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Quote by George Pattison

“Sartre is one example of someone who does just this. Every text is, after all, a human document and whatever Kierkegaard thought about God was clearly a matter of human thought that can, in principle, be retrieved and interpreted by other human beings. A phenomenological approach to religion must, it seems to me, adopt the old adage: nothing human is alien to me.”

Quote by George Pattison

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George Pattison

George Pattison, born in 1950, is an individual whose profession and category remain unknown. more

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“There are kinds of unity other than those of the explicit and systematic unity that Poole is attacking. There are kinds of movement - in music or athletics, for example - that present themselves as having a certain unity about them. In some sphere we might talk about 'style'.”

Kind Might Certain Style Example Movement Unity Spheres Attacking Athletics Systematic Explicit

Author:George Pattison

“Every stroke a tennis player plays is different, yet we perceive them as playing in a distinctive and unique way. It's what Heidegger called a certain 'how' of existing. It's ultimately always singular, and the double task of (a) getting it in view and (b) communicating it to others will inevitably be marked more often by failure than success!”

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Author:George Pattison

“Interpretation is a task that we repeatedly have to take up and start again from the beginning, Sisyphus-like. But, as Camus said, we must always imagine Sisyphus happy, and this is not so difficult when it's a matter of texts that reveal important truths about being human.”

Humans Said Important Matter Difficult Imagine Tasks Interpretation Being Human Sisyphus

Author:George Pattison

“Barth's approach tears up any possibility of dialogue between faith and unfaith or between theology and other human sciences. Theology just says what it says on the basis of scripture, and that's that.”

Humans Possibility Tears Approach Bases Scripture Theology Dialogue

Author:George Pattison

“Schleiermacher, however, starts by attempting to find what he takes to be a basic element of the human condition as such, namely, that we did not invent ourselves but find ourselves born into a life and a world that precedes us in manifold ways.”

World Way Humans Born Conditions Elements Human Condition Attempting Manifold

Author:George Pattison

“Ultimately, we live in the face of an irresolvable mystery about our origin and, for that matter, about our end. And what Schleiermacher would have us do is (a) acknowledge that this is the case and (b) accept it as something positive, a point of departure for a life of trusting joy.”

Ends Matter Faces Joy Accepting Cases Mystery Acknowledge Departure

Author:George Pattison

“And this is also what he takes Christian doctrine, in all its complexity, to be centrally about, that is, teaching an attitude rather than a set of propositions. Call it joyous openness to life. What's not relevant about that?”

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Author:George Pattison

“It's strange that in an age when we pride ourselves on our independence of thought we meekly submit without further question to the declaration of a clearly unbalanced nineteenth century philosopher that God is dead! That's cheeky, of course - and one rarely comes away from reading Nietzsche without learning something new and significant. He's certainly FAR more unsettling for faith than any contemporary atheist I know of.”

“But my point is that 'the death of God' is not something like the Battle of Waterloo or Magna Charta. It's not a historic event of that kind. For many people it hasn't happened yet. Others - to recur to an earlier question - are still in the phase of intense shock.”

People Kind Stills Happened Events Battle Intense Shock Phases Historic Waterloo

Author:George Pattison

“For others the mourning is over. Others would say that whilst one God has died - the God of ontotheology perhaps? - this allows for the good news of a God who is to come, a God who will be better able to gather up and give justice to all the manifold aspirations of human life towards goodness and meaning (and not just to those who are able to fit into a narrow 'religious' framework).”

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Author:George Pattison