CHRISTIANE ALPERS; STEPHAN VAN ERP; DANIEL MINCH

The Turn to God as a Sign of the Times

New Directions in Research on

1. Introduction

The year 2014 marks the centenary of the Flemish theologian Edward Schille- beeckx (1914-2009). This has been the occasion for several events and publica- tions. In , an international conference has been held in honour of Schillebeeckx’s , from 27-30 August 2014: ‘Grace, Governance and Globalization: Theology and Public Life’. Besides renowned Schillebeeckx schol- ars, such as L. Boeve, E. Borgman, S. van Erp, M.-C. Hilkert and R. Schreiter, it also featured many interesting keynote speakers. During the conference, the exhibition ‘A Happy Theologian: 100 Years of Edward Schillebeeckx’ has been opened in the library of the Radboud University, and will also be shown at the library of the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies of the KU from 1st November 2014. Furthermore, in 2014 his main works have been published in revised and improved translations: The Collected Works of Edward Schillebeeckx (11 Volumes, 2014). The eleventh volume presents material that has not previ- ously been published in English, including his valedictory lecture, his memoirs, and a key text for understanding his thought: ‘Revelation and Experience’. These events, and especially the revised translation of his main works, will undoubtedly generate new research into the work of one of the greatest theolo- gians of the twentieth century. Looking at the reception of his work in the past few decades, however, this is not self-evident. Although since 1971, several dissertations on his theology have been published each year, the attention for Schillebeeckx seems to have diminished somewhat since the publication of his last major work, Church: The Human Story of God in 1989. That said, there seems to be a revival of interest in his theology in North-west Europe, in particular at the Radboud University Nijmegen (), KU Leuven (), and Heythrop College (London, UK). In the Low Countries, inter- est in Schillebeeckx’ theology never completely faded, and there have been German, American and Canadian universities where his work has continued to be of some significance in research and especially teaching.

ET-Studies 5/2 (2014), 377-388. doi: 10.2143/ETS.5.2.3047145 © 2014 by ET-Studies. All rights reserved.

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One year before his death, an international conference took place in Leuven in December 2008: ‘Theology for the 21st century: The Enduring Legacy of Edward Schillebeeckx’. Due to his age – he was 94 at the time – he could not be present himself, but he wrote a letter to the conference participants, in which he referred to his adage extra mundum nulla salus: ‘Some Christians and even some theologians misinterpret this expression because they think – wrongly – that it refers only to humanism and not to salvation by God. This is because they put the accent on mundum instead of salus. Salus always comes from God, but it is experienced in the world. God is always the foundation – the source of salvation – and that is the core point of the Christian religion’. (Boeve /Depoor- tere/ Van Erp 2010, xiv) These belong to his last words uttered in public, and they have proven to be somewhat prophetic. Since that conference in 2008, new research into his work has emerged that focuses on exactly what he declared to be the central theological theme in that last public text: God becoming pres- ent in the world. In this research report, we will offer a short biography of Schillebeeckx as a reminder of that great theologian and as an introduction for a new generation of theologians interested in his work and the tradition he represented. We will then present the new directions in current research on his theology in Flanders and the Netherlands. Finally, we will review some recent publications.

2. Edward Schillebeeckx: A Short Biography

Edward Cornelis Florentius Alfonsus Schillebeeckx was born on 12th in , Belgium. (see also: Van Erp /Van den Bos 2014) He would claim – despite assertions to the contrary – that he was born during the great bombardment of the city, to him a deeper symbolic meaning. The idea of ‘having been born under a heavy bombardment’ may explain some of the single-mindedness and intensity with which he worked, particularly during and after the (1962-1965), which would become decisive for his theology. After his school years at a Jesuit boarding school, Schillebeeckx joined the in 1934. He was drawn to the Order of Preachers by its greater openness to debate and its attention to current developments in the world. In Leuven he completed his studies in and theology and was ordained in 1941. Shortly after, he began lecturing in for the Dominicans in Leuven. He moved to Paris to study under M.-D. Chenu and Y. Congar at the famous Dominican study centre, Le Saulchoir, which was arguably the theological centre of the world at the time. Here, he was introduced to the work of the so-called ‘worker-priests’.

