Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-16T21:14:24.175Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Being and Some Theologians

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

O. C. Thomas
O. C. Thomas
Affiliation:
Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, MA 02138
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

A crucial issue in contemporary theology is the doctrine of God and especially the nature of the divine reality. What kind of reality is God? How is God's reality like, unlike, and related to other kinds of reality? There are many ways to talk about the reality of God. I want to focus on one way, namely, God as being or beingitself, not because I believe that it is the best way to talk about God but because it is one of the oldest ways, because it seems to be undergoing something of a revival, and because I am baffled and intrigued by it.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 70 , Issue 1-2 , April 1977 , pp. 137 - 160
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1977

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See, e.g., Macquarrie, John, Principles of Christian Theology (New York: Scribner's, 1966) 107.Google Scholar

2 See Owens, Joseph, The Doctrine of Being in the Aristotelian ‘Metaphysics’ (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1951).Google Scholar

3 See Ibid., 139–43.

4 Theology and Intelligibility (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973) xvi, 71, 110, 124.Google Scholar

5 Gilson, Éitienne, Being and Some Philosophers (2d rev. ed.; Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1952).Google Scholar

6 “Being,” The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edwards, Paul (8 vols.; New York: Macmillan/Free Press, 1967) 1.275a.Google Scholar

7 See De Trinitate 5.2.

8 See Gilson, Being, chap. 1; Lossky, Vladimir, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (London: Clarke, 1957), chap. 2Google Scholar; Armstrong, A. H., ed., The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1967)Google Scholar; Otis, Brooks, “Nicene Orthodoxy and Fourth Century Mysticism,” Actes du Xlle Congrès International des Études Byzantines (Geograd: 1964) 2.475–84.Google Scholar

9 Gilson, Étienne, The Unity of Philosophical Experience (London: Sheed and Ward, 1938) 320Google Scholar; see idem, The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas (trans. Shook, L. K.; New York: Random House, 1956) 40.Google Scholar

10 Elements of Christian Philosophy (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1960) 123Google Scholar; idem, The Spirit of Thomism (New York: Harper & Row, 1964) 64, 68–69,72Google Scholar; idem, Christian Philosophy of Thomas, 374.

11 Spirit of Thomism, 76; see 65–66; Christian Philosophy of Thomas, 44.

12 God and Philosophy (New Haven: Yale University, 1941) 51–52.Google ScholarPubMed

13 Being, 180; Christian Philosophy of Thomas, 91; Elements, 114, 119.

14 Christian Philosophy of Thomas, 91, 371; Elements, 126; The Spirit of Mediaeval Philosophy (trans. Downes, A. H. C.; New York: Scribner's, 1940) 51.Google Scholar

15 Elements, 133.

16 Hook, Sidney, The Quest for Being and other Studies in Naturalism and Humanism (New York: Dell, 1934) 154.Google Scholar

17 Gilson, Elements, 131.

18 Ibid., 132. Cp. Tillich's idea below, that the understanding of being requires a conversion.

19 See above, p. 139.

20 Elements, 134.

21 Spirit of Thomism, 71, 72.

22 Rahner, Karl, Hearers of the Word (trans. Richards, Michael; New York: Herder, 1969) 39–40, 147Google Scholar; see idem, Spirit in the World (trans. Dych, William; New York: Herder, 1968) 67–69, 71Google Scholar; idem, Theological Investigations (Baltimore: Helicon, 1961) 4.50–52.Google Scholar

23 Hearers, 47; see Spirit, 69–72.

24 Hearers, 48 (note); see 50 (note).

25 Ibid., 63–64, 89, 147–49, 151–53.

26 Spirit, 171, 179, 408, chap. 3 passim.

27 Lonergan, Bernard J. F., Insight: A Study of Human Understanding (New York: Philosophical Library, 1956) 348, 360.Google Scholar

28 Ibid., 350, 360.

29 Ibid., 391, 640.

30 Ibid., 646, 655–56.

31 Ibid., 658, 674.

32 Ibid., 646, 648.

33 Philip McShane, ed., Language, Truth and Meaning: Papers from the International Lonergan Conference 1970 (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan) 311.

34 Insight, 655, 658, 668.

35 William J. Richardson, “Being for Lonergan,” in McShane, Language, Truth and Meaning, 277, see 283.

36 Insight, 677.

37 Tillich, Paul, Systematic Theology (3 vols.; Chicago: University of Chicago, 1951–1963) 1.72.Google Scholar

38 Ibid., 1.18–20; idem, Love, Power and Justice: Ontological Analysis and Ethical Applications (New York: Oxford University, 1954) 19Google Scholar; idem, The Protestant Era (trans. Adams, James Luther; Chicago: University of Chicago, 1948) 85.Google Scholar

39 Protestant Era, 85; Biblical Religion and the Search for Ultimate Reality (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1959) 6; Systematic Theology, 1.163.Google Scholar

40 Systematic Theology, 1.163, 2.11; Theology of Culture (ed. Kimball, Robert C.; New York: Oxford University, 1959) 15.Google Scholar

41 Systematic Theology, 1.18.

42 Ibid., 1.238; see Kegley, W. and Bretall, Robert W., eds., The Theology of Paul Tillich (New York: Macmillan, 1952) 139–40, 160–61, 335.Google Scholar

43 Biblical Religion, 19; The Courage to Be (New Haven: Yale University, 1952) 179Google ScholarPubMed; see Love, Power and Justice, 35.

