Masters Degrees (Systematic Theology and Ecclesiology)
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Browsing Masters Degrees (Systematic Theology and Ecclesiology) by browse.metadata.advisor "Smit, D. J."
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- ItemCorporate governance? : an ethical evaluation of the Second King report in the light of Peter Ulrich's integrative economic ethics(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2004-04) Höver, K. Hendrik W.; Smit, D. J.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Theology. Dept. of Systematic Theology & Ecclesiology.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This assignment is an ethical evaluation of the Second King Report on Corporate Governance. I focus on the relationships between the shareowners, the management and all stakeholders other than shareowners. The instrument used to assess the report is the concept of Integrative Economic Ethics shaped by Peter Ulrich. The Second King Report argues that a company should meet besides its economic needs as well as social and environmental objectives. Therefore, the company has to take responsibility for creating 'sustainable' value in all these three areas. Stakeholders have to be approached inclusively and pro-actively. These are new primary business imperatives due to the increasing social power of companies. However, the report is based upon a one dimensional approach in which the economic bottom line is decisive, and social and environmental interests are only considered if they serve the sustainability of business success. Likewise the inclusive stakeholder approach is a shortcoming, because stakeholder interests are not regarded as legitimate claims within a moral discourse in which all those citizens partake that are affected or involved by the company's activities. Not legitimacy but the stakeholders' relevance for the 'shareowner value' is the determining argument. Conflicting moral claims are not solved by good reasons, but are decided on a priori in favour of the company's overriding goal, which is to make profit. Profit orientation of a company, however, is not an empirical 'fact' but a normative choice, which is for or against specific interest groups and as such has to be legitimised in a moral discourse. Since the report does not subordinate profit orientation under the primacy of ethics, its whole corporate ethical concept is shaped by 'functionalism' even to the extent, that 'ethics' itself is viewed as an economic 'factor'. Yet, this contradicts the controversial and un-objective nature of ethics. In conclusion the report's entire argument is based upon pure strategic economic grounds and, thus, cannot be considered as ethical at all. Shifting the social and environmental corporate responsibility to the market system is based upon unfounded belief in the 'metaphysics of the market'. This, however, does not lie in the enlightened self-interest of a corporate citizen, as the market is merely ruled by power and counter-power - which is only beneficial for those specific societal groups with the sufficient monetary power to stay competitive. On the contrary, the equality of all citizens in a deliberative democracy must be safeguarded. The liberal idea of a just and well-ordered society implies the understanding of the company as a corporate citizen. As such its corporate ethics has to entail not only securing a company's integrity through business principles, but also a socio-political co-responsibility which obliges the company to shape the framework of market competition to enable life-conducive value creation. The general public of free and mature citizens is the locus where all claims, including corporate ones, have to be morally justified.
- ItemDeliverance in Ghanaian neo-pentecostal ministries : a critical assessment from an evangelical perspective(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2004-12) Ampong, Ebenezer Adu; Smit, D. J.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Theology. Dept. of Systematic Theology & Ecclesiology.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The worldwide phenomenal growth of Pentecostalism is a well-acknowledged fact, which no one can deny. Research shows that much of the growth is in the neo- Pentecostal or charismatic wing of the movement. Ghana is not left out of this. One phenomenon that has become so pronounced in the charismatic movement in Ghana is the practice of the so-called "deliverance". This phenomenon purports to let Christians attain to the abundance of life that Christ offers as part of God's salvation package to humankind. Most of the deliverance ministries, to a large extent, attribute situations such as sicknesses, poverty, late marriage, denial of visa to travel abroad and even some natural disasters among others to supernatural causes. These supernatural causes, which are said to hinder Christians from achieving the abundance of life, are mainly identified as demonic contamination, demonic influence, demon-possession, witchcraft or ancestral curses. The prescribed antidote to these is to be taken through deliverance by a special person of God. Due mainly to a very bad economic situation which has made many Ghanaians live below the poverty line; it makes it very difficult for many people to afford the cost of western medical care. Many Ghanaians are also daily looking for avenues to go and better their lot in other countries. The traditional Ghanaian like many Africans has a worldview, which believes in a supernatural dimension to every physical occurrence including difficulties in the acquisition of visa to travel abroad. The emergence of the deliverance ministries has therefore provided a legitimate haven to which people who would otherwise have gone to the traditional shrines to seek solutions to their problems can now go. The challenge that this phenomenon poses to evangelical Christianity is highlighted in this research. A critical assessment of the phenomenon as it pertains in Ghanaian Christianity has been done from the perspective of a specific definition of evangelicalism. Much as the fact cannot be denied that some of the deliverance ministries are meeting real felt needs of people in biblically unquestionable ways, there are obviously, some who are for various reasons employing anti-Christian and superstitious principles. The purpose of this research therefore, is to inform evangelical Christians on what the whole phenomenon is about in the light of Scripture so that practices that are not in line with the whole truth of the word of God can be avoided. On the other hand, evangelical Christian ministers can find ways of inculcating some of the useful practices of the phenomenon into their ministry for the benefit of their congregations and all people who might need such assistance. This is very necessary because the people from these congregations are patronizing the services of the deliverance ministries anyway.
