Abstract
Chapter 2 refers back to Deleuze’s ontology of difference and emphasis upon immanence as starting point for Relational Christian Realism’s (RCR) counterbalance to New Materialism (NM). This challenges traditional theological hierarchies. RCR uses Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO) and the notion of small transcendences (Harman) and understanding of God as virtual. Then examines the tension between the apophatic and the relational as described by Keller and Kearney (whose anatheism is a stronger link to the tradition). Latour talks about local transcendences and religion as the immediate and close to hand rather than distant and remote. Caputo proposes a God who ‘insists’ and is not an agent as such, but to be encountered in the event. He draws upon Derrida’s messianic and sees transcendence as being another way of configuring the plane of immanence: a modality of the world. Do either Latour or Caputo provide a basis for motivation though? Returning to Keller who builds more upon process theology and Whitehead although there is a danger of reading too much into Derrida’s negative theology – can there be a direct path from the apophatic to the ethical? God as ‘Wholly Other’ could as easily be beyond relation as accessible to relation. RCR instead draws upon God as virtual and the ‘beyond in the midst’ as described by Bonhoeffer. Concludes with return to Kearney and his use of chora as womb; cave or chamber/space/receptacle with stronger link to the tradition and notions of hospitality and the mediating entanglements that might balance crowd (relational) and cloud (apophatic).
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Joerg Rieger and Edward Waggoner, eds., Religious Experience and New Materialism: Movement Matters (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), Introduction by Tamsin Jones, p. 17.
- 2.
Rieger and Waggoner, Religious Experience, Joerg Rieger, Chapter 5.
- 3.
Rieger and Waggoner, Religious Experience, Tamsin Jones, p. 18.
- 4.
Christopher Baker, Thomas A. James and John Reader, A Philosophy of Christian Materialism: Entangled Fidelities and the Common Good (Farnham, England: Ashgate Publishing Ltd, 2015), pp. 32–34.
- 5.
Baker, James and Reader, A Philosophy of Christian Materialism, pp. 88ff. See also Levi R. Bryant, The Democracy of Objects (Michigan, USA: Open Humanities Press, 2011) and Graham Harman, Towards Speculative Realism: Essays and Lectures (Ropley, Hants, UK: Zero Books, 2010) for early works on the themes of Object Oriented Ontology.
- 6.
Baker, James and Reader, A Philosophy of Christian Materialism, p. 92.
- 7.
John Reader, Blurred Encounters: A Reasoned Practice of Faith (St Brides Major, Vale of Glamorgan, UK: Aureus Publishing, 2005), pp. 40–47.
- 8.
Catherine Keller, Clouds of the Impossible: Negative Theology and Planetary Entanglement (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015), p. 31.
- 9.
Keller, Clouds of the Impossible, p. 30.
- 10.
Richard Kearney and Jens Zimmerman, eds., Reimagining the Sacred: Richard Kearney Debates God (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015), Chapter 3 Dialogue with Catherine Keller.
- 11.
Baker, James and Reader, A Philosophy of Christian Materialism, pp. 45–47.
- 12.
Adam S. Miller, Speculative Grace: Bruno Latour and Object-Oriented Theology (USA: Fordham University Press, 2013), pp. 38–39.
- 13.
Miller, Speculative Grace, p. 41.
- 14.
Miller, Speculative Grace, p. 43.
- 15.
Bruno Latour, An Inquiry into Modes of Existence: An Anthropology of the Moderns (USA: Harvard University Press, 2013), Chapter 11.
- 16.
Latour, An Inquiry into Modes of Existence, p. 299.
- 17.
Bruno Latour, Rejoicing: On the Torments of Religious Speech (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2013), p. 20.
- 18.
Latour, Rejoicing, pp. 54–55.
- 19.
Latour, Rejoicing, p. 135.
- 20.
Latour, Rejoicing, p. 144.
- 21.
John D. Caputo, The Insistence of God: A Theology of Perhaps (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013), p. 51.
- 22.
Caputo, The Insistence of God, p. 50.
- 23.
Caputo, The Insistence of God, p. 52.
- 24.
Keller, Clouds of the Impossible, p. 31.
- 25.
Keller, Clouds of the Impossible, pp. 31–40.
- 26.
John Reader, The Problem of Faith and Reason after Habermas and Derrida (unpublished Ph.D thesis, University of Wales, Bangor, 2002).
- 27.
Keller, Clouds of the Impossible, p. 47.
- 28.
Keller, Clouds of the Impossible, pp. 121–122.
- 29.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison (London: SCM Press Ltd, 1976), p. 282.
- 30.
Baker, James and Reader, A Philosophy of Christian Materialism, p. 81.
- 31.
Kearney and Zimmerman, eds., Reimagining the Sacred, p. 7.
- 32.
Kearney and Zimmerman, eds., Reimagining the Sacred, p. 10.
- 33.
Kearney and Zimmerman, eds., Reimagining the Sacred, p. 17.
- 34.
Kearney and Zimmerman, eds., Reimagining the Sacred, p. 258.
- 35.
Kearney and Zimmerman, eds., Reimagining the Sacred, p. 67.
- 36.
Kearney and Zimmerman, eds., Reimagining the Sacred, p. 75.
- 37.
Jacques Derrida, On the Name (Stanford, USA: Stanford University Press, 1995), p. 109.
- 38.
Kearney and Zimmerman, eds., Reimagining the Sacred, p. 253.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Reader, J. (2017). Transcendence. In: Theology and New Materialism. Radical Theologies and Philosophies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54511-0_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54511-0_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-54510-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-54511-0
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)