Questioning God

This volume, based on the second of Villanova's "Religion and Postmodernism" lecture series, brings Jacques Derrida together with an international group of philosophers and theologians, including John Milbank, Graham Ward, Richard Kearney, Kevin Hart, Jean Greisch and others, to discuss questions of forgiveness and God in a post-modern time. In addition to containing the first appearance in print of Derrida's recent work on the topic of 'forgiveness,' this volume also presents the first confrontation of deconstruction with Radical Orthodoxy.What are the connections between phenomenology and religion? What does it mean to forgive in a post-modern age? Is forgiveness a paradox today? In 15 lively essays, Jacques Derrida and an international group of scholars of religion explore thinking about God within the context and the economy of exchange that seems to govern repentance. If forgiveness is, as implied in the word, a giving and a gift, then is it only to be given to those who earn it, to those who repent and make amends?What does it mean to reduce forgiveness to a simple economic exchange? Can we only really forgive the unrepentant, those who have not earned it? Can we only properly forgive the unforgivable? Can the sense of debt and reciprocity that comes with forgiveness ever be avoided? Specific topics such as imagining God as unthinkable, imagining God as non-patriarchal, imagining a return to Augustine, and imagining an age where praise is far more important than narrative, amplify the religious and philosophical dialogues taking place in this timely volume. "Questioning God" moves readers beyond the parameters of metaphysical reason and modernist rationality as it unites post-modern attempts to conceive of God. Contributors include John D. Caputo, Jacques Derrida, Mark Dooley, Francis Schussler Fiorenza, Robert Gibbs, Jean Greisch, Kevin Hart, Richard Kearney, Cleo McNelly Kearns, John Milbank, Regina M. Schwartz, Michael J. Scanlon, Graham Ward.