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Theology as 'critical dogmatics' points to a way forward between naturalism and constructivism in thought 'after modernity.' It urges neither pre-critical dogmatics nor modern systematizing, but a proposal for a pragmatic and hermeneutical theology making a single claim to truth about God as the One determined to redeem and fulfill the creation through the missions of God's Son and Spirit. This article clarifies the difference between Rudolph Bultmann's program of demythologization, and more generally, dialectical theology's antinomy of 'the word of God and the word of humans,' and the sense of 'deliteralization' in the strong trinitarian personalism of critical dogmatics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking bearings from Walter Altmann's attempt to retrieve a proper understanding of sola Scriptura, this essay argues that the Latin ablative, 'by way of the Scripture alone,' presupposes a nominative solus Christus whom the Spirit proclaims in turn 'by way of the Scripture alone'-a dialectic of Word and Spirit, a virtuous circle. It clarifies this proper understanding of sola Scriptura over against modern biblicism, crude and sophisticated, by teasing out its implications for dogmatics as a critical discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]