A Philosophical Anthropology of the Cross

Brian Gregor

Description

What it means to be human in philosophical and theological terms

What does the cross, both as a historical event and a symbol of religious discourse, tell us about human beings? In this provocative book, Brian Gregor draws together a hermeneutics of the self—through Heidegger, Gadamer, Ricoeur, and Taylor—and a theology of the cross—through Luther, Kierkegaard, Bonhoeffer, and Jüngel—to envision a phenomenology of the cruciform self. The result is a bold and original view of what philosophical anthropology could look like if it took the scandal of the cross seriously instead of reducing it into general philosophical concepts.

Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
1. Philosophy, the Cross, and Human Being
Part 1
2. The Hermeneutics of the Self
3. Faith, Substance, and the Cross
4. The Incurved Self
5. The Anthropological Question
Part 2
6. The Concreteness and Continuity of Faith
7. The Capable Human Being as a Penultimate Good
8. The Call to Responsibility
9. Reflexivity, Intentionality, and Self-understanding
10. Religion within the Limits of the Penultimate?
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Philosophie de la religion
• Religious
• PHILOSOPHY
• Philosophie et théologie
• Religión
• Continental philosophy
• Philosophy of religion
• Religion
• The Cross

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 18 mars 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253007049
• Langue: English

Extrait

A Philosophical Anthropology of the Cross
Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Religion Merold Westphal, editor
A Philosophical Anthropology OF THE Cross
THE CRUCIFORM SELF
Brian Gregor
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
Telephone orders 800-842-6796 Fax orders 812-855-7931
2013 by Brian E. Gregor
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.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gregor, Brian, [date]
A philosophical anthropology of the cross : the cruciform self / Brian Gregor.
pages cm. - (Indiana series in the philosophy of religion)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 978-0-253-00671-4 (cloth : alk. paper) - ISBN 978-0-253-00672-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) - ISBN 978-0-253-00704-9 (electronic book) 1. Jesus Christ-Crucifixion. 2. Philosophical anthropology. I. Title.
BT453.G69 2013
233-dc23
2012042031
1 2 3 4 5 18 17 16 15 14 13
For Thomas
Contents
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
1. Philosophy, the Cross, and Human Being
PART ONE
2. The Hermeneutics of the Self
3. Faith, Substance, and the Cross
4. The Incurved Self
5. The Anthropological Question
PART TWO
6. The Concreteness and Continuity of Faith
7. The Capable Human Being as a Penultimate Good
8. The Call to Responsibility
9. Reflexivity, Intentionality, and Self-Understanding
10. Religion within the Limits of the Penultimate?
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
Many people deserve acknowledgment for their help and support in bringing this book to print. I would like to thank Merold Westphal for his interest in my work and for welcoming this book into his series; Kevin Hart for his comments and suggestions on the manuscript; Dee Mortensen, Marvin Keenan, and Sarah Jacobi at Indiana University Press for their support and help; and Drew Bryan for his work as copy editor. I would also like to thank my friends and colleagues in the philosophy departments at Boston College and Fordham University. I owe a great debt to Richard Kearney, my graduate advisor and dissertation director, as well as my readers Jeff Bloechl and Gary Green, who gave me the freedom and support to pursue this project the way it needed to be pursued. Thanks also to Pat Byrne, Vanessa Rumble, and my other friends, mentors, and interlocutors: Jens Zimmermann, Bob Doede, James Taylor, John Manoussakis, Jeff Hanson, Phil Teichroeb, Mike Martens, and Ryan Chace. I must also thank the Fondation Georges Rouault, Annemarie Sawkins and the Haggerty Museum of Art, and Chelsea Radigan at Artists Rights Society, who allowed me to use Georges Rouault s amazing print for the cover of this book; thanks also to Dom Balestra and Nancy Busch at Fordham University for making it possible to cover the permission fees. I also benefited greatly from a series of summer research grants from the Ernest Fortin Memorial Foundation. Thanks to my church family at First Presbyterian Church in Brookline, my mom, and most of all to my wife Meg, whose love and friendship continue to be an immense blessing.
I would also like to thank Faith and Philosophy and Indiana University Press for permission to use portions of earlier articles. Portions of chapter 5 appeared as Formal Indication, Philosophy, and Theology: Bonhoeffer s Critique of Heidegger in Faith and Philosophy 24, no. 2 (April 2007): pp. 185-202; and portions of chapter 8 appeared as Bonhoeffer s Christian Social Philosophy : Conscience, Alterity, and the Moment of Ethical Responsibility, in Bonhoeffer and Continental Thought: Cruciform Philosophy (Indiana University Press, 2009), pp. 201-25.
Abbreviations
AB
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Act and Being: Transcendental Philosophy and Ontology in Systematic Theology , trans. H. Martin Rumscheidt (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996).
AQ
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Anthropological Question in Contemporary Philosophy and Theology, DBWE 10, pp. 389-408.
BT
Martin Heidegger, Being and Time , trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (San Francisco: Harper Row, 1962).
