Blessed Rage for Order
The New Pluralism in Theology
9780226811291
Blessed Rage for Order
The New Pluralism in Theology
In Blessed Rage for Order, David Tracy examines the cultural context in which theological pluralism emerged. Analyzing orthodox, liberal, neo-orthodox, and radical models of theology, Tracy formulates a new ’revisionist’ model. He considers which methods promise the most certain results for a revisionist theology and applies his model to the principal questions in contemporary theology, including the meanings of religion, theism, and of christology.
Table of Contents
Preface
Part I
1. The Pluralist Context of Contemporary Theology
Introduction: Pluralism and Revision
The Crisis of the Christian Theologian in the Modern World: the Disenchantment with Mystifications
The Crisis of the Modern Secular Mind: The Disenchantment with Disenchantment
2. Five Basic Models in Contemporary Theology
Introduction: The Needs for Models
Orthodox Theology: Believers and Beliefs
Liberal Theology: Modern Secularity and Christian Belief
Neo-Orthodox Theology: Radical Contemporary Christian Faith and the God of Jesus Christ
Radical Theology: Secular Affirmation and Theistic Negations
The Revisionist Model: A Critical Correlation
3. A Revisionist Model for Contemporary Theology
First Thesis: The two principal sources for theology are Christian texts and common human experience and language.
Second Thesis: The theological task will involve a critical correlation of the results of the investigations of the two sources of theology.
Third Thesis: The principal method of investigation of the source "common human experience and language" can be described as a phenomenology of the "religious dimension" present in everyday and scientific experience and language.
x: Blessed Rage for Order
Fourth Thesis: The principal method of investigation of the source "the Christian tradition" can be described as an historical and hermeneutical investigation of classical Christian texts.
Fifth thesis: To determine the truth-status of the results of one’s investigation into the meaning of both common human experience and Christian texts, the theologian should employ an explicitly transcendental or metaphysical mode of reflection.
4. The Search for Adequate Criteria and Modes of Analysis
Common Human Experience and Language: Modes of Analysis
Christian Texts: The Possibility of Their Interpretation
The Need of Criteria of Appropriateness
Interpretation Theory
The Task of Critical Correlation
Part II
5. The Religious Dimension of Common Human Experience and Language
Foreground: Purpose and Structure of Part II
The Concept of Limit
Limit-Questions in Science
Science and Religion: Their Relationship
The Religious Dimension of Science: Self-Transcendence as Scientific Authenticity
The Religious Dimension of Science: Self-Transcendence and Limit-Questions
Limit-Questions in Morality
Religion and Morality: Identical or Distinct?
The Logic of Limit-Questions in Moral Discourse
Limit-Questions in Morality
Limit-Situations in the World of the Everyday
6. Religious Language in the New Testament
Background: Analytic Philosophy and Religious Language
New Testament Language: The Breaking of Forms
Proverbs
Proclamatory Sayings
Parabolic Language
New Testament Limit-Experience: A Possible Mode-of-Being-in-the-World
7. The Question of God: Metaphysics Revisited
Introduction: Limit-Language and Limit-Concepts
Religious Language and Cognitive Claims: The Possibility and Necessity of Metaphysics
Ian Ramsey: The Prospect for a "Theological Metaphysics"
Frederic Ferré: The Logic of Theistic Language and the Place of "Metaphysical Facts"
Schubert Ogden: Faith, Religious and Theistic Representative Language, and Metaphysics
Religious Language and the Impossibility of Metaphysical Language: Anders Nygren
Deductive Metaphysics
Inductive Metaphysics
Metaphysics as Conceptual Poetry
The Uses and Abuses of Religious Language
Metaphysics and Metaphor
Metaphysics and Myth
8. The Meaning, Meaningfulness, and Truth of God-Language
The Philosophical Situation: The New Metaphysics
The Theological Situation: The Search for an Appropriate Formulation of the Meaning and Truth of God
The Meaningfulness of Christian God-Language: The Search for an Adequate Limit-Language
9. The Re-presentative Limit-Language of Christology
Introduction: The Question of Christology
The Fact of the Need for Fiction
The Fact of Evil
xii: Blessed Rage for Order
Fact and Possibilities: Actualizations and Representations
Christological Language as Re-presentative Limit-Language
10. History, Theory, and Praxis
Introductory Summary
Practical Theology: The Praxis of A Revisionist Theory
Index of Persons
Index of Subjects
Part I
1. The Pluralist Context of Contemporary Theology
Introduction: Pluralism and Revision
The Crisis of the Christian Theologian in the Modern World: the Disenchantment with Mystifications
The Crisis of the Modern Secular Mind: The Disenchantment with Disenchantment
2. Five Basic Models in Contemporary Theology
Introduction: The Needs for Models
Orthodox Theology: Believers and Beliefs
Liberal Theology: Modern Secularity and Christian Belief
Neo-Orthodox Theology: Radical Contemporary Christian Faith and the God of Jesus Christ
Radical Theology: Secular Affirmation and Theistic Negations
The Revisionist Model: A Critical Correlation
3. A Revisionist Model for Contemporary Theology
First Thesis: The two principal sources for theology are Christian texts and common human experience and language.
