Letting the Finite Vanish: Hegel, Tillich, and Caputo on the Ontological Philosophy of Religion* (original) (raw)
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JETS 66.4, 2023
Is classical theism a necessary condition for an orthodox doctrine of God? In this article, I present the negative answer. I argue (1) that Thomism is determinative of certain untenable or undesirable implications for the doctrine of God and (2) that an alternate metaphysic, in this case, Christian idealism, is able to avoid these implications. The possibility of this metaphysic and its cogency as addressed to certain cruxes in Thomistic doctrine suggests that a coherently biblical doctrine of God may be developed on a different foundation. I conclude from this that we should not equate any metaphysic with Christian orthodoxy and that Thomism should not be treated as an unassailable framework within which to perform Christian theology. Instead, we should foster a "global public square" approach to evangelical metaphysics.
The Incarnate Word Journal, 2011
The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology is a collection of twenty-six essays or articles edited by Thomas Flint, professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, and Michael Rea, also a professor of philosophy at the same university. In the Introduction to this work, the editors give a definition of what they consider philosophical theology to be: “philosophical theology (as we understand it) is aimed primarily at theoretical understanding of the nature and attributes of God, and God’s relationship to the world and things in the world” (p. 1). With the publication of Alasdair Maclntyre and Anthony Flew’s New Essays in Philosophical Theology in 1955, there was a great revival of interest in the philosophy of religion in general and, in its wake, in philosophical theology in particular, especially in the latter half of the twentieth century. The topics presented in the book were like the agenda for subsequent work in philosophy of religion for the next two or three decades, such as the meaningfulness of religious discourse and questions about the rationality of religious belief. This present work, however, covers a new focus of attention apart from those concerning the nature, rationality, and meaningfulness of theistic belief. In the last twenty years, as the editors remark, “a great deal of attention has been devoted recently to philosophical problems arising out of the Christian doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Atonement; there has been an explosion of work on questions about the nature of divine providence and its implications for human freedom; and a fair bit of recent work has also been done on questions about the metaphysical possibility of the resurrection of the dead” (p. 4). At the same time, the authors note that there is a very small literature on the topic of divine revelation and the inspiration of Scripture, only a handful of works on the topics of prayer, original sin, and the nature of heaven and hell, and virtually nothing on the Christian doctrine of the Eucharist from a philosophical standpoint. The book is divided into five parts covering five general topics: I. Theological Prolegomena II. Divine Attributes III. God and Creation IV. Topics in Christian Philosophical Theology V. Non-Christian Philosophical Theology
Essay Philosophy of Religion Hilgers%2c Jan F.
In this essay I am going to highlight the relation between the positions of Alfred J. Ayer and Dewe Z. Phillips on the notion of Good-talk by relating both to the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein.
On the Possibility of a Metaphysical Theology after Onto-Theology
A: M philosophers of religion follow Heidegger in his tendency to identify metaphysical discourse on God with onto-theological discourse on God. is tendency is regrettable. Onto-theological discourse is problematic because it is based on a problematic metaphysics, not because of its metaphysical character per se. In this essay I will, by recourse to the theoretical framework developed by German philosopher Lorenz Puntel, attempt to show that there is indeed a coherent way to understand God metaphysically that does not succumb to the metaphysics of onto-theology. In my view both onto-theological, as well as non-metaphysical, notions of God remain philosophically underdetermined.
