Chris Boesel and Catherine Keller (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823230815
- eISBN:
- 9780823235087
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823230815.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
The ancient doctrine of negative theology or apophasis—the attempt to describe God by speaking only of what cannot be said about the divine perfection and goodness—has taken on new ...
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The ancient doctrine of negative theology or apophasis—the attempt to describe God by speaking only of what cannot be said about the divine perfection and goodness—has taken on new life in the concern with language and its limits that preoccupies much post-modern philosophy, theology, and related disciplines. How does this mystical tradition intersect with the concern with material bodies that is simultaneously a focus in these areas? This volume pursues the unlikely conjunction of apophasis and the body, not for the cachet of the “cutting edge” but rather out of an ethical passion for the integrity of all creaturely bodies as they are caught up in various ideological mechanisms—religious, theological, political, economic—that threaten their dignity and material well-being. The book rethinks the relationship between the concrete tradition of negative theology and apophatic discourses widely construed. It further endeavors to link these to the theological theme of incarnation and more general issues of embodiment, sexuality, and cosmology. Along the way, the book engages and deploys the resources of contextual and liberation theology, post-structuralism, postcolonialism, process thought, and feminism. The result not only recasts the nature and possibilities of theological discourse but explores the possibilities of academic discussion across and beyond disciplines in concrete engagement with the well-being of bodies, both organic and inorganic. The volume interrogates the complex capacities of religious discourse both to threaten and positively to draw upon the material well-being of creation.Less
The ancient doctrine of negative theology or apophasis—the attempt to describe God by speaking only of what cannot be said about the divine perfection and goodness—has taken on new life in the concern with language and its limits that preoccupies much post-modern philosophy, theology, and related disciplines. How does this mystical tradition intersect with the concern with material bodies that is simultaneously a focus in these areas? This volume pursues the unlikely conjunction of apophasis and the body, not for the cachet of the “cutting edge” but rather out of an ethical passion for the integrity of all creaturely bodies as they are caught up in various ideological mechanisms—religious, theological, political, economic—that threaten their dignity and material well-being. The book rethinks the relationship between the concrete tradition of negative theology and apophatic discourses widely construed. It further endeavors to link these to the theological theme of incarnation and more general issues of embodiment, sexuality, and cosmology. Along the way, the book engages and deploys the resources of contextual and liberation theology, post-structuralism, postcolonialism, process thought, and feminism. The result not only recasts the nature and possibilities of theological discourse but explores the possibilities of academic discussion across and beyond disciplines in concrete engagement with the well-being of bodies, both organic and inorganic. The volume interrogates the complex capacities of religious discourse both to threaten and positively to draw upon the material well-being of creation.
Noam Reisner
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199572625
- eISBN:
- 9780191721892
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199572625.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Milton Studies, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
This chapter turns to the 1671 volume of Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes. It analyses the crisis of apophatic discourse at the heart of the poet's subjectivity, when modes of spiritual ...
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This chapter turns to the 1671 volume of Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes. It analyses the crisis of apophatic discourse at the heart of the poet's subjectivity, when modes of spiritual interiority surrender to ineffable silence at the expense of voice and meaning. It demonstrates that Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes are reflective and meta-poetic in that they explore the potential failure or success of the divinely inspired poet contemplating redemption for humanity. In these two oddly comparable poems about the merits and limits of individual Christian heroism, Milton finally confronts the ineffable mystery at the heart of the Protestant election and regeneration narrative. In doing so he offers his readers seemingly two very different, yet in fact congruent, didactic reflections on the nature of interior holiness and what it takes to secure salvation and redemption for the individual, if not for his nation.Less
This chapter turns to the 1671 volume of Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes. It analyses the crisis of apophatic discourse at the heart of the poet's subjectivity, when modes of spiritual interiority surrender to ineffable silence at the expense of voice and meaning. It demonstrates that Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes are reflective and meta-poetic in that they explore the potential failure or success of the divinely inspired poet contemplating redemption for humanity. In these two oddly comparable poems about the merits and limits of individual Christian heroism, Milton finally confronts the ineffable mystery at the heart of the Protestant election and regeneration narrative. In doing so he offers his readers seemingly two very different, yet in fact congruent, didactic reflections on the nature of interior holiness and what it takes to secure salvation and redemption for the individual, if not for his nation.
