Abū Ishāq al-Ṣaffār was one of scholars of the Western Qarakhānids’ period who followed the Kalām thought of al-Māturīdī (d. 333/944). His theological works Talkhīs al-adilla and Risāla fī al-kalām, his method in kalām, and frequent reference to his works by Ottoman and Arab scholars indicate that al-Ṣaffār is a respected and authorative Māturīdī theologian. The article focuses on his defense of the kalām. By adding a long introduction to Talkhīs about the naming, importance, and religious legitimacy of the science (...) of kalām, Saffār asserted that the kalām should be learned. When systematical vindication of the science of kalām is examined, it is understood that al-Ṣaffār is the first theologian who reserved a private and voluminous part for defensing the kalām among Ḥanafī-Māturīdīs. Even though he does not state its systematic, it can be understood that vindication of kalām in al-Ṣaffār divides into three parts as of explanation, demonstration and refutation. Al-Ṣaffār’s defending the science of kalām shows that there were opposite thoughts against kalām in the 4th/10th and 5th/11th centuries throughout in Transoxania. In this period Aṣḥāb al-Ḥadīth and Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ were the opposite fronts of kalām. In addition, he was trying to go beyond the oppositions of Ḥanafī jurists. His vindication is consistent and has scholarly depth because it is able to be against a strong opposition. -/- SUMMARY: Abū Ishāq Ibrahīm b. Ismāil Zāhid al-Ṣaffār al-Bukhārī is a scholar belonging to the Ḥanafī theological tradition which was improved by the contribution of Ḥanafī theologians who used thinking system of Abū Ḥanīfa (d. 150/767) as base and adopted Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī (d. 333/944) and his thoughts in historical process. The contents of his theological works Talkhīs al-adilla li-qawāʿid al-tawḥīd and Risāla fī al-Kalām, the method that he used, and references to his works made by Ottoman and Arab scholars indicate that he is an important Māturīdī theologian. The article focuses on his defense of the science of Kalām. -/- In Talkhīs al-adilla, there are two sections including the subject of naming, and importance and necessity of Kalām discipline. Here, the necessity of learning Kalām and its value are defended in detail. -/- Besides, rumors “Abū Ḥanīfa turned away from the science of Kalām in his doomsdays” and that “He prohibited to make occupation with Kalām completely” are evaluated. -/- When systematical vindication of the science of Kalām is examined, it is understood that al-Ṣaffār is the first theologian who reserved a private and voluminous part for defensing the Kalām among Ḥanafī Māturīdīs. Even if Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī, Abū al-Yusr al-Bazdawī (d. 493/1100) and Abū Muʿīn al-Nasafī (d. 508/1115) defend that the science of Kalām is not wrong for religion; yet, the vindication of Kalām does not take a place under a separate title and in a detailed manner in any of Māturīdī theologians works. -/- The method that al-Ṣaffār used when he is defending the science of Kalām, differs from strategy of Abū Ḥanīfa. While Abū Ḥanīfa has mentioned that there is a need for the science of Kalām under these new circumstances, al-Ṣaffār has defended theologians who were charged with being Ahl al-Bidaʿ, by trying to prove that the prophets especially the Prophet Ibrāhīm, even the Companions of the Prophet Muḥammad (Ṣaḥāba) and the Successors of the Companions (Tābiʿūn) scholars use their minds and make arguments in religious matters. In this respect, he emphasizes that the Qurʾān orders to think and discuss gently, not to be stay in silence: “And dispute with them, using what is best” (16.125-126). Therefore, he states that this discipline which took a mission to explain and defend the creed of Islam (ʿaqīda), cannot be characterized as an innovation (bidʿah) or illicit. -/- His vindication method can be defined as a more developed type of method that Abu’l-Ḥasan al-Ash’arī’s (d. 324/935) used in Risāla fī istiḥsān al-khawḍ fī ʿilm al-kalām. Even though he does not state its systematic, it can be understood that vindication of Kalām in al-Ṣaffār divides into three parts as of explanation, demonstration and refutation: -/- a) Explanation: Explaining the necessity and importance of the science of Kalām by giving information about its definition, names, value and place among other principles. -/- b) Demonstration: Revealing the religious basics of the science of Kalām from the Qurʾān, the Sunna of the Prophet Muḥammad, the Companions of the Prophet, and the Successors of the Companions thus specifying that it is legitimate for religion. -/- c) Refutation: Replying the claims having aim to weaken the value of Kalām principle and its religious legality. -/- Al-Ṣaffār describes ‘the science of Kalām’ as ‘Knowing the Real with the evidences which help to reach the absolute information’. By allocating the concept of 'Ḥaqq', he repeats the definition of Kalām as “it is to know God with certain evidences” in a part of his work, and “it is to know the principles of religion (uṣūl al-dīn) with certain evidences” in another part. He describes Kalām as “Knowing ḥaqq / God / uṣūl al-dīn by depending on evidence”, and tries to prove that it is wrong to consider a science which performs the stated duty, as illicit and abominable and thus turn away from it. -/- Al-Ṣaffār thinks that it is right to call this principle as ‘Kalām’ because of the certain evidences leading to the truth that this science has used. This thought was defended by other theologians as well. -/- For example, according to Saʿd al-Dīn Masʿūd al-Taftazānī (d. 792/1310) it seems like to say “This is the word (kalām), not the other knowings” by the way of the power of evidences used in Kalām.Thus, it is appropriate to give name Kalām for this science which based on certain evidences. -/- Al-Ṣaffār’s explanations revealed in scope of vindication of the Kalām are adopted by some of following scholars. Ḥusām al-Dīn al-Sighnāqī (d. 714/1314) in his book called al-Tasdīd sharḥ al-Tamhīd fī qawāʿid al-tawḥīd quotes Saffâr’s explanations as the same. -/- Al-Ṣaffār indicates that the method told in the Qurʾān is to reply questions about religion, beliefs and rejection instead of remaining in silence. The duty taken on by Kalām is this vindication activity performed by the prophets whose examples are described in the Qurʾān and which is legal and demanded. His way of thinking and vindication of the Kalām resembles that of Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī. Al-Māturīdī says, “Prophets and we were ordered to invite infidels to Islam. When this invitation happens, the respondents will ask for evidence and explanation, and discussion will be