I begin by offering an account of two key strains in the history of philosophical dealings with death. Both strains initially seek to diminish fear of death by appealing to the idea that death is simply the separation of the soul from the body. According to the Platonic strain, death should not be feared since the soul will have a prolonged existence free from the bodily prison after death. With several dramatic modifications, this is the strain that is taken up by much of the mainstream Christian tradition. According to the Epicurean strain, death should not be feared since the tiny pthesiss that make up the soul leave the body and are dispersed at the moment of death, leaving behind no subject to experience any evil that might be associated with death. Although informed by millennia of further scientific discovery, this is the strain picked up on by contemporary atheistic, technologically advanced mankind. My primary goal is to demonstrate that philosophy has an often-overlooked alternative to viewing death in terms of this ancient dichotomy. This is the alternative championed by Søren Kierkegaard and Martin Heidegger. Although both thinkers arise from the Christian tradition, they clearly react to Epicurean insights about death in their work, thereby prescribing a peculiar way of living with death that the Christian tradition seems to have forgotten about. Despite the association of Kierkegaard and Heidegger, there is a fundamental difference between them on the subject of death. In Being and Time Heidegger seems to rely on the phenomenology of death that Kierkegaard provides in texts such as "At a Graveside." It is interesting to notice, however, that this discourse, especially when seen in the light of Kierkegaard's more obviously religious works, might only be compelling to the aspiring Christian. If so, then perhaps there is a tension in both Heidegger's "methodologically atheistic" appropriation of Kierkegaard's ideas about death, and Heidegger's attempt to make these ideas compelling to the aspiring human. My secondary goal is to determine whether Heidegger takes the "existential philosophy of death" too far when he incorporates it into his early ontological project.

The topic of eschatology is generally confined to the field of theology. However, the subject has influenced many other fields, such as politics and history. This dissertation examines the question why eschatology remained a topic of discussion within twentieth century philosophy. Concepts associated with eschatology, such as the end of time and the hope of a utopian age to come, remained largely background assumptions among intellectuals in the modern age. Martin Heidegger, Nicolai Berdyaev, and Hans Blumenberg, however, explicitly addressed the subject in their philosophies. The impetus of this study is Heidegger's statement, "Being itself is inherently eschatological," which indicates the centrality of the subject in his understanding of Being. This statement led to the question whether eschatology played a larger role in Western thought. It also raised the question concerning the relationship between eschatology and other philosophical subjects such as teleology. Because of the multitude of assumptions concerning the meaning of eschatology, Chapter One provides essential working definitions. In order to obtain a sufficient understanding of the topic and address the use of the term among the three philosophers, it was necessary to see how eschatology was understood and acted upon in Western thought. Chapter Two addresses the history of eschatology in the West and concludes that there are two general streams of eschatological thought that explains why it continued to remain a subject for contemporary philosophers. Chapters Three through Five address how eschatology was used by Heidegger, Berdyaev, and Blumenberg respectively. Each utilized the subject in different ways: for Heidegger eschatology constitutes Dasein's existence. Futurity ("forward-directedness") is a condition Dasein as a totality. Dasein is "being-toward-the-end" or "toward-death." Berdyaev combines the eschatological tradition with philosophical achievements and offers an "eschatological metaphysics." He distinguishes eschatology from teleology arguing against teleology, noting that only a "personalist" eschatology can solve the problems of dualism and objectification. Blumenberg differs from Heidegger and Berdyaev by offering a negative evaluation of eschatological belief in the West contending that the modern secular age is the result of a failed eschatology. The conclusion of this work follows Charles Taylor's contention in A Secular Age that "our sense of where we are is crucially defined in part by a story of how we got there." The conclusion is that eschatology, throughout most of Western thought, functioned largely as a background assumption for understanding time and history. The transition from the linear concept of time to a cyclical concept defines in part the modern secular age. The notion of future time is an important and often neglected dimension of hermeneutic understanding. The continued influence of eschatological thought in Western history explains why the philosophers under consideration in this work address eschatology and signals that its influence upon philosophical thought is not likely to diminish in the future.

