Gabriel Morgan | Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia (original) (raw)
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Papers by Gabriel Morgan
Union Seminary Quarterly Review, 2014
Plato understood that describing God is impossible.2 However, according to Gregory of Nazianzus, ... more Plato understood that describing God is impossible.2 However, according to Gregory of Nazianzus, to know God is even less possible.3 Gregory radicalizes apophaticism in this way as a critique of Eunomius and his claim to know the divine nature by definition as that which is without origin. However, one can take apophaticism in at least two very different directions. One direction might argue that because God is unknowable and ineffable, therefore, in the words of Sallie McFague, “all language about God is human construction and as such perforce ‘misses the mark’.”4 Accordingly, one might argue that very few or even no religious or theological claims are any more inherently valid than another, and that such claims are to be evaluated by strictly moral or pragmatic considerations; theology should likewise progress from dogmatics to the methods of the general study of religion.5 However, another way of taking such radical apophaticism is precisely to recognize the enduring significance...
Union Seminary Quarterly Review 65, no. 1&2 (2015).
Plato understood that describing God is impossible. However, according to Gregory of Nazianzus, ... more Plato understood that describing God is impossible. However, according to Gregory of Nazianzus, to know God is even less possible. Gregory radicalizes apophaticism in this way as a critique of Eunomius and the claim to know the divine nature by definition as that which is without origin. Yet, one can take apophaticism in at least two very different directions. One direction might argue that because God is unknowable and ineffable, therefore, in the words of Sallie McFague, “all language about God is human construction and as such perforce ‘misses the mark’.” However, another way of taking such radical apophaticism and the insight into our historically conditioned thinking and language is precisely to recognize the enduring significance of revelation for theology. In this paper, I argue for this latter position and some of its broader implications for how we think of theology as a discipline. Specifically, I argue that while it has an intractably constructive character, theology is not reducible to human construction, and that the task of testing claims against revelation is methodologically necessary to the discipline of theology.
Drafts by Gabriel Morgan
Books by Gabriel Morgan
Dissertation in Krauth Memorial Library, ULS, 2017
The following dissertation is a work in constructive theology that seeks to address issues in Bon... more The following dissertation is a work in constructive theology that seeks to address issues in Bonhoeffer scholarship as well as in public and fundamental theology. The philosopher Paul Ricoeur developed the same aspects of Martin Heidegger’s philosophy that interested Bonhoeffer, namely the primacy of being over thought and the temporality of Dasein. Arguing that hermeneutic phenomenology overturned the pretense of a philosophy of consciousness that immunized itself against the concept of revelation, Ricoeur avoided some of Bonhoeffer’s most serious objections to Heidegger’s philosophy. In this light, the present dissertation seeks to adapt Ricoeur’s philosophy as Bonhoeffer had once done with Heidegger’s. The central claim is that Bonhoeffer’s concept of the penultimate, which entails a span of time that comes before the ultimate, may be interpreted as having a narrative figuration according to Ricoeur’s theory of the narrative mediation of temporal experience. This simultaneously shines new light on the narrative fragments that Bonhoeffer composed from prison, as well as providing the root for a larger theological project that may address difficulties at the intersections of epistemology, public discourse, the ethics of resistance, biblical theology, and theological method.
Teaching Documents by Gabriel Morgan
This essay seeks to address the issues around adoption of online communion practices during and a... more This essay seeks to address the issues around adoption of online communion practices during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. I argue that pastors should have freedom to exercise discretion in specific cases or situations, but that online distribution should not be the regular means for celebration of the sacrament because of the direct link between the physical body of Christ in the elements and the physical community of the faithful who are brought together as the body of Christ. This is an unpublished draft that was internally circulated in the Florida-Bahamas Synod of the ELCA for teaching purposes.
Conference Presentations by Gabriel Morgan
This is a manuscript for a presentation at the 2022 Urban Food Sovereignty Summit of the Universi... more This is a manuscript for a presentation at the 2022 Urban Food Sovereignty Summit of the University of South Florida. It explores the theme of gardens in the Bible as it relates to the meaning of being made in God's image, and how it relates to the movement for food sovereignty today.
