Post-Secular Philosophy: Between Philosophy and Theology

From Nietzsche to the present, the Western philosophical tradition has been dominated by a secular thinking that has dismissed discussion of God as largely irrelevant. In recent years however, the issue of theology has returned to spark some of the most controversial debates within contemporary philosophy. Discussions of theology by key contemporary philosophers such as Derrida and Levinas have placed religion at centre stage. Post-Secular Philosophy is one of the first volumes to consider how God has been approached by modern philosophers and consider the links between theology and postmodern thought. Fifteen accessible essays present a clear and compelling picture of how key thinkers including Descartes, Nietzsche, Freud, Wittgenstein, Heidegger and Derrida have made God a central part of their thinking. Each philosopher and how they have approached and criticised theology is placed in a clear historical context. Placing the collection in context with Phillip Blond's outstanding introduction, Post-Secular Philosophy presents a fascinating discussion of the alternatives to the relativism and nihilism that dominate Western thinking.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Theology before philosophy 1 Descartes and onto-theology 2 Kant and the Kingdom 3 Logic and spirit in Hegel 4 The sublime in Kierkegaard 5 Nietzsche and the metamorphosis of the divine 6 Heidegger and the problem of onto-theology 7 Emmanuel Levinas: God and phenomenology 8 The theological project of Jean-Luc Marion 9 Metaphysics and magic: Wittgenstein’s kink 10 Jacques Derrida: The God effect 11 Freud’s God 12 Lacan and theology 13 Kristeva’s feminist refiguring of the gift 14 Luce Irigaray: Divine spirit and feminine space 15 Jean Baudrillard: Seducing God

About the Author :
Phillip Blond is at Peterhouse, University of Cambridge.

Review :
'Post-Secular Philosophy crystallizes the emergence of Cambridge Radical Orthodoxy and provides a polemical thrust for its adherents ... the standpoint of the editor and many of the contributors represents an influential position which must be taken into account.' - Religion 'An audacious manifesto.' - Modern Review 'In Post-Secular Philosophy Phillip Blond has convened an impressive array of contemporary theologians and philosophers ... it is a submission of philosophy to theology and the denial of the secular lie, in an attempt to address some of the most pressing theological and philosophical questions of our times, that make this collection so important and take us into the post-secular. This book is to be warmly commended to all who seek to engage with a confident, challenging and radically orthodox philosophical theology.' - Affirming Catholicism 'Don't miss out on the excellent fare on offer here.' - Reviews in Religion and Theology' 'Post-secular Philosphy represents a challenge for theological thinking as well as an important phenomenon for the academic study of religion' 'Post-Secular Philosophy crystallises the emergence of Cambridge Radical Orthodoxy and provides a polemical thrust for its adherents' Each contributor to the volume treats an important figure of modern or contemporary Continental philosophy, with every major thinker from Descartes to Irigaray represented' 'Post-Secular Philosophy is an important collection dealing with powerful issues and thinkers, and the standpoint of the editor and many of the contributors represents an influential postion which must ne taken into account as a religious expression in our postmodern world' 'Despite the frequently heralded demise of mainstream Christianity, and particularly of Anglicanism, theology in England has never been so challenging this century as it is now. Post-Secular Philosophy contends that the post-modernist unmasking of the modern man of rationalist humanism need not yield to the playful nihilism that comes from Nietzsche, Heidegger and Derrida; rather it is time to tell the old, old story, in all its premodernity, about our being the gift of a transcendent source which grants all reality as truth, goodness and beauty ... By any standards this is a brillint collection.' - New Blackfriars 'In his introduction Blond begins to delineate a possible theological realism, drawing in particular on the late work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Here, more than anywhere else, the centrality to radical orthodoxy of a reconception of the bodily and the material becomes appealingly evident ... Blond's phenomenological path offers the nearest thing to an independent philosophical grounding currently available to radical orthodoxy ... Whatever the next step (in radical orthodoxy) turns out to be, it should be awaited with real interest, and not only by theologians.' - Simon Jarvis, Textual Practice 'My advice to others: don't miss out on the excellent fare on offer here,.' - Steve Else, University of Birmingham