Abstract
The main challenge of theology is the adequate manner of the transmission of what is sacred and belongs to the transcendent order by means of appropriate categories of immanent religious language. In history, there was a debate between the univocal and equivocal approach, but the main Christian rules of telling about the sacred were shaped by Thomas Aquinas, who proposed analogy as a fundamental tool: in the middle of similarity there is still great dissimilarity. From this perspective, the world is seen as sacramental, so all material reality refers to something more and further. In this way, the sacred has a transitory character. Nowadays, however, the naturalistic narrative dominates among many theories of the sacred. This paper will begin by dealing with several types of theological narrations about the sacred in Christian theology (metaphysical and historical, mediating and representative, etc.). Then it will go into characterizing the Thomistic storytelling and its hermeneutical rules. Finally, it will consider the role of imagination in transmitting the sacred (Chesterton, Lewis, McGrath) and how the new perception of the sacred—so visible in pilgrimages such as Camino de Santiago—can be integrated in a new thinking about the city of the future.
Highlights
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations
Christological Rule: The Communication of Idiom In Christian storytelling about Christ as the Incarnated Lord, theology developed during the first centuries a series of principles that allowed for a proper understanding of the challenges of Christ as true God and man (Strzelczyk 2010, p. 298)
The Thomistic way of telling about God rests on several foundations, pillars that are worth presenting. This is an expression of the classical approach in theology, which takes into account what Revelation is in itself and how it makes itself known to humans
Summary
According to Aquinas, the grammar of the discourse on God is not extremely apophatic but requires a clear definition of how to adjudicate about God—and this is where he begins the Summa Theologiae (Hochschild 2019, p. 157; D’Ettore 2019, p. 43; Herrero Hernández 2019, p. 364). The existence of God—though obvious in itself—is not something apparent from the prospect of creation: the discovery becomes possible by the effort of reason, which discerns the cause from its effects. This is possible in two ways: metaphysical and historical narratives. Before we present these two ways of transmitting the sacred and the main ways of speaking about God, it is worth commencing with Aquinas’ understanding of the very idea of the sacred. From it one can understand the significance of “sacred” places, times, or people, and why such a way of storytelling is the most appropriate here
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