this issue
previous article in this issuenext article in this issue

Document Details :

Title: Theology after the Hermeneutical Turn
Subtitle: Francis Schüssler Fiorenza and the Contemporary Prospects of Transcendental Theology
Author(s): DE JONG, Marijn
Journal: Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses
Volume: 90    Issue: 3   Date: 2014   
Pages: 485-514
DOI: 10.2143/ETL.90.3.3044867

Abstract :
After a flowering period around the Second Vatican Council, the transcendental method seems to have lost its appeal in contemporary philosophy and theology. The work of the American theologian Francis Schüssler Fiorenza is exemplary of the hermeneutical critique of transcendental theology. Several stages in his position on the transcendental approach can be distinguished. Starting out with the ambition to augment and complement the transcendental approach, Fiorenza grows more critical of transcendental theology over time and instead develops a hermeneutical theological method. Yet in recent years, he has become aware of the limitations of hermeneutics for a theology that aims to be reconstructive and normative. This leads him back to the transcendental approach. In the first place, Fiorenza reassesses his criticism of Karl Rahner, one of the main representatives of transcendental theology. In the second place, his proposals to overcome the crisis of hermeneutics actually resemble a reconceived form of transcendental argumentation. Ultimately, however, Fiorenza’s transcendental line of argumentation remains underdeveloped and unclear. In line with Fiorenza’s revaluation of Rahner, this contribution therefore proposes to return to Rahner’s theology. A renewed investigation of the master of transcendental theology could help to develop a reconceived transcendental theology that can provide a necessary counterpart to contemporary hermeneutical theology.

Download article