Word.ws English Dictionary

scandal of particularity

scandal of particularity noun: the paradox inherent in the idea of a particular individual human (Jesus of Nazareth) incarnating the eternal divine God.

Noun

scandal of particularity

  1. The paradox inherent in the idea of a particular individual human (Jesus of Nazareth) incarnating the eternal divine God.
    • 1994: A materialism […] was supposed to be what science favoured: and the ‘scandal of particularity’, God becoming incarnate in Christ in human history, was indeed regarded as a scandal — that is, absurd — by contemporary intellectuals. — Richard Swinburne, Reason and the Christian Religion (Oxford...
    • 2006: Reformed theologians look to the scandal of particularity as a way of naming how the unknowable God is known to us. — Cynthia L Rigby, ‘Scandalous Presence’, Feminist and Womanist Essays in Reformed Dogmatics (John Knox 2006, p. 59)

Origin of scandal of particularity

Calque of German Ärgernis der Einmaligkeit

Questions about scandal of particularity

What does scandal of particularity mean?
Scandal of particularity means the paradox inherent in the idea of a particular individual human (Jesus of Nazareth) incarnating the eternal divine God.
What part of speech is scandal of particularity?
Scandal of particularity is a noun.

Words near scandal of particularity in the dictionary

  1. Scand
  2. Scand.
  3. Scandahoovian
  4. Scandahoovians
  5. scandal
  6. scandal of particularity
  7. scandal sheet
  8. scandal sheets
  9. scandal-monger
  10. scandal-mongers
  11. scandal-plagued

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: scandal of particularity (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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