Bakens, drumpels en webbe: (Hervormde) Teologie as kreatiewe onderneming

HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Bakens, drumpels en webbe: (Hervormde) Teologie as kreatiewe onderneming
 
Creator van Staden, Piet
 
Subject — Doing theology; figurative mode of expression; concrete and factual register of language; objectifying experience and understanding of God; spiritual experience of meeting God through faith; rites of passage; liminality
Description Beacons, thresholds and webs: Theology as creative endeavour. This article argues from the premise that theology is a creative undertaking. Nothing can be thought about God other than by thinking about people’s experience and understanding of God. Theology therefore speaks objectively about God from the subjective experience of God and from testimonies about that experience. Such reflections and testimonies are expressed in language. However, the inherent constraints of vocabulary and formulation render any linguistic expression of such spiritual encounters incomplete. Theology is always seeking for new possibilities of expression in order to overcome the constraints. It stands to reason that the figurative mode of expression will be preferred to the concrete or factual register of language because figurative language is more suited to articulate the elusive spiritual experience of meeting God through faith. Signposts, thresholds and webs are employed here as metaphors to emphasise the creative aspect of theology within the context of a changing world. They represent the three phases in the so-called rites of passage described by anthropologist Arnold van Gennep and refined by Victor Turner into an abstract model employed in the understanding of all similar experiences of ritual transference. Here the model is applied to the church and its theology.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor
Date 2013-05-30
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — —
Format text/html application/octet-stream text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/hts.v69i1.1981
 
Source HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies; Vol 69, No 1 (2013); 10 pages 2072-8050 0259-9422
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/1981/3537 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/1981/3538 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/1981/3539 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/1981/3536
 
Coverage — — —
Rights Copyright (c) 2013 Piet van Staden https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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