Post-Secular Philosophy: Between Philosophy and Theology
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POST-SECULAR PHILOSOPHY Philosophical discussion of theology has usually been determined by secular assumptions, a disposition that has often resulted in a philosophical rejection of God. But the destruction of theology at the hands of secular reason no longer seems so certain. Recent work in philosophy has questioned the modern exclusion and denial of God, returning theology to the centre of current debate. Post-Secular Philosophy: Between Philosophy and Theology is a major anthology that describes the relationship between theology and the foremost thinkers of the modern philosophical tradition. By locating this relationship in terms of contemporary philosophical debate, Post-Secular Philosophy goes to the heart of the current discussion about the role of God in modern philosophy and thought. Beginning with Descartes, Kant and Hegel, continuing with Levinas and Derrida, ending with Irigaray and Baudrillard, Post-Secular Philosophy provides a clear focus, enabling the reader to follow how the modern philosophical tradition has constituted God. By discussing each thinker in separate chapters, a clear picture emerges of how figures as diverse as Heidegger, Freud or Wittgenstein approach and configure the question of God. In a compelling introduction Phillip Blond positions each contribution in respect of the modern philosophical tradition, and suggests where theology might seek to challenge its secular constitution. A controversial feature of this book is its call for a rethinking of religiosity in face of the nihilism that dominates much of contemporary Western thinking. Rescuing the importance of religion from both fundamentalist assertion and liberal erasure, Post-Secular Philosophy transcends the determinations of modern philosophy and post-modern thinking by articulating an entirely different possibility. Phillip Blond is at Peterhouse, University of Cambridge. POST-SECULAR PHILOSOPHY Between philosophy and theology Edited by Phillip Blond London and New York First published 1998 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Selection and editorial matter © 1998 Phillip Blond Individual chapters © 1998 Individual contributors All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data Post-secular Philosophy: Between philosophy and theology/edited by Phillip Blond. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Philosophy and religion—History. I. Blond, Phillip B56.P67 1997 211–dc21 97–8952 ISBN 0-203-42351-8 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-73175-1 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-09777-0 (hbk) 0-415-09778-9 (pbk) For Francis Xavier Wilson and Mary Frances Atkins God’s Grandeur The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. And, for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the last lights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs— Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings. Gerard Manley Hopkins CONTENTS Notes on contributors vii Acknowledgements ix Introduction: Theology before philosophy 1 PHILLIP BLOND 1 Descartes and onto-theology 34 JEAN-LUC MARION 2 Kant and the Kingdom 55 HOWARD CAYGILL 3 Logic and spirit in Hegel 60 ROWAN WILLIAMS 4 The sublime in Kierkegaard 68 JOHN MILBANK 5 Nietzsche and the metamorphosis of the divine 82 MICHEL HAAR 6 Heidegger and the problem of onto-theology 93 JOHN PEACOCKE 7 Emmanuel Levinas: God and phenomenology 103 PHILLIP BLOND 8 The theological project of Jean-Luc Marion 121 GRAHAM WARD 9 Metaphysics and magic: Wittgenstein’s kink 127 FERGUS KERR 10 Jacques Derrida: The God effect 137 KEVIN HART 11 Freud’s God 149 REGINA M.SCHWARTZ 12 Lacan and theology 162 CHARLES E.WINQUIST 13 Kristeva’s feminist refiguring of the gift 169 PHILIPPA BERRY 14 Luce Irigaray: Divine spirit and feminine space 177 ALISON AINLEY 15 Jean Baudrillard: Seducing God 184 ANDREW WERNICK Index 194 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS Editor Phillip Blond is at Peterhouse, Cambridge and is a research student completing his PhD in Theology in the Faculty of Divinity at the University of Cambridge. He previously held a prize fellowship in philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York. He has published articles on phenomenology, aesthetics and theology. This is his first published volume. He is currently working on a monograph on theology and perception. Contributors Alison Ainley is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Anglia Polytechnic University. She has published essays on Irigaray, Levinas, Kristeva, Nietzsche and Heidegger, and