In Praise of Heteronomy
In Praise of Heteronomy

Author: Merold Westphal

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2017-05-22

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 025302661X

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Recognizing the essential heteronomy of postmodern philosophy of religion, Merold Westphal argues against the assumption that human reason is universal, neutral, and devoid of presupposition. Instead, Westphal contends that any philosophy is a matter of faith and the philosophical encounter with theology arises from the very act of thinking. Relying on the work of Spinoza, Kant, and Hegel, Westphal discovers that their theologies render them mutually incompatible and their claims to be the voice of autonomous and universal reason look dubious. Westphal grapples with this plural nature of human thought in the philosophy of religion and he forwards the idea that any appeal to the divine must rest on a historical and phenomenological analysis.

Godsends
Godsends

Author: William Desmond

Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess

Published: 2021-11-15

Total Pages: 415

ISBN-13: 0268201595

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Godsends is William Desmond’s newest addition to his masterwork on the borderlines between philosophy and theology. For many years, William Desmond has been patiently constructing a philosophical project—replete with its own terminology, idiom, grammar, dialectic, and its metaxological transformation—in an attempt to reopen certain boundaries: between metaphysics and phenomenology, between philosophy of religion and philosophical theology, between the apocalyptic and the speculative, and between religious passion and systematic reasoning. In Godsends, Desmond’s newest addition to his ambitious masterwork, he presents an original reflection on what he calls the “companioning” of philosophy and religion. Throughout the book, he follows an itinerary that has something of an Augustinian likeness: from the exterior to the interior, from the inferior to the superior. The stations along the way include a grappling with the default atheism prevalent in contemporary intellectual culture; an exploration of the middle space, the metaxu between the finite and the infinite; a dwelling with solitudes as thresholds between selving and the sacred; a meditation on idiot wisdom and transcendence in an East-West perspective; an exploration of the different stresses in the mysticisms of Aurobindo and the Arnhem Mystical Sermons; a dream monologue of autonomy, a suite of Kantian and post-Kantian variations on the story of the prodigal son; a meditation on the beatitudes as exceeding virtue, in light of Aquinas’s understanding; and culminating in an exploration of Godsends as telling us something significant about the surprise of revelation in word, idea, and story. Godsends is written for thoughtful persons and scholars perplexed about the place of religion in our time and hopeful for some illuminating companionship from relevant philosophers. It will also interest students of philosophy and religion, especially philosophical theology and philosophical metaphysics.

In Proximity
In Proximity

Author: Melvyn New

Publisher: Texas Tech University Press

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 460

ISBN-13: 9780896724518

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In a world in which everything is reduced "to the play of signs detached from what is signified," Levinas asks a deceptively simple question: Whence, then, comes the urge to question injustice? By seeing the demand for justice for the other—the homeless, the destitute—as a return to morality, Levinas escapes the suspect finality of any ideology.Levinas’s question is one starting point for In Proximity, a collection of seventeen essays by scholars in eighteenth-century literature, philosophy, history, and religion, and their readings of Spinoza, Kant, Goethe, Wordsworth, Behn, Defoe, Fielding, Sterne, Diderot, Laclos, and Mendelssohn. The title In Proximity alone speaks volumes about Levinas’s philosophy and its relevance today. "If it is true that we are, through technology, moving closer and closer to one another," writes editor Melvyn New, then "the importance of proximity and our response to it cannot be overstated." For the contributors to this volume, the question of whether we may, ethically, appropriate the object of study for our own causes has become vital. Levinas asks us to see ourselves, our own reading, "in proximity" to what is not ourselves, not our understanding of the world.The dialogue created among the essays themselves establishes an enormous diversity of texts and ideologies to which Levinas can contribute something of significant value. At a time when the secondary literature on Levinas and his work is expanding explosively, the cross-disciplinary voices gathered together in In Proximity come at precisely the right time.

Exceeding Reason
Exceeding Reason

Author: Dennis Vanden Auweele

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2020-10-12

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 3110618451

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The work of the later Schelling (in and after 1809) seems antithetical to that of Nietzsche: one a Romantic, idealist and Christian, the other Dionysian, anti-idealist and anti-Christian. Still, there is a very meaningful and educative dialogue to be found between Schelling and Nietzsche on the topics of reason, freedom and religion. Both of them start their philosophy with a similar critique of the Western tradition, which to them is overly dualist, rationalist and anti-organic (metaphysically, ethically, religiously, politically). In response, they hope to inculcate a more lively view of reality in which a new understanding of freedom takes center stage. This freedom can be revealed and strengthened through a proper approach to religion, one that neither disconnects from nor subordinates religion to reason. Religion is the dialogical other to reason, one that refreshes and animates our attempts to navigate the world autonomously. In doing so, Schelling and Nietzsche open up new avenues of thinking about (the relationship between) freedom, reason and religion.

