Religion and European Philosophy: Key Thinkers from Kant to Žižek 1138188530, 9781138188532

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Religion and European Philosophy

Religion and European Philosophy: Key Thinkers from Kant to Žižek draws together a diverse group of scholars in theology, religious studies, and philosophy to discuss the role that religion plays among key figures in the European philosophical ­tradition. Designed for accessibility, each of the thirty-four chapters includes background information on the key thinker, an overview of the main themes, concepts, and concerns that occupy his or her attention, and a discussion of the religious and theological elements present in his or her thought, in light of contemporary issues. Given the scope of the volume, Religion and European Philosophy will be the go-to guide for understanding the religious and theological dimensions of European p­ hilosophy, for both students and established researchers alike. Philip Goodchild is Professor of Religion and Philosophy at the University of Nottingham, UK. Hollis Phelps is Assistant Professor of Religion at the University of Mount Olive, in North Carolina, USA.

“With Religion and European Philosophy: Key Thinkers from Kant to Žižek, Goodchild and Phelps contribute an impressive addition to the bibliography on European philosophy of religion and religious studies. The text is functionally comprehensive, exceptionally lucid, and informatively stimulating.” Keith Putt, Samford University, USA

Religion and European Philosophy Key Thinkers from Kant to Žižek

Edited by Philip Goodchild and Hollis Phelps

First published 2017 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park,  Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2017 selection and editorial matter, Philip Goodchild and Hollis Phelps, individual chapters, the contributors The right of Philip Goodchild and Hollis Phelps to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress-Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-1-138-18853-2 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-138-18852-5 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-64225-3 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India

