Overview

This incisive, open access book explores the continued power and relevance of a core Christian teaching: the doctrine of sin. Recently, there has been little enthusiasm for the doctrine in its traditional Augustinian form, especially as expressed by Protestant Reformers like Martin Luther. Torrance defends the claim that Luther’s radical doctrine of sin in fact retains important insights and continues to have explanatory power in the contemporary world. He explores this with a productive dialogue between theology and critical theory. This volume reveals that Luther’s hamartiology is robust and far more able to respond to contemporary issues than many competing hamartiologies. At the same time, Torrance reveals how critical theory can work constructively with theology. By working in tandem, they allow creative exploration of questions such as the effect of sin on human reason, the nature of structural pathologies, and the experience of human shame. In and through these dialogues, Luther’s doctrine of sin shows itself as a plausible, robust and psychologically astute doctrine for the present day. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by UKRI.

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9780567722393

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Reviews

This is a hugely exciting and much-needed work that brushes the dust off of classical Protestant theology to engage with central questions facing the Humanities today. Deftly exploring contemporary caricatures of Martin Luther’s theological legacy, Torrance demonstrates striking affinities between Luther’s theology of sin and contemporary critical theory. At the heart of the book is a persuasive case for the power of a theological horizon for moving beyond the impasse between the hermeneutics of suspicion and the possibility of a more hopeful, ‘postcritical' vision of the world. This is must-read theology for anyone concerned either with the theological legacy of the Protestant Reformation or with the relationship between theology and 21st century intellectual life. * Simeon Zahl, University of Cambridge, UK *

Author Information

Jonathan D. Torrance is Chaplain and Lord Crewe Career Development Fellow at Lincoln College, University of Oxford, UK.

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