Zugl.: Diss. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 368-388), bibliography of the works by Hilary, Saint, Bishop of of Poitiers (d. 367?), bibliographical references and author's index.-On cover: Premio Bellarmino 2008.

Die Frage nach Zeit und Ewigkeit ist eine existenzielle Frage. Der Mensch lebt und baut sein Leben und seine Existenz auf dem auf, was ihm die Vergangenheit gebracht hat. Gleichzeitig aber schaut der Mensch in die Zukunft und stellt die Frage, was die Zukunft ihm bringt und gibt. Der gläubige Mensch fragt gleichzeitig weiter, was ihm der Glaube für seine Zukunft bringt und was mit seinem Leben aus seiner Zeit in der Ewigkeit werden wird? Die vorliegende Arbeit will auf religionswissenschaftlicher und eschatologischer Basis die Frage nach der gegenseitigen Verankerung von Zeit und Ewigkeit klären. Im eschatologischen Bezug stehen Zeit und Ewigkeit in engem Verhältnis und dadurch findet die Zeit ihr „Größenmaß“. Daher trägt die vorliegende Arbeit den Titel „Zeit als eschatologische Größe“. Dieses Thema wird auf dem schöpferischen Grund ausgearbeitet und durch die biblische Offenbarung mit der Trinität verbunden. Darum lautet die Hauptthese dieser Arbeit: „Christliche Theologie versucht, die menschliche Zeit kairologisch und eschatologisch in die Ewigkeit des trinitarischen Gottes hinein zu verankern“. Diese Hauptthese wird erklärt und ausgelegt in fünf Teilen: Teil I: Zeit – Theorie - Darstellung bedeutsamer biblischer Zeitbegriffe. Sie zeigen: Ehe die Zeit in der Ewigkeit Gottes entgrenzt ist, ist die Ewigkeit unbegrenzte Zeit. Die unbegrenzte Zeit ist nicht leer, sondern zugleich gefüllte und erfüllte Zeit. Teil II: Zeit und Ewigkeit - Vorstellung kosmologisch-theologischer Modelle von Frank J. Tipler und Teilhard de Chardin. Christus als Alpha und Omega – der Anfang und das Ende: im Tod und in der Auferstehung, in der Wirklichkeit der Eucharistie und in der Schöpfung als die Ausdehnung der Evolution. - Verbindung der Zeit mit der Evolution durch philosophische und naturwissenschaftliche Aussagen. Die Evolution basiert auf dem Fundament der Ewigkeit Gottes und der Allgegenwart Gottes. Sie ist Fortsetzung der Schöpfung – creatio continua. Die Evolution bleibt ständig im dynamischen „nunc – jetzt“. - Darstellung der neuen Zeit-Perspektiven, welche die Ewigkeitsvorstellungen des Gregor von Nyssa eröffnen. Die Teilhabe an der Ewigkeit Gottes ist ein fortschreitender Prozess, Diastema – Schöpfungsprozess. - Die Zeit der Schöpfung findet ihre Begründung im trinitarischen Gott durch Jesus Christus als creatio ex amore. Teil III: Zeit in der symbolischen Interpretation - Verbundenheit der Symbole in der Zeit mit Ewigkeit. Symbole auf der religiösen Ebene verweisen betroffene und ergriffene Menschen auf Gottes Wirklichkeit. - Symbole in der sakramentalen Umfassung. Jesus Christus als das Ur-Sakrament und zugleich als jene sakramentale Wirklichkeit, in der Zeit und Ewigkeit in eins zu vororten sind. Teil IV: Zeit und Ewigkeit in der Eschatologie als Größe des trinitarischen Gottes - Vorstellung der schöpfungstheologischen und heilsökonomischen Einheit von Zeit und Ewigkeit in der trinitarischen Begründung bei Jürgen Moltmann und Wolfhart Pannenberg. Teil V: Systematische Ergebnisse zur Theologie der Verankerung der menschlichen Zeit in der Ewigkeit des trinitarischen Gottes auf kairologischer und eschatologischer Basis - Jesus Christus, der Kairos als Heilszeit-Brücke zum Verständnis der trinitarischen Ewigkeitswirklichkeit, die in der sakramentalen Kirche lebt und weiter wirkt. - Liebende-Communio des dreieinigen Gottes verankert die Zeit mit der Ewigkeit Gottes. Jesus Christus, der wahre Mensch und wahre Gott, ist der Offenbarer der Trinität und gleichzeitig ist er die Verankerung des Menschlichen im Göttlichen. Durch sein Kommen in die irdische Zeit und Geschichte findet die Zeit ihre Größe in ihrer Verankerung in der Ewigkeit. / The question about Time and Eternity is an existential one. The human being lives and bases his life and existence on what the past has brought him. At the same time he looks to the future, and asks the question what the future will bring him. The religious person goes further, and asks what this faith will bring him for the future. And what influence his present life will have in transcendental terms. This paper will clarify the question of the mutual interconnection between Time and Eternity based on religious studies and eschatology. In the eschatological sphere, Time and Eternity stand in a very close relationship, and through this, Time gets its “magnitude”. Consequently, this paper has the title: “ Time as an eschatological Dimension”. This theme will be elaborated, based on Creation and the biblical revelation of the Trinity. The main thesis of this work is: “Christian theology, an attempts to interconnect, kariologically and eschatologically, human Time and the eternal Trinity”. This main thesis will be developed in five sections: Section I: Time – The Theory - Depiction of significant biblical time-concepts which show: Before Time was unbounded from the eternal God, eternity is unbounded Time. The unbounded Time is not an empty Time, but rather a full and fulfilled Time. Section II: Time and Eternity - A cosmological-theological Model as pictured by Frank J. Tipler and Teilhard de Chardin. Christ as Alpha and Omega – the beginning and the end: In Death and in the Resurrection, in the Reality of the Eucharist and in the Creation as an extension of Evolution. - The connection of Time and Evolution trough the evidence of philosophy and science. Evolution based on the foundation of the eternal-God and all-present-God. It is the continuation of the creation – creation continua. Evolution remains dynamically, continuously a “nunc” – “now”. - The depiction of the new Time-perspectives, as imagined and opened up by Gregory von Nyssa. The sharing in Gods eternity is a progressive process. Diastema – Process of Creation. - The time of the Creation finds its foundation in the Trinitarian God through Jesus Christ as Creation ex amore. Section III: Time in the symbolic Interpretation - Solidarity of the symbols in the Time of Eternity. Symbols on the religious level refer to Gods reality in deeply moved and affected people. - Symbols in the sacramental area: Jesus Christ as the Proto-Sacrament and at the same time that sacramental reality in which Time and Eternity are unified. Section IV: Time and Eternity in Eschatology as a Dimension of the Trinitarian God. - The ides of the theological-creation and the salvation-economical Unity of Time and Eternity in the Trinitarian reasoning from Jürgen Moltmann and Wolfhart Pannenberg. Section V: Systematic results to the theology of embedding the human Time in the Trinitarian God on a kairological and eschatological basis. - Jesus Christ, the Kairos as the bridge in Salvation History to the understanding of the Trinitarian reality of Eternity, which lives and is at work in the sacramental Church. - The Loving Community of the Three-in-one-God establishes Time in the Eternity of God. Jesus Christ, true God and true Man is the revelation of the Trinity and at the same time is the interconnection between God and Man. Through his coming into human Time and History, Time finds its dimension through the interconnection with Eternity.

