Between Faith and Belief: Toward a Contemporary Phenomenology of Religious Life

by Joeri Schrijvers

Overview

What is to be done at the end of metaphysics? Joeri Schrijvers's contemporary philosophy of religion takes up this question, originally posed by Reiner Schürmann and central to continental philosophy. The book navigates the work of thinkers who have addressed such metaphysical concerns, including Martin Heidegger, Emmanuel Levinas, Jean-Luc Nancy, Jean-Luc Marion, Peter Sloterdijk, Ludwig Binswanger, Jacques Derrida, and more recently John D. Caputo, Mary-Jane Rubenstein, and Martin Hägglund. Notably, Schrijvers engages both those who would deconstruct Christianity and those who remain within this tradition, offering an option that is "between:" between Christianity and atheism, between progressive and conservative, between faith and belief. Ultimately, Schrijvers confronts the end of metaphysics with a phenomenology of love and community, arguing for the radical primacy of togetherness.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781438460215
Publisher:	State University of New York Press
Publication date:	05/11/2016
Series:	SUNY series in Theology and Continental Thought
Pages:	398
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Joeri Schrijvers is Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. He is the author of Ontotheological Turnings? The Decentering of the Modern Subject in Recent French Phenomenology, also published by SUNY Press.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction xi

General Introduction: Toward A Contemporary Phenomenology of Religious Life: Contours and Contexts 1

The Many Faces of Atheism Today 1

"Against the Return of Religion: A Critique of the Religious Origins of our Political Concepts Jean-Luc Nancy Peter Sloterdijk 4

"A Universalizing Faith at the Origin of the Social Bond: Postsecularism As a Secularizing Task" Ludwig Binswanger 5

"A Recognition of the Elementary Faith Underlying the Secularizing Task" John D. Caputo 11

Conclusion: Toward A Contempotary Phenomenology of Religious Life 21

Part 1 Without

Chapter 1 Anarchistic Tendencies in Contemporary Philosophy: Reiner Schiirmann and the Hubris of Philosophy 29

"What is to be done at the end of metaphysics?" 29

Heideggerian Anarchy 30

Levinasian Anarchy 38

Derridean Anarchy 41

Conclusion: In Praise of Everydayness 43

Chapter 2 What Comes after Christianity? Jean-Luc Nancy's Deconstruction of Christianity 47

The End of Metaphysics and the Deconstruction of Christianity 47

Thinking the World: Between Heidegger and Levinas 50

The Deconstruction of Christianity 52

Nancys Exegesis of the Resurrection Story: Noli me Tangere and the Faith in Sense 69

Deconstructing Nancy with Derrida 72

Conclusion: What Comes after Christianity? 79

Chapter 3 Exercises in Religion I: Peter Sloterdijk and the Matrix of Monotheism 83

How to Change Your Life: An Ontological Self-Help Group 84

Once Again: Violence and Metaphysics 88

The De-suprematlcization of the World: The Matrix of Monotheism 90

An Exhausted Matrix? 94

Conclusion: Sloterdijk and "The Legitimacy of Postmodernity" 97

Chapter 4 Exercises in Religion II. Living with Exhaustion 101

Modernity and the Emergence into History 103

Postmodern Life: Ascetic, Aesthetic, and Athletic Religion 110

Life, and Nothing but Life: The Liberation from the Matrix? 115

Changing Codes 119

Conclusion: Deconstructing Christianiry? 122

Conclusion to Part 1 125

Part 2 Between

Chapter 5 In Defense of Deconstruction. John D. Caputo and His Critics 133

How (Not) to Do Away With "The With"? 136

Religion without Religion versus Religion with Religion 142

Mind the Gap! Of Unconditionals and Their Condition 151

Conclusion: Begging to Differ 161

Chapter 6 Between Faith and Belief: Derrida versus Caputo 165

The Event of Religion 165

Prayers, Tears, and Gnashing of Teeth: On Attempting to be an Atheist 169

Derrida as Natural Metaphysician: The Pervertibility of Pure Faith 174

The Aporia, and the Great Unknown: God 178

Conclusion: Between Faith and Belief 181

Chapter 7 Between Strong and Weak Theology: Of a Sacred Anarchy in Caputo and Marion 185

