God Is Not a Story

Realism Revisited

Datos Bibliográficos

ID24154523
AutoresFrancesca Aran Murphy (University of Aberdeen, autor de correspondencia)
Año2007
Fecha de publicación2007-07-01
Open AccessNo
TipoBOOK
RevistaGod Is Not a Story (SOURCE_BOOK)
EditorialOxford University PressOxford (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199219285.001.0001
ISBN9780199219285
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas6
Referencias citadas32

The book argues that the contemporary theological practice of describing Christian doctrines or beliefs as ‘narratives’ or ‘stories’ leads to a non-realistic idea of God, that is, to conceiving God as a story or narrative invented by ourselves. The idea that doctrines are narratives derives from an emphasis on the method of theology, that is, the substitution of a self-reflective description of how we know about God for saying what God is. The aspect of how we know about God upon which descriptive or narrative theologies focus is visual, and hence we characterize such theologies as cinematic or ‘movieish’. The book considers four ways in which narrative theologies replace content with method. Within ecclesiology, Barthian narrative theologians stress our grasp of the resurrected Christ at the expense of the resurrection witnesses. In the context of arguing for God's existence, Thomistic narrativists discuss the rationality of our questioning rather than the evidence for God's existence. Since, therefore, neither Barthian nor Thomistic narrative theologies can assume that the Creator God is metaphysically known, they visualize the problem of evil, presenting it like a melodramatic conflict. Fourthly, the attempt to elucidate the Trinity by means of narration or description tends toward modalism or Sabellianism. The focus of narrative theologies on methodological or epistemic issues entails that they reflect either the faith of the believer (rather than the object of belief) or the reason of the reasoner (rather than its target). This book proposes that theology can bypass this fideism/rationalism axis by making love the basis of theology, and that in four ways: the source of the Church and its scriptures is an act of love; the evidential image on which proofs for the existence of God can be based is the love of mother for child; the appearance of the Trinity in our history is the expression of the love of God; and hence, since its principal object is God's active love, theology refers, not to a melodrama, but to a real drama.

Context (archaeology) · Epistemology · Faith · Focus (optics) · Linguistics · Metaphysics · Narrative · Object (grammar) · Theology · Augustinian Studies and Theology · History · Karl Barth and Christian Theology · Philosophy · Theology and Philosophy of Evil