Abstract

This dissertation seeks to demonstrate the priority of the rule of God in determining the structure, development, and tenor of H. Richard Niebuhr's mature thought. ;From its rise in the mid-thirties through Niebuhr's theocentric re-interpretation of the Social Gospel conception of the Kingdom of God, and its exploration through motifs of divine determinism and divine revolution, the priority of the rule of God in Jesus Christ came to dominate the structure and temper of Niebuhr's developing thought. ;Niebuhr was thereby led to construe faith, history, and ethics in a distinctive triadic relationship: strategic theory of history as an expression of faith and aid to the guidance of life. The interpretation of faith as trust and loyalty in the Divine Commonwealth, of historicity as strategic mediation of faith and ethics in orienting to the Divine Revolution, and of ethical responsibility as response to the rule of God in the present, emerged as the major conceptual elements employed by Niebuhr to render the character of radically social and historical cultural existence under the rule of God. ;Jesus Christ, understood as transformer of faith, cultural tradition, and ethical responsibility, remained the mediatorial focussing point for Niebuhr's transformationist vision under the tutelage of the priority of the rule of God. Christ as present Lord engenders trust in God and loyalty to God's cause, the Kingdom of God, as well as opening up the gift of Catholic Vision; Christ as focussing point in the divine-human drama continually transforms our patterns of historical interpretation and cultural loyalty, encouraging theocentric relationalism and social existentialism; Christ as pioneer of representative responsibility mediates in the Christian community's pioneer leadership in responsibility to God for society. The priority of the rule of God in all things is constantly reasserted in Jesus Christ. ;Niebuhr's notion of defensiveness as the abandonment of fundamental trust in God illumines the theological difficulties of the late Niebuhr, as well as the idolatrous perversions of faith, historical orientation, and cultural responsibility which Niebuhr never tires of rooting out under the tutelage of the priority of the rule of God in all things