- ItemEccentric existence? Engaging David H. Kelsey’s theological anthropology as a basis for ecological theology(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2011-12) Marais, Nadia; Smit, D. J.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Theology. Dept. of Systematic Theology and Ecclesiology.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The earth and her ecology is in crisis, which impacts upon both human and nonhuman communities. Not only due to the blame for ecological destruction that is attributed to humanity (and specifically also to the Christian religion), but also because of the destruction of species, environments and the natural habitat of living beings theology is asked of to step into its public and prophetic role in order to address the challenges in whichever way it can. David Kelsey’s enormous theological anthropology, Eccentric Existence (2009), probably provides opportunities for this, through its theological inquiry and (re)formulation of Christian traditions’ central doctrines and faith formulations. Kelsey’s main thesis is that God relates to all that is not God to create, draw into eschatological consummation, and reconcile. God relates to create the earth and her ecology. God relates to the earth and her ecology creatively (‘living on borrowed breath’) which entails that God relates “to” the earth and her ecology through the medium of address. The ultimate context of the earth and her ecology is therefore that of being directly and indirectly addressed by the triune God, through which it responds to its being called into being. The call that Kelsey describes, and therefore God’s creation of the earth and her ecology, is public and communal, involving both the radical freedom of otherness and the intimate nearness of sameness. God relates to bless the earth and her ecology creatively in God’s life-giving address, by enabling it to be alive and to bring forth life. The earth and her ecology, as particular instances or forms of life, is dynamic, persistent and frail. Creaturely reality involves being and having living bodies, through being created as dying life. The earth and her ecology not only lives, but is enabled to flourish, on borrowed breath. In this way, the earth and her ecology exists eccentrically, finding its reality and worth and being and value outside of itself, in God’s relating to bless it creatively. God relates to draw the earth and her ecology into eschatological consummation. God relates by drawing the earth and her ecology into eschatological consummation (‘living on borrowed time’) which stipulates that God relates “between” the earth and her ecology through the medium of promise. The ultimate context of the earth and her ecology is therefore that of being drawn into God’s own triune life and being called to participate in the glory of God. The earth and her ecology is defined by the absolute promise of eschatological blessing and the implicit promise of transformation in the present and in the future, which is God’s reaching out to all that is not God (also described as the missio Dei). The earth and her ecology, as particular instances or forms of life, stands under both God’s election (or ‘yes’) and God’s judgment (or ‘no’). The earth and her ecology not only lives, but is enabled to flourish, on borrowed time. In this way, the earth and her ecology exists eccentrically, finding its reality and worth and being and value outside of itself, in God’s relating to bless it eschatologically. God reconciles the earth and her ecology to Godself. God relates by reconciling the earth and her ecology through their multiple estrangements (‘living by another’s death’) and entails that God relates “amongst” the earth and her ecology through the medium of exchange. The ultimate context of the earth and her ecology is therefore that of being reconciled to God through its multiple estrangements and being drawn into the divine life of God Godself. Incarnation and what Kelsey calls ‘exchange’ – God incarnated in Jesus exchanging Godself with the earth and her ecology amidst processes of violence and destruction to transform their living death into true life – defines the earth and her ecology in this mode of relating. The earth and her ecology is reconciled with herself and with living beings and all of life through their reconciliation by and in God. God’s reconciliation is liberation and transformation of the earth and her ecology within particular times and places, within its particular contexts. The life of the earth and her ecology is therefore no longer tied to the fulfillment of certain functions or duties (or even vocations) that it may be subjected to or expected of, but lies solely in the worth and value that it finds in living and existing by the life and death of another, of God incarnate, of Jesus the Son. The earth and her ecology not only lives, but is enabled to flourish, by another’s death. In this way, the earth and her ecology exists eccentrically, finding its reality and worth and being and value outside of itself, in God’s relating to reconcile it through its multiple estrangements. God stands in relationship to the earth and her ecology in three ways that sustains and blesses it to flourish as mysterious living being that reflects the glory of the triune God. The appropriate response to this, respectively, is eccentric faith, eccentric hope and eccentric love. The earth and her ecology, like all living beings and all of life, exists eccentrically, through God that relates to it.
