On Tragedy and Transcendence

On Tragedy and Transcendence PDF Author: Khegan M. Delport
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1532697767
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
From the time of Plato’s proposed expulsion of the poets, tragedy has repeatedly proposed a challenge to philosophical and theological certainties. This is apparent already in early Christianity amongst leading figures during the patristic age. But this raises the question: Why was the theme of tragedy still accepted and deployed throughout the history of Christianity nevertheless? Is this merely an accident or is there something more substantial at play? Can Christian theology take the tragic seriously? Must Christianity ultimately deny the tragic to be coherent, or might it be able to sustain its negativity? Some like George Steiner, David Bentley Hart, and John Milbank have doubts about such a coherency, but others think differently. This book aims to examine this debate, laying out the lines of disagreement and continuing tensions. Through a critical examination of the work of Donald MacKinnon and the eminent Christian thinker Rowan Williams, the book aims to show that there is a path for reconciling the claims of Christian orthodoxy and the experience of tragedy, one that is able to maintain a metaphysical foundation for both real transcendence and unfolding historicity, without denying either.

On Tragedy and Transcendence

On Tragedy and Transcendence PDF Author: Khegan M. Delport
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1532697767
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
From the time of Plato’s proposed expulsion of the poets, tragedy has repeatedly proposed a challenge to philosophical and theological certainties. This is apparent already in early Christianity amongst leading figures during the patristic age. But this raises the question: Why was the theme of tragedy still accepted and deployed throughout the history of Christianity nevertheless? Is this merely an accident or is there something more substantial at play? Can Christian theology take the tragic seriously? Must Christianity ultimately deny the tragic to be coherent, or might it be able to sustain its negativity? Some like George Steiner, David Bentley Hart, and John Milbank have doubts about such a coherency, but others think differently. This book aims to examine this debate, laying out the lines of disagreement and continuing tensions. Through a critical examination of the work of Donald MacKinnon and the eminent Christian thinker Rowan Williams, the book aims to show that there is a path for reconciling the claims of Christian orthodoxy and the experience of tragedy, one that is able to maintain a metaphysical foundation for both real transcendence and unfolding historicity, without denying either.

Boundless Innocence in Thomas Traherne's Poetic Theology

Boundless Innocence in Thomas Traherne's Poetic Theology PDF Author: Elizabeth S. Dodd
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317172930
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
The seventeenth-century poet and divine Thomas Traherne finds innocence in every stage of existence. He finds it in the chaos at the origins of creation as well as in the blessed order of Eden. He finds it in the activities of grace and the hope of glory, but also in the trials of misery and even in the abyss of the Fall. Boundless Innocence in Thomas Traherne’s Poetic Theology traces innocence through Traherne’s works as it transgresses the boundaries of the estates of the soul. Using grammatical and literary categories it explores various aspects of his poetic theology of innocence, uncovering the boundless desire which is embodied in the yearning cry: ’Were all Men Wise and Innocent...’ Recovering and reinterpreting a key but increasingly neglected theme in Traherne’s poetic theology, this book addresses fundamental misconceptions of the meaning of innocence in his work. Through a contextual and theological approach, it indicates the unexplored richness, complexity and diversity of this theme in the history of literature and theology.

Narrative Theology and Moral Theology

Narrative Theology and Moral Theology PDF Author: Alexander Lucie-Smith
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317090454
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
Moral thinking today finds itself stranded between the particular and the universal. Alasdair MacIntyre's work on narrative, discussed here along with that of Stanley Hauerwas and H. T. Engelhardt, aims to undo the perceived damage done by the Enlightenment by returning to narrative and abandoning the illusion of a disembodied reason that claims to be able to give a coherent explanation for everything. It is precisely this - a theory that holds good for all cases - that John Rawls proposed, drawing on the heritage of Emmanuel Kant. Who is right? Must universality be abandoned? Must we only think about morality in terms that are relative, bound by space and time? Alexander Lucie-Smith attempts to answer these questions by examining the nature of narrative itself as well as the particular narratives of Rawls and St Augustine. Bound and rooted as they are in history and personal experience, narratives nevertheless strain at the limits imposed on them. It is Lucie-Smith's contention that each narrative that points to a lived morality exists against the background of an infinite horizon, and thus it is that the particular and the rooted can also make us aware of the universal and unchanging.

Theodicy

Theodicy PDF Author: Jill Graper Hernandez
Publisher: MDPI
ISBN: 3038972282
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 190

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Book Description
The problem of evil has vexed for centuries: is pain and suffering in the world consistent with the existence of God? Theodicy attempts to demonstrate or explain why the answer could be ‘yes’. Some think that the problem of evil was solved a long time ago, but theodicy in the 21st-century has thus far produced novel approaches, uncovered new dilemmas, juxtaposed itself with other philosophical and religious fields, listened to new voices, and has even been explored through uncommon methodologies. This is a new era of, and for, theodicy. Though never removed from the logical problem of evil, theodicy at least in the near future will generate unique arguments related to the phenomenology of lived suffering, modal claims across worlds, the possibility of ameliorative analysis, narrative theodicy, and standpoint difficulties in generating theodical discourse. This special issue is dedicated to extending the platform for clear and interesting perspectives on new dimensions of theodicy, and in reclaiming perspectives on the problem of evil that have been largely ignored in philosophy of religion.

