Christian Life and Thought and Their Interaction

Dear Colleagues,

Religious questions lead to a very specific hermeneutic challenge: life and its interpretation, experience and its reflection, and ideas of faith and their confirmation, which are all in a relationship of mutual interaction and delimitation. This relationship potentially encompasses the entire world view, while at the same time it is shaped and expressed by very concrete life practices (Quisinsky 2016).

From a Catholic perspective, it should be added that with the Second Vatican Council and Pope Francis' magisterium, the interaction between Christian life and thought was named as a central theological task (Hillebrand/Quisinsky 2021).

As a science, theology has dedicated itself to this relationship, which articulates the question of God in all of this (Lintner 2014). However, it can also be viewed from a humanities perspective. Against this background, what is special about the interaction between “Christian life and thought”? How can Christian life give food for thought? What life possibilities does Christian thinking open up?

In this respect, the question also arises as to the extent to which the aforementioned relationship can contribute to understanding and defining reason and rationality. While the history of Christian life and thought is linked to European history, European philosophy plays a major role (Habermas 2019, Ruhstorfer 2024). Nevertheless, Christianity also has to take into account that different religious traditions have used different tools of rationality, which in turn are rooted in cultural contexts (Courau 2019). If Christian life and thought interact throughout the world, what does this mean for the very history of thinking in Europe and beyond? What does this mean in postcolonial times?

Besides all these potentially constructive dynamics, the very interaction between Christian life and thought is questioned from within and from the outside. Fundamentalist and evangelical tendencies in certain ways of living the Christian faith are skeptical against secular and critical thinking, while certain forms of secular and critical thinking consider Christian life to be intellectually unproductive. How can antirationalism be dealt with?

Finally, the interaction between life and thought includes an ethical dimension: what is or can be the relationship between religion and “good life” in our complex world (Paglia 2022)?

The aim of this Special Issue is to explore fundamental dimensions of the interaction between Christian life and thought. Topics of interest for this Special Issue include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Interaction between life and thought in the Bible;
• Historical examples of interactions between Christian life and thought;
• Criteria for (un)successful interactions;
• Interaction as “mutual delimitation”;
• Spiritual origin of doctrinal formulations;
• Contribution of Christianity to rationalities;
• Rituality and language as expressions of the interaction between life and thought;
• Contextuality and universality;
• Contingency and knowledge;
• Christian doctrine and ethics in dialogue;
• Interreligious comparisons ;
• Philosophical approaches on the interaction between theory and practice;
• European and non-European rationalities within Christianity and beyond;
• Antirational and anti-intellectual tendencies as a challenge;
• Theories of performance.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 400–500 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the Guest Editor ([email protected]) or to the Religions Editorial Office ([email protected]). Abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editors for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo a double-blind peer review process.

References

Courau, T. M. (ed.) 2019. Le dialogue des rationalités culturelles et religieuses. Paris: Cerf.

Habermas, J. (2019). Auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie (2 vol.). Berlin: Suhrkamp.

Hillebrand, B. & M. Quisinsky 2016. Dogma und Pastoral – neu vernetzt. Aufbruch zu einer Angewandten Theologie. Ostfildern: Grünewald.

Lintner, M. (ed.) 2014. God in Question. Religious language and secular language. Brixen: Weger.

Paglia, V. (ed.) 2022. Ethica teologica della vita. Scrittura, tradizione, sfide praticha. Citta del Vaticano: Libreria Editrice Vaticana.

Quisinsky, M (2016). Katholizität der Inkarnation – Catholicité de l’Incarnation. Christliches Leben und Denken „nach“ dem II. Vaticanum – Vie et pensée chrétiennes (d‘)après Vatican II. Münster: Aschendorff.

Ruhstorfer, K. (2024). Philosophie ist Theologie. Die Provokation der Neuzeit. Baden-Baden: Alber (doi.org/10.5771/9783495993033).

Prof. Dr. Michael Quisinsky
Guest Editor

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• practices of faith
• faith and reason
• Christianity and culture
• rationability
• contextuality
• theological method
• inculturation/exculturation
• transculturality