Kaufmann: Faith of a Heretic

[Metacrock]

What does it mean to "study theology on its own terms"?

Kaufmann actually doesn't accept the definition of theology from Websters nor does he fall back on Gibbon. He dismisses both of them.

really? can you quote the bit where he does that?

Opps forgot about this.
From Page 103 of Kaufmann: Faith of a Heretic

What is theology? Certainly not what Webster's New International
Dictionary says it is when giving one of its meanings as
the "critical, historical, and psychological study of religion." This
definition is introduced with the words, "More loosely"; but any
definition which would make Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire, Nietzsche's Antichrist, and Freud's Future of an
Illusion exercises in theology is not only loose but absurd.
The same dictionary, which is known as "the supreme authority,"
defines a theologian as "a person well versed in theology" or a
"writer on theology." This would not only turn Gibbon, Freud, and
Nietzsche into theologians; any critic of theology, being a "writer
on theology," would himself be a theologian.
This usage has no basis in the etymology of the word nor in
judiciously spoken English...

but he's quoting a popular dictionary, not Westminster. I'm sure he knew that.

[DT1138]

He makes some good points, much more intelligent than the new atheists... much of them are the same ones I have. My problem is not with Christian philosophy so much as the implications and praxis. Praxis is where we can ask, "is this relevant?" I'd argue that the individualistic salvation paradigm underlying Protestant evangelical orthodoxy, is no longer relevent to many people. Luther's Gospel, Christ dying for your sins to save you from an angry God... is not only irrelevent it turns most people off. However, I'm not so ignorant as to claim this is the only way to understand the Gospel. Luther and the Roman Catholic Church's paradigm are both coming from the medieval world, a mindset dominated by death, fear, and consequent superstition. God was oppressively real and he mostly seemed to be angry; the wrath of God was way too immanent and explanations for God's apparent wrath too facile. And Christianity's ideology has been caught up in that ever since.

[mdsimpson92]

Which is in contrast to a lot of the early church and the early Dark Ages, where Neo-Platonism had more of an influence. An example would be like John Scottus of Ireland who actually believed in eternal reconciliation for all, including the devil. I remember reading somewhere that by the fourth century, only one of the six major churches advocated eternal damnation. The others either leaned towards a kind of universalism or anihilationism.