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In 1957 Schillebeeckx was appointed as Professor of Dogmatics and the in Nijmegen. In his inaugural lecture, ‘In Search of the Living God’, he set out a research programme that he would follow for the rest of his life: ‘The more diligently the theologian explores the temporal order of salvation, the deeper he can penetrate into what God is Himself.’1 Shortly after Schillebeeckx had taken up work in Nijmegen, Pope John XXIII announced the Second Vatican Council. The high hopes for this council caused a new theological fervour that would lead, among other things, to Schillebeeckx establishing a new Flemish-Dutch journal: Tijdschrift voor Theologie. During the years of the council, he played an active role as an advisor to the Dutch bishops. In 1965, in cooperation with his fellow theologians , , Hans Küng, and , he founded the international theological journal , meant as a platform to reflect on the results of the council. After the council, he continued in his role as the advisor to the Dutch bishops throughout the Pastoral Council (1966-1970) of Noordwijkerhout.The period after the council would see a radical change in Schillebeeckx’s theology, as he himself later claimed. Prior to the Second Vatican Council, his theology may have been innovative, but his approach was derived from the writings of the medieval Dominican, . In his later works, Schillebeeckx would pay more attention to the historical and political character of faith. In the 1960s, he published a great number of essays, some of which became the five volume series entitled ‘Theological Soundings’. In the 1970s, he worked on a Christolog- ical trilogy publishing Jesus. An Experiment in in 1974 and Christ. The Christian Experience in the Modern World in 1977. The final volume would only be published in 1989: The Abovementioned Church. The Human Story of God. (Schillebeeckx 2014) These books established his reputation as a world- renowned theologian, and not only among a Catholic audience. Schillebeeckx’s theology was not merely innovative, it was also controversial. His opponents ensured that he did not become an official advisor to the council. Shortly after the council, in 1968, just as he had taken his theology in a new direction, Church authorities opened an investigation into his orthodoxy. Neither of the two following investigations would lead to an official condem- nation; but 1983 saw the promulgation of a notification by Rome, questioning his ideas about the Church and ministry (Schoof 2011). Remarkably however, the constant suspicion of his work was met with growing public appreciation (honorary doctorates, Prize 1982). Nor was his emeritus status a year later the end of his active life as a theologian. He would continue to play an important role in the inception of the so-called ‘Acht Mei Beweging’ (Eighth of

1 The inaugural lecture is included in part II of his five-volume collection of essays, Theolo- gical Soundings: Schillebeeckx 1969.

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May Movement), a movement of Dutch Catholics hoping for change, when Pope John Paul II visited the Netherlands in 1985. Schillebeeckx would publish several more books after his retirement. He died in 2009 and was buried in Nijmegen after a wake and a funeral service attended by hundreds, including representatives of the Dutch and Belgian Bishops Conferences.

3. God Becoming Present in Public Life: New Research Directions in Schillebeeckx Studies

A glance at the list of dissertations on Schillebeeckx’ theology since 1971 shows that his Christology, his soteriology, and his hermeneutics are among the most researched aspects of his work. In the reception of his theology, the concepts of history, humanity, suffering, and the political have been regarded as founda- tional for understanding his work. This shows that his hermeneutical frame- work, influenced by critical theory and the political theology of the 1960s, had become a dominant starting point for the reception of his theology. Currently, under the influence of neo-orthodox , such as Radical Orthodoxy, and against the background of the rise of religious studies that could partly be explained from Schillebeeckx’s theological hermeneutics, a new theological awareness has emerged that manifests an interest in the metaphysical and doctrinal aspects of his work. Contemporary trends can be characterised by attempting a more holistic reading of Schillebeeckx and theology in general within the tradition, which includes these and not only the more ‘humanistic’ aspects. In Leuven, this turn from history to theology is explored in a project called ‘A Future for the Hermeneutical Turn in Theology? A Historical- and System- atic-Theological Investigation of the Theology of Edward Schillebeeckx (1914- 2009) and its Contemporary Reception’, funded by the Fund for Scientific Research—Flanders (FWO). The aim of the project is twofold. First, it seeks to trace historically the hermeneutical turn in Schillebeeckx’s work in the period after the Second Vatican Council. Second, it will systematically explore the contemporary relevance of Schillebeeckx’s theology in view of its current recep- tion and subsequent critique. The researchers acknowledge that the duality in Schillebeeckx’s thought between a creation-theological (Thomistic) and a hermeneutical principle is a heuristic guide for reading the different strands of his work. It is Schillebeeckx’s category of ‘contrast experience’ that holds the two in a creative tension. The project thesis, then, is that his creation-theologi- cal principle is a forceful theological reading of reality and that this reading should be retrieved from the perspective of a radical-hermeneutical theology wherein ‘contrast experiences’ are no longer rooted in a fundamental continuity

