Theological Turn Research Articles

Seeing Otherwise: ‘The Least of These’ and Revelation in Jean‐Luc Marion

AbstractIn his familiar essay in Phenomenology and the ‘Theological Turn’, Jean‐François Courtine writes that the ‘cardinal experience’ of revelatory phenomena would undoubtedly be the incarnation. But in its singularity, this experience, he admits, seems to elude phenomenological thought. Against such a judgement, many Christian traditions affirm Christ's ongoing presence in diverse privileged sites, in the eucharist, saints, the Church itself, and, via Christ's own identification with ‘the least of these’ in Matthew's parable, in those who suffer. This essay considers this last possibility of divine manifestation, taking up ‘the least of these’ to reconsider the relationship between finitude and the infinite in Jean‐Luc Marion's phenomenogical account of revelation and saturation. While the heart of Marion's account, both in his words and according to his critics, has primarily concerned revelation's contradiction of finite experience, this essay argues that the development of Marion's own hermeneutics and his attentiveness to paradox and kenosis also reveal the confirmation of finitude at the heart of revelation. Revelation, that is, though it comes from elsewhere, is not other than finitude, but finitude otherwise, finitude's transfiguration.

Extraction, Exploitation, and Religious Surplus in the Capitalocene

Efforts to address the logic of extraction, which arguably is at the core of our current environmental catastrophe, are examples for a non-reductive material turn in the study of religion and theology. These efforts are linked with the logics of property, possession, human/nature, and human/land relations. This emphasis on materiality and relationship creates welcome openings for another set of relationships that is still under-reflected in the material turn in religion and theology, namely the various connections between extraction and exploitation, specifically of labor, both productive and reproductive, human and other-than-human. In this article, the logic of extraction will be interpreted and reevaluated in its relation to exploitative relationships of labor, which in turn will be deepened in conversation with extraction. Relationships of extraction, production, and reproduction will further be investigated in terms of the notion of a religious surplus, which examines the multiple contributions of religion and theology as generated in broader surplus-producing relationships.

Carl Schmitt’s Political Theology: Legitimizing Authority after Secularization

In the last years, a theological turn had a pervasive influence in the reception of Carl Schmitt’s writings. According to this view, his thought has a strong, substantial religious foundation. With regards to understanding not only Schmitt’s position but also his current influence in authoritarian countries, this essay argues that this interpretation is misleading and proposes a different and comprehensive analysis of Schmitt’s concept of political theology that replaces it in a political-legal framework. Against the theological reading, it argues that Schmitt’s concept of “political theology” refers to his own conception of legal theory as an attempt to relegitimize authority in a secular context. As “political theology,” this legal theory is designed to overcome normativism and parliamentarism by “substantializing” the legal form. Using Schmitt’s post-1933 works as an example, the essay shows that, as theology translates faith into a written doctrine, legal theory must, according to Schmitt, substantialize the legal form by translating the political idea into jurisprudence. Hence, this article concludes that Schmitt’s theory might be described as “political theology” but only in a formal, ideological sense. It is part of an authoritarian theory that is not religious but uses theology to revive an appearance of absolute legitimacy.

Spiritual Intelligence and the Nous: Implications for Understanding the Relationship Between the Faith Traditions of the World

The modern concept of spiritual intelligence exhibits parallels with the ancient Greek philosophical understanding of the nous. This ancient understanding was used extensively in late antique and early medieval theological thinking and is still influential in some faith traditions. However, the implications of this understanding for exploring questions about religious pluralism have not been widely acknowledged. These implications arise from the way in which the noetic perception that arises from the full functioning of the nous is seen as essentially intuitive in nature, so that the relationship between this perception and religious doctrinal statements may be understood in terms of a radically apophatic understanding of religious language usage. Vladimir Lossky has proposed this stance as characteristic of Eastern patristic perspectives. In relation to this understanding, parallels with the perennialist tradition are evident and—even though this tradition in its classic form exhibits major flaws that need to be corrected—its pluralism becomes highly suggestive. This suggestiveness is reinforced by a number of other considerations, not least the recent “theological turn” in discussion of divine action within the science-theology dialogue, which permits an essentially “naturalistic” understanding of revelatory experiences. There may, nevertheless, be reasons for adopting “reciprocal inclusivism” rather than a full-blown pluralism of this kind.

