TOWARDS A

THEOLOGY OF
THE WORLD
Jacob, Rellin, Roy
 MAIN
THESIS
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 “
How can one be faithful and
live in the tension of being
worldly and other-worldly in
the right balance?

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 SUB
QUESTIONS
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Can we attend to the “essentials” of
Christian living, the commandments,
the rituals of the Church, and avoid
the messy business of involvement in
the world, yet still claim to be morally
good?

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 “
Can we become fulfilled
without “putting something
back” into the world which is
our only context for knowing
ourselves, others, and God?

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 “
How were we to follow Christ in
this world and through the world,
and also to surrender to Christ in
love and hope, whose promise of
a Kingdom not of this world was
only his to fulfill?

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 MAIN
ARGUMENTS
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 “
Through the five moments, the
understanding and knowledge
about God has adapted to its
context, and will continue to
evolve until the end of time.

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The Greek
Moment
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 ◦ The world is well-ordered and
beautiful.
◦ God guaranteed the order of
Greeks all things.
◦ Cosmology > Anthropology
◦ Ultimate divine space

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 ◦ Focused on “another world”
◦ Flight from the body and the world is
Gnostics the road of salvation.
◦ Introspection > Involvement

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 “
The ‘core ambiguity in Greek
thought regarding the world
contributed to Christian
ambivalence regarding the
embrace of the world and flight
from the world in spirituality and
morality.

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The Christian
Moment
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 ◦ World as non-divine but good
◦ St. Augustine admired the
structure and order of the world
but viewed it as deficient.
Christian ◦ External, Human Soul, and God
Moment
◦ Saeculum
◦ Sacral society of the Middle Ages.
◦ Aquinas: Independence of secular
reason.

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Modernity
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 “
As human beings, we are given
freedom in our lives but it mist
remain devoted and guided to
realize true faithfulness.

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 ◦ The problem of faithfulness in the
For Christian life is tied to the process of
human freedom before the world.
Reinhold ◦ Problem of sin, lack of faithfulness,
Niebuhr resides in the contradictions within
the human person.

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 ◦ Freedom is unique since it can
For envision new possibilities and
achieve them in this world.
Reinhold ◦ It has both creative and destructive
Niebuhr elements which cannot be
separated.

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 ◦ When the person feels the power of
the creative potential of being human
in this world, they can also deny the
contingent character of human
Creative
existence in pride and self-love
and ◦ Ignores the moral call of this creative
Destructive power before the world.
◦ The person escapes from this
freedom in sensuality.

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 ◦ Pride and sensuality involved in every
human act
◦ Pride is when one seeks to raise
one’s contingent life to
Creative unconditioned significance.
and ◦ Sensuality: escape from the
Destructive freedom and possibilities of
human spirit by becoming lost in
the detailed process and lesser
interests of life.

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 ◦ Human beings have unlimited
Creative devotion to limited values and apathy
and toward what is truly good, including
Destructive the social good, the call to transform
the world.

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 ◦ Involves blindness to limitation
◦ The person never really does know
Human the limits of his/her possibilities,
Sinfulness standing before God in the
paradoxical situation of finiteness and
freedom.

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 ◦ Christian faithfulness is an impossible
ideal
Christian ◦ Taken on in faith and love, but
Faithfulness never accomplished.
◦ Better to focus on strategies to
live with its challenge.

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 ◦ For Richard Niebuhr, faithfulness
depends on the disinterestedness of
Christian love which trusts in God, and seeks
Faithfulness pure intentions and methods, in
many situations which frame modern
living

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 ◦ Reinhold has a more this-worldly
approach and urges concrete action.
Christian ◦ Kingdom of pure love in society is
Faithfulness always partially expressed, and
imperfectly practiced.

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 ◦ Cross of modern living is the
willingness to invest in societal
Christian change even though imperfect
Faithfulness results may follow

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World of nature of the
Greeks is now’s world
of culture.
Vatican II
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 ◦ Ended the search for an enclave of
faithfulness apart from this world
◦ Acknowledgement of the secular as
John XXII’s an autonomous realm
Vision ◦ Encouraged to invest from the world
to be able to re-examine priorities
and strategies for expressing
faithfulness

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 o Documents of Vatican II reflect an
appreciation for the changes which
were sweeping the world.
Vatican II o Church’s recognition of the
expansion of human capacities to
act.

