Steven Nemes

This article argues that the claim of traditional Christian theology and religion to be in possession of supernatural revelation cannot be substantiated in a valid and non-circular manner in principle. It then notes the consequences for theology if the notion of supernatural revelation is abandoned. It proposes agnosticism about unknowable matters as a way of exercising faith or trust in the limits God's providence has established for human knowledge.

Christianity proposes that God can be accessed both in the subjectivity of the human self and in the World. This admittedly strange idea can be understood by drawing certain insights from Michel Henry and Dumitru Stăniloae. For Henry, the connection between God and the human self in subjectivity is understood as the generation of the human as a living self in the absolute Life which is God. For Stăniloae, the connection between God and the World is understood through the interpretation of the cosmos as an intelligible medium by which the dialog between God and the human being takes place. These two thinkers have certain lacunae, but their proposals can be fruitfully combined through the supposition that the World is the "body" of God, i.e. His inner life as seen from the outside.

The present essay is concerned with the question of whether analytic theology can be properly phenomenological. Both analytic theology and phenomenology are defined by reference to leading practitioners of both, and responses are given to objections to both approaches.  The  critique  of analytic theology recently proposed by Martin Westerholm is considered, as well the objections to phenomenology brought forth by Tom Sparrow. The compatibility of analytic theology and phenomenology  is argued on the basis of the definitions provided. Four brief arguments are  given for establishing why an analytic theologian might consider adopting a phenomenological method. The essay concludes with a demonstration of a properly phenomenological analytic-theological treatment of the question of the relationship between Scripture and ecclesial tradition in
dialog with the canonical sola scriptura of Kevin Vanhoozer and John Peckham.

One might think at first glance that naturalism excludes any form of theism by definition. This article argues to the contrary that proper scientificity requires that a naturalist remain open to the possibility of the truth of the classical theistic conception of God in particular. The only alternative is for naturalism to devolve into an anti-theistic bias and ideology, forsaking the claim to being properly scientific.

The purpose of this essay is to exposit and interpret some of the essential contours of the phenomenology of Christianity proposed by Michel Henry in dialogue with his theological critics. These critics are numerous, but many of their critiques can be united under a single theme: the accusation of Gnosticism. One reads in them that Henry is a Gnostic monist, or rather a dualist, or rather both, or perhaps even a pantheist; that he blurs the distinction between the human being and God; that he denies or ignores the world or the creation; or that he denies the traditional Christian conception of faith in favor of a kind of quasi-mystical gnōsis; and so on. The conviction motivating the composition of the present work is that all such criticisms are ill-founded, indeed that the substance of Henry’s phenomenology of Christianity, such as it is formulated in his Christian “trilogy,” is not Gnostic at all.1 The truth is rather that Henry proposes a kind of “life-idealism” according to which (i) life is the foundation of the possibility of the world; (ii) life assumes a visible, external representation (viz., the empirical body) in its activities in the world; and (iii) the meaning of the world is that it is the arena in which life pursues the goal of its own perfection and growth.

One can discern passages in the writings of the Scholastic doctor Thomas Aquinas and the contemporary French phenomenologist Michel Henry which can be interpreted as putting forth very similar ways for grasping the existence of God. These "ways to God" can be fruitfully compared from the point of view of their philosophical starting points as well as of their consequences for theological epistemology. The purpose of the present essay is to pursue this comparative work and to see what philosophicaltheological fruit it can yield.

Oliver Crisp proposes “chastened theism” as a theologically realist alternative to classical theism and theistic personalism. I critique his chastened theism and propose the alternative of Christian Pure Act theism, a “chastened” version of theological nonrealism.

Some are of the opinion that cosmological predictions regarding the future of the physical universe contradict or challenge the Christian eschatological hope for a "new heavens and new earth" (2 Pet. 3:13). The present essay argues that cosmological science is irrelevant to classical theistic Christian eschatology on two grounds. First, cosmology does not substantially inform Christian eschatology, which already affirmed the demise of the cosmos on theological grounds. Second, cosmology does not challenge eschatology if a classical theistic conception of God and its corollary doctrines of creatio ex nihilo and divine conservation and concurrence are admitted.

The object of the present essay is to establish the possibility of "theology without anathemas." First, an argument is given for the conclusion that infallible knowledge in matters of theology is not now possible. Both the Protestant doctrine of claritas scripturae and the Roman Catholic understanding of the Magisterium of the Church are rejected. Then, an alternative, "fallibilist" ecclesiology is proposed, according to which (knowingly) to belong to the Church is a matter of (understanding oneself as) having been claimed by Christ as His own. When combined with a universal doctrine of election and a highly objective and actualized doctrine of the Atonement, such a conception of the Church makes it possible to understand theology as a collaborative and cooperative effort on the part of all to understand better this Christ to whom they all always already belong.

