don't want to see here. Then think of the kingdom of God - And then you are sitting around the coffee table with them, face to face, enjoying one another's company. Seems impossible now, but if the vision is there, aren't we behaving like children now with our bickering. Can't we anticipate our heavenly cup of coffee. Our imaginations can help us break out of prejudices - imagine there is more in a student than how they are performing in a class or on an exam. Transfiguration story was important for a MS sufferer - strive to see always the transfigured person - how does God see that person. Reframe from the impossible present - to the transfiguration reality. First imagine, then ask what I can do. Vision is sapiential language - when you have a vision it binds you to a better present. I have a dream.... Sometimes we are too immersed in saved from and we don't take enough time with saved for. Eschatology and salvation are about the tension between these two. This tension can be difficult; how can dreams begin to shape the reality. Trust the dream. We can have the temptation to believe that we bring about the vision. We try to find the vision, and receive it when it comes, but it originates in relationships (shocking / empowering) that give me the capacity to reframe.
The vision emerges in our relationship with God that connects us with reality. It isn't our construct alone, it is not just God demanding. Jesus speaks in parables to help you engage in visionmaking. The kingdom is about dignified life together. What does this mean in everyday life. Parables bring concepts to your present life. Love is a reality, but to define it is problematic - same for hatred. It is situational, common, but different in every situation. You have to tell a story to explain its importance and to show what it is. Each of us experiences it differently. Same with pain. Will you still love me when I'm 64. When I'm sixty four, love will look different. Marriage is about entrusting oneself to a vision, you trust the other person. The minister and witnesses help make it real - others come to help make it real and to re-enkindle it in their own life.
We live in a complex reality, our personal history. The history is conditioned by a vision. Concrete steps bring us to goals along the way and we can control things to a certain extent. This is for little goals, a diploma. But the kingdom of God is different - an intractable conflict like Palestine and Israel, or other hotspots. It can be hard to imagine the kingdom. But we have to let the vision of the Kingdom emerge in the context of relationship with God. God's dream became more present in Christ. And Christ builds relationships with us to build our ability to come into the exploration of the vision of the kingdom of God. God and Christ begin the already of the vision. In this context the world from which I am saved is in relationships that build the vision. In liturgy, we immerse in the not yet. Let's play heaven. This brings it more into our lives.
In marriage how can one make that promise - it's out of your control. In salvation, we entrust ourselves to God. Not to a book or to rules. Christianity is a religion of a relationship, not of a book; it needs books to tell the stories.
We need the prophetic and the sapiential elements. This cannot be - the gut level response. La Zona: area of affluence in the midst of poverty. Community needs boundaries, but it must be open as well.
We will feel drawn to start only with saved from or with saved for, but we have to balance if we are to have a full rich eschatology. If we are only saved from / prophetic, then we become the violence we abhor. Other theologians have an exalted vision but they forget that people are dying in the streets. But they have the advantage that they see a power that the prophets don't see. Christology of bike repair - saved from. That is Christ. So why did God not build a better bike. The other is the theology of the kiss - God wants to be with us - God has fallen in love with us - the incarnation is the kiss of God. Very intimate christology that can allow you to flee the world. La Zona God - You forget the rest of the world. You need both - the empowering kiss - but the kiss is in the midst of a reality.
Did God create a perfect world - is this a relevant question? The question comes our concrete context - we aren't eagles that fly over God in Judgment. We only know God in relationship. When we say God is perfect, what are we trying to safeguard about God. If we trust in salvation, we have to affirm the goodness of God. Jesus was like in all but sin - very interesting sentence - what can this mean - sin is part of our everyday life. So how can a person be like us in all - how can we be saved if we are not known. In that case he is a superstar. Docetism - Jesus just seemed like a person. God is indeed more than us - and that more is salvific. To share my pain - a person has to be in solidarity. What is not taken up is not saved. It's not enough that Jesus was tempted. Each of us has actually done evil - there is the experience of this - what does God know about this. Jesus isn't there for the syro-phonecian woman, or the samaritan woman. This makes me angry - Jesus should apologize - he does apologize. If this isn't sin, then exclusion isn't a sin. Like in all but sin is also a statement about us. We have to struggle, think twice - the sentence subtracts something, but it's not really like who we are. We say that Jesus is purely the vision - The deepest definition of the person is Graced child of God - but sin is part of our experience. Without sin, we are different. Sin is part of creation - we are defined by creation, but then there are levels on top of that that also define us. This says trust that sin isn't core to who you are - that is salvation. Humans are in the image and likeness of God. Hebrews say two words build meaning, the Greeks see it as two things. Likeness is full being when we are as we are in God's presence. The image is in the concrete world, the image is packed, dressed and clothed - including with sin. It is already and not yet even then.
Forgiveness is a mode of relationship. It is a way of allowing a relationship to grow and deepen.
Summary: When we speak of salvation, it has two aspects. we are talking of the relationship - god's work is to save us. Both aspects are there and in a way, only God does it all. And there is a primacy in God; there is a challenge - after all God is the creator. That is sharply theological. But salvation is a big word and it can't be talked about except in a concrete situation - God has seen the potential, but there is a lack of living that potential. Suffering, pain. Salvation can't be talked about without talking about god as well. Albert Camus (dated philosophically) The pest.

