‘Non-Metaphysical’ Christian Philosophy and Linguistic Philosophy

1964 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-20
Author(s):  
James W. Woelfel
Keyword(s):  
Linguistic Analysis ◽  
Logical Positivism ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
Language Analysis ◽  
Christian Theologian ◽  
Basic Distinction ◽  
Theological Language ◽  
Linguistic Philosophy

In the continuing discussion between Christian theology and linguistic philosophy there is a fundamental division of the theological responses which has weighty implications for the whole encounter between the two disciplines. This basic distinction into two types of Christian response is one of those simple categorisations which by their very obviousness are often overlooked. I refer to two kinds of Christian thinkers who deal with linguistic analysis: the ‘non-metaphysical’ and the ‘metaphysical’. In this article I have chosen to discuss certain types of the ‘non-metaphysical’ response.Whether a Christian theologian deals with Oxford philosophy from a metaphysical or a non-metaphysical perspective is vital to the whole discussion. It is vital to the theologian because linguistic analysis is the latest in a series of philosophical movements beginning with Hume which claim to have undermined metaphysics finally and forever. If the theologian responds in a metaphysical way to the questions asked by the Oxford philosophers, he must justify his appeal to metaphysics over against the critique of metaphysics which lies behind language analysis. If, on the other hand, the theologian replies in a non-metaphysical way, he must demonstrate the epistemological significance of Christian doctrine apart from metaphysical support.The major contemporary criticisms of theological language come not from language analysis considered independently but from a revitalised logical positivism aided by analytical methods. I call this ‘new’ positivism ‘linguistic empiricism’ or ‘analytical positivism’. Linguistic analysis is fundamentally a method, while positivism is a theory of knowledge.

Troeltsch's Eschatological Absolute

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evan F. Kuehn
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
Philosophical Thought ◽  
The Core ◽  
Divine Transcendence ◽  
The Absolute

This study argues that the core of Ernst Troeltsch’s theological project is an eschatological conception of the Absolute. Troeltsch developed his idea of the Absolute from post-Kantian religious and philosophical thought and applied it to the Christian doctrine of eschatology. Troeltsch’s eschatological Absolute must be understood in the context of questions being raised at the turn of the twentieth century by research on New Testament apocalypticism, as well as by modern critical methodologies in the historical sciences. The study is a revisionist response to common approaches to Troeltsch that read him as introducing problematic historicist and immanentist assumptions into Christian theology. Instead it argues that Troeltsch’s theological modernism presents a compelling account of the meaningfulness of history while retaining a commitment to divine transcendence that is unconditioned by history. As such, his theology remains relevant to theological research today, well beyond theological circles that normally take Troeltsch’s legacy to contribute in a constructive way to their work.

IMAGINATION AND METAPHOR IN THEOLOGICAL LANGUAGE

2020 ◽  
pp. 48-63
Author(s):  
Svetlana A. Konacheva ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Religious Language ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Western History ◽  
Theological Hermeneutics ◽  
Images Of God ◽  
Language Interpretation ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
Theological Language

The paper investigates the religious language interpretation in the contemporary continental philosophic theology. The author presents the central role of the imagination and metaphor in theological language. The diacritical hermeneutics of Richard Kearney is analyzed as an example of the theological language transition from the theologics to theopoetics. Modifications in the theological language are associated with transformations in the understanding of theology itself, which becomes a topological and tropological study. It considers the interpretation of imagination in Kearney’s early works, his attempts to describe “paradigmatic shifts” in the human understanding of imagination in different epochs of Western history. The author highlights mimetic paradigm of the pre-modern imagination, productive paradigm of the modern imagination and parodic paradigm of the postmodern imagination. Analysis of Kearney’s “biblical” interpretation of imagination allows one to understand the imagination as the point of contact of God with humanity. She also considers how Ricoeur’s theory of metaphor influences the development of the poetic language in postmodern Christian theology and demonstrates that poetic and religious languages are brought together by an “imaginative variations”. The author argues that turning to imagination in religious language allows theological hermeneutics to move from the static to kinetic images of God.