CONTENTS



Contributors

ix



Religion and European Philosophy:  A brief introduction Hollis Phelps

1

Part 1

German idealism

15

1 Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) Philip Goodchild

17

2 G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831) Molly Farneth

31

3 F. W. J. Schelling (1775–1854) Karin Nisenbaum and Daniel Whistler

44

4 Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) Christopher Ryan

60

5 Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–1872) Nina Power

74

vi  Contents

Part 2

Critical theory

85

  6 Karl Marx (1818–1883) Roland Boer

87

  7 Ernest Bloch (1885–1977) Ian Bacher

101

  8 Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) Agata Bielik-Robson

115

  9 Theodor Adorno (1903–1969) Daniel Colucciello Barber

127

10 Jürgen Habermas (1929–) Maureen Junker-Kenny

141

Part 3

Living experience

157

11 Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Edward F. Mooney

159

12 Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) Bruce Ellis Benson

173

13 Franz Rosenzweig (1886–1929) Agata Bielik-Robson

184

14 Henri Bergson (1859–1941) Philip Goodchild

196

15 Simone Weil (1909–1943) Stuart Jesson

207

16 Georges Bataille (1897–1962) Rina Arya

222

Contents  vii  

Part 4

Phenomenology and hermeneutics

235

17 Edmund Husserl (1859–1938) James G. Hart

237

18 Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) Ben Vedder

254

19 Emmanuel Levinas (1906–1995) Nigel Zimmermann

266

20 Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900–2002) J. R. Hustwit

278

21 Paul Ricoeur (1913–2005) Todd Mei

294

22 Michel Henry (1922–2002) W. Chris Hackett

307

23 Jean-Luc Marion (1946–) Christina Gschwandtner

324

Part 5

Structuralism, post-structuralism, and beyond

339

24 Jacques Lacan (1901–1981) Aron Dunlap

341

25 Michel Foucault (1926–1984) Jeremy Carrette

355

26 Gilles Deleuze (1925–1995) Kristien Justaert

370

27 Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) Clayton Crockett

383

viii  Contents

28 Jean-Luc Nancy (1940–) Joeri Schrijvers

396

29 Julia Kristeva (1941–) Catherine Tomas

408

30 Luce Irigaray (1930–) Patrice Haynes

423

31 Alain Badiou (1937–) Hollis Phelps

438

32 Giorgio Agamben (1942–) Adam Kotsko

452

33 François Laruelle (1937–) Anthony Paul Smith

465

34 Slavoj Žižek (1949–) Marcus Pound

479



Index

493

CONTRIBUTORS

Rina Arya is Reader in Visual Communications at the University of W ­ olverhampton (UK). She is the author of Abjection and Representation: An Exploration of Abjection in the Visual Arts, Film, and Literature; and Francis Bacon: Painting in a Godless World. Ian Bacher is a PhD student in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Nottingham (UK), where he works on the philosophies of Ernst Bloch and Gilles Deleuze. Daniel Colucciello Barber is Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Pace University (USA). He was previously affiliated with the ICI Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry. He is the author of Deleuze and the Naming of God: Post-Secularism and the Future of Immanence; and On Diaspora: Christianity, Religion, and Secularity. Bruce Ellis Benson is former Professor of Philosophy at Wheaton College (USA). He is the author of The New Phenomenology: A Philosophical Introduction (with J. Aaron Simmons); Liturgy as a Way of Life: Embodying the Arts in Christian Worship; Pious Nietzsche: Decadence and Dionysian Faith; and Graven Ideologies: Nietzsche, Derrida, and Marion on Modern Idolatry. Agata Bielik-Robson is Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of ­Nottingham (UK). She is the author of Jewish Cryptotheologies of Late Modernity: Philosophical Marranos; and The Saving Lie: Harold Bloom and Deconstruction. Roland Boer is Professor of Literary Theory at Renmin (People’s) University of China, Beijing and Research Professor in Religious Thought at the University of Newcastle, Australia. Among other books, he is the author of The Sacred

x  Contributors

­ conomy of Ancient Israel; Idols of Nations: Biblical Myth at the Origins of Capitalism E (with ­Christina Petterson); Lenin, Religion, and Theology; Political Myth: On the Use and Abuse of Biblical Themes; and the five-part On Marxism and Theology series. Jeremy Carrette is Professor of Religion and Culture at the University of Kent (UK). He is the author of William James’s Hidden Religious Imagination: A Universe of Relations; Religion and Critical Psychology: Religious Experience in the Knowledge Economy; Selling Spirituality: The Silent Takeover of Religion (with Richard King); and Foucault and Religion: Spiritual Corporeality and Spiritual Spirituality. Clayton Crockett is Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at the University of Central Arkansas (USA). He is the author of Deleuze Beyond Badiou; Religion, Politics, and the Earth: The New Materialism (with Jeffrey Robbins); Radical Political Theology: Religion and Politics After Liberalism; Interstices of the Sublime: Theology and Psychoanalytic Theory; and A Theology of the Sublime. Aron Dunlap is Assistant Professor of Liberal Arts at Shimer College (USA). He is the author of Lacan and Theology. Molly Farneth is Assistant Professor in the Religion Department at Haverford College (USA). She is the author of Hegel’s Social Ethics: Norms, Conflicts, and Rituals of Reconciliation. Philip Goodchild is Professor of Religion and Philosophy at the University of Nottingham (UK). He is the author of Gilles Deleuze and the Question of Philosophy; Deleuze and Guattari: An Introduction to the Politics of Desire; Capitalism and Religion: The Price of Piety; and Theology of Money. Christina Gschwandtner is Professor of Philosophy at Fordham University (USA). She is the author of Reading Jean-Luc Marion: Exceeding Metaphysics; Postmodern Apologetics? Arguments about God in Contemporary Philosophy; Degrees of Givenness: On Saturation in Jean-Luc Marion; Marion and Theology. W. Chris Hackett is Research Fellow/Lecturer in the Faculty of Theology and Philosophy at the Institute for Religion & Critical Inquiry at Australian Catholic University (AU). He is the author of Quiet Powers of the Possible: Interviews in Contemporary French Phenomenology (with Tarek Dika). James G. Hart is Emeritus Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Indiana University (USA). He is the author of Who One Is: A Transcendental-Existential Phenomenology; and The Person and the Common Life: Studies in a Husserlian Social Ethics. Patrice Haynes is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Liverpool Hope University (UK). She is the author of Immanent Transcendence: Reconfiguring Materialism in Continental Philosophy.