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between Christianity and context, but must be situated in a pluralised culture and in the confrontation with otherness.2 The research in Leuven consists of three PhD-projects. The first investigates the experiencing human subject as a locus theologicus within the hermeneutical ontology provided by Schillebeeckx, in dialogue with his immediate sources in philosophical hermeneutics and critical theory to explore the narrative potential for Christian identity-formation in the contemporary postmodern context under the guiding eschatological rubric that Schillebeeckx has established. The second PhD-project focuses on theological epistemology and revelation by investigating the combination of transcendental and hermeneutical approaches in the work of Rahner and Schillebeeckx. The third project compares the Christological- historical approaches of Schillebeeckx and Ratzinger and offers a comparative analysis of the role of history and context in the of Ratzinger and Schillebeeckx. In close collaboration with Leuven, Nijmegen also started a research project on Schillebeeckx’s theology after the Second Vatican Council, called ‘Edward Schillebeeckx and Contemporary Public Theology’. The aim is to provide a theoretical frame of reference for contemporary public theology in Europe. Contemporary public theology is faced with the challenge of finding the right balance between the distinctiveness of Christian tradition and what it has in common with the culture of which it is a part. This will require more than correlation and dialogue. Contemporary theology is also looking for new forms of public presence of the Christian tradition in today’s society. To date, public theology tends to choose a contextual-descriptive approach (Kim 2011). System- atic theology, by contrast, tends to be neglected, and with it reflection on theological concepts in debates on salvation, justice and reconciliation. The hypothesis of this research is that this constitutes an important methodological omission in public theology. The Nijmegen research project aims to contribute to contemporary theology through its study of the history and the ongoing importance of Schillebeeckx’s hermeneutics, which is much more than an expression of a theological awareness of the contextuality and perspectivity of the Christian message. He was not so much interested in bringing the Christian message up to date, but he believed instead that hermeneutics was a necessary approach for thinking about God’s revelation, for understanding how this can take place in the world, and for how it is expressed in language. The hermeneutical turn he helped to bring about in theology is of particular interest to our current situation (Van Erp 2010, 27-50). His emphasis on the political and cultural aspects of the transformation of the Christian tradition provides public theology with an important insight: its

2 This description is based on the original text of the research project.

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subject is not merely limited to the way in which the Christian tradition plays a role in contemporary society, it also involves the ways in which the history of culture and politics have partially shaped faith and theology. The research in Nijmegen contains two PhD-projects. The purpose of the first project is to evaluate Schillebeeckx’s Christology within the framework of contemporary public theology. The central question of this research is how the hermeneutical conceptualisation of Schillebeeckx’s Christology and soteriology can contribute to public theology. In his Christology, he tried to show that the actual situation has, on the one hand, determined the history of Christianity until this day and, on the other, that it is itself the place and the time for what the Christian tradition calls ‘salvation’. In doing so, Schillebeeckx gives an account of the intrinsic connection of faith and politics, both historically and theologically. In his opinion, the person of Christ is the historical and sacramen- tal expression of that connection and, as such, he is present in our day and age. As a consequence, Schillebeeckx argues that Christology should be regarded the starting point for ethics, anthropology and political theology, and this project aims to confront current public theology with that theological starting point. The second project will focus on the importance of Schillebeeckx’s for contemporary research into Church and democracy, and into political theology. The central question of this research is how the anthropological and political conceptualisation of Schillebeeckx’s sacramentology and ecclesiology can contribute to public theology about Church and authority. At Heythrop College, a PhD-project has started under the supervision of Martin Poulsom. Its focus is Schillebeeckx’s doctrine of creation as a key for understanding the incarnation in a non-lapsarian way.

