Roland Barthes, the French critic and semiotician, was one of the most important critics and essayists of this century. His work continues to influence contemporary literary theory and cultural studies. Image-Music-Text collects Barthes's best writings on photography and the cinema, as well as fascinating articles on the relationship between images and sound. Two of Barthes's most important essays, "Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative" and "The Death of the Author" are also included in this fine anthology, an excellent introduction (...) to his thought. These essays, as selected and translated by Stephen Heath, are among the finest writings Barthes ever published on film and photography, and on the phenomena of sound and image. The classic pieces "Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative" and "The Death of the Author" are also included. (shrink)

Presque contemporains, Scholem et Barth ne se sont jamais rencontrés. S’ils avaient pu le faire, ils n’auraient sans doute pas été d’accord en tout point, mais on peut risquer l’hypothèse qu’ils se seraient entendus en profondeur. Ce qui fonde cette hypothèse, c’est la similitude du comportement de l’un et de l’autre à l’égard de leurs communautés religieuses respectives, qu’ils tenaient pour complices des aveuglements séculiers du monde où elles vivaient et coupables de ne pas élever les responsabilités séculières sur (...) le terrain de la liberté éthique. Les débats de l’un avec Rosenweig et de l’autre avec Troeltsch établissent Scholem et Barth dans un réel voisinage théologique, dans le même souci de la référence théologique de leurs communautés et de l’éthique des engagements séculiers. Dans ses recherches sur la Kabbale, Scholem veut réactiver la problématique de la création dans laquelle Dieu fait du néant son être. De façon semblable, Barth fonde sa Dogmatique sur la problématique de s. Anselme qui se refuse à penser Dieu dans un ordre du monde qui serait immuable. Dans des contextes différents, tous deux s’opposent à l’assimilation passive de leurs communautés au monde séculier, tout en soutenant leurs responsabilités éthiques à son égard. Un même message se dégage de leur rencontre posthume.Almost contemporaries, Scholem and Barth never met each other. If they had done so, they undoubtedly would have not agreed on everything, but the chances are that they would have had a fundamental understanding. This hypothesis is based on the similarity of each one’s attitude towards their respective religious communities, which they saw as accomplices of their world’s secular blindness, and its guilt in not raising secular responsibilities to the level of ethical freedom. Their debates – Scholem with Rosenweig and Barth with Troeltsch – made them theological neighbours, i.e., expressing identical concern for the theological implication of their communities and the ethics of secular committments. Scholem, in his research on the Cabala, wanted to revive the problem of God’s making his being from nothing. In the same fashion, Barth founded his Dogmatic on the problem of St. Anselm, who refused to think God in a world order that would be immutable. In different contexts, both were opposed to a passive assimilation of their communities to a secular world, while sustaining their ethical responsibilities to it. The same message comes out of their encounter. (shrink)

La « théorie » de la prédication de Barth comme « théologie de la Parole de Dieu » a été remise en question au début des années 60 alors qu’elle était constituée depuis les années 20. Qu’en est-il exactement de cette conception trop peu connue dans son exactitude, en France notamment ? Soucieux de pratique, Barth conçoit d’abord la prédication comme une Theologia viatorum et semble affirmer le caractère divin de la parole de la prédication. Or, la difficulté, (...) voire l’échec, de celle-ci en rappelle le caractère de terrible humanité. Ainsi passe-t-il « d’une attestation indirecte du Christ » dans la prédicaiton de l’église, à une « prédication, service de la parole de Dieu », compte tenu de ce que seul le Christ, en définitive, est Parole de Dieu, et que la charge de prédication appartient à toute la « communauté de témoins ».Barth's « theory » of preaching as « theology of the World of God » was put into question at the beginning of the 60's, although it goes back to the 20’s. What is it exactly about this conception, too little known in its details, especillaly in France ? Concerned with practice, Barth first conceived preaching as a Theologia viatorum and seems to have confirmed the divine character of the preached word. But the difficulty, indeed the failure, of the latter recalls the character of terrible humanity. Thus there evolves from « an indirect attestation of Christ « in the preaching of the Church, to a « preaching service of God’s word », taking into account that only Christ, finally is Word of God, and that the role of preaching belongs to all the « community of witnesses». (shrink)

Basing his detailed exposition of Barth's understanding of our knowledge of the divine existence chiefly on volume II, part 1 of the Church Dogmatics, this American Catholic scholar exhibits the thorough-going consistency of Barth's exclusively a prioristic approach, while indicating some fundamental difficulties for it, and arguing the superiority of the Thomist position. One of the fundamental issues discussed is whether God discloses himself only through special, "vertical" acts of grace, or whether, as the Thomists affirm, the abstractive (...) power of the intellect, itself a gift of God, may not apprehend the radical dependence of all finite things on a first, unique, cause. The critical problem is whether or not the perfect certitude of faith demands a "sacrifice of the intellect," as Barth seems to contend.--P. K. J. (shrink)

