Theological Turn Research Articles

Phenomenology and the Possibility of Religious Experience

Abstract Work in what has been known as the theological turn in French phenomenology describes the way in which human beings are always, already open to a religious encounter. This paper will focus on Levinas as a proper transcendental phenomenologist as would be characterized by parts of Husserl and Husserl’s last assistant Eugen Fink. What Levinas does in his phenomenology of the face/other (which gets tied up in religious language) is to describe an absolute origin out of which the subject arises. This point of origin structures the self in such a way as to always, already be open to that which overflows experience and, thus, makes possible the very experience of an encounter with the numinous. Such an approach to religious experience for which I am arguing simply takes Levinas at his word when he declares “The idea of God is an idea that cannot clarify a human situation. It is the inverse that is true.” (“Transcendence and Height”) Understanding the structure of the subject as open to that which cannot be reduced/totalized/ encapsulated is to recognize that the human situation is ready for the possibility of religious experience.

God Without God: A Divine Limit to “The Phenomenon”

Abstract The background concern of this paper is the well-rehearsed debate on the “theological turn” (or “veerings”) in French Phenomenology that was ignited by Dominique Janicaud some 25 years ago in his vociferous critique of several leading French thinkers. It also responds to subsequent contestations against Janicaud by numerous scholars defending these thinkers radicalising of phenomenology in their attempts to account for what Emanuel Levinas had “stirred up in the phenomenological field” by re-posing the question of the philosophical status of the idea of God. What is pivotal to Janicaud in his exclusionary critique and drawing of phenomenological boundaries is to hold dearly to the method as Edmund Husserl intended. In doing so, only describable phenomena that appear (or are logically subtended to appear) provide the litmus for a bona fide phenomenology. In opening and broadening the method to include experiences of a transcendent, religious nature as the French thinkers do, orthodox Husserlian thinking places these projects into question. The purpose of this paper is to question these post-Husserlian thinkers with a more faithful reading of Husserl. I analyse three key areas to suggest a ‘divine limit’ to phenomena: first, the concept of “the phenomenon” as developed in Husserl’s project; second, the ‘status of the idea of God’ in Husserl’s writings; and third, the relevant philosophical discourse on God that emerges from the Janicaud-led debate through critical commentary on the phenomenology of the “inapparent”. As a consequence, God is argued to be a divine limit to Husserlian phenomenology, but not religious belief itself.

Deleuze in the Age of the Theological Turn

Deleuze in the Age of the Theological Turn

Introduction to “In Anticipation: Eschatology and Transcendence in Contemporary Contexts”

Although it is difficult to pinpoint when the so-called theological turn in Continental philosophy began in the 20th century, it is fair to consider as a working origin that Martin Heidegger’s critique of metaphysics and his questioning of the forgetfulness of Being touched a nerve within both philosophical and theological discourses.[...]

Sacrifice for Nothing: The Movement of Kenosis in Jan Patočka's Thought

AbstractThis article focuses on the idea of sacrifice in the work of the Czech phenomenologist Jan Patočka. It presents and examines this philosopher from a theological perspective against the background of the theological turn in contemporary philosophy. First, the article focuses on Patočka's reflections on the kenotic sacrifice, which he defines as the sacrifice for nothing. Second, Patočka's thought is put into dialog with Jean‐Luc Marion's phenomenological sketch of sacrifice embedded in his phenomenology of the gift. Although both Patočka and Marion share an interest in sacrifice, a phenomenon of high theological importance, only the latter enjoys reception on the part of theology. Yet, the article argues, on the basis of further inquiry into Patočka's writings, Patočka presents a complementary and alternative perspective that not only precedes the theological turn but also challenges and opens new ways for theology. The conclusion thus portrays a kenotic form of Christianity after the end of Christianity, drawn from Patočka, as a specific spiritual being‐in‐the‐world.

