Constructive Theology Research Articles

Book Review: Between Magisterium and Marketplace: A Constructive Account of Theology and the Church

Between Magisterium and Marketplace: A Constructive Account of Theology and the Church. By Robert C. Saler. Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 2014. ix + 192 pages. $49.00 (cloth).By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority? (Matt. 21:23). The question of the chief priests and elders to Jesus has persisted throughout two millennia of Christian history. Who authors / authorizes theology? Does the church stand as guarantor of the truth of any given theological assertion or can it be critiqued and found wanting by a theology it has not authorized? Is innovation possible in the realm of theology? If so, how is its veracity to be tested? Robert Saler s engaging book takes up these questions for the twenty-first century and offers an intellectually satisfying and eminently practical framework for authority within a church understood as an event of the gospel rather than a visible institution. To get to his conclusions he roots his argument in the differences between two ecclesiologies: polis (the church as an institution with a public) and (a diffusively spatialized event). Instead of championing one approach over the other, he points out the pros and cons of each but ultimately argues that the non-polis model speaks most directly to the current state of Christianity and its discontents.Saler lays the groundwork for his thesis in a review of the way innovation has moved from being a bad thing in theology (heresy) to an expected quality of any constructive theology (originality). He goes on to show the way these ideas play out in two great debates about the nature of the church, first between Thomas More and William Tyndale (an actual one) and then between John Henry Newman and Friedrich Schleiermacher (hypothesized). Instead of rehashing the doctrinal, social, or biographical issues at work in their differences, Saler susses out the ecclesiology operating beneath each man's reasoning, a choice that allows him to compare apples and apples. For instance, More and Tyndale each believe that the Bible and the Holy Spirit interact to authorize Christian belief, but More argues for the action of the Holy Spirit in the magisterium of the institutional church while Tyndale places it in the believer's heart and her inner conviction. Similarly, Newman and Schleiermacher each took the nineteenth century's undermining of Christianity's historic sources to heart as a call to creatively reengage them, but Newman could only bless innovations that developed organically from the church's teaching tradition, while Schleiermacher famously championed the virtuoso theologian who would author theology on his or her own while establishing its value over against worn-out doctrines. …

“A Deep, Immortal Longing”: Harriet Beecher Stowe and the Spiritual Path

“A Deep, Immortal Longing”:1Harriet Beecher Stowe and the Spiritual Path Anna M. Speicher (bio) Nancy Koester. Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Spiritual Life. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 2014. xi + 371 pp. Photographs, notes, and index. $24.00. In this biography, Nancy Koester convincingly demonstrates that although Harriet Beecher Stowe has most frequently been analyzed as an author and social reformer, spirituality was the glue that held all the parts of her life together. Stowe did not leave theology to the clergymen in her life—father, husband, brothers; rather, she herself saw the world through a religious lens, albeit one that she changed and refined over time. As her public and private writings attest, Stowe was in constant dialogue with herself and with others about theology and ecclesiastical practices. Her understanding of God and God's order shaped her views of people and events. And her relationships and the events of her life, in turn, affected her theological perspectives. Stories of Stowe's childhood make for an engaging beginning, which may come as a surprise. If asked to come up with adjectives to describe some of the theological and ecclesiastical heirs of the Puritans, lively and fun-loving would probably not make it onto most people's lists. Here, however, the reader is immediately drawn into the hustle and bustle that was the Beecher household. Harriet was the sixth living child born to Lyman and Roxana Beecher, and since (as she later noted) babies were by then “no longer a novelty,” she and her younger siblings had to find their own places among “the wants and clamors of older children” (p. 1). Everyone had chores to do, parceled out by age and gender; however, the descriptions of berry picking, fishing, browning coffee beans, and tending animals make these tasks (except for the sewing, which Harriet apparently despised) seem, á la Little House in the Big Woods, more inviting than arduous. Books, music, and walks in the meadow provided more conventional entertainment. Perhaps most surprising is the view of Lyman Beecher—Presbyterian pastor and theologian—as a father who roughhoused with his children, gathered nuts with them in the fall, played the fiddle, and danced the occasional jig. Of course, it wasn't all fun and games in the Beecher household. As one would expect, Lyman Beecher was serious about his religion. So along with [End Page 249] recounting anecdotes about the expanding Beecher household, Koester begins to trace the renovation of a different sort of house: the religious edifice of English Calvinism that came to the Americas with the Puritans. By the nineteenth century, this New England version of Calvinism was, Koester says, “the ultimate fixer-upper” (p. 11). The home renovation metaphor becomes, perhaps, a trifle stretched as Koester describes the “deep cellar” and ”steep roof” of New England Calvinism, the arguments over whether to simply “repaint” or “knock down the walls,” and the sounds of screeching nails and broken glass that accompanied this theological construction project (p. 11). Nonetheless, Koester's imagery paints a clear picture of her view of the religious landscape into which Harriet Beecher Stowe was born, how it shaped Stowe's early life, and how she adapted it over time in accordance with her own evolving principles. Koester's background in American religion and church history makes her an ideal candidate to narrate the evolution of the nineteenth-century theological currents that influenced the Beechers. She begins with Lyman Beecher, describing his essential theological project as one of shifting the foundation of New England Calvinism away from the belief in a sovereign (and, we might say, despotic) God who arbitrarily selects some for salvation and others for damnation, to a reframed covenant that allowed human beings some agency in their fate. Likely influenced by Enlightenment and republican currents, Beecher proposed that God's moral government must include a way for people to choose to live according to divine law. God would not deny salvation to those who made this effort. While the claim that salvation was accessible to all sincere Christians represented a seismic shift for Lyman Beecher and his peers, their new and improved theology still contained significant stumbling blocks. For his...