Contributors  xi  

J. R. Hustwit is Associate Professor of Religion and Philosophy at Methodist ­University (USA). He is the author of Interreligious Hermeneutics and the Pursuit of Truth. Stuart Jesson is Lecturer in Religion, Philosophy, and Ethics at York St John University (UK). His published work focuses on Simone Weil. Maureen Junker-Kenny is Professor in Theology at Trinity College Dublin. She is the author of Religion and Public Reason: A Comparison of the Positions of John Rawls, Jürgen Habermas and Paul Ricoeur; and Habermas and Theology. Kristien Justaert is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Katholieke Universiteit Lueven (BE). She is the author of Theology After Deleuze. Adam Kotsko is Assistant Professor of Humanities at Shimer College (USA). He is the author of The Prince of this World; The Politics of Redemption: The Social Logic of Salvation; Žižek and Theology; Agamben’s Coming Philosophy: Finding a New Use for Theology (with Colby Dickinson); Awkwardness; Creepiness; and Why We Love Sociopaths. Edward F. Mooney is Emeritus Professor in the Departments of Religion and Philosophy at Syracuse University (USA). He is the author of Excursions With Thoreau: Philosophy, Poetry, Religion; Lost Intimacy in American Thought: Recovering Personal Philosophy from Thoreau to Cavell; Excursions With Kierkegaard: Others, Goods, Death, and Final Faith; On Søren Kierkegaard: Dialogue, Polemics, Lost Intimacy, and Time; and Knights of Faith and Resignation: Reading Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling. Todd Mei is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Kent (UK). He is the author of Heidegger, Work, and Being. Karin Nisenbaum is Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Colgate University (USA). She is currently completing a monograph titled For the Love of Metaphysics: Nihilism and the Conflict of Reason from Kant to Rosenzweig. Hollis Phelps is Assistant Professor of Religion at the University of Mount Olive (USA). He is the author of Alain Badiou: Between Theology and Anti-Theology. Marcus Pound is Lecturer and Assistant Director of the Centre for Catholic Studies in the Department of Theology and Religion at Durham University (UK). He is the author of Žižek: A Very Critical Introduction and Theology, Psychoanalysis, and Trauma. Nina Power is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Roehampton (UK). She is the author of One-Dimensional Woman. Christopher Ryan is Lecturer in Philosophy at London Metropolitan University (UK). He is the author of Schopenhauer’s Philosophy of Religion: The Death of God and the Oriental Renaissance.

xii  Contributors

Joeri Schrijvers is Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (BE). He is the author of Ontotheological Turnings? The Decentering of the Modern Subject in Recent French Phenomenology; and Between Faith and Belief: Toward a Contemporary Phenomenology of Religious Life. Anthony Paul Smith is Assistant Professor of Religion at La Salle University (USA). He is the author of Laruelle: A Stranger Thought; François Laruelle’s Principles of Non-Philosophy: A Critical Introduction and Guide; A Non-Philosophical Theory of Nature: Ecologies of Thought. Catherine Tomas gained her D.Phil. from the University of Oxford (UK), with a thesis that proposes a “hermeneutics of power” through the work of Julia Kristeva and Hannah Arendt. Her research interests include mysticism, marginalized epistemic voices, and the metaphysics of food. Ben Vedder is Emeritus Professor of Metaphysics and Philosophy of Religion at Radboud University Nijmegen (NL). He is the author of Heidegger’s Philosophy of Religion: From God to Gods. Daniel Whistler is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Liverpool (UK). He is the author of Schelling’s Theory of Symbolic Language: Forming the System of Identity. Nigel Zimmermann is Lecturer in Theology at the University of Notre Dame Australia (AU). He is the author of Levinas and Theology.