4. God’s Otherness in the Contemporary Situation: Recent Literature on Schillebeeckx’ Theology

During the period that the research in the Low Countries was being prepared, a few books on Schillebeeckx’s theology were published, including the confer- ence proceedings of the Leuven conference held in 2008 (Boeve /Depoortere / Van Erp 2010). The literature that will be discussed here is representative of current trends in Schillebeeckx research, but it also reflects the changing attempts by theology to read the ‘signs of the times’ and to deal with some of the press- ing theological issues of the moment. Chief among these is an interest in the ‘otherness’ of God, a highly speculative category that filters down into areas of theology that fit much closer to our contemporary experience. God’s otherness and either nearness or distance from creation is founded on ontological grounds, but is also clearly related to matters of ecology, and via Christology to issues of

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human suffering and politics. The lines of research that we have discerned here also flow from this basic problem, especially in terms of the relationship of the Church to contemporary culture and experience, and the amount of continuity or discontinuity that this implies. The problem of otherness, and indeed God’s otherness, has been of interest for theology and philosophy already for some time, but it is fortuitous that Schillebeeckx has been brought into the conversa- tion, since the literature reveals that, far from being irrelevant or outdated, Schillebeeckx’s thought and methodology provide a number of tools for navi- gating our contemporary situation. The volume Impulse für Theologien – Impetus Towards Theologies (Eggensperger / Engel /Montoya 2012) offers a good overview of the research that is being done by theologians mainly in Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. It includes eighteen essays and a preface by Johann Baptist Metz. For this report, we will highlight some representatives of the broader themes. Bernadette Schwarz-Boenneke (94-109) confronts the problem of otherness in an excellent presentation of Schillebeeckx’ theory of experience by clarifying the intrinsic connection between contrast experience and epistemology, which is successfully related to human language about God. There is an implicit critique in Schille- beeckx’s work against naming God only as ‘radical Other’, now current in some strands of postmodern thought. Pierre-Yves Materne’s (138-147) engagement with politics and elaborates on the role of otherness via Schillebeeckx’s reading of Levinas, asserting that God is only accessible through praxis. Materne concludes that while theology is always contextual, it must retain its universal character, and Schillebeeckx respects this tension. Other essays engage with God’s involvement in creation insofar as culture is a locus theologicus. Christian Bauer (67-83) deals with the concepts of salvation and sacralisation of the world for Schillebeeckx and Chenu, based on their work during Vatican II. Salvation is presupposed for sacralisation to occur and is a general characteristic of God’s grace and presence in the world. For Schille- beeckx, nature and grace are not sacralised nor are their profane meanings revoked, but rather they are made holy. Following Chenu, religion determines itself in Christianity from the witness of faith, not the reverse. Erik Borgman (230-251) suggests that he is moving away from Schillebeeckx in some respects through a theological reflection on the Church with a strong pneumatological focus. He criticises Schillebeeckx in places for dispensing with the ecclesiastical historical-theological development after the apostolic period. Borgman is con- cerned that the retrieval of the original experience of Christ is not dynamic enough, and only confirms what has already been received—in essence, there is too much continuity in Schillebeeckx’s theology, something many of his critics would be surprised to hear. Borgman proposes that the Holy Spirit confronts the institutional Church from beyond itself; otherness encourages the Church

