Theology, Metaphysics, and Science: Twenty-First Century Hermeneutical Allies, Strangers, or Enemies (original) (raw)
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Theology and Metaphysics as Scientific Endeavors
Socio-Historical Examination of Religion and Ministry, 2019
PREVIEW ONLY: READ FULL ARTICLE HERE: https://doi.org/10.33929/sherm.2019.vol1.no2.09 This article contends that theology is a scientific endeavor if it 1) makes correlations between humanity's deepest existential questions and the answers provided by any given religious tradition and/or 2) it describes the beliefs and practices of various religious traditions as accurately as possible. The correlations in methodology are made by psychology, sociology, anthropology, and/or neurobiology. The descriptions in method are also collectively furnished by archaeology, history, psychology, sociology, anthropology, and other cognate disciplines. The article further maintains that metaphysics is a scientific endeavor if it explains 3) the constituent elements of reality as a whole, as well as 4) explains the presuppositions used to detect these elements. I take a scientific endeavor as one that requires empirical and/or logical verification of its claims. Since my conceptions of theology and metaphysics demand such verification, they should be considered scientific.
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Zygon�, 1992
Ian Barbour's Religion in an Age of Science is a welcome systematic, theoretical overview of the relations between science and religion, culminating his long career with a balanced and insightful appraisal. The hallmarks of his synthesis are critical realism, holism, and process thought. Barbour makes even more investment in process philosophy and theology than in his previous works. This invites further inquiry about the adequacy of a highly general process metaphysics in dealing with our particular, deeply historical world; also further inquiry about the adequacy of its panexperientialism and incrementalism.
Reviews in Religion and Theology, 2005
an impassioned and sophisticated push toward the recovery of theological hermeneutics. Speaking primarily to the church, Zimmerman argues that contemporary critiques of Enlightenment logo-centrism have opened a way past the subject-object divide and created a postmetaphysical climate in which the category of truth has been made available again to philosophers and theologians. The way is open for a renewed theological hermeneutic, of benefit to both church and world, and Zimmerman believes it should be taken. The Christian faith, says Zimmerman, needs to put aside its biases and reexamine its epistemological commitments in dialogue with developments in interpretive philosophy. It needs to realize that it is fundamentally a hermeneutical faith lived out from a relationship with the incarnate God, Jesus. The sooner it does this, he says, the better, for only thereby will the church be able to substantiate its universal claim to be the only true religion humbly bearing witness to a savior for all peoples. At the same time, the intellectual snobbishness of contemporary philosophers should be challenged. Contemporary philosophical hermeneutics habitually dismisses Christian interpretive philosophy as so much Bible-reading. Such opinions, though uninformed, are accepted even by the theological community. Thus, Zimmerman devotes the first third of the book to re-educate theistic scholars in the history of their discipline and to discover theological cornerstones in the very foundations of the most critical contemporary philosophies. Indeed, a recovery of theological hermeneutics requires archaeology. The past must be recovered contextually within present concerns. Thus
Published in The Blackwell Companion to Hermeneutics, Niall Keane and Christopher Lawn (eds.), Oxford: Blackwell, 2015.
The original hermeneutics was theological, that is, theology was the origin of hermeneutics. The original hermeneutical discipline, and every hermeneutics even today, be it the hermeneutics of philosophy, of art, of law, of science, and so on, has retained something of its theological origin. Generally, this claim holds true for both ancient hermeneutics, being originally the interpretation of the ambiguous divine sign given within a prophetic context (e.g., dream, oracle, etc.), and for modern hermeneutics which was developed through the practice and methodology of scriptural exegesis. Yet, such a statement, if it is to be properly understood, needs to be taken as something more than a mere historical claim. It rather invites us to examine in greater depth the relationship between theology and hermeneutics so as to demonstrate how the origin of hermeneutics and thereby its character, regardless of its object, could not have been anything but theological. This can only be done if the remarks that follow fulfill this double imperative by being as much an exposition on theology as on hermeneutics.
JETS 66.4, 2023
Is classical theism a necessary condition for an orthodox doctrine of God? In this article, I present the negative answer. I argue (1) that Thomism is determinative of certain untenable or undesirable implications for the doctrine of God and (2) that an alternate metaphysic, in this case, Christian idealism, is able to avoid these implications. The possibility of this metaphysic and its cogency as addressed to certain cruxes in Thomistic doctrine suggests that a coherently biblical doctrine of God may be developed on a different foundation. I conclude from this that we should not equate any metaphysic with Christian orthodoxy and that Thomism should not be treated as an unassailable framework within which to perform Christian theology. Instead, we should foster a "global public square" approach to evangelical metaphysics.