Religion and European Philosophy A brief introduction Hollis Phelps

The development of the academic study of religion and the specific concerns of modern theology owe a great deal to the European philosophical tradition. The concepts, concerns and various styles present in that tradition have directly and indirectly informed discussions in religious studies and theology, both past and present, and many of the key figures associated with it have made direct contributions to religious studies and theology in their own right. For instance, Immanuel Kant, the focus of the first essay in this volume, set the agenda for the field with his “Copernican Revolution” in philosophy: this upended traditional metaphysics, concerned with the existence and nature of God, in favor of an analysis of the human subject and how he or she knows the world. Kant’s view that the mind actively contributes to the production of our knowledge of the world has far-reaching consequences, including how we understand the nature of theological and religious knowledge. Is religion just a human projection or is there something divine about human thought? Similarly, Heidegger’s phenomenological investigations into the nature of being have had immense influence on the development of the field of religious studies and contemporary theological reflection. In the phenomena of religion, we are now confronted with fields of interpretation of reality itself. Indeed, Heidegger’s shadow continues to loom large over much contemporary philosophy of religion, along with many of the later thinkers presented in this volume. The list could go on, but suffice it to say at this point that much of the most innovative work in religious studies and theology has arisen from an engagement with the European philosophical tradition, although not exclusively so. The significance of such mutual engagement, moreover, often extends well beyond the confines of religious studies, theology, and philosophy, as seen for instance in recent discussions concerned with “the return of the religious” and the complicated and often contentious role that religion continues to play in the political, economic, and social spheres.

2  Hollis Phelps

Gaining a basic foothold in European philosophy is, then, essential for ­understanding past and present intellectual trends, both in religious studies and theology and beyond. Moreover, and perhaps even more significantly, the European philosophical tradition also contains vast, often untapped resources for those studying religion and theology, resources that have the potential to drive innovative work into the future. Thus, those looking to think about religion and theology critically and in new ways will find ample material in the body of literature that constitutes the European philosophical tradition. Yet students of religious studies and theology often face a daunting task when attempting to enter the literature. For a start, the literature itself is extremely diverse. Although it is possible to speak generally of shared themes and concerns that have developed over time, the thinkers associated with modern and contemporary European philosophy evince vast differences in focus, approach and style, and each introduces a certain novelty into the tradition itself. Getting a handle on the continuities and differences in the tradition, along with the peculiarities of individual figures and their specific contributions, is certainly a difficult task, one that can take years of study. Nevertheless, that process is often made more difficult by the nature of the material. Much of the literature that constitutes the European philosophical tradition is notoriously difficult, at times abstruse, even for the trained specialist. Jumping into, say, Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit or Derrida’s Of Grammatology for the first time is for most people to invite confusion, at least when done on one’s own. To be sure, there is a large secondary literature on the figures and themes that populate the philosophical tradition. This literature itself, however, can often be just as difficult, to the extent that it adopts the language and way of thinking of the thinker(s) in question. Moreover, even the most basic introductions often assume a fair amount of knowledge in advance, which is one more difficulty presented to the uninitiated reader. Matters are often more difficult to the student interested primarily in theology and religious studies. Even when the secondary literature is admirably clear, the best of it often does not discuss at length the issues that may be of most interest to students of religion and theology. That is, the religious themes and concepts, along with various theological resonances, found in the thinkers in question are often not brought to the fore in interpretative discussions, if they are discussed at all. To state as much is not a criticism per se, but a simple acknowledgment that we approach and write about figures with specific concerns in mind. Those specializing in philosophy may, understandably, not always ground the importance of religious and theological themes in the thinkers in question. When the literature does take up these themes, even in ways that specifically address religious and theological matters, other concerns often overburden the need for a clear introduction. Otherwise put, the secondary literature often does not explicitly have the student in mind, especially students in religion and theology. Moreover, there currently is no single volume available that adequately covers the broad terrain of European philosophy from the perspective of religious studies and theology. Until now, that is. We have gathered under one cover a collection of essays

Introduction  3  

that takes the student of religion and theology as its primary audience. The goal of each essay, in this sense, is on the one hand to provide a basic, readable introduction to a key thinker in the European philosophical tradition read specifically through his or her use of and relation to religious and theological themes. On the other hand, each of the essays intends to provoke further research and study, above and beyond the basic terrain covered. The ultimate goal of this volume, then, is to provide resources that will incite students to chart new, unexpected paths in their disciplines.