scholarly journals The Trinity in African Christian theology: An overview of contemporary approaches

2019 ◽  
Vol 75 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Teddy C. Sakupapa
Keyword(s):  
Christian Theology ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
African Theology ◽  
Doctrine Of God ◽  
Concepts Of God ◽  
Theological Discourse ◽  
Primary Literature ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
Doctrine Of The Trinity ◽  
The Trinity

This contribution offers a survey of the modern African theological discourse on the Trinity as a distinctive Christian doctrine of God. It is a systematic narrative review of primary literature on the doctrine of the Trinity in modern African theology with a view to identify main trends, key concepts and major proponents. It is argued that the contemporary African Trinitarian Hermeneutics cannot be understood in isolation from African debates on translatability of concepts of God framed first in terms of the reinterpretation of the theological significance of pre-Christian African concepts of God and subsequently as an outcome of African Christological reflection. The article affirms an apophatic resistance to any tendency to take God for granted as recently advanced by Ernst Conradie and Teddy Sakupapa.

Rediscovering Israel’s Messiah

Pro Ecclesia ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 106385122095382
Author(s):  
Jennifer M Rosner
Keyword(s):  
Jewish People ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
Vantage Points ◽  
Key Questions ◽  
Land Of Israel ◽  
The Way

In the ongoing endeavor to increasingly recast traditional Christian theology in non-supersessionist terms, recent books by Mark S. Kinzer and Edjan Westerman deserve particular attention. Both authors lucidly illustrate the way in which the gospel of Jesus is intimately bound to the life and destiny of the Jewish people and the land of Israel. From different vantage points, these authors pose a set of key questions to the contemporary church by reframing central aspects of Christian doctrine.

From Swoosh to Swoon: Linguistic Analysis of Nike's Changing Image

2003 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
pp. 52-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leslie A. Levin ◽  
Susan J. Behrens
Keyword(s):  
Business Communication ◽  
Linguistic Analysis ◽  
Linguistic Theory ◽  
Language Analysis ◽  
The Media ◽  
Positive Images

Our research models one way in which linguistic theory can be applied to the study of business communication. Specifically, we use linguistic theory to analyze how Nike's image is created through internal and external forms of communication. We find a parallel use of positive images in communication created by both Nike and the media from the early 1980s to the late 1990s and a divergence of images when Nike is accused of labor violations. Introducing language analysis challenges busi ness students to assess carefully the structure of business communication in order to evaluate the reality behind the image.

Language, Metaphor, and Chalcedon: A Case of Theological Double Vision

1995 ◽  
Vol 88 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-255
Author(s):  
Stephen W. Need
Keyword(s):  
William Blake ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Religious Language ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Double Vision ◽  
Language Functions ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Theological Language ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Northrop Frye

The question of how human language functions in relation to God constitutes one of the most difficult problems in Christian theology. I contend that Christian notions of language about God should be constructed in light of christology, since both are concerned with the relationship between the human and the divine. Northrop Frye, drawing on the poetry and thought of William Blake, speaks of the importance of “the double vision of a spiritual and a physical world simultaneously present” in understanding how religious language works. This fundamental quality of double vision or tension characterizes the relationship between the human and the divine both in language about God and in christology. In this article I shall examine several aspects of the relationship between the human and the divine: first, the basic problem of theological language as discussed by George Lindbeck; second, the notion of theological language as metaphorical, as discussed by Sallie McFague; and third, christology as found in the Chalcedonian definition of Christian faith. I shall conclude that it is appropriate to construct notions of language about God in light of Chalcedonian christology.

