Talk:Neo-Orthodoxy

From Theopedia

I removed the following section:

According to the Neo-Orthodox, as long as we conceive of the Fall as an historical event, we fail to think existentially. "The Fall is something we all commit. Let us not push the blame off on Pithecanthropus Adamus. When God says to Adam, Where art thou? he is speaking to each of us."

This is so brief it becomes confusing. Furthermore, where is this quote from? Why is it relevant? Thoughts welcomed. JordanBarrett (talk) 18:39, 3 March 2006 (EST)

I also removed this:

Neo-Orthodoxy contends that we can never have an adequate theology until there has been a divine-human encounter. In the "crisis of faith" or the "Christ event" we become contemporaneous with the Christ of history (whatever that means). It is certainly true that one cannot really have an adequate theology without being born again, but Neo-Orthodoxy goes too far by throwing out the propositional truth of Scripture for experientialism.

This seems disjointed and confusing. I also find this irrelevant and if left in the article just adds to any confusion. JordanBarrett (talk) 18:46, 3 March 2006 (EST)

Jordan, the comments you deleted were (I believe) from the referenced article in Baker's Dictionary of Theology. I found them insightful in describing the Neo-orthodox perspective, particularly the view of "the Fall" (the story of Adam and Eve) as a non-historical event.

Anyone who has read neo-orthodox writings will come across references to the existential "Christ event" or "crisis of faith". I was attempting to say that while the new birth certainly involves a necessary personal inner experience, personal existential experience does not then become the sole avenue for divine truth at the expense of the propositional truth in Scripture, which is essentially what happens in Neo-orthodoxy. However, this may have been a little confusing without more context.

I am not asking to have the deletions re-inserted in toto. I am just explaining how I saw it. The article does read a little better. I may add back one comment regarding the non-historical Fall. :-) Thanks, Jim aka Gomarus 10:46, 4 March 2006 (EST)

That makes sense, and I am not disagreeing with you regarding neo-orthodox writings and the "crisis of faith". That is definitely present, I guess I just felt it was brushed over too quickly and may leave the reader confused and I have a bad habit of thinking, "whatever is confusing becomes irrelevant". I'm cool with what you did. Next time I'll add a note before I actually do (i.e., delete) something (another bad habit I have). JordanBarrett (talk) 14:48, 4 March 2006 (EST)

Karl Barth and existentialism

I've been trying to read up more on Karl Barth lately. From what I gather (and they are conservative evangelical sources), it appears his first Christian Dogmatics was criticized for being existential, but that his later Church Dogmatics avoided this. I know that guys like Tillich and Brunner utilized existential thought in their writings, but it seems like Barth avoided this in his later writings. He's definitely associated and known as the father of neo-orthodoxy, but are all "neo-orthodox theologians" to be camped in with existentialism? Just checking this all out, thanks. JordanBarrett (talk) 14:51, 4 March 2006 (EST)

If you think of existentialism, as defined by Sartre, then no, not all neo-orthodox theologians are existentialists. But if you think of existentialism, as defined by Kierkegaard, then yes, all of them are existentialists. Tillich, for example, would be an existentialist in both cases, as he utilizes both Kierkegaard and Heidegger & Sartre, and adopts Heideggerian phenomenology. Brunner and the early Barth only utilize Kierkegaard. Christoball 15:31, 16 October 2006 (UTC)