inevitable. Therefore, discussing and talking about subjects of Kalām is not objectionable”. -/- Thoughts of al-Māturīdī and al-Ṣaffār regarding the vindication of the Kalām were repeated by Nūr al-Dīn al-Ṣābūnī (d. 580/1184), and Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1210) later. According to al-Ṣābūnī, the evidences put against deniers and especially the discussion made by the Prophet Ibrāhīm to defend his own belief, prove the legality of Kalām discipline. Likewise, according to al-Rāzī, the duty of Kalām is just an activity performed already in the Qurʾān and ordered to the prophets. At this point of view, since the prophets were leading to Kalām, banning this activity is nonsense. -/- According to al-Ṣaffār, the reason for why Abu Hanifa avoids his son Hammād from these discussions is that Abu Hanifa does not like discussions based on obstinate. Otherwise, it cannot be that Abū Ḥanīfa prohibits to learn Kalām and make discussion about Kalām. According to him, this behavior of Abū Ḥanīfa results from that people discussing with him are ignorant about the subject of Kalām, discussion turns to an obstinate, and coming to an end of discussion seems impossible. This comment of al-Ṣaffār is quoted in Miftāḥ al-saʿāda wa-miṣbāḥ al-siyāda by ʿIṣām al-Dīn Aḥmed b. Muṣṭafā Tashköprüzāde (d. 968/1561) and in Minaḥ al-rawḍ al-azhar fī sharḥ al-Fiqh al-akbar by ʿAlī b. Sulṭān Muḥammad al-Qārī (d. 1014/1606) as same as his words. -/- Al-Ṣaffār’s defending the science of Kalām shows that there were opposite thoughts against Kalām in the 4th/10th and 5th/11th centuries throughout in Transoxania.In this period Aṣḥāb al-Ḥadīth and Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ were the opposite fronts of Kalām. In addition, he was trying to go beyond the oppositions of Ḥanafī jurists (fuqahāʾ). Because some of the Ḥanafī jurists thought that Abū Ḥanīfa forsook occupation with the science of Kalām and even he prohibited his son to have interest in this discipline. But some of Ḥanafī theologians such as al-Māturīdī, al-Nasafī and al-Ṣaffār protested this thought which describes Abū Ḥanīfa as a banner for Kalām. -/- His vindication is consistent and has scholarly depth because it is able to be against a strong opposition. -/- His book Talkhīs al-adilla li-qawāʿid al-tawḥīd is a unique source in terms of containing vindication of the Kalām in detail and also influencing the approaches of the next period scholars. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Theologian's Doubts:Natural Philosophy and the Skeptical Games of GhazālīLeor HaleviIn the history of skeptical thought, which normally leaps from the Pyrrhonists to the rediscovery of Sextus Empiricus in the sixteenth century, Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad al-Ghazālī (1058-1111) figures as a medieval curiosity. Skeptical enough to merit passing acknowledgment, he has proven too baffling to be treated fully alongside pagan, atheist, or materialist philosophers. As a theologian defending certain Muslim (...) dogmas, Ghazālī has not met what historians consider the mark of the true skeptic, a mind doubting the possibility of all systems of knowledge. But what is fascinating about him is that he brought into practical operation the tools of what I call "functional skepticism."1He denied the claims to truth of Aristotelian physics—whose basis he showed to rest on groundless belief—then turned and argued for the possibility of the Resurrection tooth and nail. The scholarly debate on The Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tahāfut al-falāsifa) has concentrated on the extent to which Ghazālī qua Ashcarite theologian was seduced into Aristotelian philosophy despite himself.2 In my view this debate has been misguided in the attempt to distill the [End Page 19] essence of Ghazālī from the book's eclectic theology; I will argue for a different view of Ghazālī on the basis of a close reading of key passages. In the unusual sections where Ghazālī applies Aristotelian language to a world not following the ordinary laws of physics, some have found Ghazālī slipping, unconsciously perhaps, into an Aristotelian frame of mind. I will show that, as a skeptical theologian with a dialogic imagination, he was rather deconstructing Aristotelian discourse while playing a Wittgensteinian sort of language game.Natural Philosopher or Speculative Theologian?The disagreement about the extent to which philosophy infected Ghazālī is ancient. Ghazālī might have studied philosophy only in order to refute it. He himself defended his philosophizing with the claim that one cannot deconstruct a system of thought until one has understood it so deeply as to elaborate upon its fundamental principles.3 His Maqāṣid al-falāsifa was in fact received, especially in trans-Pyrenean Europe, as a philosopher's genuine summary of the object of philosophy.4 The book strikes me as suspiciously creative in its representation of philosophical discourse, but it appears in any case as an expert and surprisingly unbiased treatment.5 Arabic readers knew that Ghazālī had also written a polemical treatise against philosophy, Tahāfut al-falāsifa, but they still wondered about his engagement with the ideas he challenged. Abū Bakr Ibn al-cArabī, for example, commented that Ghazālī had been unable to extricate himself from philosophy.6 Other philosophers pondered whether or not he had been a closeted member of their charmed circle and sought in his writings traces of esoteric philosophy.7Averroës's own sober sense of distance between philosophy and theology was partially a reaction to what he perceived as Ghazālī's dangerous and carefree mixture of the two sciences.8 He attacked Ghazālī's book in The Incoherence [End Page 20] of the Incoherence to restore philosophy's sense of purity, an aim he sought to accomplish by separating religious concerns from the philosopher's field of inquiry.9 Ironically, such a separation is precisely what Ghazālī might have wished to provoke by crisscrossing and blurring the line between religion and philosophy.The modern debate on chapter 17 of Tahāfut al-falāsifa has concentrated on defining Ghazālī as either a natural philosopher or an occasionalist theologian. In his defense of the possibility of miracles Ghazālī presented two theories of causation, one denying the logical basis of Aristotelian notions of natural causality, and the other more or less adopting these notions. Jointly, the two theories have seemed incompatible, and for this reason scholars have attempted to sort Ghazālī out of the apparent confusion. In 1978 L. E. Goodman argued persuasively that Ghazālī exploited rather than denied the philosophers' ideas of causality. In two articles Michael Marmura challenged Goodman, contending... (shrink)