This is a very readable theological attack on current religious journalism about "the death of God" and its moral consequences. Rightly chiding the "radical" theologians for their tendentious use of words like "new," Hamilton wrongly equates their talk of "the secular" with support of the profane and so sometimes misses the import of their groping for new ways of thinking and acting as Christians. Seen through his eyes, much of their thought is really nineteenth century liberal humanism repackaged for the (...) suburban market. Recognizing the incoherence of the Barth-Bonhoeffer concept of religion, he nevertheless uses it when accusing Bishop Robinson, van Buren, and the rest of replacing Christianity with religion, rather than inaugurating a "religionless Christianity," as they intend. The best part of the book is an analysis of what Bonhoeffer really meant by "religionless Christianity" and other such provocative phrases. Like those he criticizes, Hamilton is quite sure that the Bible supports only his version of Christianity. His unabashed neo-orthodoxy commits him to conceiving of God as an arbitrary dictator, but it also provides him with a keen critical vantage-point, by reference to which all philosophical theologies are damned as modernizing, hypothetical, Hegelian, and un-Christian at heart. His own preference for talk of "natural piety" instead of "secular Christianity" is too sketchily presented to be assessed.--C. P. S. (shrink)

"O'Meara masterfully situates Pryzwara in relation to the traditional and contemporary theological, philosophical, ecclesial, cultural, and social contexts within which he wrote." --_William P. Loewe, professor of religious studies, Catholic University of America_ Erich Przywara, S.J. is one of the important Catholic intellectuals of the twentieth century. Yet, in the English-speaking world Przywara remains largely unknown. Few of his sixty books or six hundred articles have been translated. In this engaging new book, Thomas O'Meara offers a comprehensive study of the (...) German Jesuit Erich Przywara and his philosophical theology. Przywara's scholarly contributions were remarkable. He was one of three theologians who introduced the writings of John Henry Cardinal Newman into Germany. From his position at the Jesuit journal in Munich, _Stimmen der Zeit_, he offered an open and broad Catholic perspective on the cultural, philosophical, and theological currents of his time. As one of the first Catholic intellectuals to employ the phenomenologies of Edmund Husserl and Max Scheler, he was also responsible for giving an influential, more theological interpretation of the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola. Przywara was also deeply engaged in the ideas and authors of his times. He was the first Catholic dialogue partner of Karl Barth and Paul Tillich. Edmund Husserl was counted among Przywara's friends, and Edith Stein was a close personal and intellectual companion. Through his interactions with important figures of his age and his writings, ranging from speculative systems to liturgical hymns, Przywara was of marked importance in furthering a varied dialogue between German Catholicism and modern culture. Following a foreword by Michael Fahey, S.J., O'Meara presents a chapter on Pryzwara's life and a chronology of his writings. O'Meara then discusses Pryzwara's philosophical theology, his lecture-courses at German universities on Augustine and Aquinas, his philosophy of religion, and his influence on important intellectual contemporaries. O'Meara concludes with an in-depth analysis of Pryzwara's theology, focusing particularly on his Catholic views of person, liturgy, and church. (shrink)

IN RECENT YEARS SEVERAL IMPORTANT PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES ON THE ethical and political character of Pauline messianism have been published by continental philosophers such as Alain Badiou, Stanislaus Breton, Jacob Taubes, and Giorgio Agamben. In contrast to the Weberian "secularization thesis," which interprets Paul's eschatological messianism as one of indifference to worldly conditions, these authors—more in keeping with Walter Benjamin and Karl Barth—interpret it as radically political: a challenge to conventional modern politics of human and especially national sovereignty. In this (...) essay I bring these studies of Paul into conversation with recent critical discussions of Christian political theology to consider how messianic ethics may or may not be relevant to contemporary political theory, particularly in reformulating a "secularity" that neither excludes nor privileges particular religious voices and traditions. (shrink)