A Christian Reversal of Values 185

A Sacred Anarchy, or the Authority of Authorities 189

From Caputo to Marion: Abandoned to Love? 193

Conclusion: Between Phenomenology and Theology 204

Conclusion to Part 2 209

Facere Veritatem: The Primacy of Bad Conscience 209

Not Yet Rid of God? Of a Religion Not Quite without Religion 215

Part 3 Within

Chapter 8 Ludwig Binswanger's Phenomenology of Love 223

Greetings from Being 225

Phenomenology of Love 233

Toward an Ontology Incarnate: The Fullness of Being 237

Conclusion: Faith in Love 242

Chapter 9 The "Ends" of Love: Friendship, Death, and Care 245

Heidegger and Binswanger 245

The "Unfolding" of Love in the World: Toward a Liebende Sorge 249

Love, Language, and Community 255

Phenomenology of Friendship-The Death of Friends and Lovers 259

The Self between Love and World 264

Conclusion: Loving Life and Living Love 273

Chapter 10 From Love to Life (and Back Again) 275

The Knowledge of Love 275

Body and World: Onward and Upward 278

The Art of a Difficult Existence: Binswanger's Ibsen 279

Binswanger, Art, and the Phenomenology of Religious Life 284

Conclusion: From a Finite Life to the Infinity of Love 287

Conclusion to Part 3 291

General Conclusion 293

Phenomenology of Religious Life 293

A Phenomenology of Religious Life 303

Notes 317

Bibliography 365

Index 375

Editorial Reviews

"…Between Faith and Belief is a book well worth reading and pondering over, regardless of where you fit on the spectrum of metaphysical and post-metaphysical thinking. Some may find his reading of Nancy to be too narrow, or perhaps think his critique of Caputo too quickly dismisses the important concepts Caputo builds through a 'religion without a religion' and his use of deconstruction. Regardless, they will find in this work, at the very least, a good sparring partner." — International Journal of Philosophical Studies

"This book is a reliable guide to a series of ongoing debates in Continental thought that have seemed for some time to be at an impasse … Schrijvers' fine work navigates this impasse with precision and fairness, and thereby gives us a path forward for maintaining embodied religious practice in our world today." — Horizons

"This is a necessary, timely and excellent contribution in the field of philosophy of religion." — South African Journal of Philosophy

"…well written and thought provoking. [Schrijvers] has written an important work tracing the influences and developments of a group of contemporary thinkers and their position on whether ontology can be understood without a theological origin." — Phenomenological Reviews

"This is an enchanting study … Most originally and thoroughly, Schrijvers turns philosophy into love … an intriguing introduction into contemporary thought." — Modern Theology

"...a richly intricate and rewarding book." — International Journal of Philosophy and Theology

"...a helpful foundation for future works about faith and belief or contemporary phenomenologies of religious life." — Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory

"Joeri Schrijvers's book is a tour de force, ranging over a wide spectrum of contemporary thinkers in order to negotiate the distance between religion and religionlessness, God and Godlessness, ontotheology and its overcoming. The result is a nuanced and careful study that repays close study." — John D. Caputo, Syracuse University

"Among the many lusters of Joeri Schrijvers's Between Faith and Belief is a beautiful recovery of Ludwig Binswanger's phenomenology of love. Discussion of postmetaphysical theology is arid without philosophically informed and creative talk of love, and Binswanger's is a voice that has been missing from the conversation for far too long. To put Binswanger into dialogue with Caputo and Nancy, in particular, is at once fascinating and nourishing." — Kevin Hart, University of Virginia

From the Publisher