A Theological Critique of Philosophy

Many thanks to Ben Myers for pointing out that John Milbank’s 2011 Stanton Lectures, “Philosophy: A Theological Critique,” will be made available on the ABC Religion & Ethics site.

This should be a fascinating lecture series worth following. As, Milbank explains:

This series of lectures will not be concerned with either the philosophy of religion or philosophical theology. Instead, they will be about the relationship between philosophy and theology.

Here’s the outline (I’ll try to remember to update this as each lecture becomes available):

19 January: The Return of Metaphysics in the 21st century

26 January: Immanence and Life

2 February: Immanence and Number

9 February: Transcendence without Participation

16 February: Participated Transcendence Reconceived

23 February: The Habit of Reason

2 March: The Realism of Feeling

9 March: The Surprise of the Imagined

Karl Barth Blog Conference (Week 3)

The third week of the Karl Barth Blog Conference is underway, and Travis has lined up another set of interesting posts. Here’s the lineup for the week with biographical information on each blogger. And, here’s what’s been posted so far.

• Paul Dafydd Jones, On the Monstrosity of Christ: Karl Barth in Conversation with Slavoj Žižek & John Milbank (with a response by Adam Kotsko)
• Michael Jimenez, Barth and Badiou: A Tale of Two Events (with a response by Geoffrey Holsclaw)

Flotsam and jetsam (7/23)

• Ben Myers offers a very nice roundup of articles that have recently been posted over at the ABC Religion and Ethics portal, including articles by John Milbank, Rowan Williams, and Stanley Hauerwas.
• This month’s issue of Atlantic Monthly discusses “The End of Men” and the idea that “women are dominating society as never before.”  Another article asks “Are Fathers Necessary?” arguing that they’re not as essential as we think.
• Joe Carter offers a crash course in evangelical views of eschatology.
• Halden offers some more reflections on Rowan Williams’s recent address to the Lutheran World Federation Assembly. And, that same assembly has issued a statement calling on Lutherans to express regret for the past actions against Anapabtists.
• A Washington Post article considers whether the Tea Party is biblical.
• Matt Flannagan has posted the third of this 3-part series on epistemology, this time dealing with what happens when authorities clash.
• And, here’s a list of Eight Reasons Some Churches Do Not Grow.

Thinkers you just can’t get into

Peter Leithart has posted a very helpful summary of Frederiek Depoortere’s Badiou and Theology (T&T Clark, 2009), which in turn serves as a nice explanation of why Badiou’s philosophy is seen as being significant for contemporary theology. As I was reading the post, however, I realized that for me Badiou falls into that category of thinkers that other people think are really important, but that I just don’t care about yet. Although I know quite a number of very intelligent people who insist that Badiou is someone that we need to pay close attention to, I just can’t do it.

That started me thinking about other theologians and philosophers that I hear a lot about but just haven’t been able to get interested in for one reason or another. At the risk of making myself look like a complete idiot, the people who come to mind off the top of my head  include Alain Badiou, Slavoj Zizek, John Milbank (anyone catching the pattern here?), Sally McFague, Alister McGrath, Jurgen Moltmann, and (for some unknown reason) Rowan Williams. That’s not to say that these are unimportant thinkers (especially Williams!), just that I haven’t been able to get interested in their theology to this point.

What do you think? Who are the theologians and philosophers that you’ve heard a lot about but you aren’t convinced yet that you need to spend that much time on them? I’m particularly interested in people who are still writing/teaching today that you don’t think you need to spend your time on, but I’d be interested in what you have to say about historical figures as well. And, you don’t have to limit yourself to philosophers and theologians. If there are Bible scholars that work this way for you, add them to the list.