07/10

Image: god is present - likeness: fullness of God. Perfect is likeness, good is image. Language of perfection isn't recommended because perfect seems to be a completed ideal. Likeness remains even in the word, a process, relationship. Vision of likeness feeds the image and the growth of image. Kingdom of God as heaven / church, community is the historical presence of the Kingdom. We can talk about heaven on the basis of how we interpret it now; but it is an attractor - like the vision. Utopia is a defined place though I can't reach. Heaven is harder to imagine, but we can reach it. Flemish image - rice pudding from silver spoons - it is an image of plenty; we have a trust in the image. The promise of salvation is an attractor to put salvation into practice as liberation in this present time. Seeing the capacity of students who don't see it themselves. Lions for Lambs You are made to be saved - to live in the kingdom, but you only discover what it is if you start living it now. This can become ideological, e.g. when we are unwilling to see that our interpretations are just that, and they are open concepts that have many possible enfleshments. Many neo-liberal concepts are dominant - we have to continually ask what we are saved from and saved for. We may be blind to the people who want to save us from our interpretation. Ultimately the content is God's business - but we have to engage to discover it. The word is excessive. Forgiveness: Elias Lopez Perez 1 2 - ultimate forgiveness is possible only in the face of the unforgivable. Commit to the excess in the face of the impossible. The feeling of the excess of God is always present.
Two poles: theology and the world of today. Salvation isn't just somewhere in the future, but is here and now as well.
Creation / original sin.: There are two ways to look at christology: bicycle repair and kiss. Repair presumes a world that god broken - something when wrong; original sin is a term to say that we can't conceive our world without the brokenness and and a brokenness that we persnally are responsible for. We are all sinners - don't cheat yourself by thinking you have never done evil. But this isn't our final deepest being. But the two realities can't be unlocked. God created - and things happened - Jesus bring it back. The rift is so big that we have trouble believing sin is not hard wired in us. It is part of history, not part of our definition. It is hard to believe God created a world with so much evil. Trigo Solle Cloyes. They say ideological language of creation is nearly impossible in our broken world. Original sin says please believe in creation even though the world around you seems so marked by evil and suffering. Creation / forgiveness are excessive words; religious and marriage vows are promises in excess. Things will go wrong - so what are you going to do then - The excess is too great so it is wise to be realistic and understand forgiveness and salvation. Like us in all but sin - we are like him in all but sin - sin isn't part of our definition. Not cheap grace, but it is grace - it's reliable. Is incarnation necessary to salvation. In the first type of christology Christ is necessary; God is committing to this world. In the second perspective, if you love, you have to expression, it's part of love, but you wouldn't speak of necessity. Incarnation is helpful because God becomes so concrete - we can't subsume this to our convenience. It has a good element. How do you protect God whom you want to be near - how do you protect God from ideological abuse.
God is the only savior: - Christ is the only savior - when I say that, I only say God is savior - here and now. Dignified life together is our way to salvation - wherever that comes from and is inspired from. Seeing the hell some people have to live in makes one dispair of heaven.
Remain self critical: and allow God to critique and listen to those we exclude from our high ideals of liberation, those who pay for our efforts of liberation. Salvation can become quite abstract. We don't know what heaven looks like, but this doesn't let us off the hook. In this world, we are confronted constantly by injustice - by hells that others are forced to live in. We are rightly angry about this, people are afraid, and some people have little experience of peace and security. We have to awake to reality, we take suffering as so natural - we've grown accustomed to the pain. How much are we numbed - are we afraid - are we angry? coltan. People pay prices for our life style. How does the anger provoked by compassion work in us, in our lives, in our choices. Principle of Compassion Sobrino. How do you get incarnate in the hells of today?
Jose m. Vigil: - Option for the poor is an option for justice and not preferential. SEDOS

