1. Chapter 4 The Modern Period, 1750 to the Present Day
Alister E. McGrath
Historical Theology:
An Introduction to the History of Christian Thought

2. The Enlightenment critique of Christian theology
Omnicompetence of human reason
The notion of revelation
The status and interpretation of the Bible
The identity and significance of Jesus Christ
The doctrine of the Trinity
The critique of miracles
The rejection of original sin
The problem of evil
Romanticism and the critique of the Enlightenment
Intuition, imagination, feelings
Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher ( )

3. The crisis of faith in Victorian England
A. N. Wilson, God’s Funeral (2000)
George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans, )
Moral revolt
“religion of human sympathy”
Matthew Arnold ( )
Dover Beach

4. Excerpt from “Dover Beach”
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl’d.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

5. Postmodernism and a new theological agenda
Reason: Critique of universal rationality
Truth: Truth, power, and oppression
History: Rejection of universal history
Self: Multiple narratives of identity
Structural linguistics
Ferdinand de Saussure ( )
Sign = signifier + signified
Deconstruction: no fixed meaning
Biblical interpretation: Suspicion toward historical-critical method
Systematic theology: Anti-systematization

6. Key theologians F. D. E. Schleiermacher (1768-1834)
John Henry Newman ( )
Karl Barth ( )
Paul Tillich ( )
Karl Rahner ( )
Hans Urs von Balthasar ( )
Jürgen Moltmann (b.1926)
Wolfhart Pannenberg (b.1928)

7. Some recent Western theological movements and trends
Liberal Protestantism
Bridging the gap between Christian faith and modern knowledge
Christian beliefs in conflict with modern cultural norms: Abandoned or reinterpreted
Anchor faith in common human experience
Optimistic view of human nature
Paul Tillich ( )
Method of correlation
Criticisms:
Universal human religious experience?
Transient cultural developments
Abandonment of distinctive Christian doctrines

8. Modernism School of Catholic theologians, end of 19th century
Alfred Loisy ( )
George Tyrrell ( )
Modernism in England
Modernism in the United States

9. Neo-orthodoxy World War I Karl Barth (1886-1968), Church Dogmatics
The self-revelation of God in Christ through Scripture
Dialectical theology
Theology of the Word of God
Critiques:
Emphasis on transcendence and otherness of God
No external reference to verify claims (fideism)
No account of other religions

10. Ressourcement (la nouvelle théologie)
Catholic theological revival in France
Return to the sources, traditions, creeds of the early church
Jean Daniélou, “The Present Orientations of Religious Thought” (1946)
Theology and spirituality

11. Feminism Conflict with Christianity
Reappraisal of Christian past: Sarah Coakley (b.1951)
The maleness of God
Rosemary Radford Ruether (v.1936)
Sallie McFague (b.1933)
The nature of sin
Pastoral theology
The person of Christ
The problem of the maleness of Christ

12. Liberation theology Latin America, 1960s and 1970s
CELAM II: Latin American Catholic bishops in Medellín, Columbia
Gustavo Gutiérrez (b.1928), Theology of Liberation
God is on the side of the poor and oppressed
Critical reflection on practice
Marxism
Biblical hermeneutics
Scripture as narrative of liberation
The nature of salvation
liberation and structural sin

13. Black theology Joseph Washington, Black Religion (1964)
Albert Cleage, Black Messiah (1968)
“Black Manifesto,” 1969
James H. Cone (1938)
Black Theology of Liberation (1970)

14. Postliberalism Yale Divinity School, 1970s-80s
Alasdair MacIntyre (b.1929)
Anti-foundational
Communitarian
Historicist
George Lindbeck, Nature of Doctrine (1984)
Cultural-linguistic approach
Paul Holmer, Grammar of Faith (1978)
Systematic theology as descriptive discipline
Christian ethics: Stanley Hauerwas (b.1940)

15. Radical orthodoxy
John Milbank, Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason (1993)
Radical Orthodoxy: A New Theology (1999), edited by John Milbank, Catherine Pickstock, and Graham Ward
Alternatives to modernism and postmodernism

