Table of Contents
Preface to the American Edition of Dogmatics vii
Introduction ix
1 Goal and Program of the "Course Book Dogmatics" ix
2 Dogmatics as a Theological Discipline xii
3 The Structure of the Dogmatics xiii
4 Outline of the Structure of the Dogmatics xvi
God's Self-Revelation as the Creator of the World (The Doctrine of Creation) 1
I Themes and Perspectives of a Theology of the Creation 3
1 Creation-A Theological Concept 3
2 Creation: God's Original Self-Revelation 5
3 Important Doctrinal Statements on the Creation Doctrine 7
4 The Dogma of Creation in Its Constitutive Elements 11
5 The Creation Theology within the Structure of Church Dogmatics 15
6 The Creation Theology in Distinction to Religious and Scientific Doctrines of the Origin of the World 19
II The Belief in God the Creator in Biblical Testimony 29
1 The Creation Belief in the Old Testament 29
2 Creation Statements in the New Testament 37
III The Formative Development of the Creation Teaching in the History of Theology 41
1 In Patristics 41
2 The Creation Theme in the Theology of the Early Middle Ages 55
3 The Creation Theology of High Scholasticism 59
4 In the Context of the New Worldview of the Natural Sciences and the Foundational Crisis of Metaphysics and Philosophical Theology 79
5 The More Recent Catholic and Reform Controversy over Philosophical Theology as a Portal to Historical Revelation 87
IV Systematic Exposition 91
1 The Realization of Non-Divine Being through God's Actuality 91
2 Creation Realized through Evolution and the History of Human Freedom 94
3 God's Self-Revelation as Creator and Redeemer 98
4 God's Universal World Government and Active Presence in the World 101
5 Creation and Grace, Principles of Created Freedom, or the Secret of Providence 104
The Self-Revelation of the Threefold God in the Consummation of Man (Eschatology) 107
I Horizons and Perspectives of Eschatology 109
1 Eschatology and Its Place in Dogmatics 109
2 Questions Treated in Eschatology 111
3 The Hermeneutics of Eschatological Statements 112
4 Important Statements on Eschatology in Church Dogma 113
5 Differences from the Orthodox and Reformed Profession of Faith 118
6 Christian Eschatology in Association and Contradiction 120
7 The Rediscovery of Eschatology as a Fundamental Christian Purpose 128
8 Categories of Thinking in Current Eschatology 132
II The Eschatology of God's Self-Revelation in Biblical Testimony 137
1 Adventist Eschatology in the Old Testament 137
2 The Core of the New Testament's Eschatology in the Proclamation of the Kingdom of God by Jesus 145
III Aspects of the History of Theology 157
1 Problems in Patristics 157
2 The Resurrection Treatise in Scholastics 164
IV Systematic Presentation of the Eschatology 169
1 God Is Love: The Reign of the Father 169
2 God Is Our Righteousness: The Reign of the Son 172
3 God Is Eternal Life: the Koinonia in the Spirit of the Father and the Son 186
Abbreviations 193
Bibliography 197
