Table Of ContentPhenomenology and Eschatology
Not Yet in the Now
Edited by
Neal DeRoo
and
John Panteleimon Manoussakis
Phenomenology and eschatology
this book brings together a world-renowned collection of philosophers and
theologians to explore the ways in which the resurgence of eschatological thought
in contemporary theology and the continued relevance of phenomenology in
philosophy can illuminate each other. through a series of phenomenological
analyses of key eschatological concepts and detailed readings in some of
the key figures of both disciplines, this text reveals that phenomenology and
eschatology cannot be fully understood without each other: without eschatology,
phenomenology would not have developed the ethical and futural aspects that
characterize it today; without phenomenology, eschatology would remain relegated
to the sidelines of serious theological discourse. Along the way, such diverse
themes as time, death, parousia, and the call are re-examined and redefined.
Containing new contributions from Jean-Yves Lacoste, Claude Romano,
Richard Kearney, Kevin Hart and others, this book is necessary reading for anyone
interested in the intersection of contemporary philosophy and theology.
ASHGATE NEW CRITICAL THINKING IN RELIGION, THEOLOGY AND
BIBLICAL STUDIES
the Ashgate New Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology and Biblical Studies
series brings high quality research monograph publishing back into focus for
authors, international libraries, and student, academic and research readers.
headed by an international editorial advisory board of acclaimed scholars
spanning the breadth of religious studies, theology and biblical studies, this open-
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new authors in the field. With specialist focus yet clear contextual presentation
of contemporary research, books in the series take research into important new
directions and open the field to new critical debate within the discipline, in areas
of related study, and in key areas for contemporary society.
Series Editorial Board:
David Jasper, University of Glasgow, UK
James Beckford, University of Warwick, UK
Raymond Williams, Wabash College, Crawfordsville, USA
Geoffrey Samuel, University of Newcastle, Australia
Richard Hutch, University of Queensland, Australia
Paul Fiddes, Regent’s Park College, University of Oxford, UK
Anthony Thiselton, University of Nottingham, UK
Tim Gorringe, University of Exeter, UK
Adrian Thatcher, College of St Mark and St John, UK
Alan Torrance, University of St Andrews, UK
Judith Lieu, Kings College London, UK
Terrance Tilley, University of Dayton, USA
Miroslav Volf, Yale Divinity School, USA
Stanley Grenz, Baylor University and Truett Seminary, USA
Vincent Brummer, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands
Gerhard Sauter, University of Bonn, Germany
Other Titles in the Series:
Exodus Church and Civil Society
Public Theology and Social Theory in the Work of Jürgen Moltmann
Scott R. Paeth
Eucharistic Sacramentality in an Ecumenical Context
The Anglican epiclesis
David J. Kennedy
Phenomenology and eschatology
not yet in the now
Edited by
neal deROO
Boston College, USA
JOHN PANTELEIMON MANOUSSAKIS
College of the Holy Cross, USA
© Neal DeRoo and John Panteleimon Manoussakis 2009
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Neal DeRoo and John Panteleimon Manoussakis have asserted their moral right under the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work.
Published by
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Phenomenology and eschatology: not yet in the now. – (ashgate new critical thinking in
religion, theology and biblical studies)
1. Eschatology 2. Phenomenological theology
I. DeRoo, Neal II. Manoussakis, John Panteleimon
236
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
DeRoo, Neal, 1951–
Phenomenology and eschatology: not yet in the now / Neal DeRoo and John Panteleimon
manoussakis.
p. cm. – (Ashgate new critical thinking in religion, theology, and biblical studies)
ISBN 978-0-7546-6701-8 (hardcover: alk. paper)
1. Phenomenology. 2. Eschatology. 3. Philosophy and religion. I. Manoussakis, John
Panteleimon. II. Title.
