The plays in this new volume were written early in Marcel’s career, and were published together under the title Le Seuil invisible (The Invisible Threshold) in 1913. The first play, Grace, explores the theme of religious conversion. The drama depicts a crisis between characters of genuine depth and sincerity, who are struggling with different interpretations of shared experiences. Similar themes are addressed but developed differently in the second play, The Sandcastle. This drama explores the confrontation between one’s beliefs and their (...) consequences when faced with challenging family and social circumstances. The play asks us to think about what happens when our beliefs and theories, especially about religion, morality and politics, come up against situations in life that can test them. Both plays illustrate one of the major themes of both Marcel’s dramatic and philosophical work: that life’s most profound, fulfilling experiences are compromised more than ever in what he describes as the modern, broken world (le monde cassé), one unfortunately characterized by alienation, loss of meaning and feelings of despair. (shrink)

The afterlife has been imagined in a diversity of ways, one of which is as a vehicle for vengeance. Upon outlining, via the figures of Tertullian and Sayyid Qutb, a vengeful formulation of afterlife belief, this essay examines Friedrich Nietzsche’s critique of such a belief. The belief is framed as an expression of impotence insofar as believers imagine in the beyond what they cannot achieve in the present, namely, taking vengeance upon their enemies. Nietzsche’s critique leads to the essay’s central (...) question. Is a vengeance-based formulation of afterlife belief an expression of impotence? To respond, this essay will analyze the practices and rhetoric of the Islamic fundamentalist group Boko Haram, while also briefly mentioning Al Qaeda and ISIS. As a result of the analysis, a simplistic and unqualified form of the impotence critique is to be rejected. Nonetheless, the critique remains relevant. Boko Haram’s lack of emphasis on afterlife belief in general and its omission of a vengeance-based formulation in particular highlights the possibility that a radical religious group’s approach to the afterlife is related to the group’s relative strength or weakness. Such a possibility carries practical ramifications when assessing the scope of that group’s aims and its willingness to act. (shrink)

The Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno and the American social scientist Ernest Becker see death as humanity’s fundamental anxiety. My essay explores the ethical ramifications attendant upon making that anxiety a well-spring of human activity. More specifically, I am interested in humanity’s effort to escape death via the secular milieu of social remembrance. Does such an effort produce a vista where the other exhibits an intrinsic value? Alternatively, does the other become a mere means in light of one’s project of (...) self-preservation? Pursuing such questions, this reflection will explore both positive and negative responses. It will take up the Columbine school shootings in reference to the latter and a notion of protest with regard to the former. The treatise will culminate with a discussion of Unamuno’s ethics of irreplaceability and its potential to engender a universal human respect while also endorsing one’s commitment to her concrete individuality. (shrink)

The Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno and the American social scientist Ernest Becker see death as humanity’s fundamental anxiety. My essay explores the ethical ramifications attendant upon making that anxiety a well-spring of human activity. More specifically, I am interested in humanity’s effort to escape death via the secular milieu of social remembrance. Does such an effort produce a vista where the other exhibits an intrinsic value? Alternatively, does the other become a mere means in light of one’s project of (...) self-preservation? Pursuing such questions, this reflection will explore both positive and negative responses. It will take up the Columbine school shootings in reference to the latter and a notion of protest with regard to the former. The treatise will culminate with a discussion of Unamuno’s ethics of irreplaceability and its potential to engender a universal human respect while also endorsing one’s commitment to her concrete individuality. (shrink)

How would a liberation theologian respond to Marx’s famous critique that religious belief and, even more specifically, a hope for heaven is “the opium of the people”? I utilize the conceptual resources found within the work of liberation theologians Gustavo Gutiérrez, Enrique Dussel, and Jon Sobrino to argue that a belief in heaven is able to constitute a protest against oppressed persons’ present hell. To strengthen the connection between a believer’s heavenly hope and a commitment to worldly struggle, I examine (...) how the hope must be conceived as the completion and fulfillment of a process of temporal transformation. (shrink)

How would a liberation theologian respond to Marx’s famous critique that religious belief and, even more specifically, a hope for heaven is “the opium of the people”? I utilize the conceptual resources found within the work of liberation theologians Gustavo Gutiérrez, Enrique Dussel, and Jon Sobrino to argue that a belief in heaven is able to constitute a protest against oppressed persons’ present hell. To strengthen the connection between a believer’s heavenly hope and a commitment to worldly struggle, I examine (...) how the hope must be conceived as the completion and fulfillment of a process of temporal transformation. (shrink)

ELSI efforts long have been troubled by critiques that they privilege scientific frameworks and grant scientists the power to set ethical agendas. As the first director of the Human Genome Project’...