The thesis of this book is that moral evil is for Kant an ineradicable aspect of human existence; moreover the author argues that moral evil is a datum of experience which none of the rationalist systems which preceded Kant's, nor Hegel's system which came after, could assimilate, a rock upon which they all shattered. Reboul's concern is to investigate the "insondable profondeur du mal radical" as this theme appears in the forty years of Kant's active philosophic production; his interest reflects (...) the influence of his mentor, Karl Barth. Reboul is at his best in his clear depiction of Kant's ingenuity at reconciling the optimism of the Enlightenment with the Reformation's conviction of sin. For example, the very insufficiency of Leibniz' attempt to supply a ground for every decision of the will, his inability to explain the reality of willful evil, is used by Kant as an excuse for not going beyond Leibniz' theory. "Expliquer la liberté serait la détruire," writes Reboul. Kant assimilates the idea of progress by assigning it to the level of phenomenal or technical improvements. Moral value resides only in those acts by which we loosen the ties of sensible determination upon the will and render ourselves autonomous. The struggle for autonomy must be fought by each man for himself; there is a decisive limit to the help we can derive from "progress." For Kant man is bent towards evil not only by reason of his spontaneous attraction to sensible objects, but also in virtue of a basic perversion of his faculty of judgment, a perversion which comes close to being identified with liberty itself. It is significant, as Reboul notes, that all of Kant's examples of free will are also examples of moral evil. This low estimate of man's spontaneous faculties is at the basis of Kant's suspicion of all eudaimonistic ethics, his demand that every moral decision be "disinterested," that the moral law be the sole determinant of the will. Just as in the first Critique Kant insists on finding an adequate cause to ground the universality which attaches to the laws of science and mathematics, so in ethics he demands an adequate explanation of the radical character of evil present in the world; this he finds in a perversion of the human faculty of judgment, whereby a contingent element of experience is illegitimately raised to the status of a universal maxim by the will. The moral decision must be disinterested because every attraction by a sensible object threatens to become the occasion for such a definitive fixation of our moral character. But Kant's deeper originality lies in a view which bridges the Enlightenment and later periods. Kant breaks with a convention of systematic philosophical activity which had held sway from the Greeks through Leibniz, the view that reality must be consistent. For Kant, the principle of non-contradiction does not apply to the phenomenal world but only to the noumenal. For Kant, human existence can harbor contradictions; consequently man lives perpetually in tension. As a citizen of two worlds, he is committed to achieving a moral ideal which the basic perversion of his will renders unrealizable. This tension can be viewed optimistically, as with Hegel ; then the "positivity" of evil is interpreted as a necessary step, a " felix culpa," by which God rouses man to greater efforts and brings him to maturity, autonomy, and a vision of the real. The other alternative is the Schopenhauerian interpretation, wherein the tensions in the absurdity of the human condition are taken as too extreme to warrant further participation. Reboul is excellent in showing the form these tensions take in Kant's system: the mystery of how a basically perverted will can be converted into a "good faith," although this is the ethical command; the command never to feel oneself "justified" through having done one's duty, even though the moral command obligates us to strive perpetually for this condition. However, in stressing the harsh import of sin for Kant, and thus saving Kant from Hegel, has Reboul not placed Kant in the company of Schopenhauer, Sartre, and Camus?--P. M. (shrink)

Sweeping denials of the story's capacity to accurately reflect the past are ever catalyzing equally misleading global affirmations. The impositionalists, such as theorist Hayden White, view historical narratives as imposing a falsifying narrative structure on the past, and conclude that narratives cannot be true. Plot-reifiers, such as Alasdair MacIntyre, David Carr, and Frederick Olafson, posit that the past is already narratively structured; historical plots are reified in order for there to be something in the world to which narrative structures can (...) correspond in being true. The antireferentialists such as JeanFrançois Lyotard and Roland Barthes deny that narrative histories even claim truth. Escaping this trilemma of theoretical interpretation involves accepting the idea that construction of a history does not entail its falsification. Historical narrative need to be allowed to function both figurally, in the sense of generating new discursive figures, and at the same time literally, in the sense of asking to be understood literally. Narratives need to be understood on their own terms, and not treated as an approximation to some foreign ideal. (shrink)

According to Thomas Aquinas, a sovereign government may legitimately execute sinners in pursuance of the common good. Aquinas outlines his defence of Capital Punishment in the Summa Theologica 2–2, q.64, a.2 and the Summa Contra Gentiles, Book 3, Chapter 146. Aquinas's stance on this issue is well known and his argument in favour of CP has been extensively discussed. This article will focus instead on the objections Aquinas raises to the institution of CP in the ST and SCG, along with (...) his responses to these objections. After providing a brief sketch of Aquinas's account of legal punishment, Aquinas's argument for the legitimacy of CP will then be outlined. The objections which Aquinas raises to CP will then be individually examined, along with his reply to each. After examining the underpinnings of Aquinas's objections and responses, the outline of a critique will be offered which draws upon the thought of Augustine and Karl Barth. (shrink)

In justifying Russian aggression against Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin asserts that Ukraine is neither a distinct nation nor a viable state. In response, this essay will establish a Christian account of Ukraine’s right to self-defense not only via just war criteria but also in relation to its purpose theologically as a nation-state. This essay, after reviewing Christian ethical positions that either reject or embrace the nation-state, draws on the Niebuhr brothers and Karl Barth to develop key theological criteria for (...) judging whether particular nation-states are true to their divine purpose. While affirming the role of the nation-state in protecting a people’s distinct identity, Christians will call on the nation-state to direct its people outward, toward their shared humanity with the world’s other nations. The essay concludes that the Ukrainian nation-state is fulfilling these criteria, whereas the Russian nation-state is not. (shrink)