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Palgrave Macmillan

Tillich and the Abyss

Foundations, Feminism, and Theology of Praxis

  • Book
  • © 2016

Overview

Authors:
  1. Sigridur Gudmarsdottir

    1. University of Iceland, Háskóli Íslands, Iceland

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  • Advances the study of the often overlooked theological theme of the abyss (drawing on postmodern thinking)
  • Highlights and discusses Paul Tillich's use of the feminine and feminine metaphors, placing him in rich dialogue with modern feminist philosophers
  • Pulls contemplative and mystical thinkers like Jakob Boehme and Meister Eckhart into conversation with feminist philosophers

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Table of contents (5 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-ix
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Natal and Nihilistic Theological Foundations

    • Sigridur Gudmarsdottir
    Pages 1-32

  3. Kataphatic Identity and Religious Symbolism

    • Sigridur Gudmarsdottir
    Pages 33-70

  4. Affective Bodies and Agape Desire

    • Sigridur Gudmarsdottir
    Pages 71-106

  5. Khoric Speculations and Maps of Difference

    • Sigridur Gudmarsdottir
    Pages 107-140

  6. Apophatic Silence and Displacements

    • Sigridur Gudmarsdottir
    Pages 141-171

  7. Back Matter

    Pages 173-193
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Keywords

About this book

This book examines Paul Tillich´s theological concept of the abyss by locating it within the context of current postmodern antifoundalist discussions and debates surrounding feminism, gender, and language. Sigridur Gudmarsdottir develops these tropes into a constructive theology, arguing that Tillich’s idea of the abyss can serve as a necessary means of deconstructing the binaries between the theoretical and the practical in producing nihilistic relativism and the safe foundations of knowledge (divine as well as human).



How does one search for a map and method through an abyss? In his writings, Tillich expressed the ambiguity and groundlessness of being, the depth structure of the human condition, and the reality of God as an abyss. The more we gaze into this abyss, the more we encounter the faults in our various foundations. This book outlines how Tillich’s concept of the abyss creates greater opportunities for complexity and liminality and opensup a space where life and death, destruction and construction, fecundity and horror, womb and tomb, can coincide. 



Reviews

“Gudmarsdottir's recovering of the metaphor of the abyss is a welcome expansion of our understanding of Tillich and of our theological imagination.” (Wendy Farley, San Francisco Theological Seminary, USA)

Authors and Affiliations

  • University of Iceland, Háskóli Íslands, Iceland

    Sigridur Gudmarsdottir

About the author

Sigridur Gudmarsdottir holds a PhD in constructive theology. She teaches philosophy of religion at the University of Iceland and works as a rural dean in the Lutheran Church of Norway. She lives near the Polar circle and her research weaves together pastoral praxis and academic theory on the edge of the abyss.  

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