Contemporary philosophy of religion almost allergically reacts to metaphysics. They do so because of the various critiques of the potential reach of reason, which each in their own way argue that God cannot be appropriately approached via autonomous reason. In this article, I argue, on the one hand, that these critiques are furtively inspired by a certain outlook on transcendence, which I call the ‘Protestant view’ and, on the other hand, that numerous contemporary philosophers of religion are slowly starting to (...) appreciate a more ‘Catholic view’ on transcendence, which allows for a more metaphysically ambitious philosophy of religion. (shrink)

The theological turn in continental philosophy has beckoned several new possibilities for theoretical discourse. More recently, the question of the absence of a political theology has been raised: Can an ethics of alterity offer a more substantive politics? In pursuing this question, the article considers the late work of Jacques Derrida and John D. Caputo. It argues that, contrary to caricatures of Caputo’s “theology of event,” his notion of theopoetics evinces a “materialist turn” in his mature thought that can be (...) considered the beginning of a “radical political theology.” This position is not without its challenges, however, raising concerns over deconstruction’s ability to navigate the immanent but necessary dangers of politics. In order to attempt to speak of a form of “radical political theology”—i.e. a movement from theopoetics to theopraxis—the article turns to some of the political writing of Simon Critchley. It is argued that a much desired “political viscerality” for a radical political theology is supplied by Critchley’s anarchic re­alism. The latter is neither conceived as utopian nor defeatist, but as a sustained program of inventive and creative political interventions, which act as responses to the singularity of the situation. (shrink)

Philosophy, by and large, tends to dwell on what might be called the woeful nature of reality—finitude, suffering, loss, death, and the like. While these topics are no doubt worthy of philosophical concern, undue focus on them tends to obscure other facets of our experience and of reality, giving philosophy a temperament that could justifiably be called melancholic. Without besmirching the value of such inquiry, this paper suggests that philosophers have largely ignored the experience of joy and, consequently, missed its (...) distinctive contributions to our understanding of the meaningfulness of life and the goodness of being. Traditional accounts of the problem of evil are rooted in what John D. Caputo calls “strong theology,” which tends to construe evil as a problem to which God should supply the answer or solution. However, if we call into question traditional accounts of omnipotence, evil ceases to be a problem, and we become free to engage it as part of what Gabriel Marcel calls “the mystery of being.” Thus liberated, we are free to assess more clearly phenomena missed by melancholic accounts of being, among them the experience of joy, attested to in diverse forms of philosophy, literature, memoir, and elsewhere. (shrink)

This paper explores the ways that Daniel C. Dennett’s bestselling 2006 book Breaking the Spell traffics in a set of distinctly American presumptions about the relationship between religion and science. In this Americanized atheism, religion is presumed to be a set of logically organized propositional beliefs–a misbegotten science in need of correction or elimination. I show that a convergent critique, drawing on both evolutionary theory and deconstruction, highlights the limitations of this approach. This convergence highlights the theme of accident in (...) both pluralist evolutionary biology and continental philosophy of religion. Thematizing accident opens up a new conversational space between a deconstructive approach to religion and postadaptationist evolutionary theory, with implications not only for a philosophical understanding of religion, but for new, postsecular atheisms. (shrink)

What meaning does the theological notion of discernment have in a postsecular cultural condition? Three levels of the meaning of postsecular are distinguished: first, the ‘postsecular’, as a notion that characterises a cultural condition, mainly in Western society, full of diverse religious expressions; second, ‘postsecularity’, as a reflective model for interpreting religious expressions and behaviour; and third, ‘postsecularism’, as a cultural-philosophical or theological programme. After elucidating the concept of the postsecular, we consider some key elements in discernment, investigating the subject, (...) the nature and the object of discernment. We then turn to Richard Kearney’s Anatheism as a fine example of how the notion of discernment receives a new usage in postsecular reflection. We ponder upon his idea of discernment as ‘prereflective carnal response to the advent of the Other’ and reflect upon its meaning for postsecular thinking. The concluding section offers a consideration of the meaning of Kearney’s interpretation of discernment for judgement in postsecular culture. (shrink)

