Table of Contents
Preface xii
Introduction: What is remythologizing? 1
A perennial problem: myth, mythos, and metaphysics 3
A modern solution: demythologizing 13
"Soft" vs. "hard" demythologizing: Feuerbachian slips 17
An alternative approach: remythologizing 23
The argument: a brief summary 30
Part I "God" in Scripture and theology 33
1 Biblical representation (Vorstellung): divine communicative action and passion 35
A gallery of canonical exhibits 36
A miscellany of theological issues 57
2 Theological conceptualization (Begriff): varieties of theism and panentheism 81
On the very idea of a "classical" theism 82
The critique of ontotheology: why are they saying such awful things about perfect being? 93
The recovery of Trinitarian theology 105
The relational turn 112
The panentheist gambit: children of a greater God 124
3 The new kenotic-perichoretic relational ontotheology: some "classical" concerns 139
Persons and/as relations 140
Perichoresis and/as relationality 149
Passion and/as relatedness 162
Passing over/out of Egypt: remythologizing the God-world relation 174
Part II Communicative theism and the triune God 179
4 God's being is in communicating 181
The being of God: a who or what question? 183
Thinking biblically; interpreting theologically 187
The analogy of being-in-act: towards a post-Barthian Thomism 198
Being-in-communicative-act: elements of a theodramatic metaphysic 222
5 God in three persons: the one who lights and lives in love 241
Father, Son, and Spirit: communicative agents in immanent relation 244
What God communicates: triune "ways" into the far country 259
A "simple" schema: shapes of triune communicative action 271
Communicating triune life: remythologizing "participation in God" 279
Part III God and World: authorial action and interaction 295
6 Divine author and human hero in dialogical relation 297
Theistic authorship: unpacking the analogy 302
Authoring humanity: the God-world relation as divine dialogue 316
7 Divine communicative sovereignty and human freedom: the hero talks back 338
His dark materials: does God author evil? 338
Exploring the powers: the poetics of biblical discourse 346
God's authorial Word enters in 356
Triune dialogics: prayer and providence 366
8 Impassible passion? Suffering, emotions, and the crucified God 387
Does God suffer? A theological litmus test 388
Motions and emotions: can humans move God? 398
The "voice" of the crucified God: active or passive? 416
9 Impassible compassion? From divine pathos to divine patience 434
Divine pathos: suffering love 436
Divine promise: lordly love 441
Divine patience: enduring love 448
Conclusion: Always remythologizing? Answering to the Holy Author in our midst 469
Mythos revisited: between mystery and metaphysics 471
Biblical reasoning: the formal principle of divine communicative action 475
Triune authorship: the material principle of divine communicative action 486
Select bibliography 505
Index of subjects 523
Index of scriptural reference 533
