Christian Theism Idealism

Introduction : Idealism and Christian theology / Joshua R. Farris and S. Mark Hamilton -- The theological orthodoxy of Berkeley's immaterialism / James S. Spiegel -- Berkeley, Edwards, idealism and the knowledge of God / William J. Wainwright -- Idealistic panentheism : reflections on Jonathan Edwards's account of the God world relation / Jordan Wessling -- Berkeley, realism, idealism and creation / Keith Yandell -- Edwardsian idealism, imago Dei, and contemporary theology / Joshua R. Farris -- On the corruption of the body : a theological argument for metaphysical idealism / S. Mark Hamilton -- Idealism and the Resurrection / Mark Cortez -- Jonathan Edwards, idealism, and Christology / Oiver D. Crisp -- Jonathan Edwards's dynamic idealism and cosmic Christology / Seng-Kong Tan -- Idealism and participating in the body of Christ / James Arcadi -- Idealistic ethics and Berkeley's good God / Timo Airaksinen

There is now renewed and growing interest in post-Hegelian idealism, which was in its heyday at the end of the nineteenth century. This book is concerned with the religious and socio-ethical aspects in the writings of selected idealists. It addresses the question: was post-Hegelian philosophical idealism, in its friendliest guise, more a help than a hindrance to the expression of Christian convictions and the articulation of Christian doctrines? In pursuit of an answer, the author discusses the writings of seven British idealists who, if not in every case entirely doctrinally orthodox, were by no means unkindly disposed towards the Christian faith: T. H. Green, Edward Caird, J. R. Illingworth, Henry Jones, A. S. Pringle-Pattison, C. C. J. Webb, and A. E. Taylor. The book opens with an account of the formative intellectual influences upon the seven idealists and their consequent philosophical positions. There follow chapters on God, ethics and society, and Christian doctrine. The conclusion passes some positive and negative judgments upon post-Hegelian idealism in so far as it bears upon, or expresses, Christian belief. It also broaches the underlying question of the method of Christian thought vis ^ vis the general intellectual environment.

When it comes to contemporary philosophical problems, metaphysical idealism-or Berkeleyan immaterialism-is not taken seriously by most philosophers, not to mention the typical Christian layperson. This state of affairs deserves some attempt at rectification, since Idealism has considerable explanatory power as a metaphysical thesis and provides numerous practical and theoretical benefits. Such thinkers as George Berkeley and Jonathan Edwards believed that Idealism is especially amenable to a Christian perspective, both because it provides a plausible way of conceptualizing the world from a theistic standpoint and because it effectively addresses skeptical challenges to the Christian faith. The contributors to this volume explore a variety of ways in which the case can be made for this claim, including potential solutions to philosophical problems related to the nature of time, the ontology of physical objects, the mind-body problem, and the nature of science.

This book bridges the gap between the sacramental praxis of Christian religion, seemingly dependent upon naïve acceptance of phenomena in their immediacy, and the mediation of spiritual reality via philosophy of mind, and self-consciousness generally. Thus, it is a philosophy of incarnation as, inter alia, discrete essence of the Hegelian dialectic as the absorbing and thereby cancelling of finitude in the Absolute as its own Idea and, consequently, the total converse of pantheism. The Aristotelico-Hegelian concept of substance as mediated by visible “accidents”, the phenomena, is essential here. Thus Nature, but not the substance, which is Nature’s idea, is a self-conflicting phenomenon only, generating natural misconceptions in us, its offspring. Hence self-consciousness, the “I”, is to be perfected in its self-confident development towards the Absolute Idea, with which each finite idea is identical in absorption and difference, while religion becomes absolutised in, or as, sophia, chief intellectual virtue according to Aquinas. Here, a new theology, product of faith, resumes the old. It is time to put it to work.