Defense Date
4-7-2015
Graduation Date
Spring 2015
Availability
Immediate Access
Submission Type
thesis
Degree Name
MA
Department
Theology
School
McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts
Committee Chair
Sebastian Madathummuriyil
Committee Member
Radu Bordeianu
Keywords
Body of Christ, Church, Ecclesiology, Lumen Gentium, Temple of the Holy Spirit, Theophany
Abstract
The Vatican II document, Lumen Gentium, holds multiple images of the Church in tension and was greatly informed by two ecclesiological models: The Church as Sacrament and eucharistic ecclesiology. This thesis explores the Church as a community of theophany as a model that is not only in harmony with Lumen Gentium, but finds a helpful cohesion of its images. An early New Testament and patristic christology understood Jesus to be the ultimate theophany of God. The Church, as the body of Christ shares and perpetuates this embodied theophany into the world. Luke's Pentecost narrative has been read as the descent of the eschatological Temple in which the theophanic Spirit dwells. The Church is thus constituted by the theophany of the Holy Spirit. It is suggested, therefore, that the Church as a theophanic community is a synthesis of the Church's christological and pneumatological constitution.
Format
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Levis, D. (2015). The Church as a Theophanic Community (Master's thesis, Duquesne University). Retrieved from https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/821