This is the first post of four that considers Richard Kearney’s new book Anatheism: Returning to God After God. More information about the book can be found on the Columbia University Press site here, and interested readers may also want to check out Kearney’s recent article, “Sacramental Imagination: Eucharists of the Ordinary Universe” in the open access journal Analecta Hermeneutica, which can be accessed here. In this article, Kearney explores some of the topics that are very similar to parts of the book, especially the work of Merleau-Ponty and several modern novelists.
Summary: Kearney opens the book with a reflection on his first experience in a 1977 seminar with Paul Ricoeur. Ricoeur asked the students: d’ou parlez-vous? Where do you speak from? In several ways, this question guides Kearney’s approach throughout the book. Kearney retraces some of his broad intellectual journey in the preface, touching on his time spent traveling and encountering various thinkers from outside of his Christian tradition, studying under Ricoeur and Emmanuel Levinas for his dissertation, dialogues with his friends Jacques Derrida and Jack Caputo over the years, and, significantly, his time much earlier in his life studying with Benedictine monks in Ireland. One of the key moments that Kearney calls attention to was a doctrine class in which the monks insisted that the students read strong arguments against the existence of God before even considering whether God might exist.
In this way, one of the central parts of the anatheist wager of faith is that atheism is indispensable. Readers who are familiar with Paul Ricoeur’s hemeneutics of suspicion and hermeneutics of affirmation will no doubt see the influence of Kearney’s teacher here, and the book can pretty much be seen as a recasting of these themes in constant dialog with a hospitality to the stranger. Indeed, if there is any “starting point” to Anatheism, it is Kearney’s recourse to the hermenetics of the stranger (this is further evidenced by his course going on in the Spring at Boston College). The book is similar in spirit to Merold Westphal’s Suspicion and Faith, but somewhat different in content. Westphal’s book takes up a very close reading of Freud, Nietzsche, and Marx, Ricoeur’s “masters of suspicion,” whereas Kearney’s book focuses more on what could be broadly called contemporary culture.
I think the best way to understand the logic behind the book is as an attempt to open up space for dialog in the return of the religious, and Kearney alludes to both the religious turn in Continental philosophy and the antireligious turn in the “secularism” of authors such as Hitchens, Dawkins, and Dennett. I view Kearney’s proposal as pretty modest, and for those of us already reading work in Continental philosophy of religion, little of what Kearney takes as his approach will be controversial.
Turning to the introduction, Kearney introduces anatheism with the unfortunate appeal to the nefarious “third way,” here between what Kearney calls dogmatic theism and militant atheism (pg. 3). While I think this opens up some interesting questions, the language of the third way is a bit presumptuous, and is not actually what Kearney is up to in the book. Later, he says that “anatheism is nothing particularly new” (pg. 7). Much of the book will actually be descriptive of moments that Kearney takes to be indicative of anatheism.
In part 1, Kearney will approach “anatheistic moments” in a very broad sense. Such moments are those that gravitate between atheism and theism. He will first focus on the world religions, then attempt some description of the “anatheist wager” and finally turn to political and religious messianism in a chapter on philosophy after Auschwitz. Part 2 is more specific than the rest of the book, although still somewhat tentative. Here Kearney considers “the sacramental imagination” in ch. 4 with Merleau-Ponty and Kristeva and in ch. 5 with Proust, Joyce, and Woolf. Finally, part 3 sees Kearney turn to the practical import of anatheism in the lives of people such as Dorothy Day, Jean Vanier, and Gandhi after first making some comments on the secular and sacred.
Comments/critique: One of the major problems that Kearney refers to in the preface is how anatheism is distinct from atheism. The preface ana- means after, and thus we have after-theism. It seems evident that Kearney remains sympathetic to Christianity, but another question that I think needs to be on one’s mind while reading the book is how anatheism differs from agnosticism. Perhaps the only way to really define “anatheism” is with Kearney’s words at the end of the introduction that “the choice of faith is never taken once and for all. It needs to be repeated again and again – every time we speak in the name of God or ask why he abandoned us” (pg. 16).