14/10

Ruusbroec: - when you define a human, you can take away a lot - but you can't away compassion. Decartes: I think therefore I am, what about kids that can't think. Sobrino What is the principle out of which we generate our life together worldwide. We know a lot about the US financial crisis - but African banks aren't part of the system so they aren't affected. We presme everyone is there. Maybe we should view ourselves as a single world community, albeit with political an economic systems, but the depth structure is compassion. We have to awaken to that reality. Compassion is a ability to suffer with - also emotionally - but primarily structurely, what happens to you, also happens to me. Lack of compassion is my inability to move outside your pain. Solidarity - has something of a decision, a choice, from on high; but compassion is a reality, not a choice - it is demanded of us by reality. The poor are people with whom we share a world, and who have a right to our help; they are not people whom I can decide to help.
Deus Caritas: - God is love, interesting / surprising and open to erotic forms of love. Part II is charity in practice - solidarity, assistance through big organizations that set up projects: they decide where, when, how. Benedict criticized this later; The first part nearly doesn't touch friendship - philia - the natural basis of compassion. Sinfulness shouldn't be a reason not to see the theology proposed. Exercises end in friendship - core of relationship with God and with neighbor. How do you awaken compassion in our system. Sobrino - Basque - went to live in El Salvador. What are personal compassionate awakenings? Goretsky - Miserere, written with violence, shooting into the crowd, guards ask how can we shoot our brothers. Birdsong from WWI, the question is how far can human beings go into inhumanity.... And now. It's not a decision to share life, but a discovery that we have shared life. Who has touched me? This is compassion of Jesus. I'm not choosing solidarity, but I find myself in compassion, in feeling with. It is always gift, grace; but we can't just let it be the work of God. To be created is to be created toward the other. Love for God doesn't disconnect from creation - God is there. Lotsverbondenheid - fate - connectedness. absolutely in alliance with, an essential connectness. Common human story. Lack of order when this isn't at the core of our relationships. This impacts subject, individual, identity. Marriage is a good example, but you decide to move in that direction, and it reveals the depth of reality - so it is a sacrament. Original sin is that this doesn't work, we've eschewed this compassion. Calling to solidarity is a step in the direction of compassion. Trusting oneself to compassion at the basis of life is a risky business. Try to step a little at a time, but it isn't ever enough - what in depth we are, is unthinkable. We can only receive - the promise of salvatin goes beyond what we can manage. Liberation is steps we take. Descry - person at top of mast who can previsage land. We see compassion dimly in a mirror and attempt to navigate toward it. So it is terrible if we can't reach, but we need more efforts. The grace doesn't mean forget about this, it isn't easy to be in the breech. Be radical in the message - knowing our incapacity to live it, and to even imagine it. It is overwhelming - how does it continue to be radical but not paralysing. Incarnation = how can this be isn't about how a virgin conceive, rather how can God be in the World. The pain of not being able to realize the radicality - to challenge injustice.
Compassion: classically is the liberation movement. Cardijn: saw that church lost contact with youth - based on See Judge Act. Looking for words can be an intellectual trap - We are talking about seeing: being touched, awakened, compassion; judge, woman with hemorrage - bring the situation in contact with our lived faith; Lotsverbondenheid, Kingdom of God. Act is the commitment and the difficulty commit. Mary: how is this - I commit out of my faith in what I see. Two critiques: 1) too intellectual. It is about who we are as human beings, our commitment in Jesus. We move around in a triangle - compassion, commitment and relationship with Jesus. 2) We cannot do this by our self, so add Celebrate - put youself there where you are not yet. Enter into liturgy of heaven, celebrate the dream. Gathering of people as already in the liturgy of the Kingdom. In the west we gather the the people.
Awakening: Big discovery of the 20th century in being able to conceptualize it. Very often this happens in the brutal confrontation where we are touched by suffering of self or others. Awakening is entering into an alliance with the poor and accepting it as a lifegiving gift of God. Preferential option is not idealizing the poor or totally defining poverty, but it is relationships that awaken us to our capacity and calling of the compassion of the kingdom. This happens when we suffer the absence of the kingdom. Preferential option - we need a lot of discussion - is it preferential, can we love others, option, is it a choice, who are the poor. Gutierrez is a commitment of God to us all, from a particular perspective. You can't be touched by the kingdom of God unless you're touched by people who suffer its absence - injustice.

21/10

Conversational groups for the class “History of Salvation”.

