Analogia Entis

"Analogy of Being: Invention of the Anti-Christ or the Wisdom of God?" -- A Theological Symposium, April 4-6, 2008, Pope John Paul II Cultural Center, 3900 Harewood Road, NE, Washington, DC 20017.

If you are a member of the media wishing to attend this event, please contact Mrs. Honya Weeks at 202.529.5300 x 175 (assistant@dhs.edu).

Synopsis of the ConferenceIs there any ‘natural’ knowledge of God available to the human person, apart from Christian revelation, or is all knowledge of God given to human beings uniquely in Christ? Is Christianity irrevocably wed to the classical metaphysical tradition, or can God’s nature and character be rethought in distinctly modern ways, based upon a renewed reading of Scripture? What relationship or likeness, if any, exists between created nature and the grace of God? Does Christian theology presuppose a natural philosophical ‘capacity’ for knowledge of God in the human person?

All of these fundamental theological questions are situated at the heart of the famous 20th century debate between Erich Przywara S.J. and Karl Barth, and were treated in Przywara’s famous work Analogia Entis. These topics were also revisited by Hans Urs von Balthasar in his ecumenical landmark, The Theology of Karl Barth. On the occasion of a forthcoming English translation of Analogia Entis by John Betz and David Bentley Hart, this symposium will invite contemporary theologians indebted to Aquinas, Przywara, Barth and Balthasar to discuss these issues. Is the theological concept of the ‘analogy of being’ in fact an ‘invention of the anti-Christ’ as Karl Barth suggested, or is it a truth about creation revelatory of the wisdom of God?

Featured Speakers:

John Betz
Martin Bieler
Peter Casarella
Michael Hanby
David Bentley Hart
Reinhard Hütter
Bruce McCormack
Bruce Marshall
Richard Schenk O.P.
John Webster
Thomas Joseph White O.P.

Sponsored by:

The Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception
Pope John Paul II Cultural Center
Eerdmans Press
[Hat tip to Fr. D.J.]