Competency based adult education and theological education are synthesized to identify a core of minimal competencies needed by beginning pastors of congregations of the Church of God (Anderson, Indiana) in the United States. Research methods are qualitative and descriptive, using triangulation to increase dependability. Triangulation involves multiple methods (literature review, interviews, and surveys) and multiple populations (ancient authorities, contemporary authorities, pastors, lay people, and seminary professors). The most dependable conclusions reached are those suggested by all methods and populations.The theory and practice of competency based adult education are presented. Theological education is reviewed through history, across denominations, and in the church of God. Examples of competency based theological education are presented.The most important competencies identified for beginning pastors are attitudinal (affective domain): honesty, integrity, love for God and people, personal belief in the gospel, being filled with the Holy Spirit, commitment to Christian standards, a sense of being called to ministry, and a strong commitment to ministry.Other important competencies are knowledge (cognitive domain): the nature and content of biblical literature, techniques of exegesis and interpretation, pastoral methods, and knowledge of people in their social setting. Important skill competencies (psychomotor domain) are also identified: leadership, communication and human relationships, biblical exegesis and interpretation, and personal devotional skills. / Department of Educational Leadership

From 1908 to 1955, readers of conservative Protestant journals (Moody publications and The Sunday School Times) and more mainline journals (Zion’s Herald and Christian Herald), both asked questions about God’s role in suffering. In turn, writers for each of the journals responded by asserting that even if suffering did not seem to make immediate sense that it would one day make sense. While both conservatives and more mainline journals described suffering as being ultimately beneficial, views of why humans suffered were relayed in the most punitive terms in conservative journals. However, with regard to how one was to suffer, it was mainline writers who appeared a great deal harsher. Further, mainline views of how one was to suffer were gendered and made men the model for suffering. / Graduate / 0320 / 0337

This thesis is an attempt to give a workable account of 'God', to exhibit its logical status and to show how it can be introduced into language. The first chapter, after rejecting the view that 'God' is not a referring expression, notes the differences between various types of referring expression, and considers the objections to taking 'God' as a descriptive term, a title, and a proper name. It is concluded that 'God' is the proper name of a spirit, the objections to the other accounts being held to be decisive. The second chapter explores the notion of a spirit. The view that all persons must be corporeal is rejected and a concept of a person is developed which shows how it is possible for persons, both corporeal and incorporeal, to be identified and individuated. Finally it is shown how it is possible to predicate emotions of incorporeal persons. The third chapter shows how it is possible, given the nature of God, to fix the reference of 'God'. It is held that certain referring expressions have their references fixed by playing a role in such an interpretation of experience. Religious faith is shown to be such an interpretation of experience, able to fix the reference of referring expressions, because it has criteria for determining the validity of certain statements made within the interpretation. Finally it is shown how the reference of 'God' can be fixed within this interpretation.

We begin with an account of the Prime Mover argument. This originated in the "laws" of Plato, where it is argued that a self-moving mover must exist as source of other motions, and that it must be a kind of soul. In Aristotle this Prime Mover is not itself moved, and elaborate proofs of its existence are offered in the "Physics": all motion requires a mover, and the series cannot go on to infinity, but must end in one or more unmoved movers. His proofs, however, were far from watertight, and later Peripatetics like Theophrastus and Strato rejected them. The argument reappeared in Proclus, but only as subsidiary to a First Cause argument; moreover,the Prime Mover is only the second member of the Neoplatonic "trinity". John Philoponus' theory of "impetus" should have undermined the argument, but in fact did not, and it continued to be used by the Arabs (despite criticism by Avicenna) and the Jews (notably Maimonides). It was taken over by the Christian scholastics like Aquinas. But criticism also continued, especially from Algaael in Islam and by Ockham and his followers in Christendom, and a detailed refutation was offered by the Jew Crescas. The arrival of non-Aristotelian physics was fatal to the argument; it is indeed still defended occasionally by neo-Scholastic philosophers, but none of their defences is adequate. Outside Scholasticism it has few supporters, though Samuel Clarke used it for the Platonic purpose of pointing out an analogy between the Prime Mover and mind, Lotze, however, advanced a quite different kind of argument, but based, like the Platonic and Aristotelian ones, on the existence of change; he argued that change ought always to be internal to that which changes, and hence that the universe must be in some sense a unity. The relationship between this unity and individual things would then be analogous to that between a mind and its states. [Continued in text ...]