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 Church in
the Modern o Acknowledged the ambiguous
character of life in the modern world
World

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 o Appreciation for expansion of human
agency at the heart of great changes
Church in sweeping the world
the Modern o Tempered by insight into misery
World which could be avoided with
other priorities and modes of
organizing human life.

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 o To Augustine: order and tranquility
sought in human life
o Had to be found again in a new age of
human agency and massive
Christian inequities marking global progress
Faithfulness o This new context provided a new
challenge to visions of Christian
faithfulness

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 o As a result of these massive
cultural changes, the council
Christian called for a renewal in the
Faithfulness Catholic Church in the area of
moral theology

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 o This moral challenge of
Augustine’s, that world of the
human well-being that both
the believer and non-believer
Saeculum share, was given the
normative vision of the
humanum- dignity of the
human person

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 o God’s Kingdom is ultimately God’s
final action at the end of time.
o John Paul II offered the humanistic
Saeculum criterion as a measuring stick of
Christian faithfulness in an
ambiguous world.

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 o The coming of the Kingdom in the
saeculum is always partial and
incomplete
Saeculum o To be a faithful Christian in an
increasingly interdependent world,
the maxim to do good and avoid
evil is not enough.

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Postmodern
Moment
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 o Poverty, minorities, war, other
Development inconsistencies lead to doubt.
of Society o Massive cultural change in the
Saeculum makes believers question.

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 o How is one to be faithful?

Questions o What should Christ mean in the

moral life of Christians?

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 o Third world countries doubt a
Christians capabilities
A Modern o We are set in a conflict between life
and death
View o Not enough to analyze or flee from
the conflict
o We must act

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 o Ones perseverance to commit
themselves to the common
good.
Solidarity o The response to the forces
which ignore equality
o Entails a relationship to God,
Neighbor, and Community

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 o By finding worth in our
neighbor we are given
Solidarity access to God
o We form bonds of
Communion

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 “
Christians are called to take
on the cross. Proactively
working and aspiring to
achieve solidarity for the
common good.

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 o Jesus accepted the world in the form
of a servant

Jesus as a
o His humanity fully accepted the world
servant o His love changed the world
o Revealed God as Transcendent
o God is God and lets the World be the
world

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 o The cross entails a trust in God.
o We must be able to suffer and
Taking on have a change of heart if we are to
the Cross take on the cross.
o It is a choice which measures
faithfulness.

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Insights

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 o Collective effort can cause structural
change towards the betterment of
humankind.

Insights o As human beings, we are equipped

and fully capable to elevate the
standard of human dignity.
o Evolution of Theology through the
course of history.

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 Personal
Experiences

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 o Care for humankind extends to
not only in one’s locale but
Immersion throughout vast lands and areas
untouched like the indigenous
people.

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Reactor
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Comments

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 ● Acknowledgement of the
change that is happening in
the world and how it affects
the Christian faith
○ As depicted through the
Positive key moments and in the
Church documents
● Showed the Church’s efforts
on how faith can be inclusive
in the world
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 ● Presents a critical look at the
“actors” of the Christian faith,
which is us humans.
Critical ○ Definition and function of
human freedom and human
nature, to realize what it is to
live in faithfulness

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Insights

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 o How faith adapts to the change which
happens through the various key
Insights moments our history
o Faith as dynamic as it address the needs
for change as it occurs in the world

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 o Faithfulness involves the
acknowledgement that we are never
Insights pure, and conflict and coercion is
inevitable in the face of the evil of this
world

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 Personal
Experiences

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 “
During mass

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 “
Pope Francis and
his progressive
views

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Reactor
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Comments

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 o Helps us understand how
to be open to the world and
our Crosses

Positive o Trust
o Love
o Change of Heart
o Solidarity

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 The call to openness is a very
difficult challenge
◦ “Freedom is prone to entertain the
Critical illusion that the human person is
not limited, rather self sufficient”
◦ “Human beings have an unlimited
devotion to limited values and an
apathy toward what is truly good”

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Insights

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 ◦ We as Catholics are called to accept the
challenge and live in solidarity with the
common good.
Insights ◦ We must act against our human
tendencies to act selfishly
◦ We must trust in God and be willing to
carry our crosses

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 Personal
Experiences

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 “
Career Path

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