Here I review the recent edited volume "Richard Kearney's Anatheistic Wager: Philosophy, Theology, Poetics.

Williams, Austin M.

English

PhilPapers

180 Book ReviewsPNEUMA© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/15700747-04101010Chris Doude van Troostwijk and Matthew Clemente (eds.), Richard Kearney’sAnatheisticWager: Philosophy, Theology, Poetics (Bloomington, IN: Indiana Univer-sity Press, 2018). 312 pp. $65.00 hardback.In their famous essay, “What Is Philosophy,” Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guat-tari argued that the chief activity of philosophers is to generate and circulateconcepts. Other thinkers can embrace and transform these ideas or they cancast then into the dustbin of history. If the current literature is any indication,Richard Kearney’s concept of anatheism has caught traction in this culturalmoment and will continue to be in high circulation for the foreseeable future.This is not surprising given its focus on the struggles inherent to losing andgaining anew one’s native religious beliefs in a climate that is so often full ofdisenchantment. Yet, the numerous conferences, journal articles, and no lessthan four edited volumes engaging his account of a post-secular faith indicatethat Kearney is contributing something unique to this current cultural faithcrisis.While previous volumes have addressed the praxis and art of anatheism,in Chris Doude van Troostwijk and Matthew Clemente’s new edited volumeRichard Kearney’s AnatheisticWager: Philosophy, Theology, Poetics, a number ofqualified thinkers interrogate and apply the theoria and poesis of Kearney’sproject. The central aim of the book is to explore the moment of existentialwager inherent to engaging one’s faith after having it called into question.The volume is divided into three sections that each correspond to one ofthe domainsmentioned in the book’s subtitle. The first section (“ConversationsAfter God”) is comprised of four interviews that discuss Kearney’s work from aliterary, theological, psychoanalytic, and phenomenological standpoint. This isfollowed by a section (“At the Limits of Theology”) of theological analysis andapplication of Kearney’s work in dialogue with various denominational andinterreligious settings. The concluding portion (“Poetics of the Sacred”) utilizesKearney’s anatheism as a hermeneutical tool to analyze a variety of religiousand secular literary works and explore the wager of hospitality and hostility intheir chosen texts.In the opening interviewwith author, literary critic, and atheist JamesWood,Kearney explores his own religious biography. It quickly becomes clear thatthe hospitality, humor, and humility of the anatheistic project emerge out ofKearney’s own Irish-Catholic context. The next interview pivots from the athe-istic and biographical to the theistic and theological. If James Wood wantedto explore anatheism’s relationship to atheism, Chris Doude van Troostwijkdesires to understand anatheism’s compatibility with protestant theism.Between these two initial interviews there is much overlap in content, but thejuxtaposed theological positions of the interviewers provides anopportunity toDownloaded from Brill.com01/30/2020 09:30:19PMvia Boston CollegeBook Reviews 181PNEUMA 41 (2019) 111–185see anatheism’s response to those who return to and stay away from religiousadherence.The next two conversations place Kearney in the seat of the questioner aswell as the respondent.With Julia Kristeva, Kearney discusses the connectionsbetween religious experience, gender, doctrine, dark nights, and This Incredi-ble Need to Believe exemplified in the life and writing of Teresa of Avila. Whilemuch of this conversation does not directly pertain toKearney’s project, it doeshelp illuminate his relationship to psychoanalysis and the phenomenology ofdesire alongside a preeminent thinker working on these topics. The final andinmymindmost interesting dialogue occurs with Emmanuel Falque. This con-versation illuminates the fact that religious conviction (or lack thereof) is lessamatter of cognitive transformation, ormoments of crisis, andmore about thenarratives and embodied practices that shape one’s identity. This conversationalso affords a view into twocontemporaryCatholic philosopherswrestlingwiththe legacy of the Christian metaphysical tradition while attempting to remainfaithful to the phenomenological experience of persons living in a secular age.The next section of the volume explores the conceptual framework of theanatheistic wager and probes its possibility for ecumenical, interreligious, andcross-philosophical dialogue. The various contributors to this section rehashmany of Kearney’s arguments from anatheism, and apply them to RomanCatholic, Reformed, and Buddhist contexts. While it would be impossible toexplore each of these contributions, two in particular illuminate the herme-neutical flexibility of Kearney’s project.The juxtaposition of Marianne Moyaert’s essay on interreligious hospitalityand Joseph O’Leary’s chapter on Buddhist anatheism throw this interpretivefluidity into sharp relief. Moyeart recounts the Roman Catholic doctrine thatGod is fully revealed in Jesus, but other religions also bear truths that are com-patible with Christian theology. Moyeart worries that this claim, more modestthan those of fundamentalists andmore confident that those of total pluralists,may not be possible in Kearney’s project where all dogmatic claims seem to begiven the same epistemological and ethical dismissal as part of a first naivetéspirituality. O’Leary on the other hand finds that Kearney’s metaphysical scru-ples prime anatheism to stage a wonderful dialogue between Buddhism andChristianity. By skipping over dogmatic claims, straight into the life world ofexistential wagers, one is able to see that Buddhists and Christians have muchthat mutually informs their practice in relation to the absolute.Like Moyeart, I wonder whether all exclusive truth claims regarding Godmust be equally exclusionary or violent? Kearney makes much of moving pastnotions of divine omnipotence, yet it is not clear to me that God’s active (asopposed to kenotic) power or Christian particularity leads to evil-justifyingDownloaded from Brill.com01/30/2020 09:30:19PMvia Boston College182 Book ReviewsPNEUMA 41 (2019) 111–185theodicy or other-excluding eschatology. Pneuma readers could identify AzusaStreet as a site where divine empowerment fought against hegemony andracism. While one must wager with humility, perhaps divine power and notmerely weakness could figure in a post-secular faith.In the final section of the volume various biblical, ancient Greek, and con-temporary stories are explored with an eye toward the wager between hos-tility and hospitality. Whether it is Odysseus in Ithaca, Abraham on MountMoriah, or in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, one finds characters confrontedby a stranger that invites them to either become a host or a hostile respon-dent. While Kearney will want to argue that ethical discernment is crucial inthese encounters, the authors in this section press Kearney to embrace a moreradical (read Derridean) vision of hospitality for a stranger that one cannotdiscern ahead of time. Abraham’s story of obedience prior to calculating costsand benefits is a prime example of this radical hospitality. Nevertheless theseauthorswill agreewithKearney that everyone, whether secular or religiouswillfind themselves inmoments of existential wager where prudential judgment isneeded.Whether this wager is for God or neighbor, hospitality or hostility, onewill find the insights in this edited volume valuable. Anyone interested in Kear-ney’s project specifically or post-secular faith more broadly will benefit fromreading this collection of essays.Austin M.WilliamsBoston College, Boston, Massachusettswilliblc@bc.eduDownloaded from Brill.com01/30/2020 09:30:19PMvia Boston College

Richard Kearney's Anatheistic Wager: Philosophy, Theology, Poetics (Review)

https://philpapers.org/archive/WILRKA-2.pdf

Richard Kearney's Anatheistic Wager: Philosophy, Theology, Poetics (Review)

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

PhilPapers