Thursday, April 20, 2006
(4:36 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Theological Issues
Today during class, I didn't say much, but my mind was working furiously -- somehow the class discussion going on around me managed to bring together a huge number of the theological ideas that most concerned me. And so, since this blog is in large part a refugee camp for graduate students in the area of "religion," I thought that I would list a few of those issues with the rationales, then ask my colleagues to do the same.- The image of God -- I've posted on this topic a few times, mostly in an annoyed state after having read one too many books or articles that glibly throw the term around. Most of what is said about "the image of God" strikes me as plain and simple nonsense, but it must be possible to speak of it more rightly.
- Demons -- my study of patristics has convinced me that thinking through what a "demon" might be is an essential and neglected task. There are some indications in liberation theologies that demons might represent something like "systemic evil," but so far I haven't seen anything that works that out in a sophistocated way that is actually satisfying in terms of the way demons act in the biblical texts. (Of course, it's not as though I'm a scholar of liberation theology by any means -- if I'm wrong about this, I'd be glad for someone to point me toward work where this is being pursued.)
- Trinity -- this was the first theological topic I studied with any seriousness, and although I'm a little bit wary of what sometimes seem to be rather glib "applications" of the doctrine to social life, it does seem to me to be important to understand, and not just for the sake of understanding theology. I think the doctrine of the Trinity is possible to understand, or at least that people tend to jump too quickly to "mystery" or to the idea that we're arrogantly trying to know things about God that we cannot know. I also tend to think that treating it as a numerical issue (the sublime mystery of one equalling three) is missing the point.
