God Being Nothing: Toward a Theogony PDF
Preview God Being Nothing: Toward a Theogony
God Being Nothing Religion and Postmodernism A series edited by Thomas A. Carlson Recent Books in the Series The Mystic Fable, Volume Two, by Michel de Certeau (2015) Negative Certainties, by Jean- Luc Marion (2015) Heidegger’s Confessions, by Ryan Coyne (2015) Arts of Wonder, by Jeffrey L. Kosky (2012) God without Being, second edition, by Jean- Luc Marion (2012) Secularism in Antebellum America, by John Lardas Modern (2011) God Being Nothing Toward a Theogony RAY L. HART The University of Chicago Press Chicago and London RAY L. HART is professor emeritus of religion and theology at Boston University. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2016 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 2016. Printed in the United States of America 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 1 2 3 4 5 ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 35962- 5 (cloth) ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 35976- 2 (e- book) DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226359762.001.0001 Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: Hart, Ray L., author. Title: God being nothing : toward a theogony / Ray L. Hart. Other titles: Religion and postmodernism. Description: Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, 2016. | Series: Religion and postmodernism | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2015039770 | ISBN 9780226359625 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780226359762 (e-book) Subjects: LCSH: God. | Philosophical theology. | Postmodern theology. Classification: LCC BT103 .H385 2016 | DDC 211—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015039770 ♾ This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48- 1992 (Permanence of Paper). For twelve collegial friends over a lifetime Thomas J. J. Altizer David L. Miller Henry G. Bugbee Robert C. Neville Edward Farley Schubert M. Ogden Robert W. Funk Mark C. Taylor Charley D. Hardwick James B. Wiggins Howard L. Harrod Edith Wyschogrod Contents Preface ix Acknowledgments xi An Imperfect Overview 1 Introduction Pre- facing the Divine 10 Thinking the What and the Who 12 God the Word 22 God the Name 26 Saying the Ineffable 32 Thinking Nothingness 38 A Caveat Concerning Cosmogony 44 Topos 1 Theogony (Θεογονία): Godhead and God 48 Godhead and God: Why Distinguish Them? 49 Emergence- y of the Divine God 55 The Defaults of Being 59 The Genesis and Default of God 63 God qua Determinate Creator 73 Godhead qua Abyssal Indeterminacy of Divine Wisdom 76 Godhead qua Abyssal Indeterminate Desire 80 Godhead Differently Determinate qua Creator and Redeemer 84 Between Godhead and God: Pneumatic Chora 95 Topos 2 Cosmogony (Κοσμογονία): God and Creature 104 The One and the Many 107 Principle (quod est) and Principal (quo est) 109 Taxonomy of Finite Modal Wholes 114 Creatio ex nihilo 117 The Mise- en- scène of Creation 122 Creation within the Scène of Eternity 126 The Problematic of Time 130 The Problematic of the Two Nots 134 The Problematic of Christology 139 Topos 3 Anthropogony: Creature and God 143 Human Existence between Two Nots 145 Interlude: The Sur- prise of “I exist, here, now” 152 The Bicameral House of Human Being 158 Creatio in imago Dei et ad imaginem Verbi 163 Between Becoming and Unbecoming 166 Becoming 167 Unbecoming 170 Unbecoming as Ascesis 178 Sacrifice 180 Postscript Afterthinking Theology as Hermeneutics 184 The Hermeneutical Spiral 185 An Imperfect Conclusion 190 Appendix A: What Did the Cartesian Cogito Establish as a Starting Point for Thinking the Human Being Who Thinks God? 193 Appendix B: Fault and Fall in Human Existence 214 Notes 231 Selected Bibliography 263 Index 273 Preface A writer cannot but muse privately the connection his books have with one another, if any; when the books reflect turn- ing points, or pivots, in a career of thinking, it may justify or warrant going public with the musings. Such a project in- volves the sense of time acutely. When I reflect on an osten- sibly pivoting or “hinging” event, I find crowding in on that reflection a reverie of timepieces. The event was one thing as anticipated, endured, and looked back upon through the measurement of sundials, shadows, hourglasses, and quite another through an electronically motived “watch” without moving “hands.” Why do we still call our timepieces watches when the segments of day and night have long since ceased to be distinguished by “watches”— as in the biblical three watches of the night? A wisdom in our language chimes with that in time: one is to stand watch, particularly over pivots and hinges. Such an event, fraught with pivoting or hinging signifi- cance, bears two distinguishable futures. When the event has not fully happened, it has or is an anterior future; and as such, as Aristotle said of any future, it can only be imagined. When the event has happened, or is concrescently collocated, it has or becomes a posterior future, which comprises the potency established in the event. This is why Bultmann claims that the meaning of an event belongs to the future to which it gives rise. Here I do not refer to how my writings were called forth by “occasions” (a conference, symposium, lecture, a festschrift, and so on) but simply seek to reckon with the two hinge or pivot books, offering a few words concerning the correlation of my first book and the present work— whether ix
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