Oliver Crisp proposes "chastened theism" as a theologically realist alternative to classical theism and theistic personalism. I critique his chastened theism and propose the alternative of Christian Pure Act theism, a "chastened" version of theological nonrealism.

Christian spirituality is often "activist." It consists in the performance of various actions through which a faithful person attempts to secure the presence of God. The argument of the present essay is that spiritual "activism" cannot actually accomplish this goal. For this reason, it is necessary to seek a foundation for all spiritual activism in spiritual "inactivism." This means that all Christian spiritual activity must be reconceived as a response to and celebration of a prior presence of God that comes before any performance. The phenomenological philosophy of Michel Henry makes it possible to appreciate how God is so present in the very fact of being alive. This can make the whole of Christian spiritual practice a Eucharist – a perpetual thanksgiving.

The purpose of the present essay is to present a version of the evidential argument from evil and to propose a 'skeptical theistic' response from a phenomenological point of view. In a word, the problem with the evidential argument from evil is that it attempts to put forth as justified an interpretation of the moral significance of historical events which actually exceeds the limits of human knowledge and which is based on a misinterpretation of experience. The essay also corrects certain analytic-philosophical notions regarding the nature of appearance, terminating with a discussion of the familiar critiques of analytic skeptical theism and the question of whether the belief in the existence of God might not be affected by the apparent skepticism implied by the phenomenological approach to knowledge in general.

As an exercise in the 'theology of disclosure', the present essay proposes a kind of phenomenological analysis of the act of reading the Bible as Scripture with the goal of bringing to light the theoretical commitments which it implicitly demands. This sort of analysis can prove helpful for the continuing disputes among Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox insofar as it is relevant for one of the principal points of controversy between them: namely, the relationship between Scripture, Tradition, and Church as theological authorities. It proceeds by analyzing both the objective and subjective 'poles' of the act, and it illuminates the presence of the Church and her Tradition on both sides. The Church-i.e., the community of God's people is both that which is immediately encountered in the text, as well as the factor which enables scriptural reading in the first place. The article terminates with an application of the insights of the preceding discussion to the controversy about icons.

The doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture maintains that the meaning of Scripture is clear to those who are enlightened by the Holy Spirit through faith. But this definition provides no way to know whether one has true faith or has been so enlightened by the Holy Spirit, a problem accentuated by persistent disagreement among persons who claim to be Christians of good will. This is a specific instance of a more general problem afflicting "closed" theological epistemologies. This essay provides an exposition of Kevin Diller's synthesis of the "closed" theological epistemologies of Karl Barth and Alvin Plantinga and critiques it on phenomenological grounds. It then concludes with a phenomenologically redefined description of Christian faith which entails rejecting the doctrine of the claritas scripturae and motivates an "open" theological epistemology.

In the opening chapter of his Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, Dumitru Stăniloae proposes a close connection between the intelligibility of the cosmos and the existence of a transcen-dent Intelligence which brings it into being. The object of this essay is to investigate this proposed connection-more specifically, whether the inference from intelligible being to intelligent cause is valid-and to note its significance for Stăniloae's natural theology more generally as well as for the problem of "irreligious experience ." The intelligibility of the cosmos and the existence of God in Dumitru Stăniloae's Orthodox Dogmatic Theology.

Although he was not and could not have been a phenomenologist in the proper sense of the term, the writings of Origen of Alexandria contain certain insightful observations about the way in which Scripture is encountered in lived experience, and these can be fruitfully interpreted from a phenomenological perspective. The object of this essay is to present two aspects of Origen's " proto-phenomenology of Scripture " and to draw from them a conclusion of theological-methodological import. The discussion will revolve around a phenomenological distinction between Scripture and biblical text, a distinction which, though familiar to previous writers, has not yet been fully appreciated. Zusammenfassung: Auch wenn der Alexandriner Origenes kein Phänomenologe im eigentlichen Sinne war und sein konnte, so enthalten seine Werke doch gewisse Einsichten darüber, wie die Heilige Schrift als " Erlebnis " erfahren werden kann, so dass diese aus einer phänomenologischen Perspektive fruchtbar gemacht werden können. Das Ziel dieses Aufsatzes ist es, zwei Aspekte dieser " Proto-Phänomeno-logie der Schrift " bei Origenes aufzuzeigen, um daraus Schlüsse von theologisch-methodologischer Relevanz zu ziehen. Die Diskussion wird sich dabei vorrangig um die phänomenologische Unterscheidung zwischen Heiliger Schrift und Bibel-text drehen, eine Unterscheidung die, obwohl sie vorhergehenden Autoren durch-aus geläufig scheint, bislang noch nicht ausreichend gewürdigt worden ist.