28/10

Justice: is a characteristic that God requires of the world. So we are not free to choose to do or not to do. Gutierrez says the "option for the poor" is not our option, but God's option - God has already made the choice for us. I can choose for the poor, and I will choose which poor I will serve. No, not to do justice is to sin. The poor challenge us to question our relations among ourselves - where the relations among us that demand change. The division between poor and non-poor that gives the nonpoor the power / luxury to choose to help or not. The division itself is suspect - this is unjust - and it is unacceptable to God. Work for a change in the system is required of believers.
Option preferential para / con los pobres: POR = for, because of, through, at the service of. He changes the world of us all. Unjust realtionships dehumanize both the poor and the rich - when we see the poor, the sight challenges those of us who are acting inhumanly toward the poor. Are we not sustaining the injustice when we give 'pennies' to help the poor - the charity ball. When we question the structures, we commit ourselves - how dare we expect gratitude for giving - when we are unwilling to change the unjust systems. How do we change - what does it imply for us - what do we have to give up. 0.7% of GNP to developmental aid. Charity allows us to remain in the system, justice requires us to change the system. POP is the flag that moves us forward, but it is being hi-jack by the system. God believes in it, we have to believe in God's dream. The fact that we can't fathom what this justice looks like, and can't figure out how to get there doesn't make it less of an imperative.
Love / Justice are one in God.: If I'm in a situation of injustice, I'll speak more easily about justice - if I'm in a situation of justice - I can speak more easily about Love. 1st encyclical on Love is first on love - the 2nd is on Charity on the German Charity model. Friendship is missing from the Love - Friendship is a characteristic of Justice - we share with friends. Justice costs and demands some element of faith and trust. You will be disappointed and discover that you need God and you need salvation. It is a 'costly grace.' You can see and desire this, but it comes as a cost, this is the gospel. A christian would recognize God in the work for Justice.
Relation of Justice to Law: Law is made most often by the rich and powerful - notwithstanding the fact the myth of democracy. Law reflects most often the interests of power and money. At its best, it seeks the 'common good,'
Beinert - Francis Schusler-Fiorenza - Handbook of Catholic Theology.: Articles: Reconciliation, p. 639 on Salvation. Liberation is one of the most explicit current theologies of salvation. Filter out the questions that are raised and ask why these questions are raised. This article is anthropological, not sociological at first based. God is the author of salvation, and of the desire for salvation - it is beyond our capacity, but it is reached in our lives and history.

Jesus brings us to the fulfillment and is the fulfillment.:: God redeems frees and rescues. Human beings have a dynamism - we need relationships to become ourselves. The relationship with God particularly. The transcendental nature of the human person is already present in our creation. Categorial / transcendental Theology of Karl Rahner is a theology of encounter - the anthropological structure of the human being that is open to the other and to God. This is the transcendental nature of human beings. (Foundations of Christian Faith) Dynamism open to the plus. Categorical desire for more 1 pint for thirst - the second pint to explore the taste.

You cannot disconnect salvation from the world of history and world.: It is the person saved in real concrete context. Relationships are the core of salvation. It isn't changing people to make more human, but to make the relationships human. Set theory - wittgenstien's tractatus - is similar - you start from the elements as if they exist outside of relationship. But the relationships define you even before you make a decision. Relationships aren't accidental, they are essential. Thomas says not all relationships are accidental - creation is essential.
The article sees relationships as accidental to the human subject.: Spiritual Exercises - It is seen individual - but it isn't nly individual, but is how we are constituted in community - where we find our relation with God. Therefore the core is the common apostolic discernment to become a member.
Contrast experience: is more easy to state: salvation is the absense of abandonment by God. Double negation allows you to speak of something without saying it. The author is critical of liberation theology. Opposing old and new testaments is Marcionism. Old / bad; new / good. Continuity exists between the testaments. Secret you know, precise knowledge shared by few. Mystery is imprecise knowledge, shared among many. Marcion / Gnostics see christianity as a secret, not a mystery. But catholic means its' for all, it is a mystery for all - we cannot, not speak about it.

04/11

Biblical Background: Author seems to propose a tension between material, OT and spiritual, NT. Alternative way of relating to God - also presents salvation as spiritual or merely material. There is a problem in understanding these as distinct but linked. Two important caveats give us two poles of a tension, we have to keep both poles so that we don't collapse them into one or the other:

18/11

Dietrich Bonhoeffer - Father psychoanalyist, mother minor aristocracy. Early on at odds with Hitler regime, confessing church dissented from Lutherans in league with Hitler. B. became active against Hitler, and he was harassed, silenced by Reich. Got out of Germany, but went back. Worked with the resistance. Arrested 1943, executed just before end. Most of his sermons are written - 16 volumes. Doctoral dissertation on ecclesiology. then Ecclesiological epistemology.

Ethics

He thinks his Ethics are his most important work - in his world it's broader than morals, but a social / cultural philosophy and how the Gospel works in history, particularly in his history (schleiermacher - cultural theory of theology). Two contexts: theological development of Bonhoeffer and immediate socio-political context. Social form of the Gospel after collapse.