After Onto-Theology: What Lies beyond the ‘End of Everything’

This article takes up the onto-theological critique of metaphysics and questions whether onto-theology is not something to evade or overcome, but is inevitable. Consequently, it furthers the exploration of onto-theology by asking, if it is inevitable, then what comes after onto-theology? For the past half-century, onto-theology has been a central concern for philosophy, particularly in phenomenology where one sees a theological turn in order to understand and incorporate what might be beyond, or within, consciousness that does not readily appear to the self. In this turn, one often sees philosophers (and theologians) attempt to craft a post-metaphysical understanding. Resultantly, many of these philosophers herald what I call the ‘end of everything,’ often due to their onto-theological character: from the ‘end’ of philosophy of religion, to the ‘end’ of metaphysics, to the ‘end’ of theology. However, when investigating their findings, one often sees these concepts arise from the grave, perhaps showing that some onto-theological construction is inevitable. This paper proceeds by first giving a brief overview of the philosophers Jean-Luc Nancy, Richard Kearney, John Caputo, and Merold Westphal to propose how onto-theology is still an issue for their philosophies by revealing a necessary link between ontology and empirical reality. It then builds off of this proposal through the work of Joeri Schrijvers to show what might lie ahead of philosophy (and philosophy of religion in particular), arguing that if onto-theology is inevitable then philosophy should turn further into theology to explore how theology deals with this inevitability on an empirical basis. Basically, since theology always already accepts being in default (through concepts like original sin), then how does it help believers cope with this inevitability and how does it focus upon the empirical reality of this ontological gesture. Finally, this paper investigates the work of Colby Dickinson in order to solidify this finding into a programmatic, philosophical framework.

Disruptive Youth: Toward an Ethnographic Turn in Youth Ministry

This article explores the problem of youth from the multidisciplinary viewpoints of Youth Ministry and Childhood Studies, arguing that while Youth Ministry has been limited by paradigms of developmentalism and hampered by theological essentialism, theories of childhood as a social construct and children as social actors in Childhood Studies have yet to penetrate Youth Ministry or influence society. Anticipating the potential for Youth Ministry to serve as a field for new concepts of youth, the authors posit that an ‘ethnographic turn,’ or an ethical re-orientation toward the ‘Other-ness’ of youth might allow adults to be powerfully ‘disrupted’ by God’s action in youth in the world. As such, an ‘ethnographic turn’ in Youth Ministry serves both to complement the ‘theological turn’ by providing a practical method for accessing youth experience in relationship and to critically refine Childhood Studies’ theory of child agency and failure to effect contemporary society.

Habermas’s Theological Turn and European Integration

Jürgen Habermas’s recent work is defined by two trends: an engagement with the realm of the sacred and a concern for the future of the European Union. Despite the apparent lack of connection between these themes, I argue that the early history of European integration has important implications for Habermas’s conclusions about the place of faith in public life. Although Habermas’s work on religion suggests that the sacred contains important normative resources for postsecular democracies, he continues to bar explicitly religious justifications from discourse within state institutions. I question this exclusion of faith by reconstructing the role that political Catholicism played in the foundation of the European project. By focusing on two of the most important actors involved in the creation of the first European Community, French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman and German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, I show how explicitly religious reasons can broaden political perspectives, resulting in the creation of new, inclusive, postnational forms of communal life. Pushing Habermas to accept the implications of his theological turn, I argue that pluralistic, nondogmatic and nonauthoritarian religious claims should be allowed to enter into the formal public sphere through a discursively determined interpretation of secular translation.

Jean-Luc Marion: the reinscription of heteronormativity into postmodern theology

ABSTRACTSince the “theological turn” in continental philosophy, theologians have regularly turned to phenomenology as an authentic opening to a new mode of theological discourse. Yet, when these theo-phenomenological discourses turn to the questions of sexuality, gender, and love they often fail to live up to the radical opening promised by this turn. Taken as a case study, the work of Jean-Luc Marion is emblematic of this failure. While many of his insights might offer new openings for theological thought, his phenomenological speculations nonetheless often merely serve to re-inscribe a traditional, even reactionary heteronormativity into the heart of postmodern theological thought. In fact, it is not uncommon to catch his work offering a denigration of the body, presupposing a determinately male subject, and foreclosing the very possibility of non-heterosexual love. This critical examination of Marion’s account of sexuality shows that even the most radical phenomenological theology needs the ideological interruption of queer theory.