The Śrāddha: The Development of Ancestor Worship in Classical Hinduism

AbstractThe association of Hinduism with reincarnation is well‐known, but this connection obscures a long tradition of ancestor worship. The ritual texts of the Vedic and later Hindu traditions describe in detail the procedure for several forms of ancestral rite. This paper outlines the development of the theological discourse on ancestor worship from its earliest expression to the formation of Classical Hinduism early in the Common Era and highlights the underlying theological, social, and practical concerns that shaped that discourse. The development that culminated in the theological construction of an enduring model of ancestor veneration, the śrāddha, revolves around two central tensions, between the solemn and domestic ritual traditions and between the ritual and renunciation traditions. The resolution of the first tension produces the śrāddha. The reactions to the second tension in the ritual literature shape the śrāddha, bringing it to its classical form, and generate the complex soteriology of later Hinduism.

Christ and the Homosexual: An Early Manifesto for an Affirming Christian Ministry to Homosexuals

In his book Christ and the Homosexual (1960), Rev. Robert Wood presented American Christians with a view of homosexuality that was revolutionary: in short, he argued that homosexuals held a rightful place in church and society and that they should abandon neither Christianity nor the church. More specifically, the author called for the advancement of civil rights for homosexuals; the construction of pro-homosexual theologies; the education, ordination, and career placement of “out” homosexuals; and marriage equality for same-sex couples. This article situates these topics within Wood’s lifelong (and ongoing) ministry of promoting the full acceptance of homosexuals in American society and in The United Church of Christ, his own denomination. The following sources from the Robert Wood Archive at The Congregational Library in Boston, MA, USA, have been used in this article: the author’s notes and early drafts of Christ and the Homosexual; his voluminous correspondence from the 1940s through the 1990s; and an unpublished biography of Wood. In addition, this article’s author draws upon an oral history interview conducted with Robert Wood in July 2012.