Abstract: A 1991 article by psychologist John D. Carter offers an underdeveloped insight that typologies for relating science and religion might be fruitfully formulated in discipline-specific perspectives. This essay thus covers a specifically theological perspective only briefly outlined in Carter, and it expands four models that theologians have used to relate religion and science. This essay renames these models and expands their implications, especially for addressing the behavioral sciences. (1) The contrarian model generally opposes science, (2) the apologetic makes (...) theology congenial to science, (3) the correlational holds both disciplines in tension, and (4) the synthetic attempts a grand unification of them. Arguing from the theologian's perspective, this essay is intended to demonstrate that different models/methods for relating science and religion are really reflections of deeper religious attitudes and argues that the task for which a method is employed ultimately determines its adequacy within that attitude's constraints. (shrink)

Recently some theologians have argued that philosophical debates about the rationality of religious belief, such as the current evidentialism debate, are theologically irrelevant. For those debates assume the integrity of a particular religious tradition and neither provide a way of choosing between conflicting religions nor any way of sorting through conflicts which are internal to the particular religions (that is, they provide no solutions to “the pluralism problem”). In opposition to these claims I argue that the current evidentialism debate (...) can provide resources which, taken together with Kierkegaard’s stress on subjectivity, enable fruitful discussion of the pluralism problem. I focus on the problem of diversity within a religion, but suggest applications to the problem of many religions. (shrink)

This study examines a deep-seated anti-missionary sentiment of Korean theologians and church historians. Chai-Choon Kim and Jong-Sung Rhee were arguably most responsible for popularizing anti-missionary sentiment among Korean Christians. The main reason for the criticisms of both Kim and Rhee against the American Presbyterian Korea missionaries was the supposedly fundamentalist schisms of the Presbyterian Church of Korea in the 1950s, which both Kim and Rhee reasoned to have been originated from their Old Princeton theology. The theological rationale of both (...) Kim and Rhee was the Barthian triumph frame that the Reformed Orthodoxy including the Old Princeton theology, which had been suspected of having a fundamentalist tendency, was overcome by Karl Barth’s Neo-Orthodoxy. These theological anti-missionary criticisms facilitated some younger Korean church historians, especially both Kyung-Bae Min and Man-Yul Lee, to view Korean church history from an anti-missionary, Korean ethnic nationalist perspective. Min emphasizes some seemingly good but anecdotal works of individual Korean native Christians, hence resulting in depreciation of the works of the missionaries and their Korean coworkers. Following Min, Lee goes even further, praising what some individual Korean Christians did for socio-political (anti-establishment) purposes and ignoring what the missionaries and their Korean coworkers did cooperatively for their Korean churches. Those Korean theologians and church historians with quite a strong anti-missionary sentiment might have succeeded in arousing Korean Christians’ ethnic nationalism, but in so doing, they have quite surely deprived Korean Christians of their critically significant and rich ecclesiastical and theological elements which have been originated from the missionaries. (shrink)

Journal of Religious Ethics, Volume 50, Issue 1, Page 7-19, March 2022.