- ItemGraced, happy or virtuous? : three female theological voices on God and human flourishing(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2014-04) Robson, Rozelle; Marais, Nadia; Smit, D. J.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Theology. Dept. of Systematic Theology and Ecclesiology.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The Yale Center for Faith and Culture has held seven Consultations on God and Human Flourishing, 2007 to 2013, where it was affirmed that human relation to God is reason enough for human flourishing. The seven consultations indicate a growing conversation on God and human flourishing in theology. With this is mind the three female theologians are considered and argued to be important as participants in a conversation on God and human flourishing. The three female theologians are Serene Jones, a feminist theologian, Ellen Charry a systematic-pastoral theologian, and Jennifer Herdt, a virtue ethicist. Serene Jones is presented in the thesis as the first voice to engage theologically with the notions of happiness and human flourishing from a feminist critical position. Serene Jones argues, by means of feminist theory, that gendered constructions of women’s nature are present in readings of doctrine and Scripture. The way in which happiness and human flourishing is understood to characterise the lives of women is consequently challenged and critiqued. Due to the oppressive logic inherent in gender insensitive readings of doctrine and Scripture, Serene Jones opts for a re-reading where the agency of women is affirmed. The doctrines of justification and sanctification are re-formulated by Serene Jones as justifying and sanctifying grace. Grace is described by Serene Jones as an envelope that enfolds the substance of women, presenting women with a redemptive narrative that they are able to identify with. Serene Jones’ contribution lies in her affirmation of the graced agency of women. Ellen Charry, a female theologian who is concerned with the salutary effect of knowledge on an individual represents the second voice. Ellen Charry understands the dichotomy between goodness and pleasure established by modernity to be false. In the notion of asherism Ellen Charry seeks to bridge the gap by asserting that obedience to God’s commandments evokes both goodness and pleasure. Pleasure is described as the enjoyment of God and creation. Ellen Charry goes further by affirming that God enjoys creation when creation flourishes. A mutual enjoyment between God and creation takes place which brings about a happy disposition. Happiness accordingly is a way of life established through a particular knowledge of God attained when one obeys God’s norm for living. In addition, happiness is not just marked by an excellent life but also by the enjoyment of both God and creation. Ellen Charry contributes to the conversation by affirming that happiness is established when humans and God flourish. Jennifer Herdt, a virtue ethicist, starts with the secularisation of moral thought present since the sixteenth century. The secularisation of moral thought caused morality to be separated from its religious moorings. A shift in emphasis occurred, moving from the person doing the action to the action itself. With this shift in emphasis the possibility of virtue to bring humans into relation with God through grace was negated. The result was a recapitulated Augustinian anxiety of acquired virtue. Jennifer Herdt seeks to negate the Augustinian anxiety by returning the emphasis to the agent of the action. Jennifer Herdt delineates an account of mimetic performance, where she argues that by imitating a divine exemplar through virtue, grace progressively brings one into relation with God. Virtue is a means by which an individual partakes in and is formed by a liturgy. As virtue is practiced the agent participates in God, an act denoting happiness. Jennifer Herdt’s account of human happiness takes into consideration how virtue assimilates an agent to Christ. From the three female perspectives, happiness and human flourishing is understood to pertain to one’s relation to God, a perspective which resonates with the God and Human Flourishing Consultations. In light of the female theological contributions, the suggestion that each female theological voice may be important for a diverse conversation on God and human flourishing as well as future initiatives for God and Human Flourishing is warranted.
