Ingolf U. Dalferth Books

Exploring the interplay between evil and divine belief, the author delves into the Christian concepts of malum as privation, wrongdoing, and lack of faith. The book examines the complexities of theodicy and the argument from freedom, highlighting how individuals turn to God amid experiences of evil. Through a detailed analysis of ancient mythology and biblical traditions, the author uncovers the connections between human suffering and the discovery of God's goodness, justice, and love, offering profound insights into the nature of faith and morality.

This major work, now available in English, is considered by many to be one of the finest and most significant contributions to modern Christology. Preeminent scholar and theologian Ingolf Dalferth argues for a radical reorientation of Christology for historical, hermeneutical, and theological reasons. He defends an orthodox vision of Christology in the context of a dialogue with modernity, showing why the resurrection, not the incarnation, ought to be the central idea of Christological thinking. His proposal is both pneumatological and Trinitarian, and addresses themes such as soteriology, the doctrine of atonement, and preaching.

A Prominent Theologian Explores What It Means to Be Human Preeminent scholar and theologian Ingolf Dalferth offers mature reflections on what it means to be human, a topic at the forefront of contemporary Christian thought. Dalferth argues that humans should be defined not as deficient beings--who must compensate for the weaknesses of their biological nature by means of technology, morals, media, religion, and culture--but as creatures of possibility. He understands human beings by reference to their capacity to live a truly humane life. Dalferth explores the sheer gratuitousness of God's agency in justifying and sanctifying the human person, defining humans not by what we do or achieve but by God's creative and saving action. In the gospel, we are set free to interact with the world and creation.

On theological grounds, Ingolf U. Dalferth argues the case for taking a critical stance towards the current leave-taking of secularization and the fashionable proclamation of a new post-secular religious epoch. Right from the start, the Christian faith has made a decisive contribution to the secularization of the world, the criticism of religion, religions and religiosity. Christian faith is concerned with God's presence in all areas of life, often beyond the usual religious forms and in distinction towards them. The orientation towards this ultimate presence and therefore towards antecedent transcendence in the immanence of a secular world leaves the alternative between religious and non-religious life behind. In this work, the author examines the new distinctions which this Christian life orientation demands.

The idea of humanity is more controversial today than ever before. Traditionally, answers to the questions about our humanity and 'humanitas' (Cicero) have been sought along five routes: by contrasting the human with the non-human (other animals), with the more than human (the divine), with the inhuman (negative human behaviors), with the superhuman (what humans will become), or with the transhuman (thinking machines). In each case the question at stake and the point of comparison is a different one, and in all those respects the idea of humanity has been defined differently. What makes humans human? What does it mean for humans to live a human life? What is the humanitas for which we ought to strive? This volume discusses key philosophical and theological issues in the current debate, with a particular focus on transhumanism, artificial intelligence, and the ethical challenges facing humanity in our technological culture.

Religious, philosophical, and theological views on the self vary widely. For some the self is seen as the center of human personhood, the ultimate bearer of personal identity and the core mystery of human existence. For others the self is a grammatical error and the sense of self an existential and epistemic delusion. Buddhists contrast the Western understanding of the self as a function of the mind that helps us to organize our experiences to their view of no-self by distinguishing between no-self and not-self or between a solid or 'metaphysical' self that is an illusion and an experiential or psychological self that is not. There may be processes of 'selfing', but there is no permanent self. In Western psychology, philosophy, and theology, on the other hand, the term 'self' is often used as a noun that refers not to the performance of an activity or to a material body per se but rather to a (gendered) organism that represents the presence of something distinct from its materiality. Is this a defensible insight or a misleading representation of human experience? We are aware of ourselves in the first-person manner of our ipse -identity that cannot fully be spelled out in objectifying terms, but we also know ourselves in the third-person manner of our idem -identity, the objectified self-reference to a publicly available entity. This volume documents a critical and constructive debate between critics and defenders of the self or of the no-self that explores the intercultural dimensions of this important topic.