After reading the book, I think that it may actually be understood as “clearing ground.” I realize that I’ve attributed this to the preface and introduction just now, but that is largely what I take Anatheism to be about. I consider myself to be pretty sympathetic to what Kearney is doing, but I think the book opens itself up to be so wide that it doesn’t cover anything with specific rigor. This is not necessarily a bad thing, and Kearney mentions in the book that there are two companion books in the works on non-Abrahamic religions. Still, I think there is room for more in the way of what Kearney discusses in part 2, although as an introductory work, the book fares pretty well. I will hopefully draw some more specific questions that I had out of the book as I continue the summaries this week.
I’m still somewhat unclear on what anatheism is based on this introduction. Is this his attempt to do theology after the death of God? It reminds me of the William Hamilton’s description of Christian atheism not as “the absence of the experience of God but rather as the experience of the absence of God”. Altizer’s theology testified to a longing for an experience that once was. I think the agnostic generally has not experienced any sort of moment with the divine (or she is unclear what that experience was). I can understand his definition, but how is his position different from the believer who understands that doubt is a necessary condition for faith?
I’m not surprised Kearney offered a third way, as he made the same move in Strangers, Gods, and Monsters. The third way move really pisses me off. Here’s why. Mark C Taylor in Erring describes his a/theology as a middle way between Altizer’s Hegelian death-of-God theology and orthodox theology. Later, Caputo countered by posing his deconstructive religion w/o religion as a compromise between orthodoxy and the overly atheistic theology of Taylor’s. Furthermore, I remember Kearney criticizing Caputo for being overly atheistic by adopting Derrida’s view of the khora (taken from Plato). He offered a third way of posse (possibility, the God of the future, to come in the eschaton) between the God of metaphysics and Caputo’s atheistic khora (Chapter 9 of Strangers). These type of moves are never interesting and often redundant.
I’m curious to see how he differentiates his anatheism from Caputo’s weak theology. Thanks for posting this, I’m excited to read the rest of the review.
I think anatheism is definitely distinct from Caputo, although I’m not really sure I’d say it’s different from, as you say, a believer who understands doubt to be necessary for faith. Kearney actually references Dostoevsky and faith breaking forth from the crucible of doubt.
I don’t think anatheism is to be understood as any attempt to do theology, and I think Kearney is pretty straightforward about being a philosopher. I’m looking at the introduction again now, and I think I could have explained this a little better in the post. In the preface, Kearney says that the book can be understood as a “philosophical story about the existential stories of our primal encounter with the Other, the Stranger, the Guest.” There is definitely an experiential component here, and this is why I say that Kearney’s starting point, if he has one, is the hermeneutics of the stranger. More on this in my summary of part 1, hopefully.
I will say that while I think there are places to be critical and also some parts of the book that are frustrating at first, it’s definitely worth reading. It’s not too involved and can be read through pretty quickly. I consider myself to be pretty sympathetic with what I take him to be doing – opening up a space for dialog – but I’m not sure the book moves much further than that. The third way talk is barely there, which is good, and is generally over-ridden by a genuine humility, to the point where by the end of the book, it wasn’t on my mind.
I think the idea of a “third way” opens up some questions about alterity, because in positing your philosophy/theology/whatever as a “third way,” you are necessarily radicalizing two poles that you somehow bypass. I don’t take Kearney to be up to this, but many who use the language of third way are certainly guilty of this. I think he can probably be pushed on some things, and in particular I’m still wrestling with the idea of dogma. I find myself wanting to read Jeffrey Robbins book on this as well as possibly return to some historical sources like Barth, but don’t have the time now.
I hope that quote clarifies a bit more what Kearney means by anatheism. The reason why Kearney says he is not doing theology is because he isn’t familiar with it and he isn’t interested in defending any particular orthodoxy. So, when he is trying to explore “hospitality” or “sacramentality,” which are basically the two major themes that keep coming up, he will draw from sources that are pretty much all over the place: all three Abrahamic religions, non-Western religious, agnostic or atheist novelists, and so on. This broad scope makes it difficult to really hone in on one area, which is why I keep leaning towards the idea that the book really just tries to “clear ground” for dialog. The dialog will presumably come from Kearney himself with two future volumes, but is also already going on in contemporary philosophy of religion as well as all of the places Kearney points to in the book.