- ItemHeiligheid, geregtigheid, heiliging? : 'n kritiese ondersoek na die verbande tussen liturgie, geregtigheid en menseregte in die denke van Nicholas Wolterstorff(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2011-12) Carelse, David Peter; Smit, D. J.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Theology. Dept. of Systematic Theology and Ecclesiology.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study is ‘n research proposal for a possible D.Th degree. The research objective is to explore critically the thought and teachings of Nicholas Wolterstorff, a leading Christian philosopher, that there is an inseparable and fundamental link between the celebration of the Sunday liturgy, the concept of justice we believe in, and human rights. I start by discussing how Wolterstorff writes, lives and defends this thought as a conviction of faith and as a philosophical paradigm. The contents of it can be summarised as follows: the holiness of the believer as an imitation of the holiness of God, is not a mere spiritual trait, it has also social implications; holiness presupposes justice; human rights is based upon the Biblical truths of the equal status of all human beings, mankind as the image of God, and the universal love command. The kingdom of God is established through law and justice. This was already confessed by the early church fathers. Love and justice cannot be separated. The worship of God and man’s responsibility towards one another is grounded in the covenant. Protestantism is a world-formative religion. Worship in the presence of injustices, is not worship; it is false religion. The limitation imposed by the liberal state that its citizens cannot use religious reasons in public for the furthering of justice is then discussed. Religion should be allowed and the State should be impartial in its handling of all religions. Therefore Christians need an adequate cognitive framework for moral judgment. This must also be included in the curriculum of students at Tertiary Institutions. To equip the students for their role in life, the staff must teach and model justice, love, forgiveness, prayer and human rights. Students and the youth in church must also be brought face to face with those who suffer because of injustices, lack of love and economic marginalisation. I then go on to motivate the reasons for undertaking this research. The motivation includes a description of the immorality, injustices and human rights violations in and outside South Africa. Then I discuss the opinions of various theologians across the world of whether worship and faith can contribute to the conversion, healing and change of people and institutions. The last chapter is a tentative illustration of the value of this research for the Church, the academy and the broader society. This value is estimated within the interdependence of transformative constitutionalism (juridical) and discipleship as transformation (theological). I conclude with a few closing remarks.
- ItemTheology at the limit? : an investigation of Richard Kearney’s philosophical hermeneutics in search of a responsible theological hermeneutic(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2015-01) Pretorius, Helgard Meyer; Smit, D. J.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Theology. Dept. of Systematic Theology and Ecclesiology.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Is theology at the limit possible? This study explores the question of the limits and possibilities of doing theology “at the limit” through the hermeneutic philosophy of Richard Kearney, author of the trilogy, “Philosophy at the Limit.” It tries to understand Kearney’s attempt to think at the limit through three focal points. Each focal point illuminates a different aspect of his thought and sheds light on the dialogical detours through which Kearney’s own position takes shape. Chapter One, Facing the Limit: Kearney’s phenomenological-existential heritage, investigates how Kearney’s phenomenological heritage, inaugurated by Edmund Husserl and developed by Martin Heidegger, facilitates a decisive turn to “face the limit.” In doing so, it gives an account of how Kearney appropriates some of the tradition’s central insights in his own thought. These include: a high regard for human freedom and responsibility, a privileged appreciation for possibility over actuality, and a desire to situate philosophical reflection in the life world of human existence as a “being interpreted.” Following this, the discussion extends to Kearney’s phenomenological account of the persona to reveal how he extends a logic of relatedness, thus stretching phenomenology to confront its own limits. The result is a more personal, embodied and relational sense of what it means to “face” the limit. Chapter Two, Transfiguring at the Limit: Kearney’s hermeneutic imagination, shows how phenomenology undergoes a decisive transformation via the work of Paul Ricoeur to become a hermeneutic phenomenology. It explores how Ricoeur’s work informed Kearney’s “hermeneutic imagination” which can be understood as a proposal