The question of the relation between religious experience and Christian belief in God is addressed in radically different ways within contemporary theology and philosophy of religion. In order to develop an answer which avoids the pitfalls of the ‘analytic perception model’ (Alston, Yandell, Swinburne) and the ‘overlinguistic’ model for interpreting Christian religious experience (Taylor, Lindbeck), this thesis offers an approach which combines a phenomenological study of feelings, conceptual investigation of Christian God-talk and ‘belief’-talk, as well as theological, sociological and anthropological perspectives. At the centre of the interpretation developed here is the phenomenological category ‘existential feelings’ which should be seen, it is suggested, as a theologically and philosophically central aspect of Christian religious experiencing. Using this contemporary concept, a novel reading of F. Schleiermacher’s concept of ‘feeling’ is proposed and several kinds of Christian experiencing interpreted (like the experiences of ‘awe’, ‘miracle of existence’, ‘wretchedness’, and ‘redeemed community’). By way of a philosophical understanding of Christian believing in God, this study offers a critical interpretation of the later Wittgenstein’s concept of ‘religious belief’, combining Wittgensteinian insights with Paul Tillich’s notion of ‘dynamic faith’ and arguing against Wittgensteinian ‘grammaticalist’ and ‘expressivist’ accounts. Christian beliefs about God are normally life-guiding but nevertheless dubitable. The nature of Christian God-talk is interpreted, again, by combining the later Wittgenstein’s insights into the grammatical and expressive roles of God-talk with Merleau-Ponty’s emphasis on linguistic innovation and Roman Jakobson’s perspective on the functions of language. Finally, the claim which connects phenomenological, conceptual and theological strands of this study is a recognition of a ‘religious belief-inviting pull’ of the relevant experience. Christian religious belief-formation and concept-formation can be seen as stemming from ‘extraordinary’ existential feelings, where the resulting beliefs about God are largely but not completely bound by traditional meanings.

No description available.

L‟objectif de mon mémoire se concentre sur la notion d‟altérité émanant des philosophies d‟Emmanuel Lévinas et de Paul Ricoeur ; je m‟intéresse plus précisément au concept clé d‟éthique et de savoir en quoi enrichit-elle le dialogue judéo-chrétien. Le point initial de ma réflexion est l‟herméneutique biblique, qu‟Emmanuel Lévinas et Paul Ricoeur articulent, d‟après moi, différemment selon leurs héritages religieux respectifs à savoir juif et chrétien. Néanmoins, la signification éthique des Textes Sacrés perdure pour chacun d‟eux comme lieu commun même si la signification leur est différente et propre à leurs traditions religieuses. Ainsi, dans ce mémoire l‟altérité développée par Lévinas, talmudiste reconnu, sera comparée avec la pensée de Ricoeur dont la conception est davantage chrétienne, en référence à son travail exégétique. Quand bien même Lévinas et Ricoeur ont tenu à distinguer leurs philosophies de leurs théologies, l‟hypothèse de départ prend une liberté herméneutique qui oscille souvent entre philosophie et théologie et qui tend à retracer au mieux l‟altérité et son lien intrinsèque avec l‟éthique. Cette lecture comparatiste m‟amènera donc à penser et à intégrer l‟altérité comme une prémisse éthique au dialogue judéo-chrétien. Mon travail en sciences des religions qui prend racine depuis l‟herméneutique même, s‟oriente vers une perspective éthique et dialogique et c‟est cette visée de médiation interreligieuse qui lui confère une appartenance à cette discipline. / The Otherness is the focus of my thesis, a notion that emanates from Emmanuel Levinas’ and Paul Ricoeur’s philosophies; I’m interested more precisely about the concept of ethics and to discover how it improves the reflection upon Jewish and Christian dialogue. The initial point of my reflexion is the biblical hermeneutics that Emmanuel Lévinas and Paul Ricoeur structure, to my point of view, variously depending their religious background: Jewish for Lévinas and Christian for Ricoeur. Nevertheless, the ethical signification of the Bible perpetuates for both of them as a commonplace, even if the signification is different and inherent to their own religious traditions. In my thesis, the Otherness, as elaborated by Lévinas, will be compared with Ricoeur’s thoughts, whom conception is more Christian as his biblical works let us guess. Even if Lévinas and Ricoeur have tried to distinguish their philosophical work from their theological one, claiming a neutrality about theology, my initial hypothesis take an hermeneutical freedom which often oscillates between theology and philosophy and which try to recount the alterity and its intrinsic link to ethics. A comparatist reading will lead me to think that the ethics of the Otherness is the basis of Jewish and Christian dialogue because of Levinas’ and Ricoeur’s works. My work in religious studies is based upon hermeneutics and turns toward an ethical and dialogical perspective; it is this interreligious mediation aim which confers to my thesis a belonging in this discipline.

