Flight of the Gods

Contemporary continental philosophy approaches metaphysics with great reservation. A point of criticism concerns traditional philosophical speaking about God. Whereas Nietzsche, with his question God is dead; who killed Him? was, in his time, highly unzeitgem and shocking, the twentieth century by contrast, saw Heideggers concept of onto-theology and its implied problematization of the God of the metaphysicians quickly become a famous term. In Heideggers words, to a philosophical concept or being we can neither pray, nor kneel. Heidegger did not, however, return to the God of Christian faith. He tried to initiate a new way of speaking about Goda way that reveals the limits of philosophical discourse. Derrida, Marion, Bataille, Adorno, Taubes and Bakhtin, each in their own way, continue this exploration begun by Nietzsche and Heidegger. This book takes a fresh look at these developments. The death of God as the editors say in an introductory study, announces not so much the death of the old Godthe God of philosophers, theologians and believersbut rather the death of the god who put himself on His throne: autonomous human reason. In listening to the reactions to this dethronement of autonomous reason, the editors believe they hear the echoes of an experience of an embarrassment rooted partly in an old medieval tradition: negative theology. With the death of this new god, might a sensitivity reappear for transcendence? Here the editors want to offer a platform where contemporary philosophers of culture can again pose the question of speaking about God.