Plädoyer für Gott

In the modern period, the conception of religion in the West changed and became problematic.
Theology is not providing us with explanations but inviting us to penetrate the transcendence that we call God and is beyond our understanding; our doctrines are not providing us with information about the divine but are essentially programmes for action, calling in particular for kenosis (self-emptying) and compassion (the ability to experience the other and dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world). Unless the mythoi of religion are translated into ritual or ethical compassionate action, they remain incomprehensible and opaque. Today we tend to read our scriptures with a literalism that is without parallel in the history of religion and this has made faith problematic for many; in the past, for example, nobody understood the first chapter of Genesis as a literal account of the origins of life.