DANCING AROUND THE CAUSAL JOINT: CHALLENGING THE THEOLOGICAL TURN IN DIVINE ACTION THEORIES

AbstractRecent years have seen a shift in divine action debates. Turning from noninterventionist, incompatibilist causal joint models, representatives of a “theological turn” in divine action have questioned the metaphysical assumptions of approaches seeking indeterministic aspects of nature wherein God might act. Various versions of theistic naturalism (such as Thomism, panentheistic naturalism, and pneumatological naturalism) offer specific theological frameworks that reimagine the basic God–world relationship. But do these explicitly theological approaches to divine action take scientific knowledge and methodology seriously enough? And do such approaches adequately address the problem of how uncreated, immaterial realities could affect physical, material processes? This article examines various features of the theological turn in divine action—recognizing it as a welcome step in science and religion, while challenging its current adequacy.

Between a Saint and a Phenomenologist: Hart’s Theological Criticism of Marion

In 2013, the first reader of Jean-Luc Marion’s works appeared, Jean-Luc Marion: The Essential Writings, meticulously edited by his friend and colleague Kevin Hart. Yet, if the appearance of volume marked Marion’s status as France’s most influential living philosopher, Hart’s Kingdoms of God marks the beginning of a systematic theology long in the making. In addition to serving as the prologemenon to his planned systematics, the work also serves to differentiate Hart’s phenomenological theology from Marion’s phenomenology of revelation and doctrine of revelation through the rendering of what Hart calls the basilaic reduction, on the basis of which Hart builds a twofold theological criticism of Marion. He first criticizes Marion’s claim that revelation can gain phenomenological status like ordinary phenomena, and second contests the notion that revelation is always characterized by a saturation that bedazzles its receiver. I explore each thinker’s approach to the relationship between philosophy and theology, using their engagements with the works of Jacques Derrida and Karl Barth as points of comparison in order to contextualize Hart’s theological criticisms of Marion. I conclude by arguing that Hart’s, rather than Marion’s, approach to the relationship between philosophy and theology corresponds to the core concerns of the second generation of the “theological turn” of French phenomenology.

