Teoloogilise keele poeetilisus - mida see tähendab?
Poeticality of Theological Language – What Does it mean?

Summary/Abstract: There is a relatively wide consensus today – and it may even seem trivial – that theological language should be regarded as poetic in its core. The article takes a closer look at what is actually meant by emphasizing the poetic nature of theological language. What is the underlying hermeneutical/theological idea behind such a stance? In order to clarify this issue, a form of answer that would be given in a radically negative theological manner is examined more closely. Hereby the work of William Franke serves as an example. Then a short look is taken at another two modern approaches. One could provisionally refer to these as interpretations of the poetic nature of theological language in the spirit of enlightened Protestantism (e. g. Martin Laube) and of a cataphatic theology of the cross (e. g. Eberhard Jüngel). As a third and extravagant step, a reference to mostly ignored but vigorous advocatus diaboli Eilert Herms is made. Naturally, he denies the fundamentally poetic nature of theology. He claims to reveal a condition of possibility for theological language and to make its actual logic transparent for the very first time. This is accomplished in a transcendental theological manner. The reconstructed overview of the semantical landscape for understanding the poeticality of theological language ends with an interim-conclusion. The variety of discussed approaches may contain very different or even contrary views. The emphasis on poeticality could be a symptom of anthropocentricity, rational mysticism or dull negative theology. In this unsatisfactory situation one may wonder whether the renaissance of a theology of God’s name that has been emerging since the last decade (e. g. Günter Bader, Heinrich Assel, Philip Stoellger etc.) could turn out to be helpful and a step forward.

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