What to Believe?

Twelve Brief Lessons in Radical Theology
Erscheinungsjahr 2023
ISBN: 978-0-231-21095-9
Verlag: Columbia University Press

Buch, Englisch, 208 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 141 mm x 217 mm, Gewicht: 269 g

If you no longer “believe in God,” the Supreme Being of classical theology, or you never did in the first place, is there anything you still ought to believe, anything you should cherish unconditionally, no matter what? In this lively and accessible book, addressed to believers, “recovering” believers, disbelievers, nonbelievers, and “nones” alike—to anyone in search of what they really do believe—the acclaimed philosopher and theologian John D. Caputo seeks out what there is to believe, with or without religion.

Writing in a lucid and witty style, Caputo offers a bold account of a “radical theology” that is anything but what the word theology suggests to most people. His point of departure is autobiographical, describing growing up in the world of pre-Vatican II Catholicism, serving as an altar boy, and spending four years in a Catholic religious order after high school. Caputo places Augustine’s Confessions, Tillich’s Dynamics of Faith, and Jacques Derrida and postmodern theory in conversation in the service of what he calls the “mystical sense of life.” He argues that radical theology is not simply an academic exercise but describes a concrete practice immediately relevant to the daily lives of believers and nonbelievers alike. What to Believe? is an engaging introduction to radical theology for all readers curious about what religion can mean today.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Caputo, John D.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religionsphilosophie, Philosophische Theologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religionssoziologie und -psychologie, Spiritualität, Mystik
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Theologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Alternative Glaubensformen Agnostizismus, Atheismus, Säkularer Humanismus
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Religionsphilosophie, Philosophische Theologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments
This Is How the World Began
First Week
Lesson One: God Does Not Exist
Lesson Two: Bridge-Builders and Ground-Diggers
Lesson Three: That’s Pantheism, That’s Horrible
Lesson Four: Do Radical Theologians Pray?
Lesson Five: The Mystical Sense of Life
Lesson Six: Who Do They Say Jesus Is?
Second Week
Lesson Seven: Suppose Everything Just Vanished?
Lesson Eight: What Is Really Going On?
Lesson Nine: What Is Going On in the Name of God?
Lesson Ten: Whether God Will Have Been
Lesson Eleven: Making Ourselves Worthy of What Is Happening to Us
Lesson Twelve: So What?
A Parting Word (or Two): Yes, Yes
Further Reading
Index

Über Autor(innen)

John D. Caputo is the Thomas J. Watson Professor Emeritus of Religion and Humanities at Syracuse University and the David R. Cook Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Villanova University. His many books include What Would Jesus Deconstruct? The Good News of Postmodernism for the Church (2007), Hoping Against Hope: Confessions of a Postmodern Pilgrim (2015), and The Folly of God: A Theology of the Unconditional (2015).