THE ESCHATOLOGICAL THEOGONY OF THE GOD WHO MAY BE: EXPLORING THE CONCEPT OF DIVINE PRESENCE IN KEARNEY, HEGEL, AND HEIDEGGER

Abstract

Abstract: While heightening the nihilistic tension underlying the discourse of Richard Kearney, I highlight the positive contribution his book The God Who May Be makes to the debate concerning the need for a postmodern revitalization of religious symbolism. I argue for three qualifications of Kearney's argument, suggesting, in response to Kearney's exclusionary approach to the God who “neither is nor is not but may be,” a God whose possibility for meaningfulness arises as an “eschatological theogony” from out of the chaos (confusion and openness) of contemporary religious symbolism. Arguing that such a radical reenvisioning of God must be tempered and given meaning through reentering and reaffirming onto-theology in a qualified (hermeneutical) sense, I sketch a possible renewal of meaning for the traditional Christian parousia-concept as a hermeneutical circle between Hegel's systematic closure of Western metaphysics and Heidegger's deconstructive appropriation of the hidden possibilities of presence within the onto-theological tradition.