THINKING IN ACTION: AN INTERVIEW WITH RICHARD KEARNEY

In the second half of the traumatic and explosive twentieth century, thinkers began considering the possibility of viewing our time as a new Axial Age affecting all areas of existence and thinking. In philosophy the interpretation of and of the self in relation to continues to change in the direction of a growing awareness of God's otherness while celebrating this very otherness. An effervescent debate on the meaning of and of God's Other, and the future of a continental philosophy of religion after Nietzsche-Altizer's kerygma of the death of God has been enlivening ever wider circles in and outside American and European academe. Various debates have opened up in relation to this theme and inhabit presently the center of what has been identified as the theological turn in phenomenology and hermeneutics. The contemporary conversation has enlisted prominent thinkers - belonging to diverse generations, intellectual backgrounds, and academic spheres - such as Jean-Luc Marion, Alain Badiou, Giorgio Agamben, Gianni Vattimo, John Milbank, Julia Kristeva, John Caputo, Catherine Keller, and Slavoj Zizek, among others. Irish philosopher Richard Kearney is a major voice in this ongoing debate, rethinking according to an eschatological hermeneutics, establishing platforms for extensive philosophical conversations as well as for interreligious dialogue centered on a hermeneutics of the heart. Moreover, Richard Kearney has also been a creative agent of reimagining the sacred and enacting a praxis of actualizing the good.Richard Kearney holds the Charles B. Seelig Chair of Philosophy, Boston College (1999-present). He has served as a visiting professor at University of Paris, Sorbonne, University of Nice-Sophia Antipodis, University College Dublin, and The Catholic University of Australia. He is author of over twenty books on European philosophy and literature (including two novels and a volume of poetry), and has edited or coedited fourteen more. As a public intellectual in Ireland, he was involved in drafting proposals for a Northern Ireland peace agreement (1983, 1993, 1995). He has presented several series on culture and philosophy for Irish and British television and broadcast frequently on the European media. He is currently director of the international Guestbook Project: Hosting the Stranger - Between Hostility and Hospitality.This interview was conducted at the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy (SPEP) annual meeting in Salt Lake City on October 21, 2016.AF: Good morning, Richard. It is a great pleasure and honor to have the opportunity to interview you today. Thank you for having graciously agreed to it.In answer to the hermeneutic question of d'ou parlez-vous, what would you like to emphasize or add to your intellectual and spiritual genealogy introduced in Anatheism? In other words, what was the driving force or desire that spurred you onto this exceptionally complex and all-encompassing trajectory from Poetique du Possible (1984) and The May Be (2001) to Anatheism (2009) and Carnal Hermeneutics (2015), and most recently to international peace and recovery projects like Guestbook and Twinsome Minds (2016), both important experiments in applied therapeutic imagination?RK: One formative part of my intellectual journey was marked by growing up in Ireland where there was a war going on in the Seventies, waged in the name of religion. As a student of philosophy and interested from the beginning in philosophy of religion, I worked with Denys Turner and Patrick Masterson at University College Dublin discussing questions of belief and unbelief, at a time when sectarian battles were waging in Derry and Belfast. It was difficult not to address hard questions concerning the relationship between religion and politics, how people killed each other in the name of God, asking what idea of we're talking about if ideas can kill and ideas can heal?I was educated by the Benedictines at Glenstal Abbey, Ireland, informed by the monastic motto ora et labora, pray and work. …

Suffering the Modernist Legacy of Husserlian Phenomenology

Suffering the Modernist Legacy of Husserlian Phenomenology James J. Hodge (bio) Testing the Limit: Derrida, Levinas, Henry, and the Phenomenological Tradition by François-David Sebbah. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012. Pp. 336. $90.00 cloth, $29.95 paper. Phenomenology has received a curiously spotty reception in the wake of the influx of Continental philosophy in language departments in North America beginning in the 1960s. Of the three major philosophers in the phenomenological tradition, Martin Heidegger remains the most widely read, yet he is also regularly discussed as though somehow beyond the context of phenomenology. Maurice Merleau-Ponty's death in 1961 deprived him of the opportunity to engage the emerging Anglo-American appetite for French theory in person and in "the flesh." More significantly, it denied him the chance of responding to the casual statements levied against phenomenology in the works of Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, and other stars of the '68 generation. And although his voluminous and antiseptic prose has undoubtedly turned off many potential readers, Edmund Husserl's legacy has suffered from the errant impression that Jacques Derrida's most famous works from 1967—including Of Grammatology and especially Voice and Phenomenon—constitute something of a summary rejection of Husserl's project insofar as it represents the grand villain of the "metaphysics of presence." Husserl's reputation—again, within language departments and not necessarily philosophy departments—has suffered in inverse correlation with Derrida's status [End Page 155] as perhaps the most influential and famous avatar of so-called "French theory." This situation has always been quite unfair to Husserl and phenomenology more generally. With the rise of interest in the body, embodiment, and affect in the last two decades or so, the situation has started to change. Phenomenology has begun to achieve more critical currency. Merleau-Ponty's work has proven particularly important for the work of several influential scholars in the fields of film studies and new media studies. Beyond the work of Vivian Sobchack and Mark B. N. Hansen, however, the word phenomenology has largely become disconnected from its philosophical origins.1 Use of the word phenomenological as a synonym for embodied experience constitutes merely the most egregious symptom of this condition. Discussion of Husserl's work, it almost goes without saying, remains marginal at best, and the very meaning of phenomenology remains unproductively elusive. Although it is not aimed at correcting these problems of North American literary and media studies, Stephen Barker's translation of François-David Sebbah's 2001 monograph Testing the Limit offers a potent resource for those interested in not only phenomenology but in understanding its legacy for several important continental philosophers. The specific achievement of Sebbah's text lies with his careful and revealing readings of Jacques Derrida, Emmanuel Levinas, Michel Henry, and Jean-Luc Marion among a group of French philosophers whose concern with issues of givenness, time, and subjectivity all ultimately derive from Husserl and thus share a certain family resemblance. Sebbah refers to these philosophers as phenomenologists, a key decision no doubt meant to provoke. It is no surprise to discuss Henry or Marion as phenomenologists, but eyebrows might be raised with respect to Derrida and Levinas. Even though Levinas studied with both Husserl and Heidegger in Freiburg, and Derrida spent the first decade of his career writing about Husserl, both thinkers are generally thought of as breaking with phenomenology in order to establish their own philosophical projects. Carefully avoiding the politics of labeling philosophers as phenomenologists with a capital P, Sebbah admirably explores their work as operating within the longer tradition of phenomenology in a refreshingly nonpartisan and nongenerationalist manner. Sebbah synthesizes the work of these often very different philosophers by devoting himself to specifying how each operates at the extreme limits of Husserlian phenomenology. To pursue this project, Sebbah explicitly suspends consideration of phenomenology's more recent theological turn (and [End Page 156] silently suspends analysis of similarly contemporary efforts to naturalize phenomenology in concert with research in cognitive science and neuroscience).2 At least in the North American context, the impact of this decision registers beyond the already significant but ultimately highly specialized payoff associated with the astute reconsideration of...

