This thesis comprises a re-evaluation of the feminist theological critique, as given by Valerie Saiving, Judith Plaskow, Daphne Hampson and Susan Nelson Dunfee, of Reinhold Niebuhr's doctrine of sin. The re-evaluation proceeds from a contextual interpretation of Niebuhr's theology in general and a contextual reading of his doctrine of sin in particular. My argument is that Niebuhr is deliberately and consistently a contextual theologian. I locate his contextual methodology in the open-ended approach of Christian realism. / The feminist critique is based on the assumption that Niebuhr universally defines the primary sin as pride. It is argued that pride is in fact a distinctly male characteristic, and, while quite plausibly the primary sin for men, is clearly not the primary sin for women. Niebuhr is guilty, that is, of confusing male reality with human reality in the doctrine. Saiving and Plaskow then develop a definition of women's sin which they correspond with Niebuhr's sin of sensuality. This type of sin, rather than being self-aggrandizing, is characterized by inordinate and destructive self-effacement. Their subsidiary argument is that Niebuhr erroneously treats sensuality, which should be equal but opposite to pride, as a secondary form of sin. / My argument in this thesis is that the critique rests on a mistaken assumption about the universality of Niebuhr's claim. His concerns were with the powerful. The contextual claim that pride is the primary form of sin in those who are empowered is being mistaken for a claim that pride is the primary sin for all people, regardless of gender or context. My subsidiary argument is that the correlation of women's sin with Niebuhr's understanding of sensuality is mistaken. What the feminists refer to as women's sin is in fact not sin at all for Niebuhr but evidence of injustice. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

<p>It is not possible in this paper to deal with all the moral problems revolving at the &ldquo / beginning&rdquo / and &ldquo / end&rdquo / of human life in the modern world. However, something must be said about the question regarding respect for human life vis-&agrave / -vis abortion and euthanasia, since they are widely discussed today and since they strike at the very heart of traditional morality. The dignity and worth of individual life cannot be derived from analysis of individual life itself. Humanity is not the measure of all things. Whatever value human beings have is strictly transitory unless it is in our relationship to some ultimate source of value outside us. Christian faith understands human value as being established by our relationship with God - a relationship created and given by God himself. It is because we have our being from God and are sustained by God that we can meaningfully affirm the value of individual human life.</p>

The dissertation details and analyses an interpretation of the Christian concept of God that emerges through the interactions between the missionaries, post-missionary Christianity and the Raya people in Tanzania. It investigates the nature, implications and possible problems encountered in the processes of interpretation. Four main issues are investigated and addressed. Firstly, each group interacted in its own way and played a significant role in creating an arena for successful communication. The main two challenges facing the missionaries were: delivering the Christian message so that the hearers derive its meaning, and the use of the traditional but nonindigenous concept of God for identifying the Christian concept of God, according to the biblical and the classical doctrine of the Trinity. Secondly, the Raya and the convert's reactions to the missionaries' version of God had taken place in two phases, earlier and later interactions. In the earlier phase, the Raya responded to the missionaries' version of God on the basis of their traditional understanding of God. It led them to an initial acceptance of the missionaries' version of God and conversion. The converts later reacted to the missionaries' version and some asked: what happens after a conversion to Christianity? Challenged by their earlier experience of the Christian concept of God, some converts felt the need for a second paradigm shift. On the basis of an invocation of the Deity in a threefold form at a subjective level, these converts had embarked on a self-interpretation and understanding of the missionaries' version of the Trinity in traditional idiom and terms. It resulted in the construction of the Raya Christian theology of the Trinity. Thirdly, the study also addressed the further impacts and responses to the missionaries' version of God. While the missionaries' interpretative approach laid the foundation for the converts' interpretation, in turn both set the course for the post-missionary Christianity's interpretation. At this point, post-missionary Christianity had reinterpreted the Christian concept of God on the basis of a traditional Raya concept of God. The main question faced them is an application of the Ruhanga model according to its frame of reference, although partially applied it paved the way for a full application in later times. Fourthly, in response to the challenges raised by earlier interpretative approaches, missionaries, converts and post-missionary Christianity, the study embarked on interpreting the Trinity in traditional tenns. It aimed at reaching a higher stage of understanding the Trinity by all Haya converts, even the simplest ones. It demanded an investigation of the hypothesis that a Haya invocation of the Deity in a threefold fonn is a key to understanding both the Haya and the Christian concepts of God. An application of it involved addressing the question of how it could be applied at the church level to interpret and understand the Trinity in Haya idiom. It is proposed that initially this will be achieved through an interpretation and christianisation of the Haya concept of God and a re-interpretation and indigenisation of the Christian concept of God. While biblical, classical and contemporary interpretations of the Trinity are a referral basis for each approach, social and theological models are key methodological instruments. Finally, the need of this study has roots in the fact that, through my pastoral ministry, I have pondered and cross-examined myself on what the Haya and Africans as a whole can contribute to the enrichment of Christian theology. An investigation of the converts' interpretation of the Trinity into their own version of a Haya theology of the Trinity is looked upon as a small part of this contribution. / Thesis (Ph.D. ; School of Theology) - University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2003.

