Lyotard and Theology

Description

Lieven Boeve contextualises Lyotard's writings and approach with reference to his theological thought. By focusing on issues such as the nature of the differend within language, the sublime experience and our (in)ability to witness to the breakdowns of language and representation, Lyotard's thought provokes theology to reconsider its own foundations. Taking up issues such as a highly relevant critique of capitalism, itself vital to today's understanding of Christian praxis in a global world, Lyotard offers us a perspective by which to re-evaluate Christianity beyond its being a hegemonic discourse as it moves toward being a discourse concerned with love. Through exploring the Christian narrative as an 'open' one, Boeve aims to make use of new possibilities for theology through a renewed comprehension of Lyotard's significance for today.

Lieven Boeve is Professor of Fundamental Theology at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, where he currently also serves as Dean of the Faculty and as the co-ordinator of the Research Group 'Theology in a Postmodern Context'. His research concerns theological epistemology, philosophical theology, truth in faith and theology, tradition development and hermeneutics. He is the author of Interrupting Tradition. An Essay on Christian Faith in a Postmodern Context (2003) and God Interrupts History. Theology in a Time of Upheaval (2007). He has co-edited various volumes, of which the most recent are: Augustine and Postmodern Thought: A New Alliance against Modernity? (2009) and Orthodoxy: Process and Product (2009). From 2005 till 2009 he served as president of the European Society for Catholic Theology.

It is good to read a volume devoted to Lyotard, as, among the more well-known supposedly postmodern philosophers, he is probably the most neglected ... [E]arlier chapters provide a helpful introduction to his work. * Modern Believing * 'Lieven Boeve, who has made "interruption" and "recontextualization" necessary theological household words, here rectifies the surprisingly thin engagement between Christian theology and the philosophy of Jean-Francois Lyotard in a masterful two-fold analysis. First, since Boeve knows the Lyotard texts all the way down, we get a superb exegesis of Lyotard's thought and why it matters. Then, Boeve's constructive reception of Lyotard's "differend" reveals the continued vital richness of the Christian open narrative for our times. This is theologizing in the grand tradition of Irenaeus, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Rahner, and Schillebeeckx: smart, clear-eyed, grounded in the Gospel and in contemporary life.' * Antony Godzieba, Villanova University, USA * Boeve has managed to render his dense subject matter accessible to readers for whom this volume is a first encounter with Lyotard's work... Boeve has produced an exemplary engagement with Lyotard as beyond just 'another thinker of difference' (8), one that does justice to the viability of Lyotard's thought and richness of its potential applications. * The Journal of Religion *