Professor Paul D Janz
Professor of Philosophical Theology
Head of Department
Tel +44 (0)20 7848 2398
Email paul.janz@kcl.ac.uk
Address Room 6G, Chesham Building
King's College London
Strand
LONDON
WC2R 2LS
Biography
Paul Janz studied analytic philosophy at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada, before undertaking doctoral research in philosophical theology at the University of Cambridge (1997-2000). From 2000-2004 he taught philosophy at Trinity Western University, Canada, first as Assistant Professor of Philosophy and then as Associate Professor of Philosophy. He joined the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at King's in January 2005, teaching in systematic and philosophical theology, and is current Head of Department.
Research interests
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theology and philosophy in the continental tradition from late 18th century to present
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transformation theology and theological method
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theological/philosophical anthropology, epistemology and metaethics
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modern doctrine and fundamental theology
Professor Janz’s research explores particular innovations in the area known as philosophical theology or ‘fundamental’ theology, which is to say that area of theology focusing on questions of the basic intelligibility and meaning of religious language as putative speech ‘about God’.
Drawing on philosophical resources mainly in the continental traditions from the late 18th century to the present, his work is animated generally by methodological concerns and therefore by a special attentiveness to the exacting rigours of reason. It is thus more interested in precision and attentiveness in the proper formulation of theological problems for its various areas of endeavour than it is in pointing to any comprehensive ‘solutions’. A primary motivating concern as such is to refocus theological grounding and self-understanding beyond the confines of the analytically self-guaranteeing resolutions offered by grammatical, doctrinal or metaphysically speculative orientations; and back onto the open contingency and often intractable non-resolution of embodied human life and action in the causal dynamics of empirical history, which remains the unsurpassable and transformative site of any divine-human relationality.
As a follow-on to the ethical focus of his most recent book, The Command of Grace (2009), Janz is currently writing a book on the aesthetic ground of morality and redemption, which draws on the work of Kant, Schelling, Bergson, Levinas and Deleuze.
Selected publications
Paul Janz (2011) The Cambridge Dictionary of Christian Theology: 'Metaphysics'
[Dictionary Entry (Print)]
Paul Janz (2009) 'Abbild Gottes, Welt-offenheit und die Logik des Sinns', in Der Mensch - ein Abbild Gottes?: Geschöpfe - Krone der Schöpfung - Mitschöpfer pp. ?-?
[Chapter]
Paul D Janz (2009) 'Keeping God's Silence: Towards a Theological Ethics of Communication' SCOTTISH JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY, 62 (3), pp. 400-401.
[Book Review (Print)]
Paul Janz (2009) The Command of Grace: A New Theological Apologetics London/New York: T&T Clark/Continuum
[Authored Book in print]
Paul Janz (2009) 'What is "Transformation Theology"?' American Theological Inquiry, 2 (2), pp. 9-28.
[Article in print Journal]
Paul Janz (2008) 'Cantus Firmus: Wisdom, Reason and Love's Congruence' The Journal of Scriptural Reasoning , 7 (1)
[Article in e-Journal]
Paul D Janz (2007) 'Divine Causality and the Nature of Theological Questioning' MODERN THEOLOGY, 23 (3), pp. 317-348.
[Article in print Journal]
P D Janz (2007) 'Levinas and theology' RELIGIOUS STUDIES, 43 (2), pp. 246-247.
[Book Review (Print)]
Teaching
Undergraduate
Postgraduate
PhD supervision
Paul supervises numerous PhD theses in various areas of philosophical theology, as well as in Christian doctrine, including primary research on Bonhoeffer, Schleiermacher, Kant, Kierkegaard, Levinas, 19th century romanticism and existentialism, Pannenberg, Reformational Philosophy in the Kuyperian tradition, Reinhold Niebuhr, trinitarian theology, and also theological engagements with analytic philosophy.