Negative theology is the attempt to describe God by speaking in terms of what God is not. Historical affinities between Jewish modernity and negative theology indicate new directions for thematizing the modern Jewish experience. Questions such as, What are the limits of Jewish modernity in terms of negativity? Has this creative tradition exhausted itself? and How might Jewish thought go forward? anchor these original essays. Taken together they explore the roots and legacies of negative theology in Jewish thought, examine the viability and limits of theorizing the modern Jewish experience as negative theology, and offer a fresh perspective from which to approach Jewish intellectual history.

All arts and sciences, in their own way, ultimately try to come to grips with reality. What sets philosophy, theology and religion apart is that they grapple with ultimate reality. Over the decades spanned by John Hick's life, in the course of this grappling (reminiscent of Jacob's nocturnal encounter with the angel) philosophy became analytic, theology dialogical and religion comparative along one line of development. In these essays, written in honour of Professor Hick, leading world scholars in these fields share their most recent insights. They are, so to speak, postcards from the cutting edge.

This book focuses on the work of Mircea Eliade, taking a methodological concern, but also focusing on a wider concern, trying to indicate the many facets and implications of Eliade's scholarship as a historian of religions. Chapters two and three are concerned with the work of Eliade as a historian of religions, whereas chapter four examines the theological aspects of his work. After an examination of the human situation and his understanding of God, the book goes on to discover that the key to understanding Eliade's theological reflections is the role of nostalgia. As well as the theological aspects of Eliade's work, this book looks at his participation and contribution to cross-cultural dialogue, his theory of myth, his theory of archaic ontology, his concept of power and his views on time from the perspective of his roles as both a historian of religions and a literary figure.

Claude Lacaille witnessed up close the oppression and poverty in Haiti, Ecuador, and Chile where dictators and predatory imperialists ruled. Like other advocates of Liberation Theology, he saw it as his duty to join the resistance, particularly against Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet. But the dictators were not alone, as they often enjoyed the support of the Vatican, sometimes tacit, but then brazenly open under Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. He began writing this book in Chile where thousands shed blood simply because they defended victims of dictatorship, opposed rapacious policies and economic doctrines, consoled the downtrodden, and breathed new hope and courage into a people who desperately needed it. These men and women remain an inspiration for those who still believe in a better world. This is the story of Claude Lacaille's experience from 1965 through 1986 in the slums and squats in the Caribbean and South America and also what it really means to have a preferential option for the poor. His book shows how liberation theology and spirituality enkindled the life and the work of an ordinary Quebec missionary.

Negative theology is the attempt to describe God by speaking in terms of what God is not. Historical affinities between Jewish modernity and negative theology indicate new directions for thematizing the modern Jewish experience. Questions such as, What are the limits of Jewish modernity in terms of negativity? Has this creative tradition exhausted itself? and How might Jewish thought go forward? anchor these original essays. Taken together they explore the roots and legacies of negative theology in Jewish thought, examine the viability and limits of theorizing the modern Jewish experience as negative theology, and offer a fresh perspective from which to approach Jewish intellectual history.

Reimagining Nature is a new introduction to the fast developing area of natural theology, written by one of the world s leading theologians. The text engages in serious theological dialogue whilst looking at how past developments might illuminate and inform theory and practice in the present. * This text sets out to explore what a properly Christian approach to natural theology might look like and how this relates to alternative interpretations of our experience of the natural world * Alister McGrath is ideally placed to write the book as one of the world s best known theologians and a chief proponent of natural theology * This new work offers an account of the development of natural theology throughout history and informs of its likely contribution in the present * This feeds in current debates about the relationship between science and religion, and religion and the humanities * Engages in serious theological dialogue, primarily with Augustine, Aquinas, Barth and Brunner, and includes the work of natural scientists, philosophers of science, and poets

"Radical theology" and "political theology" are terms that have gained a lot of currency among philosophers of religion today. In this visionary new book, Jeffrey W. Robbins explores the contemporary direction of these movements as he charts a course for their future. Robbins claims that radical theology is no longer bound by earlier thinking about God and that it must be conceived of as postsecular and postliberal. As he engages with themes of liberation, gender, and race, Robbins moves beyond the usual canon of death-of-God thinkers, thinking "against" them as much as "with" them. He presents revolutionary thinking in the face of changing theological concepts, from reformation to transformation, transcendence to immanence, messianism to metamorphosis, and from the proclamation of the death of God to the notion of God's plasticity.

