Sentences with phrase «structure of existence»

Nevertheless, it forms no part of the structure of existence neither explains blackholes, galaxies, dark matter, etc..

The philosophical concept of emergence,» for example, can be employed to illuminate what theology has sought to witness to in its talk about «revelation,» namely, «what it means to have an innovating mystery break forth from a given structure of existence» (FFS 133).

Although Carpenter complains that I nowhere «expand upon what might constitute the criteria for a response sufficiently satisfactory to assure participation... within the structure of existence introduced by Jesus» (p. 108), I in fact devoted extensive attention to this topic in The Structure of Christian Existence.

Today, although I still think there are some unsurpassable elements in the historic Christian structure of existence, I put much more emphasis on the future developments that are needed, developments that would lead toward Jesus» structure of existence.

He supposed that I thought that the crucial christological claim has to do with the incarnation in Jesus of a distinctive structure of existence, a topic to which I devoted three of the book's fifteen chapters.

The structure of existence that appeared in Jesus is distinctive in the way in which God was constitutively present in important occasions of Jesus» experience.

Jesus had an immense effect on human history both in calling forth a new structure of existence capable to the highest degree of both good and evil and in helping to overcome the evil.

His efficacy is to be seen primarily in the new structure of existence he called into being.

My hypothesis is that in Jesus there appeared in an important way a structure of existence of whose occurrence elsewhere we have no evidence.

Still less was it a social contract — a voluntary surrender of power order to delegate authority to a sovereign — as envisaged by Hobbes Rousseau.5 The covenant was more of a command than a bargain, stemming from the inherent, undelegated authority of Yahweh over the total structure of existence.

This is because he thinks of a structure of existence as a quality of life, and clearly that life has superior quality in which these new types of evil are overcome.

Clearly Carpenter does not understand what I mean by a structure of existence, He operates in terms of what he calls «quality of life.»

The hypotheses about Jesus that I have found relatively well supported are, first, that the manner and content of Jesus» teaching and actions implicitly claimed extraordinary authority; second, that this implicit claim to authority is best understood as an expression of a distinctive type of experience or structure of existence; and third, that the distinctiveness of this structure has to do with the relation to God constitutive of it.

Carpenter can not understand how I can speak of a structure of existence as unsurpassable and also states that it introduces new types of evil (p. 109).

When John Cobb opens his discussion in The Structure of Christian Existence, he states that to «claim that Christianity embodies a distinctive structure of existence does not involve the claim that this structure of existence is better or worse than other structures» (SCE 16).

It becomes clear, however, that in saying this he has primarily in mind the structure of Buddhist existence and that the structure of existence to which Christianity gives voice is better than the structure of prophetic existence.

But it would not seem possible that we can be genuinely open to that which our structure of existence has transcended and whose greatest hope for its own creative transformation is found in that which we confess as normative.

The power and reality of the old aeon are not simply or literally negated in Christ, they remain present in what Beardslee calls the structure of existence, and are negated and transcended only in what Beardslee calls vision and Paul calls Spirit or the new creation.

The emergence in Jesus of that structure of existence in which the human self coalesces with the immanent Logos is the recovery at a new level of the structure that predominates in all things apart from human beings..

Many students see the poverty of some as the natural structure of existence — as the result of inevitable karma or as kismet.

The problem remains of how the quality of life achieved by Jesus within the structure of existence in his situation is to be translated into the «final and unsurpassable structure of existence» opened up by Jesus for the Christian in his radically different situation.

A more logical approach, for example, would be to contend that God is the sole ground of this «final and unsurpassable structure of existence» and that its finality and unsurpassability are due to Jesus» having fulfilled so maximally the ideal aim entertained for him by God.

A related problem is that Cobb no sooner suggests that Jesus has introduced a «final and unsurpassable structure of existence» than he qualifies this statement by adding that the new structure of existence poses not only «new possibilities of health» but also «new possibilities of sickness and fragmentation» (PPCT 398).

In «A Whiteheadian Christology,» for example, Cobb specifies that Jesus is both the ground of the «final and unsurpassable structure of existence» which he introduces on our behalf and the «one in relation to whom the health of that structure can be attained» (PPCT 398).

Cobb does indicate that we are able to secure our fullest participation in the structure of existence introduced by Jesus only as we respond to him (PPCT 398).

