The Theological Imagination: Constructing the Concept of God

by Gordon D. Kaufman

In this challenging work, Gordon Kaufman asserts that the prime task of theology is the imaginative construction of the doctrine of God. Kaufman maintains that both the absoluteness of the divinity and our own necessity demand that we construct the doctrine of God critically and in a manner appropriate to our own time and place. In thorough examinations of God and theology, Christ and christology, and of the ultimate foundations of religious thought, he shows how this construction can be accomplished faithfully and in full realization of our own humanity.

Genres: Philosophy, Religion, Nonfiction, Theology

309 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

Gordon D. Kaufman is Professor of Theology Emeritus at Harvard Divinity School. He is a past president of the American Academy of Religion and of the American Theological Society, as well as a member of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies. Professor Kaufman is author of numerous articles and reviews as well as 12 books, including In Face of Mystery: A Constructive Theology (Harvard University Press, 1993), which won the 1995 American Academy of Religion Award for "Excellence" in the "Constructive-Reflective" category of scholarly books on Religion; and two recent books, In the beginning . . . Creativity (Fortress Press, 2004) and Jesus and Creativity (Fortress Press, 2006). He has lectured widely, and taught at universities across the United States, and also in India, Japan, South Africa, England, and Hong Kong. Professor Kaufman has been an ordained minister in the Mennonite Church for 50 years, and has been the subject of two Festschriften.

Reviews

[Brandon]

note to self: you didn't read the whole book, only the bits assigned for class. Just in case you forget, buddy ;)

[Abdullah Arafa · Rating 3 out of 5]

“We must learn to think of God not as a being among beings, but as the construct by which we orient ourselves toward ultimate meaning.”