Faith And Modern Thought

Get the full picture! Understand the whole story! Faith and Modern Thought is a jargon-busting and engaging introduction providing an imaginative and creative way into the great minds that have forged the modern world, especially Kant and Hegel and the revolutionary philosophies of existentialism and Marxism they inspired. Tim Hull provides the wider intellectual picture, the fuller philosophical story in which modern theology was forged. After an engaging introduction to the European Enlightenment and the cultural crisis it triggered, the stage is set to understand the essence of modern theology. From that essential background the radical faith of many of the most influential of modern theologians and philosophers of religion is explored, exposing a deep-rooted indebtedness to the Enlightenment tradition.

Get the full picture! Understand the whole story! Faith and Modern Thought is a jargon-busting and engaging introduction providing an imaginative and creative way into the great minds that have forged the modern world, especially Kant and Hegel and the revolutionary philosophies of existentialism and Marxism they inspired. Tim Hull provides the wider intellectual picture, the fuller philosophical story in which modern theology was forged. After an engaging introduction to the European Enlightenment and the cultural crisis it triggered, the stage is set to understand the essence of modern theology. From that essential background the radical faith of many of the most influential of modern theologians and philosophers of religion is explored, exposing a deep-rooted indebtedness to the Enlightenment tradition.

The contemporary theologian Hans Küng has asked if the "death of God," proclaimed by Nietzsche as the event of modernity, was inevitable. Did the empowering of new forms of rationality in Western culture beginning around 1500 lead necessarily to the reduction or privatization of faith? In Dialogues between Faith and Reason, John H. Smith traces a major line in the history of theology and the philosophy of religion down the "slippery slope" of secularization—from Luther and Erasmus, through Idealism, to Nietzsche, Heidegger, and contemporary theory such as that of Derrida, Habermas, Vattimo, and Asad. At the same time, Smith points to the persistence of a tradition that grew out of the Reformation and continues in the mostly Protestant philosophical reflection on whether and how faith can be justified by reason. In this accessible and vigorously argued book, Smith posits that faith and reason have long been locked in mutual engagement in which they productively challenge each other as partners in an ongoing "dialogue." Smith is struck by the fact that although in the secularized West the death of God is said to be fundamental to the modern condition, our current post-modernity is often characterized as a "postsecular" time. For Smith, this means not only that we are experiencing a broad-based "return of religion" but also, and more important for his argument, that we are now able to recognize the role of religion within the history of modernity. Emphasizing that, thanks to the logos located "in the beginning," the death of God is part of the inner logic of the Christian tradition, he argues that this same strand of reasoning also ensures that God will always "return" (often in new forms). In Smith's view, rational reflection on God has both undermined and justified faith, while faith has rejected and relied on rational argument. Neither a defense of atheism nor a call to belief, his book explores the long history of their interaction in modern religious and philosophical thought.

This book provides a reasoned, comprehensive understanding of what religion is as well as a clear and critical assessment of whether, in the light of modern developments in philosophy, contemporary thinking people can responsibly maintain religious belief in God. The book is divided into three major sections: the first deals with what all religions may be said to have in common; the second discusses theistic religion and the issue of intellectually responsible belief in God; the third examines current developments within a particular theistic religion, Christianity. Originally published in 1968, the book is basic, both in the nature of the issues it discusses and in the clarity and comprehensiveness of its presentation; it is varied in the arguments and perspectives dealt with; it provides an introduction to philosophical thinking through the problems of philosophy of religion; and it deals seriously with controversial movements in theology.

A narrative history of philosophical reflection on religion from the seventeenth century to the present.