Die Reformation war eine im Kern religiöse Erneuerungsbewegung des Christentums in Europa. Gerade als solche hat sie Entscheidendes zur Ausbildung einer säkularen Moderne beigetragen. Worin genau bestand dieser Beitrag, und wie ist er zu bewerten? Haben die Reformationsbewegungen die überkommene Einheit von Kirche und Staat, Gesellschaft und Kultur zerstört und damit die Marginalisierung des Christentums in Europa eingeleitet? Oder haben sie zentrale Impulse des Christentums zur Geltung gebracht, ohne die sich die westliche Moderne nicht hätte entwickeln können und die auch eine sich säkular verstehende Gesellschaft in einer pluralen Spätmoderne prägen? Der vorliegende Band versucht, diese kontroversen Fragen zu erhellen. Dabei kommt auch die Kritik zu Wort, die vom Standpunkt einer säkularen Moderne an den reformatorischen Traditionen geübt wird, sowie jene, die sich vom Standpunkt reformatorischen Denkens aus an die europäische Moderne und Spätmoderne richten lässt. Die Open Access-Version der Publikation finden Sie auf online. mohr. de. Mit Beiträgen von: Albrecht Beutel, Ingolf U. Dalferth, Volker Gerhardt, Brad S. Gregory, Eilert Herms, Detlef Pollack, Risto Saarinen, Dorothea Wendebourg

Hope is a fundamental but controversial human phenomenon. For some it is Pandora's most mischievous evil, for others it is a divine gift and one of the highest human virtues. It is difficult to pin down but its traces seem to be present everywhere in human life and practice. Christianity as a comprehensive practice of hope cannot be imagined without it: Christians are not believers in dogmas but practitioners of hope. In other religious traditions the topic of hope is virtually absent or even critically rejected and opposed. Some see hope as the most humane expression of a deep-seated human refusal to put up with evil and suffering in this world, while others object to it as a form of delusion and an escapist reluctance to face up to the realities of the world as it is. Half a century ago hope was at the center of attention in philosophy and theology. However, in recent years the discussion has shifted to positive psychology and psychotherapy, utopian studies and cultural anthropology, politics and economics. This has opened up interesting new vistas. It is time to revisit the subject of hope, and to put hope back on the philosophical and theological agenda.

Paul Ricœur (1913-2005) was one of the most distinguished and prolific philosophers of religion in the second half of the 20th century. Through his wide-ranging writings, a self-reflective and critical approach to hermeneutics became an indispensable tool for the philosophical interpretation of the complex text worlds of religious traditions and for critical reflection on cultural phenomena. His philosophical hermeneutics was sensitive to the lack of transparency of the human self and the corresponding intricacies of direct and indirect communication in religion and culture. It was open to the analytic and phenomenological traditions but, by combining phenomenological description with hermeneutical interpretation, also decisively different from other contemporary approaches. On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his birth this volume explores and evaluates Ricœur's contributions to the hermeneutic turn in the philosophy of religion. His hermeneutical phenomenology enriches and reorients the contemporary practice of philosophy of religion, moving beyond the barren varieties of metaphysical theism and antitheism in both the analytic and post-analytic traditions.

Revelation is a central category in many religions. Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Mormonism or Unificationists are difficult if not impossible to imagine without it. For some, revelation signifies a decisive event in the past, for others it is a present reality. It plays a central role in shaping religious identities, and it is the reason for much criticism. Some follow a religion only because of its claim to divine revelation, whereas others criticize it as „hearsay upon hearsay“ (Paine) on which they would never rest their belief. For some, God has put everything at risk in revelation, including his own being, exposing himself to the utter contingency of existence; for others, even the idea of revelation is an embarrassment to their understanding of a perfect and absolute God. Sometimes revelation is used to refer to a special source of information about the divine accessible only to a few, in the hand of others it becomes virtually indistinguishable from religious experience or experience in general. Sometimes revelation is understood to be self-communicating and self-authenticating, at other times revelations need mediations and mediators. In some traditions, true revelation is always personal and experienced, and past revelation must continually be made revelation again. Some religions have built elaborate institutions of priests and privileged interpreters to safeguard their revelation, control access to it and to protect the right way of interpreting and communicating it. Theologies have distinguished between natural and supernatural, general, specific and individual, personal and impersonal revelation, between revelation, inspiration and incarnation, or between revelation and divine self-revelation. But claims to revelation have also been criticized as strategies of self-immunization, which allow religions to avoid critical public debate of their views and teachings, or legitimize the position of those in power. The 33rd Conference of Philosophy of Religion at Claremont Graduate University in 2012 addressed these complex issues by concentrating on three areas of debate: I. Revelation and Reason, II. Hermeneutics of Revelation, III. Phenomenology of Revelation.