Doing Gender Justice as a Mission Imperative

Announcement of the kingdom of God The gospel of Luke describes John the Baptist going throughout Jordon, proclaiming a baptism of repentance: "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight'" (Luke 3: 4-5). When the people ask John, "What then should we do?" John doesn't moralize, but responds proactively: "Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise." Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, "Teacher, what should we do?" He said to them, "Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you." Soldiers also asked him, "And we, what should we do?" He said to them, "Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages." (Luke 3: 11-14) In other words, to prepare the path for God's kingdom is to actively do justice and destroy the consequences of the sin. What we have in the words of John the Baptist is an expression of Christological eschatology, i.e. the kingdom of God is going to be given to us as a gift, but at the same time we have been called to "make the path smooth" in our acceptance of the gift. In that sense, eschaton is God-human endeavour, the kingdom that we're awaiting from God is anticipated and expressed in history through the praxis of human beings that should iconize the new eon. In Gustavo Gutierrez's words, "The hope which overcomes death must be rooted in the heart of historical praxis; if this hope doesn't take shape in the present to lead it forward, it will be only an evasion, a futuristic illusion." (1) Christological eschatology means one important thing: it is divine-human synergy, just as Christ has divine-human nature as defined by the ecumenical council of Chalcedon. It isn't a communist utopia in which heaven on earth will be brought about by the proletariat, or a utopia of Zealots during the time of Jesus that human will is capable of bringing kingdom of God. We sometimes forget this truth and make ourselves passive in history through the expectation that God will do everything exclusively. We forget sometimes that "from the very beginning Christianity was socially minded. The whole fabric of Christian existence is social and corporate. All Christian sacraments are intrinsically 'social sacraments,' i.e., sacraments of incorporation ... To build up the church of Christ means, therefore, to build up a new society and, by implication, to re-build human society on a new basis." (2) The New Testament reveals the kingdom of God as a new mode of relationship, a new quality of life. The kingdom is proclaimed when the sick and the poor are healed, when the dead are resurrected, when the disenfranchised are accepted, when abundance of food is offered to many, when justice, love, peace, harmony, and solidarity rule (Matt. 4:23, 5:10, 25:34; Luke 9:2, 9:12-18; Rom. 14:17; 1 Cor. 6:9). Let's look at the words from the beginning of the liturgy in the Orthodox Church: "Blessed is the kingdom of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit." Through these opening words, the liturgy is supposed to open up toward the eschatological kingdom, "a progressive movement towards the fullness of the kingdom of Christ, toward His cosmic and historical triumph." (3) The kingdom of God should be manifested in all of its social implications through historical limitations. It means that the liturgy should not reflect a patriarchal mode of relationship, the degradation of women,4 * disregard of lay people/ and inaccessibility for the sick and elderly. Primacy should be given to these issues that collide with the values of God's kingdom. Genesis 3:16 argues that man should rule over woman, but this verse comes as a consequence of the sin--the fall. This verse only expresses how the male-female relationship has been lived or conducted in our communities where the ideology of men rules, and not God's given/original order. …

¡Sapere gaude! La fuente bonaventuriana de la literatura mística del saber

One of the fundamental literature traditions that reflect the emotions of knowledge to be found in mystical literature of Iberian Peninsula. This paper analyses the role of ‘gaudium’ in the work of Fr. Juan de los Angeles O.F.M. first considering the work of Fr. Luis de Granada. Second reflecting the philosophical construction of the mystical theology of Franciscan master: dialogue between scholastic (Thomas Aquinas) and mystical theology, specially the bonaventurien imprint in gaudium sapere as philosophy of love. The historiographical category of Poetic Tradition (J.E. Gracia) could be useful as a basis of this reflexion.

From Antithesis to Synthesis

Recent scholarship further substantiates the observation that Cornelius Van Til depends on Herman Bavinck for his own constructive efforts. This observation creates a stimulus for comparative studies on the two theologians. In this essay I offer one such comparison by tracing an antithesis-synthesis strategy present in both Bavinck and Van Til. Though they share a motivation from the doctrine of common grace, the two theologians apply the strategy in distinct (though related) ways: Bavinck applies it for theological construction in a manner symbiotic with his organic ontology, while Van Til develops it into a self-consciously transcendental mode of reasoning and apologetics. This observation gives us insights as to why both theologians have been received (and misinterpreted) in similar ways, and that Van Til, though deeply dependent and influenced by Bavinck, developed Bavinck’s synthetic tendencies in ways that Bavinck did not do.

Between Paradigm Shift Judaism and Neo-Hasidism

Between Paradigm Shift Judaism and Neo-Hasidism

Analisis Kritis Liturgi Perjamuan Kudus Huria Kristen Batak Protestan

The liturgy of the Eucharist is a communal rite that becomes a very important foundation of the theological construction of the church. The church must have a good foundation of the Eucharist as a place where they can encounter God as a community. As a result, the theology that comes from this encounter will encourage the church to act out in her theology in the world. In 2014, Huria Kristen Batak Protestan (Protestant Batak Christian Church/HKBP) is trying to reformulate their church order. This research encourages HKBP to look at their theology of the Eucharist more seriously. By using a critical analysis towards the HKBP liturgy of the Eucharist, this paper shows the inconsistency between the HKBP church documents view on the Eucharist. The inconsistency is caused by the different times of the writing of the documents, which were never synchronized.