16. Case study 4.1 The quests of the historical Jesus
The original quest for the historical Jesus
Gulf between the historical Jesus and the Christ of faith
Hermann Samuel Reimarus ( )
“On the Aims of Jesus and His Disciples”
The critique of the quest,
Apocalyptic critique
Johannes Weiss, Jesus’ Proclamation of the Kingdom of God (1892)
Albert Schweitzer ( ): thoroughgoing eschatology

17. The skeptical critique
William Wrede ( )
Errors of liberal Protestant Christologies
Inconsistent method
Motives of the evangelists
Psychological approach
Dogmatic critique
Martin Kähler ( )
Christ as “supra-historical”
“the real Christ is the preached Christ”

18. The retreat from history: Rudolf Bultmann (1884- 1976)
“that”
Christ encountered in the kerygma
The new quest of the historical Jesus
Ernst Käsemann ( )
Continuity between the preaching of Jesus (the historical Jesus) and preaching about Jesus (the Christ of faith)
The third quest
John Dominic Crossan
Marcus L. Borg
Burton L. Mack
E. P. Sanders
N. T. Wright

19. Case study 4.2 The basis and nature of salvation
The relation between Christology (the person of Christ) and soteriology (the work of Christ)
Interpretations of the work of Christ
Sacrifice
The “threefold office” (prophet, priest, king)
Sacrifice as heroic self-giving
Thomas Chubb ( )
Joseph Butler ( )
Horace Bushnell, Vicarious Sacrifice (1866)

20. Exemplarist approaches
Christus victor
Enlightenment: Rational skepticism of resurrection, existence of evil
Gustaf Aulén, Christus Victor (1931)
Reality of evil in the world
Alternative to legal and subjective approaches
Legal approaches
Representation
Participation
Substitution
Enlightenment criticisms
P. T. Forsyth, The Justification of God (1916)
Karl Barth, “The Judge Judged in Our Place”
Exemplarist approaches
Value of the cross = impact on humanity
Moral example of Jesus as a human being
Cross as demonstration of God’s love

21. The cross: constitutive or illustrative?
Constitutive: the cross makes salvation possible
Illustrative: the cross illustrates God’s saving will
The nature of salvation
Deification
Righteousness before God
Union with Christ
Moral perfection
Consciousness of God
Genuine humanity
Political liberation

22. Case study 4.3 The debate over the resurrection
The Enlightenment: the resurrection as non-event
Skepticism toward miracles
Human autonomy
David Friedrich Strauss: the resurrection as myth
Rudolf Bultmann: the resurrection as an event in the experience of the disciples
Jesus Christ present in the kerygma
Karl Barth: the resurrection as a historical event beyond critical inquiry
Wolfhart Pannenberg: the resurrection as a historical event open to critical inquiry

23. Case study 4.4 The Trinity in twentieth-century thought
F. D. E. Schleiermacher
Doctrine of the Trinity as “coping-stone”
Henry Barclay Swete ( )
Karl Barth
God’s self-revelation to sinful humanity
Revealedness
Karl Rahner
The economic and immanent Trinity
Robert Jenson
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit = God’s proper name

24. Case study 4.5 Twentieth-century discussions of the doctrine of the church
“Wherever Christ is, there is also the Catholic Church” (Ignatius of Antioch)
Christ is present sacramentally
Catholic theologians
Christ is present through the Word
Karl Barth
Christ is present through the Spirit
Liberation theologian Leonardo Boff
Orthodox theologian John Zizioulas
Vatican II on the church
The church as communion
The church as the people of God
The church as a charismatic community

25. Case study 4.6 Natural theology and the rationality of faith
The “two books of God”: nature and Scripture
William Paley, Natural Theology (1802)
God as watchmaker
Contrivance
John Henry Newman ( )
Limitations of natural theology
Emil Brunner v. Karl Barth, 1934

26. Case study 4.7 The feminist critique of traditional Christian theology
The “maleness” of God
The doctrine of the Trinity
Creator, redeemer, sustainer
A male Jesus of Nazareth
Traditional concepts of sin

27. Case study 4.8 Christian approaches to other religions
Universal notion of religion?
Trinitarian approaches to other religions
Raimundo Panikkar ( )
Particularism (exclusivism)
Inclusivism
Fulfillment hypothesis
Karl Rahner: anonymous Christians
Parallelism
Pluralism
John Hick ( )