Thanks for the clarification. I mistook for him for trying to do theology after the death of God. I understand better now the intent of the book. I’ve always took Kearney to be a humble thinker. I remember listening to him with Caputo at the emergent theological conference in 2007. They were both quite up front about being philosophers, first and foremost.
I guess what I’m trying to wrap my mind around more is this quote:
“the choice of faith is never taken once and for all. It needs to be repeated again and again – every time we speak in the name of God or ask why he abandoned us” (pg. 16).
What I’m struggling with is how he understands us living after theism, or in a post-theistic era. The death of God is loaded with so many meanings (actual historical event, metaphysical, cultural) that I’m curious how he understands our current Western society as being anatheistic (I suspect this a cultural claim, as covered by the phrase post-Christian Europe).
Great summary. This reminded me of the work of Dan Siedell in art history (God in the Gallery) — he tries to point out turns toward the religious, in terms of the iconic, in contemporary gallery art. Siedell seems to be identifying what you here describe as anatheistic moments.
— By the way, I wonder if the language of “third way” is sometimes used simply as a locator, as a means of defining for the reader the (albeit arbitrary and provisional) poles between which one locates the problem/situation one is addressing? In this sense, third ways as concepts are analogous to abstracts (or grant proposals =). But both of you are no doubt correct in despising the language — especially as it is used in Jeremy’s example — which often seems to imply historical pride of truly Hegelian proportions.
From what I know of Siedell, I would say that that’s about right. The reason that I try to distance Kearney from actually doing what a lot of people do when they use third way language is because he specifically aims to avoid any kind of totality or systemization. Broadly speaking, Kearney’s working from a narrative hermeneutics tradition that is also pretty influenced by deconstruction and phenomenology.
Jeremy, I might need to return to the text tomorrow for more clarification, but I want to mention first that Kearney is not saying we are in a post-theistic era. He never really deals with any death of God thought in the book. Instead, he’s trying to argue positively for the space opened up by the so-called anatheist wager. His method really mirrors that of Ricoeur’s, I think. He’s got this detour and return kind of approach that never really settles down.
I want to say that the comment thread has been really helpful so far, especially in clarifying some things about the approach to this book (I’m sure there is still more work to do). I had originally intended to jump straight into part 1, but thought an introductory post would work better. The only problem is that I read the introduction quite some time ago, and I don’t have notes for it, unlike the rest of the book. Glancing at my notes, I think there’s some pretty substantive stuff coming, although I hope we keep coming back to the theological implications. Kearney has little interest in defending one religious tradition, but at least in this book, he’s operating out of the Abrahamic traditions, especially Christianity. He’s openly against classical theism as he understands it, but at times seems more ambivalent towards dogma. The dogma thing keeps returning for me every time I try to comment.
This blurb from the link you shared probably put that post-theistic thought in my head.
“Has the passing of the old God paved the way for a new kind of religious project, a more responsible way to seek, sound, and love the things we call divine? Has the suspension of dogmatic certainties and presumptions opened a space in which we can encounter religious wonder anew? Situated at the split between theism and atheism, we now have the opportunity to respond in deeper, freer ways to things we cannot fathom or prove.”
It does seem on some level that he recognizes we are in a different era where facile beliefs in gods are more difficult. I’m not sure what he means by the passing of the old God, but I suppose I assumed it was the same impotent God that Nietzsche speculated about, and that modernism rightly destroyed. I understand you’re saying that he doesn’t speculate too much on what old God passed, but rather he tries to inhabit a liminal space between atheism and theism that can produce more interesting anatheistic results.
[...] the Sublime (1 and 2). And Dave Mesing examined Richard Kearney’s Anatheism in three posts (1, 2, and 3) Posted by Anthony Paul Smith Filed in link posts Leave a Comment [...]
I am reading this book and what strikes me most is how hostile we have become to the “possibilty of a God after God”. The secular ideology that has infiltrated all of our thoughts , passions, ethics almost refuses to allow any possibility of the transcendent. our immediate reaction (almost now by instinct) is to displace possibilty of God with cynicism or refusal of faith. a very good way of approaching a new , dare i say it “Post Modern” (said it) GOD !