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The character of Christian realism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 January 2005

Katherine Sonderegger
Affiliation:
Virginia Theological Seminary, Alexandria, Virginia 22304, [email protected]

Abstract

This article aims to set out a modest, ’pre-theoretical’ or common sense account of metaphysical realism in Christian theology. The essay defends and explores the claim that Christian theology does not rest on definitions or world views when it speaks about ’realism’. Christian realism is not a method, especially not a method spinning free of its proper content, nor a theory about schools of realism. Christian theology is ordered to God's own ways and works: it is a realism in which the God of Israel is both agent and sovereign, both object and subject in the world we inhabit. Christian realism is reflection upon the reality created and blessed by the Creator.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 2004

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Footnotes

Many thanks to Lynne Rudder Baker, my colleagues at Virginia Theological Seminary, and members of the American Theological Society, who improved earlier drafts of this paper.