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to grow and change in order to fulfil its mission. This approach, as with many contributions, is certainly in the spirit of Schillebeeckx’s own work. Overall, this volume begins to break new theological ground, but in a very gradual way. The contributions are often quite short, and some lack depth or adequate length. There are a few cosmetic flaws and errors in the English, and the non-thematic organization gives it an uneven feel. Even so, it presents some genuinely inno- vative readings of Schillebeeckx’s work, and a real desire from each author to engage with the future of theology in a meaningful way. Corneliu Simuţ’s collection of essays is quite critical of Schillebeeckx’s work. (Simuţ 2010) His essays are held together by a single thread: his repeated crit- icism that Schillebeeckx uses traditional theological vocabulary but gives it a radically new meaning, which has to be regarded with suspicion (53). He argues for a universalistic character of theology and describes Schillebeeckx’s contextual approach as all too modern and Western, so that its significance for non-West- erners is obliterated (34-35). In Simuţ’s view, the gospel is an unchanging real- ity that affects the lives of people throughout the ages. He rejects Schillebeeckx’s assumption that talk about God should be relevant for contemporary people since this would be to subscribe to the present mainstream perception of what is meaningful and important (37-39). Schillebeeckx’s theology is said to origi- nate in a presumed misinterpretation of the doctrine of God. In what Simuţ understands as traditional theology, God is a personal reality who inhabits a metaphysical realm. He asserts that for Schillebeeckx, God is radically imma- nent and is not more than humanity’s inner-worldly future well-being. On the basis of this criticism, Simuţ develops the implications that such a view of God has for Schillebeeckx’s understanding of other doctrines and theological concepts such as salvation, sin, ecclesiology and resurrection. The latter occupies a particularly prominent place and occurs in several of Simuţ’s essays. Schille- beeckx is criticised for drawing a sharp distinction between the historical Jesus, who is no longer relevant for our time, and Christ who is merely an idea that serves the future transformation of this world (107). The risen Christ is said to be for Schillebeeckx merely an invention on the disciples’ part in order to render more authority to their preaching about Jesus’ ideal way of life (104). Simuţ’s criticism is largely based on a rejection of the Catholic worldview altogether. There is a pervasive either/or-logic throughout his essays, which becomes most marked in his comment about Schillebeeckx’ claim that human creativity is a participation in God’s creative activity (66-67). Simuţ here boldly states that something is either a human or a divine creation. The same logic prevents him from understanding Schillebeeckx’s hermeneutical method. This leads him to the more than controversial claim that what happened in the past is entirely irrelevant for Schillebeeckx, who is said to be exclusively interested in the present and the future (88).

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Carsten Barwasser, on the contrary, interprets Schillebeeckx as successfully upholding the ontological difference between God and creation (Barwasser 2010). Schillebeeckx is said to strike a good balance between the risks of either losing theological particularity in the surrounding culture or becoming theolog- ically fundamentalist against culture (18). This is because for Schillebeeckx every theological engagement has to confront the double task of first demonstrating that God exists as a reality that is different from humankind and creation, and to then argue how God is, nevertheless, a meaningful option for human thought (19). Theology thus fulfils the Christian duty of being accountable to the sur- rounding culture for one’s faith (15). Barwasser claims that all of Schillebeeckx’s fundamental theology is, in this sense, a theology of culture. A very detailed discussion of this theological motivation occupies the major part of his book, which, Barwasser shows, underlies all of Schillebeeckx’s work. However, Schillebeeckx is criticised for not pursuing this hermeneutical method suffi- ciently in his later work (249-250). According to Barwasser, Schillebeeckx here remains on the level of describing cultural phenomena instead of also explaining them philosophically and theologically. This is for Barwasser no reason to dis- miss of Schillebeeckx’s theological method but rather to develop it adequately for a postmodern context. He agrees with Erik Borgman that especially Schille- beeckx’s concept of negative contrast-experiences is still relevant for the contem- porary context (431). Barwasser conceives of contrast-experience as a transra- tional link between differing rationalities that govern diverse contexts in the present age (397-398). These experiences interconnect such multiple rationali- ties because they are common to them all. Barwasser, however, criticises Schillebeeckx’s assumption that the protest that is at the basis of negative con- trast-experiences is self-evidently a sign of God (435). He nuances this statement in reference to Peter Sloterdijk, objecting that protest is a fundamental human instinct to protect one’s own identity when one perceives it to be endangered. As a fundamental human feeling, protest cannot be the basis for a moral imper- ative per se, but the ‘better world’ that is supposed to be reached via protest must be philosophically reflected upon (436). Barwasser therefore argues for the prevalence of the ‘unthematic yes’ to a better future that is implicit in the negative contrast experience over against the protest against the status quo.

