Abstract
Abstract The theological turn provokes much debate on the nature of phenomenology but almost none on the definition of theology. I argue, however, that the theological turn not only enlarges the field of phenomenological exploration but also provides theology with a conceptual apparatus that can contribute to formulating rigorous theological positions. In the first step, I question the debate dominated by philosophers of religion which created a normative – restrictive – category of the theological turn. Instead, I argue that the full potential of the theological turn in phenomenology will only be revealed when we accept it as a descriptive category – a tendency that has always in fact been present in phenomenology. In the second step, I move towards theology to argue that the phenomenological engagements with the original theological thoughts are less de-theologized than they are transformed and in their new version offered back to theology, for which they can have crucial relevance. Hence, what is truly interesting after the theological turn is not so much the boundary between theology and phenomenology but their mutual and undeniable encounters.
Highlights
Three decades have passed since the publication of Dominique Janicaud’s short but influential treatise Le tournant théologique de la phénoménologie française (1991)
For Greisch, the disciplinary boundaries remain in place and are important, but phenomenology is under pressure to take seriously a broader phenomenal field: “This does not mean that the law of immanent description of phenomena will be undermined by transcendent premises borrowed from a particular theology or dogma, as Janicaud would certainly suspect.”[23]. Greisch suggests that saying the theological turn contradicts phenomenological orthodoxy, and using Husserl to back this argument up, is unjustifiable
Differing claims exist regarding the theological turn in phenomenology: (1) no turn happened because from theology phenomenology merely draws heuristic inspiration and a conceptual apparatus; (2) no turn happened because phenomenology has always been naturally inclined towards the field of theology; phenomenology as the exploration of the human experience – lived experience – always begins from the given of being-in-the-world but is capable of ascending to an exploration of the human experience, which Lacoste would call coram Deo. (3) there is still Janicaud, who claims that phenomenology has been contaminated by the theological and that this maximal, unorthodox phenomenology aspires to serve theology as its new ancilla and first philosophy
Summary
Three decades have passed since the publication of Dominique Janicaud’s short but influential treatise Le tournant théologique de la phénoménologie française (1991). One of the most keenly debated questions in relation to the theological turn remains the boundary between phenomenology (or philosophy in general) and theology. This is a debate, it should be stressed, which is largely perpetuated by philosophers – many of whom have a personal affiliation to religion, usually to Christianity in its various traditions, and who often describe themselves as philosophers of religion – and from which theologians are all but absent. The attempt to protect phenomenology and the philosophy of religion from theology – a legitimate endeavour, it should be said, on the part of philosophers – seems to prevent us from seeing what is really at stake among the family of authors usually associated with the theological turn. The questions we should be asking include: On the part of phenomenology, can we do philosophy better if theology is taken into account? On the part of theology, is it plausible and legitimate to do theology in the phenomenological register? Is it possible, that is, to develop a phenomenological theology?
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