Customer Reviews

The God Who May Be: A Hermeneutics of Religion (Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Religion)

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If you are at all interested in the most up to date debates on the God question and philosophy then this book is for you. Kearney has been in constant dialogue (literally) with Marion, Derrida, Ricoeur, Kristeva and others for the past 20 years developing his special method of hermeneutics that attempts to find a middle path between the extremes of modernity and postmodernity. This book is a humble approach to the God question from a contemporary philosophical viewpoint. Although relatively technical throughout, I found it to be an exciting and stimulating read and essential for anyone who personally reflects upon the God question and wonders what the world's leading intellectuals have to say about it.

Excellent book. Kearney's text is a re-evaluation of biblical themes to find, via a poetics of possibility, new narrative identities to live by. The complexity of Kearney's thought is contextual to the larger academic discourse he emerges from, as a leading figure in the post-Heidegger controversy/return to religion movement of continental philosophy, which has its antecedents in Levinas and Ricoeur, among others. The text, however, stands on its own, and should make good reading for anyone interested in the subject matter.

Richard Kearney is an interesting type of scholar--having had some debates and some contact with some of the most famous scholars from the continental tradition, he seems to be in a prime position to make a useful comment on what some of these scholars might be saying. Unfortunately, Kearney is too often relating back to work he did in the past, (name dropping, both of his relations to scholars and of his own achievements, as it were) to really deal with his own work seriously. While this might be a good introduction for anyone who has no serious interest or background in philosophy, most people with any immersion in hermeneutics, deconstructionism, or any mild background in continental philosophy will find this book to be too 'popular' for their tastes.

Near the end of the book, Kearney does have a shred of depth to offer us on exactly what he could possibly want mean about 'The God Who May Be,' but unfortunately he concludes the book before it begins to say anything of interest. Read only if you like post-modern thinking at the made-for-the-masses level.