Description: This book is concerned with Kierkegaard's 'apophaticism'--those elements of Kierkegaard's thought which emphasize the incapacity of human reason and the hiddenness of God. Apophaticism is an important underlying strand in Kierkegaard's thought and colors many of his key concepts. Despite its importance, however, it has until now been largely ignored by Kierkegaardian scholarship. Law argues that apophatic elements can be detected in every aspect of Kierkegaard's thought and that, despite proceeding from different presuppositions, he can therefore be regarded as a negative theologian. Indeed, the book concludes by arguing that Kierkegaard's refusal to make the transition from the via negativa to the via mystica means that he is more apophatic than the negative theologians themselves.
Description: Karl Rahner (1904-84) has been called the most important and influential Roman Catholic thinker of the 20th century. He was a major influence at the Second Vatican Council, and his writings have inspired generations of modern students of theology. This work is a concise introduction to the whole range of Rahner's theological interests. It covers his thinking from his student days to the time of his death. Rahner's writings are numerous and complex, but Professor Dych aims to provide an accessible guide to his legacy. A special feature of the book is its attempt to connect Rahner's main theological teachings with those of Vatican II and with the teachings to be found in the Exercises of St Ignatius Loyola. It places Rahner in the context of modern Catholic doctrine and the ongoing experience of Christians anxious to explore the mysteries of God and creation.
Description: This book investigates the way in which the 'actualistic ontology' - i.e., the fact that God and human agents are beings-in-act in a covenant relationship - that underlies the Church Dogmatics of Karl Barth affects his conception of ethical agency. It analyses this effect along three paths of inquiry: knowing what is right (the noetic dimension), doing what is right (the ontic dimension), and achieving what is right (the telic dimension). The first section of the book explores the discipline of theological ethics as Barth construes it, both in its theoretical status and in its actual practice. In the second section, the ontological import of ethical agency for Barth is considered in relation to the divine action and the divine command. The final section of the book examines the teleological purpose envisaged in this theological ethics in terms of participation, witness, and glorification. At each stage of the book, the strong interconnectedness of theological ethics and actualistic ontology in the Church Dogmatics is drawn out. The resultant appreciation of the actualistic dimension which underlies the theological ethics of Karl Barth feeds into a fruitful engagement with a variety of critiques of Barth's conception of ethical agency. It is demonstrated that resources can be found within this actualistic ontology to answer some of the diverse criticisms, and that attempts to revise Barth's theological ethics at the margins would have catastrophic and irreversible consequences for his whole theological project.
