God after Metaphysics: A Theological Aesthetic

233 Pages·2007·0.78 MB·English

by  John Panteleimon Manoussakis

PHIlOsOPHy
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RElIGIOn
a
n
o
ohn Panteleimon Manoussakis u hile philosophy believes it is
J A new way of thinking about W
s od
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teaches at Boston College and the a impossible to have an experience of
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American College of Greece. He is God and religious experience is God without the senses, theology
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author of Theos Philosophoumenos claims that such an experience is pos-
(in Greek), editor of After God, and legant and incisive, God after Metaphysics engages after sible, but potentially idolatrous. In
G
co-editor (with Drew Hyland) of Ethe “theological turn” of contemporary phenomenology this engagingly creative book, John
Heidegger and the Greeks (Indiana at a deeper, richer, and more satisfying level than many Panteleimon Manoussakis suggests
o
University Press, 2006). He has also recent books. Manoussakis is entirely right to stress the a way to overcome the impasse by
d
importance of what it means to be “in relations with
translated Heidegger’s Sojourns. He metaphysics proposing an aesthetic that allows for
God” and to see this as essential to theology today. Well
is an ordained deacon in the Ortho- a sensuous experience of God that is
a
grounded in patristics, Manoussakis shows us that the
dox Archdiocese of Athens. not subordinated to imposed catego-
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future of theology and its past are not in contradiction,
t ries or concepts. Manoussakis draws
and must be thought together.
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upon the rich theological traditions of
—KEvIn HARt, UnIvERsIty Of nOtRE DAME r
A Theological Aesthetic the Eastern Church, including patris-

m tic and liturgical resources, to build a
have not seen anything in breadth, importance, and
I
intensity like [Manoussakis’s] conception of God after theological aesthetic founded on the
Indiana Series in the e
Philosophy of Religion metaphysics in all the years I have been teaching at the t inverted gaze of icons, the augmented
Merold Westphal, editor
sorbonne and the University of Chicago! a language of hymns, and the reciproc-
p
—JEAn-lUC MARIOn ity of touch. Engaging recent devel-
h
opments in the philosophy of religion
y
and Continental thought, Manoussa-
s
kis explores how a relational inter-
i
c
pretation of being develops a fuller
s
INDIANA and more meaningful view of the
John Panteleimon Manoussakis phenomenology of religious experi-
University Press
ence that goes beyond metaphysics
Bloomington & Indianapolis
Jacket illustration: Christ descending into Hades, 14th century.
http://iupress.indiana.edu and ontotheology.
Photo by the author.
INDIANA
1-800-842-6796
God after Metaphysics
Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Religion
Merold Westphal, general editor
God after Metaphysics
A Theological Aesthetic
John Panteleimon Manoussakis
Indiana University Press
Bloomington and Indianapolis
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Indiana University Press
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© 2007 by John Panteleimon Manoussakis
All rights reserved
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Library of Congress Cataloging- in-Publication Data
Manoussakis, John Panteleimon.
God after metaphysics : a theological aesthetic / John Panteleimon Manoussakis.
p. cm. — (Indiana series in the philosophy of religion)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-253-34880-7 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. God—Knowableness.
2. Experience (Religion) 3. Christianity—Philosophy. 4. Orthodox Eastern
Church—Doctrines. I. Title.
BT102.M36 2007
231—dc22
2006035932
1 2 3 4 5 12 11 10 09 08 07
Τῆς Παναγίας, ἀχράντου, ὑπερευλογημένης, ἐνδόξου Δεσποίνης
ἡμῶν Θεοτόκου καί ἀειπαρθένου Μαρίας.

So, following the saintly fathers, we all with one voice teach the
confession of one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ: the same
perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, the same truly God and
truly man, of a rational soul and a body; consubstantial with the Father
as regards his divinity, and the same consubstantial with us as regards
his humanity; like us in all respects except for sin; begotten before the
ages from the Father as regards his divinity, and in the last days the
same for us and for our salvation from Mary, the virgin God- bearer
as regards his humanity; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only-
begotten, acknowledged in two natures which undergo no confusion,
no change, no division, no separation; at no point was the difference
between the natures taken away through the union, but rather the
property of both natures is preserved and comes together into a single
person and a single subsistent being; he is not parted or divided into
two persons, but is one and the same only- begotten Son, God, Word,
Lord Jesus Christ, just as the prophets taught from the beginning about
him, and as the Lord Jesus Christ himself instructed us, and as the
creed of the fathers handed it down to us.
—The Fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon (a.d. 451)
It is nothing less than the loud assertion that this mysterious Maker of
the world has visited His world in person. It declares that really and
even recently, or right in the middle of historic times, there did walk
into the world this original invisible being; about whom the thinkers
make theories and the mythologists hand down myths; the Man who
made the World. That such a higher personality exists behind all things
had always been implied by the best thinkers as well as by all the
beautiful legends. But nothing of this sort has ever been implied by
any of them . . . The most that any religious prophet had said was that
he was the true servant of such a being. The most that any visionary
had ever said was that men might catch glimpses of the glory of that
spiritual being; much more often of lesser spiritual beings. The most
that any primitive myth had ever suggested was that the Creator was
present at the Creation. But that the Creator was present at scenes
a little subsequent to the supper- parties of Horace, and talked with
tax collectors and government offi cials in the detailed daily life of
the Roman Empire, and that this fact continued to be fi rmly asserted
by the whole of that great civilization for more than a thousand
years—that is something utterly unlike anything else in nature. It is
the one great startling statement that man has made since he spoke
his fi rst articulate word . . . it makes nothing but dust and nonsense of
comparative religion.
—G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man
Contents
acknowledgments / xi
list of abbreviations / xiii
Introduction / 1
PART ONE. SEEING
Allegory 1 / 9
1. The Metaphysical Chiasm / 13
2. The Existential Chiasm / 35
3. The Aesthetical Chiasm / 57
PART TWO. HEARING
Allegory 2 / 73
4. Prelude: Figures of Silence / 75
5. Interlude: Language beyond Difference and Otherness / 93
6. Postlude: The Interrupted Self / 109
PART THREE. TOUCHING
Allegory 3 / 119
7. Touch Me, Touch Me Not / 123
8. The Sabbath of Experience / 143
notes / 159
bibliography / 199
index / 211