We have been silent witnesses of evil deeds; we have been drenched by many storms; we have learnt the arts of equivocation and pretence; experience has mae us suspicious of others and kepts us from being truthful and open; intolerable conflicts have worn us down and even made us cynical. Are we still of any use? also are we as church now of any use to contemporary society - do we have anything of value to contemporary society.

Thinking and acting for the sake of the coming generation, but being ready to go any day without fear or anxiety — that is, in practice, that spirit in which we are forced to live.full of life and hope, but

I believe that God can and will bring good out of evil, even out of the greatest evil. For that purpose he needs men who make the best use of everything. I believe that God will give us all the strength we need to help us resist in all time of distress. But he never gives it in advance, lest we should rely on our selves and not on him alone.... I believe that even our mistakes and shortcomings are turned to good account, And that it is not harder for God to deal with them than wih our supposedlly good deeds. I believe that God is no timeless fate, but that he waits for and answers sincere prayers and respnsible actions. When all else has fallen away, we can rest on prayer and responsible action.

Who can stand fast, Only the one whose final standard is not his reason, his principles, his conscience, his freedom, or his virture, but who is ready to sacrifice all this when he is called to obedient and responsible action in faith and in exclusive allegiance to God — the responsible man, who tries to make his whole life and answer to the question and call of God. Where are these responsible people? God is calling us always out of safety, reliability, to real relationship with God. The theories, cultural grandeur, reaons principles, conscience, duty, freedom, private virtue haven't stopped the disaster.

Ethics as Formation

to be a christian is to be a form of Christ in time - Theology is not about a cognitive system, but about a person. Present Christ, Historical Jesus, Eschatological Christ. Only because there is on eplace where God and the reality of the world are reconciled with each other, at which God and humanity have become one, it is possible there and there alone to fix one's eyes on God and the world together at the same time... It lies in Jesus Christ the reconciler of the world.... Whoever looks at Jesus Christ sees in fact God and the world in one. From then on they can no longer see God without the world, or the world without God. Jesus is incarnated and acting in each Christian. not imitations or repetitions of Christ's form, but hte form of Christ that takes form in humans. this happens in church, seen as body of Christ. Two people in creation, and they relate through GOd, allowing both to be self, free and in relationship. We are mediated to one another through GOd. God is Love. In the fall, people try to relate directly, without the mediation of God, and thus consumes the other as thing, instead of relating as person. Jesus then becomes the answer who becomes the relator. THe church is the ongoing incarnation of Christ. Sacramental understanding of the church. God did not become an idea, a principle, a program, a universally valid belief, or a law; God became human. Not GOd becomes human that humans become divine, but bonhoeffer says God becomes human so that humans become human. What is human? as an important part of Bonhoeffer's context: true humanism / christian humanism isn't contempt or idolization.

Christ, Reality and Good

People interpreted him as a death of God / end of religion theologian. He critiques religion, sharing the approach of Karl Barth. For Barth, religion is our approach to reach God, always flawed; religion, both necessary and flawed, gets us to God. Critical of religion, more critical of Hegel. One of the problems with religion is that it fractionates reality, B. wants to undo that. God and creation are one, Christ is the reconciler. One realm of existence: christological, ontological, ethical. Nothing exists outside this relational matrix, dimensions of one reality. Christ mediates us to each other, and the other mediates Christ to us.

Critique of 'two-realms' thinking

critiquing a separation of church and state read out of Luther. Thinking in therms of two realms understands the paired concepts worldly-Christian, natural-supernatural, profane-sacred, rational-revelatinal, as ultimate static opposite that designate certain given entities that are mutually exclusive. Take God out of creation, you reify everything, including yourself. Just as the reality of God entered into the reality of the world in Christ, what is Christian cannot be had otherwise than in what is worldly, the 'supernatural' only in the natural, the holy only in the profane, the revelational only in the rational. [not identical but held in relation to the christ-reality]. In this realm we are forced to go completely christian, or completely secular. But if they are exclusive, we can't be in both. No one has the responsibility of turning the world into the kingdom of God, but only of taking the next necessary step that corresponds to God's becoming human in Christ. If we forget the matrix, we step into two-realm thinking, the alternative is responsibility. Bonhoeffer sees us as BIG cooperators in God's action / grace.

25/11

Even mystical experience is mediated, by a community; the faith is mediated by community; the experience is discerned by a mediated experience, e.g. of spiritual direction. Bonhoeffer: we are saved.

