English summary: The break-in of evil in their life has always caused persons to turn to the divine, to gods or to a god in order to reorientate their life. Ingolf U. Dalferth studies the complexity of this procedure in three thought processes which deal with the central concepts in the Christian understanding of malum as privation (a lack of good), as evil-doing and as a lack of faith. In doing so, he provides a detailed discussion of theodicy theories, the argument from freedom and the religious turn to God, in which the author explores the traces of the discovery of God's goodness,...

Revelation is a central category in many religions. Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Mormonism or Unificationists are difficult if not impossible to imagine without it. For some, revelation signifies a decisive event in the past, for others it is a present reality. It plays a central role in shaping religious identities, and it is the reason for much criticism. Some follow a religion only because of its claim to divine revelation, whereas others criticize it as "hearsay upon hearsay" (Paine) on which they would never rest their belief. Some religions have built elaborate institutions of priests...

Paul Ricoeur (1913-2005) was one of the most distinguished and prolific philosophers of religion in the second half of the 20th century. Through his wide-ranging writings, a self-reflective and critical approach to hermeneutics became an indispensable tool for the philosophical interpretation of the complex text worlds of religious traditions and the critical reflection of cultural phenomena. His philosophical hermeneutics was sensitive to the lack of transparency of the human self and the corresponding intricacies of direct and indirect communication in religion and culture. On the occasion...

Hope is a fundamental but controversial human phenomenon. For some it is Pandora's most mischievous evil, for others it is a divine gift and one of the highest human virtues. It is difficult to pin down but its traces seem to be present everywhere in human life and practice. Christianity as a comprehensive practice of hope cannot be imagined without it: Christians are not believers in dogmas but practitioners of hope. In other religious traditions the topic of hope is virtually absent or even critically rejected and opposed. Half a century ago hope was at the center of attention in philosophy...

Hoffnung ist nicht primar Zukunftssinn, sondern der Sinn fur die Moglichkeit des Guten. Es ist ein gefahrdeter Sinn, der fur Missverstandnisse und Missbrauch anfallig ist. Diese Studie analysiert das facettenreiche Phanomen des Hoffens aus den unterschiedlichen Theorieperspektiven der europaischen Denkgeschichte, um die Moglichkeiten und Grenzen des Hoffens kritisch zu erkunden und haltbare von fragwurdigen Formen des Hoffens zu unterscheiden.

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Religious, philosophical, and theological views on the self vary widely. For some the self is seen as the center of human personhood, the ultimate bearer of personal identity and the core mystery of human existence. For others the self is a grammatical error and the sense of self an existential and epistemic delusion. In Western psychology, philosophy, and theology, the term 'self' is often used as a noun that refers not to the performance of an activity or to a material body per se but rather to a (gendered) organism that represents the presence of something distinct from its materiality....