Thinking Faith after Christianity

Winner of the 2020 Emerging Scholars Theological Book Prize presented by the European Society for Catholic Theology This book examines the work of Czech philosopher Jan Patoka from the largely neglected perspective of religion. Patoka is known primarily for his work in phenomenology and ancient Greek philosophy, and also as a civil rights activist and critic of modernity. In this book, Martin Koci shows Patoka also maintained a persistent and increasing interest in Christianity. Thinking Faith after Christianity examines the theological motifs in Patoka's work and brings his thought into discussion with recent developments in phenomenology, making a case for Patoka as a forerunner to what has become known as the theological turn in continental philosophy. Koci systematically examines his thoughts on the relationship between theology and philosophy, and his perennial struggle with the idea of crisis. For Patoka, modernity, metaphysics, and Christianity were all in different kinds of crises, and Koci demonstrates how his work responded to those crises creatively, providing new insights on theology understood as the task of thinking and living transcendence in a problematic world. It perceives the un-thought element of Christianitywhat Patoka identified as its greatest resource and potentialnot as a weakness, but as a credible way to ponder Christian faith and the Christian mode of existence after the proclaimed death of God and the end of metaphysics.