An Ideological Conception of Politics—Critique of Zizek on Political Theology

For some time now, Slavoj Zizek has provocatively maintained that the radical left needs a ‘politics of universal Truth’ whose model is Pauline theology’s transformation of the Hellenistic world. Furthermore, in light of the worldwide resurgence of religious militancy after 9/11, Zizek also contends that political theology provides the conceptual resources for thinking historical materialism today. Zizek here represents the leading wing of a ‘theological turn’ amongst radical intellectuals, for whom religion is a last resource of hope following the collapse of historical communism. In this article, I show that this rather desperate position leads to an ideological conception of politics, one that introduces mystified representations of social antagonism and class struggle into the heart of progressive theory. Through an imminent critique of Zizek’s work that draws upon its Althusserian foundations, I demonstrate that, although Zizek makes some important contributions to the critique of ideology, his theoretical position contains a significant problem. The idea that ideology and politics are structurally the same, which is what allows him to discuss problems of socialist strategy in the medium of political theology, is seriously flawed. It leads Zizek inevitably towards metaphysical notions of the subject of history, and away from theoretical engagement with rethinking the concept of class struggle for the new century.

O tempo escatológico à luz do método transcendental

Considerando que a virada antropológica na teologia fundamental contemporânea, proporcionada por Karl Rahner (1904-1984) trouxe à tona a concepção de que a revelação cristã é o encontro entre Deus e os seres humanos, que a escatologia é uma dimensão imprescindível da revelação e que a categoria tempo é fundamental na escatologia; objetiva-se desenvolver o conceito cristão de tempo escatológico na perspectiva da teologia transcendental de Karl Rahner, visando conceber o significado da plenitude da mencionada revelação. Para atingir este objetivo, desenvolver-se-á o conceito cristão de tempo escatológico mediante o redimensionamento da escatologia contemporânea e da hermenêutica aplicada à cristologia e a antropologia. Espera-se que mediante o conceito de tempo escatológico, seja possível afirmar o caráter escatológico de toda a teologia.

Passing through Customs: Merold Westphal, Richard Kearney, and the Methodological Boundaries between Philosophy of Religion and Theology

Continental philosophers of religion and the theologians who engage with them have recently began to blur the lines between the disciplines of philosophy and theology. This is particularly true after the so-called “theological turn” in phenomenology. I argue for an appreciation of their approaches but will also express that these explorations must remain interdisciplinary. Far too often philosophers and theologians alike appropriate freely within their interdisciplinary research with little regard for the presuppositions and methodologies latent within their appropriations. This article will demonstrate these appropriations through an exploration of Merold Westphal and Richard Kearney’s use of hermeneutical phenomenology, and will claim that their use of this methodology falls upon two distinct discourses, a theological one for Westphal and a philosophical one for Kearney. The upshot of this exploration is an argument for a renewal of methodological restraint when appropriating from other disciplines and a respect for the difference between academic disciplines.

