Events of Grace : Naturalism, Existentialism, and Theology

In the liberal theological tradition dating from Schleiermacher, Events of Grace, first published in 1996, demonstrates that the Christian faith can be fully compatible with a scientific world view. Religion and God must be understood valuationally, not ontologically, which permits an existentialist account of faith entirely in terms of modes of existing. Hardwick weds Bultmann's demythologizing programme to Wieman's naturalistic concept of God as creative transformation. Defending a strong doctrine of justification by faith, he shows how both God and the knowledge of God can be conceived in terms of events of grace that transform possibilities of existence toward openness to the future. Events of Grace gives a complete existential and naturalistic account of sin, faith, God, the knowledge of God, Christology and the eschatological symbols that articulate Christian hope in the encounter with suffering and death.