Events of Grace: Naturalism, Existentialism, and Theology

In the liberal theological tradition dating from Schleiermacher, Events of Grace demonstrates that the Christian faith can be fully compatible with a scientific world view. Religion and God must be understood valuationally, not ontologically, which permits an existentialist account of faith entirely in terms of modes of existing. Hardwick weds Bultmann’s demythologising programme to Wieman’s naturalistic concept of God as creative transformation. Defending a strong doctrine of justification by faith, he shows how both God and the knowledge of God can be conceived in terms of events of grace that transform possibilities of existence toward openness to the future. Events of Grace gives a complete existential and naturalistic account of sin, faith, God, the knowledge of God, Christology, and the eschatological symbols that articulate Christian hope in the encounter with suffering and death.

• Makes religious belief compatible with natural science • Resolves the ‘demythologising debate’ by defending existentialist view • History of theology in the modern period

Part I. Foundations for a naturalist Christian theology: 1. Prospects for a naturalist theology; 2. Physicalism and philosophical naturalism; Part II. Bridge principles for a naturalist Christian theology: 3. Existence in faith: naturalism and existentialist interpretation; 4. Grace and the knowledge of God; 5. Christian faith as a seeing-as; PART III. Further elements of a naturalist Christian theology: 6. The point of Christology; 7. The promise of faith; Appendix: On the referential status of transformative events.