Francis Schüssler Fiorenza

The Crisis of Scriptural Authority

Because the current crisis of scriptural authority is not simply a crisis of Scriptures but also a crisis of modernity, any understanding of that crisis must look to our present intellectual environment as much as it does to the way Scriptures are viewed.

POLITICAL THEOLOGY AND THE CRITIQUE OF MODERNITY: Facing the Challenges of the Present

This paper analyzes three distinct modern articulations of the concept of political theology: the French restoration, Carl Schmitt, and Johann B. Metz. An analysis of their assessments of modernity and the Enlightenment show the role that “exception” or “interruption” has within their critique of modernity. Because of the consequences of the appeal to “exception” by Schmitt and National Socialism, the United Nations, seeking to prevent such use, underscored collective legitimacy in its charter and declarations about human rights. The appeal to “exception” and “singularity” emerges again today in both the political advocacy of pre-emption and in the anti-modern critique of Enlightenment rationality. The use of “exception” in the twentieth century challenges political theology to work out a more nuanced relation to the language of rights and the cosmopolitanism of its ethics and democratic discourse.

Theology: Transcendental or Hermeneutical?

Jack Bonsors essay as well as his interpretation of Karl Rahner and especially of Rahners appropriation of Martin Heideggers philosophy raises a central issue of theology today. His essay raises the issue of the relation between transcendental and hermeneutical approaches. Are they radically opposed? Or can they be synthesized into a unity? This issue has become particularly acute within contemporary theology influenced by the contemporary philosophical scene. The American philosophical debates on relativity, realism, and pragmatism have challenged traditional transcendental approaches to philosophy. In addition, hermeneutics has taken a new turn. Previously hermeneutical theory underscored the authority and binding claims of classics. Now literary critical theory and post-structuralist French philosophy emphasize instead the deconstruction of classical texts. This shift entails a further turn away from metaphysics and transcendental philosophy to relativism—a turn exemplified in Richard Rortys critique of transcendental and metaphysical philosophy. His critique appeals to the hermeneutical tradition of Heidegger and Gadamer, to the pragmatic philosophy of James and Dewey (neglecting Peirce), to the deconstructivism of Derrida, and to a literary theory influenced by Nietzsche. Another move toward relativism is the emerging debate about modernity that contrasts post-modernity with what modernity represents. The critics of modernity argue that the universalism of transcendental philosophy is a relic of modernity. They label transcendental universality a false universality of a dominating and oppressive reason. They label it a repressive reason for it suppresses the particularities of ethnic, gender, social, and economic groups. Their criticisms of traditional metaphysics and transcendental rationality are often so trenchant that the title of a Richard Bernsteins recent essay seems deserved: “The Rage against Reason.”

Schleiermacher and the Construction of a Contemporary Roman Catholic Foundational Theology

IW hen I was completing my book on foundational theology, I presented a paper on the concept of broad reflective equilibrium and foundational theology to a group of colleagues at a conference sponsored by the Association of Theological Schools.1 This paper summarized the books concluding section, which dealt with the relationship between contemporary criticisms of foundationalism and a foundational theology employing the method of broad reflective equilibrium. It advanced a systematic and historical argument. Systematically, the section argued that the method of broad reflective equilibrium offered a vision of foundational theology that avoided the pitfalls of foundationalism, overcoming the foundationalism of fundamental theology. It appealed to current discussions about methodology, specifically, the discussions on reflective equilibrium in the philosophy of science and in political ethics. The historical argument appealed to Schleiermacher by relating Schleiermachers stance on the relationship between systematic and philosophical theology to the conception of a nonfoundationalist foundational theology, employing the method of broad reflective equilibrium.