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On the Practice of Natural Theology in the Bible
Stjepan Kušar
; Katolički bogoslovni fakultet Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Abstract
The Bible, as a matter of fact, does not reflect or explicitely thematize natural conditions for the comprehension of religion, but it actually quite extensively makes use of these presuppositions, moreover, it insists upon them. The background of this unreflected and unthematized, but extensively practised natural theology is determined by the basic conviction of the Old and New Testament: the close interrelationship and the interdependence of the order of creation and the order of redemption. The Bible understands the historico-redemptional revelation (=the order of redemption in Jesus Christ) as a prophetic interpretation of created reality (=order of creation).
In the practice of natural theology, precisely the cognition of true God plays an important part. In order to understand how the christian message essentially influences man's existence in the world and how this message demands him to acknowledge it as divine revelation, it is necessary for them to grasp, in the course of his own existence, that his dependence from God is his own truth.
Natural theology is the explication of the implications of the beliver's religion: it demonstrates the intellectual intrastructure (not the infrastructure!) of the christian's creed. At the same time, it enables a new view into the reality of the world and the cosmos, because religion offers to man a new key to the comprehension of the world and history, as well as to action.
The explication of natural theology should not forget the indivisible relationship between the order of redemption and the order of creation. Natural theology elucidates thier essential bond from the prespective of the order of creation in the world, in the light of the order of redemption. It is another question whether and in which manner reality is reflected in the various historically developed forms of theodicy and natural theology.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
54520
URI
Publication date:
21.10.1991.
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