Until his untimely death in 1988, George Grant was considered the foremost political philosopher Canada had produced. He was a critic of technological globalization who perceived early on its destructive potentialities on all facets of life, public and private. His writing focused on how the development of technological globalization endangered national sovereignty, undermined indigenous cultures and traditions, and threatened individual and communal rights. What is less known about Grant is the importance of faith in his life and how it informed his thought. Indeed, even though Grant did not write about his faith to any great extent, he claimed that it was the inspirational centre of everything he thought and wrote. This thesis will attempt to uncover the substance of Grant's faith and how it informs his thought. Grant was a Christian and a Protestant whose faith is best expressed in the words of Martin Luther: "A theologian of glory calls evil good and good evil. A theologian of the cross calls the thing what it actually is." (Luther's Works, vol. 31, p. 40) This quote is not incidental. Grant found in Luther's words and the theological orientation Luther named a "Theology of the Cross," the basis of his critical and constructive critique of the contemporary realities that concerned him. But even though Luther gave the words for this theological orientation, its significance in shaping Grant's thought was developed through his struggle with other theologians and philosophers, the most influential of whom was Simone Weil. This thesis will be an attempt to define this theological orientation as expressed by Luther, how Grant came upon it through formative influences and experiences along with formal studies in theology and philosophy, how Simone Weil gave intellectual and existential voice to this orientation in him, and how it informed Grant's perspective on all the thinkers he struggled with and all the issues that preoccupied his thought. Finally, this thesis

Jurgen Habermas is a second-generation social philosopher of the Frankfurt school, the birthplace of critical theory. He suggests that modernity is a project of substituting rationality for religion. In his analysis, such a succession is the result of a process of social evolution, in which each developmental stage has its basic concepts and modes of understanding subjective, objective, and social worlds. For him, the salient feature of rationality consists of differentiation between various validity claims of truth, truthfulness, and sincerity which are indistinguishable in religious language. The rationalization of religion, hence, progresses in terms of a differentiation between validity claims, a decentration of human understanding, the disenchantment of the world, and the linguistification of the sacred. Habermas proposes a universal pragmatics in which two modes of language use are separated: instrumental-strategic, and communicative. He thinks that the failure of the enlightenment movement to replace religion with reason stems from its preoccupation with instrumental reason and language use, dispensing with communicative rationality; and the remedy lies in communicative rationality. / Critically analyzing Habermas' theory of communicative action, this study examines Habermas' basic idea of substituting communicative rationality for religion in the light of his critique of Max Weber and of instrumental reason. Ontological, epistemological, methodological, and conceptual presuppositions in his argument are discussed and evaluated.

