Editing Dialectic (section)

== Theological dialectics ==
[[Neo-orthodoxy]], in Europe also known as theology of crisis and dialectical theology,<ref name="Encyclopædia Britannica">{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/409012/neoorthodoxy#tab=active~checked%2Citems~checked&title=neoorthodoxy%20--%20Britannica%20Online%20Encyclopedia |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |title=Neo-orthodoxy |access-date=2008-07-26}}</ref> is a theological approach in [[Protestantism]] that was developed in the aftermath of the [[First World War]] (1914–1918). It is characterized as a reaction against doctrines of nineteenth-century [[Liberal Christianity|liberal theology]] and a more positive reevaluation of the teachings of the [[Reformation]], much of which had been in decline (especially in western Europe) since the late eighteenth century.<ref>{{cite dictionary |url=http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/neo-orthodox |title=neo-orthodox |dictionary=Merriam-Webster Dictionary |access-date=2008-07-26}}</ref> It is primarily associated with two Swiss professors and pastors, [[Karl Barth]]<ref>{{cite dictionary |url=http://www.bartleby.com/61/91/N0059100.html |dictionary=American Heritage Dictionary |title=Neo-orthodoxy |access-date=2008-07-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050510080135/http://bartleby.com/61/91/N0059100.html |archive-date=2005-05-10 |url-status=dead}}</ref> (1886–1968) and [[Emil Brunner]] (1899–1966),<ref name="Encyclopædia Britannica" /> even though Barth himself expressed his unease in the use of the term.<ref>See Church Dogmatics III/3, xii.</ref>

In dialectical theology, the difference and opposition between God and human beings is stressed in such a way that all human attempts at overcoming this opposition through moral, religious or philosophical idealism must be characterized as sin. In the death of Christ humanity is negated and overcome, but this judgment also points forwards to the resurrection in which humanity is reestablished in Christ. For Barth this meant that only through God's "no" to everything human can his "yes" be perceived. Applied to traditional themes of Protestant theology, such as [[double predestination]], this means that election and reprobation cannot be viewed as a quantitative limitation of God's action. Rather it must be seen as its "qualitative definition".<ref>Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans (1933), p. 346</ref>

Dialectic prominently figured in [[Bernard Lonergan]]'s philosophy, in his books ''Insight'' and ''Method in Theology''. [[Michael Shute]] wrote about Lonergan's use of dialectic in ''[[The Origins of Lonergan's Notion of the Dialectic of History]]''. For Lonergan, dialectic is both individual and operative in community. Simply described, it is a dynamic process that results in something new:
{{Blockquote|For the sake of greater precision, let us say that a dialectic is a concrete unfolding of linked but opposed principles of change. Thus there will be a dialectic if (1) there is an aggregate of events of a determinate character, (2) the events may be traced to either or both of two principles, (3) the principles are opposed yet bound together, and (4) they are modified by the changes that successively result from them.<ref>Bernard J. F. Lonergan, ''Insight: A Study of Human Understanding'', Collected Works vol. 3, ed. Frederick E. Crowe and Robert M. Doran (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992, pp.&nbsp;217-218).</ref>}}

Dialectic is one of the eight functional specialties Lonergan envisaged for theology to bring this discipline into the modern world. Lonergan believed that the lack of an agreed method among scholars had inhibited substantive agreement from being reached and progress from being made compared to the natural sciences. [[Karl Rahner]], S. J., however, criticized Lonergan's theological method in a short article entitled "Some Critical Thoughts on 'Functional Specialties in Theology'" where he stated: "Lonergan's theological methodology seems to me to be 'so generic that it really fits every science', and hence is not the methodology of theology as such, but only a very general methodology of science."<ref>{{Cite book |title=Foundations of Theology |last=McShane |first=Philip |location=Notre Dame, Indiana |publisher=University of Notre Dame Press |year=1972 |page=194}}</ref>