Thesis advisor: James W. Morris / This dissertation is a comparative phenomenological and theological analysis on Catholic and Muslim traditions of pilgrimage to sacred tombs and shrines in south central Java, Indonesia. Both in the Muslim and Christian traditions, pilgrimage is a rich and complex religious practice that has served as a privileged milieu in which pilgrims and their communities attempt to foster diverse kinds of communion with God and His spiritual company of saints and other sacred figures, including the founders and paradigmatic ancestors of the local community. Precisely due to its richness and complexity as a spiritual and religio-cultural practice driven by the deeper and inclusive dynamics of communion, pilgrimage has also become a crucial practice in which a distinctive and hybrid religio-cultural identity is forged and negotiated in creative and fruitful ways--among others through the process of engaging various forms of otherness including other religious traditions and cultures--in the context of a long historical continuum that is also marked by tensions and ambiguities. Based on the underlying and multifaceted category of communion with God, the self, and the other that lies at the heart of the pilgrimage traditions in Islam and Catholicism, and guided by the method of the new comparative theology, this study attempts to offer a focused analysis of the major ways in which this dynamic of communion is played out in the deeper shared features and intimate encounters that exist between these two pilgrimage traditions in south central Java. Carried out from the perspective of the Catholic tradition, this study also seeks to explore the ways in which the extraordinary depth and breadth of these dynamics of communion in the Muslim and Catholic pilgrimage traditions--that in Catholic theology can be placed under the inclusive category of the work of the Spirit (pneumatology)--can serve as a creative avenue for a comparative theological enrichment of our contemporary understanding of the Catholic doctrine and practice of communio sanctorum ("communion of saints and the holy"). Drawing from both the most salient features of both the Muslim and Catholic pilgrimage practices in south central Java as well as the corresponding insights from the larger Islamic and Catholic traditions, this proposed pneumatological framework for a renewed understanding of the Catholic theology of communio sanctorum can be seen as the modest constructive fruit of this study's comparative theological engagement with the dynamics of pilgrimage in these two traditions. Through this process, the Catholic theology and practice of communio sanctorum is also made more richly anchored in the Catholic principles of communion, mediation, and sacramentality. And since this very process includes other religious tradition(s), the Catholic doctrine of communio sanctorum becomes remarkably inclusive and expansive as well, thus becoming a profoundly "catholic" theological vision. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

