Evidence and Transcendence

Anne Inman

Description

In Evidence and Transcendence, Anne Inman critiques modern attempts to explain the knowability of God and points the way toward a religious epistemology that avoids their pitfalls. Christian apologetics faces two major challenges: the classic Enlightenment insistence on the need to provide evidence for anything that is put forward for belief; and the argument that all human knowledge is mediated by finite reality and thus no "knowledge"of a being interpreted as completely other than finite reality is possible.

Modern Christian apologists have tended to understand their task primarily, if not exclusively, in terms of one of these challenges. As examples of contemporary rationalist and postliberal approaches, Inman analyzes in depth the religious epistemologies of philosopher Richard Swinburne and theologians George Lindbeck and Ronald Theimann. She concludes that none of their positions is satisfactory, because none can uphold the notion of God's transcendence while at the same time preserving a sound account of our claims to freedom and knowledge.

The root cause of such failures, Inman argues, is an inadequate philosophy of God and of the relation of God and the finite world. Her exploration of the theologies of Karl Rahner and Friedrich Schleiermacher provides the material for the constructive work in this book. Against rationalist and postliberal epistemologies, Inman calls for an austere grounding of Christian faith in the claim that God is known in human conscious activity as such, as the "other" that grounds the finite.

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Épistémologie
• Philosophie de la religion
• Religious
• PHILOSOPHY
• Philosophie et théologie
• Christian apologetics
• Theology
• Epistemology

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 01 avril 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780268082642
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

Evidence and Transcendence RELIGIOUS EPISTEMOLOGY and the GODWORLD RELATIONSHIP

ANNE E. INMAN

Evidence a n d Transcendence

E v i de n c e a n d T r a n s c e n de n c e

Religious Epistemology and the GodWorld Relationship

A n n e E . I n m a n

University of Notre Dame Press Notre Dame, Indiana

Copyright © 2008 by University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana 46556 www.undpress.nd.edu All Rights Reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Inman, Anne E. Evidence and transcendence : religious epistemology and the God-world relationship / Anne E. Inman. p. cm. Revision of the author's thesis (doctoral)—Heythrop College. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-268-03177-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-268-03177-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Knowledge, Theory of (Religion) 2. Apologetics. I. Title. BL51.I625 2008 212—dc22 2008007786

This book is printed on recycled paper.

To D av i d , my husband

C o n t e n t s

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Current Challenges

Chapter 1.Swinburne and Rationalism

Chapter 2.Postliberalism and Lindbeck

Chapter 3.The Antifoundationalism of Thiemann

Chapter 4.Schleiermacher and Absolute Dependence

Chapter 5.Rahner’s “God”

Chapter 6.An Alternative Approach

Notes

Select Bibliography

Index

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1

3

35

49

87

117

139

157

173

179

A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s

With very great pleasure I record my thanks to Philip Endean, my doctoral supervisor, for teaching me so much, for his care and kind ness, and for always being at the end of an email in no matter what part of the world. My examiner, Janet Martin Soskice, provided in valuable advice for the revision of the dissertation into its present form, as did an anonymous reader for the University of Notre Dame Press. I am also grateful to Michael Kirwan and Anna Abram, who were doctoral students with me at Heythrop College in the University of London, for their friendship and encouragement then and now. When the task I had set myself seemed overwhelming, I received very necessary encouragement from Laurence Hemming, Dean of Research Students; my thanks go to him and to all the staff at Heythrop College for their help and kindness over the years. Without the unfailing support of David, my husband, this work would not have been possible at all. This book is dedicated to him. My thanks also go to our sons, Ben and Tom, who, by simply being there, have made their own invaluable contribution.

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