The intent of this thesis, as the title suggests, is to explore the autobiographical and religious writings of Edith Stein---philosopher and protegee of the phenomenologist, Edmund Husserl, Carmelite nun and religious thinker---in order to establish the validity of attributing a theology of the cross to her life and works. This theological method---or way of "doing" theology---unites the cognitive and practical dimensions of Christian life. The investigation is, therefore, directed at underscoring the relational dynamics, core dispositions and philosophical/religious directives that highlight the unity of praxis and intellection in Stein's personhood and thought-world. The search for correlations is restricted (wherever possible) to her own words and a chronological/cumulative format is maintained throughout to trace the links between her Hebraic roots, philosophical world view, theory of empathy, familiarity with Luther's theology of the cross, and her own reflections on the cross. What comes through is a Judeo-Christian theological outlook that grew out of the empathetic phenomenon and gained momentum in the paradox of the cross.

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This dissertation argues that the apostle Paul represents Jesus as the founding hero of the Galatian churches, through whose death the Galatians enter into the inheritance of Abraham and obtain protection from the curse of the law. It draws on the typology of Greek founder cult and the poetics of colonization in order to establish the salient features of hero stories and founder cult, then shows through exegesis and comparison how Galatians reflects those features. "Poetics" refers to certain shared and idealised practices of remembrance that are grounded in broader traditions and rituals, specifically the traditions and rituals associated with the ancient, ongoing practice of worshipping heroes, commonly known as hero cult, and the closely related practice of honouring civic founders, also called founder cult. The death of the founder plays a critical role in ancient Greek colonization stories, both by marking the independence of the colony from the mother city and by linking the citizens of the newly independent city to the past through the cyclical performance of rituals established by or for the founder. In Galatians 1–2 Paul represents himself as a tomb-that-signifies Jesus and a sign for the Galatians to read. / Cette thèse soutient que le récit autobiographique de l'apôtre Paul dans Galates 1–2 s'appuie sur la même poétique ancienne de la colonization qui influence l'histoire de Tlepolemos, le fondateur de Rhodes, comme raconté dans la Septième ode olympique de Pindare. «Poétique» se réfère à certaines pratiques partagées et idéalisées du souvenir qui sont ancrées dans les traditions et les rituels plus larges—à savoir, les traditions et les rituels associés à la pratique ancienne et constante d'adorer les héros, aussi connue comme le culte de héro, et la pratique intimement liée d'honorer les fondateurs civiques, aussi appelée le culte fondateur. La mort du fondateur joue un rôle essentiel dans les histoires anciennes de la colonization grecque comme la Septième ode olympique, à la fois en marquant l'indépendance de la colonie de la ville mère et en liant les citoyens de la ville nouvellement indépendante au passé, à travers la performance cyclique de rituels établis par ou pour le fondateur. L'héroïsation du fondateur représente donc un tournant dans la vie d'une colonie. De même, dans Galates 1-2, Paul raconte une histoire de fondation qui se termine avec sa mort. Dans le récit, c'est son propre corps qui devient un tombeau, un tournant, et un signe à lire pour les Galates.

This analysis examines the theme of divine activity as found in the literature of religion and science over the past quarter century. After a brief historical chapter, reflections on divine action from authors in the philosophy of religion are considered. In chapters 2 and 3, concepts such as intervention, deism, master act and subacts, primary and secondary causation, double agency and the causal joint are outlined. Following this, chapters 4 and 5 concentrate on the work of Whitehead. The amount of space devoted to the treatment of process thought in this investigation reflects the attention it has given to the topic of divine activity. / The focus then turns to scientific subjects and how they may inform the question of divine action. Some of the themes highlighted in the case of the large-scale world (chapter 6) include natural laws, evolution, the anthropic principle and the implicate order. Those concepts more appropriate for the small-scale world (chapter 7) involve quantum mechanics, thermodynamics and chaos theory. The positioning of process thought between the two fields of science and the philosophy of religion is strategic in the sense that process thinking claims to have built a bridge between science and religion, physics and metaphysics. / In the concluding chapter, the various positions are plotted on three graphs. This approach illumines their relation to the others as well as the facet each can be expected to bring to the overall discussion of divine activity. A resolution to the issue, if any, will likely exhibit Whiteheadian and/or Bohmian contours.