for rediscovering and reviving the creative potential of the human imagination – at the limit – as fragile, fallible, finite beings, “resolving to recover, in spite of the odds, the yes in the sorrow of the finite” (Kearney, 2003a: 231). This is done in three parts: the first of these (Transfiguring Imagination) offers a reflection of Kearney’s hermeneutic approach to human creativity at the linguistic level of symbol, metaphor and narrative, while the second (Transfiguring the Social Imaginary) situates this creative capacity, and its tendency to serve ideological interests, in the world of culture and politics. The third part (Transfiguring God) explores how Kearney’s hermeneutic imagination interprets the sacred by retracing his readings of a number of biblical texts (for e.g. Exodus 3; Luke 9; Mark 10). Chapter Three, The Limit as Threshold? The stranger and Kearney’s diacritical hermeneutics, narrows the focus somewhat to consider how Kearney’s hermeneutic imagination deals with the challenges posed by alterity or strangeness and more specifically how this manifests in our dealings with strangers in interpersonal and broader political contexts. It reflects on Kearney’s engagement with other continental philosophical accounts of the stranger (Levinas, Derrida, Kristeva) and presents his own diacritical hermeneutic response as a way of becoming more hospitable to strangers and more capable of critical (self)discernment. Thus, Kearney steers a way between transcendent and immanent extremes to transfigure the limit into a threshold where strangers may be encountered. Finally, the concluding chapter sketches a number of hermeneutic lines, internally, between the various focal points and then externally, to the question of theology at the limit. It enters the dialogue about the basic options, conditions and tasks of a theology at the limit, by rephrasing the question in a more personal key: who is a theologian at the limit? Drawing from the preceding discussions a description of a “theologian at the limit” is then tendered in three complementary images: the theologian i) as a dialogical, yet critically involved interpreter, ii) as a translator serving authentic encounters at the threshold, and iii) as a poet who “gently shifts the potency” of God-talk “from the propositional to the imaginal” (Keller, 2004: 890) – serving greater nuance, mystery, freedom and responsibility, catholicity and “the other”.
- ItemThe work of the spirit in redemption and creation : a theological evaluation of influential reformed views(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2008-12) Yoon, Hyung-Chul; Smit, D. J.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Theology. Dept. of Systematic Theology and Ecclesiology.This thesis endeavours to evaluate influential Reformed perspectives on the work of the Spirit and to search for a constructive framework to understand more fully the work of the Spirit in redemption and creation. For Reformed theology, the work of the Spirit has mainly been interpreted in two ways, namely, redemption-centred and creation-centred. These perspectives have each generated its own focus and consequences for both pneumatology and the Christian faith and life. The result of the different perspectives was the tension between the creative and redemptive activity of the Spirit of God. For both John Calvin and Karl Barth—because of their practical intention and the particular contextual circumstances—the work of the Spirit in redemption became priority and they, subsequently, gave more attention to this particular attribute. The Spirit quickens faith in us, enables us to have faith in the authority of the Scriptures as well as to understand and believe in the reality of God’s self-revelation. It is the primary work of the Spirit to lead us, in Christ, to unity with the Triune God and with the faith community. Abraham Kuyper and Jürgen Moltmann focus on the cosmic, universal work of the Spirit, from whom life is quickened and given, by whom the destiny of creation is perfected, and through whom the Creator inhabits the whole creation. The creation-centred perspective means to positively, yet critically, affirm the world and culture, to extend the Christian life and action to the whole of creation, and to allow us to participate in the cosmic work of the Spirit. Although Reformed theologians tried to understand the unity of the work of the Spirit in redemption and creation, the tension between Spiritus Redemptor and Spiritus Creator is still present and thus, a more satisfying pneumatological framework is needed. Contemporary theological movements hold most insightful implications towards establishing a constructive pneumatology—cosmic, trinitarian, and realistic pneumatology. According to the constructive perspective with which the work of the Spirit can be reflected in a more distinctive, relationally-personalistic, and concrete and realistic way, it is the Spirit—who is a fully divine person in the Trinity—who fulfils salvation for the glory of God, and who calls us to participate in his cosmic, godly, and unexpected work.