In one of his essays on art, Dutch author and essayist Joost Zwagerman reflects on the work of South African artist Marlene Dumas. Zwagerman addresses in particular Dumas' My Mother Before She Became My Mother, painted 3 years after her mother died. In his reflections, Zwagerman proposes an interpretation of Dumas' work. He suggests that Dumas, in her art, does not accept the omnipotence of death. Maybe against better judgement, but Dumas keeps creating images that not only illustrate the desire (...) for meaning but also embody this desire. The image and the desire for meaning merge in Dumas' paintings. The painting itself becomes an autonomous 'desire machine', according to Zwagerman. In this article, a theological reading of Zwagerman's own posthumously published volume of poetry, 'Wakend over God', is presented, with a specific interest in art, death and God. The sacramental hermeneutics of Richard Kearney and the theopoetics of John Caputo are brought into the conversation to elicit the dimensions of faith and religion in Zwagerman's own 'desire machine'. (shrink)

The concept of the postsecular is a challenge to systematic theological thought, as it points to some context where the opposition between the religious and the secular, or between theism and atheism, is weakened or even surpassed. In this perspective, the postsecular is not about the visibility of religion in the public sphere, but about the way in which we interpret ourselves in the world in order to find orientation and fulfillment. In a postsecular context, religious perspectives and secularist outlooks (...) are no longer opposed of necessity, but draw on a common religious and secular heritage. In this article, Richard Kearney’s Anatheism and Jean-Luc Nancy’s The Deconstruction of Christianity are presented as exemplifications of postsecular thought that may open up new perspectives to systematic theology. In different ways, Kearney and Nancy reflect on a transcendent dimension in our experience or in the world, which is beyond the secular. Yet they distinguish themselves due to a religious transcendence-oriented approach and a secularist world-oriented approach, which shows that the opposition between the religious and the secular may be weakened, but the demarcations between the two still have their impact. (shrink)

Continental philosophy has long been concerned with the question of transcendence, a fact attributable in part to the historical significance of phenomenology and the legacy of debates surrounding transcendental idealism, the epoche, the status of the world and of other people, and, at least for some philosophers, the question of God. The question takes different forms in Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, Levinas, Derrida, Marion, and others working in this tradition, but it remains an abiding concern for each of them. Over (...) time the persistence of this issue has formed a body of work that constitutes a kind of center of gravity—one among several—that characterizes continental thinking. Keywords: Immanence, transcendence, wilderness, abstraction, Henry David Thoreau, Henry Bugbee, Annie Dillard. (shrink)

This article stages the confrontation of two approaches to thinking the absolute. On the one hand, it discusses Quentin Meillassoux’s speculative materialism. In suggesting that there is no ultimate ground of being and that only contingency is necessary, Meillassoux takes the notion of the irreducible character of the absolute to its extreme and aporetic consequences. By contrast, I will outline an alternative account of the absolute. Like Meillassoux, I will suggest that the question of the absolute is intrinsically linked to (...) the question of factuality. Yet, in this case, factuality leads to the notion of the beyond of God as the ground of being, inscribing into being the dynamic of a continuous inner transcendence. Keywords: factuality, transcendence, philosophy of existence, the absolute, Quentin Meillassoux, speculative materialism. (shrink)

According to Thomas Aquinas, what distinguishes the theological from the cardinal virtues is the nature of their object: the latter aim at the natural excellence of humans, while the former direct us beyond ourselves to focus on the Divine. This paper considers the cinematic work of Drew Goddard — in particular, his 2018 film _Bad Times at the El Royale_ — as a post-religious response to Aquinas, insofar as it retains and re-presents Faith, Hope, and Love as valuable elements of (...) the human experience itself, even in the absence of a supernatural vector of their application. After the fashion of Caputo’s Derrida, I offer a religionless interpretation of each of the three theological virtues and show how _Bad Times_ itself deconstructs the roles of ‘god’ and ‘human,’ interchanging them in a way that manifests a “religionless religion” wherein the theological virtues can remain vibrant, even without the theological structure that might be expected to undergird them. In short: _Bad Times at the El Royale_ demonstrates how even if God is dead, Faith, Hope, and Love are not. (shrink)