Indeed, if anything, Cobb merely compounds this problem, for now we are confronted with the additional problem of somehow resolving how Jesus could possibly have opened up a «final and unsurpassable structure of existence» different from the structure of existence in his own situation.

What distinguishes the structure of existence in Jesus» situation from that of the contemporary Christian can best be broached, Cobb suggests, through an analysis of the pronoun «I.» This «I,» we are told, is to be identified with both reason and the passions as the two dominant modes which have always characterized human psychic activity.

4 For a more extensive treatment of the Christian structure of existence, but not having to do expressly with the problems about to be raised concerning Cobb's approach m» «A Whiteheadian Christology,» see his book The Structure of Christian Existence (SCE).

The «I» represents the quality of life achieved within a particular structure of existence as shaped by the way in which a person assumes responsibility for himself within the context of the possibilities open to him.4

Cobb understands there to have been an identification of the individual «I» of Jesus with Jesus» prehension of God which enabled Jesus to assume God's authority as his own (PPCT 392) and on this basis to have introduced into the world «a final and unsurpassable structure of existence» (PPCT 398) in which all individual believers are able to participate.

Indeed, if the role assigned by Cobb to Jesus is to be in keeping with both his own remarks concerning the providential guidance of God and the Whiteheadian principles upon which he acknowledges his work to be based, it seems that God should be both the ground of the «final and unsurpassable structure of existence» introduced by Jesus and «the one in relation to whom the health of that structure can be attained.»

We have yet to resolve, of course, the problem of how we are to translate the quality of life achieved by Jesus within the structure of existence in his situation into the «final and unsurpassable structure of existence» introduced by him for us in our radically different situation.

So long as this is the case, does it not follow that there must be some other structure of existence which could surpass our supposedly «final and unsurpassable structure of existence»?

One problem with this passage is that although Cobb clearly asserts that persons who respond to Jesus are able to share in the «final and unsurpassable structure of existence» which he opens up for them, nowhere does he expand upon what might constitute the criteria for a response sufficiently satisfactory to assure participation for these persons within the structure of existence introduced by Jesus.

In this light the particular problem for the twentieth century Christian as viewed by Cobb is that the structure of existence assumed by Jesus in his day bears little resemblance to the structure of existence which characterizes us, so that the translation of the quality of life achieved by Jesus into a context with which we can identify more immediately is no less radical than the contrast between his situation and ours (PPCT 397).

If the total coincidence of transcendence and immanence is vision, and not structure of existence, then the traditional styles of faith and practices of faith may still have possible meaning, even though they are seen to be penultimate; and then the radical theologian can be understood as standing in a spectrum of theological positions and not in isolation.

To understand what is peculiar to the Buddhist structure of existence, it was necessary to concentrate attention on the relation of each dominant occasion of human experience to the predecessor and successor occasion together with which it constituted a soul.

The first element is the interconnected structure of existence, as outlined above, and as developed through process thought; the second draws from the profound insights of black and feminist theology relative to the shaping power of the «normative gaze,» or the tendency to value one's own kind as over against the other.

The structure of existence actualized in Jesus is defined as «spiritual existence that expresses itself in love.

But beyond these and other elementary structures shared with at least some subhuman occasions, there is no one structure of existence to be designated as human.

It is my conviction that Jesus brought into being for those who responded to him a final and unsurpassable structure of existence.

Hence Jesus as savior is not only the ground of the new structure of existence but also the one in relation to whom the health of that structure can be attained.

This structure was the solution of the problem posed in the Jewish structure of existence and in that sense was salvation.

If salvation means wholeness, then salvation has a different meaning for each structure of existence.

A new structure of existence opens up new problems and new possibilities for man.

And that perfection is not an exception to our world, a free - standing existence outside the structure of our existence.

A part of Christ's finality, therefore, is the unique and unsurpassable structure of existence he accomplished.

The obligation to bear and communicate such meanings against his natural feeling and thinking was the ground of Jeremiah's discovery of his selfhood as «I.» Not the reception of the Word as such but the necessity to decide about it was crucial to the formation of this structure of existence and to its preservation and strengthening in the Jewish community.

With the emergence of the «I» in this full sense a radically new structure of existence appears.

In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man... I am satisfied with the mystery of life's eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence — as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the Reason that manifests itself in nature.»