God out of Place? A Symposium on L.P. Hemming’s Postmodernity’s Transcending: Devaluing God

Abstract

How to speak about transcendence today? How to represent the transcendent in a context in which God seems to have no place anymore? No philosopher of religion or theologian can avoid this fundamental question. And not a few of them end up being paralysed by its enormous weight. However , do we really understand what is at stake in this all too familiar question? In his Postmodernity’s Transcending: Devaluing God (London: SCM Press, and Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 2005 ) Laurence Paul Hemming seeks to lay bare the foundations from which this kind of questioning arises. His en-deavour involves an investigation into the topic of the sublime, using this term to unlock the question of the place of God, or, better, the displacement of God. The book could be considered as a philosophical genealogy of the concept of the aesthetic sublime. At the same time it is an exploration of the nature and limits of theological thinking. Hemming confronts the reader with the God and gods to be found in the writings of Protagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Derrida. Throughout this exciting journey Hemming provocatively suggests that contemporary at tempts to speak of God often are un-knowingly out of place. Much theology and philosophy turn out to remain built upon modern presuppositions about subjectivity and transcendence which rule out a genuine approach of God from the very outset. God out of Place? is to be read as a first response to the challenges Hemming raises: it contains the proceedings of a book symposium, on the 12th of October 2004, organised by the Research Group Theology in a Postmodern Context at the Faculty of Theology, Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium). On this occasion Hemming presented the manuscript of the book, which arose from an extended period as guest professor and research fellow in Leuven (2002 – 2004 ), to critical responses by experts from different backgrounds. Kevin Hart (Notre Dame, USA) situates Hemming’s book within postmodern thinking, especially pointing to the writings of Maurice Blanchot. Further Hart constructively elaborates on the theological consequences of Hemming’s perspective: a genuine understanding of transcendence and the rediscovery of what it means to speak ‘ coram Deo ’. Stuart Elden (Durham, UK) reads Hemming in the light of Heidegger ’s view on ‘place’ and the impact of the modern mathematical paradigm on our understanding of the world. At the end, Elden raises the question of the political, which he finds underdeveloped in Hemming’s approach. Being a scholar in the History of Modern Philosophy , Peter Jonkers (Utrecht, The Netherlands) disagrees with Hemming’s negative assessment of Kant. After a re-reading of Heidegger , Jonkers suggests an alternative position, defending the lasting merits of modern thinking on the question of transcendence. Yves De Maeseneer (Leuven) confronts Hemming’s analysis of modern aesthetics in terms of the (re)production of a strong self with Adorno’s interpretation of the sublime, which, on the contrary , emphasises the self-destructive. In a final remark De Maeseneer raises the suspicion whether Hemming’s philosophical radicalism is not surreptitiously underpinned by a theological refuge into the realm of liturgy . For the purpose of these proceedings Joeri Schrijvers (Leuven) gives an extensive and erudite introduction to Hemming’s book, adding critical remarks stemming from his own research in the field of theology and phenomenology . Every contribution is followed by a reply by Hemming. The text ‘A Singular Question’, which consists in the opening paper Hemming presented at the symposium itself, is to be taken as a reply to both Hart and Elden. The contributions to God out of Place? are not merely commentaries or reactions to Hemming’s Postmodernity’s Transcending , but offer essays of contemporary thinkers dealing with the question of transcendence in their own right, reflecting on the places of God, self and world. And they elicit in their turn often vivid and sharp replies from Hemming. In conclusion, we would like to express our gratefulness to Lieven Boeve, whose initiative it was, as co-ordinator of the Research Group Theology in a Postmodern Context, to organise this book symposium, and to all the research fellows active in this Research Group (for more information, see http://www.theo.kuleuven.be/ogtpc/ ). Further we thank wholeheartedly Laurence Paul Hemming and all the contributors to the book for the fine spirit of cooperation, and Marcel Sarot, Michael Scott and Maarten Wisse, editors of the Ars Disputandi Supplement Series, for their critical feedback and excellent editing of this volume.