Ecclesiogenesis

Building of a communinity out of the gift God gives us. Salvation is built in this context. It is personal, a person is freed for their full capacity. But also a person is saved by its incorporation in the community of salvation. Core of the christian message is focussed on the reign of God, a vision that comes from God and in relationship with God. It invites us into a praxis of salvation. Vision is a utopia, in God I trust to work on it, believing in the vision of God. Ecclesiology talks about the church where we define it. Church is a process we discover and live, we are always experimenting and making mistakes. Building of Christ is building of the community - in this we discover who christ is and participate in who christ is. Christology has christ over against, the other is christ who we are becoming. God became human so that we might become God - what was not assumed cannot be saved. We become christified, this isn't only personal, but becoming part of the kingdom, part of the community. Theosis: God by becoming human turns us to God. Bonhoeffer says humans outside relationship with God has to become God's self. Mysticism can lead to personalism instead of reception of God as God. Hitler as leader wants to take over our decisions and responsibility, but Bonhoeffer will say God wants us to make decisions and take responsibility for our relationships. The logos can say No to all our crazyness.

After 10 years

at the beginning of the letters from prison. Ends with we have learned from the poor. The counter word to God in Jesus appears in the contrast experience of poverty. The victims reveal that the vision is not a theotic vision, but one where humans make themselves God. This requires discernment, and this is where mediation becomes important. In a sense Hitler was charismatic, a false mystic, in the christian sense. Chomsky interview: Orwell wrote in 1941 reviewed Mein Kampf - has to be charmed, by his passion, self-divinizes. Bonhoeffer wants to get between the man and his vision - the victims will point up the error. How evil present itself as an angel of light - this is the question Bonhoeffer wrestled with. This is why we need church / community. Victims will often point up the dark side of the great new way. Just presenting as crucified gives you a position of power that can be inhuman - manipulative.

Barmen Erklärung

we have no other means other than to oppose. Reason fails. We look at reality through the persecuted - through the eyes of Christ. Discernment of the second week - be careful the consolations will manipulate - look at the consequences of consolation and desolation - do you act like Christ. Mediate experience through the experience of Christ. Don't work on salvation as it is only a human activity. Salvation isn't escaping responsibility, but embracing - by becoming human, you become what God becomes. Becoming human - God is God at the heart of our effort to be ourselves. This is personal, but is also collective because humanity is in a web of relationships. Debate on individual vs collective salvation. Lohfink (classical - body and soul separation - purgatory - this is mythology. All theological speculation. We die and we resurrect, that's all, because we're whole persons - but we're whole persons as well - the modern individualism.) v. Ratzinger (wants to keep the whole old cosmology. JH doesn't think so, but the double eschatology maintains the communal dimension.). Article on the debate is by Kasper - reconcile in Christ - points to connection to one another in Christ. Hitler knew what HE wanted, we hope for what GOD wants (other as other). We can't imagine it, whereas Hitler could imagine the third reich. The vision is God's vision, not ours. Saved from / Saved for - what am I saved from / for? What are we saved from / for? We need discernment when we talk about our experience of God. "God is community." Salvation is about the capacity to live together. War, destruction, yet God says I believe in salvation. Christology without spirit can easily become law - it institutionalizes Christ - the spirit is killed by the too clear reference to Christ. Western theology overemphasizes Christ, the east will have a more robust pneumatology. Economically the spirit makes Jesus Christ. The west hasn't been good at discerning pneumatology. Jesus converted by syrophonecian woman.

Creation

The awareness of creation (sertillanges) - creation is a particular kind of relation that defines who we are - God creates to lust of his mind - but it is mediated in the whole of relation - let the earth be drunken and carouse! —FT

