William Desmond and Richard Kearney on Understanding God from the Between

What is it about?

Contemporary philosophy of religion is challenging the metaphysical understanding of God. To some, God is perceived as weak, as love, an event, and a call for justice. To others, God is relegated to a horrific sublime, fully unknown and beyond us. Are these helpful though? And which ones? William Desmond and Richard Kearney are two of the philosophers active in this discussion. Their work is pushing the boundaries of the ways that we think and talk about God, and they share a common theme: working in the middle spaces, in the in-betweens, se metaxu. Their own individual work over the years has been productive, as has the ongoing dialogue between them. How can we talk about God without creating dominating and totalizing views? How can we balance the hope for an eschaton with the weight of an arche? When is it appropriate to speak of God as agape, and when as eros? This chapter explores Desmond and Kearney’s own approaches to these questions, their scholarly interaction, and how their work is related to theopoetics. If language is the house of being, then we need to be creative with our language about God, ever-expanding and playing with it.

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Why is it important?

Past theological and philosophical understandings of God have been unhelpful, and have often caused much harm. This chapter looks at two contemporary philosophers of religion and their attempts to understand God in a much more helpful manner.