In By Way of Obstacles, Emmanuel Falque revisits the major themes of his work--finitude, the body, and the call for philosophers and theologians to "cross the Rubicon" by entering into dialogue--in light of objections that have been offered. In so doing, he offers a pathway through a work that will offer valuable insights both to newcomers to his thought and to those who are already familiar with it. For it is only after one has carved out one's pathway that one may see more clearly where ...

A remarkable interrogation of the corporeality of the divine undertaken by a renowned philosopher/theologianDoes God appear “in flesh and bones,” that is to say, “made of flesh and bones”? Or is the resurrected Christ’s appearance simply “in person”? These questions, which might appear inconsequential at first sight, obsessed the Fathers of the church and medieval scholars, but are neglected nowadays. Perhaps we no longer dare to ask them to ourselves. The Fles...

Anxiety, suffering and death are not simply the “ills” of our society, nor are they uniquely the product of a sick and sinful humanity. We must all some day confront them, and we continually face their implications long before we do. In that sense, the Garden of Gethsemane is not merely a garden “outside the walls” of Jerusalem but also the essential horizon for all of us, whether we are believers or not.Emmanuel Falque explores, with no small measure of doubt, Heidegger’s famous s...

The conflict between spiritualism and phenomenology will no longer take place. Better, it is through their encounter and their backlash that a new fruitfulness for thought will develop. The case of Maine de Biran thus comes to exemplify a new beginning a la francaise for metaphysics on the one hand and for phenomenology on the other. But the philosopher from Bergerac (in the Dordogne) is most often read according to his explicit meaning and not his implicit one. He is supposedly the thinke...

Contemporary French Catholic philosopher Emmanuel Falque has risen to the forefront among international intellectuals speaking on Christianity. Inspired by his Catholic faith as well as his humanist vision, Falque offers thought-provoking answers to today's social, cultural, and philosophical issues. The present book, newly translated from the French, offers a vivid and highly accessible introduction to the basic premises underlying Falque's work. In it, French author Alain Saudan lucidly ...

This book starts off from a philosophical premise: nobody can be in the world unless they are born into the world. It examines this premise in the light of the theological belief that birth serves, or ought to serve, as a model for understanding what resurrection could signify for us today. After all, the modern Christian needs to find some way of understanding resurrection, and the dogma of the resurrection of the body is vacuous unless we can relate it philosophically to our own world of...

Properly original, the new version of this essay intends both to nourish debate and differentiate points of view. In its new articulation, the book justifies work that has been carried out since. It justifies the sense of Franciscan rootedness that has never been denied and at the same time opens to the discovery of another reading of the Dominican Thomas Aquinas. The preface specially composed for this American edition, the opening debate with famous medievalist Etienne Gilson, and above ...

Emmanuel Falque, one of the foremost philosophers working in the continental philosophy of religion today, takes us by the hand into the very heart of 12th-century monastic spirituality.Translated into English for the first time, The Book of Experience weaves together contemporary phenomenological questions with medieval theology, revealing undiscovered dialogues already underway between Hugh of St. Victor and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, between Richard of St. Victor and Emmanu...

In France today, philosophy—phenomenology in particular—finds itself in a paradoxical relation to theology. Some debate a “theological turn.” Others disavow theological arguments as if such arguments would tarnish their philosophical integrity, while nevertheless carrying out theology in other venues. In Crossing the Rubicon, Emmanuel Falque seeks to end this face-off. Convinced that “the more one theologizes, the better one philosophizes,” he proposes a counterblow by theology against phe...

It has been 25 years since Dominique Janicaud derisively proclaimed the “theological turn” in French phenomenology due to the return of God to philosophy through the influence of “religious” thinkers such as Lévinas, Ricoeur, and Marion. Since then, the “theological turn” has flowered into a fully-fledged movement on both sides of the Atlantic. But, what will be the shape and direction of the second generation of the “theological turn”?In this important new book, Emmanuel Falque en...

The essays in this volume all ask what it means for human beings to be embodied as desiring creatures—and perhaps still more piercingly, what it means for a philosopher to be embodied. In taking up this challenge via phenomenology, psychoanalysis, hermeneutics, and the philosophy of literature, the volume questions the orthodoxies not only of Western metaphysics but even of the phenomenological tradition itself. We miss much that has philosophical import when we exclude the somatic aspects...

"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, ...