Primordial Truth and Postmodern Theology

By David Ray Griffin & Huston Smith

Subjects: Constructive Postmodernism
Series: SUNY series in Constructive Postmodern Thought
Paperback : 9780791401996, 216 pages, October 1989
Hardcover : 9780791401989, 216 pages, October 1989

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Table of contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction to SUNY Series in Constructive Postmodern Thought

David Ray Griffin

1. Introduction: How This Discussion Transpired

David Ray Griffin and Huston Smith

2. Premodern and Postmodern Philosophical Theology: A Response to Huston Smith's Program

David Ray Griffin

3. The Process Critique of Perennialism: A Reply to David Griffin

Huston Smith

4. Perfection, Unity, and Primordial Truths: A Counter reply

David Ray Griffin

5. Before Silence Descends: A Concluding Apologia

Huston Smith

6. Afterword

David Ray Griffin and Huston Smith

Notes on Authors and Centers

Index

Proposes religious philosophies to succeed the waning worldview of modernity.

Description

In this book, Huston Smith and David Ray Griffin propose religious philosophies to succeed the waning worldview of modernity. Huston Smith proposes the perennial philosophy or primordial tradition, and David Ray Griffin offers postmodern process theology. The ultimate issue debated is whether we should return to a traditional religious philosophy or seek a new never-before-articulated worldview.

The debate covers the following issues: the relation of Christianity to other religions; the ultimate reality of a personal God in relation to a transpersonal absolute; the ultimate reality of time and progress; the problem of evil; the nature of immortality; the relation of humans to nature; the relation of science to theology; the relation of upward to downward causation; and the possibility of nonrelativistic criteria for deciding between competing worldviews.

Huston Smith is the author of Religions of Man; Forgotten Truth; Beyond the Post-Modern Mind; and nine other books. David Ray Griffin is the author of Varieties of Postmodern Theology, with William Beardslee and Joe Holland, and God and Religion in the Postmodern World: Essays in Postmodern Theology, published by SUNY Press. He is also editor of Spirituality and Society: Postmodern Visions and The Reenchantment of Science: Postmodern Proposals, published by SUNY Press.