No other theological text polarized the early modern Catholic world as much as Cornelius Jansen's Augustinus. In it the erudite bishop not only reconstructed St. Augustine's teaching on grace and free will, but also threw down the gauntlet to the Council of Trent and the Society of Jesus. For Jansen the latter had marginalized the Church Father's doctrine on divine predestination by overemphasizing human free will. Published after his death in 1640, Jansen's work drew a large crowd of followers and inspired an Augustinian reform movement. Its papal condemnation unintentionally spread this theology, but stifled an impassionate, academic engagement with the Augustinus. This first-ever translation of some of its central chapters enables historians, philosophers and theologians to finally engage with the founding text of Jansenism.

The forgotten legacy of religious Jewish anarchism, and the adventures and ideas of its key figures, finally comes to light in this book. Set in the decades surrounding both world wars, No masters but God identifies a loosely connected group of rabbis and traditionalist thinkers who explicitly appealed to anarchist ideas in articulating the meaning of the Torah, traditional practice, Jewish life and the mission of modern Jewry. Full of archival discoveries and first translations from Yiddish and Hebrew, it explores anarcho-Judaism in its variety through the works of Yaakov Meir Zalkind, Yitshak Nahman Steinberg, Yehudah Leyb Don-Yahiya, Avraham Yehudah Heyn, Natan Hofshi, Shmuel Alexandrov, Yehudah Ashlag and Aaron Shmuel Tamaret. With this ground-breaking account, Hayyim Rothman traces a complicated story about the modern entanglement of religion and anarchism, pacifism and Zionism, prophetic anti-authoritarianism and mystical antinomianism. -- .

John Hick is one of the most widely read and discussed living writers in modern theology and the philosophy of religion. This reader collects together individual chapters on each major aspect of his thought from a variety of sources. Themes include faith and knowledge, philosophy of religion, evil and the God of love, death and eternal life, the myth of God incarnate and the problems of religious pluralism. The extracts are preceded by an introductory essay on his philosophical theology and on the integrity of his life and thought.;Paul Badham has also had published "Christian Beliefs about Life After Death", "Immortality or Extinction?", "Death and Immortality in the Religions of the World"; "Religion, State and Society in Modern Britain" and "Ethics at the Frontiers of Human Existence".

John Hick is one of the most widely read and discussed living writers in modern theology and the philosophy of religion. This reader collects together individual chapters on each major aspect of his thought from a variety of sources. Themes include faith and knowledge, philosophy of religion, evil and the God of love, death and eternal life, the myth of God incarnate and the problems of religious pluralism. The extracts are preceded by an introductory essay on his philosophical theology and on the integrity of his life and thought.;Paul Badham has also had published "Christian Beliefs about Life After Death", "Immortality or Extinction?", "Death and Immortality in the Religions of the World"; "Religion, State and Society in Modern Britain" and "Ethics at the Frontiers of Human Existence".

Sinceits founding by Jacques Waardenburg in 1971, Religion and Reason has been a leading forum for contributions on theories, theoretical issues and agendas related to the phenomenon and the study of religion. Topics include (among others) category formation, comparison, ethnophilosophy, hermeneutics, methodology, myth, phenomenology, philosophy of science, scientific atheism, structuralism, and theories of religion. From time to time the series publishes volumes that map the state of the art and the history of the discipline.

The man or woman of faith living in today's pluralist world must have a theology that will do justice to his or her own faith, and also to the neighbours' - and to the differences between them. Similarly, humanists must have a theory that does justice to their own vision and also to the fact that for most of their fellows on earth the proper way of being human has been one or another of various `religious' ways. Any interpretation of human history, both past and present, must take into serious account the self-consciousness of each major part, as well as the diversity and the dynamic of the whole. This exciting book, first published in 1981 and now also available in paperback, is perhaps our world's first serious endeavour towards a theology in global perspective. Here is a wrestling with the demands of an authentic theology of the comparative history of religion.

