Zeitschrift für Theologie und Philosophie
Zeitschrift für Theologie und Philosophie (ZTP) is a double-blind peer-reviewed Catholic academic paper that promotes theological and philosophical research through systematic studies. It quarterly publishes first publication research papers and book reviews of outstanding quality both in German and English. Research papers can be submitted unsolicited via this website. Book reviews should be arranged in advance with the corresponding book review editor. ISSN: 2709-8427 (Print), 2709-8435 (Online)
Österreichische Provinz der Gesellschaft Jesu
Sebastián Pinazzo, Freundschaft als freie Zuwendung. Annäherungen an das Denken Peter Hünermanns
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Maria Hinsenkamp, Visionen eines neuen Christentums. Neuere Entwicklungen pfingstlich-charismatischer Netzwerke
Thomas Aquinas – Impulse and Impetus for Evangelical Memory
Otto Hermann Pesch has suggested that the relation between Thomas Aquinas and Martin Luther can be aptly captured by the two concepts “sapiential” and “existential”. This article takes a different path, distinguishing the Reformation hermeneutics of difference from the Thomasian hermeneutics of harmony: Reformation theology uses sharp distinctions – Law or Gospel, faith or works, as well as reason or revelation. While these things are not separate, Reformation doctrine puts them into a complex, critical relation to one another. By contrast, Thomas Aquinas seeks to build a harmonious relation between seeming opposites, as evident both from his foundation of theology and his doctrine of justification. While the conflicts of the Reformation period can be well explained in this way, it is noteworthy that Protestant theology, since the Enlightenment, seems to have developed its own hermeneutics of harmony, step by step. Against this background, a new, positive understanding of Aquinas in Protestant theology seems to be possible.
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Jan Kerkmann, Der Gott dieser Welt. Die Entstehung und Wirklichkeit des Bösen bei Augustinus und Schelling
Burkhard Liebsch (ed.), Grundfragen hermeneutischer Anthropologie. Paul Ricœurs Werk im historischen Kontext. Existenz, Interpretation, Praxis, Geschichte
Kevin Vallier, All the Kingdoms of the World: On Radical Religious Alternatives to Liberalism
Franca Spies, Das Materielle in Schöpfung und Inkarnation. Theologische Erkundungen im Gespräch mit Karen Barads Agentiellem Realismus
Helmut Hoping / Thomas Marschler / Ursula Schumacher (Eds.), Noch immer „doctor communis“? Thomas von Aquin als Inspiration und Provokation für die Theologie heute
In this reply, I address the critical objections raised by Charlotte Gauvry, Stefan Lang, Mona Schramke, Alexander Knoll, Patricia Schöllhorn-Gaar, Sebastian Gäb and Klaus Viertbauer. I aim to provide a deeper understanding of the concept of Minimal phenomenal Experiences (MPE) by taking part in the critical, yet constructive discussion of this approach.
Expansive Freedom: The Subversive Potential of the Declaration on Religious Freedom for the Dogma and Law of the Church
This article argues that the Second Vatican Council, under the paradigm of religious freedom, integrated key rational structures of “normative modernity” (Thomas Gutmann) into catholic teaching. By dogmatically affirming religious freedom, the council thus adopted certain normative concepts—subjective rights, personal dignity, and individual autonomy—whose dynamic continues to shape and at times destabilize catholic legal and doctrinal thought. With the shift from the “right of truth” to the “right of the person”, catholic legal reasoning gained autonomy from morality and recognized freedom as a condition of religious truth. Conscience becomes the locus of the personal seeking of truth and moral self-determination. In doing so, Catholicism—whether consciously or unconsciously—anticipates a logic of discursive justification that relativizes ecclesial authority and urges greater freedom and democratic participation.
Maria Rosa Antognazza, Thinking with Assent: Renewing a Traditional Account of Knowledge and Belief
Johann Reikerstorfer, Lernbedürftiger Glaube. Orientierungen in der Moderne und an ihren Grenzen
Dieter Hüning / Stefan Klingner / Hans-Peter Nowitzki / Gideon Stiening (Hg.), Gott. Begriff und Kritik der Gottesinstanz in der Philosophie, den Wissenschaften und Künsten des 18. Jahrhunderts
Copyright (c) 2025 Zeitschrift für Theologie und Philosophie
Jonas Maria Hoff, Konstruktion von Verbindlichkeit. Radikaler Konstruktivismus und Fundamentaltheologie im Theoriekontakt
Cristian F. Mihut, Gracious Forgiveness. A Theological Retrieval
In this article, two theses are analysed in a discussion with Thomas Metzinger. These are the ubiquity thesis, which is much discussed in the theory of subjectivity, and the meditation thesis, which forms the basis of Metzinger’s considerations. The ubiquity thesis states that every case of consciousness includes occurrent awareness of an “I”, and the meditation thesis that insights gained through meditation can be taken into account when criticising the ubiquity thesis. The central theses of this essay are: a) Following Metzinger, it is possible to justify a critique of the ubiquity thesis; b) a variant of the meditation thesis restricted to secular and unintentional meditation practice is valid. In this essay, these theses are substantiated, and secular and unintentional meditation is characterised in more detail and differentiated from hallucinations, suggestions, and trance states.
