Silence and the Word: Negative Theology and Incarnation - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0521817188 ISBN 13: 9780521817189

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2002

Synopsis

Negative theology or apophasis--the idea that God is best identified in terms of what we cannot know about him, in terms of "absence", "otherness", "difference"--has been influentiual in modern Christian thought, resonating as it does with secular notions of absence, otherness and difference developed in recent continental philosophy. Leading Christian thinkers now offer a range of important new perspectives on this tradition, both historical and contemporary, to show how a dimension of negativity has characterized not only traditional mysticism but most forms of Christian thought over the years.

About this title

About the Author:

Oliver Davies is Reader in Philosophical Theology in the University of Wales and has written a number of studies of Christian mystical writers, including Meister Eckhart: Mystical Theologian (SPCK 1991). The first volume of his Systematic Theology in three parts appeared as A Theology of Compassion (SCM Press 2001), and the second volume, On the Creativity of God, is currently under preparation.

Review:

"[Davies and Turner's] contributions helpfully suggest ways in which the doctrines of the trinity and the incarnation, far from subverting negative theology, provide the conceptual framework within which Christians become most fully aware of language's inability to encompass or exhaust divinity." Religious Studies Review

"Almost every essay in this fine collection is worth reading, and some are worth intense study. Kudos to Davies and Turner for compiling a collection that shows that living into God means not dogmatic triumphalism but patient humility before the plenitude of a mystery of love that is always before us and behind us, holding us but never allowing us to kill her by holding too tightly to her with our merely human concepts." Modern Theology

"In terms of writing, intellectual penetration, and coverage of a topic, this is in every way a superior collection." - Cyril O'Regan, The University of Notre Dame

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0521817188
• ISBN 13: 9780521817189
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240
• Editor: Davies Oliver, Turner Denys