In Praise of Heteronomy

Merold Westphal

Description

Recognizing the essential heteronomy of postmodern philosophy of religion, Merold Westphal argues against the assumption that human reason is universal, neutral, and devoid of presupposition. Instead, Westphal contends that any philosophy is a matter of faith and the philosophical encounter with theology arises from the very act of thinking. Relying on the work of Spinoza, Kant, and Hegel, Westphal discovers that their theologies render them mutually incompatible and their claims to be the voice of autonomous and universal reason look dubious. Westphal grapples with this plural nature of human thought in the philosophy of religion and he forwards the idea that any appeal to the divine must rest on a historical and phenomenological analysis.

Sigla
Preface
1. Executive and Legislative Autonomy
2. Spinoza's Theology
3. Spinoza's Hermeneutics
4. Kant's Theology
5. Kant's Hermeneutics I
6. Kant's Hermeneutics II
7. Hegel's Theology I
8. Hegel's Theology II
9. Hegel's Hermeneutics
10. The Inevitability of Heteronomy
11. Heteronomy as Freedom
Notes
Index

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Philosophie de la religion
• Religious
• PHILOSOPHY
• Philosophie et théologie
• Ethics in religion
• Philosophy of religion
• Ethics

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 22 mai 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253026613
• Langue: English

Extrait

IN PRAISE OF HETERONOMY
INDIANA SERIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
Merold Westphal, editor
IN PRAISE OF HETERONOMY
Making Room for Revelation
M EROLD W ESTPHAL
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
2017 by Merold Westphal
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
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Manufactured in the United States of America
Cataloging information is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-0-253-02638-5 (cloth)
ISBN 978-0-253-02652-1 (paperback)
ISBN 978-0-253-02661-3 (ebook)
1 2 3 4 5 22 21 20 19 18 17
In gratitude to
T OM A SKEW
and
E M C UMMINS
MENTORS, TEACHERS, FRIENDS
CONTENTS
S IGLA
P REFACE
1 . Executive and Legislative Autonomy
2 . Spinoza s Theology
3 . Spinoza s Hermeneutics
4 . Kant s Theology
5 . Kant s Hermeneutics I
6 . Kant s Hermeneutics II
7 . Hegel s Theology I
8 . Hegel s Theology II
9 . Hegel s Hermeneutics
10 . The Inevitability of Heteronomy
11 . Heteronomy as Freedom
I NDEX
SIGLA
Unless otherwise noted, quotations from the Bible are from the New Standard Revised Version (NRSV).
HEGEL
DFS
The Difference Between Fichte s and Schelling s System of Philosophy , trans. H. S. Harris and Walter Cerf (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1977).
EL
The Encyclopedia Logic , trans. T. F. Geraets, W. A. Suchting, and H. S. Harris (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1991). Cited by page and paragraph number; Anmerkungen (remarks) = A and Zus tze (additions) = Z. Thus EL , nn, nn and possibly An or Zn.
ETW
Early Theological Writings , trans. T. M. Knox (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971).
FK
Faith and Knowledge , trans. Walter Cerf and H. S. Harris (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1977).
HL
Hegel: The Letters , trans. Clark Butler and Christiane Seiler (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984).
HP/B
Hegel s Lectures on the History of Philosophy: The Lectures of 1825-1826 , ed. Robert F. Brown (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990). Based on a more critical edition of the German text than HP/H.
HP/H
Hegel s Lectures on the History of Philosophy , trans. E. S. Haldane and Frances H. Simson (New York: Humanities Press, 1955/1963).
JR
Jenaer Realphilosophie , hrsg. Johannes Hoffmeister (Hamburg: Feliz Meiner, 1931).
LJ
The Life of Jesus , in G. W. F. Hegel, Three Essays: 1793-1795 , ed. and trans. Peter Fuss and John Dobbins (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984).
P
Lectures on the Proofs of the Existence of God , in Hegel s Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion , vol. 3, trans. E. B. Spiers and J. Burdon Sanderson (New York: Humanities Press, 1962).
PC
The Positivity of the Christian Religion , in ETW .
PC 1
dates from 1795-96.
PC 2
is a partial revision from 1800.
PM
Hegel s Philosophy of Mind , trans. William Wallace and A. V. Miller (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971). The translation of Geist as Mind rather than Spirit is dated. I shall use PM but refer to this text as the Philosophy of Spirit . Cited by page and paragraph number; Zus tze (additions) = Z.
PR
Hegel s Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion: One Volume Edition, The Lectures of 1827 , ed. Peter C. Hodgson (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988). Complete three-volume edition published in 1984, 1985, and 1987.
PRi
Hegel s Philosophy of Right , trans. T. M. Knox (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1942). Cited by page and paragraph number; Anmerkungen (remarks) = A and Zus tze (additions) = Z. Thus PRi , nn, #nn, and possibly An or Zn.
PS
Hegel s Phenomenology of Spirit , trans. A. V. Miller (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977).
SC
The Spirit of Christianity and Its Fate , in ETW . Drafts from 1798-1800.
SL
Hegel s Science of Logic , trans. A.V. Miller (New York: Humanities Press, 1969).