02/12

Salvation: is related to eternity and signs of the times. Three priorities learned from the incarnation and from observing where people are suffering. A sensibility of where suffering is found and where it is likely to continue and grow. Divine and natural dimensions.
Environmental challenges: A lot of people are already suffering from this. Skeptics question 1) whether there is a change - but this is difficult to contest - people on the move for ecological reasons is on the increase. 2) Anthropogenic climage change is also challenged. Even if this is changed today, even if it could be changed, it won't immediately improve the situation. 3) This will profoundly change our living situation in our lifetimes. Increased natural disasters - seismic, hurricanes, etc. If this continues, there will be huge changes in living conditions on earth, leading to mass extinctions. — We can use different forms of energy, and what are our resources. This will change food security, water security, living places. E.g. Denver water comes from the mountains. They are now melting faster than ever before. The water is becoming scarce and will force people out of Denver. In india, cities draw water from the Himilayas. American midwest is emptying fossil water. Water levels in the ocean are rising. Greenland has LOTS of land ice as well as antarctica. Complete disappearance of Greenland, Antarctica would put Leuven under water. Holland would be under water. But what about poor countries who cannot cope. Spain is becoming a desert. Temperatures in Italy rose and they had a new type of mosquitos - bringing a tropical disease. Ground crew in Zaventem has gotten malaria. US military is planning military bases based on climate projections. This is certainly a major global challenge and the poor will suffer most - it is a poverty issue. Industrial revolution at the root of this didn't know this effect. We only have a knowledge of this for about 25-30 years. The level of guilt at that point was not there. But the first world lifestyle is unsustainable and is oppressing for the poor. Can we change? Is it reasonable to expect development as reaching lifestyles of the first world? Most development, e.g. in Brasil, China and India, is looking to imitate the unsustainable lifestyle of the first world. It is a question for the whole world. China is not a larger CO2 producer than US. What is sustainable life together? Incarnation is God's invitation to a life togehter in view of the kingdom. Salvation has a social feature. Discernment - relational construction. Robert Lord May of Oxford. 2005 talk on the challenges of the earth. If life is central, we may see consumerism is a death dealing attitude, it kills us spiritually and it is killing the poor. If we expect life, we will act in function of that expectation. God is giving life, how do we respond.
Globalization: mundialisation. Ash from China to the US causing cancer - externalities.
Intractible Worldwide Conflicts: Issues of life together can only be tackled by living together.
Eco-feminism / Indigenous theologies can cope with this. All the forms of life that make life possible for us. Respectfulness of life and of earth's resources. Apocalyptic vision is cataclysmic and it draws us out of the world. The incarnation is God taking the opposite vectors. How does the world look when it is pregnant with God. Daneels will issue a letter on environmental issues for advent / christmas.

09/12

Environmentalism

Publication on 25M evironmental refugees at this time. What is the response of faith? One would be the apocalyptic perception - the coming of the God who gives life - heaven and earth reintegrate. Story of Noah - is this the story of a punishing God - it is written by human beings about events that overpower - gobsmack - Struggling with the place of God in a catastrophic change in the world. The story of the ark can't happen a floating zoo - any kid knows that - it is attempting to express something else. See / Judge / Act / Celebrate.

To tackle questons, we have to start talking

Questions have to surface and be dealt with on the level of faith. Gay issue seems to heat up more quickly than the climate issue - why? How is God helping us, each, all, to life, even through death. To discover this, it is helpful to hear one another's voices. Why are the positions divergent, what underlies them, do we speak while listen to God, and giving voice to God's voice and call. In community we get to know one another and discover and share the voice of God = ecclesiologenesis. Ecclesiology gives the impression of better answers than we have: puts us in a position of not listening to what God is attempting to say through us, because we am working too hard to prop up a position. This is a moment of heuristics rather than hermeneutics, discovering rather than dogmatizing. It is a sense of common discernment, it's not something new, but a part of our tradition. Theology of salvation will have to deal with how we do this - how do we listen to God's voice in turbulent times by listening to each one who brings a part of God's answer. How do we make ourselves free to speak God's truth and to hear the voice of God in the other. This means also forgiving, so that we can better hear the voice of God. On shaky ground, sometimes we move to the fundamentalist answer - it gives the illusion of security. SJAC - Judge means discovering God in the siutation.

Discernment

1) listen to God's voice; Being willing to engage personally - where am I free / not free. Can we be with one another with our fragile reality. 2) language is not merely intellectual, but sensitive to consolations and desolations - movements of the spirit that aren't intellectually clear. Hear in the voice also the unfreedom smothering the message. So we can be ourselves and receive the help of each other to build the conversation and to be able to be real. Speaking this way is also very vulnerable - we don't hide behind the intellectual arguments and bring in voices that wouldn't be heard. In intercultural contexts, we have to confront our differences, and see what the differences mean, and how we deal with deeper issues. [ESDAC - french]. Community building in the context of relationships in which we are involved.

Sciences

disciplinary approach, multidisciplinary approach (many approaches not integrated), interdiscipinary approach (approaches integrated), transdisciplinary approach (constructing new knowledge together - clear reference to praxis).

Social / Relational Construction

focuses (Rene Bouwen) on building the community of people to address the challenge, a collaborative community of trust, openness, to address the problem. Communities built in 'small talk' before the 'big talk' starts. Change in paradigm by referring to social sciences.