T&T Clark Companion to the Theology of Kierkegaard
T&T Clark Companion to the Theology of Kierkegaard

Author:

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2019-09-19

Total Pages: 549

ISBN-13: 0567667081

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This companion explores Søren Kierkegaard's theological importance, offering a comprehensive reading of his work through a distinctly theological lens, including interpretative concerns, his approach to specific doctrines, and theological trajectories for thinking beyond his work. Beginning with essays on key interpretative factors involved in approaching Kierkegaard's complex corpus, there are also historical accounts of his theological development, followed by – for the first time in a single volume – focused expositions of Kierkegaard's approach to particular doctrinal themes, from those oft-discussed in his work (e.g. Christology) to those more understated (e.g. Pneumatology). The book concludes with theological trajectories for Kierkegaard's thought in the twenty-first century. This volume helps not only to situate Kierkegaard's theology more firmly on the map, but to situate Kierkegaard more firmly on the theological map, as one who has much to offer both the form and content of the theological task.

Voicing Creation's Praise
Voicing Creation's Praise

Author: Jeremy Begbie

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 1991-01-01

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 9780567291882

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An introduction to the theology of art and the art of theology.

Kierkegaard's The Sickness Unto Death
Kierkegaard's The Sickness Unto Death

Author: Jeffrey Hanson

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2022-07-21

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 1108835376

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Presents new approaches to one of Kierkegaard's most important texts, shedding light on themes such as selfhood, despair, and sin.

Dante's Vita Nuova and the New Testament
Dante's Vita Nuova and the New Testament

Author: William Franke

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2021-09-09

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 1316516172

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A vivid reimagining of the Vita nuova as a revolution in poetry and a revelation of divine destiny through love.

Ricoeur's Hermeneutics of Religion
Ricoeur's Hermeneutics of Religion

Author: Brian Gregor

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2018-11-29

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1498584748

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Religion was a constant theme throughout Paul Ricoeur’s long career, and yet he never wrote a full-length treatment of the topic. In this important new book, Brian Gregor draws on the full scope of Ricoeur’s writings to lay out the essential features of his philosophical interpretation of religion, from his earliest to his last work. Ricoeur’s central claim is that religion aims at the regeneration of human capability—in his words, “the rebirth of the capable self.” This book provides a rich thematic account of Ricoeur’s hermeneutics of religion, showing how the theme of capability informs his changing interpretations of religion, from his early work on French reflexive philosophy and the philosophy of the will to his late work on forgiveness, mourning, and living up to death. Gregor exhibits Ricoeur’s original contribution to philosophical reflection on such themes as evil, suffering, and violence, as well as imagination, embodiment, and spiritual exercise. He also presents a critical reconsideration of Ricoeur’s separation of philosophy from theology, and his philosophical interpretation of Christian theological ideas of revelation, divine transcendence and personhood, atonement, and eschatology. Additionally, Gregor provides an expansive look at Ricoeur’s interlocutors, including Marcel, Jaspers, Kant, Hegel, Levinas, and Girard. Theologically-inclined readers will be particularly interested in the book’s treatment of Karl Barth and the Protestant theology of the Word, which was a vital influence on Ricoeur. The result is a study of Ricoeur that is both sympathetic and critical, provocative and original, inviting the reader into a deeper engagement with Ricoeur’s philosophical interpretation of religion.

William Desmond’s Philosophy between Metaphysics, Religion, Ethics, and Aesthetics
William Desmond’s Philosophy between Metaphysics, Religion, Ethics, and Aesthetics

Author: Dennis Vanden Auweele

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-10-08

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 3319989928

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This volume collects seventeen new essays by well-established and junior scholars on the philosophical relevance of metaxological philosophy and its main proponent, William Desmond. The volume mines metaxological thought for its salience in contemporary discussions in Continental philosophy, specifically in the fields of metaphysics, philosophy of religion, ethics, and aesthetics. Among others, topics under discussion include the goodness of being, the existence and nature of God, and the aesthetic dimensions of human becoming. Interest in metaxological philosophy has been on the rise in recent years, and this volume provides both a practical introduction and thorough engagements with it by experts in the field. The volume concludes with a series of responses by William Desmond on the issues raised by the contributors.