Political Theology of Life
Ebook
Taking up the work of Meister Eckhart, F. W. J. von Schelling, and Soren Kierkegaard, Political Theology of Life formulates the task of an unconditional affirmation of life. Such a political theology consists of constructing a kenotic eschatology, which puts into question any political attempt to justify and legitimize any world-historical hegemony on a theological foundation. The work thereby argues that in today's neoliberal-secular world of narcissistic mass-consumption in the age of extreme capitalism, such an affirmation of life--released from the grasp of sovereign power--is the highest ethico-religious task of our time. The work shows that each of these thinkers--Meister Eckhart at the epochal closure of the medieval world, and Schelling and Kierkegaard from the heart of the epochal condition of modernity--has exposed open a dimension of infinitude and manifestation that can be truly inspiring for us; that is to say, in the abandonment of all worldly attributes lies a receptivity to the highest gift of beatitude, an opening to the infinitude that sanctifies our worldly existence, which is a radical gift arriving from an origin without origin and without foundation, a gift that does not have to be anchored in the nomothetic operation of worldly hegemonies. Illumination Book Award winner in poetry https://illuminationawards.com/20/2023-medalists
“Saitya Das is a radical theologian of rare insight and philosophical depth. In his latest installment of political theology he provides a compelling, challenging, and liberating political eschatology that breaks open the previously closed life of a reductionist secularist modernity. His rethinking and retheologizing beatitude and life is a tremendous tour de force of thought, depth, and insight—nothing less than how beatitude enables and demands how we may live with and for others in the desert of modernity.”
—Michael Grimshaw, professor of sociology, University of Canterbury
“In this profound and timely meditation on political theology, Saitya Das demonstrates that the thinking of transcendence in Paul, the Greek fathers, Eckhart, Schelling, and Kierkegaard gives the lie to the widespread contemporary presupposition that philosophies of immanence emancipate life from metaphysics. On the contrary, Das shows that immanentism is actually a disavowed and nihilistic will to power, while transcendence frees life by possibilizing all things and releasing us into the new. With this work, Das emerges as the Barth of continental philosophy.”
—Sean J. McGrath, professor of philosophy, Memorial University of Newfoundland
- Title: Political Theology of Life
- Author: Saitya Brata Das
- Publisher: Pickwick Publications
- Print Publication Date: 2023
- Logos Release Date: 2023
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781666761559, 9781666761542, 1666761540, 9781666761535, 1666761532, 1666761559
- Resource ID: LLS:9781666761559
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2023-02-26T10:58:05Z
Saitya Brata Das is associate professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He is the author of the Political Theology of Kierkegaard (2020).