Negative theology or apophasis - the idea that God is best identified in terms of 'absence', 'otherness', 'difference' - has been influential in modern Christian thought, resonating as it does with secular notions of negation developed in continental philosophy. Apophasis also has a strong intellectual history dating back to the early Church Fathers. Silence and the Word both studies the history of apophasis and examines its relationship with contemporary secular philosophy. Leading Christian thinkers explore in their own way the extent to which the concept of the apophatic illumines some of the deepest doctrinal structures of Christian faith, and of Christian self-understanding both in terms of its historical and contemporary situatedness, showing how a dimension of negativity has characterised not only traditional mysticism but most forms of Christian thought over the years.
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Preface; Notes on contributors; Introduction Oliver Davies and Denys Turner; 1. Apophaticism, idolatory and the claims of reason Denys Turner; 2. The quest for a place which is 'not-a-place': the hiddenness of God and the presence of God Paul S. Fiddes; 3. The gift of the name: Moses and the burning bush Janet Martin Soskice; 4. Aquinas on the Trinity Herbert McCabe; 5. Vere tu es deus absconditus: the hidden God in Luther and some mystics Bernard McGinn; 6. The deflections of desire: negative theology in Trinitarian disclosure Rowan Williams; 7. The formation of mind: Trinity and understanding in Newman Mark A. McIntosh; 8. 'In the daylight forever?': language and silence Graham Ward; 9. Apophasis and the Shoah: where was Jesus Christ at Auschwitz? David F. Ford; 10. Soundings: towards a theological poetics of silence Oliver Davies; Select bibliography.
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"[Davies and Turner's] contributions helpfully suggest ways in which the doctrines of the trinity and the incarnation, far from subverting negative theology, provide the conceptual framework within which Christians become most fully aware of language's inability to encompass or exhaust divinity." Religious Studies Review
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Studies the history of apophasis and examines its relationship with secular philosophy.

Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9780521067393
Publisert
2008-06-26
Utgiver
Vendor
Cambridge University Press
Vekt
360 gr
Høyde
229 mm
Bredde
152 mm
Dybde
14 mm
Aldersnivå
UP, 05
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Antall sider
240

Biographical note

Oliver Davies is Reader in Philosophical Theology in the University of Wales and has written a number of studies of Christian mystical writers, including Meister Eckhart: Mystical Theologian (SPCK 1991). The first volume of his Systematic Theology in three parts appeared as A Theology of Compassion (SCM Press 2001), and the second volume, On the Creativity of God, is currently under preparation. Denys Turner is the Norris-Hulse Professor of Philosophical Theology at the University of Cambridge and former H. G.Wood Professor at the University of Birmingham. He is the author of On the Philosophy of Karl Marx (Sceptre, 1969), Marxism and Christianity (Blackwell, 1983) and The Darkness of God (CUP, 1995). He is currently working on a book on Thomas Aquinas and the doctrine of God.