Volume 61, Issue 3

In this paper, I argue that contemporary dogmatics shares a common interest in the representation of God and God’s acts in human language, be this in a more narrowly propositional way or a more broadly defined doxological or dramaturgical way. I argue for an alternative way of looking at the task of dogmatics in terms of the classical distinction between Law and Gospel. I argue that this view of the task of dogmatics makes us understand premodern dogmatics better than from the perspective of dogmatics as oriented towards representation. Finally, I argue that this alternative can be a way of doing dogmatics nowadays in a fresh way. I illustrate these three points by reference to the doctrine of the Trinity, Christology and atonement.

This essay deals with the fundamental problem in which the doctrine of providence, that is God’s acting in nature, history and individual life, is still stuck: the dilemma of theism or deism, God’s superiority or powerlessness. I introduce an eschatological perspective to find alternative approaches to power. I name six concrete modes of action, four of them drawn from different authors and theories such as Romano Guardini, Open Theism and Christian Link. Two more are developed out of the latter.

The classical view of the Creator-creature relation conveys ontological asymmetry by affirming a real creature-Creator relation and a rational Creator-creature relation. But the hermeneutical implications of this view obscure the Creator-creature symmetry of biblical religion. In this article I propose a real covenant relation as a divine initiative establishing a relation within which Creator-creature intercourse is possible, actual, and real. I defend the notion of real covenant relation through a study of John 5, and I develop it theologically with reference to Reformed biblical and covenant theology. A real covenant relation preserves ontological asymmetry, vindicates religious symmetry, and affirms rather than obscures the anthropomorphic tenor of biblical revelation.

Being one of most influential anthropologists of contemporary times, Michael Tomasello and his groundbreaking evolutionary approach to a natural history of human beings are still to be received by theological anthropology. This article aims at evaluating the prospects and limitations of Tomasello’s natural history of human ontogeny from a philosophical and theological perspective. The major advantages of Tomasello’s approach are a new conceptual perspective on the mind-brain problem and a possible detranscendentalization of the human mind which leads to an intersubjectively grounded anthropology. At the same time, evolutionary anthropology struggles with the binding force of moral obligations and the human ability to interpret one’s existence and the world in a religious way. This article thus offers a first theological inventory of Tomasello’s account of evolutionary anthropology which praises its prospects and detects its limitations.

This paper explores pastoral care as a common task of all Christians in the light of theology and philosophy of love in contemporary Finnish Lutheran theology. Pastoral care is about taking care of one’s suffering neighbours, which theologically is about love. The so-called Finnish school of Luther studies considered Luther as a theologian of love. Finnish theological ethics has concentrated on interpretation of Luther’s theology. Luther’s concept of love has been reinterpreted by Risto Saarinen with the idea of gift and recognition. Following Saarinen, and Jaana Hallamaa’s ethical theory of agency, the paper illustrates how the Lutheran idea of love can be based on agency, gift giving and reciprocity and so be understood as praxis in terms of Christian life. To conclude, the question of what makes caring Christian in nature, or pastoral care in other words, is explored in the light of faith as trust.

Zusammenfassung Drei für Philosophie und Theologie gleichermaßen bedeutsame Streitigkeiten hat Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743–1819) maßgeblich bestimmt: den sog. Pantheismusstreit um Spinoza und den angeblichen Spinozismus von Lessing, den sog. Atheismusstreit in Auseinandersetzung vor allem mit Fichte und den sog. Theismusstreit, der durch eine Kontroverse mit Schelling hervorgerufen wurde. Der vorliegende Beitrag ist auf den Atheismusstreit von 1799 konzentriert, an dem sich neben Jacobi auch sein Gefolgsmann Jean Paul beteiligte, um den Denker dichterisch zu unterstützen.