This dissertation examines the problem of coming to terms with the past in post-World War II Germany in the wake of the Holocaust by examining the philosophical critiques of Theodor Adorno and Eric Voegelin. It then extends these critiques into the ongoing discussion of post-Holocaust philosophy and theology, while introducing the speculative philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead as a helpful and appropriate means for continuing metaphysical reflection and perceiving the influence of the past upon the present and future in post-Holocaust discourse. This dissertation suggests, alongside Adorno and Voegelin, that finally coming to terms with the past proves much more dangerous than helpful. Instead, the focus should remain on remembering and reflecting critically upon the deleterious past of the Holocaust in order to avoid forgetfulness or effacement of the past. Whitehead's philosophy provides a metaphysical means for considering how the past remains with us in the present and into the future. Out of this injunction to remember comes a theology of remembrance, which draws heavily from Walter Benjamin's writing on weak messianism and inverse theology. The final focus of the dissertation is the development of a Christian theology of remembrance that requires Christians to rethink theology in light of the Holocaust.

This study articulates a God-concept in the tradition of classical Christian theism, contending with calls to modify significantly or revise classical constructions. Attention falls upon two closely related divine attributes that have, especially in recent decades, come under philosophical and theological attack – God’s timelessness and impassibility (inability to suffer). Is the “classical” Lord truly Immanuel, i.e. with us? This general question motivates the study. The opening three chapters analyze aspects of the God-concepts put forth by Augustine, Aquinas, and Calvin. Apparent tensions between a timeless transcendence and an affirming union of the Trinity with creation are countenanced, with an eye to doing justice to both doctrines. Chapter One examines the idea of divine timelessness and corresponding thoughts about temporal reality found in the Confessions, supplementing Augustinian transcendence with the creational and eschatological insights of two other Church Fathers. Chapter Two documents Aquinas’s affirmation of both God’s strong immutability and the non-necessity of creation, while questioning whether he affirms these in a logically consistent way. Chapter Three then follows the contours of Calvin’s Trinitarianism and Christology, reflecting on the Triune Creator’s gracious “wedding” of himself to the whole work of creation. The final three chapters operate within the fields of philosophy and philosophical theology. Chapter Four commends a tenseless (or B) theory of time, highlighting several problems surrounding tensed (or A) theories of time. But this former view implies that there is no “official present,” leaving no apparent room for the presence of the timeless God with times and temporally located agents. Thus Chapter Five seeks to address classical eternalism’s “present problem.” The conclusion is reached that the temporally absent God’s “present problem” can be resolved by embracing a “risk-free” understanding of divine providence, best understood in terms of a “Reformed decree” that strongly actualizes all non-divine entities and events. Chapter Six begins by wrestling with what implications the timelessness doctrine might have for “responsive” divine compassion and ends by proposing that the infinite God “embraces” the finite world not by way of a panentheistic inclusion but in some ways more akin to a husband’s attentive care for his wife.

The post-secular event within which we live is occasioned as the limit of the secular project. The secular project meets its limit in attempting to separate a religious private sphere from a public sphere while at the same time repeating as a demand a religious subjectivation of the public sphere: demanding conformity to a simple subjectivity, producing a world of simple subjects through a theologically determined metaphysics of conversion. In this latter demand secularism enforces a simplicity of its subjects and its world. Yet this simplicity cannot be taken up into or as life. To genuinely live and think the post-secular requires, then, not simply a resistance to the secular but a resistance to simplicity, developing ways of becoming otherwise than simply and of producing a world other than that which conforms to a metaphysics of conversion. This dissertation proposes to meet the requirements of the post-secular event by developing a post-secular political ontology drawn from the work of Judith Butler and Alfred North Whitehead. Read through and out of these two philosophers of becoming is a post-secular political ontology that is embedded within a metaphysics of creativity, a metaphysic that is itself already infected by the political. At the intersection of the work of Butler and Whitehead a metaphysic arises that is a systematic discourse of the political. From this metaphysic a political ontology is developed. This political ontology begins with a suspicion of grammar as a suspicion of a subject-predicate form of thought that grounds ontologies of substance. With this suspicion, being is allowed to unfold as its becoming, particularly as a becoming material, so that actuality is a becoming materiality. This is also a relational becoming of feeling, becoming as a process of intensive feeling that can never be finalized for itself, always suffering its own continual downfall. Finally, but without finality, actuality is a becoming of creativity, opened by a divine violence that ruptures history by the possible, leading to a post-secular political ontology of the future.