Library: Philosophy by Credo Reference: Existential Theology

Existential Theologians

John Macquarrie (1919 - 2007): Topic Page
Theologian and philosopher of religion, born in Renfrew, Renfrewshire, W Scotland, UK.
Karl Barth (1886 - 1968): Topic Page
Swiss Protestant theologian who advocated a return to the principles of the Reformation and the teachings of the Bible.
Martin Buber (1878-1965): Topic Page
Jewish theologian, existentialist philosopher, and scholar of Hasidism, born in Austria, whose works include I and Thou (1923), Between Man and Man (1946), and Eclipse of God (1952).
Paul Tillich (1886 - 1965): Topic Page
American philosopher and theologian, b. Germany, educated at the universities of Berlin, Tübingen, Halle, and Breslau. In 1912 he was ordained a minister of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. He taught theology at the universities of Berlin, Marburg, Dresden, and Leipzig and philosophy at the Univ. of Frankfurt until he was dismissed in 1933 because of his opposition to the Nazi regime.
Reinhold Niebuhr (1892 - 1971): Topic Page
American religious and social thinker. A graduate of Yale Divinity School, he served as pastor of Bethel Evangelical Church in Detroit, where he became deeply interested in social problems.
Rudolf Bultmann (1884 - 1976): Topic Page
German Lutheran theologian and New Testament scholar. He was a professor at Marburg University 1921-51, and during the Third Reich played a leading role in the Confessing Church, a Protestant anti-Nazi movement.
Soren Kierkegaard (1813 - 1855): Topic Page
Danish philosopher and religious thinker. Kierkegaard's outwardly uneventful life in Copenhagen contrasted with his intensive inner examination of self and society, which resulted in various profound writings.

Existential Theology

Existence
From The Encyclopedia of Philosophy and Ethics
To be, or not to be’ is, for philosophers, not the question at all. For existence seems to be only a second-level property, behind things like being hot, or yellow, or soft. But not, it should be mentioned, for Existentialists.
Free will: Topic Page
The power of making choices without the constraint of fate or some other uncontrollable force, regarded as a human characteristic.
Immanence
From The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy
A term most often used in contrast to ‘transcendence’ to express the way in which God is thought to be present in the world.
Responsibility
From The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy
A condition that relates an agent to actions of, and consequences connected to, that agent, and is always necessary and sometimes sufficient for the appropriateness of certain kinds of appraisals of that agent.
Truth
From Philosophy of Science, A-Z
There are two strands in our thinking about truth. The first is to say that truth is an objective property of our beliefs in virtue of which they correspond to the world.