The Paradoxical Breakthrough Of Revelation

The topic of revelation is fundamental to any account of religious experience, playing a special role in the Judeo-Christian tradition where the texts of Scripture are regarded as revealed. Yet, any reflection on the revealed status of a given message or text requires interpretation. Paul Ricœur, one of the most important hermeneutic philosophers of the twentieth century, provides crucial insights on how such interpretation might proceed and what it might mean for texts to be revealed. Edited by Christina M. Gschwandtner, Paul Ricoeur, Philosophical Hermeneutics, and the Question of Revelation brings together major scholars of Ricœur’s work on the topic of revelation, showing both the role it already plays in his work and how his thinking might be taken further. Several contributors trace the development of his thought in regard to the concept of revelation. Others discuss the revelatory dimensions of Ricœur’s hermeneutics of the self, especially for such issues as identity, trauma, and forgiveness. Several contributions also place his work in conversation with that of other seminal thinkers on the topic of revelation, such as Karl Barth and Paul Tillich.

How does the preacher know what God might say now based upon the many things God said then? Preachers and theologians throughout Christian history have grappled with Scripture's diverse emphases alongside the urgent task of declaring the authoritative Word of God in the contemporary pulpit. Aaron Edwards offers a new way of engaging with this problem, by exploring the theological relationship between biblical dialectics and heraldic proclamation. Edwards highlights the theological necessity of dialectical variety, without forfeiting assertiveness in the prophetic moment of preaching. A vast array of key voices from the theological tradition are drawn upon - including Augustine, Aquinas, Eckhart, Luther, Calvin, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Chesterton, Barth, Bultmann, Tillich, Ebeling, and others - to navigate the connection between Scriptural unity, clarity, and paradoxical plurivocality, leading to a nuanced account of dialectic. Applying this to the homiletically neglected concept of 'heraldic' confidence in preaching, Edwards examines the theological possibility of preaching in light of dialectical complexity via its 'prophetic' dimension. He shows how the uniquely revelatory relationship of Word and Spirit enables Scriptural illumination, prophetic discernment, and dialectical decisiveness in the 'momentary' encounter which undergirds all Christian proclamation.

This book examines Paul Tillich ́s theological concept of the abyss by locating it within the context of current postmodern antifoundalist discussions and debates surrounding feminism, gender, and language. Sigridur Gudmarsdottir develops these tropes into a constructive theology, arguing that Tillich’s idea of the abyss can serve as a necessary means of deconstructing the binaries between the theoretical and the practical in producing nihilistic relativism and the safe foundations of knowledge (divine as well as human). How does one search for a map and method through an abyss? In his writings, Tillich expressed the ambiguity and groundlessness of being, the depth structure of the human condition, and the reality of God as an abyss. The more we gaze into this abyss, the more we encounter the faults in our various foundations. This book outlines how Tillich’s concept of the abyss creates greater opportunities for complexity and liminality and opens up a space where life and death, destruction and construction, fecundity and horror, womb and tomb, can coincide.

This text tells the story of Paul Tillich's early theological development from his student days until the end of the First World War, set against the backdrop of church politics in Wilhelmine Germany and with particular reference to his early sermons.

-- Is The Courage to Be still a viable analysis of the human situation? -- Does Tillich's positive sense of Eros illumine our intense discussions of human sexuality? -- Does Postmodernism really dissolve Tillich's major assumptions? -- Can Tillich contribute to the contemporary discussion of science and religion? -- How does his work stand when compared to other writers on creation, such as Langdon Gilkey and Sallie McFague? -- Given the paradoxes of Tillich's life, is his ethical theory still viable? In Paulus, Then and Now: A Study of Paul Tillich's Theological World and the Continuing Relevance of his Work, John J. Carey clarifies previously neglected foundational aspects of Tillich's thought. Carey places Tillich's theological work in political, social, economic, and scholarly context. He also explains Tillich's thinking on Luther, Marx, history, and politics, and his unique perspective on the Bible and on biblical authority. Having accomplished these things, Carey then moves to show how Tillich's thinking can be applied to contemporary problems.

No detailed description available for "Truth and History - a Dialogue with Paul Tillich / Wahrheit und Geschichte - ein Dialog mit Paul Tillich".

This book is a reconsideration of Paul Tillich's (1886-1965) project of a theology of culture and art. Concentrating on Tillich's widely neglected pre-emigration writings (1910-1933), Re Manning reconstructs and defends Tillich's proposals for theology of culture as a philosophically sophisticated programme of theological engagement with culture and art. 'On the boundary' between the extremes of liberal Christian humanism and neo-orthodox isolationism, Tillich's project is shown to be a powerful continuation of the mediatory intentions of the 'Schleiermacher-Troeltsch line' of modern Protestant theology to overcome the 'intolerable gap' between religion and culture. Drawing heavily on Tillich's incorporation of Schelling's positive philosophy into the deep structure of this theology, Re Manning argues that Tillich's 'Idealistic/Romantic theology of mediation' provides a way through the entrenched oppositions of the 'divided mind' of twentieth century theology to a constructive theology of cultural engagement. Further, this book offers an assessment of the continued relevance of Tillich's project in the situation of contemporary philosophical theology. Beyond the dominant antithetical types of postmodern theology - Mark C. Taylor's a/theology and the 'radical orthodoxy' of John Milbank - Re Manning argues for the possibility of a 'Tillichian postmodern theology of culture' able to engage with the spiritual situation 'at the end of culture.'