Analytic ecclesiology : the social ontology of the church
Abstract
In this paper, I aim to show that analytic philosophy can contribute to the theological discussion of ecclesiology. By considering recent analytic work on social ontology, I outline how we might think of the Church as one entity, constituted by many disparate parts. The paper begins with an overview of the theological constraints for the paper, and then proceeds to examine recent work on the philosophy of social ontology and group agency. Drawing on this literature, I outline three models of social ontology from the history of philosophy and suggest reasons why all of them fail to provide an account of the Church’s agency. Finally, I develop an alternative model which, I suggest, better fits the conditions stipulated.
Citation
Cockayne , J L 2019 , ' Analytic ecclesiology : the social ontology of the church ' , Journal of Analytic Theology , vol. 7 , pp. 100-123 . https://doi.org/10.12978/jat.2019-7.091400021404
Publication
Journal of Analytic Theology
Status
Peer reviewed
Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2019 Joshua Cockayne and Journal of Analytic Theology. This work has been made available online in accordance with publisher policies or with permission. Permission for further reuse of this content should be sought from the publisher or the rights holder. This is the final published version of the work, which was originally published at https://doi.org/10.12978/jat.2019-7.091400021404
Description
The author thanks the Templeton Religion Trust for generous funding during the writing of this paperCollections
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