The 'postmodern challenge' is increasingly felt in the 'end of modernity' to which Gianni Vattimo refers. The West and the world has hitherto been dominated by what Andrew Gamble characterises as the Modern or Western Ideology. But the validity of that worldview and its associated ways of thinking, going back to the 'Enlightenment' and beyond, has come to be radically questioned. It is within this context that the work and thought of CS Lewis is examined. Although Lewis is generally recognised, and regarded himself, as conservative and even reactionary, there is a paradoxical quality to his conservatism, the elements of which coexist with features which might be regarded as liberal and as radically socialist respectively. Similarly, his commitment to the religious and cultural tradition of Western Europe co-exists with a vehement anticolonialism. A paradoxical association of postmodermism with 'premodernity' has been widely noted in Buddhism and, by Derrida, in Eastern Christian theology. This thesis seeks to demonstrate that a paradoxical postmodernism is evident in the thought of Lewis. One source suggested for this is his interest in Eastern Christianity. Another is identified as the influence on Lewis of the opposition of Romanticism to 'Enlightenment' modernity. But Lewis's own engagement with modernity is also shown to be significant. Two broad trends in postmodernism are discussed. The affinities of Lewis's thought with the nihilistic tradition of postmodernism, going back to Nietzsche, is traced with regard to issues such as rationalism, science, the autonomy of the subject, and authorship. But the ambivalent relationship of Lewis to spiritually-oriented, affirmative postmodernism, and particularly Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy, is also analysed. The crucial role of Scholasticism in the development of Western thought is investigated in a comparison of Steiner's views with the Christian position of Lewis. It is concluded that there are grounds to regard Lewis as. 'prophet of postmodernism', and he is compared with Nietzsche and Pope John-Paul II in this regard. / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / D. Th. (Church History)

The purpose of this essay is to discuss what kind of normativity can be considered acceptable in academic theology today in Sweden. This I do by critically and comparatively analyze two debates. The first debate is from Sweden and has its origin in the book Den okände Jesus written by Cecilia Wassén och Tobias Hägerland. The second debate is an international debate about Joseph Ratzingers or Benedict XVI book Jesus of Nazareth. For the purpose of comparison I am working with three analytical questions. I am asking the different texts whether the author express any ontological assumptions or if he or she argumenting at a epistemological level, what enables intersubjective verifiability according to the author and what kind of methods does the author see as acceptable to reach historical knowledge? This questions works as a methodological cluster and the answers indicate what the authors think about acceptable normativity in academic theology. After that I identify similarities and divergences and I ́m comparing different positions and arguments. Finally I evaluate the reasonability of these positions and argument. The reader will be lead to the conclusion that intersubjective verifiability in academic theology and exegetic doesn ́t demand naturalistic or empirical points of departure but rather transparency and cognitive understandable argument which includes theological normative arguments and research. An attitude I name as methodological reciprocity.