Ethno-Apophasis: An Ethnographic Theology of Thinness and Refusal

Abstract The critical onboarding of ethnography evinced by scholars in theology, religious studies and Christian ethics compellingly generates ecclesiologies and other theologies inclusive of non-academic life. Yet, in a critical reflection on methodologies in ecclesiological research, this paper questions the growing predominance of ethnography, specifically ethnographic thickness. Drawing upon the work of anthropologist Audra Simpson, this paper argues that the ethnographic turn in religious ethics and theology and religious studies misses (at best) or ignores (at worst) the epistemological violence lurking at the root of this method. By looking into practices of ethnographic thinness and refusal, this paper highlights apophasis as the best theological grounding for scholars engaging with ethnography. Ethnographic apophasis requires practitioners to heed the colonial and settler colonial realities inherent in the method of ethnography itself; ethically pushing notions of solidarity into anticolonial practice.

Postsekularyzm między Wschodem i Zachodem

The aim of the article Postsecularism between East and West is to present the paradigm shift in understanding the place of religion in public space in recent decades. The term that aptly describes this change is postsecularism. The prefix “post” is more than just an indication of a new quality of “secularism.” In fact, it marks a revolutionary change in understanding the traditionally opposing concepts of secularism and religion. The article presents this process in three stages. First, it describes the theological turn that has taken place in recent decades, primarily in Catholic theology, then it points to the place of literature in theological reflection and finally presents the surprising contribution of the mathematical concept (fractal) in overcoming the impasse in which interreligious dialogue found itself.

Correction to: The Inconspicuous God: Heidegger, French Phenomenology, & the Theological Turn, by Jason W. Alvis

Correction to: <i>The Inconspicuous God: Heidegger, French Phenomenology, &amp; the Theological Turn</i>, by Jason W. Alvis

French Phenomenology of Art and Metaphysics

Abstract This article examines the relationship between French phenomenology of art and metaphysics. More specifically, it highlights four points. Firstly, French phenomenological aesthetics is characterized by a certain ignorance of the renewal of artistic questioning initiated by Anglo-Saxon aesthetics. Secondly, French phenomenology of art is a metaphysics of art, which considers that works of art contain an ontological (cosmophanic or theophanic) revelation. Thirdly, French phenomenology of art is part of the “theological turn of French phenomenology”. Authors tend towards theology or “cosmotheology”. Fourthly, French phenomenology of art, which is a metaphysics of the sensible, possesses the theoretical means to think philosophically about conceptual art.

Turning the Theological Turn on Its Head—The Levinasian Secularization of Heidegger’s Theology

In this article, I attempt to contribute to further the understanding of what has happened with the so-called ‘theological turn in French phenomenology’ through juxtaposing two sets of discourses: the theological in Heidegger and the secular in Levinas. While Levinas was identified by Janicaud as the first mover in the theological turn, much attention has recently been given to the theological themes in Heidegger’s writings. Less attention has been given, however, to the way in which Levinas’ philosophical and Talmudic writings often seek to be a secular critique of Heidegger’s philosophy. Through showing how a Levinasian secularization of Heidegger’s theology can make sense, I hope to shake up the debate surrounding the theological turn by placing it on its head.

Does religion matter to angels? Exploring the influence of religion in entrepreneurial investor decision-making

Despite the pervasive influence religion has on society, the role of religion in angel investor decision-making remains unknown. This study tests a model of how religion – both as a guiding institutional logic and a personal religious belief – influences angel investor evaluations. Drawing on the similarity attraction paradigm and expectancy violation theory, two scenario-based experiments find religion has a persistent but nuanced influence on investor evaluations. Generally, religious claims are a double-edged sword, either repelling or attracting angel investors. Specifically, faith-driven investors form positive evaluations of the venture but only when these evaluations are mediated by entrepreneur authenticity. By comparison, traditional angel investors form negative evaluations when religious claims are present, except for when angel investor religiosity is high. This suggests that faith-driven and traditional angel investors use different bases for evaluating entrepreneurs and ventures. Overall, our results have important implications for understanding the theological turn to entrepreneurship by finding religion as a double-edge sword, a multilevel influence, and a cognitive mechanism within investor decision-making.

Specifying the role of religion in entrepreneurial action: a cognitive perspective

AbstractResearch on the relationship between religion and entrepreneurship has produced mixed findings. We argue such equivocal findings are partly the result of under-specification of the role of religion in entrepreneurial action. To address this issue, we build on the process perspective of entrepreneurial cognition by simultaneously incorporating mental representations and cognitive resources. Specifically, we theorize a cognitive process that incorporates both framing effects of opportunity cues and religious belief integration based on sanctification into the assessment of feasibility and desirability of entrepreneurial action. Through two within-subject experiments, we find (i) positively framed opportunity cues yield more favorable assessments of entrepreneurial action than negatively framed opportunity cues, and (ii) religious belief integration moderates the relationship between framing and assessments of entrepreneurial action, enhancing perceived feasibility and desirability when information framing is negative. We discuss the implications of our model to research the theological turn of entrepreneurship and a cognitive perspective of entrepreneurial action.

