While philosophy believes it is impossible to have an experience of God without the senses, theology claims that such an experience is possible, though potentially idolatrous. In this engagingly creative book, John Panteleimon Manoussakis ends the impasse by proposing an aesthetic allowing for a sensuous experience of God that is not subordinated to imposed categories or concepts. Manoussakis draws upon the theological traditions of the Eastern Church, including patristic and liturgical resources, to build a theological aesthetic founded on the inverted gaze of icons, the augmented language of hymns, and the reciprocity of touch. Manoussakis explores how a relational interpretation of being develops a fuller and more meaningful view of the phenomenology of religious experience beyond metaphysics and onto-theology.
John Panteleimon Manoussakis teaches at Boston College and the American College in Athens, Greece. He has edited (with Drew Hyland) Heidegger and the Greeks (IUP, 2006) and published a translation of Heidegger's Sojourns.
Table of Contents
ContentsAcknowledgmentsList of AbbreviationsIntroductionPart One. SeeingAllegory 11. The Metaphysical Chiasm2. The Existential Chiasm3. The Aesthetical ChiasmPart Two. HearingAllegory 24. Figures of Silence: Prelude5. Language beyond Difference and Otherness: Interlude6. The Interrupted Self: PostludePart Three. TouchingAllegory 37. Touch Me, Touch Me Not8. The Sabbath of ExperienceNotesBibliographyIndex
What People are Saying About This
University of Notre Dame - Kevin Hart
"Elegant and incisive, God after Metaphysics engages the 'theological turn' of contemporary phenomenology at a deeper, richer, and more satisfying level than many recent books. Manoussakis is entirely right to stress the importance of what it means to be 'in relations with God' and to see this as essential to theology today. Well grounded in patristics, Manoussakis shows us that the future of theology and its past are not in contradiction, and must be thought together."
Luc Marion
I have not seen anything in breadth, importance, and intensity like [Manoussakis's] conception of God after metaphysics in all the years I have been teaching at the Sorbonne and the Universityof Chicago! —Jea
Universityof Notre Dame - Kevin Hart
Elegant and incisive, God after Metaphysics engages the 'theological turn' of contemporary phenomenology at a deeper, richer, and more satisfying level than many recent books. Manoussakis is entirely right to stress the importance of what it means to be 'in relations with God' and to see this as essential to theology today. Well grounded in patristics, Manoussakis shows us that the future of theology and its past are not in contradiction, and must be thought together.