50 Key Concepts in Theology

particular religious communities.
Jacques Dupuis (1923–2005), a Roman Catholic, argued in Toward a
Pluralist Theology of Religions (1997) that God is also present in other
religious traditions. He was cross-examined by the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith and was suspended from his position at the Gregorian
University.
John Hick (1922– ) used Kant’s distinction between an object ‘in itself’
and how it appears in our perception to construct a theory of religious
pluralism that distinguishes between God in himself and how he appears to
the different world religions: ‘Each concrete historical divine personality –
Jahweh, the heavenly Father, the Qur’anic Allah – is a joint product of the
universal divine presence and a particular historically formed mode of
constructive religious imagination’
(
Disputed Questions in Theology and the
Philosophy of Religion).
Karl Rahner (1904–84) argued that those of other faiths and none could
be included in the Church as ‘anonymous Christians’.
IDEAS
Pleroma: the Greek word for ‘everything’ that is used in the New

---

Testament to mean the fullness of creation.
Trinity: It can be argued that the doctrine of the Trinity (see separate
entry) tries to contain both the pluralist and the monist positions in one view
of God: God is irreducibly plural yet absolutely singular.
BOOKS
John Hick,
God Has Many Names (Westminster John Knox Press, 1982)
David Ray Griffin, Deep Religious Pluralism (Westminster John Knox
Press, 2005)

---

Post-modern Theology
This term refers to a range of theological responses to ‘the post-modern
condition’ of cultural uncertainty.
The best way to consider ‘post-modernism’ is in relation to ‘modernism’.
Modernism (in the sense we are using it here) was characterised by a faith in
the human individual and human nature in general; a confidence in science
and human reason; and the valuing of historical progress over tradition.
Modernism in theology was typified by the nineteenth-century liberal
theologians who emphasised the humanity of Jesus and the ethical dimension
of Christian life.
It is difficult to date the rise of modernism, but its origins arguably lie in
Renaissance humanism, when the authority of the Church was questioned and
the individual human being was celebrated as a supreme example of God’s
creation. The high point of modernism was probably the late nineteenth
century, when the progress of human science and technology seemed
unstoppable.
Zygmunt Baumann, perhaps the leading commentator on post-
modernism, has described modernity as ‘an age of artificial order and of
grand societal designs, the era of planners, visionaries, and – more generally –
“gardeners” who treat society as a virgin plot of land to be expertly designed
and then cultivated and doctored to keep the designed form’ (Modernity and
the Holocaust).
The demise of modernism was gradual and took place slowly as a result
of a number of catastrophic events in Western history. The destructiveness of
the First and Second World Wars undermined both modernism’s faith in
human nature and its belief in progress. The realisation that our technologies
are contributing to risks such as global warming has produced disillusionment
with science. And the failure of advanced democracies to tackle long-standing
social problems has undermined confidence in our capacity to live up to our
own moral ideals.
Post-modernism is not a single reaction but a disorganised collection of
responses to the decline of modernism. Modernism undermined our faith in
tradition in the name of reason and progress, but the demise of modernism has
left us with little confidence in either tradition or human progress.
The post-modern condition, according to Jean-Francois Lyotard, is
‘incredulity’: we now no longer believe either in the old theological
certainties or in Enlightenment reason. All the ‘big’ ideas and ‘meta-