Union Seminary Quarterly Review, 2014
Plato understood that describing God is impossible.2 However, according to Gregory of Nazianzus, ... more Plato understood that describing God is impossible.2 However, according to Gregory of Nazianzus, to know God is even less possible.3 Gregory radicalizes apophaticism in this way as a critique of Eunomius and his claim to know the divine nature by definition as that which is without origin. However, one can take apophaticism in at least two very different directions. One direction might argue that because God is unknowable and ineffable, therefore, in the words of Sallie McFague, “all language about God is human construction and as such perforce ‘misses the mark’.”4 Accordingly, one might argue that very few or even no religious or theological claims are any more inherently valid than another, and that such claims are to be evaluated by strictly moral or pragmatic considerations; theology should likewise progress from dogmatics to the methods of the general study of religion.5 However, another way of taking such radical apophaticism is precisely to recognize the enduring significance...
Union Seminary Quarterly Review 65, no. 1&2 (2015).
Plato understood that describing God is impossible. However, according to Gregory of Nazianzus, ... more Plato understood that describing God is impossible. However, according to Gregory of Nazianzus, to know God is even less possible. Gregory radicalizes apophaticism in this way as a critique of Eunomius and the claim to know the divine nature by definition as that which is without origin. Yet, one can take apophaticism in at least two very different directions. One direction might argue that because God is unknowable and ineffable, therefore, in the words of Sallie McFague, “all language about God is human construction and as such perforce ‘misses the mark’.” However, another way of taking such radical apophaticism and the insight into our historically conditioned thinking and language is precisely to recognize the enduring significance of revelation for theology. In this paper, I argue for this latter position and some of its broader implications for how we think of theology as a discipline. Specifically, I argue that while it has an intractably constructive character, theology is not reducible to human construction, and that the task of testing claims against revelation is methodologically necessary to the discipline of theology.
Dissertation in Krauth Memorial Library, ULS, 2017
The following dissertation is a work in constructive theology that seeks to address issues in Bon... more The following dissertation is a work in constructive theology that seeks to address issues in Bonhoeffer scholarship as well as in public and fundamental theology. The philosopher Paul Ricoeur developed the same aspects of Martin Heidegger’s philosophy that interested Bonhoeffer, namely the primacy of being over thought and the temporality of Dasein. Arguing that hermeneutic phenomenology overturned the pretense of a philosophy of consciousness that immunized itself against the concept of revelation, Ricoeur avoided some of Bonhoeffer’s most serious objections to Heidegger’s philosophy. In this light, the present dissertation seeks to adapt Ricoeur’s philosophy as Bonhoeffer had once done with Heidegger’s. The central claim is that Bonhoeffer’s concept of the penultimate, which entails a span of time that comes before the ultimate, may be interpreted as having a narrative figuration according to Ricoeur’s theory of the narrative mediation of temporal experience. This simultaneously shines new light on the narrative fragments that Bonhoeffer composed from prison, as well as providing the root for a larger theological project that may address difficulties at the intersections of epistemology, public discourse, the ethics of resistance, biblical theology, and theological method.
This essay seeks to address the issues around adoption of online communion practices during and a... more This essay seeks to address the issues around adoption of online communion practices during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. I argue that pastors should have freedom to exercise discretion in specific cases or situations, but that online distribution should not be the regular means for celebration of the sacrament because of the direct link between the physical body of Christ in the elements and the physical community of the faithful who are brought together as the body of Christ. This is an unpublished draft that was internally circulated in the Florida-Bahamas Synod of the ELCA for teaching purposes.
This is a manuscript for a presentation at the 2022 Urban Food Sovereignty Summit of the Universi... more This is a manuscript for a presentation at the 2022 Urban Food Sovereignty Summit of the University of South Florida. It explores the theme of gardens in the Bible as it relates to the meaning of being made in God's image, and how it relates to the movement for food sovereignty today.