Those who have had the benefit of a reasonably lengthy familiarity with the philosophy of religion, and more particularly with the God question, may be so kind to a speaker long in exile from philosophy and only recently returned, as to subscribe, initially at least, to the following rather enormous generalization: meaning and truth, which to most propositions are the twin forces by which they are maintained, turn out in the case of claims about God, to be the centrifugal forces (...) by which they disintegrate. In simpler language, the greater the amount of intelligible meaning that can be given to the idea of God, the less grounds there would appear to be for assuming let alone asserting, that God exists, at least as a being distinguishable from all the things in this empirical world which are the source of the range of meanings available to us; on the other hand, the more we insist that God exists, a being over and above the things that make up this empirical world the less the amount of commonly available meaning we appear to be able to apply to God. Or, to put this in a manner which might obviate an obvious objection to it; either everything we know is tout ensemble, God, and then nothing in the world that we know is distinctively divine; or else nothing in this world is God, and then nothing that we appear to be able to know is God. That same formulation will work, it should be noted, even if we substitute for ‘things in the world’, ‘an aspect or aspects of things in the world’. (shrink)

Those who have had the benefit of a reasonably lengthy familiarity with the philosophy of religion, and more particularly with the God question, may be so kind to a speaker long in exile from philosophy and only recently returned, as to subscribe, initially at least, to the following rather enormous generalization: meaning and truth, which to most propositions are the twin forces by which they are maintained, turn out in the case of claims about God, to be the centrifugal forces (...) by which they disintegrate. In simpler language, the greater the amount of intelligible meaning that can be given to the idea of God, the less grounds there would appear to be for assuming let alone asserting, that God exists, at least as a being distinguishable from all the things in this empirical world which are the source of the range of meanings available to us; on the other hand, the more we insist that God exists, a being over and above the things that make up this empirical world the less the amount of commonly available meaning we appear to be able to apply to God. Or, to put this in a manner which might obviate an obvious objection to it; either everything we know is tout ensemble , God, and then nothing in the world that we know is distinctively divine; or else nothing in this world is God, and then nothing that we appear to be able to know is God. That same formulation will work, it should be noted, even if we substitute for ‘things in the world’, ‘an aspect or aspects of things in the world’. (shrink)

In the conventional analysis of human behaviour, power and ethics are frequently considered contrary principles, in that power enforces, while ethics elicits a free response. But, as James Mackey forcefully shows, a more adventurous philosophical study of human morality escapes the sense of contraries, and sets us on a quest for the kind of power that liberates human creativity. It then becomes possible to establish the framework for a critical assessment of the kind of power that ought to be operative (...) in the major structures of human society, civil or ecclesiastical, state governments and church hierarchies. Mackey analyses the religious question which then quite naturally emerges, as to whether this Eros-type power so manifest in human society originates from beyond the more empirical structures of churches, states and 'nature'; and the effort to detect the specifically Christian characterisation of an allegedly ultimate power working in us for final well-being finds its natural context. (shrink)

Far from merely reinvigorating relativism, postmodernism has detected and expressed in our time a powerful nihilating process of which truth and reality itself are the final casualties; and with these morality and religion. Beginning from the theological reaches of philosophy, this book argues that gods played a crucial part in modern philosophy, even when it was most critical of them; that the dominant nihilism of Derrida is really an excessive and misleading outcome of a contemporary philosophy which could otherwise resonate (...) with all that is best in our evolutionary image of the universe; that moralists who turn to art in order to overcome the fact-value version of this deadly dualism do not thereby rule out religion; and that a Christian theology which recognises the evolutionary/historical conditions of faith and revelation is once again producing a theology that builds upon the best of contemporary philosophy and science. (shrink)

It would normally be taken that however else religion may be defined it always has to do with God. Consequently, we might expect from Tillich’s book an essay in comparative religion from a Christian standpoint. It is perhaps characteristic of Tillich that he does not give us what we expect.

This book which is sub-titled Common Misconceptions of Catholicism contains a series of essays by American Jesuits on points of Catholic doctrine which are the most fruitful sources of misconceptions amongst non-Catholics. It does not follow that the book is solely for non-Catholics since it is a fair presumption that misconceptions of Catholicism amongst non-Catholics are due in no small part to Catholics themselves, to their inability to understand or express properly their own religious and moral positions. The removal of (...) misunderstandings at which this symposium aims must, like charity, begin at home. (shrink)

Tillich seems to fall in for a rougher treatment at the hands of his commentators than do other prominent theologians of our time. Kenneth Hamilton’s The System and The Gospel was extremely severe on him and although J Heywood Thomas sets out to put positive appreciation before criticism, he is hardly less severe in the end. It is true that the charges of ambiguity and vagueness in concept and term can be levelled against Tillich with far more justice than they (...) could be levelled even against Barth, for instance, and this may be because of the variety of influences that have gone into the making of Tillich’s thought. Thomas is probably correct in insisting that Tillich depends mostly on Schelling but there are whole sections in Systematic Theology which come almost directly from Kierkegaard while the modern existentialists and particularly Heidegger find constant echoes in all Tillich’s writing. Even the characteristic concept of ‘ultimate concern’ with its corresponding ‘ground of being’ is of uncertain parentage. (shrink)

Tillich seems to fall in for a rougher treatment at the hands of his commentators than do other prominent theologians of our time. Kenneth Hamilton’s The System and The Gospel was extremely severe on him and although J Heywood Thomas sets out to put positive appreciation before criticism, he is hardly less severe in the end. It is true that the charges of ambiguity and vagueness in concept and term can be levelled against Tillich with far more justice than they (...) could be levelled even against Barth, for instance, and this may be because of the variety of influences that have gone into the making of Tillich’s thought. Thomas is probably correct in insisting that Tillich depends mostly on Schelling but there are whole sections in Systematic Theology which come almost directly from Kierkegaard while the modern existentialists and particularly Heidegger find constant echoes in all Tillich’s writing. Even the characteristic concept of ‘ultimate concern’ with its corresponding ‘ground of being’ is of uncertain parentage. (shrink)

It is unusual, to say the least, to find in a tract de Ecclesia a treatment of primitive religion and a reference to the pre-frontal lobes. But then this book by a professor at the faculty of Theology in Lyon is a new and refreshing approach to the writing of a tract on the Church.