Between faith and belief: toward a contemporary phenomenology of religious life, by Joeri Schrijvers, Albany, SUNY Press, 2016, 380 pp., $90 (hardcover), Between Faith and Belief builds significantly on Schrijvers's earlier work Ontotheological Turnings? 1 In his earlier work, Schrijvers argues that traces of ontotheology remain among French phenomenologists like Lacoste, Marion, and Levinas who expressly sought to overcome metaphysics. While this is a pointed critique, Schrijvers interprets this 'ontotheological turn' constructively. Previous attempts to overcome metaphysics have prematurely presupposed that metaphysics can actually be overcome. They have thereby overlooked, à la Reiner Schürmann, that ontotheology is an existential-ontological problem since there is 'a natural metaphysician in each of us'. It is on this point that Between Faith and Belief begins and builds. Not for the purpose of affirming and reasserting traditional metaphysics, but rather to develop an alternative ontology that gives an account of this proclivity for metaphysics while attentive to those contemporary critiques of ontotheology that led to its collapse. Schrijvers discovers an alternative ontology in the work of the Swiss psychiatrist and existential phenomenologist, Ludwig Binswanger, whose description of Dasein plays a decisive role in what Schrijvers calls an 'ontology incarnate'. Whereas contemporary attempts to overcome metaphysics inadvertently conceive faith at the expense of finitude as an other-worldly, mystical insight or inclination known only for the percipient, Schrijvers and Binswanger conceive love phenomenologically as 'being-beyond-the-world-in-theworld' (über die Welt hinaus sein) so that everyday, finite experience (from a simple salutation to friendship to the lover's embrace) opens up within finitude the possibility for an experience of the infinite for all people in many diverse ways and degrees.
Perspectives and Positions in Contemporary Analytic Philosophy of Religion
Toronto Journal of Theology, 2014
This essay discusses two issues. The first concerns whether the “insider’s” or “outsider’s” perspective is more truth-conducive in the study of religion. I do not attempt to settle this very thorny question: I merely attempt to identify some aspects of what it might mean to be an insider with respect to one kind of investigation – the investigation into whether God exists. The second issue concerns how best to characterize certain philosophical positions on the axiology of ultimate reality. Here I argue that it can be useful to group together certain axiological positions under one heading, while leaving their details open to interpretation. For example, two philosophers might agree that God’s existence would – or does – make the world far better than it would otherwise be, even though they have incompatible notions of what constitutes ‘far’ and ‘better’. In my view, it makes sense to call both thinkers pro-theists, despite their differences. In discussing these issues, I engage the work of Myron A. Penner and Paul Moser, both of whom published replies to a paper of mine, external link in the most recent issue of the Toronto Journal of Theology.
Existential and Phenomenological Conceptions of the Relationship Between Philosophy and Theology
Open Theology, 2019
Ever since Dominique Janicaud observed with dismay that French phenomenology had taken a theological turn,1 the issue of how the distinct disciplines of philosophy and theology relate to one another has been the topic of a heated contemporary debate. The discussion has descended into a somewhat ugly polemic, not helped by the tone of Janicaud's opening salvo-which Jean-Luc Marion has described, not unfairly, as "more virulent than argued."2 The intellectual "decadence" Merleau-Ponty complained about in his "In Praise of Philosophy" then still seems to be very much in place today when it comes to whether the consideration of the divine or the religious dimension is philosophy's highest fulfilment by going to the root of what it means to philosophise (a position suspiciously often articulated by confessional thinkers), or rather its unwarranted theologisation by way of a neglect of the methodological atheism that is seen as essential to what it means to truly think (a position suspiciously often articulated by atheist thinkers): "For to philosophize is to seek, and this is to imply that there are things to see and to say. Well, today we no longer seek," Merleau-Ponty concludes. Instead, "we 'return' to one or the other of our traditions and 'defend' it. Our convictions are founded less on perceived values and truths than on the vices and errors of those we do not like. We love very few things, though we dislike many. Our thinking is a thought in retreat or in reply."3 To those of faith, the temptation is sometimes to reduce "philosophy, when it is not theological, (…) to the negation of God,"4 precisely because finally the opportunity to establish the divine within the bounds of the Concept seems to present itself again; whilst those who lack faith get caught in a cruel irony when they elevate their own perspective on things to the transcendental one, precisely because "one bypasses philosophy when one defines it as atheism. This is philosophy as it is seen by the theologian."5 Nevertheless, and disregarding the spirit in which it was made, we do agree with Janicaud's essential point that philosophy (phenomenology) and theology make two. The question, however, is what exactly this means.