Univ., Diss.--Trier, 2004. / Literaturverz. S. 259 - 274.

In the last two decades, Seventh-day Adventist scholars have been attempting to articulate a balanced and distinct ecclesiology, aimed at helping the denomination to retain its global unity, maintain its relevance and enable a more fruitful and meaningful interaction with others. No comprehensive account of the church has been developed yet, however. This thesis is intended to facilitate a more rounded and systematically articulated concept of church from an Adventist perspective. Part I presents a thumbnail history of the denomination and considers the advantages and limitations of its standard claim to be the 'remnant', awaiting a pre-millennial parousia. Part II engages with the ideas of some of the ablest communio ecclesiologists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and considers their ecclesiological system, built around the concept of koinonia, while Part III examines ways in which their theoretical framework can assist the Adventist community to deal with practical ecclesial issues. Four major proposals are made for deepening Adventist understanding of the nature of church. Whereas the formal structure of communio framework can help Adventists move beyond one-sided, single-metaphor communal self-descriptions, the idea of the church as essentially a koinonia of believers in God can supplement their predominantly functionalist portrayal of the church as herald or messenger. Thirdly, the Adventist notion of truth can be enriched by viewing the community of believers not only as a messenger, but also as an organic part of divine revelation. This makes ecclesiology central to the theological enterprise, intrinsic to the grounding of theological claims and the interpretation of biblical texts. Finally, the development of a richer interpretation of the Spirit's activity in the church is seen as one of the key prerequisites for a fuller, more nuanced account of the church's participation in the life of the triune God. The highlighting of these four aspects, hitherto neglected or underdeveloped in Adventism, and the presentation of tentative solutions to its ongoing ecclesiological problems, form the principal contribution of this monograph.

This thesis argues that a close reading of Karol Wojtyla (John Paul II) and Emmanuel Levinas reveals a common phenomenological and ethical interest in the embodied human person. Attention is also given to points of disagreement that are theological in character. Despite different religious commitments, their treatment of the body provides the basis for an overlooked dialogue in which both emphasise the giftedness of the embodied human subject, the ‘other’. In the postmodern context, the body is a key theme and the focus of much debate, yet little has been said of observations made by both Wojtyla and Levinas about each other’s work, or how this relates to their own development. This is surprising given their huge contribution to philosophy, ethics and theology in the 20th century. Levinas' mature philosophical works build on his ongoing interest in phenomenology, but the body remains problematical. For him, incarnation is questionable, because he refuses an incarnational avatar. There is no escape from commitment or responsibility and the theme of alterity is absolute. Yet, communio is the necessary objective of the human situation, in which bodies do not simply make incarnate presence possible, but are fragile, wounded and vulnerable. This is crucial: bodies can be violated and even crucified. Wojtyla addressed this paradox in his Wednesday audiences in what became known as his ‘theology of the body’, which in turn shaped his principle paradigm of alterity, the nuptial mystery. There is an irreconcilable difference in these two views of the body, in which Wojtyla’s nuptial mystery contrasts strongly with Levinas’ alterity. With this important variation in mind, it is demonstrated that the thread of agreement between Levinas and Wojtyla is the logic of the gift; that the body speaks a language of gift-exchange that is fundamentally ethical and theological.

