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| Postmodernism |
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Postmodern theology, also known as the continental philosophy of religion, is a philosophical and theological movement that interprets Christian theology in light of post-Heideggerian continental philosophy, including phenomenology, post-structuralism, and deconstruction. [1]
Postmodern theology emerged in the 1980s and 1990s when a handful of philosophers who took philosopher Martin Heidegger as a common point of departure began publishing influential books engaging with Christian [2] theology. [3] Some works of the era include Jean-Luc Marion's 1982 book God Without Being, Mark C. Taylor's 1984 book Erring, Charles Winquist's 1994 book Desiring Theology, John D. Caputo's 1997 book The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida, and Carl Raschke's 2000 book The End of Theology.
There are at least two branches of postmodern theology, each of which has evolved around the ideas of particular post-Heideggerian continental philosophers. Those branches are radical orthodoxy and weak theology.[ citation needed ]
Radical orthodoxy is a branch of postmodern theology that has been influenced by the phenomenology of Jean-Luc Marion, Paul Ricœur, and Michel Henry, among others. [4]
Although radical orthodoxy is informally organized, its proponents often agree on a handful of propositions. First, there is no sharp distinction between reason on the one hand and faith or revelation on the other. In addition, the world is best understood through interactions with God, even though a full understanding of God is never possible. Those interactions include culture, language, history, technology, and theology. Further, God directs people toward truth, which is never fully available to them. In fact, a full appreciation of the physical world is only possible through a belief in transcendence. Finally, salvation is found through interactions with God and others. [5]
Prominent advocates of radical orthodoxy include John Milbank, Catherine Pickstock, and Graham Ward.
Weak theology is a branch of postmodern theology that has been influenced by the deconstructive thought of Jacques Derrida, [6] including Derrida's description of a moral experience he calls "the weak force." [7] Weak theology rejects the idea that God is an overwhelming physical or metaphysical force. Instead, God is an unconditional claim without any force whatsoever. As a claim without force, the God of weak theology does not intervene in nature. As a result, weak theology emphasizes the responsibility of humans to act in this world here and now. [8] John D. Caputo is a prominent advocate of the movement.
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Jacques Derrida was an Algerian-born French philosopher. He developed the philosophy of deconstruction, which he utilized in a number of his texts, and which was developed through close readings of the linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure and Husserlian and Heideggerian phenomenology. He is one of the major figures associated with post-structuralism and postmodern philosophy although he distanced himself from post-structuralism and disowned the word "postmodernity".
John David Caputo is an American philosopher who is the Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion Emeritus at Syracuse University and the David R. Cook Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Villanova University. Caputo is a major figure associated with postmodern Christianity and continental philosophy of religion, as well as the founder of the theological movement known as weak theology. Much of Caputo's work focuses on hermeneutics, phenomenology, deconstruction, and theology.
Gianteresio Vattimo was an Italian philosopher and politician.
Jean-Luc Marion is a French philosopher and Roman Catholic theologian. Marion is a former student of Jacques Derrida whose work is informed by patristic and mystical theology, phenomenology, and modern philosophy. Much of his academic work has dealt with Descartes and phenomenologists like Martin Heidegger and Edmund Husserl, but also religion. God Without Being, for example, is concerned predominantly with an analysis of idolatry, a theme strongly linked in Marion's work with love and the gift, which is a concept also explored at length by Derrida.
Alasdair John Milbank is an English Anglo-Catholic theologian and is an Emeritus Professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Nottingham, where he is President of the Centre of Theology and Philosophy. Milbank previously taught at the University of Virginia and before that at the University of Cambridge and the University of Lancaster. He is also chairman of the trustees of the think tank ResPublica.
Radical orthodoxy is a Christian theological and philosophical school of thought which makes use of postmodern philosophy to reject the paradigm of modernity. The movement was founded by John Milbank and others and takes its name from the title of a collection of essays published by Routledge in 1999: Radical Orthodoxy: A New Theology, edited by Milbank, Catherine Pickstock, and Graham Ward. Although the principal founders of the movement are Anglicans, radical orthodoxy includes theologians from a number of ecclesial traditions.
Kevin Jon Vanhoozer is an American theologian and current research professor of Systematic Theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS) in Deerfield, Illinois. Much of Vanhoozer's work focuses on systematic theology, hermeneutics, and postmodernism.
Peter Rollins is a Northern Irish writer, public speaker, philosopher, producer and theologian.
Ontotheology means the ontology of God and/or the theology of being. While the term was first used by Immanuel Kant, it has only come into broader philosophical parlance with the significance it took for Martin Heidegger's later thought. While, for Heidegger, the term is used to critique the whole tradition of 'Western metaphysics', much recent scholarship has sought to question whether 'ontotheology' developed at a certain point in the metaphysical tradition, with many seeking to equate the development of 'ontotheological' thinking with the development of modernity, and Duns Scotus often being cited as the first 'ontotheologian'.
Death of God theology refers to a range of ideas by various theologians and philosophers that try to account for the rise of secularity and abandonment of traditional beliefs in God. They posit that God has either ceased to exist or in some way accounted for such a belief.
Charles Edwin Winquist was the Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion at Syracuse University, and is known for his writings on theology, contemporary continental philosophy and postmodern religion. Before he assumed his position at Syracuse University, he taught religious studies at California State University, Chico, from 1969 to 1986.
James Kenneth Alexander Smith is a Canadian-American philosopher who is currently Professor of Philosophy at Calvin University, holding the Gary & Henrietta Byker Chair in Applied Reformed Theology & Worldview. He is the current editor-in-chief of the literary journal Image.
Graham John Ward is an English theologian and Anglican priest who has been Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford since 2012.
Christian atheism embraces the teachings, narratives, symbols, practices, or communities associated with Christianity without accepting the literal existence of God.
Catherine Jane Crozier Pickstock is an English philosophical theologian. Best known for her contributions to the radical orthodoxy movement, she has been Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge since 2018 and a fellow and tutor of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. She was previously Professor of Metaphysics and Poetics.
The following is a bibliography of John D. Caputo's works. Caputo is an American philosopher closely associated with postmodern Christianity.
Hermeneutic Communism: from Heidegger to Marx is a 2011 book of political philosophy and Marxist hermeneutics by Gianni Vattimo and Santiago Zabala.
Mark Dooley is an Irish philosopher, writer and newspaper columnist. A specialist in continental philosophy, theology and the philosophy of religion, he is the author of several books, including The Politics of Exodus: Kierkegaard's Ethics of Responsibility (2001), Roger Scruton: The Philosopher of Dover Beach (2009), and Why Be a Catholic? (2011).
Carl A. Raschke is an American philosopher and theologian. Raschke is a Past Chair and Professor of Religious Studies Department at the University of Denver, specializing in continental philosophy, the philosophy of religion and the theory of religion. He was given the university lecturer award for 2020-2021. He is also listed with the affiliated faculty of the Global Center for Advanced Studies.