Abu Ishaq al-Saffar was one of scholars of the Western Qarakhanids' period who followed the Kalam thought of al-Maturidi (d. 333/944). His theological works Talkhis al-adilla and Risala fi al-kalam, his method in kalam, and frequent reference to his works by Ottoman and Arab scholars indicate that al-Saffar is a respected and authorative Maturidi theologian. The article focuses on his defense of the kalam. By adding a long introduction to Talkhis about the naming, importance, and religious legitimacy of the science (...) of kalam, Saffar asserted that the kalam should be learned. When systematically vindication of the science of kalam is examined, it is understood that al-Saffar is the first theologian who reserved a private and voluminous part for defending the kalam among Hanafi-Maturidis. Even though he does not state its systematic, it can be understood that vindication of kalam in al-Saffar divides into three parts as of explanation, demonstration and refutation. Al-Saffar's defending the science of kalam shows that there were opposite thoughts against kalam in the 4th/10th and 5th/11th centuries throughout in Transoxania. In this period Ashab al-Hadith and Ikhwan al-Safa were the opposite fronts of kalam. In addition, he was trying to go beyond the oppositions of Hanafi jurists. His vindication is consistent and has scholarly depth because it is able to be against a strong opposition. (shrink)

In recent decades the publication of additional documentary sources and doctrinal and prosopographical studies for the University of Paris in the 1330s has radically expanded our information about theologians in what was once an obscure decade. Using a variety of evidence, this article outlines what we now know about bachelors of the Sentences active at Paris in the 1330s, part of what the author once called “the dormition of Paris.”.

This essay contends that René Girard is not a philosopher or a scientist whose ideas are open to theological appropriation. Instead, contrary to his assertions otherwise, the Girard corpus ought to be read as if it were articulating a form of theology whose primary intellectual home can ultimately be found on a theological map. As the field of Girardian theology grows, it becomes more evident that we need some theological lenses for examining the theology already lying waiting—sometimes inchoately, sometimes not—in (...) Girard's texts, and also for examining how theologians use and misuse his texts. If we can see that he is already doing theology then a theological critique becomes plausible and valid in principle, and indeed becomes an internal critique. Applying good interpretive lenses will provide some rigorous criteria for analyzing the degree to which Girardian theologians are following the internal logic of Girard's thought in their appropriations of it. The interpretive lenses I propose using on Girard are first the theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar and then the theology of John Cassian . These two theologians provide us with lenses that help us see that Girard is fundamentally a Catholic theologian involved in resisting the speculative re‐writing of Christianity by proponents of “false gnosis” and that he belongs within the category of theologians who advocate spiritual transformation and “true gnosis.”. (shrink)

This article engages with the reception and naming of women by contemporary historians and theologians. The core question is as follows: when is a woman received as a theologian? This question is looked at via the works of Hadewijch, a 13th-century Flemish writer. Scholars easily group together women from the High Middle Ages as mystics, referring to the experiential character of their theology and their writing in the vernacular. These criteria of gender, language and experience then disqualify them as (...) theologians and qualify them as mystics. In this article, the dichotomy between spirituality and theology is revisited and examples of a growing discourse where Hadewijch and some of her contemporaries are called theologians are given. The genre of theology is then widened to recognise the worth not only of scholastic discourse but also of vision, poetry and bodily experience.Contribution: The renaming of historical woman figures is of utmost importance in the understanding of what constitutes women theologians in the present day as well as for the healing of the divide between ‘spirituality’ and ‘theology’. (shrink)

In this essay, I examine the reception and use of Aristotle’s four causes by twelfth- and thirteenth-century Latin Christian theologians, primarily at Paris. I pay special attention to the early thirteenth century, when Aristotle’s works on natural philosophy were officially prohibited in the French capital. By looking at a wide range of texts from both prominent and obscure theologians, I hope to contribute to an expanded view of the ways in which intellectuals in the Latin west received and (...) appropriated Aristotle’s ideas. (shrink)

Paul applies apocalyptic language not only to the End and Christ's parousia but also to the gospel he proclaims and the faith it creates. The whole of God's saving activity in Jesus Christ, from beginning to end, is apocalyptic.

Athenagoras : philosopher and theologian -- Athenagoras' Corpus -- Athenagoras and contemporary theological and philosophical conversations -- How do we know about God? : epistemology -- What do we know about God? : first principles -- Subordinate topics -- Influences on Athenagoras -- Conclusions.

Adam Smith wrote in a Scotland where Calvinism, Continental natural law theory, Stoic philosophy, and the Newtonian tradition of scientific natural theology were key to the intellectual lives of his contemporaries. But what impact did these ideas have on Smith's system? What was Smith's understanding of nature, divine providence, and theodicy? How was the new discourse of political economy positioned in relation to moral philosophy and theology? In this volume a team of distinguished contributors consider Smith's work in relation to (...) its Scottish Enlightenment religious background, and offer stimulating theological interpretations of his account of fallible human nature, his providential account of markets, and his invisible hand metaphor. Adam Smith as Theologian it is a pioneering study which will alter our view of Smith and open up new lines of thinking about contemporary economics. (shrink)

This article studies the extant class notes of a course on Descartes's Meditations on First Philosophy (1641) and (part of) the Principles of Philosophy (1644), which was given by the reformed theologian Christoph Wittich (1625–1687) at the former Dutch University of Nijmegen (1655–1679). This manuscript contains dictata, taken (presumably in 1664) under the title Observationes in Renati Descartes Meditationes de prima philosophia. Observations in ejusdem Principiorum philosophiae partem primam. This article mainly considers three themes surfacing in Wittich’s classes: (a) doubt (...) and scepticism; (b) “vulgar” and “proper philosophy”; (c) philosophy and Scripture. On the one hand, this study explains how Wittich tried to harmonise Cartesian metaphysics with his Calvinist faith by defining them as two autonomous fields of knowledge. On the other hand, Wittich’s ideas are shown to have met with much resistance on the part of some of his contemporary theologians. The study of Wittich’s course supplies new knowledge concerning the teaching of one of the first theologians to openly seek to combine Descartes's ideas and Copernican astronomy with the Bible. In so doing, this article offers direct insight into the way in which the new philosophy was taught in Nijmegen, and in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic in general. (shrink)

Bergin, Helen Review of: Priest, poet and theologian: Essays in honour of Anthony Kelly CSSR, by Neil Ormerod and Robert Gascoigne, eds,, pp. 253, $36.95.

