Includes bibliographical references.

Foundations for Theology: A Historical Sketch -- Defending Our Hope -- On the Fundamental Tasks of Theology -- "For the Salvation of All Who Believe": The World of God as a Future for Humanity -- Faith in the God of Jesus Christ -- Knowing by Heart: The Symbolic Structure of Revelation and Faith -- The Wisdom that Leads to Salvation: Revelation and Scripture -- The Church: Context for Theology -- Scripture in Theology -- Christian Doctrine in a Historically Conscious World -- Expanding Horizons: A World of Religions and Jesus Christ -- Fundamental Theology and the Christian Moral Life -- Critical Witness: The Question of Method

Theology, it has been said, consists in asking and responding to the same questions over and over again in ever-new contexts. Fundamental theology, or foundational theology as it is often called these days, tries to insure that those questions are answered honestly and credibly, with as little question-begging as possible. In other words, it seeks to lay bare the bases for Christian faith and its theological assertions; it strives to make intelligible and credible the very foundations of the Christians community and its life faith. As the words fundamental or foundational suggest, this particular specialty or moment of the theological enterprise as a whole deals with those basic question that are presupposed or implied in all the others: in Scripture, doctrine, moral theology, church history, and so on. This book explores the traditional topics of fundamental or foundational suggest, this particular specialty or moment of the theological enterprise as a whole deals with those basic questions that are presupposed or implied in all the others: in Scripture, doctrine, moral theology, church history, and so on. This book explores the traditional topics of fundamental theology, and some recently urgent new ones as well, in the distinctive context of our own time, characterized as it is by an acute awareness of the subjective or existential quality of all human knowing and the historically and culturally conditioned character of all human thought. These three "mentalities," one might call them–the turn to the subject, historical consciousness, and cultural pluralism– constitute the greatest challenge to Christian faith of our day as well as afford its greatest opportunity. Each of the chapters in this book, then, considers its topic in the light of these three great transformative elements of modern consciousness. Among the topics thus considered are the conditions and dynamics of faith, the possibility of revelation, the identity of Christ, The normativity of Scripture, the credibility of the church, the relation of Christianity to the other great world religions and to implications of Christian faith, and, finally, method in theology itself. Each chapter concludes with an annotated bibliography for further reading.