Preface to the Second, ebook edition of The Idea of Atonement in the Philosophy of Hermann Cohen (original) (raw)
Related papers
Specters of Sin and Salvation: Hermann Cohen, Original Sin, and Rethinking the Critique of Religion
Idealistic Studies, 2010
This article examines the relationship between theology and ethics through the critique of original sin that the German-Jewish thinker Hermann Cohen advances. The concept of original sin has tacit normative consequences through conceiving the human condition as constitutively imperfect and prone to moral evil. Cohen criticizes the consequent theological ethics that privileges salvation from this world over justice in this world. Through Cohen this article argues that rather than focusing on explicitly normative precepts, a critical account of the relationship between theology and ethics needs to examine how theological concepts shape ethical affects and commitments.
The Moral Theory of the Atonement: An Historical and Theological Critique
Scottish Journal of Theology, 1985
In 1892, Hastings Rashdall delivered a University Sermon at Oxford entitled ‘Abelard's Doctrine of the Atonement’. In this sermon, he outlines with increasing enthusiasm what he considered to be ‘as noble and perspicuous a statement as can even yet be found of the faith which is still the life of Christendom’. The central theme of his sermon is that in the twelfth century figure of Peter Abailard can be found a theory of the Atonement which meets the demands of an age shaped in the spirit of Darwinism and historical criticism. What Rashdall understands by the ‘Abelardian doctrine of the Atonement’ is expounded at much greater length in his 1915 Bampton Lectures, The Idea of Atonement in Christian Theology.
From Critical to Prophetic Idealism: Ethics, Law, and Religion in the Philosophy of Hermann Cohen
2013
In this study of the nineteenth-century German-Jewish philosopher Hermann Cohen, I argue that Cohen’s revision of Kantian ethics and moral theology is permeated with concepts drawn from and logically contoured by his interpretation of Maimonidean rationalism and Jewish sources, more generally. Through an idealizing hermeneutic, Cohen normativizes certain philosophical problems in post-Kantian philosophy and addresses them under the title of "pantheism" and "positivism". Between both pantheism and positivism, Cohen’s idealism presents a middle path, which I describe as "prophetic idealism", or a philosophy of time and ideality that interprets history, law, and ethical normativity as future-oriented. In other words, "prophecy" intimates a methodological role for temporality in practical philosophy and introduces a new meaning for legality in ethics. Cohen therefore offers a philosophy of Judaism, as a philosophy of religion, by normativizing the...
For the past two millennia, the death and resurrection of Jesus have dominated the thought of Christian theologians and exegetes, particularly when it comes to Paul’s perspectives on the matter. There have been theories and propositions to systematic theologies that have tried to make sense of what the New Testament (hereafter NT) writers were attempting to communicate regarding Jesus’ death, and what they envisioned it to have accomplished. This controversy raged on for centuries, each side having their set of texts that supposedly proved theirs to be the “correct” opinion. It is not the purpose of this essay to enter this controversy regarding atonement theories, but rather examine texts and cultural phenomena that antedate the epistemological presuppositions of the later arguments and compare these with familiar speech found in the NT. Rather than read these texts eisegetically through a systematized theological paradigm, I want to try and make sense of what those in the Second Temple period saw as having atoning or salvific qualities through the martyrdom of a righteous individual.
Theophron: Journal of Christian Studies, 2023
This article aims to provide a theory of atonement, termed the "Agápēic Theory," which is formulated within a philosophical framework that has the aim of humans flourishing to the maximum level through partaking in an everlasting relationship of love with God. The Agápēic Theory will be formulated by using a certain conception of love, introduced by Alexander Pruss, into the field of applied ethics, and also various elements from other existing theories of the Atonement found within the fields of analytic theology, in the work of Richard Swinburne, Eleonore Stump and Robin Collins, and systematic/biblical theology, in the work of Karl Barth and N.T Wright, which will both help to ground the Agápēic Theory on firm philosophical and theological grounds and ultimately provide a robust theory of the Atonement.