Irena Backus offers the first study in over four hundred years that characterizes Leibniz as both scholar and theologian. She explores his treatment of the key theological issues of his time-predestination, sacred history, the Eucharist, efforts for a union between Lutherans and members of other Christian traditions-illuminating his unique integration of theology into philosophy.Drawing on a wide range of Leibniz's writings, Backus carefully examines the philosophical points and counterpoints of his positions. She shows how Leibniz's Lutheran theology was reconciled with (...) his philosophy, and demonstrates that the solutions he sought to the problems of confessional division were more philosophical than theological. Despite his attempts to merge the two fields, Backus reveals, many of Leibniz's ideas were met with resistance by both theologians and philosophers of his time. Using a wealth of previously unexplored material, Backus also includes the first-ever English translation of the Unvorgreiffliches Bedencken. This study will be an important contribution to the history of ideas, and to understanding Leibniz's place in the mainstream Protestant theology of his time. (shrink)

During the 16th century, Europe underwent fundamental sociopolitical changes, which challenged theologians and the church to respond theologically. In light of the celebration of the Reformation and the theme of this conference, this contribution presents Calvin as a ‘public theologian’. To this purpose it is necessary to define ‘public theology’, describe the sociopolitical changes which challenged theologians during the 16th century, and lastly to focus on Calvin’s contribution to the discourse. Because of the vast amount of material that (...) is available, this contribution is limited to Calvin’s first publication, his ‘Commentary on Seneca’s De Clementia’. Calvin’s fundamental understanding of law and justice, as well as his theological engagement with sociopolitical issues, made him a public theologian par excellence. Calvin’s legal training surfaced whenever he addressed the authorities, for instance, when pleading the case of persecuted Protestants. He had a fundamental understanding of issues such as justice and freedom. The rights, responsibilities and obligations of government and people should always remain in balance. Sociopolitical transformation, as experienced in South Africa during the last three decades, requires of theologians to engage theologically with relevant issues. In this, Calvin set a remarkable example. (shrink)

For several centuries after the fall of Constantinople, Greek theological writing was dominated by an arid scholasticism. This paper seeks to show how since the Second World War modern Greek theologians, with the help of a number of diaspora theologians and Western patristic scholars, have re-engaged with the Greek Fathers. Four theologians are discussed in some detail: Gontikakis, Nellas, Yannaras and Zizioulas. Each emphasizes a different strand of patristic tradition, but all four share a sense of the (...) Fathers as living witnesses to divine-human communion. Yannaras and Zizioulas have also brought to their interpretation of the Fathers some of the insights of modern existentialist philosophy. Although criticized by some, this approach has led to some important thinking on the nature of person and relation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Theologian's Doubts:Natural Philosophy and the Skeptical Games of GhazālīLeor HaleviIn the history of skeptical thought, which normally leaps from the Pyrrhonists to the rediscovery of Sextus Empiricus in the sixteenth century, Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad al-Ghazālī (1058-1111) figures as a medieval curiosity. Skeptical enough to merit passing acknowledgment, he has proven too baffling to be treated fully alongside pagan, atheist, or materialist philosophers. As a theologian defending certain Muslim (...) dogmas, Ghazālī has not met what historians consider the mark of the true skeptic, a mind doubting the possibility of all systems of knowledge. But what is fascinating about him is that he brought into practical operation the tools of what I call "functional skepticism."1He denied the claims to truth of Aristotelian physics—whose basis he showed to rest on groundless belief—then turned and argued for the possibility of the Resurrection tooth and nail. The scholarly debate on The Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tahāfut al-falāsifa) has concentrated on the extent to which Ghazālī qua Ashcarite theologian was seduced into Aristotelian philosophy despite himself.2 In my view this debate has been misguided in the attempt to distill the [End Page 19] essence of Ghazālī from the book's eclectic theology; I will argue for a different view of Ghazālī on the basis of a close reading of key passages. In the unusual sections where Ghazālī applies Aristotelian language to a world not following the ordinary laws of physics, some have found Ghazālī slipping, unconsciously perhaps, into an Aristotelian frame of mind. I will show that, as a skeptical theologian with a dialogic imagination, he was rather deconstructing Aristotelian discourse while playing a Wittgensteinian sort of language game.Natural Philosopher or Speculative Theologian?The disagreement about the extent to which philosophy infected Ghazālī is ancient. Ghazālī might have studied philosophy only in order to refute it. He himself defended his philosophizing with the claim that one cannot deconstruct a system of thought until one has understood it so deeply as to elaborate upon its fundamental principles.3 His Maqāṣid al-falāsifa was in fact received, especially in trans-Pyrenean Europe, as a philosopher's genuine summary of the object of philosophy.4 The book strikes me as suspiciously creative in its representation of philosophical discourse, but it appears in any case as an expert and surprisingly unbiased treatment.5 Arabic readers knew that Ghazālī had also written a polemical treatise against philosophy, Tahāfut al-falāsifa, but they still wondered about his engagement with the ideas he challenged. Abū Bakr Ibn al-cArabī, for example, commented that Ghazālī had been unable to extricate himself from philosophy.6 Other philosophers pondered whether or not he had been a closeted member of their charmed circle and sought in his writings traces of esoteric philosophy.7Averroës's own sober sense of distance between philosophy and theology was partially a reaction to what he perceived as Ghazālī's dangerous and carefree mixture of the two sciences.8 He attacked Ghazālī's book in The Incoherence [End Page 20] of the Incoherence to restore philosophy's sense of purity, an aim he sought to accomplish by separating religious concerns from the philosopher's field of inquiry.9 Ironically, such a separation is precisely what Ghazālī might have wished to provoke by crisscrossing and blurring the line between religion and philosophy.The modern debate on chapter 17 of Tahāfut al-falāsifa has concentrated on defining Ghazālī as either a natural philosopher or an occasionalist theologian. In his defense of the possibility of miracles Ghazālī presented two theories of causation, one denying the logical basis of Aristotelian notions of natural causality, and the other more or less adopting these notions. Jointly, the two theories have seemed incompatible, and for this reason scholars have attempted to sort Ghazālī out of the apparent confusion. In 1978 L. E. Goodman argued persuasively that Ghazālī exploited rather than denied the philosophers' ideas of causality. In two articles Michael Marmura challenged Goodman, contending... (shrink)

