Theology as Revisionary Metaphysics

Book excerpt: Modern Protestant theology has tended to shun metaphysics. The philosophical underpinnings of our theological traditions have cracked under the weight of modern scrutiny. Robert Jenson is a theologian who has embraced the critique of inherited metaphysics, but who then finds contained within the gospel itself the basis for further and more specific critiques: the story of Jesus of Nazareth. Jenson argues that the appropriate response of theology to the contemporary situation is not to reject metaphysics, but to develop new and more radical metaphysical proposals. For several decades now, he has been pursuing a theological program of "revisionary metaphysics"--an attempt to speak about the gospel in a society more and more characterized by epistemological disquiet. Gathered together in this volume is a collection of his proposals for theology laboring under this task of revisionary metaphysics.