The Paradox of Hope

by Klassen, Justin D.

• ISBN13: 9781608997701
• ISBN10: 1608997707
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-11-14
• Publisher: Cascade Books

Summary

In contemporary public discourse, the supposedly comprehensive explanatory power of reason is used to justify a thoroughgoing suspicion of religion. In recent decades, the Critiques of postmodernism have generated a different kind of suspicion by construing history as a process that is too arbitrary to be narrated either by modern reason or by religion. In light of these developments, a question arises regarding the appropriate theological response to such forms.of suspicion, both of which threaten not just religion but our sense of human agency as such. Does the retrieval of a meaningful religious subjectivity in a climate of suspicion demand a renewed .emphasis upon theology's rhetorical persuasiveness, as Radical Orthodoxy has recently proposed? Or does identifying the believing subject with theology's "grammar"- fail to attend to some of the jchailenges posed by such suspicion?. The Paradox of Hope answers these questions in an original and provocative way by clarifyihg the complex relationship between post-secular theology and the; work of Soren Kierkegaard. Ultimately, Klassen argues that Kierkegaard's influence is crucial, albeit obscured, in current post-secular theological imperatives, and that the Dane's eschewal of persuasion in favor of hope's inexplicable resolve provides a more adequate response tojthe nihilism of contemporary suspicion than do the rhetorical proposals currently on offer. In light of this argument, The Paradox of Hope also rehabilitates some of the voices typically excluded by contemporary theology's rhetoric, including those of Heidegger, Derrida, and Levinas. Book jacket.

Author Biography

Justin D. Klassen is Visiting Assistant Professor of Theology at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. vii
Introduction	p. 1
Contemporary Theology and the Turn to Rhetoric	p. 9
Introduction: The Urgent Situation	p. 9
The Modern Separation of "Religion" from "The Social"	p. 11
Overcoming Postmodernism^ Ontology of Difference	p. 32
Persuasion/Inscription: Christianity as Social Mechanism	p. 46
Conclusion: Rhetorical Narrative, Sittlkhkeit, and Desire	p. 52
Language and the Fear of Death	p. 57
Introduction	p. 57
The Sophistic "Gesture of Security Against the Void"	p. 60
Modern Spatialization	p. 66
Necrophilia	p. 76
Hart and Levinas on Time and Infinity	p. 85
What is Christian Urgency?	p. 94
Consummation or Complication?	p. 104
Introduction: Immediate Oppositions	p. 104
Lingering Resonances: Milbanks Persuasive Absurdity	p. 110
"Difficulty" in the Postscript	p. 121
Incarnation and Christian Difficulty	p. 135
The Invitation: Kierkegaard's Practice in Christianity	p. 148
Conclusion	p. 154
Cultural Logic and Christian Sociality	p. 157
Introduction	p. 157
Milbank's Altera Civitas	p. 159
Desire and Sacrifice in Girard	p. 173
Milbank's Rejection ofGirard and its Consequences	p. 193
Conclusion	p. 197
Loves Obstinate Hope	p. 201
Introduction	p. 201
Erotic Love and Friendship in Works of Love	p. 203
Love as the Crucifixion of Preference	p. 218
Love as Expectancy of the Good	p. 230
Conclusion: Christianity as a "Way"	p. 242
Bibliography	p. 247
Index	p. 253
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