---

narratives’ have been thrown into question. According to Jürgen Habermas,
we live in an age of ‘legitimation crisis’ when we have no metaphysical or
ideological underpinning for our values and aspirations.
As a consequence, we experience what Baumann calls a ‘liquid’ culture,
where our values must be improvised. We no longer have faith in institutions
or traditions – religious or otherwise – and connect with others via networks
enabled by communications technologies such as the internet.
Post-modern theologies come in many shapes and sizes. There is a
growing consensus that, at the very least, post-modernity requires the
churches to adopt new strategies and structures. Pete Ward (author of Liquid
Church), for example, has argued that the Church must learn to connect with
networks and emerging cultures rather than remaining holed-up in
ecclesiastical structures. More radical thinkers argue that Christianity simply
doesn’t need formal institutions at all.
Most agree that theology must change radically too, offering people
opportunities for encounter, exploration and self-expression rather than
dogmatic certainties that are unlikely to be believed.
Some theologians (such as John Caputo) have argued that post-modern
incredulity towards God actually makes room for a more true and passionate
faith. In a similar vein, Richard Kearney has described God as a ‘possibility’
rather than an ‘actuality’. Carl Raschke has argued in The Next Reformation:
Why Evangelicals Must Embrace Postmodernity (2004) that the post-modern
turn against the secular ideologies of humanism and rationality can provide
resources for the renewal of theology.
THINKERS
Don Cupitt (1934– ) has argued in a series of books since Taking Leave
of God (1980) that we need to abandon God in order to recover a theology of
‘ordinary language’ that finds meaning in everyday experience.
Charles Winquist (1945–2002) proposed a post-modern theology of
desire: ‘The study of religion is most importantly an experiment in being
human’ (The Surface of the Deep). ‘Those for whom I write are restless. They
have noted an absence in their lives, but it is not an absence that can be
readily filled by institutionalized religion’ (Desiring Theology).
Zygmunt Baumann (1925– ), a leading commentator on post-modernism,
sees modernists as ‘legislators’ who aspired to be architects of a brave new
world, and post-modernists as ‘interpreters’ who attempt to understand the
world rather than to change it. He coined the term ‘liquid modernity’ to

---

describe the uncertain and fluid character of post-modern societies.
Jean-Francois Lyotard (1924–98): author of The Post-modern Condition,
which described post-modernity as ‘an incredulability towards meta-
narratives’.
Edith Wyschogrod (1936– ) has argued that the post-modern religious life
must now take the form of a quest for saintliness: ‘the post-modern saintly life
… is a plea for boldness and risk … for a new altruism in an age grown
cynical and hardened to catastrophe.’
IDEAS
The Emerging Church: a diverse movement of Christians who believe
that in a post-modern culture, religious experience, searching and
conversation are more powerful than dogma. As a result, the Emerging
Church takes the form of alternative worship, and informal and open-ended
organisation.
The Enlightenment project: a term used to describe the modernist faith in
historical progress guided by human reason and inventiveness.
Instrumental reason: a term used to describe the aggressive use of reason
in the modern period to subjugate nature and society in order to bring about a
utopian future.
Late-capitalist: a term used in preference to ‘post-modern’ by those who
see the post-modern era as one in which capitalism has lost its ideological
compass.
Late-modern: a term used by some in preference to ‘post-modern’
because, it is argued, post-modernism is really just an extension of modernist
values and practices.
The Liquid Church: an idea, advanced by Pete Ward in a book of the
same name, that sees Christianity as a fluid and culturally immersed reality.
Modernism: a term used, in quite different senses, to refer both to a
specific artistic movement in the early twentieth century and, more loosely, to
the values of the entire modern period from the late Renaissance to the
present day.
The network society: the idea that post-modern-culture people relate
through networks rather than through institutions.
Post-Enlightenment: a term used in preference to ‘post-modern’ by those
who see the ‘post-modern’ era as defined by the failure of the Enlightenment

---

project.
Post-structuralism: a movement in literary theory that sees linguistic
meaning as fluid and purely conventional.
Secularism: See separate entry.
The death of God: See separate entry.
BOOKS
Kevin Vanhoozer, The Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology
(CUP, 2003)
Stuart Sim (ed.), Icon Dictionary of Postmodernism (Icon Books, 1998)
William H. Katerberg and Miroslav Volf (eds.), The Future of Hope:
Christian Tradition amid Modernity and Postmodernity (Eerdmans, 2004)

---