Secularism and the turn to religion Certain presuppositions, interpretative principles and themes, whether stated or not, guide all academic work, including the formation and organization of edited volumes. This is no less the case with Religion and European Philosophy: Key Thinkers from Kant to Žižek. The essays in the volume read as a sort of “who’s who” among continental thinkers, and in this sense the volume can be read in terms of an overview of the field from a particular perspective. Nevertheless, the volume as a whole—in terms of the thinkers included in the volume, the authors of the individual essays, and the volume’s organization and scope—can perhaps best be understood as a response to the “return of the religious.” Also referred to as the “theological turn” or simply the “turn to religion,” the term designates an apparently renewed and concerted focus on religious and theological themes across a broad spectrum of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. Such a turn, it should be noted, is not entirely self-evident, at least from a certain perspective. To generalize, in the twentieth century the dominant discourse on religion often adopted some form of the so-called secularization thesis, which posits an inverse correlation between modernization and religious belief. As societies become more modern and even postmodern, the public importance of religious belief simultaneously declines. Societies, in other words, become secular, guided by principles rooted in rational discourse and consensus and not directly in religion, at least in an overtly confessional guise. To the extent that religion persists, it does so primarily as an individual, private affair, but even this, the secularization thesis posits, is on the wane and is bound to eventually dissipate. So described, the secularization thesis corresponds to liberalism as a political project. Although the secularization thesis still has its advocates (Bruce 2002), even among scholars of religion, its explanatory value and guiding assumptions have been severely called into question on numerous fronts. According to the sociologist Peter L. Berger, who was once one of its most prominent advocates, the “key idea” behind secularization theory “has turned out to be wrong”: To be sure, modernization has had some secularizing effects, more in some places than in others. But it has also provoked powerful movements of countersecularization. Also, secularization on the societal level is not necessarily linked to secularization on the level of individual consciousness. Certain religious institutions have lost power and influence in many societies, but both

4  Hollis Phelps

old and new religious beliefs and practices have nevertheless continued in the lives of individuals, sometimes taking new institutional forms and sometimes leading to great explosions of religious fervor. Conversely, religiously identified institutions can play social and political roles even when very few people believe or practice the religion that the institutions represent. To say the least, the relation between religion and modernity is rather complicated. (Berger 1999, 2–3) To say that the relationship between religion and modernity—and now postmodernity and beyond—is complicated, is to say along with Hent de Vries that “citations from religious traditions are more fundamental to the structure of language and experience than the genealogies, critiques, and transcendental reflections of the modern discourse that has deemed such citations obsolete and tended to reduce them to what they are not” (de Vries 1999, 2). De Vries’s claim can be understood in a variety of ways. To begin with, we can take it as an indication of the various, convoluted ways that secularization and modernization continue to be informed by religion and, moreover, even remain inside the latter’s logic and trajectory.The usual tale about the Enlightenment—that it represents a turning point in human history, as we progressively march our way on up, which includes away from religion—functions, from this perspective, as little more than retroactive wish fulfilment.The narrative of inevitable and irreversible progress has, no doubt, largely caved under pressure from the realities of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno had already argued as much in the 1940s, in Dialectic of Enlightenment. Although enlightenment, as they argued, “has always aimed at liberating human beings from fear and installing them as masters,” in actuality, it reveals itself as a form of domination, as it “regresses to the mythology it has never been able to escape” (Horkheimer and Adorno 2002, 1 and 20). “Enlightenment is totalitarian,” they baldly state (Horkheimer and Adorno 2002, 4). A central component of that mythology concerns the supposed exodus from religion, but the Enlightenment and its intellectual, cultural, socio-political and economic offshoots are better understood in a different, more complex key. This is not to say that the line that runs from the pre-modern to the modern era does so smoothly, without any major breaks or interruptions, and that includes the notion of religion. Nietzsche captured a difference between the two in his famous Parable of the Madman. A madman, the parable goes, runs into the marketplace, crying, “I seek God! I seek God!” Some of the townspeople, whom the parable tells us did not believe in God, meet his search with mockery instead, “Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated?” In response, the madman jumps into their midst, confronting them with God’s death, and the shock that it should provoke: The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. ‘Whither is God?’ he cried; I will tell you. We have killed him – you and I.