B829.5.D435 2008
236.01–dc22
2008037175
ISBN 978-0-7546-6701-8
contents
Notes on Contributors vii
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
Part I Phenomenology of Eschatology 13
1 The Phenomenality of Anticipation 15
Jean-Yves Lacoste
2 Awaiting 35
Claude Romano
Part II Phenomenological Eschatology 53
3 Sacramental Imagination and Eschatology 55
Richard Kearney
4 The Promise of the New and the Tyranny of the Same 69
John Panteleimon Manoussakis
5 John Zizioulas on Eschatology and Persons 91
Douglas H. Knight
Part III Eschatological Phenomenology 101
6 The Eschatology of the Self and the Birth of the Being-with; Or, on
Tragedy 103
Ilias Papagiannopoulos
7 Being and the Promise 121
Jeffrey Bloechl
Part IV Phenomenology and Eschatology: Historical Confluences 131
8 “Hineingehalten in die Nacht”: Heidegger’s Early Appropriation of
Christian Eschatology 133
Judith E. Tonning
vi Phenomenology and Eschatology
9 Phenomenology and Eschatology in Michel Henry 153
Jeffrey Hanson
10 “Without World”: Eschatology in Michel Henry 167
Kevin Hart
appendix: The Present and the Gift 193
Jean-Luc Marion
Index 215
notes on contributors
Jeffrey Bloechl is associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston college. he has
lectured and taught widely in contemporary european philosophy and philosophy
of religion, with a particular interest in the relations of phenomenology and
psychoanalysis to christian thought. he is also the series editor of Levinas
Studies: An Annual Review (Duquesne University Press) and, with Kevin Hart, of
Thresholds in Philosophy and Theology (University of Notre Dame Press).
Neal DeRoo is teaching Fellow in the department of Philosophy at Boston
college. he is the co-editor of The Logic of Incarnation: James K.A. Smith’s
Critique of Postmodern Religion (Pickwick Publications, 2009), and has lectured
worldwide on topics ranging from Husserl to Derrida and psychoanalysis. In
addition, he has contributed to The Heythrop Journal, Essays in Philosophy, and
other journals.
Jeffrey Hanson received his Ph.D. from Fordham University and is currently
adjunct assistant professor of philosophy at Boston college.
Kevin Hart is Edwin B. Kyle Professor of Christian Studies and Professor of
Religious Studies in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of
Virginia, where he also holds professorships in the Department of English and
the department of French. he is the co-editor of the Thresholds in Philosophy
and Theology series for University of Notre Dame Press. His most recent books
include The Dark Gaze: Maurice Blanchot and the Sacred (Chicago University
Press, 2004), Counter-Experiences: Reading Jean-Luc Marion (University of
Notre Dame Press, 2007) and, with Michael A. Signer, The Exorbitant: Emmanuel
Levinas between Jews and Christians (Fordham University Press, 2009). His
poetry is gathered in Flame Tree: Selected Poems (Bloodaxe Books, 2004), and
Young Rain (Australia: Giramondo Press, 2008; United Kingdom: Bloodaxe Press,
2009; and United States: Notre Dame University Press, 2009).
Richard Kearney is charles B. seelig Professor in Philosophy at Boston
College. He is the author of numerous works in philosophy and religion, including
Poétique du Possible (Beauchesne, 1984), The Wake of Imagination (hutchinson
and Routledge, 1988), On Stories (Routledge, 2001), The God Who May Be: A
Hermeneutics of Religion (Indiana University Press, 2001), Strangers, Gods and
Monsters: Interpreting Otherness (Routledge, 2002), and Anatheism: Returning to
God After God (forthcoming from Columbia University Press). He is the co-editor
of the Thinking in Action series (Routledge, Taylor and Francis), and his works
viii Phenomenology and Eschatology
have been translated into 15 languages. He is also a published novelist, with Sam’s
Fall (1995) and Walking at Sea Level (1997), and poet, with Angel of Patrick’s
Hill (1991).
