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The author examines trust as a term and its meaning in context of sociology, psychology, and mainly philosophy and theology. The text is written from the perspective of Christian philosophical and theological anthropology, or rather philosophy and theology of religion. Trust is thematized in the three typifying contexts (society, life of an individual, and question about God) and an important idea of certain work or thinker within each of them is analysed. Trust is understood as something indigenous and irreducible, an irreplaceable, indispensable, and uniting element of society (Luhmann); personally formative (Erikson); inward and fundamentally corresponding with the empirical structure of human person (Landsberg); deep, borderline, transcending (Schillebeeckx); opening access to reality, lifegiving, and referring to God (Küng). The author systematically reflects the term and its anthropological and theological relevance with respect to historical variability of life and thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ratzinger's early work Introduction to Christianity presents an attempt at rational understanding of what theology considers to be crucial for Christianity and what should be thought over in the context of the (then) new challenges. The open character of the book can be understood in light of the fact that anthropological discourse was already well established in post-Council theology. For Ratzinger, this seems to be connected with a necessity to outline clear contours for Christianity. The book is one of the author's significant works with a wide impact, and which also represents Ratzinger's way of thinking in its relation to philosophical thought. The title of this contribution is also its point: Ratzinger's book offers a certain interpretation of Christianity and provides at the same time a sort of defence of Christianity against a never-ending chain of interpretations. It is just that which should be subjected to interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deals with the problem of an anthropological understanding of metaphysics in theology and addresses its relevance against a confrontation with an ontological understanding of theological metaphysics. The article format does not allow for a comprehensive treatise but raises the issue as a principal question that can comprehend the problem's basic context and aspire to an answer as to whose conclusiveness should be -- in discussion with philosophical -religious and philosophical -theological theorems -- rationally autonomous. The text is based on the works of authors whose thinking a) enables an identification of a "connecting place" for metaphysics in theology, b) raises the possibility of an "anthropological connection" to theological metaphysics, c) helps recognise what is representative of the current state of reflection on this matter in the field of theological thinking, d) and itself elaborates the anthropological viewpoint for theological metaphysical thinking. The thread of content proceeds from a philosophical -religious typology of talking about God via a presentation of the anthropological viewpoint of metaphysics towards the standing of metaphysics in contemporary theology and the search for points of contact in T. Pröpper's theological anthropology. The conclusion refers to the possibility of process thought for an anthropologically relevant embedding in theological metaphysics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]