This article offers a description of transdisciplinary facilitation that is suitable for theologians and ministers. The reflective aspect of transdisciplinary facilitation is illustrated through an engagement with transdisciplinary research on environmentalism and ecotheology. This article also suggests that Ernst Conradie could be appreciated, drawn on and critiqued as a transdisciplinary theologian and not a contextual theologian.

The South African demographic statistics echo the global trend of an ageing population. This fact poses challenges to the country's labour supply, to health care, retirement and intergenerational relations. The elderly are faced with specific challenges such as negative views regarding older people, discrimination and prejudice based on age, changing roles, the loss of a support system when children emigrate, financial problems, abuse and neglect, emotions of fear and depression, and the struggle to find meaning in life and suffering. The (...) field of study that concerns ageing and older adulthood is called gerontology. Joan Erber defines it as 'the study of the biological, behavioural, and social phenomena that occur from the point of maturity to old age.' It is an interdisciplinary field where different disciplines seek to address the problems associated with ageing. Biologists focus on the biological processes of ageing, psychologists focus on aspects like mental abilities, personality and behaviour, whilst sociologists study the social roles, group behaviour and status of older people. The question may be asked what is being done regarding the spiritual and emotional needs of the elderly. This is the niche of practical theology, as indicated by one definition of practical theology that it is 'a place where religious belief, tradition and practice meet contemporary experiences, questions and actions and conducts a dialogue that is mutually enriching, intellectually critical, and practically transforming' according to Pattison and Woodward. The aims of this exploratory article are (1) to investigate to what extent research in practical theology has addressed the spiritual and emotional needs of the elderly and (2) to identify opportunities where practical theology may provide service in the field of gerontology. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:John the Theologian and His Paschal Gospel: A Prologue to Theology by John BehrMatthew Z. ValeJohn the Theologian and His Paschal Gospel: A Prologue to Theology by John Behr (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), xv + 388 pp.Father Behr's book defies summary. Its ambitions span several fields—patristics, contemporary biblical scholarship, speculative systematics, phenomenology—and Behr has controversial proposals in each. The book is not (expressly) a work of systematic (...) theology, but its speculative élan and its ambition to give a normative account of Christian theology's beating heart is unmistakable. If a vice of the book is vagueness on questions of burning Christological, protological, and eschatological interest, among its virtues is the verve and vividness with which it provokes such questions to begin with. Behr has written, not a book on John, but a Johannine manifesto on theology. [End Page 989]The book is a "symposium" in three parts, each inviting a different kind of reader of John's gospel. The first is predominantly "historical" (the early Fathers of the Johannine school, reconstructed by modern scholarship), the second predominantly "exegetical" (contemporary biblical studies), and the third "philosophical," with a single guest in Michel Henry. The book's heart is an argument about what "incarnation" means. When it comes to the Incarnation, we labor, Behr says, under what Quentin Skinner calls a "mythology of doctrine," the hermeneutical fallacy of projecting onto a tradition's classical writers positions and whole doctrinal categories developed only later (6–8). The mythology of doctrine Behr opposes is, in fact, a mythological notion of the Incarnation as "an episode in the biography of the Word" (a phrase from Rowan Williams), the episode when a "pre-incarnate Word" is born as Jesus (3, and throughout). To break the ice on this mythology, part 1 reconstructs an original milieu for John's Gospel—a school of John the Evangelist, centered upon an original Pascha celebration—in which "becoming flesh," "Word," and "human being" mean something other than the dogmatic meanings we project back onto them. This Johannine school is not the Johannine "community" posited by historical-critical studies, but the school of John's "hearers" that J. B. Lightfoot traced from Polycarp of Smyrna, Ignatius of Antioch, Papias of Hierapolis, and Melito of Sardis down to Irenaeus (30–31). Behr's reconstruction makes the following proposals. Our evangelist is John the Elder, the beloved disciple, not the Synoptics' son of Zebedee. This John was plausibly an eyewitness to the crucifixion—alone among the evangelists. He authored both the Gospel and the Apocalypse bearing his name, according to near unanimous second-century tradition (76). The Apocalypse was possibly written before the Gospel, perhaps before the Temple's destruction. John the Elder originated the yearly Pascha celebration, and it remained peculiar to his school until the second half of the second century. This feast originally celebrated the crucifixion, burial, resurrection, ascension, and Pentecost as the single event of the Passion, just as in John's Gospel Jesus's ascension (12:32), glorification (13:31–2), and "handing down the Spirit" (19:30) are identified with the crucifixion. Only later was the Passion's simple white light refracted into the liturgical cycle's rainbow of distinct feasts (91–92, 243).This reconstruction is explicitly speculative. Its purpose is to enliven our imaginations about what the evangelist's vision may possibly be. If the mythological picture of the Incarnation is easily recognized as false, our theological traditions still have not entirely exorcised it from their standard narration. Behr proposes a Johannine narration untroubled by this [End Page 990] mythology. The Incarnation is not a novelty occurring for God at some moment. No previously fleshless divine agent undergoes change to become flesh at some time. The Incarnation must instead be understood "apocalyptically," as the eternal mystery of Jesus Christ being revealed for us in time (256-57). The Incarnation is Jesus's eternal identity as the Word being revealed and wrought in time and pro nobis by the Passion (24, 29, 257, 130). John's Gospel should be read, in John Ashton's words, as "an apocalypse—in reverse, upside down, inside out" (4, 99... (shrink)

