Syllabus for Independent Study on

POSTMODERN PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

METHODOLOGY

Read introductory texts, and later reflect on primary essays on the postmodern condition of theology and philosophy of religion. Evaluate learning by writing an essay with a descriptive historical development and discuss the themes in focus.

OBJECTIVE

Analyze historical context and development and gain insight into the implications of postmodernism with respect to religious thought, including postmodern critiques of past religio-metaphysical systems, the postmodern and deconstructive renewal of the search for transcendence, and the religious dimensions of deconstructive thought.

OUTLINE

The Postmodern Condition

Posmodernity: a defining attempt

The Death of God controversy

Christian Existentialism

Post-modern turn to religion

Post-Structuralism

Influences: Structuralism, Levinas, Foucault, Lacan, Ricouer

Deconstruction-and-religion

Limitation of language to comprehend reality

Negative or Apophatic manner

“Religion (without religion)”

Undeconstructible

Messianism vs. Messianic Hope

“Weak Theology”

Radical Orthodoxy

Reaffirmation of Christian theology  in a contextual manner

Postliberal Theology

Narrative theology

Communitarian moral and epistemology

Ethics of Virtue

The Finite God

Finite Godism

Process Thought

Open Theism

Alternative Theologies

Liberation Theologies

    Theology of Hope

  Latin American Liberation Theology

  Post-Colonial Theology

  Black Theology

  Feminist, Womanist Theology and Feminist Epistemology

  Queer Theology

  Peace Theology

Cosmic Ecology

Reconstructive Approaches

THEMES ON POSTMODERN PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

Religious Language & Epistemology of Religion

The problem of religious language

Vienna Circle, Wittgenstein, Deconstruction

Proposed Solutions: Analogy, Metaphor, Accommodation, Hermeutical method

Veracity and exclusiveness of a religion

Justification of religious belief

Critique of modern rationalist epistemology

Deconstruction critique of “truth” existence prior and independent to linguistic representation

Religion and Literary Theory

The Human Condition on Postmodernity

Theodicy

Mind/Body problem in current philosophical theologies

Social Action

Ontology of the Ultimacy

Heidegger

The Ultimate Ground: Tillich

A/Theology

The Non-Being: Deconstruction

A limited God: the Finite God options

CONCLUSION

The postmodern God

REFERENCES

Introductions

·           Anderson, Pamela Sue A feminist philosophy of religion: the rationality and myths of religious belief (Oxford; Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1998

·           de Vries, Hent Philosophy and the Turn to Religion

·           Hughes, Glenn.  Transcendence and History. The Search for Ultimacy from Ancient Societies to Postmodernity. Columbia, MO:  University of Missouri Press, 2003.

·           Penner, Myron, Christianity and the Postmodern Turn. Brazos, 2005.

·           Robinson, John Honest to God. John Knox, 2003.

·           Shanks, Andrew.  God and Modernity: New and Better Way to Do Theology. London, UK: Routledge, 1999.

·           Vanhoozer, Kevin. Biblical Narrative in the Philosophy of Paul Ricoeur: A Study in Hermeneutics and Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1990.

·           Winquist, Charles Desiring Theology .U Chicago Press

Anthologies

·      Blond, Philips, ed. Post-Secular Philosophy, between Philosophy and Theology. London: Routledge, 1998.

·      Geisler, Norman L.; House, H. Wayne; Herrera, Max. The Battle for God: Responding to the Challenge of Neotheism. Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 2001.

·      Milbank, John, Pickstock, Catherine, Ward, Graham, Illuminations: Theory and Religion. Blackwell.

·      Phillips, D. Z. ed. Philosophy of Religion in the 21st Century. Palgrave Macmillan, 2001.

·      Vanhoozer, Kevin J. ed. The Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology. Cambridge University Press, 2003.

·      Ward, Graham, ed. The Blackwell Companion to Postmodern Theology. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005

·      Ward, Graham, ed. The Postmodern God: A Theological Reader. Oxford: Blackwell, 1997.

·         Westphal, Merold, ed. Postmodern Philosophy and Christian Thought. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1999.

·         Christian Faith and Postmodernity:  An Index of WWW Resources http://www3.baylor.edu/~Scott_Moore/Xnty_Pmism.html