The Presence of the Kingdom in the light of the Speech Act Theory (SAT) : an ethical inquiry

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis relates Christian ethics to the presence of the kingdom of God in Jesus' sayings and to its real meaning and application by reconsidering the religious language of the kingdom of God from the perspective of the Speech Act Theory (SAT). In SAT, the Christian ethical approach to the presence of the kingdom in Jesus' sayings is not only aimed at reconstructing meanings of the ethics of the kingdom in the form of a propositional morality theme. It also aims at reconstructing the Christian life as the performance of the ethics of the kingdom in daily life, that is, in terms of the presence of God's kingdom in Jesus' utterances and its witness. Christians do not merely assert certain facts about God's sovereignty or God's kingdom; they address God in the act of committing themselves to God's kingdom and applying their minds to its righteousness. Since Christian ethics depends on the message of the kingdom proclaimed by Jesus, the essence of interpretation in Christian ethics is therefore to recognize the illocutionary act in the Bible. In SAT, only illocution is able to determine meaning and to act. It also creates the perlocutionary act as an appropriate response in the believer such as trust or obedience. The living Triune God is still speaking to us through Scripture – not in past stories but in the present in order to fulfil God's will and God's kingdom. This indicates that Jesus' preaching about the kingdom of God focuses on what we should do or how we should live as Christians. The Bible is not supposed to be interpreted only in an academic context but should also be performed by the people of God. Consequently, the Christian community should try to discover the momentum and function of the text in order to build up the people of God to live in the world and to participate in the activities of the kingdom of God, not as spectators but as active participants in the present world. It also tells us who God is, and how we ought to live in relation to that God. Christian communities are called to institute policies that alter the settings in which the interpretation of Scripture takes place. In this way, Christian ethics can map out a new moral sensibility and specific directions through the presence of the kingdom of God in the light of SAT.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University