Introduction  5  

All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. (Nietzsche 1974, 181–2) Confronted with the greatness of their deed, which is also ours, the townspeople can only respond to the madman in silent astonishment, which leads him to conclude that he has “come too early.” “This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men,” he says. “Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most ­distant stars—and yet they have done it themselves.” One way to interpret Nietzsche’s proclamation of God’s death is to read it in terms of the aforementioned secularization thesis. On this view, Nietzsche’s description of what he took to be the intellectual and socio-cultural climate of nineteenth-century Europe would correspond to the decline of religion—and, for him, Christianity specifically—as the symbolic glue that holds society together. This is largely how the Italian philosopher and politician, Gianni Vattimo, interprets it, though with a seemingly ironic twist. Following Heidegger, for Vattimo Nietzsche’s proclamation of God’s death coincides with the end of metaphysics, the ability to reduce existence to its first principles. Vattimo writes that the phenomenon of God’s death “has made useless and obsolete the radical hypothesis concerning the existence of a supreme Being as the ground and ultimate telos of the world” (Vattimo 2002, 13). For Vattimo, it is important to point out, this does not necessarily spell the end of belief in God or the practice of religion, at least in a certain key. The dissolution of metaphysics, that is, the grounding of existence in an absolute, rules out the making of “strong” claims regarding anything whatsoever, hence God’s death has also ironically “made the philosophical denial of God’s existence impossible” (Vattimo 2002, 15). Indeed, for Vattimo, the lightening of existence or, as he often refers to it, its weakening allows for a post-metaphysical return of religion. Nevertheless, any such “return” must, if it is to be legitimate, pass through God’s death, meaning that it must be “weak” (i.e. lacking ultimate foundations) rather than “strong.” Religion—and any other form of thought, for that matter— must coincide with secularization, which Vattimo understands as a trajectory that emerges out of Christianity itself. He writes that general weakening of being

6  Hollis Phelps

reopens the philosophical debate on the end of metaphysics, and provides the basis for a critical evaluation of the forms in which the rebirth of the sacred appears in our time. The term around which these two aspects of my argument can be further developed is secularization. Having recognized its family resemblance with the biblical message of the history of salvation and with God’s incarnation, philosophy can call the weakening that it discovers as the characteristic feature of the history of Being secularization in its broadest sense, which comprises all forms of dissolution of the sacred characteristic of the modern process of civilization. If it is the mode in which the weakening of Being realizes itself as the kenosis of God, which is the kernel of the history of salvation, secularization shall no longer be conceived of as the abandonment of religion but as the paradoxical realization of Being’s religious vocation. From the perspective of secularization—of the vocation of weakening— postmetaphysical philosophy will understand and criticize the multifaceted phenomena of religion’s return in our culture, thus inescapably putting itself into question. (Vattimo 2002, 24) Secularization, then, does not so much spell the end of religion as fulfil its trajectory, as the kenotic debasement of being. But only so long as religion adopts a ­post-metaphysical form, meaning that it coincides with secularization itself. Vattimo’s take on the secularization thesis differs, in that it reads secularization as the fulfilment of religion rather than its dissolution, but it shores up the fact that secularization as a discourse is far from neutral. Although secularization, when understood in light of the weakening of being, theoretically allows for a plurality of individual and collective beliefs, stances and paradigms, the medium in which these occur is essentially Christian, both in form and content. As stated in the quotation above, secularization on Vattimo’s account coincides with such theological notions as the history of salvation, incarnation and kenosis. This may not be much of a problem in and of itself, so long as the discourse of weakening could itself function in “weak” terms, but it clearly functions as a sort of master narrative to police what Vattimo takes as insufficiently secular. Consider the following claim concerning the status of religious identity in relation to public displays of religious symbols in Western societies: Christians cannot claim the right to expose the crucifix in public schools and at the same time adopt it as a sign of a particular, highly dogmatic religion. Or, Christmas can continue to be celebrated in Western societies as a holiday for all, but then it makes no sense to complain that it has become too lay, too mundane, that is, that it has been deprived of its original, authentic meaning. In the end, also, the prohibition of the chador in French public schools can be justified precisely because in that context it is an affirmation of a strong identity, a kind of profession of fundamentalism. By contrast, in our society the crucifix has become an almost obvious—and hence unobtrusive—sign,