The Grace–Nature Distinction and the Construction of a Systematic Theology

The author considers the ongoing significance of the grace–nature distinction for systematic theology, the role the distinction has made historically, and current debates on its validity. He proposes that two developments advanced by Bernard Lonergan, the scale of values and the four-point hypothesis, can reinvigorate the distinction and ground new developments in systematic theology for the future.

Coming to Our Senses: Feeling and Knowledge in Theology and Ministry

This essays returns to a question I explored years ago as a pregnant and nursing mother: What is the nature of tactile knowledge and how might the construction of theology take such knowledge into greater consideration? Feeling as a source and site for knowledge has been derided for centuries despite efforts of modern psychologists to rehabilitate its role and of feminist theorists to challenge its sexist stereotypes. This essay explores the relationship between feeling, bodies, and knowledge in theology, reviewing negative perceptions and viable avenues for positive reconstruction. It argues that the repression of feeling has troubling consequences for theological education and that theological studies has much to gain from the “affective revolution” in the sciences.

Integration in Multicultural Competence and Diversity Training: Engaging Difference and Grace

Multicultural competence and attention to diversity in clinical practice are professional ethical mandates and a natural expression of the Christian ethics of hospitality, compassion, and justice. The course Clinical Interventions: Diversity, is embedded in an integrative understanding of psychotherapy and psychology. Our teaching philosophy is that creating a cultural lens for viewing ourselves and our clients allows us to be both authentically present to the work that God wants to do in psychotherapy and counseling, as well as attentive to the person who God intends us to become. Three sets of topics are foundational to the task of teaching integration within multicultural competence and diversity training: (1) self and other, (2) power and justice, and (3) grace and reconciliation. We highlight key Biblical and theological constructs that undergird the journey of developing multicultural competence and suggest teaching strategies to engage students in this potentially challenging but formative process.

On the Philosophical Possibilities of a Constructive Theology of Self

I shall be arguing that the most appropriate way to conceive of the self within a constructive theology is as a material spirit. The force of the argument depends on establishing the necessity of a number of interrelated conditions, e.g., psychological, sociological, linguistic, biological and historical, for the dual arising of self and soul. The argument is essentially divided into four parts, bordered by a prologue and an epilogue. After brief allusions to both modernity and postmodernity conceptions of self, the prologue moves on to definitions and caveats. The first two parts are concerned with the self-hermeneutics of modernity and post-modernity including a postmodern critique of modernity. The third proposes a way beyond these two hermeneutics without sacrificing the virtues of either, through what I call a “Subsumtive” Philosophy. Finally, in the fourth part a meditation demonstrates how raw self provides a mind and body interactive context for the emergence of metaphor, the arising of self as material spirit, and further development of both self and soul. The epilogue clarifies additional philosophical possibilities of this constructive theology of self by critically focusing on the soul, conceptual clarity, along with ontogenetic, ontological, and epistemological issues.

Emerging treason? Politics and identity in the Emerging Church Movement

The Emerging Church is one of the more interesting new movements in the religious landscape of the United States today. The Emerging Church has come out of US Evangelicalism, which has found itself in crisis, with a diminishing number of young people remaining in the church and a general popular impression of being intolerant, judgmental, and right-wing. Many in the Emerging Church are attempting to construct a vision of Christianity that addresses these problems. However, the Emerging Church is not a monolith; it includes a variety of perspectives and positions. What I will argue in this article is that there is, among several different perspectives within the movement, a critique of the US political and economic system that provides an interesting and new way of thinking about the relationship between Christianity, politics, economics, and identity that may serve to create a challenge to the hegemonic system of the United States. For the purposes of this article I use three examples to illustrate my point: Shane Claibourne’s “New Monasticism”/”Red Letter Christians” movement; Brian McLaren’s recent work, Why did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha and Mohammed Cross The Road; and Peter Rollins as a self-proclaimed inheritor of the radical tradition. I will show that the Emerging Church thinkers, by challenging the theological constructions of US Evangelicalism, are likewise providing fodder, to varying degrees, for a critique of the US political and economic system. Whether this will coalesce into a real significant challenge or will ultimately be reabsorbed by the status quo and/or marginalized remains to be seen.