Dieser Beitrag untersucht die Entstehung und die Wirkung von Luther an unsere Zeit, Karl Gottlieb Bretschneiders vielgelesenes Buch der Auszüge, als Fallstudie darüber, wie moderne wissenschaftliche Theologen und Herausgeber Luther gelesen, kommentiert und anderen Lesern vorgestellt haben: in diesem Beispiel als Rationalist. Das Buch war umstritten. Der Beitrag befasst sich auch mit zwei konkurrierenden Auswahlen von Luthers Schriften, die von den konservativeren Protestanten Friedrich Perthes und Hans Lorenz Andreas Vent sowie den ultramontanen Katholiken Nikolaus Weis und Andreas Räß als Antwort (...) verfasst wurden. Es deutet darauf hin, dass eine stärkere Berücksichtigung solcher Zusammenstellungen und der Arbeitsmethoden der Compiler selbst – als Teil der kritischen Geschichte der Wissenschaft – sowohl unser Verständnis des tatsächlichen Einsatzes der Reformer und ihrer breiten Rezeption durch verschiedene Leser bereichern als auch neues Licht werfen wird über die Polemik des frühen neunzehnten Jahrhunderts. This article examines the creation and impact of Luther for Our Time, Karl Gottlieb Bretschneider’s much-read book of excerpts, as a case study of how modern scientific theologians and editors read, annotated, and introduced Luther to other readers: in this instance as a rationalist. The book was controversial. The article also looks at two competing selections of Luther’s texts prepared in response by the more conservative Protestants Friedrich Perthes and Hans Lorenz Andreas Vent and the ultramontane Catholics Nikolaus Weis and Andreas Räß. It suggests that greater consideration of such compilations and the working methods of the compilers themselves – part of the critical history of scholarship – will both enrich our understanding of the actual use of reformers and their broad reception by various readers, as well as shed new light on the polemics of the early nineteenth century. (shrink)

Firstly, I discuss deferent descriptions of transdisciplinary research and argue that Wentzel van Huyssteen’s postfoundationalist description of epistemology provides a progenitive epistemology for a variety of transdisciplinary engagements. Secondly, I suggest that complexity, as described by Paul Cilliers, can be rooted in a postfoundationalist epistemology and illuminates the facilitation of transdisciplinary research. Based on this description and facilitation of transdisciplinarity, I argue that transdisciplinary theologians need to be skilled empathisers because knowledge is generated and exchanged by embodied agents, embedded (...) in particular disciplines. In a transversal move I suggest that, given contemporary research on empathic skills and the embodied aspects of empathy, Stanislavski’s approach to the training of actors illuminates a way in which we can train transdisciplinary theologians. The training develops empathetic skills through both mental and embodied exercises and equips students to generate empathy in different contexts without following set rules. (shrink)

How is one to tell the story of a life without becoming lost in uninteresting details? I had lived with this question for some days, when the answer came - as has often happened - in the early hours of the morning. I should tell my story from the end, rather than from the beginning. Destination achieved, the stages of one's progress become more meaningful.

Remarkably, the theological discourse surrounding Hans Frei and postliberal theology has continued for nearly thirty years since Frei's death. This is due not only to the complex and provocative character of Frei's work, nor only to his influence upon an array of thinkers who went on to shape the theological field in their own right. It is just as indebted to the critical responses that his thinking continues to inspire. One recurrent point of criticism takes aim at Frei's use of (...) Ludwig Wittgenstein's later work for theological ends. In his recent book Liberalism versus Postliberalism: The Great Divide in Twentieth Century Theology, John Allan Knight challenges what he sees as Frei's dependence on problematic Wittgensteinian assumptions. This article raises a few concerns about Knight's charges against Frei. Specifically, I argue that Knight's account tends to conflate the work of Wittgenstein and Frei. It does this by undervaluing two determinative features of Frei's work: (1) its basic Christological orientation; and (2) its Christologically motivated use of ad hoc apologetics. I argue that the Wittgensteinian view that Knight attributes to Frei is not Frei's view at all, and is, moreover, a problematic account of Wittgenstein on its own terms. Finally, Knight's claim that Frei's work “depends upon” and “is suffused” with the understanding of Wittgenstein that Knight attributes to him is based upon an account of Frei's treatment of the sensus literalis that is not entirely accurate. Without question, Knight does remarkable service to Frei's legacy by keeping important debates over his work alive. In what follows, I propose several points where I think Knight's account might be further enriched. The result, I hope, will be a more nuanced understanding of the ways that Frei actually appropriated and deployed Wittgenstein's thought. I will contextualize my account of Frei with reference both to Wittgenstein's writings and the literature surrounding his writings. Setting forth these accounts in tandem should help make further available Wittgenstein's work for subsequent work by postliberal theologians. (shrink)