Introduction  7  

which allows for the continued existence of a lay orientation of which it only underscores the religious origin within the context of a development toward secularization. It is precisely by appealing to generic meaning—one that offers openings and possibilities—that the crucifix can claim its right to be accepted as a universal symbol in a lay society. (Vattimo 2002, 101–102) Vattimo rules out any sort of public display of identity, particularly religious identity, because of the way in which such displays cut against the secular organization of life. Pluralism is valued—indeed, required by Vattimo’s critique of metaphysics—but only to the extent that the identities involved take on a weak form, modelled after the lay practice of Christianity and its now generic symbols. Secular and secularized identities are the only ones that count, because they are assumed to be “unobtrusive.” Vattimo’s articulation of the weakening of being in terms of a secularized Christianity and the values that it emphasizes, then, gives body to Nietzsche’s coincident claim that Christianity actually survives the death of God, in the form of a specific morality (see Zupančič 2002, 35). The passage form the pre-modern to the modern, from the “religious” to the “secular,” then, is smoother than is normally thought. There is not an absolute disjunction between the two, but rather continuity, and this continuity rests on the legacy of Christianity, in both form and content. The death of God certainly names a shift in values, but this shift should be understood from within the parameters of Christianity and its legacy. The formation of the secular, as Talal Asad might put it (Asad 2003), although historically, socially, economically, culturally and politically complex, remains in basic fashion a Christian phenomenon. Two well-known examples may help illustrate the point. First, is Carl Schmitt’s famous thesis concerning political theology: All significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts not only because of their historical development—in which they were transferred from theology to the theory of the state, whereby, for example, the omnipotent God became the omnipotent lawgiver—but also because of their systematic structure, the recognition of which is necessary for a sociological consideration of these concepts. (Schmitt 1985, 36) Theology, for Schmitt, lingers across the so-called “modern divide” in the political. The maintenance of theology in a secular guise, however, cannot be reduced to historical influence or accident, to the mere fact that one emerges out of and after the other. The link between the two is, rather, deep-seated, rooted in a conceptual relationship that is less easy to dismiss. One could argue, of course, that the analogy between the two is just that, an analogy, with little real explanatory force behind it. To do so, however, is to mistake content for form and its power. As Giorgio Agamben has pointed out, secularization “leaves intact the forces it deals with by

8  Hollis Phelps

simply moving them from one place to another. Thus, the political secularization of theological concepts … does nothing but displace the heavenly monarchy onto an earthly monarchy, leaving its power intact” (Agamben 2007, 77). Second, are Walter Benjamin’s claims concerning the religious nature of capitalism, in “Capitalism as Religion.” Benjamin takes issue with Weber’s thesis concerning the development of capitalism as conditioned by Christianity. For Benjamin, the relationship is stronger: capitalism does not simply emerge out of Christianity, as a sort of by-product, but is rather a religious phenomenon in its own right, one that draws on, but also twists and reverses, Christian theological notions. Benjamin writes: “Capitalism is entirely without precedent, in that it is a religion which offers not the reform of existence but its complete destruction. It is the expansion of despair, until despair becomes a religious state of the world in the hope that this will lead to salvation. God’s transcendence is at an end. But he is not dead; he has been incorporated into human existence” (Benjamin 1996, 289). Capitalism, in this sense, emerges as “a parasite of Christianity in the West,” but as Benjamin points out, the parasite eventually becomes the host. Now, it is possible to see that “Christianity’s history is essentially that of its parasite—that is to say, of capitalism” (Benjamin 1996, 289). The recognition of the secular’s entanglement in the religious and vice versa, combined with the continuing visibility of religion as a public, political actor at local, national and international levels, has led to talk of a post-secular approach to both religion and society. Although the concept itself is not singular, in the sense that it serves as a sort of catch-all for a variety of theoretical and practical approaches, post-secularism can function either descriptively or normatively in both positive and negative senses, though the line between the two is often ambiguous (Dalferth 2010). We can understand the discourse on the “return of the religious” as broadly within this trajectory. Many of the thinkers included in this volume have, variously, been associated with that turn or return, although representing different positions on the ambiguous line between the descriptive and normative. Nevertheless, the essays we have gathered here also complicate the notion of a “return.” Although the recent emphasis on religion as part of the emergence of a post-secular paradigm from numerous quarters may indeed raise new questions, it is also worth recognizing that the question of religion, generally speaking, has been part and parcel of the European philosophical tradition from its inception. Immanuel Kant set the tone here. As Goodchild points out in his essay, “Kant’s critical turn towards the transcendental subject—exploring how the nature of human thinking imposes conditions upon all understanding of reality—is the precursor to all that follows.” But that critical turn, as Goodchild also shows, culminated in a philosophy of religion, a move that puts religion squarely within the domain of philosophical reflection. The question of religion, as the essays included in this volume show, will remain live for the thinkers that follow in Kant’s footsteps, even down to the present, among contemporary thinkers such as Alain Badiou, Giorgio Agamben, Jean-Luc Nancy, Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva, Jean-Luc Marion, François Laruelle and Slavoj Žižek.