Theological construction in the offices in honour of St Knud Lavard

ABSTRACTThis article discusses the theology of the late twelfth-century offices in honour of the Danish patron saint Knud Lavard, asking to what extent this theology can be seen to have been underlined in musical representations. Altogether, there is surprisingly little war imagery in the offices. Although Knud Lavard was a military leader, a dux, and is presented in the offices as a miles Christi, and although some formulations in the office can be read to construct him as a crusader, his mildness and his passive suffering are much more emphasized. Indeed, the theological tenor is that of a Christ-like martyr being slaughtered without resistance. The emphasis is thus on suffering as a consequence of evil and unprovoked aggression, verbally as well as musically. This will be underscored by textual as well as musical analysis of central parts of the offices, focusing on the relationship between the responsories and the homiletic readings of the last Nocturns of Matins, which so far have not been much discussed in scholarship, taking also the sequence for the Translation Mass, Diem festum veneremur, into consideration.

On the Fullness of Salvation

This essay addresses the need for a fuller, more integral and embodied understanding of salvation in Protestant, especially Reformed theology. Specifically, it makes a case for retrieving the early Eastern Christian notion of theosis/deification for contemporary Reformed theology. After reviewing classical formulations of theosis and other notions of salvation in the broader Christian tradition, it considers conventional Reformed objections to theosis. Then it explores new directions in Calvin research indicated by Carl Mosser, J. Todd Billings, and Julie Canlis, as well as the constructive theology of incarnation presented by Wendy Farley, with a view to determining their potential to assist in this retrieval. In the end, the author formulates some ‘grammar rules’ for articulating theosis in a Reformed-ecumenical, gender-sensitive discourse.

“Hope that is seen is no hope at all:” Theological constructions of hope in psychotherapy

Contemporary psychology and psychiatry have increasingly focused on hope as a human phenomenon relevant to physical and psychological well-being. Contemporary psychological research, however, often considers hope anthropocentrically and cannot speak directly of the particular cultural, religious and theological sustaining contexts of hope that, especially for persons of faith, give hope its shape and meaning. In this paper I focus on three articulations of hope within Jewish and Christian tradition-the Summa theologiae of Thomas Aquinas, the lament psalms of the Hebrew Bible, and the post-Holocaust writing of Emil Fackenheim-to argue that attention to these sustaining contexts is essential for understanding what religious traditions mean by hope. Religious traditions display insights and practices related to hope that both complement and challenge contemporary psychological approaches to hope. Close attention to these determinative traditions can therefore enrich and deepen the treatment of hope within contemporary psychotherapeutic practice.

The Rhetoric of Suffering, Hope, and Redemption in Masters of the Dew: A Rhetorical and Politico-Theological Analysis of Manuel as Peasant-messiah and Redeemer

Jacques Roumain’s 1944 peasant novel, Gouverneurs de la roséé ( Masters of the Dew, 1947) is not only a testament to stunning literary skill but also a masterwork of profound theological and philosophical reflection that articulates a robust humanistic and theo-political response to the problem of evil, suffering, pain, and poverty in the world. The objective of this article is twofold. First, it explores the intersections of the rhetoric of suffering, hope, and redemption in the novel. Second, it analyses Roumain’s creative theological construction of the atonement language and the presentation of Manuel Jean-Joseph as the Christ-figure and peasant-redeemer in the narrative. This article interprets Masters of the Dew’s atonement theology first in the light of René Gerard’s theory of scapegoating as articulated in his 1972 book, La violence et le sacré ( Violence and the Sacred, 1977), and, second, against the backdrop of the biblical story of the atoning sacrifice of Christ. I argue that Roumain intends the death of Manuel to be read as a vicarious atonement for the salvation and reconciliation of the community at Fonds Rouge in the same manner as New Testament writers understood the death of Jesus vicariously as a substitution for the sins and salvation of the world. Against the Girardian framework, I contend that Manuel’s death is depicted as a substitution for the peace of Fonds Rouge villagers and to prevent the cycle of violence from erupting among the peasants.

