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The Death and Life of Speculative Theology

A Lonergan Idea

Ryan Hemmer

The Death and Life of Speculative Theology argues that speculative theology can be decoupled from classicism, transformed through modern science, philosophy, and culture, and made useful for addressing intellectual problems in this cosmopolitan age. Speculative theology can provoke, organize, regulate, and invigorate intellectual pluralism and thereby contribute to making the world a home for the human spirit. Drawing on the thought of Bernard Lonergan, Ryan Hemmer narrates the rise and fall of speculative theology, anticipates how it might be renewed, and repurposes some of its forgotten achievements to show that modern theology can be a modern science for a modern culture.

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Lexington Books / Fortress Academic
Pages: 196 • Trim: 6¼ x 9⅜
978-1-9787-1527-1 • Hardback • July 2023 • $95.00 • (£73.00)
978-1-9787-1528-8 • eBook • July 2023 • $45.00 • (£35.00)
Subjects: Religion / Christian Theology / Systematic, Religion / Philosophy, Religion / Christianity / Catholic

Ryan Hemmer (Ph.D., Marquette University) is editor-in-chief of Fortress Press in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Introduction

Chapter 1: Forgetting and Misremembering

Chapter 2: Form and Action

Chapter 3: Why Speculative Theology Failed

Chapter 4: Repurposing Royal Ruins

Chapter 5: Speculation, Procession, Pluralism

Conclusion: Democratizing the Regal Science

This book is a splendid analysis, recovery, expansion, and purification of speculative method to address myriads of problems confronting contemporary societies. Like no other, Hemmer’s picturesque style perfectly grasps not only the intricacies of Robert M. Doran’s thoughts on systematic theology, its retrieval of Bernard Lonergan’s pre-Method systematic/speculative theological writings but also the complexities of the specific goal of speculation as understanding of faith. A worthy response to classicism, conservatism, post-modernist claims, and liberalism. A welcome engagement with the anthropological, semiotic, and psychoanalytic challenges of the modern notion of culture, science, philosophy, and the new context for theology which is empirical and pluralistic.


— Joseph Ogbonnaya, Marquette University


Ryan Hemmer has written a ressourcement of theological method. The great victory of this book is, therefore, its insistence that only human understanding retrieves anything, and that theological speculation is the method of and for understanding. Against the nostalgia that distrusts present hands to hold the wealth of the theological past, and against the dreaming that distrusts present hands to hold the future, The Death and Life of Speculative Theology argues for a critical realism that knows how much we lose when we forget the necessity of the present and of ourselves in it. If our hands are those that must do the work of Christian theology, then Hemmer helps us by placing in our care the medieval past’s insights into the task of understanding, which is to say, he recovers speculative theological method. And so, casting down the crown of theology, TheDeath and Life renews it with neither power nor authority, but with questions, and with the theologian who must ask them.


— Anne M. Carpenter, Danforth Chair in Theological Studies, Saint Louis University


The Death and Life of Speculative Theology

A Lonergan Idea

Cover Image
Hardback
eBook
Summary
Summary
  • The Death and Life of Speculative Theology argues that speculative theology can be decoupled from classicism, transformed through modern science, philosophy, and culture, and made useful for addressing intellectual problems in this cosmopolitan age. Speculative theology can provoke, organize, regulate, and invigorate intellectual pluralism and thereby contribute to making the world a home for the human spirit. Drawing on the thought of Bernard Lonergan, Ryan Hemmer narrates the rise and fall of speculative theology, anticipates how it might be renewed, and repurposes some of its forgotten achievements to show that modern theology can be a modern science for a modern culture.

Details
Details
  • Lexington Books / Fortress Academic
    Pages: 196 • Trim: 6¼ x 9⅜
    978-1-9787-1527-1 • Hardback • July 2023 • $95.00 • (£73.00)
    978-1-9787-1528-8 • eBook • July 2023 • $45.00 • (£35.00)
    Subjects: Religion / Christian Theology / Systematic, Religion / Philosophy, Religion / Christianity / Catholic
Author
Author
  • Ryan Hemmer (Ph.D., Marquette University) is editor-in-chief of Fortress Press in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Table of Contents
Table of Contents
  • Introduction

    Chapter 1: Forgetting and Misremembering

    Chapter 2: Form and Action

    Chapter 3: Why Speculative Theology Failed

    Chapter 4: Repurposing Royal Ruins

    Chapter 5: Speculation, Procession, Pluralism

    Conclusion: Democratizing the Regal Science

Reviews
Reviews
  • This book is a splendid analysis, recovery, expansion, and purification of speculative method to address myriads of problems confronting contemporary societies. Like no other, Hemmer’s picturesque style perfectly grasps not only the intricacies of Robert M. Doran’s thoughts on systematic theology, its retrieval of Bernard Lonergan’s pre-Method systematic/speculative theological writings but also the complexities of the specific goal of speculation as understanding of faith. A worthy response to classicism, conservatism, post-modernist claims, and liberalism. A welcome engagement with the anthropological, semiotic, and psychoanalytic challenges of the modern notion of culture, science, philosophy, and the new context for theology which is empirical and pluralistic.


    — Joseph Ogbonnaya, Marquette University


    Ryan Hemmer has written a ressourcement of theological method. The great victory of this book is, therefore, its insistence that only human understanding retrieves anything, and that theological speculation is the method of and for understanding. Against the nostalgia that distrusts present hands to hold the wealth of the theological past, and against the dreaming that distrusts present hands to hold the future, The Death and Life of Speculative Theology argues for a critical realism that knows how much we lose when we forget the necessity of the present and of ourselves in it. If our hands are those that must do the work of Christian theology, then Hemmer helps us by placing in our care the medieval past’s insights into the task of understanding, which is to say, he recovers speculative theological method. And so, casting down the crown of theology, TheDeath and Life renews it with neither power nor authority, but with questions, and with the theologian who must ask them.


    — Anne M. Carpenter, Danforth Chair in Theological Studies, Saint Louis University


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