Modern Protestant theology has tended to shun metaphysics. The philosophical underpinnings of our theological traditions have cracked under the weight of modern scrutiny. Robert Jenson is a theologian who has embraced the critique of inherited metaphysics
Modern Protestant theology has tended to shun metaphysics. The philosophical underpinnings of our theological traditions have cracked under the weight of modern scrutiny. Robert Jenson is a theologian who has embraced the critique of inherited metaphysics, but who then finds contained within the gospel itself the basis for further and more specific critiques: the story of Jesus of Nazareth. Jenson argues that the appropriate response of theology to the contemporary situation is not to reject metaphysics, but to develop new and more radical metaphysical proposals. For several decades now, he has been pursuing a theological program of "revisionary metaphysics"--an attempt to speak about the gospel in a society more and more characterized by epistemological disquiet. Gathered together in this volume is a collection of his proposals for theology laboring under this task of revisionary metaphysics.
Insofar as Christian theology aims to make truthful claims about the nature of reality, it is necessarily involved in the enterprise of metaphysics. Pentecostals, precisely as Christians, are thus obliged to participate. Through this study it becomes evident that pentecostals aim to participate in the metaphysical discipline in the same way they theologize - that is, informed by the norms, practices, and speech acts that constitute their spirituality. This book aims to construct a Christian metaphysics that is at once attuned to pentecostal spirituality/theology and informed by the classical tradition of Christian metaphysics. Ultimately, this work offers a constructive and critical engagement with pentecostal spirituality, and with pentecostal theology via the larger ecumenical, creedal, and dogmatic metaphysical tradition. Thus, this book is explicitly and intentionally limited to understand metaphysics in conversation with the historical Christian tradition, and to understand a pentecostal vision of it.
This is a print on demand book and is therefore non- returnable. This collection of twenty-two essays considers a broad range of themes that lie at the intersection of culture and theology: the arts, language, politics, and liberal education. One theme especially prominent in these pieces is the use of nihilism and its political manifestations as fascism as chief culture-diagnostic categories. Taken together, these compelling pieces offer important insight into where society has been, where it is today, and where it is headed.
Southwestern Journal of Theology 2021 Book of the Year Award (Theological Studies) 2021 Book Award, The Gospel Coalition (Honorable Mention, Academic Theology) Following his well-received Interpreting Scripture with the Great Tradition, Craig Carter presents the biblical and theological foundations of trinitarian classical theism. Carter, a leading Christian theologian known for his provocative defenses of classical approaches to doctrine, critiques the recent trend toward modifying or rejecting classical theism in favor of modern "relational" understandings of God. The book includes a short history of trinitarian theology from its patristic origins to the modern period, and a concluding appendix provides a brief summary of classical trinitarian theology. Foreword by Carl R. Trueman.
There has been a recent revival of interest in the doctrine of divine simplicity in systematic and philosophical theology, following decades of intense reflection on the tri-personhood of the Christian God. While recent studies have produced a greater appreciation of patristic and scholastic theologies, they have not yet engaged in dialogue with proponents of the trinitarian revival that emerged in the latter half of the twentieth century in anything other than polemical terms. This book offers a theological defense of the doctrine of divine simplicity through careful reading of both exemplary historical theologians and Robert W. Jenson, an important American contributor to the trinitarian revival. After tracing continuities and discontinuities amongst select historical theologians, the book approaches Jenson with a multivalent account of divine simplicity. The result is a more nuanced interpretation of Jenson’s theology, an account of divine simplicity that responds to perceived problems, and new constructive proposals for divine simplicity in trinitarian theology.
Jordan Senner captures the systematic shape, logic, and development of his thought from the vantage point of the God-creature relation. Webster's development is depicted in terms of three phases – Christocentric, Trinitarian, and Theocentric – culminating in a conceptual analysis of three key aspects of his mature theology: his doctrine of divine perfection, theory of mixed relations, and concept of dual causality. Senner illustrates this heuristic framework for interpreting Webster's theology through an exploration of different aspects of his account of the God-creature relation: Christology (hypostatic relation), ecclesiology (redemptive relation), bibliology (communicative relation), and theological theology (rational relation). This volume not only provides a dynamic introduction to Webster's theology as a whole, but it also includes fascinating forays into the complexities of Webster's engagement with Barth and Aquinas, raising interesting questions for constructive theological dialogue that is neither straightforwardly Protestant nor Catholic.
Some have said the America is the most religious industrialized country in the world.6 The power of politics driven at least in part by religious concerns was demonstrated dramatically in the November election. But are people at this grassroots level- the ones most likely to suffer the consequences of political deafness regarding climate change- do they really understand the truth of the approaching environmental storm? If not, perhaps they will best learn new ways of thinking (and living) from those whom they hold in highest regard, their religious leaders, thinkers, teachers, writers and communicators. With "The Greening of Religion" we hope to have added to a life-saving public conversation, perhaps even started some conversations. And we hope those conversations will lead to actions which can shelter us from the inevitable, and perhaps turn us from calamity, even here at the last minute.
This author presents new metaphysics with a genealogy based on counter-intuition and locates counter-intuition and complexity at the foundations of truth. This book stimulates future philosophical and religious discussion.
After the birth of the Protestant ecumenical movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and following the first great wave of universal Christian ecumenism in the 1960s and 1970s after the Second Vatican Council, prominent theologians of nearly every ecclesial tradition charted new territory in the last decades of the twentieth century. They crossed boundaries within their own ecclesial traditions and built bridges to other Christian churches--churches that were once excluded from fellowship. In the development of these new programs of ecumenical theology, the theologians redefined their own confessional identities and, in many cases, crossed the liberal-conservative divide within their own traditions. This volume introduces this fascinating dynamic of theological mediation, redefinition, and generosity. It shows how the ecumenical impulses, which were directed outwardly to other traditions, had reflexive effects inwardly. Working in the realms of both historical and systematic theology, the essays in this volume provide a critical analysis of the history of this general theological sentiment and offer an outlook for its future. Contributors Brian D. McLaren, Foreword Paul Silas Peterson, Introduction Part One: Ecumenical reform theologies Andrew Meszaros, Yves Congar: The Birth of "Catholic Ecumenism" Matthew L. Becker, Edmund Schlink: Ecumenical Theology Dorothea Sattler, Otto Hermann Pesch: Ecumenical Scholasticism Ronald T. Michener, George Lindbeck: Ecumenical Unity through Ecclesial Particularity Nikolaos Asproulis, John D. Zizioulas: A Pioneer of Ecumenical Dialogue and Christian Unity Part Two: Overcoming liberal-conservative polarities Ben Fulford, Hans Frei: Beyond Liberal and Conservative Friederike Nussel, Wolfhart Pannenberg: Liberal Orthodoxy Jay T. Smith, Stanley J. Grenz: The Evangelical Turn to Postliberal Theological Method Part Three: Boundary crossings in philosophical, systematic and ethical theology William E. Myatt, David Tracy: Difference, Unity, and the Analogical Imagination Christophe Chalamet, Robert Jenson: God's Way and the Ways of the Church Victoria Lorrimar, Stanley Hauerwas: Witnessing Communities of Character Christine M. Helmer, Marilyn McCord Adams: Philosophy, Theology, and Prayer Part Four: Ecumenical theology today Wolfgang Vonday, Pentecostalism and Christian Orthodoxy: Revision, Revival, and Renewal Johanna Rahner, Shifting Paradigms - Future Ecumenical Challenges Michael Amaladoss, Theology today in India: Ecumenical or interreligious? Bernd Oberdorfer, Next Steps - and Visions? Lutheran Perspectives on Doctrinal Ecumenism