In his new book on the theology of creation, Martin Poulsom’s main focus is the relation of creation to God, which is well-worn ground for Christian theol- ogy (Poulsom 2014). Poulsom connects the doctrine of creation with the current ecological crisis and the understanding of contemporary culture as fundamental topics for interreligious dialogue. He reads a particular style of dialectic within Schillebeeckx’s work, placing Aquinas’ ‘analogia entis’ in dialogue with ‘medi- ated immediacy’. Kathryn Tanner is the main source for Poulsom’s terminology.

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Both of his fundamental terms, ‘the relation’, and ‘the distinction’, come from Tanner rather than Schillebeeckx. He favours ‘distinction’ because Tanner’s notion of ‘difference’ implies that two things are entirely unrelated. ‘The distinction’, here, stands for the ‘ontological difference’. Likewise, ‘relation’ is distinguished from ‘relationship’: persons can be related to non-personal beings, but a relationship presupposes intersubjective interaction. In Poulsom’s model creation is related to God, but ‘relationship’ is reserved for believers. Poulsom reads these concepts into Burrell’s and Schillebeeckx’s work to show that their respective creation accounts are ‘non-contrastive’. Doing away with any slippage between ‘relation’ and ‘relationship’, however, causes a serious problem when discussing Schillebeeckx and reveals the need for an aesthetic sense and a greater awareness of hermeneutics, especially Schillebeeckx’s imme- diate sources (Heidegger, Gadamer, and Ricoeur are absent from the biblio- graphy). We must ask, if only personal beings can have ‘relationships’, what is the implication for tradition hermeneutics? Can we have a relationship with a text, or with a work of art, or a linguistically-historically mediated tradition? If not, then the fundamental interplay between texts, icons, contexts, and mediated experience is endangered, as is the underlying hermeneutical structure of Schillebeeckx’s work. Poulsom’s final analysis admirably reconciles two difficult texts from Aquinas on analogy, and his ‘non-contrastive’ synthesis is very convincing. He attempts to bring God and the world back together via ‘analogy’, because the two had “been separated … by theology based on the ontological distinction [the ‘onto- logical difference’], resulting in a doctrine of an uncaring and distant God who is not the God of Christian faith.” (151) This non-contrastive dialectics gives an effective critique of Simuţ’s position but, in light of Schillebeeckx’s works from the late 1960s on the recovery of God’s transcendence, his assessment is overstated. It also neglects contemporary trends in evangelical and fundamen- talist Christianity, as well as the God described by the ‘new atheism’ where it is an ideological, overly anthropomorphized God that has become the problem, not an ‘overly philosophical’ God.

5. Conclusion

Contrary to the often repeated assertion that theologies of the 1960s and 1970s are outdated because they focused too narrowly on historical criticism and anthropology, and were too deeply embedded in the political and emancipatory struggles of their age, new directions in research on Edward Schillebeeckx show that such conclusions are somewhat premature. Following the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council and under the influence of neo-orthodox and

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political-theological developments, there has been a growing interest in his work. A special issue of Tijdschrift voor Theologie on Schillebeeckx and the Second Vatican Council is in the making. The published proceedings of the inter- national conference in honour of his centenary is forthcoming for 2015. In that same year, Bloomsbury Press will publish a Guide for the Perplexed about his theology, and the publication of his Collected Works will undoubtedly generate new research. Current research shows that a doctrinal reception of Schillebeeckx’s work has been long overdue and efforts are underway to remedy this. Furthermore, the apophatic and mystical elements of his theology have been accentuated in recent studies of his work. None of this should lead to the conclusion that previous experiential and political readings of his theology were one-sided or reductive. But it does manifest an interest in straightforward theological interpretations of current political developments and public issues, as recent debates in political theology have also shown.3 For these debates, Schillebeeckx might prove to be an important source for rigorous theological thinking that is both deeply rooted in the Catholic tradition and open to new cultural and political developments, offering a challenging view on divine presence as a constructive critique of secular authority and contemporary concepts of salvation.