	Behaviorism	Cognitivism	Constructionism
Ontology	One empirical reality	reality is perception	reality is process in interaction
Epistemology	Postivistic Functionalism	Objectivation of empirical testing	Consensual validation
Methodology	Induction and experiment	objective analysis of texts for internal coherence	dialogue for discovery - permanent question and response
Theory	Determinism (social-relational)	theories about congitive processes	meta-competence on social reality construction - where do we get the capacity to build reality together
	Result		Discovery
	Knowledge from Subject	Knowledge from objecgt	knowledge in process

Knowledge isn't between the ears, it is between the noses. Too many narratives, contradiction and cacophony. Wikipedia: competence is now being screened.

16/12

Heuristics: Sallie McFague from philosophy of sciences looking at theology. Thomas Kuhn - Structure of Scientific Revolutions - Karl Popper - looks at structure of thought in scientific thought - cannot ever prove an negative. To be a law, you have to imagine an instance that could contradict it. Looks between Ptolemy >> Copernicus. Paradigms give the framework of science, science educating is introduction to the paradigm. Then questions come that can't be solved in that paradigm. Economic crisis demands re-evaluation of economic theory. Discontinuity resorts the tried wisdom, then things settle into a new paradigm.
Feyerabend: social construction of reality. radically postmodern - dataist.
Lakatos: He isn't convinced of the revolutionary phases of Kuhn. Scientific research is about projects we set up over a period of time. There are core convictions in the research, surrounded by secondary convictions. Don't contradict core convictions, e.g. in theology: incarnation, resurrection, redemption. But these are given content and meaning in the secondary convictions. So there is a stable core. Moving in the secondary area, you advance the research and maintain the core. Positive heuristics is changing the secondary; negative heuristics is protecting the core. The core is also defined by the periphery - they do have an interplay.
Message for World Peace: Theological research, reformulation of theological questions - what do you do when you get questions you can't deal with - these are the motor of change. Message for the day of peace from BXVI. "You will not really tackle the problem of peace without tackling the problem of poverty." Pont Comm on JP - Scientists say sustainable life issues are also population control issues - which raises flags of sexual and moral ethics for the church people. This makes the church people upset. BXVI: There is enough for everyone - you don't have to control population. Human ecology is a term from JPII taken on by BXVI.
Relational Anthropocentrism: This vision is seen as at the core of the problem, "fill the earth and subdue it." Humans are only one part of nature, but a particular part. And it is that special human part that is the source of the ecological crisis. We're not like little frogs, but more like volcanos, we can change things. We are an experiment of nature, a protagonist in its evolutionary project. Gaeia gives itself possibilities in humanity. We can. Relational qualifier recognizes the ecologically interlocked. Here, sexual ethics confronts environmental theology - we're going to have to make a choice between these - these are currently in conflict: the highly conflicted model. Can we move forward on both by finding a 'key'. Where is Salvation in this context - is this tension a opportunity to explore salvation. It is a gift from God to move us on.
Reinterpretation: There is a bit of a refusal in parts of the church, PCJP Renato Martini is a little stubborn on environmental issues and population issues. Human ecology may be reinterpreted as human beings living according to their nature - natural law. So a creative concept is tossed into the ring of intractable debate. Martino has participated in the UN population meetings in Cairo and Bejing. The one child per family policy is morally problematic, but the five kids per family in Romania is also problematic. This can be exclusive or tension. Bush drops away as a 'protector' of conservative sexual ethics, so it more isolates the Church's position.
Question: How can the positions of classical sexual ethics and environmental ethics to find a creative response? Mestiso - hybrid - people don't accept the mixture. Elizondo theology. Redefine reality from a new perspective, out of complexity of relationships. Too complicated to deal with the mixing. Component parts of a person relate in specific ways that make the human body - more than the sum of its parts. Relationships between diverse elements allow for something new.
Method: New ideas come through thoughts arising - we have to listen to the conflicting voices. Keep antennae open to catch ideas from other places to give answers. E.g. Mestizo theology helps here. HBR on level five leadership - integrative thinking. Seek less obvious, but potentially relevant elements.

	Sexuality	Environment
protection: too much control and manipulation of relationships - let sexuality alone, it isn't a consumerist thing	Response – no instrumentalization	Response – no instrumentalization
	Protect unborn / the defenseless voices	Protect sustainability / protect the voices
Fruitfulness	Emphasize life – this is a positive issue, we don't hear as much	Diversity, Mixture, emergence
Creativity	Could have been Great person. / but what about the impaired children.	Unknown species offer possibilities.
Nature / grace		By blocking nature, we may be blocking grace. Give nature a chance to express grace.

To try to understand this, try to keep in tension and ask about common ground. Some people say environment is merely technical. Deal with the complexity - the solution is manifold.

ESDAC - 1977 - spiritual discernment and politics