Transcending tradition

Abstract

In recent years, the renewed presence of religion in the European societies has inspired a number of intellectuals on a popular as well as academic level to critically engage with religion. The aim of this article is to give a contribution to this debate. In contrast to the rather reductive and objectifying accounts of religion offered in much of the contemporary critique, I argue that a relevant and constructive critique of religion is most effectively achieved when undertaken from within the religious tradition itself. As an example of an internal critical resource in the Christian tradition, I seek to explore the idea of a continuous revelation through the Holy Spirit, pointing to the self-exceeding nature of every living tradition and thus to our need and duty continuously to engage in a constructive critical reinterpretation of the tradition.

Notes

1. Cf. John D. Caputo, On Religion (London and New York: Routledge, 2001), 95.

2. 1. Cf. John D. Caputo, On Religion (London and New York: Routledge, 2001), 96.

3. A short overview of the genesis and development of the Pentecostal and charismatic movements – as well as of their central historical documents – is given in William K. Kay and Anne E. Dyer, eds., Pentecostal and Charismatic Studies: A Reader (London: SCM, 2004). Cf. also Alan Anderson, An Introduction to Pentecostalism: Global Charismatic Christianity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004) and Harvey Cox, Fire from Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping of Religion in the Twenty-First Century (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1994).

4. For a constructive critical discussion of the classical theory of secularization, cf. José Casanova, Public Religions in the Modern World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994).

5. See e.g. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Wiederstand und Ergebung (München: Siebenstern, 1951) and Friedrich Gogarten, Der Mensch zwischen Gott und Welt (3d ed.; Stuttgart: Vorwerk, 1956); idem, Verhängnis und Hoffnung der Neuzeit (München: Siebenstern, 1966). From a more philosophical perspective, similar theses have been developed by e.g. Karl Löwith in Weltgeschichte und Heilsgeschehen: Die theologischen Voraussetzungen der Geschichtsphilosophie (Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 2004) and earlier in Jacob Taubes, Abendländische Eschatologie (Bern: A. Francke, 1947).

6. Slavoj Žižek, The Puppet and the Dwarf: The Perverse Core of Christianity (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2003), 8.

7. Slavoj Žižek, The Puppet and the Dwarf: The Perverse Core of Christianity (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2003), 6.

8. Cf. Gianni Vattimo, After Christianity (trans. Luca D'Isanto; New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 2.

9. Cf. Gianni Vattimo, After Christianity (trans. Luca D'Isanto; New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 38–39.

10. Cf. Gianni Vattimo, After Christianity (trans. Luca D'Isanto; New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 26.

11. Other noteworthy names in this context are the French philosopher Alain Badiou and Italian philosopher Georgio Agamben.

12. See e.g. Eric Voegelin, The New Science of Politics (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1952).

13. Cf. e.g. Marjorie Reeves, Joachim of Fiore and the Prophetic Future: A Medieval Study in Historical Thinking (Stroud: Sutton, 1999) and Anne Breton, Le choix hérétique: Dissidence chrétienne dans l'Europe médiévale (Cahors: La Louve éditions, 2006).

14. Cf. Reeves, Joachim of Fiore, 141–142.

15. David B. Burrell, ”The Spirit and the Christian Life”, in Christian Theology: An Introduction to Its Traditions and Tasks (ed. Peter C. Hodgson and Robert H. King; 2d ed.; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 312.

16. Cf. Eugenio Trías, Pensar la religón (Barcelona: Destino, 1997).

17. Michel Onfray, Traité d'athéologie: Physique de la métaphysique (Paris: Grasset, 2005); Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006).

18. Cf. Caputo, On Religion, 91–94.

19. Edith Wyschogrod and John D. Caputo, “Postmodernism and the Desire for God: An E-mail Exchange”, n.p. [cited January 23 2007]. Online http://www.crosscurrents.org/caputo.htm.

20. Jacques Derrida, Glas (Paris: Galilée, 1974).

21. John D. Caputo, “Spectral Hermeneutics”, in After the Death of God (ed. Jeffrey W. Robbins; New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 47–85.

22. To mention but a few examples, cf. Rebecca Button Prichard, Sensing the Spirit: The Holy Spirit in Feminist Perspective (St. Louis: Chalice, 1999); Bernard Cooke, Power and the Spirit of God (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004); Denis Edwards, Breath of Life: A Theology of the Creator Spirit (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2004); Eugene Rogers, After the Spirit: A Constructive Pneumatology from Resources outside the Modern West (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005); Mark I. Wallace, Fragments of the Spirit: Nature, Violence and the Renewal of Creation (New York: Continuum, 1996).

23. Cf. Emmanuel Lévinas, Altérité et transcendance (Paris: Fata Morgana, 1995), 49–56.

24. David Wood, “Topologies of Transcendence”, in Transcendence and Beyond: a Postmodern Inquiry (ed. John D. Caputo and Michael J. Scanlon; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007), 175.

25. Cf. Michel de Certeau, La faiblesse de croire (Paris: Seuil, 1987).