Islam as a religion and a way of life guides millions of people around the world and has a significant impact on worldly affairs. To many Muslims, however, a philosophical understanding or assessment of Islamic belief is seen as a feeble and religiously inappropriate attempt to understand matters that are beyond rational comprehension. Islam: A Contemporary Philosophical Investigation explores this issue in detail, by guiding readers through a careful study of the relationship between faith and reason in Islam. In particular, it pays close attention to religious objections to philosophizing about Islam, arguments for and against Islamic belief, and the rationality of Islamic belief in light of contemporary philosophical issues, such as problems of religious diversity, evil and religious doubt. This text is ideal for upper-level undergraduates and graduate students seeking an objective, philosophical introduction to Islam, a subject of increasing interest in classrooms around the world.

The interactions of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim communities through the centuries have often been hostile and sometimes violent. Today a new 'trialogue' between them is developing in several parts of the world. One of the most ambitious ventures so far of this kind took place recently in California and produced this set of exploratory papers and responses. The subjects are the concepts of God in the three traditions, their attitudes to the material world, and their understandings of human life and history. The discussions were frank and realistic but at the same time hopeful.

Thirty years ago, Alvin Plantinga gave a lecture called "Two Dozen (or so) Theistic Arguments," which served as an underground inspiration for two generations of scholars and students. In it, he proposed a number of novel and creative arguments for the existence of God which have yet to receive the attention they deserve. In Two Dozen (or so) Arguments for God, each of Plantinga's original suggestions, many of which he only briefly sketched, is developed in detail by a wide variety of accomplished scholars. The authors look to metaphysics, epistemology, semantics, ethics, aesthetics, and beyond, finding evidence for God in almost every dimension of reality. Those arguments new to natural theology are more fully developed, and well-known arguments are given new life. Not only does this collection present ground-breaking research, but it lays the foundations for research projects for years to come.

For decades, the multiple, interlocking forces of technological advances, neoliberal capitalism, and globalization have been transforming the very moral fabric and institutional underpinnings of global society. The effects of these challenges include soaring economic inequality, a widely experienced social fragmentation, and increasing disenchantment with liberal democracy and its social arrangements. This unraveling can be seen in the rise of illiberal democracy, a deepening ecological crisis, and failures of governance in coping with natural disasters and social tumults alike.In response to this crisis of democracy and eroding community, a growing number of people have been attracted to Saul D. Alinsky's grassroots method of community organizing. God and Community Organizing: A Covenantal Approach is written in this cultural milieu; it brings Alinsky's community organizing into conversation with the biblical vision of of covenant. Hak Joon Lee argues that, theologically, covenant reflects the life of the triune God who eternally organizes Godself as the Father, Son, and Spirit, while politically, covenant captures the inherent passion for justice that underlies Jewish and Christian faith. At its heart is the attempt to structure a wholesome, close-knit community of love, justice, and power. He points out that not only is covenant instrumental in the formation of God's people as a community, but the concept has also played an important role in the rise of modern Western ideas of democracy, constitutionalism, and human rights. To demonstrate the political plausibility of covenantal organizing, Lee incorporates four examples of covenantal organizing in different historical and social contexts: Exodus, Jesus, Puritans, and Martin Luther King Jr. Critically engaging with Saul Alinsky's method, Lee seeks to highlight how the two different streams of political praxis-covenantal organizing and Alinsky's community organizing-can complement each other to develop a more vigorous and effective method of faith-based community organizing. Finally, Lee explores the political and moral meanings and implications of his study for the current struggle against the neoliberal corporate oligarchy by presenting covenantal organizing as an alternative political philosophy and practice to secular liberal philosophy, postmodernism, identity politics, and communitarianism.

Sinceits founding by Jacques Waardenburg in 1971, Religion and Reason has been a leading forum for contributions on theories, theoretical issues and agendas related to the phenomenon and the study of religion. Topics include (among others) category formation, comparison, ethnophilosophy, hermeneutics, methodology, myth, phenomenology, philosophy of science, scientific atheism, structuralism, and theories of religion. From time to time the series publishes volumes that map the state of the art and the history of the discipline.