The Theology of Carl Schmitt's Political Theology

The theological turn in studies of Carl Schmitt is pronounced. This paper does not challenge this turn, but questions what theology means for Schmitt. Specifically, it challenges the assumption that Schmitt's political theology is grounded in divine revelation. By distinguishing between “theology in the sense of divine revelation” and “theology in the sense of epistemic faith,” it argues that Schmitt's political theology is epistemic in origin. Schmitt's political theology is not rooted in faith in divine revelation, but in the narrower notion that human cognition is, ultimately, rooted in faith not reason, revelation, or common sense.

Non-philosophical Christ-poetics beyond the mystical turn in conversation with continental philosophy of religion

The religious turn in continental philosophy has opened the door for postmetaphysical mystical theology. Postmetaphysical mystical theology seeks to understand the non-relation relation of language (text) to the Other. Yet, this non-relation relation to the Other, who is every other, can also be interpreted differently to the mystical understanding. For example, Žižek argues that the Other, which is often experienced as the uncanny, the unpredictable and the contingent (lived spirituality), is not necessarily the result of some mystical unknowable Otherness but is a consequence of the way the subject’s own activity is inscribed into reality. These experiences of lived spirituality or experiences of Otherness can, rather than being interpreted as an in-breaking of the mystical Other, be interpreted otherwise, as a grammatological consequence of the inability and impossibility of language (Lacan). Therefore, in this article, Žižek’s thoughts function as a bridge to bring this mystical turn back into critical conversation with continental philosophy and particularly with the thoughts of Derrida, Laruelle and Stiegler. The contemporary mystical turn in theology rediscovers something of this non-religious religion. Derrida’s thoughts are in close proximity to negative theology and yet there is an important difference. This difference will be explored and further developed towards Laruelle’s non-philosophy, which does not translate into a non-religion religion or postmetaphysical metaphysics but remains a non-philosophy or maybe a science of Christ. This article will conclude with a tentative exploration of a postmetaphysical Christ-poetics beyond the mystical turn.

The concept "personality" in book "The Beauty of the Infinite" of David Hart

The article critically analyzes concept of "personality" in Orthodox theology of American thinkers D.B.Hart. Personology of D.B.Hart present the contours of Orthodox postmodern theology. Orthodox thought in its historical development has experienced a significant influence metaphysical philosophy and remained until recently. Anti-metaphysical turn in Orthodox theology and religious philosophy associated with the use of phenomenology and hermeneutics in the project "theological aesthetics" by David Bentley Hart and John Panleymona Manoussakis. These American Orthodox theologians were really able to create a new type of Orthodox thought, post-metaphysical in nature. As an Orthodox theologian, D.B.Hart rejects the thesis of the inability of Orthodox thought formalize its position except in opposition to Roman Catholic theology. He accepts the doctrine of the person as a special relationship of Augustine and modern Roman Catholic theologians.

Youth Ministry After Christendom

The author identifies historic factors supportive of the 20th-century church's embrace of a program model for youth ministry while showing how its location outside the centering practices of the church by century's end produced a strong theological critique. The presence of both qualitative and quantitative research data and the reality of post-Christendom strengthens this theological turn. Current youth ministry proposals are described as centered by the presence of vibrant, multigenerational, theologically involved congregations, an emphasis on the interpretive practices that help form baptismal vocational identity, and the presence of biblical narrative performances in the co-construction of congregational worship. Two authors of such proposals are discussed. Those who are asked to lead in such models will need competency in facilitating communal relationships as well as the ability to engage in the co-construction of a community's response to God in ministry and in worship.