CA
S ren Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety , ed. and trans. Reidar Thomte and Albert B. Anderson (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1980).
C
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Lectures on Christology. Berlin: 1932-1933 , ed. Larry L. Rasmussen, trans. Carsten Nicolaisen and Ernst-Albert Scharffenorth (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2009), pp. 299-360.
CF
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Creation and Fall: A Theological Exposition of Genesis 1-3 , trans. Douglas Stephen Bax (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997).
D
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship , trans. Martin Kuske and Ilse T dt (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001).
DBWE 10
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Barcelona, Berlin, New York: 1928-1931 , trans. Douglas W. Stott (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008).
E
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics , ed. Clifford J. Green, trans. Reinhard Krauss, Charles C. West, and Douglas W. Stott (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005).
FM
Paul Ricoeur, Fallible Man , trans. Charles A. Kelbley (New York: Fordham University Press, 1986).
FN
Paul Ricoeur, Freedom and Nature: The Voluntary and the Involuntary , trans. Eraz m V. Kohak (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1966).
FS
Paul Ricoeur, Figuring the Sacred: Religion, Narrative, and Imagination , ed. Mark I. Wallace, trans. David Pellauer (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995).
IM
Martin Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics , trans. Gregory Fried and Richard Polt (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2000).
IT
Michel Henry, I Am the Truth: Toward a Philosophy of Christianity , trans. Susan Emanuel (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2003).
JP
S ren Kierkegaard s Journals and Papers , 7 vols., ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, assisted by Gregor Malantschuk (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1967-78). (Cited as JP, followed by entry number).
LPP
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison , ed. John W. de Gruchy, trans. Isabel Best, Lisa E. Dahill, Reinhard Krauss, and Nancy Lukens (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010).
LW
Martin Luther, Luther s Works , 55 vols., ed. Jaroslav Pelikan (St. Louis, Mo.: Concordia Publishing House / Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1955-86). (Cited as LW, followed by volume and page number.)
OA
Paul Ricoeur, Oneself as Another , trans. Kathleen Blamey (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).
OB
Emmanuel Levinas, Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence , trans. Alphonso Lingis (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1981, 1997).
PC
S ren Kierkegaard, Practice in Christianity , ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991).
SE
Paul Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil , trans. Emerson Buchanan (Boston: Beacon Press, 1967).
SC
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Sanctorum Communio: A Theological Study of the Sociology of the Church , trans. Reinhard Krauss and Nancy Lukens (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998).
SUD
S ren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death , ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1980).
TA
Paul Ricoeur, From Text to Action: Essays in Hermeneutics II , trans. Kathleen Blamey and John B. Thompson (London: The Athlone Press, 1991).
A Philosophical Anthropology of the Cross
1 Philosophy, the Cross, and Human Being
Sustained by philosophy, religion receives its justification from thinking consciousness.
-G. W. F. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion
Justifying religious faith through thinking consciousness: this is arguably the highest aspiration of the philosophy of religion. Whether this aspiration is itself justifiable, however, is another question. Can religious faith be grasped and grounded, so that its content is justified by the necessity of the philosophical concept? Does religious faith have its telos in philosophical consummation? Or does there remain some residual opacity that philosophy cannot penetrate, some otherness that philosophy cannot reconcile within its own conceptual scheme? How should philosophy approach a reality that claims to be an irresolvable scandal for philosophical thinking?
This book explores that question with regard to a specific problematic-namely, whether philosophy can think the cross of Jesus Christ, which is central to Christian faith as both a historical event and a fundamental figure of Christian discourse. The cross poses a unique challenge-according to the apostle Paul, a scandal -for philosophical wisdom, and during the course of this study we will encounter several cases of philosophical engagement with the cross: in Hegel, for whom the cross is pivotal in the historical development of Spirit; in Nietzsche, who sees the cross as nihilistic, as a curse on human life, strength, and flourishing; in Heidegger, for whom the cross provides an ontic model for the Destruktion of the history of metaphysics; and in Ricoeur, who interprets the death of Jesus on the cross as a triumph of life and love over death, as an ethical transfer of love to the lives of his followers. The question, however, is whether these philosophical interpretations preserve the true scandal and offense of the cross, or whether something crucial is lost in them. Our task will be to consider how philosophi