The Presence and Absence of God
Claremont Studies in the Philosophy of Religion, Conference 2008
edited by Ingolf U. Dalferth
Safeguarding the distinction between God and world has always been a basic interest of negative theology. But sometimes it has overemphasized divine transcendence in a way that made it difficult to account for the sense of God’s present activity and experienced actuality. Criticisms of the Western metaphysics of presence have made this even more difficult to conceive. On the other hand, there has been a widespread attempt in recent years to base all theology on (religious) experience; the Christian church celebrates God’s presence in its central sacraments of baptism and Eucharist; process thought has re-conceptualized God’s presence in panentheistic terms; and some have argued that God might be poly-present, not omnipresent. But what does it mean to say that God is present or absent? For Jews, Christians, and Moslems alike God is not an inference, an absentee entity of which we can detect only faint traces in our world. On the contrary, God is present reality, indeed the most present of all realities. However, belief in God’s presence cannot ignore the widespread experience of God’s absence. Moreover, there is little sense in speaking of God’s absence if it cannot be distinguished from God’s non-presence or non-existence. So how are we to understand the sense of divine presence and absence in religious and everyday life? This is what the essays in this volume explore in the biblical traditions, in Jewish and Christian theology and philosophy, and in contemporary philosophy of religion.
Ingolf U. Dalferth: God , Time, and Orientation. 'Presence' and 'Absence' in Religious and Everyday Discourse I Biblical Traditions Leah Rediger Schulte/Tammi J. Schneider: The Absence of the Deity in Rape Scenes of the Hebrew Bible - Kristin De Troyer/Leah Rediger Schulte: Is God absent or present in the Book of Esther? An Old Problem Revisited. - Stefan Alkier: Ways of Presence and Modes of Absence in the Gospel of Luke - or: How Scripture Works II Jewish Theology and Philosophy Jerome Gellman: The Hiddenness of God in Early Hasidic Thought - The Hiding of the Hiding of God's Face - Philip. Clayton: The Hiddenness of God in Spinoza: A Case Study in Transcendence and Immanence, Absence and Presence - Claudia Welz: God's Givenness and Hiddenness: Franz Rosenzweig on Human (Dis)Trust and Divine Deception III Contemporary Philosophy of Religion Anselm Min: The Dialectic of God's Presence and Absence in the World - John H. Whittaker: The Knowledge of God in the Cloud of Unknowing - Stephen T. Davis: God as Present and God as Absent - Roland Faber: Indra's Ear-God's Absence of Listening IV Literature and Politics Patrick Horn: Simone Weil and Cormac McCarthy's The Road: Conditions for the Possibility of Beauty, Justice, and Faith in God - Richard Amesbury: Religious Neutrality and the Secular State: The Politics of God's Absence?
- Edited by Ingolf U Dalferth
Other Titles in this Series
Sprachspiele des Glaubens
Eine Studie zur kontemplativen Religionsphilosophie von Dewi Z. Phillips mit standiger Rucksicht auf Ludwig Wittgenstein
Volume 47
Theopoetics and Religious Difference
The Unruliness of the Interreligious: A Dialogue with Richard Kearney, John D. Caputo, and Catherine Keller
Volume 104
Natürliche Theologie
Beiträge zu ihrer Problemgeschichte und zur Frage ihrer gegenwärtigen Relevanz
Gott und Mensch
Differenziologische Analysen zur Grammatik des Systems christlicher Existenz
Volume 115
Apostaten der Natur
Die Differenzanthropologie Helmuth Plessners als Herausforderung fur die theologische Rede vom Menschen
Volume 73
Religion and the End of Metaphysics
Claremont Studies in the Philosophy of Religion, Conference 2006
Volume 34
Verletzt fühlen
Systematisch-theologische Perspektiven auf den Zusammenhang von Verletzung und Emotion
Volume 119
Self or No-Self?
The Debate about Selflessness and the Sense of Self. Claremont Studies in the Philosophy of Religion, Conference 2015
Volume 94
Ethics of In-Visibility
Imago Dei, Memory, and Human Dignity in Jewish and Christian Thought
Volume 77
D. Z. Phillips on Religious Language, Religious Truth, and God
Beyond Misunderstandings and Criticisms
Volume 116
Being in Religion
A Journey in Ontology from Pragmatics through Hermeneutics to Metaphysics
Volume 67
The Unique, the Singular, and the Individual
The Debate about the Non-Comparable. Claremont Studies in the Philosophy of Religion, Conference 2018
Volume 122
Hermeneutics and the Philosophy of Religion
The Legacy of Paul Ricoeur. Claremont Studies in the Philosophy of Religion, Conference 2013
Volume 78
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