This study examines Christian experientialist epistemology as articulated of late by Alvin Plantinga especially and also William Alston. It situates their approach to the epistemic status of Christian belief claims within the overall outlook they have respectively developed on what features generally legitimate beliefs as being rationally responsible or even qualify some true beliefs as constituting knowledge. First to be taken up is Plantinga's journey from considering the deontological justification for basic belief in God to making his own externalist proposal for warranted belief at large. Next up for consideration is Alston's accent on adequate grounds and reliable process, attending as well to his stance on perceptual immediacy and belief-forming or doxastic practices in general. The study then looks at his case for Christian mystical practice as a dependable perceptual doxastic habit. Also treated is Alston's support for the process of forming Christian beliefs on testimony and his contention that these practices are realist and partly amenable to evaluation drawing on standards used also outside them. Then comes extended analysis of Plantinga's recent lengthy claim that, courtesy of special divine provisions, core Christian convictions can enjoy warrant even in the face of frequently alleged defeaters. / While Alston's reliabilist epistemology is not as strong as Plantinga's package on appropriate proper function, his appreciation for the communal contribution to second-level knowledge is an important supplement. He offers more perspective on the status of Christian belief overall. Plantinga's model suffers from some internal tensions which admit better resolution than he has yet supplied. His response to religious pluralism is a solid one within his framework. Like Alston, Plantinga unabashedly appeals to theology to indicate doxastic propriety, but could do so in a way more sensitive to hermeneutical challenges. Yet Plantinga's and Alston's realism is an attempt to honor the distance between God's knowledge and that of believers.

This study is centered on the social question as addressed and defined by Ernst Troeltsch (1865--1923) and by Max Weber (1864--1920); it pertains mainly to the rise of religious modernity and its conditions of possibility; based on a comparative analysis of the socio1ogy of religion of Troeltsch and Weber, it deals with the question how religious modernity has to be thought from a sociological perspective. / Along with modern historical science and scientific rationality in general, the social question challenged religion in the nineteenth century; this study brings out the originality of Troeltsch's vision of a modernity compatible with belief in the future of religion. / Motivated by the debate on the social question, Troeltsch's concern was the social foundations of the Christian doctrine in its relation to secular domains of activity, and this calls for a new outlook on the issue of the relation between religion and culture. / Eventually, the comparative approach of the sociological thought of Weber and Troeltsch pursued in the present work, while providing new insight into Weber's views on religion, brings about a better understanding of Troeltsch as a theologian and a philosopher of religion.

This dissertation traces the social-theological history of a German-Lutheran two-kingdoms concept---an often ambiguous social-ethical theory used by German-Lutheran theologians to interpret their social world and to define the relational boundaries for the church's existence in society. This study consists of three parts, each of which represents a fundamental rupture in the German social order: / Part one examines the formation of a two-kingdoms doctrine in the modern world. The opening chapter (chapter two) establishes Martin's Luther's use of a two-kingdoms hermeneutic as way to challenge late-medieval Catholic Church authority and to empower ("sacralize") the social sphere. Chapter three surveys the work of German-Lutheran theologians who found in Luther's two-kingdoms concept a model that corresponded to the modern public-private social structure. The intersection of Luther's concept and modern social theory enabled theologians to understand the social, economic, and political changes taking place in Germany and, wittingly or unwittingly, to validate the status quo. / Part two analyzes various applications and critiques of the two-kingdoms doctrine in Germany from 1919 to 1945. Chapter four focuses on the efforts of Emanuel Hirsch, Paul Althaus, Paul Tillich, and Karl Barth to construct a theology that addressed the crises of modernity: the loss of national identity, the failure of post-Enlightemnent rationalism, and the collapse of traditional political structures. Chapter five examines the work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who developed a critical two-kingdoms perspective to (re)define the ethical relationship between the "church for others" and the "world come of age." / Part three considers the reception of the two-kingdoms doctrine in the East German church (1949--1990). The objective of chapter six is to illustrate the various ways in which theologians in the German Democratic Republic nuanced a two-kingdoms concept to make sense of the church's missionary task in socialism. This chapter also demonstrates the links between Bonhoeffer's ethic of responsibility and an East German theological ethic of critical solidarity---a social-ethical theory articulated by pastors and theologians such as Bishop Albrecht Schonherr and Heino Falcke. / This study concludes with a brief discussion of the two-kingdoms doctrine's capacity to protect and to resist the status quo.

Organized in the nineteenth century, the General Conference of German Baptists was primarily a North American denominational body that adopted the polity of the American Baptists to build religious communities of converts of German ethnic background. From 1851 to 1920, the General Conference of German Baptists resisted institutional unity with the larger English-speaking bodies. Instead, it developed an ethnic mission with the financial aid of the American Baptist Home Mission Society. With time the German church membership became more Americanized in language and habits. The external pressure to assimilate increased. Yet, the German Baptist leadership moved away from complete Americanization of the churches and sought to preserve the distinct Pietist theological basis and ethnic mission of the Conference. The General Conference of German Baptists embraced institutional independence beginning in 1920 with the dissolution of the Cooperative Agreement that bound the mission of the German Baptists, the ABHMS, and the Baptist Union of Western Canada.