John D. Caputo has a long career as one of the preeminent postmodern philosophers in America. The author of such books as Radical Hermeneutics, The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida, and The Weakness of God, Caputo now reflects on his spiritual journey from a Catholic altar boy in 1950s Philadelphia to a philosopher after the death of God. Part spiritual autobiography, part homily on what he calls the “nihilism of grace,” Hoping Against Hope calls believers and nonbelievers alike to par...

"Caputo's book is riveting. . . . A singular achievement of stylistic brio and impeccable scholarship, it breaks new ground in making a powerful case for treating Derrida as homo religiosis. . . . There can be no mistaking the importance of Caputo's work." —Edith Wyschogrod"No one interested in Derrida, in Caputo, or in the larger question of postmodernism and religion can afford to ignore this pathbreaking study. Taking full advantage of the most recent and least discussed writing...

Jacques Derrida and other scholars explore postmodern thinking about God and consider the nature of forgiveness in relation to the paradoxes of the gift.In fifteen insightful essays, Jacques Derrida and an international group of scholars explore the implications of deconstruction for religion, focusing on two topics: God and forgiveness. Among the themes addressed by contributors are the possibilities of imagining God as unthinkable, imagining God as nonpatriarchal...

The renowned theologian "brings Luther and cosmology into dialogue with radical theological movements that have their point of departure in deconstruction" (George Pattison, author of Eternal God/Saving Time).John D. Caputo stretches his project as a radical theologian to new limits in this groundbreaking book. Mapping out his summative theological position, he identifies with Martin Luther to take on notions of the hidden god, the theology of the cross, c...

The author of What Would Jesus Deconstruct? makes "a bold attempt to reconfigure the terms of debate around the topic of divine omnipotence" ( Choice).Applying an ever more radical hermeneutics—including Husserlian and Heideggerian phenomenology, Derridian deconstruction, and feminism—John D. Caputo breaks down the name of God in this irrepressible book. Instead of looking at God as merely a name, Caputo views it as an event, or what the name conj...

These sparkling essays from a seasoned scholar are "a great breath of fresh air in our claustrophobic and catastrophic time" (Cornel West).Capturing a career's worth of thought and erudition, this rich volume treats readers to creative thought, careful argumentation, and sophisticated analysis transmitted through the lucid, accessible prose that has earned the author a wide readership of academics and non-academics alike. In tackling "radical theology," John D. Cap...

Religion is making itself unbelievable—scandal-ridden, antiscientific, authoritarian, and reactionary. Can religion be saved? Is it even worth saving? Can religion be saved not just from its critics but from itself?John D. Caputo proposes a radical alternative—what he calls “religion’s last stand”—by turning to theopoetics. In the traditional account, theopoetics calls for approaching God poetically because God transcends human language. Caputo contests this view, arguing that in t...

"A tour de force . . . provocative ideas expressed in Heideggerian, Derridean, and Deleuzian rhetoric . . . for a new wave of Christian theologians" ( Bibliographia).The Insistence of God presents the provocative idea that God does not exist—God insists. God's existence is a human responsibility, which may or may not happen. For John D. Caputo, God's existence is haunted by "perhaps," which does not signify indecisiveness but an openness to risk, ...

Available in a new digital edition with reflowable text suitable for e-readersThe purpose of the present study is to undertake a confrontation of the thought of Martin Heidegger and Thomas Aquinas on the question of Being and the problem of metaphysics. Now, a 'confrontation' which does no more than draw up a catalogue of common traits and points of difference is no more than a curiosity, an idle comparison which bears no fruit.

Exploring the silence of prayer in Post-Kantian philosophy and traditional spiritualityA Philosophy of Prayer explores prayer within the perspective of post-Kantian philosophy. Against a background of traditional sources, including Augustine, The Cloud of Unknowing, and the seventeenth-century French school of spirituality, the book uses Schleiermacher, Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, Heidegger, Berdyaev, Tillich, Marcel, Simone Weil, Emmanuel Levinas, a...

A brilliant and witty postmodern critique of ethics, framed as a contemporary restaging of Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling.John D. Caputo undertakes a passionate, poetic, and satiric search for the basis of an ethics in the postmodern situation. Restaging Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling, Caputo defends the notion of obligation without ethics, of responsibility without the support of ethical foundations. Retelling the story of Abraham and Isaac, h...

If you no longer “believe in God,” the Supreme Being of classical theology, or you never did in the first place, is there anything you still ought to believe, anything you should cherish unconditionally, no matter what? In this lively and accessible book, addressed to believers, “recovering” believers, disbelievers, nonbelievers, and “nones” alike—to anyone in search of what they really do believe—the acclaimed philosopher and theologian John D. Caputo seeks out what there is to believe, w...