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Evidence and Transcendence: Religious Epistemology and the God-World Relationship
Anne Inman
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Description for Evidence and Transcendence: Religious Epistemology and the God-World Relationship
Paperback. Critiques modern attempts to explain the knowability of God and points the way toward a religious epistemology that avoids their pitfalls. As examples of contemporary rationalist and postliberal approaches, this work analyzes the religious epistemologies of philosopher Richard Swinburne and theologians George Lindbeck and Ronald Theimann. Num Pages: 216 pages. BIC Classification: HRAB; HRLB. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 229 x 154 x 14. Weight in Grams: 308.
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 ... Read moreexamples 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.
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Product Details
Publisher
University of Notre Dame Press
Place of Publication
Notre Dame IN, United States
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About Anne Inman
Anne E. Inman is an adjunct associate professor at the University of Notre Dame, London Centre, and a lecturer at Birkbeck College, University of London, and the University of Roehampton.
Reviews for Evidence and Transcendence: Religious Epistemology and the God-World Relationship
“An invaluable contribution to theology. It illuminates central issues of theology: the understanding of God, the demand for evidence, the rationality of Christian belief, and the relationship between philosophy and theology. It presents an excellent survey of several major theological approaches (analytic philosophy of religion, American neo-pragmatism, and continental theology) and offers a balanced proposal that seeks to incorporate the ... Read morebest from each approach. A must read for anyone interested in current approaches to God and Christian belief.” —Francis Schüssler Fiorenza, Stillman Professor of Roman Catholic Theological Studies, Harvard Divinity School “Evidence and Transcendence addresses a critically important topic: the need for evidence (about God) and the insistence on the mediation of knowledge. Anne Inman’s ambitious project makes an original contribution to the field by framing the problem very well and bringing in a variety of thinkers to analyze it. The book will be welcomed by students and scholars of systematic theology and philosophy of God.” —Thomas M. Kelly, Creighton University “The author finds valuable contributions to a philosophical theology in the works of F. Schleiermacher and Karl Rahner. . . . In her approach to religious epistemology, the author recognizes the infinite difference between the transcendent and the finite yet allows for the basic claim that knowledge of God is always mediated by the finite.” —Catholic Library World “Inman contends that a Christian apologetics can do justice to both the need for evidence and the insistence on the mediation of knowledge. Recent theologians have failed in their attempts to address these challenges, she charges, because they have not incorporated the notion of God as first cause of existence itself, the ultimate cause of all that is.” —Research Book News “Inman contrasts and explores several contemporary approaches to the question of God, adroitly and accurately analyzing the epistemologies of Richard Swinburne, George Lindbeck, and Ronald Theimann. . . . Inman helpfully returns to two thinkers often undervalued for their attempts to translate Christian terms into concepts comprehensible to nonbelievers. She ably defends Friedrich Schleiermacher’s notion of humanity’s feeling of absolute dependence upon God from the charge of subjectivism.” —Theological Studies “Anne E. Inman offers a clear exposition of the modern Christian apologetic attempt at elucidating the epistemological relationship between the divine and humanity. . . . an effective example of modern philosophical theology from which any student of theology, philosophy, or religious studies could benefit.” —Dialogue “Anne Inman sets out to address two specific challenges to Christian apologetics: the insistence since the Enlightenment that evidence be provided for anything put forward for belief; and the argument that human knowledge is mediated by finite reality which makes it impossible or meaningless for there to be ‘knowledge’ of a being interpreted as ‘completely other than finite.’ . . . The great strength of this book is the clarity with which Inman frames the problem she addresses and presents the range of thinkers she brings into its analysis.” —The Way Show Less