Prevenient Actual Grace and Supernatural Finality: Expanding the Nature-Grace Analysis
This article expands the nature-grace analysis offered by recent critics of Henri de Lubac, who argue that human beings receive a supernatural finality from grace rather than from the ontological structure of human nature itself, by demonstrating that prevenient actual grace received prior to justification confers an imperfect supernatural finality to its recipient. Drawing from Thomas Aquinas, the article examines the need for and presence of grace in human beings who are not yet in a state of sanctifying grace. It then explains how one grace leads to another grace as the human journey to beatitude unfolds. Finally, the article shows that prevenient actual graces bring about vital acts that are entitatively supernatural, which, as such, confer an imperfect supernatural finality to their recipient.
Critical Natural Law Ethics Under Scrutiny. A Response to Stefan Hofmann and Åke Wahlberg
Stefan Hofmann has subjected my critical natural law ethics to a critical appraisal. In this article, I respond to his objections and clarify misunderstandings. First, I summarize my approach. Then I turn to Hofmann’s objections and respond to them. The result is that Hoffmann’s attempt at criticism is not particularly successful. Finally, I will also address Åke Wahlberg’s criticism.
Harry J. Gensler SJ, Reasoning About God: An Introduction to Thinking Logically About Religion
On Perception and Pure Consciousness. An Invitation to Dialogue with Thomas Metzinger.
Thomas Metzinger identifies a contrast between religion and spirituality to show that spiritual practices such as meditation can lead to experiences of selflessness. In doing so, he offers two arguments: First, he seeks to render his naturalistic self-model theory more plausible by integrating spiritual practice. Second, he presents religion as a carrier of non-naturalistic concepts of the ego and the self and devalues religion as pre-scientific. Metzinger’s distinction is based on the premise that religion must be interpreted as theism and science as naturalism. The present article critically examines this equation of religion with theism and demonstrates, using Friedrich Schleiermacher’s concept of “Anschauung”, that spirituality can also be understood within the framework of religious interpretation.
Benjamin Dahlke / Michael Quisinsky (Hg.), Kirche für andere sein? Transdisziplinäre Beiträge zu Grace Davies Konzept der vicarious religion
Gianluca De Candia, Die Dynamik des Wortes. Fortwährende Übersetzung als Prinzip christlicher Überlieferung
Rudolf Langthaler / Magnus Striet, Vernunftreligion statt Kirchenglaube? Kants unerledigte Anfragen an die Theologie
Agnes Slunitschek, Der Glaubenssinn. Begründung – Beschreibung – Beurteilung – Beziehungen
Robert Deinhammer, Kritische Naturrechtsethik
Samuel Lebens, Philosophy of Religion. The Bascis
Tautology or Heresy? On the Problem of Forming Affirmative Essential-Statements About the One and Simple God in Aquina’s Writings
One purpose of human language is to express truth by revealing to us something about something in the form of a declarative sentence. Aquinas’s doctrine of divine names represents a decisive attempt to justify human speech about God, especially in its affirmative dimension, against reductive interpretations of apophatic theology. According to Thomas, concepts of pure perfections can be asserted in an analogous way about God himself. In this way, they can make us aware of something about his nature. Against Thomas’s analogy thesis the extent of vagueness of divine names is repeatedly raised. This essay shows that the problem lies especially in explaining in a convincing way their non-synonymity and thus their significance as divine names for us. This reveals a fundamental formal discrepancy in human thought and speech with regard to the one and simple God.
Interpersonal Trust in God in the Context of Eschatological Provisionality
“Trusting in God” is a concept that has long been overshadowed by the concept of faith in the history of theology and has not received any further analytical elaboration. In this article, a contemporary understanding of trusting in God is developed, which takes into account both the current insights of philosophical research on trust and is theologically substantiated. When trust is here introduced as a complex interpersonal and transtemporal practice and transferred to the topos of trust in God, certain emphatic ideas of how to trust in God must be rejected at the same time. Rather, trusting in God constitutes a reciprocal relationship in which (among other things) concrete human expectations towards God play a role. This understanding is embedded in Wolfhart Pannenberg’s research program of revelation as history, which adopts an eschatological perspective.
Andreas Zingg, Von und mit Israel hoffen lernen. Friedrich-Wilhelm Marquardts Eschatologie und ihre Implikationen für Theologie und Kirche