God and the between / William Desmond.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Desmond, William, 1951-

Series:

Illuminations--theory and religion

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

God.

Physical Description:

xii, 347 pages ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

Malden, MA : Blackwell Pub., 2008.

Summary:

God and the Between explores the space between religion and philosophy, as the religious person cannot escape philosophical perplexity and the philosopher of religion by nature occupies this middle space. Author William Desmond suggests that this junction is not just dictated by religion having to prove its credentials to rational philosophy but that it is also a matter of philosophy wondering whether religion is the ultimate partner in dialogue.

Although the volume includes discussion of a wide range of significant thinkers, both traditional and contemporary, it is primarily an original effort to rethink the question of God in a constructive spirit. In doing so, God and the Between remains true to the porosity that exists between religion and philosophy, and draws its conclusions by considering ideas received from both sides.

This book is an important new contribution to the ongoing scholarly debates surrounding the intersection of philosophy and religion. It completes a trilogy of works by William Desmond, complementing its companion volumes, Being and the Between and Ethics and the Between.

Contents:

Breaking Silence about God 1

God and the Ethos of Being 2

Passing in the Ethos: Between the Given and the Good 6

God, Ethos, and the Fourfold Sense of Being 7

God, Philosophical Systematics, Religious Poetics 10

Exceeding System, Hyperboles, Unclogging Ways 11

Structure of the Work 13

Part I Godlessness 15

1 Godlessness and the Ethos of Being 17

Godlessness 17

Devalued Being: The Stripping of the Signs 19

Idolized Autonomy: Eclipse of Transcendence as Other 21

Transcendences 22

The Antinomy of Autonomy and Transcendence 23

Dark Origins and Transcendence as Other 24

Will to Power and the Counterfeit Double of "Yes" 26

Return to Zero: Coming to Nothing 28

2 Beyond Godlessness 31

The Angel of Death, Being as Gift 31

God and Posthumous Mind 32

Out of Nothing: Porosity and the Urgency of Ultimacy 33

Redoubled Beginning: Elemental Yes 35

Idiotic Rebirth 36

Aesthetic Recharging 37

Erotic Outreaching 40

Agapeic Resurrection 43

Part II Ways to God 47

3 God and the Univocal Way 49

Ways to God 49

The Way of Univocity 49

Pantheistic Univocity: Immediate Sacrality 50

Equivocal Transience and Univocalizing God 52

Beyond Doubleness to the Absorbing One: The Parmenidean Way 53

Between the One and the Double: The Platonic Way 55

The One beyond the Double: The Plotinian Way 57

Reversing the One and the Double: Or How the Dualistic Defense of Transcendence Effects its Eclipse 59

The Immanent Double(ing): Or How the Shadow of Modern Monotheism is Atheism 61

Gods of Geometry 64

The One and the Double in Immanence: Kant's Transcendental One and its Humanistic Dissolution 68

4 God and the Equivocal Way 73

The Way of Equivocity 73

Nature's Equivocity 74

God's Equivocity 75

Equivocity and Evil 78

Deus Sive Ego? On the Equivocities of Religious Inwardness 82

Gethsemane Thoughts: Between Curse and Blessing 85

Deus Sive Nihil? The Equivocal Way and Purgatorial Difference 88

5 God and the Dialectical Way 91

God Beyond Opposition 91

Kant's Virtual Dialectic: Finding Direction by Unknowing Indirection 93

A Parable: Fishing for God 100

Dialectic beyond Dualism: Determining Origin beyond Determination 101

Dialectic and the Self-Determining God: On Some Hegelian Ways 103

Dialectic, Coming to Be, Becoming 107

God Beyond Dialectic: On Avoiding a Counterfeit Double of God 109

6 God and the Metaxological Way 116

Four Ways: God and the Metaxological 116

The Indirections of Transcending in the Between 122

God and the Between: First Hyperbole - The Idiocy of Being 128

God and the Between: Second Hyperbole - The Aesthetics of Happening 134

God and the Between: Third Hyperbole - The Erotics of Selving 141

God and the Between: Fourth Hyperbole - The Agapeics of Communication 150

7 God Beyond the Between 159

The Hyperbole of the Agapeic Origin 159

Reversing the Hyperboles and the Reserves of God 164

Bringing the Hyperboles Back to the Between 167

Part III Gods 171

8 God(s) Many and One: On Polytheism and Monotheism 173

Gods 173

Religious Imagination and Porosity to Archaic Manifestation 174

Sacred Namings and the Hyperboles of Being 176

Naming the Agapeic God 179

From Polytheism to Monotheism 180

Metaxological Monotheism 184

The Praise of Paganism 187

9 God(s) Personal and Transpersonal: On the Masks of the Divine 191

Personal God(s) and Plurivocal Manifestation 191

Monotheistic and Polytheistic Personalizations 193

Beyond Person, Beyond Mask 196

The Gods of Philosophers: Masks of the Impersonal or Transpersonal? 200

10 God(s) Gnostic: On Passing through the Counterfeit Doubles of the Divine 205

Gnosticism and Religious Plurivocity 205

Divinities Doubled Below and Above 208

Gnostic Equivocity and the Fourfold Naming 211

The Equivocal World as a Counterfeit Double? 215

Passing Beyond the Counterfeit Doubles 216

Agonistics: Divine and Human 218

Doubling Back, Backing Out - Reversing Release 219

Gnosticism and Metaxology: On Saving Knowing in the Equivocal Matrix 223

11 God(s) of the Whole: On Pantheism and Panentheism 225

Holistic Immanence and the God of the Whole 225

Pantheism Contra the Worthless World 226

Affirming the World and the Immanent God 229

God and the Whole 231

Holistic Emanation and Pluralistic Creation 233

God Beyond the Whole? 236

The Holistic God and Evil 238

12 God Beyond the Whole: On the Theistic God of Creation 241

What has Philosophy to do with Creation? 241

Creation Beyond Univocal Intelligibility 244

Creation Beyond Holism 246

Creation, Coming to Be and Becoming 248

Creation and Nothing 250

Creation and Agapeic Origination: Dualism and the "Not" 251

Creation, Hyper-Transcendence and Divine Intimacy 252

Continuing Creation, Agapeic Self-Reserving 254

Creation and Arbitrary (Will to) Power 255

Creation, Hyperbolic Evil and Trust 256

13 God(s) Mystic: On the Idiocy of God 259

The Idiotics of the Mystic God 259

The Aesthetics of the Mystic God 263

The Erotics of the Mystic God 268

The Agapeics of the Mystic God 272

Part IV God 279

14 God: Ten Metaphysical Cantos 281

God 281

First Metaphysical Canto: God Being Over-Being 282

Second Metaphysical Canto: God Being (Over)One 288

Third Metaphysical Canto: God Being Eternal - Surplus to Coming to Be 292

Fourth Metaphysical Canto: God Being Incorruptible - Agapeic Constancy 297

Fifth Metaphysical Canto: God Being Impassable - Asymmetrical Agapeics 300

Sixth Metaphysical Canto: God Being Absolute - Absolved Agapeics 304

Seventh Metaphysical Canto: God Being Infinite 308

Eighth Metaphysical Canto: God Being (Over)All-Power 314

Ninth Metaphysical Canto: God Being True - Agapeic (Over)All-Minding 321

Tenth Metaphysical Canto: God Being (Too) Good 327.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781405162326

1405162325

9781405162333

1405162333

OCLC:

122424306

Online:

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