This article is an investigation on how two theologians from the Early Church interpreted the withered fig tree, as narrated by the evangelist Matthew (Mt 21:18–22). The two theologians referred to are Origen of Alexandria, who belongs to the pre-Nicene era and represents the Alexandrian School, and Ps.-Chrysostom who belongs to the post-Nicene era, and represents the School of Antioch. Origen believed that when the fig tree withered, it referred to Israel’s withering. This interpretation of the narrative surrounding (...) the withered fig tree was very common in the Early Church. Ps.-Chrysostom makes it very clear that he cannot agree with this interpretation, which was quite common in the Early Church. He stated that it is wrong to liken the fig tree to the synagogue of the Jews. He argues that Jesus could not curse the synagogue, because he said that ‘The Son of Man did not come to destroy, but to seek and save the lost’ (cf. Lk 9:56). Moreover, if the synagogue withered, fruitful branches such as Paul, Stephen, Aquila and Priscilla could not have sprouted from the roots. These names are proof that God did not entirely reject the Jewish people. Ps.-Chrysostom then offers a different explanation to the question why the fig tree withered: He points out that Adam used the leaves of a fig tree to cover his nakedness. When Jesus caused the fig tree to wither, he wanted to show that he can give Adam a new garment of water and spirit that glistens like snow. Christ gave back to Adam what the serpent had robbed him of, namely ‘the angel-like life, the luxuriance of paradise, the garment of incorruptibility’ (PC. cp. 4). Contribution: The primary goal of this article is to explore the exegetical practices of two ancient theologians who came from two different schools and from two different eras. This study shows how they interpreted the account of the withered fig tree (Mt 21:18–22), based on their respective theological perspectives. (shrink)

In a clear account of the mature theology of Thomas Aquinas the author, a theologian himself, reveals the evangelical, pastoral and theocentric character of Aquinas's pre-modern theology.

Balthasar Hubmaier is often called ‘the theologian of the Anabaptists’ for he was the only early Anabaptist leader with an earned doctorate. The former Catholic priest embraced the reforming thought of Erasmus, Zwingli, and eventually Zwingli’s former pupils and led the Moravian city of Nikolsburg to become a bastion of Anabaptist thought and practice. The multi-dimensional religious landscape both afforded Hubmaier the opportunity and compelled him to author the first Anabaptist catechism. Through the work, Hubmaier articulated a clear and succinct (...) portrayal of Anabaptist theology and ecclesiology summed up in the Erasmian tenet of the love of God and neighbor. (shrink)

I argue that perfect being theologians cannot endorse the Principle of Alternative Possibilities. On perfect being theology, God is essentially morally perfect, meaning that He always acts in a morally perfect manner. I argue that it is possible that God is faced with a situation in which there is only one morally perfect action, which He must do. If this is true, then God acts without alternative possibilities in this situation. Yet, unless one says that this choice is not (...) free, one must say that God has acted freely without alternative possibilities. (shrink)

For several centuries after the fall of Constantinople, Greek theological writing was dominated by an arid scholasticism. This paper seeks to show how since the Second World War modern Greek theologians, with the help of a number of diaspora theologians and Western patristic scholars, have re-engaged with the Greek Fathers. Four theologians are discussed in some detail: Gontikakis, Nellas, Yannaras and Zizioulas. Each emphasizes a different strand of patristic tradition, but all four share a sense of the (...) Fathers as living witnesses to divine-human communion. Yannaras and Zizioulas have also brought to their interpretation of the Fathers some of the insights of modern existentialist philosophy. Although criticized by some, this approach has led to some important thinking on the nature of person and relation. (shrink)

First paragraph: The 'Beyond' of the theologians," to which Josef Mitterer alluded in a footnote in his 1988 essay "Farewell to the truth," can be understood as an offer of ultimate self-perception -- albeit with a high conflict potential.

As a theologian coming from Europe, a ‘postcolonial import’ into South Africa, it is my white privilege in particular that continues to queer my understanding of a social revolution on which our future, as a people, may depend. In this article, I seek to turn my personal experience of grappling with my whiteness into the source of my reflection. Drawing inspiration from fallism – a recent student movement that inscribes itself into a larger decolonial ‘struggle against the globalised system of (...) racist capitalism’ – I ponder what it could mean, in the South African context, for whiteness to fall upward (Rohr). Here, the metaphor of ‘falling upward’ as a kenosis of whiteness is considered specifically with regard to a white theologian’s (my own) attempt to open spaces that could be filled with blackness. Contribution: This auto-ethnographic essay inscribes itself into a transdisciplinary study of theology and race from both socio-cultural and religiospiritual perspectives. The author’s personal reflections, inspired by his own engagement with the fallist narratives and his ever-evolving attitude towards the blackness–whiteness binary, as experienced in the South African social and academic contexts, are shared as a means to crack open the societal and theological (notably Christian) imagination, both of which appear to suffer from a serious crisis. (shrink)