Introduction  9  

Religion does not play the same role for the thinkers included in this volume, and each approaches religion with different, though often overlapping, concerns in mind. Nor do the thinkers presented in this volume evaluate religion in the same way. Nevertheless, what remains constant is a wrestling with religion, even if in ways less overt and often even concealed. Mark C. Taylor’s observation seems apt, in this respect: “People talk about the return of religion, that’s a mistake. It didn’t return because it never went away” (Hoffman and Taylor, 2008). The essays presented in this volume, we hope, help map this persistence, across a diverse array of philosophical perspectives. The essays thus not only provide basic introductions to the thinkers in question but also contribute to an evaluation of the role that religion has played in the construction of modernity and postmodernity. Far from a progressive movement away from religion, what the essays show instead is that religion remains a constant site of negotiation and delineation, from Kant up to the present.

The scope of the volume Any anthology must negotiate the fine line between inclusion and exclusion, and that is no less the case with this volume. Although we have tried to be as inclusive as possible, both in terms of the volume itself and the content of the individual essays, certain figures have inevitably been left out, and some readers may take issue with their exclusion. Likewise, in terms of the individual essays, certain themes have been emphasized over others, particularly those that bear directly on theology and religious studies. Our goal has not been to produce an authoritative canon but, rather, provide a set of essays that we think represents as best as possible the mainstream of the modern and contemporary European philosophical tradition, as it relates to current methodologies, themes, concerns and trends found in religious studies and theology. In many ways, the list of thinkers we have included is conventional, but this is wholly intentional on our part. For students to gain an adequate foothold in European philosophy, it is necessary first to grapple with the standard thinkers in that tradition. Selecting whom to include has not been an entirely straightforward affair. Many of the figures included in this volume should cause no argument. For instance, it is inconceivable that a volume such as this would not include figures like Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche and Heidegger, to name but a few, given their stature and broad influence across multiple disciplines and, in particular, religious studies and theology. The inclusion of other figures, however, may prove more controversial and problematic to some, especially when weighed against those who have not been included. Why include, for example, Simone Weil but not Maurice MerleauPonty, Ernst Bloch but not Jean-Paul Sartre, Franz Rosenzweig but not Sigmund Freud? That goes double for the inclusion of contemporary figures, whose work, and thus contributions to the field, is still very much in development, and may even remain largely unknown outside specialized domains, as is the case with someone like Laruelle.

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Being all-inclusive is, frankly, an impossible task, and in the end the figures that we have chosen constitute at least to some extent certain preferences on our part and a judgment about the current state of the field and its potential future. Nevertheless, we have sought to include figures whose work currently drives discussions, both in and beyond the scope of European philosophy proper. The work of the figures we have chosen, then, is sufficiently wide-ranging, but also specifically addresses issues of interest to the intended audience of this volume. That is, each of the figures chosen, both past and present, not only directly discusses at some point in his or her work religious and theological themes, but also uses these critically as resources to construct his or her philosophy. We hope at the end of the day that readers will focus more on whom and what w