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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2008
Gordon Kaufman is a theologian who wrestles with essential theological issues. In a recent amplification of his position, An Essay on Theological Method,1 he makes an honest attempt to describe the method by which a self-critical theologian might work. This paper sets out a critique of the method Kaufman proposes and from that delineates a path which theologians might choose to follow.
page 173 note 1 Kaufman, Gordon D., An Essay on Theological Method (Missoula, Montana: Scholars Press, 1975).Google Scholar
page 173 note 2 Ibid. pp. x-xi and 1–8.
page 173 note 3 Ibid. pp. 8–11.
page 173 note 4 Ibid. p. 11.
page 173 note 5 Ibid. pp. 11–15.
page 174 note 1 Ibid. pp. 19–38.
page 174 note 2 Ibid. p. 72.
page 174 note 3 Ibid. pp. 41–64.
page 174 note 4 Ibid. p. 52.
page 174 note 5 Ibid. p. 55.
page 174 note 6 Ibid.
page 175 note 1 Ibid. pp. 1–8.
page 176 note 1 Ibid. pp. 11–15.
page 176 note 2 See the various articles in Kaufman, Gordon D., God the Problem (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1972).Google Scholar
page 176 note 3 Nielsen, Kai, Scepticism (London: Macmillan Press, 1973), pp. 73–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McLain, F. Michael, ‘On Theological Models’, Harvard Theological Review, LXII, 2 (04 1969), 155–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Kaufman replies to McLain, , and in a measure agrees, in God the Problem, pp. xiii–xviii.Google Scholar
page 176 note 4 Wiebe, Don, ‘On Kaufman's Problem God’, Religious Studies, x (June 1974), 189–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 176 note 5 Concise Oxford Dictionary.
page 177 note 1 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations, transl. By Anscombe, G. E. M. (3rd ednNew York: Macmillan, 1968), pp. 31e–32eGoogle Scholar; and his The Blue and Brown Books (New York: Harper and Row, 1965), p. 17.Google Scholar
page 177 note 2 Kaufman, , Essay, p. 48.Google Scholar
page 178 note 1 Not all consider it good or necessary to unify our lives; see Miller, David L., The New Polytheism: Rebirth of the Gods and Goddesses (New York: Harper and Row, 1974).Google Scholar
page 178 note 2 See Cupitt, Don, Worlds of Science and Religion (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1976), chapter 8Google Scholar; and his ‘God and the Future of Man’, in Man and Nature, ed. by Montefiore, Hugh (London: William Collins Sons, 1975).Google Scholar
page 178 note 3 Kaufman, , Essay, p. 14.Google Scholar
page 178 note 4 Ibid. p. 13.
page 178 note 5 A similar point is made by Cynthia M. Campbell in her ‘On “The Three Moments of Theological Construction”’ (mimeographed paper presented to the seminar on theological method Kaufman mentions on p. xii of his Essay), pp. 3–4.
page 179 note 1 This is all that is required to say that theology is a human and public activity; see Kaufman Essay, p. x; see also Kaufman, Gordon D., ‘Christian Theology and the Modernization of the Religions’, Bangalore Theological Forum, viii, 2 (July-Dec. 1976), 90.Google Scholar
page 180 note 1 Hugh Jones suggests that it might ‘be more correct simply to say that one has no tools for this task’ of knowing about God himself, rather than making the formal statement that God is ultimately ‘a mysterious and unknowable X’ (Kaufman, , God the Problem; p. 150Google Scholar ); see Jones, Hugh O., ‘Gordon Kaufman's Perspectival Language’, Religious Studies, xiv (03 1978), 94.Google Scholar
page 180 note 2 Kaufman, , Essay, p. 49.Google Scholar
page 180 note 3 Ibid. p. 11; italics mine.
page 180 note 4 Kaufman, , God the Problem, p. 86.Google Scholar This distinction is a necessary characteristic of the available God; see Ibid. p. 113.
page 180 note 5 Idinopulos, Thomas A., ‘The “Ultimate Cosmic Agency”’, The Christian Century, LXXXIX, 25 (28, 06 1972), 719–21.Google Scholar
page 181 note 1 Sponheim, Paul, Review of God the Problem, Dialog, 14, no. 1 (Winter 1975), 65–6.Google Scholar
page 181 note 2 See the Epilogue in his Essay, and his paper ‘Christian Theology and the Modernization of the Religions’.
page 181 note 3 Porteus, Alvin C., review of God the Problem, Religion in Life, 42, no. 1 (Spring 1973), 131–2.Google Scholar
page 181 note 4 Jones, , p. 95.Google Scholar See also Griffin, David R., ‘Gordon Kaufman's Theology: Some Questions’, Journal of the American Academy of Religions, XLI, 4 (12. 1973), 555–8Google Scholar; and Runzo, Joseph, review of An Essay on Theological Method, Theological Studies, XXXVII (Dec. 1976), 686–7.Google Scholar
page 181 note 5 Kaufman suggests (p. 22 of his Essay), after Kant, that problems arise when we consider the world as an object of perception. Is it infinite or finite in extent? Did it have a beginning in time?, etc. such problems modern physical cosmology, however, considers it has answers to: the edges of space are defined by gravity and the paths light takes, and the beginning of the world is when the cosmic explosion occurred as in the ‘big bang’ theories. From the ‘inside’ of the world we can gain knowledge of the ‘whole’. And, anyway, do we experience anything as a whole, or only parts or aspects of it?
page 182 note 1 Kaufman, , Essay, pp. 55–6.Google Scholar
page 182 note 2 This type of position (usually associated with Wittgenstein) has been adopted by many; for instance, W. D. Hudson, P. M. van Buren, D. Z. Phillips, P. Winch, etc. For critiques of this position see, for example, Trigg, Roger, Reason and Commitment (London: Cambridge University Press, 1973), chapter 4Google Scholar; or Pratt, Vernon, Religion and Secularisation (London: Macmillan Press, 1970), pp. 37–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The descriptive versus non-descriptive debate has been well presented by Charles-worth, M. J. (ed.), The Problems of Religious Language (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1974).Google Scholar
page 183 note 1 Kaufman, , Essay, pp. 35–7.Google Scholar
page 183 note 2 MacCormac, Earl R., Metaphor and Myth in Science and Religion (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1976).Google Scholar
page 184 note 1 Note that ‘science’ is usually being used in the sense of the knowledge of the physical sciences.
page 184 note 2 For a general discussion of this debate see especially Barbour, Ian G., Myths, Models, and Paradigms (New York: Harper and Row, 1974), chapter 6.Google Scholar
page 184 note 3 Barbour, , p. 145.Google Scholar
page 186 note 1 The concept physical reality does change. Present investigations into paranormal phenomena, for instance, may force a broadening of the present common scientific image of reality.
page 187 note 1 Barbour, , p. 143.Google Scholar See also the list in MacCormac, , p. 151.Google Scholar
page 187 note 2 See also Jones, , pp. 96–7.Google Scholar
page 188 note 1 See Campbell, , pp. 4–5, and Kaufman, ‘Christian Theology and the Modernization of the Religions’.Google Scholar
page 188 note 2 Runzo, , p. 686.Google Scholar
page 188 note 3 Kaufman, , Essay, p. 72.Google Scholar
page 189 note 1 In his later paper, ‘Christian Theology and the Modernization of the Religions‘, Kaufman suggests that we recognize the existence of an extra-human force in the cosmos which is working towards our humanization; this he calls God (pp. 101–4). Is Kaufman selecting another basic symbol for God? Is this symbol part of his real God or his available God? He is being, it is interesting to note, overtly Teilhardian here; see Idinopulos, p. 721.