God's Wounds

God's Wounds PDF Author: Jeff B Pool
Publisher: James Clarke & Company
ISBN: 0227903153
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 544

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Book Description
God's Wounds: Hermeneutic of the Christian Symbol of Divine Suffering, Volume II: Evil and Divine Suffering is the second of a three-volume study of Christian testimonies to divine suffering. The larger study focuses its inquiry on the testimonies to divine suffering themselves, seeking to allow the voices that attest to divine suffering to speak freely. The goal is then to discover and elucidate the internal logic or rationality of this family of testimonies, rather than defending these attestations against the dominant claims of classical Christian theism that have historically sought to eliminate such language altogether from Christian discourse about the nature and life of God. This second volume proceeds on the basis of the presuppositions of the symbol, those implicit attestations that permit the possibility of divine suffering - that which constitutes divine vulnerability with respect to creation. The author investigates two divine wounds or modes of divine suffering to which the larger family of testimonies normally attest: (1) divine grief, or suffering due to human sin or betrayal by the beloved human; and (2) divine self-sacrifice, or suffering for the beloved human in its bondage to sin or misery, so as to establish the possibility of redemption and reconciliation.

Evil after Postmodernism

Evil after Postmodernism PDF Author: Jennifer Geddes
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135127190
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 134

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Book Description
These six essays form a stimulating and lucid investigation of the meaning of evil in the light of postmodern thought, and of the cultural and social changes of the modern age. They consider subjects such as the war in Bosnia, AIDS, and the Holocaust.

Unbridled

Unbridled PDF Author: William Robert
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226816893
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 175

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Book Description
A study of religion through the lens of Peter Shaffer’s play Equus. In Unbridled, William Robert uses Equus, Peter Shaffer’s enigmatic play about a boy passionately devoted to horses, to think differently about religion. For several years, Robert has used Equus to introduce students to the study of religion, provoking them to conceive of religion in unfamiliar, even uncomfortable ways. In Unbridled, he is inviting readers to do the same. A play like Equus tangles together text, performance, practice, embodiment, and reception. Studying a play involves us in playing different roles, as ourselves and others, and those roles, as well as the imaginative work they require, are critical to the study of religion. By approaching Equus with the reader, turning the play around and upside-down, Unbridled transforms standard approaches to the study of religion, engaging with themes including ritual, sacrifice, worship, power, desire, violence, and sexuality, as well as thinkers including Judith Butler, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Jonathan Z. Smith. As Unbridled shows, the way themes and theories play out in Equus challenges us to reimagine the study of religion through open questions, contrasting perspectives, and alternative modes of interpretation and appreciation.

Encountering Cruelty: The Fracture of the Human Heart

Encountering Cruelty: The Fracture of the Human Heart PDF Author: Michael R. Trice
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004205594
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 446

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Book Description
Interest in recent years in reconciliation and conflict transformation has witnessed a great deal of attention to building a future through forgiveness and preventative measures in order to impede egregious wrongdoing. This effort for a reconciled future is absent reflection on the nature of cruelty. Cruelty has always been apparent in massive acts of wrongdoing and yet is repeatedly concealed in our assessment of the acts themselves. This book is a theologically honest and deep-structure exploration of cruelty in its personal, communal and institutional encounters in human life. Drawing on Nietzsche's challenge of cruelty to the western tradition, the work offers a comprehensive study of how cruelty undermines care, trust, respect and justice – all those elements of human reciprocity that mark our lives as interdependent beings. The work concludes with a tightly written Epilogue on interpreting the theological meaning and accessibility of reconciliation today.

(God) After Auschwitz

(God) After Auschwitz PDF Author: Zachary Braiterman
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691059411
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
The impact of technology-enhanced mass death in the twentieth century, argues Zachary Braiterman, has profoundly affected the future shape of religious thought. In his provocative book, the author shows how key Jewish theologians faced the memory of Auschwitz by rejecting traditional theodicy, abandoning any attempt to justify and vindicate the relationship between God and catastrophic suffering. The author terms this rejection "Antitheodicy," the refusal to accept that relationship. It finds voice in the writings of three particular theologians: Richard Rubenstein, Eliezer Berkovits, and Emil Fackenheim. This book is the first to bring postmodern philosophical and literary approaches into conversation with post-Holocaust Jewish thought. Drawing on the work of Mieke Bal, Harold Bloom, Jacques Derrida, Umberto Eco, Michel Foucault, and others, Braiterman assesses how Jewish intellectuals reinterpret Bible and Midrash to re-create religious thought for the age after Auschwitz. In this process, he provides a model for reconstructing Jewish life and philosophy in the wake of the Holocaust. His work contributes to the postmodern turn in contemporary Jewish studies and today's creative theology.

The Place of Judas Iscariot in Christology

The Place of Judas Iscariot in Christology PDF Author: Anthony Cane
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1351884182
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
Exploring the significance of Judas Iscariot for Christian theology and the difficult issues surrounding Judas, Anthony Cane shows that focusing on the tension between providential and tragic interpretations of Judas in the New Testament and in subsequent writing about Judas, is the key to understanding his significance. Building on the work of Karl Barth and Donald MacKinnon, Cane's argument sheds light not simply on the way Judas is understood, but on the way Jesus and the whole economy of salvation are understood. This book also highlights implications for the way in which issues relating to anti-Semitism and evil and suffering are most effectively explored.