Theology After Postmodernity

Engaging the theology of Thomas Aquinas with the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan, Tina Beattie shows how Thomism exerted a formative influence on Lacan, and how a Lacanian approach can bring new insights to Thomas's theology. Lacan makes possible a renewed Thomism which offers a rich theology of creation, incarnation, and redemption.

Theology after Postmodernity is a ground-breaking study that has the capacity to transform the relationship between psychoanalytic theory and Christian theology. Reading the theology of Thomas Aquinas in close engagement with the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan, Tina Beattie shows how Thomism exerted a formative influence on Lacan, and she also shows how a Lacanian approach can bring rich new insights to Thomas's theology. A growing number of English-speaking scholars now recognize the extent to which twentieth century French theorists and philosophers were influenced by medieval theology, and there have been several studies of Jacques Lacan's Thomism. However, this is the first study published in English to bring a Lacanian feminist perspective to bear on the theology of Thomas Aquinas. Focusing on the centrality of desire in Thomas's theology and Lacan's psychoanalytic theory, Beattie follows Lacan along an overgrown and often hidden path through the changing configurations of desire, gender, and knowledge from their Aristotelian formation in the medieval universities to their fragmentation in the collapse of modernity's visions and values. Beattie offers a penetrating critique of Thomas's Aristotelianism, but she also excavates the mystical treasures within his theology. This enables her to show how Thomas's God remains an unconscious but potent influence in the shaping of modern western thought, and to ask what transformations might be needed in order to bring about a Thomism for our times. Probing beneath the surface of Thomas's Summa Theologiae and other writings, she brings to light the Other of Thomas's One God - an incarnate, maternal Trinity who emerges when Thomas's Aristotelian ontotheology is suspended and the more neglected aspects of his doctrinal and theological insights are allowed to emerge. Lacan makes possible a renewed Thomism which offers a rich theology of creation, incarnation, and redemption capable of responding to some of the most urgent and far-reaching challenges that questions of gender, nature, and God pose to Christian theological language in its classical and postmodern formations.

This introductory 2003 guide offers examples of different types of contemporary theology and Christian doctrine in relationship to postmodernity.

This volume deploys theology in a reconstructive approach to contemporary literary criticism, to validate and exemplify theological readings of literary texts as a creative exercise. It engages in a dialogue with interdisciplinary approaches to literature in which theology is alert and responsive to the challenges following postmodernism and postmodern literary criticism. It demonstrates the scope and explanatory power of theological readings across various texts and literary genres. Theology and Literature after Postmodernity explores a reconstructive approach to reading and literary study in the university setting, with contributions from interdisciplinary scholars worldwide.

More than a guidebook to the postmodernity debate, Paul Lakeland's lively and novel volume clarifies the critical impulses behind the cultural, intellectual, and scientific expressions of postmodern thought. He identifies the issues it presents for religion and for Christian theology. Concentrating on God, Church, and Christ, Lakeland outlines the church's mission to the postmodern world, including a constructive theological apologetics.

John Riggs argues for a common ground between postmodernism and Christianity, focusing on how this applies to issues such as reproductive rights and the ordination of women, gay men, and lesbians, and suggest that Christianity avoid the extreme positions of either completely accommodating itself to or completely rejecting postmodern culture.

John Riggs argues for a common ground between postmodernism and Christianity, focusing on how this applies to issues such as reproductive rights and the ordination of women, gay men, and lesbians, and suggest that Christianity avoid the extreme positions of either completely accommodating itself to or completely rejecting postmodern culture.