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Instructors: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Ruben Zimmermann
Event type:
Lecture
Displayed in timetable as:
Eschatologie
Hours per week:
2
Language of instruction:
German
Min. | Max. participants:
- | -
Contents:
One of the basic problems in Johannine research consists of the seemingly
contradiction in terms of future and present eschatology. Contrary to former
attempts to solve that opposition through literary criticism the tension will
be understood as a productive engine in the Johannine reading of time. The
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notions of past, present, and future will precisely not be regarded as being
separate but synoptic, if seen through the prism of the Christian faith. The
idea will be explored, heuristically, in three areas of communication:
1. The Christological communication: Christ or other lords? (the cognitive
function of eschatology)
2. The ethical communication: Love now! (the dimension of action in eschatology)
3. The communicative communication: Remember the future (the roll-call
function of eschatology)
The perception of Christological communication in eschatological terms
shows that Christ is recognized as the perfecter of time, the piercer of time,
and the holder of the future.
Such understanding changes life and attitude, fundamentally and eschatologically.
In that sense, the eschatological terms serve also the notion of
ethics. Yet the possibilities of cognition and action need to be encouraged
and demanded. Eschatological terms which connect future events with the
present have the function of a roll-call. The addressees are reminded of the
beginning. In view of the eschatological terms this is a "memory of the future"
which, fundamentally, determines the present.
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