Information Extraction

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph Grishman
Keyword(s):  
Information Extraction ◽  
Conventional Treatment ◽  
Linguistic Analysis ◽  
Event Extraction ◽  
Automatic Identification ◽  
Free Text ◽  
Regular Expressions ◽  
Language Analysis ◽  
Finite State ◽  
Linguistic Units

Information extraction (IE) is the automatic identification of selected types of entities, relations, or events in free text. This article appraises two specific strands of IE — name identification and classification, and event extraction. Conventional treatment of languages pays little attention to proper names, addresses etc. Presentations of language analysis generally look up words in a dictionary and identify them as nouns etc. The incessant presence of names in a text, makes linguistic analysis of the same difficult, in the absence of the names being identified by their types and as linguistic units. Name tagging involves creating, several finite-state patterns, each corresponding to some noun subset. Elements of the patterns would match specific/classes of tokens with particular features. Event extraction typically works by creating a series of regular expressions, customized to capture the relevant events. Enhancement of each expression is corresponded by a relevant, suitable enhancement in the event patterns.

Christian Anthropology in an Age of Science: Between Anthropocentrism and Non-Anthropocentrism

2018 ◽  
Vol 129 (12) ◽  
pp. 547-553
Author(s):  
Junghyung Kim
Keyword(s):  
Christian Theology ◽  
Christian Belief ◽  
Human Species ◽  
Human Form ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
Special Position ◽  
World Picture ◽  
Christian Anthropology ◽  
Human Uniqueness ◽  
Doctrine Of Creation

Is Christianity so incurably anthropocentric that the demise of anthropocentrism would be tantamount to the falsification of the Christian faith? Would Christianity be able to survive modern scientific challenges to the long-held anthropocentric world picture? Responding to these questions, I claim that the Christian doctrine of incarnation strongly supports the Christian belief in humanity’s special position in God’s created world, whereas it is not only possible but also mandatory to reconstruct a non-anthropocentric Christian doctrine of creation and humanity. First, as regards the non-anthropocentric idea of creation, I propose that creation, instead of redemption, should the overarching framework of Christian theology, the goal of creation is much greater than human redemption, and our human species is a companion to other creatures on the way to the eschatological consummation. With this non-anthropocentric Christian doctrine of creation in mind, however, I even more strongly maintain that humanity has a special position in God’s created world. Even if the traditional doctrine of imago Dei may not successfully convince us of the idea of human uniqueness in the face of scientific challenges, I argue, the authentic Christian affirmation of the incarnation of God in the specifically human form lays a firm foundation for the Christian belief in God’s special concern with our human species.

Austin on Sense-Data: Ordinary Language Analysis as 'Therapy'

2006 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-99
Author(s):  
Eugen Fischer
Keyword(s):  
Ordinary Language ◽  
Linguistic Analysis ◽  
Ordinary Language Philosophy ◽  
Language Philosophy ◽  
Sense Data ◽  
Language Analysis

The construction and analysis of arguments supposedly are a philosopher's main business, the demonstration of truth or refutation of falsehood his principal aim. In , J.L. Austin does something entirely different: He discusses the sense-datum doctrine of perception, with the aim not of refuting it but of 'dissolving' the 'philosophical worry' it induces in its champions. To this end, he 'exposes' their 'concealed motives', without addressing their stated reasons. The paper explains where and why this at first sight outrageous aim and approach are perfectly sensible, how exactly Austin proceeds, and how his approach can be taken further. This shows Austin to be a pioneer of the currently much discussed notion of philosophy as therapy, reveals a subtle and unfamiliar use of linguistic analysis that is not open to the standard objections to ordinary language philosophy, and yields a novel and forceful treatment of the sense-datum doctrine.

The Use and Abuse of Theodicy

Horizons ◽  
1984 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 304-319 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terrence W. Tilley
Keyword(s):  
Problem Of Evil ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Philosophical Theology ◽  
Christian Belief ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
Contemporary Christian ◽  
Christian Theologian ◽  
The Problem Of Evil

AbstractThe present essay distinguishes two ways to “settle” the problem of evil, “defense” and “theodicy,” as practiced in contemporary Christian philosophical theology. It argues that Christian theology can defend Christian belief from the charge of inconsistency, but that when it attempts to explain why and how God permits or wills evil in his world, it stumbles over denying the reality of evil or the goodness of God. The essay concludes by arguing that the Christian theologian cannot and should not attempt to make Christianity plausible by constructing theodicies but should concentrate on other methods of demonstrating the plausibility of Christianity.

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