Volume 57, Issue 2

Over the last 30 years, Christianity has developed into a religion of the Global South. Only 40% of the world’s Christians now live in Europe and North America. In the Global South, Christianity negotiates its identity via a plurality of different Christologies which partly complement and partly contradict one another (I.). Contemporary German Christological projects tend to ignore these Christologies, although they are of interest for Systematic Theology and should not be debated within Intercultural Theology alone, for two reasons. First, in order to do justice in one’s own Christology to the plenitude of the living Jesus Christ, it is helpful to include in one’s intellectual horizon a multitude of Christologies from various different cultures. Second, Jesus Christ is himself not in abstraction from, but in, with and under His cultural forms of realization (II.). The encounter with other cultures, though, begs disquieting questions. The Japanese theologian Katsumi Takizawa, for instance, develops in dialogue with Buddhism a Christology for which God’s agency in history proves less decisive than for most Western Christologies. The issue of contingency can only hold a position of minor importance within such a framework. However, it is exactly the status of contingent elements in its own genesis and in the validity of its own position that forces Western theology to accept foreign concepts (III.).

“Keep on watching!” The eschatological call to be prepared is a key motif in the biblical tradition. The essay looks at the ways in which theology and philosophy try to come to terms with that call. For this purpose texts by Emmanuel Levinas and Søren Kierkegaard are discussed. Levinas’ essay on Awakening is a critical appropriation of Husserl’s phenomenology. With regard to the event of awakening Levinas shows where he departs from transcendental phenomenology. Kierkegaard’s “Concept of Anxiety”, on the other hand, explores the motif of the eschatological watch in a more indirect way. And yet, this motif plays an important role for the book’s metaphorology and methodology. Finally, both texts converge on the issue of infinity. A reading of Kierkegaard in the light of Husserl’s concept of intentionality is proposed. For Levinas as well as for Kierkegaard the event of awakening in infinity marks the transition to a philosophical understanding of intersubjectivity and history.

In his lectures series on Genesis Luther develops the concept that God established the Christian Church in Paradise with Adam and Eve as the first Christians in great detail. Although he goes to great lengths to trace this assertion back to primeval history he is not successful in finding scriptural proof. The dogmatic objective which led him to attempt this ambitious theoretic construction was evidently his desire to prove that every conceivable extra-Christian development has a Christian origin and is therefore dependent on Christianity. His own Christian conviction thereby becomes the gauge for considering all extraneous historical phenomena. Other religions are seen as aberrations which lead away from the Christian roots. Judaism is co-opted as being in the proper sense Christian. The systems of state order are measured against the yardstick of the divine institution. Justice is seen within the framework of God’s laws. The fundamental auctoritas of the Christian Church which Luther supposes lends “Satan’s Church” fundamental significance, since everything that diverges from his own Christian understanding must result from the forces of evil. This article calls attention to this ideological component in Luther’s scriptural principle.

In recent years, theoretical and empirical work done under the rubric of the cognitive science of religion (CSR) have led many to conclude that religion (or, at least, some aspects thereof) is “natural”. By this, it is meant that human beings are predisposed to believe in supernatural agents, and that their beliefs about these agents are constrained in various ways. The details about how and why these predispositions and cognitive constraints developed and evolved are still largely unknown, though there is enough of a theoretical consensus in CSR for philosophers to have begun reflecting on the implications of CSR for religious belief. In particular, much philosophical work has been done on the implications of CSR for theism, on both sides of the debate. On one hand, CSR might contribute to defeating particular arguments for theism, or indeed theism altogether; on the other hand, CSR might provide support for specific theological views. In this paper, we argue that the CSR is largely irrelevant for classical theism , and in particular that the “naturalness hypothesis” is much less congenial to theism than some have previously argued. Zusammenfassung In den letzten Jahren hat die theoretische und empirische Arbeit unter der Rubrik cognitive science of religion (CSR) viele zu dem Schluss geführt, dass Religion (oder zumindest ein Teil ihrer Aspekte) »natürlich« ist. Damit ist gemeint, dass Menschen prädisponiert sind, an Übernatürliches zu glauben und ihr Glaube auf verschiedene Weise determiniert ist. Die Details, wie und warum sich diese Prädispositionen und kognitiven Zwänge entwickelt haben, sind größtenteils immer noch unbekannt, aber dennoch gibt es für Philosophen einen ausreichenden theoretischen Konsens in CSR, um mit der Re­flexion der Implikationen von CSR für religiösen Glauben zu beginnen. Im ­Speziellen wurde philosophisch viel in Bezug auf die Implikationen von CSR hinsichtlich des Theismus gearbeitet, auf beiden Seiten der Debatte: Auf der einen Seite könnte CSR dazu beitragen, einzelne Argumente für den Theismus zu unterstützen oder sogar den Theismus als solchen. Auf der anderen Seite könnte CSR Unterstützung für speziell theologische Positionen liefern. In diesem Beitrag argumentieren wir, dass CSR weitgehend irrelevant für den klassischen Theismus ist und speziell die Natürlichkeitshypothese weit weniger für einen Theismus austrägt, als oft angenommen wurde.

In this review article, the understanding of modernity in some contemporary English language publications is addressed. The older paradigms that these contemporary sources draw upon are also presented. With this, some critical questions are raised about these interpretations of modernity. Following these questions, the recent historical context of these narratives of modernity is described. Finally, an alternative interpretive paradigm is introduced. Zusammenfassung In diesem Review-Artikel wird das Verständnis der Moderne in einigen gegenwärtigen englischsprachigen Veröffentlichungen besprochen. Die älteren Paradigmen, auf die sich diese gegenwärtigen Quellen stützen, werden ebenfalls dargestellt. Daraufhin werden einige kritische Fragen zu diesen Interpretationen der Moderne gestellt. Im Anschluss an diese Fragen wird der zeitgeschichtliche Kontext dieser Erzählungen der Moderne präsentiert. Schließlich wird ein alternatives Interpretationsparadigma eingeführt.