Abstract

POTGIETER, Raymond. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel's religious antecedents as legitimising a Christian faith expression. In Skriflig (Online) [online]. 2014, vol.48, n.1, pp.01-08. ISSN 2305-0853.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel's depth theology model is a theology of the act of believing. It emerges from the Chasidic expression of Judaism founded during the Enlightenment period. A modern approach is to profile God according to circumstances as a prerequisite to believing. The uniqueness of this Jewish concept of faith is come to in an indirect way. Heschel argues from antecedents to believing in order to establish faith's credibility. This is done, not by emphasising content of belief in the first instance, but on awareness of reality at its fullest expression. This approach could be seriously considered as establishing grounds towards credible Christian faith expressing a living testimony. It could also serve as an ecumenical bridge between Jewish and Christian religions in their sharing of commonalities of the basics of what constitutes legitimate faith.

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