Literature

BARWASSER, C. (2010): Theologie der Kultur und Hermeneutik der Glaubenserfahrung. Zur Gottesfrage und Glaubensverantwortung bei Edward Schillebeeckx OP. Berlin, Suhrkamp. BOEVE, L. /DEPOORTERE, F. / ERP, S. VAN (eds.) (2010): Edward Schillebeeckx and Contemporary Theology. London, T & T Clark. BORGMAN, E. /MURRAY, P. /TORRES QUEIRUGA, A. (eds.) (2012): Sacramentalizing Human History. In Honour of Edward Schillebeeckx (1914-2009), Concilium. Inter- national Journal of Theology 2012/1. London, SCM Press. EGGENSPERGER, TH. /ENGEL, U. /MÉNDEZ MONTOYA, A. (eds.) (2012): Edward Schillebeeckx: Impulse für Theologien - Impetus Towards Theologies. Ostfildern, Grünewald. ERP, S. VAN (ed.) (2010): Trouw aan Gods toekomst. De blijvende betekenis van Edward Schillebeeckx. Amsterdam, Boom Onderwijs. ERP, S. VAN /BOS, M. VAN DEN (2014): A Happy Theologian. A Hundred Years of Edward Schillebeeckx. Nijmegen. KIM, S. (2011): Theology in the Public Sphere: Public Theology as A Catalyst for Open Debate. London, SCM Press.

3 See .

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POULSOM, M. (2014): The Dialectics of Creation: Creation and the Creator in Edward Schillebeeckx and David Burrell. London: Bloomsbury. SCHILLEBEECKX, E. (1969): God and Man. Theological Soundings, Vol. II. London, Sheed & Ward Ltd. SCHILLEBEECKX, E. (2014): Collected Works. [11 Volumes]. London, Bloomsbury. SCHOOF, T. (2011): The Schillebeeckx Case. Official Exchange of Letters and Documents in the Investigation of Fr. Edward Schillebeeckx, O.P. by the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 1976-1980. Eugene, OR. SIMUŢ, C. (2010): Critical Essays on Edward Schillebeeckx’s Theology. From Theological Radicalism to Philosophical Non-Realism. Eugene, Wipf and Stock Publishers.

Authors

Christiane Alpers, Bad Dürkheim (Germany), born 1987. PhD-student at the Radboud University Nijmegen, Netherlands. Research interests: the Christology of Edward Schillebeeckx and recent developments in public theology. Publication: Alpers, Ch. (2014). The Essence of a Christian in : Sacramental Ontology or Non-Ontology. In: New Blackfriars 95, 430-442. Address: Faculty of Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies, PO Box 9103, 6500 HD Nijmegen, NL. E-mail: [email protected]. Stephan van Erp, Tilburg, born 1966. Senior lecturer at the Radboud University Nijme- gen, the Netherlands. Research interest: sacramental and political theology, and the theology of Edward Schillebeeckx. Publications: Erp, S. van (2014): A Happy Theolo- gian. A Hundred Years of Edward Schillebeeckx. Nijmegen. Boeve, L. /Depoortere, F. / Erp, S. van (ed.) (2010): Edward Schillebeeckx and Contemporary Theology. London. Address: Faculty of Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies, PO Box 9103, 6500 HD Nijmegen, NL. E-mail: [email protected]. Daniel Minch, born 1986. PhD-student at the KU Leuven, Belgium. Research interest: the hermeneutical turn in Edward Schillebeeckx’s theology applied to ontology and the human subject. Address: Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, Sint-Michielsstraat 6, bus 3101, 3000 Leuven, BE. E-mail: [email protected].

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