Sorry, Byron: I couldn't wait, and I have to confess to having dipped into The Beauty of the Infinite. It is one of those books with strong opinions - which have their own allure. His shredding of Tillich - whose theology is, in my opinion, best seen as a curious mid-century cul-de-sac - had me cheering in the stands.
Hart, like many theologians I like, is not unsympathetic to postmodernity; or rather, he sees postmodernity as moment of some opportunity for theology - 'an auroral astonishment following upon a nocturnal oblivion' (p. 5) at the moment when we discover that Enlightenment reason's attempt at universalising has failed. Having said that, he has a real go at the postmoderns too, bless him, for not being postmodern enough.
Here he finds a point of convergence:
'...if indeed God became a man, then Truth condescended to become a truth, from whose historical contigency one cannot simply pass to categories of universal rationality; and this means that whatever Christians mean when they speak of truth, it cannot involve simply the dialectical wresting of abstract principles from intractable facts..' (p.5)
3 comments:
Fair enough. No use waiting for Amazon to reach the colonies. Hope you enjoy it. I'll get to it in future weeks.
Yes: take the long view...
interestingly, Rowan Williams is big on saying that the struggles and debates themselves are what constitutes us...
Well I hope so... I really like that hymn which goes "I cannot tell...(list several things) ... but this I know...(several other things)"
seems to me a good way to be.
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