Abstract

This work analyzes the characterization of Western thought as ontotheological by Nietzsche, Heidegger and Derrida. I criticize the way in which each of these writers conflates Christianity and ontotheological metaphysics. After analyzing the attacks upon the metaphysical distinctions between two worlds in Nietzsche, between mind and body in Heidegger and between signifier and signified in Derrida, I demonstrate, through exegeses of the separation between the present age and the age to come, flesh and spirit, and letter and spirit in the New Testament, that the biblical writings are not based upon the philosophical dualisms deconstructed by these thinkers. Drawing upon the works of Kierkegaard, Barth, Cullman, Bonhoeffer, Reinhold Niebuhr, Kung and Moltmann, I argue that when the original Judeo-Christian writings are teased apart from their synthesis with Greek and modern philosophies, we are left with a wisdom which is separate from and resists the deconstruction of ontotheology by postmodern theory. ;Unlike most works in this field , I do not seek a synthesis between postmodern theory and Christian theology in order to form a new postmodern theology. Rather, I seek to demonstrate the limitations of postmodern critiques of Western intellectual history which claim to deconstruct the whole of Western thought while ignoring the distinctiveness of the Judeo-Christian worldview in contradistinction to the Greek and modern ontotheological traditions. The work is framed by a critical analysis of the antipathy exhibited in postmodern theory toward theology. Whereas modernism tried to elevate man into God's place, postmodern theory seeks to destroy or deconstruct the very place and attributes of God. I argue that postmodern theory follows Nietzsche in seeking to "vanquish God's shadow," to destroy the theological foundations of Western thought and the secularization of theology in modernism