This thesis explores the notion of testimony as a theological concept. The task of this thesis is twofold: first, to analyze several exemplary instances of appropriating philosophical resources in the construction of the concept of testimony in biblical and theological writings, and to consider the aptness of these attempts in terms of the effects they produce when recounting the event of Jesus’ resurrection; second, using the dogmatic and systematic ideas of Karl Barth and Wolfhart Pannenberg, to explore the possible conceptual structure and substance apposite to a theological understanding of testimony. Accordingly, the argument put forward in this thesis is twofold. First, philosophies of witness tend to establish the existence of witness around the natural human capacity of memory, imagination and reflection. Divine agency in the constitution and continuous operation of witness is consistently missing from these models. Their infiltration into biblical studies and theology has resulted in a failure to generate a stable and perspicuous theological meaning of Jesus’ resurrection, and has brought about a circumvention of the event’s historicity. Second, Barth’s theological construal of testimony, in contrast to Pannenberg and the philosophical models sampled in this study, lays stress on the self-witness of the triune God as the ontological ground of human testimony. This ontology is repeatedly underscored by Barth as he explicates the reality, history and transmission of Christian witness. A theological understanding of Christian witness must begin with the selftestimony and agency of God, in contrast to an understanding that pitches testimony as an independent species of epistemology.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:577605 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Ip, Pui Shum |
| Publisher | University of Aberdeen |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://digitool.abdn.ac.uk:80/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=196207 |
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