This thesis addresses the fundamental problem of whether and how the church's tradition can be understood as revelatory given its patriarchal nature and its implication in relations of power. It is therefore concerned with how feminist Catholics are to be accountable to tradition. In addressing this problem the thesis follows three basic movements. The first juxtaposes contemporary discourses that are concerned with revelation, on the one hand, and rupture, on the other. However, by an investigation of the apophatic tradition in theology and its relation to the cataphatic, it suggests that this juxtaposition is both necessary to theology and that it has a long theological pedigree. Therefore the second movement, in seeking mediating paths with which to respond to this rupture in knowledge, proposes a dual mediation that maintains an unreconcilable tensiveness between a path of transformative interpretation and a path which continues to probe that which is unsaid. The third movement looks at how this is expressed in the theology of tradition and the church. By highlighting the distinction between tradition as the whole life of the church and the Tradition which is ultimately Other, it points to a fundamental tension between that which is witnessed to in discourse and is therefore implicated in relations of power and that which, while witnessed to, is ultimately uncapturable but nevertheless accompanies all discourse. In this context, the thesis concludes, the church is both the privileged witness to the Other, but its witness is a wounded witness. While it is in the church that we encounter the Tradition, the challenge that we face is to find ways to allow that which is Other to break through our limited and necessarily wounded discourse. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1997.

This dissertation deals with Futurist Eschatologies in Africa and Europe: Pannenberg, Moltmann, Mbiti and Kato. It therefore engages with intercultural hermeneutics and theologies of different contexts. It is set on the premise that Christianity as worldwide community of believers depends on the reasoning from different cultures and contexts. The dissertation engages with the four theologians individually at first and then brings their positions into a dialogue. The individual engagement serves the purpose of determining the context of each of the theologians. The context is found in the biographies of Kato, Moltmann, Mbiti and Pannenberg. Even though the four theologians are born within a timespan of eleven years their life circumstances differ greatly. But the dissertation also engages with context referring to the way Mbiti, Kato, Pannenberg and Moltmann relate their eschatologies to the rest of their theology and how they determine the importance of eschatology for life in time. The dissertation furthermore compares the writings of the four theologians. Therefore, special attention is given to Hermeneutics, the understanding of time and certain eschatological topics such as death, resurrection and judgement. Similarities and differences in different approaches of the four theologians are described and analysed. In conclusion, the dissertation stresses the importance of theological context. The term theological context refers to the correlation between different perspectives of theology. The dissertation opts for an eschatology that is founded solidly in Christology. / Thesis (M.Th.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2008.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Durban-Westville, 1996.

The study asks the following question: to what degree do the categories of philosophical knowledge apply to the original work of Abu Ya'qub al-Sijistani? In order to answer the question, the study tries to characterize al-Sijistani's thought as expressed in the Kitab al-Yanabi'. The textual analysis emphasizes the role of Sijistani's theory of Sources and theory of kalimah, which allow useful comparisons with aspects of the hermetic and hermeneutic traditions. The analysis aims at demonstrating that the hermeneutical thought of al-Sijistani, although gnostic in character, integrates in its spiritual itinerary the conceptual expression characteristic of philosophical knowledge. The possibility of such an integration rests on the ta'wi l's function of synthesis. The various aspects of the synthesis are finally discussed by reference to the ismaili conception of prophecy.

Because of the centrality of Christ, truly God and truly human, Christian theology regards the understanding of the human as one of its essential tasks. In the wake of environmental concerns, however, the dominant self-understanding of the human is presently being challenged and rethought by Christians. This study is an attempt to contribute to this larger effort of examining the role of the human in Christian theological responses to the ecological "crisis," a question that is surfacing as a paramount concern in this emergent literature. / In this work I examine how the role of the human is an inherent problematic in Christian ecological literature. I review some of the principal categories or paradigms of Christian ecological literature, such as Gaia theory, process theology, new cosmology, ecofeminism, and liberation theology. / All these approaches, I contend, make important contributions to a renewed understanding of human interaction with nature. Yet each model, on its own, seems somewhat incomplete in its portrait of the human. On the one hand, a certain segment of this religious and theological literature diminishes or undervalues the role of the human in our ecological destiny. On the other hand, much of this literature neglects to examine seriously humanity's historical context, which includes economic, political, and social dimensions. / Through a study of these paradigms for approaching the environmental crisis, this work explores the idea that only a theology that views the human agent as a principal actor in both the devastation and reclamation of the life systems of the planet is a viable ecological theology. Such a theology views the human agent in terms of social, economic, political, cultural, moral, as well as ecological transformation in order to confront comprehensively the threats to the planet's ecosystems. With the reading assistance of liberation theology from Latin America, with its emphasis on solidarity, a preferential option for the destitute, and societal transformation, this work raises the possibility of a political theology of the environment, outlining several salient horizons for such a theology.

This thesis is, as its title duely indicates, an attempt to establish and describe the facts or events of an aspect of the public life of Ibn Taymiya (661-728), namely, his mihan or the trials and tribulations he underwent apparently due to the stands he took on certain dogmatic issues of his time. This thesis is divided into two chapters: the first tries to determine the originality of the sources in relation to each other as well as in relation to the mihan -- and their reliability; in all eighteen sources are dealt with. The second chapter tries to reconstruct a plausible account of the mihan on the basis of the knowledge acquired of the sources.

This thesis is a study of one aspect of the Twelver-Shi'i doctrine of imamah.