dc.contributor.advisor | Fergusson, David | |
dc.contributor.advisor | Eglinton, James | |
dc.contributor.author | Johnson, Andrew R. | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2021-06-08T11:54:31Z | |
dc.date.available | 2021-06-08T11:54:31Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2021-07-31 | |
dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/1842/37677 | |
dc.identifier.uri | http://dx.doi.org/10.7488/era/955 | |
dc.description.abstract | This thesis is first and foremost a work of Christian systematic theology that brings in
interdisciplinary resources as is deemed fit for its inquiry into why believing is centrally significant in
and for Christianity (that is, why is it the case that believing, rather than something else, is so closely
tied to the various salvific motifs found in Christianity?). By critically engaging the rich theological
descriptions of faith alongside various philosophical reflections on the holistic character of believing
it seeks to show that this central significance becomes more intelligible when we attend to the
implicit dimensions of explicit faith and to the holistic character of Christian believing. In order to
pursue this line of inquiry the thesis begins by presenting what Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann
have to say about the implicit dimensions of explicit faith and the holistic character of Christian
believing as they describe the self-involving nature of faith in Christ. It then moves on to bring in
other theological and philosophical voices in in order to further articulate an understanding of the
holistic character of Christian believing in a manner that supplements and contributes to what Barth
and Bultmann offer as well as provide further intelligibility to why belief is centrally significant in
and for Christianity. It moves on to focus on a non-reductive dispositional account of believing and
on non-reductive accounts of the cognitive/linguistic dimensions of belief as well as on the
unavoidable social dimensions of an individual’s belief acquisition, formation, and manifestation. It
does so in order to add further intelligibility to how we might see the various implicit dimensions of
explicit faith holding together. In doing so the thesis describes and argues for an understanding of
believing in Christ as not merely one thing among other aspects of a Christian’s human existence,
but as something that is embedded and enmeshed within all the various aspects of a Christian’s
human existence (it is a phenomenon that is wholly self-involving in the fact that it involves the
entirety of the believer’s being and is holistically constituted in the sense that the character of
Christian believing is intimately and integrally (not secondarily) dependent on the wider
particularities and possibilities of the believer’s concrete reality in the world with others). In
recognizing the implicit dimensions of explicit faith and the holistic character of Christian believing
the central significance of belief in and for Christianity becomes more intelligible. | en |
dc.language.iso | en | en |
dc.publisher | The University of Edinburgh | en |
dc.subject | systematic theology | en |
dc.subject | phenomenology | en |
dc.subject | Karl Barth | en |
dc.subject | Rudolf Bultmann | en |
dc.subject | faith | en |
dc.subject | belief | en |
dc.title | Implicit dimensions of explicit faith: inquiring into the centrality of belief by attending to the holistic character of Christian believing | en |
dc.type | Thesis or Dissertation | en |
dc.type.qualificationlevel | Doctoral | en |
dc.type.qualificationname | PhD Doctor of Philosophy | en |