The "transcendental imagination" is a philosophical conception used in this essay to illuminate the ontological significance of the continuing proclamation of the Word of God. It has become necessary for theology to respond to the growth of secularization and the impoverishment of religious language in contemporary experience by initiating foundationยญ al inquiry into the meaning and possibility of theological reflection. The following essay is intended to be a preliminary step toward an understanding of theology and religious discourse as they are intimately bound to the realization of possibilities in the life of the church. There are many people to whom I am indebted for my understanding of theology and for the development of this book. I here would like to express my appreciation and gratitude to Professor George Guthrie for introducing me to foundational questions in the study of philosophy during my student years at the University of Toledo; to Professors Schubert Ogden and David Tracy for their careful reading and criticism of this manuscript; and especially to my advisor, Professor Langdon Gilkey, for his encouragement, criticisms, and suggestions during my graduate study at the Divinity School, The University of Chicago. Most importantly, I want to thank my wife Anna, to whom this book is dedicated, for sharing with me her strength, creativity and love
CONTENT
I. Introduction -- The Current Dilemma -- Philosophical Theology -- The Structure of a Transcendental Critique of Theology -- II. An Epistemological Conception of the Transcendental Imagination -- Kant and the Notion of the A Priori -- The Invariant Heuristic Structure of the Transcendental Imagination -- A Correspondent Notion of Being -- A Protest Against Obscurantism -- The Encounter of Thomism and Kantianism -- Transcendent Knowledge -- III. Transcendental Ontology -- A Radical Beginning -- Internal Relations and the Thrownness of Dasein -- Unconcealment in an Unphilosophical State of Knowing -- Unconcealment in the Philosophical State of Knowing -- IV. An Ontological Conception of the Transcendental Imagination -- The Expansion of Our Method -- Basic Elements in a Monadic Theory of Nature -- Nexus, Creative Passage, and Higher Phases of Experience -- The Ontological Meaning of the Transcendental Imagination -- Language and the Transcendental Imagination -- An Ontological Conception of Language and the Appearance of Man -- V. The Development of a Hermeneutical Theology -- The Centrality of the Hermeneutical Question for the Growth of Theology -- The Immediacy of the Historical -- The Horizon of Religious Understanding -- The Task of Theology -- Conclusion