44 See, e.g., Hartshorne, Charles, “Tillich and the Other Great Tradition,” ATR 43 (1961) 157Google Scholar; Emmet, Dorothy, “The Ground of Being,” JTS n.s. 15 (1964)289.Google Scholar

45 Theology of Culture, 16.

46 Love, Power and Justice, 18.

47 Biblical Religion, 65.

48 Systematic Theology, 1.238; see 1.235–37.

49 Ibid., 1.238–39.

50 Ibid., 2.9.

51 For another attempt to make use of Heidegger's doctrine of being in the doctrine of God, see Ott, Heinrich, Denken und Sein: Der Weg Martin Heideggers und der Weg der Theologie (Zollikon: Evangelischer Verlag, 1959) 139–52.Google Scholar He concludes that if one is to speak of God and being in Heidegger's terms, God must be understood as a being.

52 Principles, 106, 150–51, 238, 288.

53 Ibid., 102; see pp. 98–101.

54 Macquarrie, John, Studies in Christian Existentialism (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1965) 89, 255Google Scholar; Principles, 87, 99, 103–6, 132, 183, 186, 194.

55 Principles, 79, 95, 105–06; Existentialism, 11.

56 Principles, 106; see 103, 183.

57 Ibid., 102, 109, 126; see 287.

58 Ibid., 103, 109, 126, 187.

59 Neville, Robert C., God the Creator (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1968) 12, 15Google Scholar; see 40, 91.

60 Ibid., 12.

61 Ibid., 28, 40–41, 91.

62 Ibid., 60–61, 64.

63 Ibid., 76.

64 Ibid., 99; see 84.

65 Ibid., 45–46, 97–98.

66 Ibid., 97; see 75, 100, 104.

67 Ibid., 135; see 102.

68 Ibid., 97–98.

69 Ibid., 99; see 76, 93.

70 Ibid., 60, 86, 71.

71 Ibid., 116, 91, 15, 200.

72 Ibid., 85.

73 Ibid., 100, 110, 119.

74 Ibid., 12, 15, 91.

75 Ibid., 76.

76 Ibid., 77, 195; see 194.

77 Ibid., 73.

78 Dewart, Leslie, The Foundations of Belief (New York: Herder, 1969) 402–13.Google Scholar

79 Foundations, 413–20.

80 Ibid., 19, 361, 391.

81 Ibid., 397, 399, 422, 431, 492.

82 Dewart, Leslie, The Future of Belief: Theism in a World Come of Age (New York: Herder, 1966) 173, 175.Google Scholar

83 Ibid., 176, 180.

84 Foundations, 399, 493; see 385, 387, 444, 470; Future. 177.

85 Foundations, 442 and note.

86 Ibid., 386; see Future, 195.

87 Duméry, Henry, The Problem of God in the Philosophy of Religion: A Critical Examination of the Category of the Absolute and the Scheme of Transcendence (tr. Courtney, Charles, Evanston: Northwestern University, 1964) 49–50, 52 (note), 54, 85–86, 94, 99, 109, 128.Google Scholar

88 Ibid., 50, 86, 88 (note), 101.

89 Ibid., 89, see 85–86

90 Ibid., 88 (note); see 128.

91 Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics, vol. 2: The Doctrine of God (ed. Bromiley, G. W. and Torrance, T. F.; Edinburgh: Clark, 1957) 1.260Google Scholar; see 83, 261.

92 See my article, “Barth on Non-Christian Knowledge of God,” ATR 46 (1964) 268–71.Google Scholar

93 Brunner, Emil, The Christian Doctrine of God (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1950) 248–49.Google Scholar

94 Michalson, Carl, Worldly Theology: The Hermeneutical Focus of an Historical Faith (New York: Scribner's, 1976) 104–05.Google Scholar For a summary of these and similar views, see Smith, Ronald Gregor, The Doctrine of God, ed. Smith, K. Gregor and Galloway, A. D. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1970), chap. 3.Google Scholar

95 Ogden, Schubert M., The Reality of God and Other Essays (New York: Harper & Row, 1963) 58Google Scholar; see also Brown, Delwyn, James, Ralph E. Jr, and Reeves, Gene, eds., Process Philosophy and Christian Thought (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1974) 179–81.Google Scholar

96 Hartshorne, Charles, “Introduction: The Development of Process Philosophy,” in Philosophers of Process, Browning, Douglas, ed. (New York: Random House, 1965) xiv.Google Scholar

97 Pannenberg, Wolfhart, Basic Questions in Theology (Collected Essays, tr. Kehm, George H.; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971) 2.181.Google Scholar

98 See Karl Rahner, “The Concept of Mystery in Catholic Theology,” Investigations, 4.36, 73.

99 See above, p. 155.