(ENTIRE BOOK) Birch holds that post-modern scientific materialism is insufficient to explain the world. He proposes an ecological model in which all entities, from protons to humans, are ultimately related. Only this, he says, can deal adequately with the post modern world.
Haught criticizes the current rash of athiest books as amateurish. Belief in God may not be necessary in order for people to be highly moral beings, but the real question is: Can you rationally justify your unconditional adherence to timeless values without implicitly invoking the existence of God?
‘Tolerance’ is too often a vehicle for condemning those who demand that their differences be taken seriously.
The author considers apocaplypticism as it appears in Hegel's system and in current philosophy and theology, particularly that of D.G. Leahy who poses an ultimate challenge to both Catholicism and to Christianity itself. Altizer holds that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet who proclaimed and enacted the dawning of the Kingdom of God, and that there is a comparable dawning in modern thinking which calls for a transformation of and a break from the old aeon or old world.
The author, who identifies himself as a "postliberal," and answers a number of questions about what postliberalism is and what it is not.
In the middle two quarters of the 20th century, a drastically reductionist way of thinking became the bottom line against which everything was measured. If there was one intellectual development in living memory that separates the "grandparent" from the "parent" generation of British theology, it was the rise of logical positivism and analytical philosophy.
There are institutional challenges to British theology to be met if the delicate ecology of theology and religious studies is not to succumb to the commodification of education, to ideologies with no room for theology (least of all for its celebratory mode), or to absorption in a range of other disciplines.
Beginning about 1965, the questions of intelligibility and credibility that had dominated the liberal theological agenda and the questions of continuity with the tradition that had dominated the Neo-orthodox one gave way to issues of praxis. What effect does Christological affirmations have on behavior? The author discusses four basic responses that emerged in the late 20th century.
(ENTIRE BOOK) Has Christianity anything to say in this secular age? Dr. Geering examines two of the most misunderstood areas -- the nature of the Bible, and the relation of Christian faith to science -- and affirms that Christ is completely relevant to the modern world.
Cobb reviews the theological tradition of European thought, particularly the Thomists, Nietzsche and Kant, then considers the theologians of the past century, including of Maritain, Tillich, Moltmann, Rahner and Teilhard de Chardin. However, he believes that whereas European apologetic theology responded brilliantly to the intellectual challenges of the twentieth century world, it is not so well positioned to respond to the challenges that now face us, and he gives three reasons.
"The death of God" movement has proved a liberating and stimulating religious event. It is still the decisive theological event of our time.
The theme of "givenness" is central to the thought of Jean-Luc Marion, and his book, Being Give:Towards a Phenomenology of Givenness, stands as the summation of his thinking to date.
The author asks editors and writers to clarify what they mean by "postliberal."
Gustafson assesses the adequacy and inadequacy of Placher's answers to questions that he--Gustafson--put in his original article about postliberalism.
The book review about the era of the Enlightenment and almost 40 skeptics or atheists, most of whom were unable to exorcise religion completely from their minds and psyches.
Dr Altizer is offered the opportunity to review his own book. He enters the game with gusto. Writing in the third person, his criticism is sweeping as he critically reassesses not only this book but several other of his own works as well, yet preserving the arguments.
In this interview, Nicholas Lash speaks of God along with comments on modalism, tritheism, the "end of religion," Aquinas, Marxism, ecumenism, interpreting scripture, methods of teaching, Joseph Ratzinger and post-Christian culture.
The author reviews three books by John Milbank who calls his theme "Radical Orthodoxy." At the heart of Milbank’s work is the premise that modernity has ended and with it all systems of truth based on universal reason. He sees it as the opportunity for Christian theology to reclaim its own voice.
Secularism is not so much a philosophy as the pre-rational basis of all potent contemporary philosophies. Four terms seem to be helpful in describing it secularism: naturalism, temporalism, relativism and autonomy. Theology must reflect the secular consciousness of our time if it is to be relevant. This means that whatever language it uses must be both discovered in and related to the experiences of man’s natural, temporal and communal life in this world.
Can Protestant theology be catholic?
Death-of-God theology has not disappeared at all; it has simply been transformed. It has entered mainstream theology. Hamilton believes that the death of God, rather than rendering Jesus superfluous, makes him all the more indispensable.
There is no reason to give up a strong suspicion that the reality of both ourselves and the cosmic context in which we find ourselves is far richer than we know and doubtless contains dimensions of which we have only scratched the surface.
Open theists contend that God cannot know the future of free moral agents not because God lacks the knowledge or power or cognitive ability, but because the future of such free agents does not exist as an object to be known.
Where fantasy tends to split apart social worlds and to open up a Pandora’s box of illusions, imagination fosters the growth of a common self-understanding. The aesthetic dimension of all theologizing is grossly overplayed when it implies a retreat from intelligibility or consistency. The distinction between a theology of the imagination and a theology of the fantastic parallels that between art and mere self-expression.
This is the second of two articles on postliberalism. (See Gary Dorrien, The Origins of Postliberalism, July 4-11, 2001): What does it mean to say Christianity is "true"? That question has surrounded much of the discussion of postliberalism.
Dr. Altizer considers this essay, written in 1997, to be the best summary of his theological position.
This is the first of two articles on postliberalism. The next article will appear in the issue of July 18-25 (see Gary Dorrien, The Future of Postliberalism.): Here is a theology that aims to be neither conservative nor liberal, and offers fresh approaches to scripture and Christian life.
The death of God’s Christ is in part God’s atonement to his creatures for evil. The ancient doctrine of divine impassibility and immutability has been largely rejected by contemporary theologians -- and the ancient theopaschite heresy that God suffers has, in fact, become the new orthodoxy.
(ENTIRE BOOK) Essays from a wide range of scholars in a thoughtful attempt to understand and clarify Thomas Altizer’s "Death of God" theology, including serious critical statements, followed by Altizer’s responses.
(ENTIRE BOOK) The certainties of Christianity’s past have gone, and we are caught up in a process of cultural change more rapid and widespread than ever before in human history. We have entered a post-Christian era. The transition from the Christian era of the past to that of the future is the subject of this book.
There is an absence of a systematic theology/philosophy of religious humanism. Unfortunately, religious humanism has not yet found a Barth to articulate its inner logic. Nor can we identify a concrete culture or historical era in the West in which humanism was in command.
Theology in Britain is in many respects very different from that in the U.S., and its distinctiveness is one of the reasons for the U.S. interest. In general, the two leading moods in British theological discourse generally have been the indicative (this is what is believed, affirmed) and the imperative (this is what should be done).
We are seeing a shift of world history to a new center around the Pacific basin. What hopeful implications does that have for theology in the next century? It opens up the possibility of a liberation from the dominance of Mediterranean and European habits of thought without a loss of the achievements of these traditions. Dr. Cobb suggests implications for religious pluralism, the relationship of science and religion, the character of postmodern thought, and the construction of a postmodern theology.
It remains an urgent task to travel the road toward a theology of the religions -- which would have to include atheism among its concerns -- in such a way that the christological particula exclusiva would not be misused in order to make a claim for the absoluteness of Christianity.
In this interview David Hart speaks about evil and its place in the world that God created. He concludes that at the heart of the problem, suffering is a resolute insistence upon and adoration of the imperishable goodness of creation.
Troeltsch was very attracted to mysticism, but he knew that religion would die without symbol, cult and myth, and that it would grow impotent without institutions.