This essay discusses the nature and relative priority of the sources for analytic theology with an eye to the manner in which the analytic theologian ought to orient herself to them. Of Tradition, Scripture, and (analytic) philosophy, the Tradition of the Church has ultimate priority as analytic-theological source insofar as it infallibly mediates the genuine, divinely revealed content of Scripture and justifies the utilization of analytic philosophy for theological purposes. The argument proposes a fundamental gap between the biblical text, which can be held in the hands and read, and Scripture, which is the revealed content communicated by the former and grasped by the intellect of the reader. Because of this gap, it is possible to be quite familiar with the biblical text and yet remain ignorant of Scripture, of the revealed truth of God. The Tradition of the Church functions as the bridge by which this " grand canyon " becomes crossable by offering normative interpretations of the biblical text. Consequently, the analytic theologian ought to be a committed adherent of this Tradition above all, making it the measure of all other things. This same Tradition also provides the theoretical justification for the appeal to (analytic) philosophy in the performance of the analytic theologian's task through its teaching about the fundamental openness of the world to God, i.e. the world's capacity to serve as medium for the divine-human dialog.

The present essay elaborates upon some of the important constituent elements of the classical universalist tradition, documented in detail by Ilaria Ramelli's recent research, in dialog with Oliver Crisp and Jerry Walls, two contemporary objectors to the doctrine of different backgrounds. Its central claim is that the classical universalist tradition can respond to and accommodate the concerns of its objectors while maintaining the firm conviction of the eventual universal salvation.

My object in this brief paper is to present a few remarks and arguments towards the development of a proper phenomenology of Scripture. From the very beginning it is imperative to provide some clarifying remarks regarding my understanding of the nature of "phenomenology", "Scripture", and the precise sense intended by the phrase "phenomenology of Scripture".

There are three distinct domains of consciousness which correspond to the three persons of the Trinity, each serving as a unique place of encounter with a specific divine hypostasis. Inner consciousness is the realm in which the person of the Holy Spirit is encountered; outer visible consciousness, the person of the Son; and outer invisible consciousness, the person of the Father. This proposed threefold relation of human consciousness to the Trinity is philosophically-
theologically informative and provides a fruitful basis for understanding theological conflicts and disputes .

A brief analysis of the act of reading the Bible as Scripture which attempts to elucidate the theoretical commitments of such an act. Presented October 13, 2017 at Society of Christian Philosophers Midwest Conference at Houston Baptist University.

The purpose of the present work is to put forth a phenomenological investigation of the act of reading the Bible as Scripture for the sake of a constructive-theological proposal regarding the nature and interrelations of Scripture, Tradition, and Church as sources and authorities for Christian theology. It is intended as the first work of its kind: a proper phenomenology of Scripture in the objective genitive sense. The second chapter addresses two paradigmatic responses to the question of the relation between philosophy and theology. The third chapter introduces phenomenology as a method for engaging in philosophy. The fourth chapter identifies three proto- phenomenological insights into the Scripture-Tradition-Church triad found in the writings of Origen of Alexandria. The phenomenological investigations of this work further develop these three fundamental insights through a careful consideration of the act of scriptural reading, insights which have not yet fully been appreciated in the phenomenological literature on religion and which are relevant for this essential problem in the area of Christian theological method. The first insight is that there is a phenomenological distinction to be made between the biblical text, an artifact which can be held in the hands, and Scripture in the proper sense, i.e. the biblical text intended as containing and communicating the Word of God. The second insight is that that there is a relation of reciprocal or mutual priority which obtains between Scripture and the Tradition of the Church. Ecclesial Tradition is formally or phenomenologically prior to Scripture in the sense that it is what makes Scripture initially accessible to the reader. But Scripture is methodologically or theologically prior in the sense that the goal of the scriptural reader is not simply to impose some traditional perspective upon the text in an act of hermeneutical play but to attain to an understanding of what the text says as Word of God. The third insight is that the distinctly divine quality of the text is revealed in an experience of the phenomenon of the Third Voice, in which a meaning or sense suggests itself to the reader which cannot be identified with the literal sense of the text as intended by the human author, nor predicted on the basis of the habits of interpretation of the human reader. The fifth chapter elaborates on the first two insights. The sixth chapter develops the third insight by responding to the specific question of whether and how there is an experience of the Word of God in the words of Scripture. This is the most essential question of a phenomenology of Scripture, and yet one which has gone untreated by phenomenologists until now. The seventh chapter addresses the theological question about how properly to understand the nature of the Church in light of the inevitable fallibility of theological knowledge. The dissertation concludes in the eighth chapter with some reflections about the possibility of theology without anathemas in light of the phenomenology of Scripture.

Matthew Levering has impressively accepted an invitation from Zondervan to contribute to the festivities surrounding the quincentenary of the Protestant Reformation by writing this volume. Though he does not call the Reformation a mistake, nevertheless he is convinced that the Reformers' objections to Catholic teaching were not well-founded, and he ventures a response to prove that Catholic doctrine is “not unbiblical.”