Divine Presence: An Introduction to Christian Theology

Abstract

Theology should be at home both in the academy and in the church. This book takes such dual affiliation seriously and lets the two different contexts illuminate each other. It explores how we should understand theology within the context of the current debate on theory of science and discusses the methodological implications of belief in God as Creator and in the incarnation. The first part of the book concludes by examining the consequences of theology's dual affiliation for the self-understanding of believers in general and theologians in particular. The second part deals with four different sources of theological knowledge and their relation to each other: the Bible, the history of the church, experience, and reason. Among the central issues are the status of the Bible in contemporary theology, the unity of the church, and the relationship between theology and the natural sciences. The central question is: where do we experience divine presence?