The rise of modern science and the proclaimed 'death' of God in the nineteenth century led to a radical questioning of divine action and authorship - Bultmann's celebrated 'demythologizing'. Remythologizing Theology moves in another direction that begins by taking seriously the biblical accounts of God's speaking. It establishes divine communicative action as the formal and material principle of theology, and suggests that interpersonal dialogue, rather than impersonal causality, is the keystone of God's relationship with the world. This original contribution to the theology of divine action and authorship develops a fresh vision of Christian theism. It also revisits several long-standing controversies such as the relations of God's sovereignty to human freedom, time to eternity, and suffering to love. Groundbreaking and thought-provoking, it brings theology into fruitful dialogue with philosophy, literary theory, and biblical studies.

Although Paul Ricoeur's writings are widely and appreciatively read by theologians, this book offers a full, sympathetic yet critical account of Ricoeur's theory of narrative interpretation and its contribution to theology. Unlike many previous studies of Ricoeur, Part I argues that Ricoeur's hermeneutics must be viewed in the light of his overall philosophical agenda, as a fusion and continuation of the unfinished projects of Kant and Heidegger. Particularly helpful is the focus on Ricoeur's recent narrative theory as the context in which Ricoeur deals with problems of time and the creative imagination; and it becomes clear that narrative stands at the crossroads of Ricoeur's search for the meaning of human being as well as his search for the meaning of texts. Part II examines the potential of Ricoeur's narrative theory for resolving certain theological problems, such as the dichotomy betweens the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith.

First Theology is a collection of previously published essays, some of which are extensively revised, in which Kevin Vanhoozer, Research Professor of Systematic Theology at the Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, argues that all theology is hermeneutical and that all hermeneutics-even general hermeneutics-is invariably theological. Vanhoozer addresses theology, Scripture and hermeneutics in separate parts of this book, each organized with the core concept of "God's communicative action," which he explores with full attention to the contemporary climate of relativism and skepticism-a harrowing realm he has already explored at length in Is There Meaningin This Text? (Zondervan, 1998). According to Vanhoozer, when God proclaims in Scripture that his Word "shall not return to Me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose" (Isaiah 55.11), Scripture itself establishes the proper relationship between hermeneutics and theology proper, while refuting fashionable postmodem denials of meaning. Vanhoozer is an unrepentant Protestant of the Reformed variety, and he is thus able to bring his staunch Protestantism to bear on several key issues in contemporary hermeneutics and theology. Following David Kelsey's lead, for instance, Vanhoozer insists that theologians formulate their doctrine of Scripture and their theology in tandem. What Vanhoozer calls "first theology" must be a simultaneous development of both. He does not follow Kelsey, however, in the belief that these twin dimensions of first theology are developed prior to exegesis; to locate one's formulation of the God-Scripture relation in the practices of the church is to cede to the community an authority that belongs to God and his Word alone. At sev

This essay asks whether the Bible's authority is a matter of (propositional) content as well as (poetic) form. It extends Martha Nussbaum's work on the importance of literature for ethics by examining the effect of the "ancient quarrel" between philosophers and poets on the relationship of biblical literature to theology. Biblical authority involves not only revealed information but also large-scale patterns of information processing, like narrative, a cognitive strategy for grasping meaningful wholes. Scripture's literary forms perform a pedagogical function, helping disciples to make right judgments about the theodrama, and hence serve as a means of sapiential formation.

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