Zugl.: Trier, Univ., Diss., 2005

Initial idea of this work: " The contribution theology Cardinal Schwarzenberg Vatican Council? , The de facto theological story that " started " at the September provincial council in Prague ( 1860) , and over the First Vatican Council ( 1869-1870 ) , the place - the fundamental ideas of Cardinal Schwarzenberg - up to II . Vatican Council (1962-1965). We must ask ourselves what was the theology of Cardinal Schwarzenberg exceptional and why has the range and in the decades after the First Vatican Council. These questions and many others began to form this work. Response them in three circuits . The first issue is the milieu of contemporary Czech society, which entails " Czech question" because it has the attributes of the ideas of Jan Hus, who was one of the requirements to be " God's word could freely proclaim," which Cardinal Schwarzenberg sees as one of the keys to their pastoral care to address the overall " religiously sentient inhabitants " to what is now called ecumenism, and the Cardinal called her a contemporary "family faith." So the family home environment to be introduced to the "family environment" of the Church, which "does not divide, but integrates" . The second area is the communion of the Catholic congregation, which already carries specific nature of faith , which gives information on the human , not as individuals , but persons as believers lives and moves "in communion" communion sanctorum "that accompanies the believer personally and for boundaries of the church (the Church). Therefore, even in sacred spaces Divine Liturgy promotes "Discourse in the middle of the Mass," because it helps ensure that a person liturgically activated in "upgrade of Church's thinking" (that later " aggiornamento ") in the world. The third issue is the consistency believer in education as Cardinal Schwarzenberg has a graduate character: discipline, teaching and cultivating. In this characteristic "inculcation" of a person into a "divine milieu" of humanity is in the attributes of participation in "completing the world that God created Undone", as taught by A. Günther , and one has a personal interest in "his physiognomy ." All three themes should help understanding " personal infallibility of the Pope," which is not deistic static, is based on the individual, but carries the story of spiritual formation tradition of the whole Church, in whose center is the Christological fraternity, to which the " indoctrinated " hierarchy of jurisdiction, which cannot be separated from each other, but in accepting the structure of the human being shed on the integral concept of the Catholic Church as organic. Which took place in the contemporary modification to the II. Vatican Council.

Zugleich: Diss. Trier, 2005.

Con il presente lavoro ci si pone l’obiettivo scientifico di dotare di una adeguata dogmatica giuridica quella complessa realtà che è costituita dal configurarsi delle relazioni interne al Collegio episcopale, avanzando anche nella comprensione dell’aspetto intrinsecamente comunitario dell’ufficio episcopale quale risultato del rapporto di unitaria successione all’ufficio apostolico di diritto divino. Leggendo l’appartenenza al Collegio di quei membri che lo compongono uti universi attraverso il fondamentale valore ecclesiologico che ha l’inserimento sacramentale di essi nel “simbolismo dei Dodici” (cap. I), si giunge a configurare la compagine di coloro che sono uniti nel ministero episcopale nei termini di “universitas collegialis personarum inaequali iure" (cap. III), appurando - appunto a partire dalla questione terminologica di “collegium” (cap. II) - come sia effettivamente possibile dar vita a riflessioni sempre più pregnanti sul contributo che il pensiero teologico fornisce ai fini della strutturazione anche giuridica dell’empiria interna al carattere normativo della Chiesa. Può risultare così più agevole individuare le relazioni tra quei nuclei di significato che hanno condotto, in ambito cattolico, sia ad una nuova messa a punto e valorizzazione (teorica e pratica) della dottrina della collegialità episcopale in seno al Concilio Vaticano II sia al sempre più vivace prospettarsi di interessanti orizzonti in sede di riflessione canonistica ed ecclesiologica attuale. / The present work has the scientific aim of endowing with an adequate juridical dogmatics the complex reality that is constituted by the configuration of the internal relations of the College of Bishops, advancing also in the understanding of the intrinsically communitarian aspect of the episcopal office as a result of the relationship of unitary succession to the apostolic office of divine law. By interpreting the belonging to the College of those members who make it up uti universi through the fundamental ecclesiological value of their sacramental insertion in the "symbolism of the Twelve" (chapter I), one arrives at configuring the group of those who are united in the episcopal ministry in terms of "universitas collegialis personarum inaequali iure" (chapter III), demonstrating - starting precisely from the terminological question of "collegium" (chapter II) - how it is possible to give rise to increasingly pregnant reflections on the contribution that theological thought provides for the purposes of structuring, also juridically, the empirical internal normative character of the Church. In this way, it will be easier to identify the relationships between those nuclei of meaning that have led, in the Catholic sphere, both to a new development and enhancement (theoretical and practical) of the doctrine of episcopal collegiality within the Second Vatican Council and to the increasingly lively prospect of interesting horizons in the current canonical and ecclesiological reflection.