Synopses & Reviews
This book reconfigures the fundamental problem of Christian thinking - 'How can human discourse refer meaningfully to a transcendent God?' - as a twofold demand for integrity: integrity of reason and integrity of transcendence. Centring around a fresh, provocative, yet penetratingly faithful re-reading of Kant's empirical realism, and drawing on an array of thinkers (MacKinnon, Bonhoeffer, Putnam, Nagel, Barth, Marion), it argues compellingly that integrity is sustainable on both fronts only when theological discourse locates its 'referent' fundamentally within present empirical reality. This, both for intellectual reasons and supremely because Jesus Christ today, as the unchangingly incarnate Word, demands it. Forcefully challenging recent rushes into obscurantism and radicalization, which compromise integrity through elitism and isolation, the book remains equally alert to the hazards of traditional metaphysics. Rigorously reasoned and refreshingly accessible throughout, it culminates in a stimulating account of the indispensable convergence between Christology and epistemology for the task of theological thinking.
Synopsis
Argues for both integrity of reason and integrity of transcendence in discourse about God.
About the Author
Paul D. Janz is Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Trinity Western University, Canada.
Table of Contents
1. A reconnaissance of theology and epistemology; 2. Theology and the lure of obscurity; 3. Philosophyâs perpetual polarizations: Anti-realism and Realism; 4. Philosophyâs perpetual polarizations: making and finding; 5. Philosophyâs perpetual polarizations: act and being; 6. The Kantian inversion of âall previous philosophyâ; 7. Tragedy, empirical history and finality; 8. Penultimacy and Christology.