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The Discernment of Triunity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

B. Christopher Kaiser
B. Christopher Kaiser
Affiliation:
New College, The Mound Edinburgh EH1 2LX
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Extract

The theological literature has been greatly enriched in recent decades by detailed studies of the nature of religious ‘discernment’ or ‘divination’. The works of Rudolf Otto, Mircea Eliade, and Ian Ramsey, in particular, and from various perspectives, have contributed much to our understanding of characteristic situations in which men may intuit or apprehend the immediate presence of deity. This ‘empirical-phenomenological’ approach (to characterise it as broadly as possible) represents a significant departure from the more traditional ‘proofs’ of deity based on logical argument or citations of scripture in that (a) it requires an empirical ‘grounding’ in concrete, historically conditioned situations, and (b) it necessarily leaves the question of truth value open to review and re-evaluation by its appeal to specific acts of personal intuition or discernment. Therefore, in comparison with the traditional ‘proofs’, there is a certain loss of cogency, but, on the other hand, a distinct gain in concreteness and accessibility to the religious imagination of the individual.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 28 , Issue 5 , October 1975 , pp. 449 - 460
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1975

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References

page 449 note 1 Otto, R., The Idea of the Holy (London: Oxford University Press, 2nd edn. 1950);Google ScholarEliade, M., Patterns in Comparative Religion (London: Sheed and Ward, 1958);Google ScholarRamsey, I. T., Religious Language (London: S.C.M. Press, 1957)Google Scholar.

page 449 note 2 R. Otto, op. cit., pp. 27f, 144, 170; M. Eliade, op. cit., pp. 13, 26, 29.

page 449 note 3 Cf. Berger's, Peter ‘signals of transcendence’; A Rumour of Angels (London: Penguin Press, 1970), p. 70.Google Scholar

page 452 note 1 See Jeremias, J., The Prayers of Jesus (London: S.C.M. Press, 1967).Google Scholar

page 452 note 2 J. Jeremias, op. cit, pp. 57, 76f.

page 454 note 1 Cf. Barth, K., Church Dogmatics, I.1 (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1936), p. 439 and II.1 (1957), pp. 227, 260.Google Scholar Note: this is not a ‘Barthian’ principle so much as a patristic one; see, e.g., Hilary, On the Trinity, II.8, IV.14, V.17.

page 454 note 2 J. Jeremias, op. cit., pp. 47, 53f, 62, 78. See also his New Testament Theology, Part One (London: S.C.M. Press, 1971), pp. 36f.

page 454 note 3 J. Jeremias, op. cit., pp. 32, 48.

page 455 note 1 See Wainwright, A. W., The Trinity in the New Testament (London: S.P.C.K., 1962), pp. 215ff.Google Scholar

page 455 note 2 Athanasius, Letters to Serapion, Serapion, 1.2; Basil, On the Holy Spirit, 43f, 49.

page 456 note 1 Cf. McIntyre, J., The Shape of Christology (London: S.C.M. Press, 1966), pp. 149f.Google Scholar

page 457 note 1 A. W. Wainwright, op. cit., pp. 199–234.

page 458 note 1 Cullmann, O., Salvation in History (London: S.C.M. Press, 1967), pp. 88ff.Google Scholar

page 458 note 2 Pannenberg, W., Jesus—God and Man (London: S.C.M. Press, 1968), pp.321f, 362f.Google Scholar

page 459 note 1 The importance of the ‘horizontal’, historical dimension is stressed by Eliade in his sequel to ‘Patterns’: The Myth of the Eternal Return (London: Routledge, and Kegan Paul, 1955), pp. 104ff.Google Scholar

page 460 note 1 Hilary, , On the Trinity, III.22; Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. IX (Oxford: James Parker, 1894), p. 68.Google Scholar