The thesis argues that from Hegel's early critique of Kant to Marx's early critique of Hegel, the Judaeo-Christian incarnate God underlies a German metaphysical impulse to embody transcendental ideals in historical and political forms. Four motifs, alienation/humanisation, mediation, idealised Prussia and philosophical anti-Judaism, integrate the study's "incarnation thematic" into a secular framework. In terms of common Enlightenment values and a moralistic view of God, a Judaeo- Kantian convergence is developed as the "anticipatory" climate for Hegel's speculative thought. From the Pauline law/love dichotomy of the Frankfurt period, through the System, and three thematic components (the elevation of representations to concepts, becoming, and mediation), it is shown how the self-othering of God in Christ is reformulated by Hegel as the Absolute's coming to knowledge of itself in a particular historical form, the Prussian State. After challenging "liberal conventionalist" and hellenic interpretations of Hegel's political thought, the incarnation thematic is applied: 1) speculatively, as the ethical mediating realm between the individual and freedom; structurally, in that the supersession of law by love recurs in the morality/ethical life and civil society/State tensions of the Philosophy of Right. A transitional chapter revises the Prussian State to accord with Hegel's idealisation, and explores Young Hegelian speculative christology in terms of: 1) individual versus collective embodiments of the divine Idea and their political correlates (Strauss); future-orientated praxis (Cieszkowski); 3) the negation of Judaeo-capitalism (Hess). While hostile to institutional religion, Marx inherits the incarnation thematic via: 1) Feuerbachian christological love as communal being; 2) a proletarian rather than statist embodiment of freedom; 3) the communist transcendence of Judaeo-Kantian bourgeois Liberalism. Conclusions explore other variants of the incarnation thematic in political thought and argue that since the Second World War, liberal and secular prejudices have obscured the speculative theological and Christo-Germanic dimension of the Hegel-Marx lineage.

The thesis seeks to set the question "Can God act in history" in a Whiteheadian perspective, but first seeks to clarify the question itself. The first chapter examines the concept of action in general terms, and goes on to explore Whitehead's understanding of it, before applying the 'findings' to talk of God's action. The second chapter similarly addresses the notion of history, asking what procedures the historian follows in giving his account of the past, and whether God could be properly used as a referent within such constraints. Again Whitehead's view on the subject is examined. Chapter Three examines more overtly theological issues necessary for consideration of divine action, such as the concepts of violation, intervention, and 'willing' and 'permitting', before reviewing the work of Farmer, Farrer and Peacocke. The fourth and fifth chapters serve to direct our attention to Whitehead's cosmological system. The briefest biographical outline is followed by a selective exposition of his mature doctrines, and then an attempt to discern any movement or development in his thought through his corpus of writings. The whole of Chapter Five is then given over to an examination of particularly relevant interpretive problems in the system. In order to see what use has been made of Whiteheadian resources in answering our question we next examine a pair of Process Theologians in each of Chapters Six and Seven. Firstly, Ogden and Williams are found to give too passive an impression of God's activity which struggles to accommodate the findings of our earlier chapters. Cobb and Griffin are, however, found to give more satisfactory accounts. In the final chapter we pursue our own position, first by discussing the suitable components of a definition of miracle, then by considering the problem of theodicy in dialogue with Griffin. A brief conclusion follows.

Thesis (D. Miss.)--Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 1988. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 288-300).

Thesis (M.A.)--Briercrest Bible College, 1988. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 164-174).

Thesis (Th. M.)--Calvin Theological Seminary, 1986. / Bibliography: leaves 192-197.

Thesis (M.A.)--Columbia Biblical Seminary and Graduate School of Missions, Columbia, S.C., 1987. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 83-87).