Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 255-279). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Diss. : Bamberg : 1994. / Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral)-- Universität Bamberg, 1994. Bibliogr. p. 341-353.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, 2002. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 221-230).

Thesis (Th. M.)--Regent College, Vancouver, BC, 2002. / Abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 148-163).

Not available / text

This thesis primarily analyses critically Kung's early ecclesiology with the intention of identifying important paradigmatic examples to be related to a contemporary South African Church Community. It argues that Kung's ecclesiology takes the hermeneutics of faith as its overriding theological rationale and as a result of this comes out with a particular understanding of the community of redemption. Subsequent to this primary focus in the nature of this thesis, the work further spells out clearly certain paradigmatic themes in Kung's theology and seeks to show how they can inform the ecclesiology of the CPSA. / Thesis (M.Th.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2003.

Freedom is a key element in contemporary Western thinking and one which is central to all bioethical discussions, including the stem cell debate. However, the adequacy of the current understanding of the concept has not been subject to sufficient analysis. In order to address this deficiency, using the stem cell debate as a case study, I engage with the current understanding of freedom in a particular area of social activity. Examining the stem cell debate, I consider that freedom is defined in three ways; as the freedom of research, as the consent of gamete and embryo donors to create stem cells and as the freedom to transcend physical limitations. I argue that Isaiah Berlin’s categorization of freedom as negative and positive is useful in examining the understandings of freedom in the stem cell debate. I conclude that all of the currently accepted understandings of freedom in the stem cell debate tend to be focused on the individual and I argue that they are consequently problematic, resulting in individualism, conflict, subjectivism and inappropriate attitudes toward natural resources. In response to the problems identified, in the second part of the thesis I draw on the theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar in order to offer an alternative conception of freedom. Von Balthasar argues that although freedom entails individual willing and choosing, it also is relational, involving interaction with other people and God, both in the realisation of the possession of freedom and in the fulfilment of that freedom. Thus I argue that von Balthasar’s theology provides an effective counter to the neglect of relationships in the contemporary understanding of freedom. However von Balthasar, in his analysis, focuses on interpersonal relationships and he can be criticised for underplaying the role of society. I therefore expand upon his work employing the concept of the common good. This provides a means of examining freedom in the context of wider society. The conception of freedom thus arrived at is then considered in relation to the original case study of the stem cell debate. In doing this I provide a more nuanced rendering of the issues involved; one that is better able to accommodate the social and personal aspects.

This thesis analyses those differences In interpretation which occur when separate literary-theoretical approaches are applied to biblical texts. Hans Frei suggests that the biblical texts describe the world in a way which he calls "realistic narrative". Paul Ricoeur's hermeneutic recognises the disclosive power of the text and translates the subject matter of the text into a "way-of- being-in-the-world". Thus, the primary identity disclosed by the biblical narratives differs. For Frei, it is the identity of Jesus which is disclosed; for Ricoeur, it is "our common human Christian identity". These two thinkers have usually been compared theologically. However, I contend that the theological investigations of both Frei and Ricoeur have been influenced by the literary approaches which guide their theological work. I give an exposition of this relationship in chapter one. In chapter two, I sketch out the implications of this relationship, focusing on the issue of narrative identity. In the final chapter, critiques of both systems are investigated as I attempt to deal with the force of these objections. This dissertation investigates Frei's and Ricoeur's construals of narrative identity (as constructed through the reading of Biblical texts). My working hypothesis is that the construals of identity formulated by Frei and Ricoeur rely upon formalist, narrative "interpretations". My thesis contends that in their respective approaches to the notion of narrative identity, neither thinker has completely abandoned his early literary-theoretical roots in his theological proposals.

The aim of this paper is to map and analyze what role Swede's played in King Leopold II's colony in the former Congo Free State. Letters and messages that arrived at the Congo Consulate in Sweden between 1895 and 1906 have been used as the paper's primary sources. Application letters from 32 different Swedes, seeking to join the Congo Free State Army, to the General Consul of the Congo Consulate, Hans Hugold von Schwerin, have been used as primary sources, and constitute the basis of the paper's analysis. The letters arrived at the Congo Consulate in Sweden between 1895 and 1906.   The applicants were all men of different social classes, and were between the ages of 20 and 30 years old. Their chief reasons for applying were primarily for own financial gain or because they did not get a chance to serve in the Swedish army. The Swedes who went on to serve in the Congo Free State Army were mostly members of the Swedish upper class and already trained military officers.   By analyzing the data using theories of imperialism, this paper concludes that Sweden did in fact play part in, and contributed to, the development of imperialism in large, and the imperialism that developed in the Congo Free State in the late 1800's.

The pure theory of law is a positivist legal theory put forward by Hans Kelsen. Recently there have been two attempts to understand democracy as a source for the normativity that the pure theory assigns to law. Lars Vinx seeks to understand the pure theory as a theory of political legitimacy, in which the normativity that the pure theory assigns to the laws of a state depends on the state’s adoption of certain legitimacy enhancing features, including being democratic. Uta Bindreiter argues that, in the case of European Community law, an additional criterion of democracy must be added to the criteria that the pure theory normally requires of legal systems before the pure theory can presuppose the normativity of European Community law. This thesis will argue that neither of these two accounts succeeds in demonstrating that the normativity of the pure theory can be understood to depend on democracy.