Feuerbachs "Theogonie" ist die Frucht sechsjahriger Studien, die er im Anschluss an die 1848/49 in Heidelberg gehaltenen "Vorlesungen uber das Wesen der Religion" begonnen hatte. Die Schrift vollendet seine philosophisch-anthropologische Theorie vom Wesen der Religion. Seine Religionsanalyse gelangt hier, unter philologisch meisterhafter Benutzung literarischer Zeugnisse des Altertums, zur Theorie des "theogonischen Wunsches": Die Vorstellungswelt der Religion wird als phantastische gedankliche Schopfung blossen menschlichen Wunschdenkens verstanden, das aus schmerzlich empfundener menschlicher Ohnmacht und Bedurftigkeit im irdischen Dasein entspringt. Damit wird die Religion, gleich welcher Erscheinungsform, ihrem Ursprunge nach als allusionarer Akt der Wunscherfullung begriffen; ihr wird ein ausschliesslich subjektiv-menschlicher Ursprung zuerkannt."

How do we remain faithful to and work within a Christian church that has been historically complicit in racism and that still exhibits racist actions in its communal life? While there have been numerous recent accounts addressing why the Christian church of the West is marked by racism and whiteness, there has been less attention given to how we reconcile the church's racial inequities with the belief that God works through God's people. In Bonhoeffer and the Racialized Church, Ross Halbach seeks to reframe the question within Dietrich Bonhoeffer's conception of the "ultimate and penultimate." Bonhoeffer's acute sense of God's continual speaking offers a prophetic challenge to the church: instead of masking the realities of racial sin or pursuing easy resolution, we must confront the full consequences of whiteness in repentant expectation of Christ's coming. Halbach places the writings of Bonhoeffer into dialogue with the contemporary writings of Willie Jennings, J. Kameron Carter, and Brian Bantum, allowing these various perspectives to augment one another. This approach gives new clarity to present theological discussions of race through a consideration of God's regenerative work. Discussions of race must move from seeking a diagnosis to exploring a dialogue that delves deeper into the issue. Racism is not a question to be answered but a resistance that hinders the church from hearing God's present call, which is given to the body of Christ through baptism and Eucharist. The church's response to God's call is found not in the assurance of a solution but in the obedient act of the church's participation with Christ in preparing the way for the church to hear how the triune God has already spoken and continues to speak today.

What is fashion? Where does it come from? Why has it come to permeate modern life? In the last half century, questions like these have drawn serious academic reflection, resulting in a new field of research - fashion studies - and generating a rich multidisciplinary discussion. Yet theology's voice has been conspicuously absent in this conversation. The time has finally come for theology to break her silence and join this decades-long conversation. Fashion Theology is the first of its kind: a serious and long-overdue account of the dynamic relationship between theology and fashion. Chronicling the epic journey from ancient Christian sources to current developments in fashion studies, cultural theologian Robert Covolo navigates the rich history of Christian thought as well as recent political, social, aesthetic, literary, and performance theory. Far from mere disparity or quick resolution, Covolo demonstrates that fashion and theology inhabit a mutual terrain that has, until recently, scarcely been imagined. Covolo retraces the way theologians have taken up fashion across history, unveiling how Christian thinkers have been fascinated with fashion well before the academy's current focus, and bringing these insights into the conversation with fashion itself: the logic by which fashion operates, how fashion shapes our world, and the way fashion imperceptibly molds our personal lives. Within fashion's realms reside some of life's greatest challenges: the foundations of political power, the basis for social order, the nature of aesthetics, how we inhabit time, and the means by which we tell stories about our lives - challenges, it turns out, that theologians also explore. Fashion favors the bold; theology demands humility. Holding the two together, Fashion Theology trailblazes an interdisciplinary path informed by a thoughtful engagement with the Christian witness. For those traversing this spectacle of unexpected crossroads and hotly contested terrain, the promise of fashion theology awaits with its myriad unexplored vistas.

Sinceits founding by Jacques Waardenburg in 1971, Religion and Reason has been a leading forum for contributions on theories, theoretical issues and agendas related to the phenomenon and the study of religion. Topics include (among others) category formation, comparison, ethnophilosophy, hermeneutics, methodology, myth, phenomenology, philosophy of science, scientific atheism, structuralism, and theories of religion. From time to time the series publishes volumes that map the state of the art and the history of the discipline.

Sinceits founding by Jacques Waardenburg in 1971, Religion and Reason has been a leading forum for contributions on theories, theoretical issues and agendas related to the phenomenon and the study of religion. Topics include (among others) category formation, comparison, ethnophilosophy, hermeneutics, methodology, myth, phenomenology, philosophy of science, scientific atheism, structuralism, and theories of religion. From time to time the series publishes volumes that map the state of the art and the history of the discipline.