PHENOMENOLOGY OF DIVINE REVELATION: THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY IN DIALOGUE

AbstractAlthough the relationship between theology and philosophy is a perennial issue in the history of thought, recent debates surrounding the so‐called theological turn of continental phenomenology have created a new space in which it can be explored from a fresh perspective. In this vein, I propose three theses concerning the relationship between theology and philosophy of religion, with particular focus on the phenomenon of divine revelation. First, a philosophy of religion that ignores theology's claim about divine self‐revelation will remain incomplete and unsatisfactory, at least from the perspective of a Christian theology which begins with the faith in God's self‐revelation in one particular human person. Second, a theology that does not acknowledge the possibility of philosophical reflections on the human aspect of divine revelation will not be able to escape blind dogmatism, but rather will isolate itself from the academic community. Third, and finally, despite the concerns of both parties, a dialogue between theology and philosophy centred on the phenomena of revelation can develop into mutually critical and mutually constructive interactions.

Navigating the highs and lows of entrepreneurial identity threats to persist: The countervailing force of a relational identity with God

While an economic paradigm has been productive for entrepreneurship, religion has been proposed as an alternative rationality to advance research in our field. To extend a theological turn in entrepreneurship and identity research, our study inductively develops a conceptual model that explains how individuals navigate entrepreneurial identity threats based on the interaction between a relational identity with God (RIG) and an entrepreneurial identity to persist in entrepreneurial action. Our study suggests this can happen when entrepreneurs engage in inter-identity work mechanisms - affirming and humbling - to mitigate these identity threats. Specifically, a relational identity with God acts as a countervailing force to an entrepreneurial identity during times of identity threats to generate inter-identity meaning change, resulting in interidentity stability and entrepreneurial persistence. Through our study, we advance knowledge on the theological turn in entrepreneurship and identity by inductively developing theory on a new religious identity construct (RIG), elaborating theory of inter-identity work by shifting the focus from structural to content changes, and extending theory on entrepreneurial action, persistence, and well-being based on theological rather than economic considerations.

О двух синтезах профессора С.С. Хоружего

Two trends in Russian religious thought – Russian religious philosophy and Or­thodox theology – for a long time developed separately. In their history, they have followed different paths, they have different destinies, significant connec­tions have not been established between them, and their synthesis has not oc­curred. This problem has become the subject of special attention of the Russian philosopher, Professor Sergey S. Horujy. Capturing the philosophical signifi­cance of the hesychast turn in Orthodox theology, Sergey S. Horujy transferred it to philosophy. Having made three turns – hesychast, anthropological and phe­nomenological – Sergey S. Horujy carried out a synthesis in Russian religious thought on the path of reconstruction of hesychast anthropology. And having cre­ated his own anthropological concept – synergistic anthropology, Sergey S. Ho­rujy thus accomplished the synthesis of philosophy and religion at the present stage of their development. S.S. Horujy distinguishes three types of ultimate hu­man manifestations and three ways of unlocking, opening oneself to the Other: ontological, ontic and virtual. Their description forms the basis of synergetic an­thropology. Going beyond anthropology in the established sense of the word, synergetic anthropology, developed by Sergey S. Horujy, goes beyond the scope of philosophy. Arising on the basis of Orthodoxy, this discipline also goes be­yond Christianity and can become the center around which all the disciplines of modern humanitarian knowledge will unite.

A Theological Turn in Phenomenology?

While correctly emphasizing that the idea of theological inspiration in phenomenology and vice versa might be very fecund, the current discussion on the theological turn does not always affirm that Janicaud was simply wrong as regards the characterization of new French phenomenology. This is why it is necessary to create a more balanced image of the discussions on the theological turn and contemporary phenomenology. The paper achieves this aim 1) by demonstrating that there was no theological turn in French phenomenology; 2) by analysing the true nature of the turn taking place in phenomenology. It concludes by affirming that contemporary French phenomenology—freed from the label “theological turn”—is a living branch of philosophy capable of contributing to the solution of some of the burning issues of today’s world, such as ecological crisis.

