A Gulf Unbridged: A Phenomenological Critique of the Theology of Crisis

Soham Ganguly, M.Phil (English),

University of Calcutta

The theological problem first laid down by philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, named the Infinite
Qualitative Distinction, refers to "the yawning abyss of quality in the difference between God
and man," thus affecting a relation of negation rather than affirmation between the two.

At the heart of the aforementioned impasse lies the notionality, ontological and soteriological, of
the qualitative modality of the apprehension of phenomena as reflected upon the existential
subject. This paper, taking the cue from the Kierkegaardian apophatic pinning down of the onto-
theological appreciation of the divine (i.e, wherein we must approach the non-apodictic appraisal
of its properties as opposed to the views espoused by the more dogmatic theological traditions,
whence stem what Kierkegaard perceives as the fallacy of an overtly apriori relation betwixt
mortals and the divine), endeavours to engender a critique of what has loosely come to be known
as a concerted delineation of a 'theology of crisis.'

To this end, Kierkegaard's momentous work, Training in Christianity, and Karl Barth's nucleolar
enunciation of a renewed dialectical theology culminating in The Doctrine of Reconciliation, will
be examined from a phenomenological standpoint, primarily owing to the ideas of qualities-as-
appearances, as discussed by Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty in their works.