On Tue, 27 Jun 2000 17:06:47 -0500 (CDT) Kendall Clark <kclark at ntlug.org>
writes:
> >>>>> "Doug" == Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> writes:
>
> Doug> Jim heartfield wrote:
> >> This is the original home of agnosticism, and more than a few
> >> CofE theologians will happily tell you that they do not
> believe
> >> in God, other than as a metaphor for man's wonder.
>
> Doug> A friend of mine who spent some time in an Episcopal
> Doug> seminary said pretty much the same thing of the faculty
> Doug> there, and at most other such places.
>
> I am, by formal training anyway, a liberal Protestant theologian (of
> the United Methodist type), and I can confirm this general view. At
> any rate, it's fairly safe to assume that a liberal theologian's
> conception of God is a substantive revision of the classical
> conception of God, substantive enough that most 'ordinary' Christian
> believers classify us as agnostics at best, more typically, as
> atheists.
>
> However, most liberal Protestant theologians do not, in my
> experience,
> self-identify as 'atheist' or 'agnostic'. The idea being that not
> assenting to the classic conception of God doesn't make one an
> atheist
> in any but the most vulgar way, i.e., only in the estimation of
> those
> who do assent to, and insist on, the classical conception.
It isn't just consevative Christians who criticize liberal theologians for attempting to deny that they are really agnostics or atheists. Some leading atheist philosophers have made the same sorts of criticisms of liberal theologians. Thus Sidney Hook argued that Paul Tillich was really an atheist who just didn't want to admit it. Corliss Lamont likewise contended that the bulk of liberal theologians were really agnostics or atheists but were unwilling to say so. On the other hand liberal theologians like Don Cupitt contend that it is possible to be a believing Christian while denying the tenets of traditional theism. But Cupitt's theology seems to me to be little different from the views espoused by many philosophers who would describe themselves as atheistic naturalists.
Jim Farmelant
>
> Best,
> Kendall Clark
> --
> THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS http://monkeyfist.com/
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