is currently working on a book on Irigaray and feminist philosophy. Philippa Berry is a Fellow and Director of Studies in English at King’s College, Cambridge. Her publications include articles on renaissance literature, feminist theory and contemporary thought. She is the co-editor of Shadow of Spirit (Routledge 1992), the author of Chastity and Power: Elizabethan Literature and the Unmarried Queen (Routledge 1989) and Shakespeare’s Feminine Endings: Figuring women in the tragedies (Routledge forthcoming). Howard Caygill is Professor of Cultural History at Goldsmiths College, University of London, and is the author of The Art of Judgement (Blackwell 1989), The Kant Dictionary (Blackwell 1995) and Walter Benjamin: The Colour of Experience (Routledge 1997). Michel Haar teaches Contemporary Philosophy and Aesthetics at the University of Paris XII. Among his published works are two volumes on Heidegger, Heidegger and the Essence of Man (SUNY 1993) and The Song of the Earth (Indiana University Press 1993), and also Nietzsche and Metaphysics (SUNY 1996). Kevin Hart is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Monash University, Melbourne. His critical works include The Trespass of the Sign: Deconstruction, Theology, Philosophy (CUP 1989), A.D.Hope (OUP 1992), The Oxford Book of Australian Religious Verse (OUP 1994) and Losing the Power to say ‘I’ (Art School Press 1996). His latest collection of poetry is New and Selected Poems (HarperCollins 1995). He has recently completed a study of Samuel Johnson and is now writing a monograph on Maurice Blanchot. Fergus Kerr is an Honorary Senior Lecturer in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Edinburgh. He is the editor of New Blackfriars, author of Theology after Wittgenstein (OUP 1986, 2nd edition SPCK 1997), and of Immortal Longings: Versions of Transcending Humanity (SPCK 1997). Jean-Luc Marion was a student at the Ecole Normale Supérieure. He was a Professor at the University of Poitiers and the University of Paris X, Nanterre and he is now Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris, Sorbonne and visiting Professor at the University of Chicago department of philosophy. His recent books and publications include Etant donné: essai d’une phénoménologie de la donation (P.U.F. 1997). God without Being (University of Chicago Press 1991), Reduction et donation (P.U.F. 1989) La Croisée du visible (La Différence P.U.F. 1996), Sur le prisme métaphysique de Descartes (P.U.F. 1986). John Milbank is a Reader in Philosophical Theology at Cambridge University and a Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge. He is the author of The Religious Dimension in the Thought of Giambattista Vico (Edwin Mellen 1991), Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason (Blackwell 1990), and The Word Made Strange; Theology Language Culture (Blackwell 1997). John Peacocke is a Lecturer in Philosophy and Literature at Bolton Institute of Higher Education. His interests and publications include Heidegger, Indo-Tibetan Studies and French psychoanalytic thought. He is currently editing a collection of papers entitled Lacan on Narcissism (Curzon Press forthcoming). viii Regina M.Schwartz is a Professor of English at Northwestern University, and Director of the Institute of Religion, Ethics and Violence. She is the author of The Curse of Cain: The Violent Legacy of Monotheism (University of Chicago Press 1997), Remembering and Repeating: On Milton’s Theology and Poetics (University of Chicago Press 1990) editor of The Book and the Text: The Bible and Literary Theory (Basil Blackwell 1990) and co-author of the Postmodern Bible (Yale University Press 1995). Graham Ward is Dean of Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he teaches theology, philosophy and literary analysis. He is author of Barth, Derrida and the Language of Theology (CUP 1995) and Theology and Contemporary Critical Theory (Macmillan 1996) as well as being editor of Michel de Certeau S.J. (New Blackfriars 1996) and The Postmodern God (Blackwell 1997). His essays have appeared in several academic journals and books. He is the senior editor of Literature and Theology (OUP). Andrew Wernick teaches Cultural Studies at Trent University, Ontario, and directs a graduate programme in Methodologies for the Study of Western History and Culture. He has published many essays on social theory and contemporary culture. He is the author of Promotional Culture: Advertising, ideology and symbolic expression (Sage 1991), the co-editor of Shadow of Spirit (Routledge 1992) and co-editor with Mike Featherstone of Images of Ageing: Cultural representations of later life (Routledge 1995).