The Religious Philosophy of Simone Weil: An Introduction
Ebook
The French philosopher Simone Weil (1909-1943), a contemporary of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre, remains in every way a thinker for our times. She was an outsider, in multiple senses, defying the usual religious categories: at once atheistic and religious; mystic and realist; sceptic and believer. She speaks therefore to the complex sensibilities of a rationalist age. Yet despite her continuing relevance, and the attention she attracts from philosophy, cultural studies, feminist studies, spirituality and beyond, Weil's reflections can still be difficult to grasp, since they were expressed in often inscrutable and fragmentary form. Lissa McCullough here offers a reliable guide to the key concepts of Weil's religious philosophy: good and evil, the void, gravity, grace, beauty, suffering and waiting for God. In addressing such distinctively contemporary concerns as depression, loneliness and isolation, and in writing hauntingly of God's voluntary 'nothingness', Weil's existential paradoxes continue to challenge and provoke. This is the first introductory book to show the essential coherence of her enigmatic but remarkable ideas about religion.
This is the first introductory book to show the essential coherence of Simone Weil's enigmatic but remarkable ideas about religion.
Abbreviations and Textual Notes
Introduction
Biographical Groundings
Reading Simone Weil
1 / Reality and Contradiction
Reality: The Irreducible
Truth and Affliction
The Role of Attention
The Negative Role of Will
The Value of Contradiction
Right Use of Dogma
2 / The Paradox of Desire
We Desire the Good
The Good Is Absent
The Good Is a Nothingness
Detachment of Desire
Waiting for God
The Earthly Criterion
(Not) To Speak of Holy Things
3 / God and the World
Creation as Withdrawal
The Absent God
“Original Sin”
The Self-Emptying God
Crucifixion as Redemption
Supernatural Harmony
4 / Necessity and Obedience
Abdication to Necessity
Providence
Beauty
Suffering
Necessity: Root of Beauty and Suffering
Obedience of Matter: Gravity
Obedience of Spirit: Grace
Amor Fati
5 / Grace and Decreation
Sin Says “I”
Grace Decreates the “I”
Nothingness: The Humility of God
Heaven and Hell
Transparence
Compassion
Action as Incarnation
6 / Conclusion: Weil's Theological Coherence
Background Theological Influences
Dialectic of Nature and Grace
God Beyond Good and Evil
Weil's Anonymous Christianity
Endnotes
Selected Bibliography
Index
- Title: The Religious Philosophy of Simone Weil: An Introduction
- Author: Lissa McCullough
- Publisher: I.B. Tauris
- Print Publication Date: 2014
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9780857736796, 0857736795
- Resource ID: LLS:9780857736796
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-04-11T03:09:13Z
Lissa McCullough is an independent scholar and writer who has taught religious studies at Muhlenberg College, Hanover College and New York University. Her previous books are Thinking Through the Death of God: A Critical Companion to Thomas J J Altizer (edited with Brian Schroeder), The Call to Radical Theology and Conversations with Paolo Soleri.