Experience and Language of Grace

Experience and Language of Grace attempts to lay a theological groundwork for the understanding of Christian life through a new approach to the idea of grace. A theology of grace deals with the most basic question of how God interacts with human subjects and hence with the world. The opening chapter offers a simple statement of the theological enterprise involved in retrieving the theological symbols from our Christian past and reinterpreting them in the light of our common understanding of God and human existence today. Then in a series of historical interpretations it explores the presuppositions, questions, and responses in the classic statements of a few important Western theologians. Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Trent, and Rahner all come under examination. The final chapters of the book isolate certain common themes that are consistently present in the traditional language of grace and reinterpret these in terms of the concept of liberation. Thus the author lays the foundation for a theology of liberation within a theology of grace. In doing so, he recasts the theology of grace into a social context and provides the basis both for a new language of grace and for a spirituality of participation in history and social change. †

Roger Haight is a Jesuit priest and theologian. A former President of the Catholic Theological Society of America, he now teaches at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. His previous books include Dynamics of Faith and Jesus Symbol of God.