Second Thesis: The theological task will involve a critical correlation of the results of the investigations of the two sources of theology.
Third Thesis: The principal method of investigation of the source "common human experience and language" can be described as a phenomenology of the "religious dimension" present in everyday and scientific experience and language.
x: Blessed Rage for Order
Fourth Thesis: The principal method of investigation of the source "the Christian tradition" can be described as an historical and hermeneutical investigation of classical Christian texts.
Fifth thesis: To determine the truth-status of the results of one’s investigation into the meaning of both common human experience and Christian texts, the theologian should employ an explicitly transcendental or metaphysical mode of reflection.
4. The Search for Adequate Criteria and Modes of Analysis
Common Human Experience and Language: Modes of Analysis
Christian Texts: The Possibility of Their Interpretation
The Need of Criteria of Appropriateness
Interpretation Theory
The Task of Critical Correlation
Part II
5. The Religious Dimension of Common Human Experience and Language
Foreground: Purpose and Structure of Part II
The Concept of Limit
Limit-Questions in Science
Science and Religion: Their Relationship
The Religious Dimension of Science: Self-Transcendence as Scientific Authenticity
The Religious Dimension of Science: Self-Transcendence and Limit-Questions
Limit-Questions in Morality
Religion and Morality: Identical or Distinct?
The Logic of Limit-Questions in Moral Discourse
Limit-Questions in Morality
Limit-Situations in the World of the Everyday
6. Religious Language in the New Testament
Background: Analytic Philosophy and Religious Language
New Testament Language: The Breaking of Forms
Proverbs
Proclamatory Sayings
Parabolic Language
New Testament Limit-Experience: A Possible Mode-of-Being-in-the-World
7. The Question of God: Metaphysics Revisited
Introduction: Limit-Language and Limit-Concepts
Religious Language and Cognitive Claims: The Possibility and Necessity of Metaphysics
Ian Ramsey: The Prospect for a "Theological Metaphysics"
Frederic Ferré: The Logic of Theistic Language and the Place of "Metaphysical Facts"
Schubert Ogden: Faith, Religious and Theistic Representative Language, and Metaphysics
Religious Language and the Impossibility of Metaphysical Language: Anders Nygren
Deductive Metaphysics
Inductive Metaphysics
Metaphysics as Conceptual Poetry
The Uses and Abuses of Religious Language
Metaphysics and Metaphor
Metaphysics and Myth
8. The Meaning, Meaningfulness, and Truth of God-Language
The Philosophical Situation: The New Metaphysics
The Theological Situation: The Search for an Appropriate Formulation of the Meaning and Truth of God
The Meaningfulness of Christian God-Language: The Search for an Adequate Limit-Language
9. The Re-presentative Limit-Language of Christology
Introduction: The Question of Christology
The Fact of the Need for Fiction
The Fact of Evil
xii: Blessed Rage for Order
Fact and Possibilities: Actualizations and Representations
Christological Language as Re-presentative Limit-Language
10. History, Theory, and Praxis
Introductory Summary
Practical Theology: The Praxis of A Revisionist Theory
Index of Persons
Index of Subjects