Liberation theology

By Haight, Roger

Also known as theology of liberation, liberation theology is simultaneously a social movement within the Christian Church and a school of thought, both of which react against human ...

Religion and science

By Murphy, Nancey

Philosophical discussion of the relation between modern science and religion has tended to focus on Christianity, because of its dominance in the West. The relations between science and ...

Literature, philosophy in Latin American

By Gomez-Martinez, Jose Luis

Within the Latin American intellectual community, the relationship between philosophy and literature constitutes one of the most interesting chapters in its development. Much Latin American literature is characterized ...

Feminist theology

By Suchocki, Marjorie

Feminist theology began as a reaction to the exclusion of women and women’s concerns from traditional Christian theology, but it soon incorporated constructive as well as critical elements. ...

Niebuhr, Reinhold (1892–1971)

By Marty, Martin

Reinhold Niebuhr is widely regarded as the foremost public theologian in twentieth-century America. A ‘public’ theologian is one who is responsive to the biblical tradition and responsible to ...

Islamic philosophy, modern

By Morewedge, Parviz; Leaman, Oliver

There are a number of major trends in modern Islamic philosophy. First, there is the challenge of the West to traditional Islamic philosophical and cultural principles and the ...

Russian Religious-Philosophical Renaissance

By Rosenthal, Bernice Glatzer

The Russian Religious-Philosophical Renaissance was created by lay intellectuals who found rationalism, positivism and Marxism inadequate as explanations of the world or guides to life. They were deeply ...

Latin America, philosophy in

By Oliver, Amy A.

Geographically, Latin America extends from the Mexican–US border to those regions of Antarctica to which various Latin American countries have laid claim. It includes the Spanish-speaking Caribbean. Philosophy ...

Brazil, philosophy in

By Sturm, Fred Gillette

It is possible to distinguish between European philosophy in Brazil and Brazilian philosophy. The former refers to Brazilians who participate in discussions of issues occurring in the European ...

Barth, Karl (1886–1968)

By Seban, Jean-Loup

Karl Barth was the most prominent Protestant theologian of a generation shaken by the traumatic experience of the First World War and concerned with giving Christian theology a ...

Providence

By Hasker, William

Divine providence is God’s care, provision, foresight and direction of the universe in such a way that the universe as a whole and individual creatures within it fulfil ...

Tillich, Paul (1886–1965)

By Hammond, Guyton B.

Tillich was one of the most influential Christian theologians of the twentieth century. Notable for his effort to translate the language of the Western religious tradition into terms ...

Hermeneutics, biblical

By Thiselton, Anthony C.

Hermeneutics has traditionally been defined as the theory of interpretation. Biblical hermeneutics concerns the interpretation of biblical texts. But ‘interpretation’ tends to reflect the nature of the discipline ...

Religion, philosophy of

Philosophy of religion comprises philosophical reflection on a wide range of religious and religiously significant phenomena: religious belief, doctrine and practice in general; the phenomenology and cognitive significance ...

Religion, philosophy of

By Stump, Eleonore

Philosophy of religion is philosophical reflection on religion. It is as old as philosophy itself and has been a standard part of Western philosophy in every period (see ...

Marxist thought in Latin America

By Schutte, Ofelia

Marxism is a theory offering a critique of capitalist political economy. Marxism also views itself as an instrument or means of changing the world from a capitalist to ...

Nygren, Anders (1890–1978)

By Allen, Diogenes

Nygren hoped to recover the uniqueness of Christianity from the impurities introduced by the attempts of nineteenth-century liberal theology to free it from metaphysical speculation and confessional dogmatism. ...

Liberation philosophy

By Cerutti-Guldberg, Horacio

Philosophy of liberation emerged in Argentina early in the 1970s with the explicit intention of proposing a liberating alternative to the diagnosis of structural dependence offered by the ...

Existentialist theology

By Evans, C. Stephen

Existentialist theology is a term used to describe the work of a number of theologians, chiefly from the twentieth century, whose writings were strongly influenced by the literary ...

Jewish philosophy, contemporary

By Levinson, Henry S.; Malino, Jonathan W.

Jewish philosophy is pursued by committed Jews seeking to understand Judaism and the world in one another’s light. In this broad sense, contemporary Jewish philosophy maintains the central ...

Argentina, philosophy in

By Estrada, Juan Carlos Torchia

Philosophy has been present throughout Argentine cultural life since the beginning of Spanish colonization. Despite institutional ups and downs, the teaching of philosophy was a practically constant component ...

Apel, Karl-Otto (1922–)

By Kettner, Matthias

The German philosopher Karl-Otto Apel is best known for his wide-ranging ‘transcendental pragmatic’ approach to a gamut of issues in theoretical and practical philosophy. This approach accords ‘argumentative ...

Evil, problem of

By Adams, Marilyn McCord

In this context, ‘evil’ is given the widest possible scope to signify all of life’s minuses. Within this range, philosophers and theologians distinguish ‘moral evils’ such as war, ...

Religion and political philosophy

By Weithman, Paul J.

Political philosophy began in Athens, but the large-scale impact of religion upon it had to await Christianity. Biblical Christianity portrays human beings as subjects of a kingdom of ...

Hegelianism

By Stern, Robert; Walker, Nicholas

As an intellectual tradition, the history of Hegelianism is the history of the reception and influence of the thought of G.W.F. Hegel. This tradition is notoriously complex and ...