The Experience of God: A Postmodern Response (Perspectives in Continental Philosophy) [Hardcover]

Kevin Hart (Editor), Barbara Wall (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Perspectives in Continental Philosophy | Publication Date: November 1, 2005

The book provides a series of approaches to the ancient question of whether and how God is a matter of experience,or, alternately, to what extent the notion of experience can be true to itself if it does not include God. On the one hand, it seems impossible to experience God: the deity does not offer Himself to sense experience. On the other hand, there have been mystics who have claimed to have encountered God. The essays in this collection seek to explore the topic again, drawing insights from phenomenology, theology, literature, and feminism. Throughout, this stimulating collection maintains a strong connection with concrete rather than abstract approaches to God.The contributors: Michael F. Andrews, Jeffrey Bloechl, John D. Caputo, Kristine Culp, Kevin Hart, Kevin L. Hughes, Jean-Yves Lacoste, Crystal Lucky, Renee McKenzie, Kim Paffenroth, Michael Purcell, Michael J. Scanlon, O.S.A., James K. A. Smith. Kevin Hart is Notre Dame Professor of English and Concurrent Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame; among his many books are The Trespass of the Sign: Deconstruction, Theology, and Philosophy (Fordham), and The Dark Gaze: Maurice Blanchot and the Sacred. His most recent collection of poems is Flame Tree: Selected Poems. Barbara Wall is Special Assistant to the President for Mission Effectiveness and Associate Professor of Philosophy at Villanova University. She is co-editor of The Journal of Catholic Social Thought and The Journal of Peace and Justice Studies.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

KEVIN HART is Edwin B. Kyle Professor of Christian Studies in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia, where he also holds courtesy professorships in the Departments of English and French.

Barbara Wall is Special Assistant to the President for Mission Effectiveness and Associate Professor of Philosophy at Villanova University. She is co-editor of The Journal of Catholic Social Thought and The Journal of Peace and Justice Studies.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 278 pages
• Publisher: Fordham University Press; 3 edition (November 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0823225186
• ISBN-13: 978-0823225187
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,163,546 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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0 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Professor Jack Flys the Jolly Roger, August 5, 2009

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George Stoya - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Experience of God: A Postmodern Response (Perspectives in Continental Philosophy) (Paperback)

In 2006, Professor Jack Caputo rocked the domains of philosophy and ontotheology with his essay, The Experience of God and the Axiology of the Impossible. "To have an experience is to have a taste for adventure, for venturing and risk, which is the meaning of the root 'peira'. Thus to be a real empiricist means not to sniff along the ground of experience like a hound dog, but to search for opportunities, even perilous ones, like piracy (all of which have the same etymology)."

Caputo's explication of the distinction between phronesis, and the audacity of confidence and trust in God known as "faith" is truly a privateer's enterprise on the high seas of Reason. It is, to put it bluntly, to engage the spiritual enterprise of Pauline discipline on its own court, on its terms. No one, having read it, is ever the same; and I suspect most will silently slink away at the gauntlet Caputo throws down, in much the same way as the Scribes and Pharisees when faced with proposition, "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone."

At a Kantian level the experience of the impossible sought here is comparable, as one writer observed, in another context, to be a fish and undergo an Archimedean realization that water is wet.