Beyond the Analogical Imagination: The Theological and Cultural Vision of David Tracy

✍ Scribed by Barnabas Palfrey (editor), Andreas Telser (editor)

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2023
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 278
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

David Tracy is arguably the most influential Roman Catholic theologian writing in English of the past fifty years, both internationally and beyond confessional borders. His generous and ever-expanding conversations (says contributor Willemien Otten) 'make the future of theology now'. Tracy himself says that they lead him, like Dante, to 'the love that moves the sun and the other stars'. Tracy's most famous book, The Analogical Imagination, is now over four decades old. Yet, in two volumes of his essays published in 2020, Tracy emphasises the ground-breaking new work that he did in the 2010s. His mature theological and cultural vision is in need of fresh assessment, which this book provides. An international cohort of experts introduces the core themes of Tracy's thought, critically exploring their relevance for theology today. Tracy offers a short response of his own, as well as the edited text of a previously unpublished and recent lecture.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Half-title page
Review
Title page
Copyright page
Epigraph
Contents
List of Contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Theology and Culture
Public and Beyond
Church and World
From David Tracy
Postscript
Part I Theology and Culture
Chapter 1 David Tracy’s Theology-in-Culture
Introduction
David Tracy: A Theologian in Culturally Shifting Times
Encountering Modernity
The Hermeneutical Shift
The Radical Problematising of Interpretation and Culture
Tracy’s Theology-in-Culture
Chapter 2 Analogical Imagination and Ana-theological Believing
Introduction
Part A Powerful Imaginations Become Analogical
Analogical and Dialectical Imaginations: The Example of Michelangelo
Analogical Vision and Dialectical Rage
Analogical Discourse as Knowledge and Wisdom
Analogy
‘Distinguish without Separation so as to Unite without Confusion’: Focal Meanings
Part B Ana(theo)logical Believing
The ‘Space’ and ‘Time’ of Richard Kearney’s Anatheism
Strangers and Choices: Kearney’s Focal Meaning
Choosing and Believing
Believing and Contemplating
Conclusion: Focused Imaginations
Chapter 3 Closed Totality, Collage, and the Fragmentary Between
Fragment as Substance
Fragment as Event
Fragments as Collage
Conclusion
Part II Public and Beyond
Chapter 4 Theology in the Public Realm? David Tracy and Contemporary African Religiosity
Introduction
Religion and Public Life in Some African Contexts
On the Configuration of Religion and Life in Contemporary African Contexts
Some Questions in Light of these African Experiences of Faith and Life
How Can the Interpretive Process Assist in the Move from Postmodern to Post-Colonial and Decolonial Perspectives in Relation to African Public Theologies?
How Can Tracy’s Understanding of the Publicness of Theology Find Purchase in Relation to African Religiosity?
How Does Tracy’s Notion of ‘the Classic’ Relate to African Religiosity?
In What Ways Might the Notion of an ‘Analogical Imagination’ Relate to the Experiences and Convictions of African Religiosity?
Conclusion
Chapter 5 From Public to Street Theology: The Mystical-Prophetic Fragments of Hip-Hop
David Tracy’s Public Theology and Mystical-Prophetic Thought
Hip-Hop: Prophecy or Pleasure, Ethics or Aesthetics?
Hip-Hop and American Life in Childish Gambino’s ‘This is America’
Street Theology: A New Iteration of Liberation and Public Theologies
Chapter 6 Conversational Reason: Ambiguities and Interruptions in a Digital Age
Introduction
Part A Reading Plurality and Ambiguity
Conversation and Its Interruptions
Critiquing Plurality and Ambiguity
Part B Conversation in a Digital Age
Sherry Turkle and Conversation’s New Contexts
Tracy and Turkle in Conversation about Conversation
Conclusion
Part III Church and World
Chapter 7 Justice, Excessive Love, and the Future of Catholic Christianity
Feminist Theology: Rooted in Incarnation
Women: Love, Justice, and the Option for the Poor
Doing Justice to Women: Excess of Love as Method
Two Twentieth-Century Women in Love with God and Advocates for Justice
Conclusion: The Future of Feminism is the Future of the Church
Chapter 8 Theological Dialogue amid Anger and Pain
Part A Tracy’s Contribution
Dialogue and History
Tragedy and Fragments
Part B Reconciling amid Pain and Anger
A Post-Conflict Country
Conclusion
Chapter 9 The Church in David Tracy’s Theology
The Church in Tracy’s Theology
Fragments of the Church in Tracy’s Work
The Church as Gift and Sacrament
The Church and Otherness
The Church and the Religious Other
The Church and God’s Coming Reign of Love
Naming God and Christian Church Praxis
Part IV From David Tracy
Chapter 10 Reflections on the Essays
Chapter 11 On Naming God
The Biblical Background
Ancient Greek Philosophy
Christian Theology on God as Infinite: Gregory of Nyssa
The Medieval Debate on God’s Perfection (Anselm) and Infinity (Scotus)
Part V Postscript
Chapter 12 David Tracy’s Constructive Theology: Impressions, Contours, Conversations
Impressions
Contours
Conversations
By Way of a Coda: Da Capo al Fine
Bibliography
Index