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Document Details : Title: Hoe natuurlijk over God te spreken? Subtitle: Tussen natuurlijke theologie, metaphysica en antropologie Author(s): KOLÁŘOVÁ, Lucie Journal: Tijdschrift voor Theologie Volume: 60 Issue: 4 Date: 2020 Pages: 327-342 DOI: 10.2143/TVT.60.4.3288891 Abstract : The article deals with the problem of natural theology in view of its ability to speak naturally about God in a time which is not evidently religious and is founded on the freedom of the subject. Natural theology is considered to be the reflection of the concept of God and the context of the world on the grounds of a plausible and scientifically justifiable methodology, by means of autonomous reason which is independent of belief. A key role in this approach is played by metaphysics. The article focuses on the problem of an anthropological understanding of metaphysics in theology and addresses its relevance against the confrontation with an ontological understanding of theological metaphysics. The article’s format allows no complex treatise but enables raising the issue as a principal question, that can comprehend the problem’s basic context and aspire to an answer whose conclusiveness should be – in discussion with philosophical-religious and philosophical-theological theorems – rationally autonomous. The text is based on the works of authors whose thinking a) enables to identify and elaborate anthropologically a ‘connecting place’ for metaphysics, b) helps to recognise what is representative of the current state of reflection on this matter in the field of theological thinking, and c) consequently elaborates the anthropological viewpoint for metaphysical thinking within natural theology. The thread of content proceeds from a philosophical-religious analysis of talking about God via a presentation of the anthropological viewpoint of metaphysics and the standing of metaphysics in contemporary theology towards the search for points of support of natural theology in the concept of T. Pröpper’s theological anthropology. The study shows that the requirement of an autonomous philosophical foundation means no elimination of metaphysics within theology, but merely its connection to the ontological-theological model. The conclusion refers to the possibility of process thought for an anthropologically relevant embedding in theological metaphysics. This implies the end of the possibility to describe God factually-realistically on the basis of the ontologization of reality and its reduction to a static, timeless abstraction. Theology is presented as borderline, always transcending language, whose roots are to be found in existential-anthropological rather than in speculative ground. Subject to the outlined parameters, the article pleads for no direct but for a ‘broken naturalness’, if one wants to speak naturally about God in the late modern world. |
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