Douglas H. Knight teaches christian theology in london. he is the author of The
Eschatological Economy: Time and the Hospitality of God (Eerdmans, 2006) and
editor of The Theology of John Zizioulas: Personhood and the Church (Ashgate,
2007) and John Zizioulas, Lectures on Christian Dogmatics (T&T Clark 2008).
Jean-Yves Lacoste is Professor of Philosophy at the Institut Catholique de
Paris. He is the author of the hugely influential Experience and the Absolute:
Disputed Questions on the Humanity of Man (english translation by Fordham
University Press, 2004), Note sur le Temps: Essai sur les raisons de la mémoire
et de l’espérance (Presses Universitaires France, 1990), Présence et Parousie
(English translation forthcoming from Notre Dame University Press) and La
phénoménalité de Dieu (Paris, 2008). He is also the editor of the Encyclopedia of
Christian Theology (English translation by Routledge, 2004).
John Panteleimon Manoussakis is visiting assistant Professor of Philosophy
at the college of the holy cross. he is the author of God After Metaphysics:
A Theological Aesthetic (Indiana University Press, 2007). He edited After God:
Richard Kearney and the Theological Turn in Continental Philosophy (Fordham
University Press, 2005), and is the co-editor of Heidegger and the Greeks:
Interpretive Essays (Indiana University Press, 2006) and Traversing the Imaginary:
Richard Kearney and the Postmodern Challenge (Northwestern University Press,
2007).
Jean-Luc Marion is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris IV
(Sorbonne) and the John Nuveen Professor at the University of Chicago Divinity
School, Department of Philosophy, and the Committee on Social Thought. Some of
his early works include a trilogy on descartes: Sur l’ontologie grise de Descartes (J.
Vrin,1975), Sur la théologie blanche de Descartes (Presses Universitaires France,
1981) and Sur le prisme métaphysique de Descartes (Presses Universitaires France,
1986). He became known in the English-speaking philosophical world through the
translation of his groundbreaking work God Without Being (University of Chicago,
1991). His phenomenological work includes the trilogy Reduction and Givenness:
Investigations of Husserl, Heidegger and Phenomenology (english translation by
Northwestern University Press, 1998), Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of
Givenness (English translation by Stanford University Press, 2002) and In Excess:
Studies in Saturated Phenomena (English translation by Fordham University Press,
2004). His most recent works to appear in English are The Erotic Phenomenon
(University of Chicago Press, 2008) and The Visible and the Revealed (Fordham
University Press, 2008).
Notes on Contributors ix
Ilias Papagiannopoulos is teaching political philosophy and history of ideas at
the Panteion University for Social and Political Sciences in Athens. He has also
lectured at the University of Innsbruck (Austria) and was a research fellow at the
Greek Academy for Sciences and Arts under the supervision of John Zizioulas.
He has published, in Greek, After the Stage. An essay on Herman Melville’s
Moby-Dick (2000), and Beyond Absence. An essay on the person, on the track of
Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex (2005).
Claude Romano is Associate Professor in Philosophy at the University of
Paris-Sorbonne. He is the author of several works in phenomenology, including
L’événement et le monde (Presses Universitaires de France, 1998), L’événement et
le temps (Presses Universitaires de France, 1999), Il y a (Presses Universitaires de
France, 2003), and Le chant de la vie. Phénoménologie de Faulkner (Gallimard,
2005). He is also the co-editor of Le néant. Contribution à une histoire du non-
être dans la philosophie occidentale (Presses Universitaires de France, 2006), and
served as the editor of the French journal Philosophie from 1994–2003. His works
that have been translated into english include Event and World (Fordham, 2008),
Event and Time (Fordham, forthcoming), and There Is (Fordham, forthcoming).
Judith E. Tonning teaches systematic theology in the theology Faculty at
Oxford University, where she is currently completing her DPhil. She is the General
editor of The C.S. Lewis Chronicle, and has published on eschatology in relation
to Heidegger, Stanley Cavell, and Shakespeare in journals such as The Heythrop
Journal, Literature and Theology, and The Glass.