TE
The T bingen Essay on Folk Religion , in S. Harris, Hegel s Development: Toward the Sunlight, 1770-1801 (Oxford Clarendon Press, 1972). Also found in Three Essays . See LJ above.
KANT
CF
The Conflict of the Faculties , trans. Mary J. Gregor and Robert Anchor, in Religion and Rational Theology , edited by Allen W. Wood and George di Giovanni. Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
CPJ
Critique of the Power of Judgment , trans. Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews. Cambridge Edition of the Works of Emmanual Kant, edited by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
CPR
Critique of Pure Reason , trans. Norman Kemp Smith (New York: Macmillan, 1961).
CPrP
Critique of Practical Reason , trans. Mary J. Gregor, in Practical Philosophy . Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant, general eds. Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
FJ
Chris L. Firestone and Nathan Jacobs. In Defense of Kant s Religion (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008).
GMM
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals , trans. Mary J. Gregor, in Practical Philosophy .
LPR
Lectures on the Philosophical Doctrine of Religion , trans. Allan W. Wood, in Religion and Rational Theology .
MM
The Metaphysics of Morals , trans. Mary J. Gregor, in Practical Philosophy .
R
Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason , trans. George di Giovanni, in Religion and Rational Theology .
SPINOZA
E
The Ethics and Selected Letters , trans. Samuel Shirley (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1982). Citations will use arabic numerals for the parts and the following abbreviations:
P
Proposition
Po
Postulate
Pr
Proof
D
Definition
C
Corollary
A
Axiom
S
Scholium
Pref
Preface
App
Appendix
Exp
Explication
Thus
E 2 P 16 C 2 = second corollary to proposition 16 in part 2.
TPT
Theological-Political Treatise , trans. Jonathan Israel (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007). TPT 4, 6 = chapter 4 of TPT on page 6.
PREFACE
M ARCION WAS A SECOND-CENTURY C HRISTIAN HERETIC . He sharply distinguished Yahweh, the God of the Hebrew scriptures, a vengeful, tribal demiurge, from the loving, universal God of Jesus. Of course, in order to refashion Christianity along these lines he had to either ignore or delete from his canon the judgment parables of Jesus and Paul s teaching about the wrath of God. Pick and choose.
Freud rather tendentiously equates theistic religion with a kind of Marcionite theology. Like dreams, religion is about wish fulfillment. So, We shall tell ourselves that it would be very nice if there were a God who created the world and was a benevolent Providence, and if there were a moral order in the universe and an after-life but it is a very striking fact that all this is exactly as we are bound to wish it to be. 1
Not quite. That moral order of the universe might not be too friendly when we are the immoral ones. So we tweak this theology. Over each one of us there watches a benevolent Providence which is only seemingly stern -at least so far as we are concerned. So far as our enemies are concerned, or even those who are just different, we are quite happy to see evil punished with rigor. Which leads to a second amendment of the original dream, moving from me to us. In relation to this Father we would like at least to be his only beloved child, his Chosen People. This takes us to the historical beginnings of the idea of God. Freud is obviously speaking of his own Jewish people at the source of Abrahamic monotheism. Very much later, pious America laid claim to being God s own Country. Here we have the final form taken by our present-day white Christian civilization. 2
What is Marcionite about the Jewish and Christian traditions, as Freud sees them, is their pick and choose character. They attach themselves to the attractive and appealing aspects of the biblical God but find a way to edit out the unpleasant and unpopular characteristics. By creating God in their own, self-flattering image and to serve their own self-interested agenda, they find a way to immunize themselves against those strata of their own scriptures expressed by Amos 3:2
You only have I known
of all the families of the earth;
therefore I will punish you
for all your iniquities.
and by 1 Peter 4:17
For the time has come for judgment to begin
with the household of God.
Rudolf Otto provides a warning and a corrective. 3 The Holy in general, and the God of biblical monotheism in particular, is to be understood as the mysterium tremendum et fascinans . As mysterium God is epistemically Wholly Other, exceeding our language and overwhelming our ability to comprehend; as tremendum God is frightening and repelling; as fascinans God is reassuring and attractive.
If a dialectical relation is one in which two opposed elements are affirmed at the same time and in balanced tension, then Otto is proposing a dialectical relation between the repellant and attractive aspects of God. We can handle this kind of relation, as when we acknowledge that parents can be loving and caring while at the same time demanding and strict. We do not immediately label them schizophrenic, though it may take children a while to learn that the parental tremendum and the parental fascinans are the flip sides of each other. In good parenting, demands and discipline are rooted in love and caring. I call this Goldi