Gerald T Floyd
My blogs
| Gender | Male |
|---|---|
| Industry | Religion |
| Location | New Orleans and Santa Fe, United States |
| Introduction | Ph.D. in Philosophical Theology from Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA, 1982. Major funding was provided by the Claretian Missionaries. My interest is in making sense of changes in political and religious structures and thought: changes in the past, changes emerging now, and changes needed in the future. I was inspired by the truly remarkable changes made to the Catholic Church by the 2nd Vatican Council in the 1960s--and saddened by efforts of church officials to reverse many of those changes in decades since. My doctoral dissertation, available for viewing at the web link below, was "THE CREATIVITY OF CHURCH TEACHING: A WHITHEADEAN ALTERNATIVE TO THE NOTION OF DEVELOPMENT OF DOCTRINE" (Copyright 1983). It argues that Whitehead's philosophy of creativity provides a coherent intellectual framework for explaining why the church and its teachings are "semper reformanda," always subject to change, based on the endless interplay of scripture, tradition and contemporary experience. The same also applies to political structures and thought, in a world where the worship of past achievement hinders future achievement and often places the creative advance at risk. |
| Interests | Church teachings, church organizational structures, applying philosophy and religion to current events |
| Favorite books | Alfred North Whitehead, Charles Hartshorne, Bernard M Loomer, Lewis S Ford, John B Cobb, David Ray Griffin, Jorge Luis Nobo, Margerie Suchocki, Henry Pierce Stapp, Bernard Lee, George E Connelly, Charles E Curran, Gregory Baum, Yves Congar, Eduard Schillebeeckx, Avery Dulles, Hans Kung, Karl Rhaner, Raymond E Brown, John T Ford, Richard A McCormick, Jaroslav Pelikan, John Henry Newman, Paul Ricoeur, National Catholic Reporter |