"ПЛОТСКИЙ ПОВОРОТ" В ДИСКУССИИ О СВЯЩЕННОМ

The paper is concerned with the carnal turn in contemporary philosophical theology. In the theological studies religion is often interpreted as primarily belonging to the sphere of the spiritual. While it is true that for most religious traditions (Christian as well as non-Christian) God is a spiritual and disembodied being, even the presence of God is always a mediated presence, and it may well be argued that this mediation is always material in character. We analyze theological aspects of the project carnal hermeneutics (Richard Kearney, Brian Treanor, John Panteleimon Manoussakis). Carnal hermeneutics shows the new philosophical turn away from the overly abstract, relativist and limited emphasis on structural linguistics and deconstruction in favor of a new emphasis on the on the fundamental act of incarnation. From that new point of view, linguistics and textual exegesis may continue to be a necessary aspect of hermeneutics – but they are not sufficient in themselves. It is a way of thinking which might help us recover the body as text and the text as body: to restore hermeneutics to phenomenology and vice versa and to remind us that interpretation is never a dis-embodied act. Carnal hermeneutics declares the living presence of the body as the inescapable foundation of our very being – inclusive of any act of interpretation. The carnal hermeneutics insists upon the crisscrossing of text and flesh, which both denies the collapsing of flesh into text (and vice versa) and also reveals the utter inextricability of the two.

Paradoxes of Experience: Questioning the Limits of Phenomenality in E. Levinas and J.-L. Marion

The article deals with the problem of the limits of phenomenality in the phenomenology of E. Le­vinas and J.-L. Marion. D. Janicaud attributes their positions to a “theological turn” in French phenomenology. Without polemicizing directly with Janicaud, the article does not treat that turn as a distortion or neglect of the phenomenological method and its principles. On the contrary, the author sees it as focusing on those aspects of experience that do not fit into the scope of Husserlian phenomenology, decentering the experiencing subject and forcing us to rethink the very question of phenomenality and its limits. The article aims to show that, despite quite radical and controversial transformations in phenomenology, Levinas and Marion base their phenomenological projects by analysing not a special or “mystical” but accessible to all, in a sense, a banal experience.

«Curiales» y «cismáticos» la romanización y la controversia eclesiológica en el Perú (1855-1857)

The study analyzes the ecclesiological controversy between Ultramontane Catholic and Liberal-Gallican sectors on the theological-canonical notion of the Church and the Papacy in mid-19th century Peru. This ideological dispute occurred during the tumultuous years between 1855, at the end of the Liberal Revolution and 1857. The political situation allowed the Ultramontanes to openly expose their ideas in favour of the institutional and theological Romanization of the Church. They met with resistance from the Catholic Liberal-Gallicans sector, whose ideas converged with Liberal and Galician political theories. The controversy moved within the framework of changes in Global Catholicism that reinforced the juridical and doctrinal authority of the Papacy. This theological Romanization was central to the imposition of the Ultramontanists who were the spokesmen for the theological turn directed from Rome. The article analyses the political-theological positions on the Church and the Papacy, the two main themes of the ecclesiological debate, and frames them in the 19th-century changes led by the Papacy, which ended with the entrenchment of Ultramontanism and the Romanizing turn in Peru.

The Believed as Believed: The Noematic Dimensions of Faith and Doubt in Religious Experience

Abstract Countless scholars have wrestled with the ambiguities and complexities in determining the role of the noema in Husserl’s theory of intentionality since his transcendental turn, and consequently converted what was intended to be a structural solution to a problem into a contested problem itself.1 Shifting emphasis from the ‘whatness’, or ontological concerns of the correlate noesis—noema to the ‘howness’, or methodological force of phenomenology, allows me to discuss two things. The first is theological. Before and since Janicaud’s pronouncement of the ‘theological turn’ in phenomenology, the intentionality thesis has been rejected as a means to account for certain experiences given differently to object-phenomena (Janicaud, 2000). In accounting for religious experience as a complex movement between faith and doubt, my work reaches not for the ‘essence of phenomenality’ (Marion), or a givenness beyond intuition made invisible, nor does it seek to describe a transcendence beyond immanence, or proof in the existence of a god/gods, rather it concerns itself with the processes and underlying structures of belief. Arguably by focusing upon the noetic and noematic structure of intentional acts, intentional analysis is revitalised for delineating the belief modalities of faith and doubt in religious experiences.

Methodological Atheism Considered

Abstract Thirty years after the publication of Dominique Janicaud’s criticism of what he termed the “theological turn” of phenomenology in France, what is the state of the debate? This paper addresses that question, by examining the phenomenology of revelation in Marion, Lacoste, and others, in turn replying to various arguments that have been advanced against the theological turn and on behalf of methodological atheism. Not only is revelation a viable topic of phenomenological analysis, the attempts to formulate a methodologically atheist phenomenology fail.