It was William Blake's insight that the Christian churches, by inverting the Incarnation and the dialectical vision of Paul, have repressed the body, divided God from creation, substituted judgment for grace, and repudiated imagination, compassion, and the original apocalyptic faith of early Christianity. Blake's prophetic poetry thus contributes to the renewal of Christian ethics by a process of subversion and negation of Christian moral, ecclesiastical, and theological traditions, which are recognized precisely as inversions of Jesus, and therefore as instances of (...) the forms of evil that God-in-Christ overcomes through Incarnation, reversing the Fall. Blake's great epic poems, particularly Milton (1804–08) and Jerusalem (1804–20), embody his heterodox representation of the final coincidence of Christ and Satan through which, at last, all things are made new. (shrink)

Encounters with Alphonso Lingis is the first extensive study of this American philosopher who is gaining an international reputation to augment his national one. The distinguished contributors to this volume address most of the central themes found in Lingis's writings—including singularity and otherness, death and eroticism, emotions and rationality, embodiment and the face, excess and the sacred. The book closes with a new essay by Lingis himself.

From the point of view of Catholic political theology, this is a massive study of Habermas which attempts to penetrate to the very foundation of Hegelian Marxism and to resolve it by a fundamental theology with a practical intent. Like all “enlighteners,” Habermas’ dilemma is that he is not able to remove people’s need for consolation, for this is what only traditional religious-metaphysical and mystical systems can do. While maintaining that Habermas is a Kantian Marxist or a Marxist Kantian, Siebert (...) nevertheless finds the core of Habermas’ thinking in a translation of Hegelian “spirit” into “communicative structure” or “world.” Yet, unlike Hegel, Habermas seeks redemption and freedom without the cross. This would seem to be questionable in view of Siebert’s thesis that Habermas works in a tradition of mystical atheism, a tradition extending from Meister Eckhart to Hegel to the Frankfurt School. This is the most original and valuable part of a book which otherwise is not remarkable except for the thoroughness of its exposition and its conjunction of Habermas’ communications theory with fundamental theology. (shrink)

The Genesis of God: A Theological Genealogy. By Thomas J.J. Altizer. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993. pp.200.

Thomas J.J. Altizer is one of the most important theologians of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, and all radical theology must pass through and be conversant with his work and the historical significance of his earlier contributions. This chapter presents Altizer’s essential ideas in a straightforward and accessible manner and provides a guide for the beginning reader.

Volume 25, Issue 7-8, November - December 2020, Page 863-866.

In these discussions between Mircea Eliade and Thomas Altizer we can recognise two important things: there are some points of contact between these two thinkers and some differences. The problem lies in determining whether or not these points of contact are simply two different ways of understanding the same concepts. On the one hand,“Death of God” theology was in vogue in the United States in the 1960s, but today has few adherents. However, a new evaluation of this theological (...) movement is necessary because we need to understand its possible impact on the renewal of Christianity. On the other hand, Eliade was considered an important scholar in the field of history of religions. In our time, many critics contest his influence in this field and criticize him for the fact that he relativizes Christianity. This new interpretation of both scholars was an opportunity to link the research in the theology with that in the history of religions, an important motive for our time. In ecumenical discussions, the link between research in both these fields is so important. The concept of coincidentia oppositorum, the understanding of the sacrality of our time, in different religions, and the new language for discussing with people of different faiths are the main preoccupations of the ecumenical movement. (shrink)

Thomas Reid saw the three subjects of logic, rhetoric, and the fine arts as closely cohering aspects of one endeavor that he called the culture of the mind. This was a topic on which Reid lectured for many years in Glasgow, and this volume presents as near a reconstruction of these lectures as is now possible. Though virtually unknown today, this material in fact relates closely to Reid's published works and in particular to the late Essays on the Intellectual (...) Powers of Man and Essays on the Active Powers of Man. When composing these works, Reid drew primarily on his lectures on "pneumatology," which presented a theory of the mental powers, broadly conceived. These lectures were basic to the course on the culture of the mind that explained the cultivation of the mental powers. Although the Essays also included some elements from the material on the culture of the mind, the bulk of the latter was left in manuscript form, and Alexander Broadie's edition restores this important extension of Reid's overall work. In addition, this volume continues the attractive combination of manuscript material and published work, in this case Reid's important and well-known essay on Aristotle's logic. This text was corrupted in earlier editions of Reid's works and is now restored to the state in which Reid left it. This volume underscores Reid's great and growing significance, viewed both as a historical figure and as a philosopher. At the same time, it is of great interdisciplinary importance. While the material emerges directly from the core of Reid's philosophy, as now understood, it will appeal widely to people in literary, cultural, historical, and communications studies. In this regard, the present volume is a true fruit of the Scottish Enlightenment. (shrink)