ABSTRACT
Interpretive theologians argue that we live in a world of meaning but differ in its elaboration. The theologians of the subject argue that the subject seeks to understand itself and produces a representation of God in the process of understanding. Theologians of the transcendent also start with the subject, but they argue that the subject, in its interpretation of the world, encounters something other than itself, which is more fundamental than the subject itself. Although the subject produces religion, it is invited to do so by something other than itself. Hermeneutic theologians emphasise the understanding of God. These positions are illustrated by the work of Ulrich Barth, Dietrich Korsch, Jörg Lauster, and Hartmut von Sass.
