Apocalyptic Phenomenology: A Radical Philosophical Theology of Revelation

Abstract

Balazs M. Mezei’s essay describes the outlines of the so-called non-standard radical philosophical theology, a newly developed philosophical approach to the problem of divine revelation. As Professor Mezei points out, the notion of revelation is merely presupposed but not properly conceived in theology, because theology considers revelation as its axiom and focuses on content-type analysis. In contrast, a radical philosophical theology raises the question ‘what is revelation?’ in its entirety and offers a description along the lines of philosophical and theological reflection. In this way, it outlines a philosophical theology which is termed ‘apocalyptic,’ not because of the popular and misleading meaning of ‘apocalypse’, but because its subject matter is revelation—in Greek, apocalypsis. It is a phenomenological approach to the problem, because its framework is the self-communicating fact of revelation. In this apocalyptic phenomenology, as the title of the essay suggests, a new form of philosophical reflection on Christianity becomes possible, a phenomenology pointing to the possibility of the elaboration of a full-fledged understanding of revelation-based philosophical theology, called here ‘apocalyptics’, which appears able to overview and analyze various branches of contemporary human knowledge with a special emphasis on the emerging understanding of personhood.