Towards a Hermeneutic-Phenomenological Methodology for Theology
International Journal of Practical Theology, 2018
The question of methodology in theology is sometimes vexed. In this article I seek to offer a hermeneutic phenomenological methodology for theology, utilising the insights of recent French phenomenology. Such a methodology demands that we refrain from making judgments in advance about the kinds of phenomena it is possible to encounter. Not only does this enable us to re-frame questions about the distinctions between philosophy and theology, but it also frees theologians from the problematic requirement of assuming a methodological atheism, particularly as they undertake practical theological research. Unter Rückgriff auf jüngere französische phänomenologische Arbeiten beschreibt der Beitrag eine hermeneutisch-phänomenologische Methodik für die Theologie. Eine solche Methodik fällt im Voraus kein Urteil darüber, welcher Art von Phänomenen grundsätzlich begegnet werden kann. Dies gestattet es, Fragen zum Verhältnis von Philosophie und Theologie neu zu bestimmen und erlaubt es insbesondere im Zusammenhang praktisch-theologischer Forschung, auf einen problematischen „methodischen Atheismus“ zu verzichten.
After Heidegger and Marion: The Task of Christian Metaphysics Today
Modern Theology, 2018
Without denying legitimate criticisms of metaphysics that have been made since the time of the Reformation, the purpose of this essay is to challenge prevailing assumptions in continental philosophy and theology since Heidegger that the age of metaphysics is now over and should be replaced as "first philosophy" either by some version of phenomenology, such as that offered by Jean-Luc Marion, or by a pragmatic linguistic approach in the spirit of Wittgenstein, such as that offered by Kevin Hector. Notwithstanding the genuine merits of their proposals and concerns, it is argued here that metaphysics is not so easily dismissed, and that there is, in fact, a way to do metaphysics otherwise-a way that was taken by Erich Przywara, whose analogical metaphysics is characterized not only by an analogy between God and creation, the analogia entis, but also by an analogy between philosophical and theological metaphysics. In this, form, it is argued, not only is metaphysics impervious to the standard criticisms of "onto-theology," it also turns out to be, at its core, nothing other than a Christological metaphysics. We need not fear that the work of metaphysics has to be begun again, but it is equally true that it has to be reviewed and renewed in every age in relation of the difficulties and problems of the age.
Hermeneutics is one of the main traditions within recent and contemporary European philosophy, and yet, as a distinctive mode of philosophising, it has often received much less attention than other similar traditions such as phenomenology, deconstruction or even critical theory. This series aims to rectify this relative neglect and to reaffirm the character of hermeneutics as a cohesive, distinctive and rigorous stream within contemporary philosophy. The series will encourage works that focus on the history of hermeneutics prior to the twentieth century, that take up figures from the classical twentieth-century hermeneutic canon (including Heidegger, Gadamer and Ricoeur, but also such as Strauss, Pareyson, Taylor and Rorty), that engage with key hermeneutic questions and themes (especially those relating to language, history, aesthetics and truth), that explore the cross-cultural relevance and spread of hermeneutic concerns, and that also address hermeneutics in its interconnection with, and involvement in, other disciplines from architecture to theology. A key task of the series will be to bring into English the work of hermeneutic scholars working outside of the English-speaking world, while also demonstrating the relevance of hermeneutics to key contemporary debates. Since hermeneutics can itself be seen to stand between, and often to overlap with, many different contemporary philosophical traditions, the series will also aim at stimulating and supporting philosophical dialogue through hermeneutical engagement. Contributions to Hermeneutics aims to draw together the diverse field of contemporary philosophical hermeneutics through a series of volumes that will give an increased focus to hermeneutics as a discipline while also reflecting the interdisciplinary and truly international scope of hermeneutic inquiry. The series will encourage works that focus on both contemporary hermeneutics as well as its history, on specific hermeneutic themes and areas of inquiry (including theological and religious hermeneutics), and on hermeneutic dialogue across cultures and disciplines. All books to be published in this series will be fully peer-reviewed before final acceptance.