Unboundedly Rational Religion: Thinking the Inheritance

ISBN: 3640137752

Author: Theron, Stephen

Condition: New

Scientific Study from the year 2007 in the subject Philosophy - Miscellaneous, grade: "-", , 110 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: An introductory chapter loads the scales in favour of an idealist approach in quasi-Quinean sense, in that being is called in question, as it is throughout the book. After a chapter revising the best expositions of faith as a possibly rational attitude the Christian discovery or intuition of intra-divine events or processes, held compatible with divine infinity and immutability, is treated under the rubric of a Trinitarian philosophy. This leads to analysis of notions of being (identity in difference) and, above all, of creation, viewing this as freed from the historic dualism which has contradicted the necessary infinity of the first principle. Creation is not thereby denied but seen as truly a constituent of the divine life. The picture is thus monistic, which is to say scientific as presenting a holistic system or way of seeing things absolutely or beyond appearance merely. The consequences for human metaphysical and moral nature are rigorously drawn, freed from all anthropomorphisms so as better to illuminate the insights of religion and philosophy. The relevance for contemporary movements from palaeontology to Church ecumenism is brought out, while a concluding epilogue attempts to shed light on the vexed debate on Europe in relation to the Christian inheritance. Other concluding chapters treat of both sacramental religion and of dialectic as the method of reason, whether in theology or in the world. For the world without the reason is not an object of thought, any more than you can wash the fur without wetting it, in G. Frege's words. [...]