CONSTRUCTIVE THEOLOGY, BIOETHICS, AND BODILY EXISTENCE

“Imaginative construction” captured the methodological orientation of Gordon D. Kaufman (1925–2011), who in later work used the word “mystery” when speaking of the ultimate. Among his books are An Essay on Theological Method (1975) and In Face of Mystery: A Constructive Theology (1993). He published in Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science (1992, 2001, 2003a, b, 2005, 2007), and has been remembered here before (Drees 2012). In this issue of Zygon, Myriam Renaud considers the earlier work of Kaufman. Jerome Soneson and Patrick Woolley pay attention to method and epistemology. Thomas James analyzes his work as an “ecological theocentrism,” while Karl Peters takes Kaufman as a partner for his articulation of Christian naturalism. These papers come from a symposium at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion in November 2012 in Chicago. Islam and Biomedical Ethics was the topic of a conference in Doha, Qatar, in June 2012, organized by Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service in Qatar, along with the Qatar National Research Fund and its Faculty of Islamic Studies, and Leiden University. The importance of family and genealogy shows in articles on paternity (Ayman Shabana) and womb transplants (Amel Alghrani). Mohammed Ghaly analyzes the role of experts in the response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Efficacy in the community requires more than conveying information, as shown here using the examples of organ donation (Shoaib Rasheed and Aasim Padela) and vaccines (Padela). Henk ten Have places Islamic bioethics in the context of global bioethics, alongside issues of social justice and economic power. I discuss Islamic bioethics as “religion and science.” To my surprise, Zygon had more contributions relating Islam to bioethics than on another facet of “Islam and science,” though we have covered this broader topic too, for example, with responses to Islam's Quantum Question (Bagir 2012; Brooke 2012; Dajani 2012; Guessoum 2011, 2012; Hameed 2012). In Ghaly's opening paper for this section, he explores and explains the rise of Islamic bioethics in recent years. “Religion and Embodied Cognition” is the topic of the third section in this issue, with papers from a meeting of the International Society for Science and Religion (ISSR) in Loccum, Germany, in September 2012. I could say “we are bodies, and we have minds” but it would be equally true to say “we are minds, and have bodies.”11 The expressions were inspired by a discussion on IRAS-net, a forum of members of the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science; the discussion on the forum was triggered by a contribution in the New York Times of May 6, 2013, “I Am Not My Body,” by Brian Jay Stanley. The priority of the mental corresponds to our experiences as selves. Bodily existence has primacy in our actions. The coexistence of these perspectives brings with it a reductionist-holist view of human nature (see Allen 2013; McMullin 2013). The opening paper by Fraser Watts argues that such a holistic understanding of human nature can be appreciated within religious perspectives. John Teske brings the reader up to date on the science. Daniel Weiss shows nondualism in rabbinic texts in Judaism, thereby arguing for a resonance between these views and science. Léon Turner considers ideas on the concrete individual, as all personhood is shaped by relations and contexts. Warren Brown and Kevin Reimer explore character formation (and virtue) as shaped by engagement with real, bodily others—his example being the work of the communities of l'Arche (the Ark). The three thematic sections in this issue represent broader issues of method, ethics, and anthropology. In the December issue, we will continue with a rich offering of individual papers.

KAUFMAN'S DEBT TO KANT: THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL IMPORTANCE OF THE “STRUCTURE OF THE WORLD WHICH ENVIRONS US”

AbstractGordon Kaufman's “constructive theology” can easily be taken out of context and misunderstood or misrepresented as a denial of God. It is too easily overlooked that in his approach everything is an imaginary construct given no immediate ontological status—the self, the world, and God are “products of the imagination.” This reflects an influence, not only of theories on linguistic and cultural relativism, but also of Kant's “ideas of pure reason.” Kaufman is explicit about this debt to Kant. But I argue there are other aspects of Kant's legacy implicit in his method. These center around Kaufman's engagement with “observed patterns” in nature. With Paul Tillich's aid, I bring this neglected issue to the fore and argue that addressing it allows one to more readily capitalize upon the Kantian influence in Kaufman's method. This, in turn, encourages one to tap more deeply into the epistemic underpinnings of Kaufman's approach to the science–religion dialogue.