Theopoetics Of The Word

Gabriel Vahanian's final work, Theopoetics of the Word weaves together Christian theology, continental philosophy and cultural studies to present a new theology of language and technology for the 21st century.

Savoring God is a comparative study that examines the creative interaction of poetry and theology in two mystical poems central to the Christian and the Hindu traditions, the sixteenth-century Spanish Cántico espiritual (Spiritual Canticle), by Saint John of the Cross, and the Sanskrit R=asa L=il=a (Dance of Love), which originated in the oral tradition. Alongside the poems, Gloria Maité Hernández examines theological commentaries on the texts: the Comentarios, written by Saint John of the Cross on his own poem, and the foundational commentary on the R=asa L=il=a by 'Sr=idhara Sv=ami as well as commentaries by the sixteenth-century theologian J=iva Gosv=ami, from the Gau.d=iya Vai.s.nava school, and other Gau.d=iya theologians. The phrase "savoring God" conveys the Spanish gustar a Dios (to savor God) and the Sanskrit madhura bhakti rasa (the sweet savor of divine love). In the Christian and Hindu commentaries these two concepts describe a way of approaching the poems that is simultaneously vulnerable to the emotions evoked by the poetical imagery and responsive to its theological demands. While "savoring" does not mean the precisely the same thing to the Christian and the Hindu theologians, Hernández demonstrates that both traditions interpret the term to suggest poetry's power in mediating an encounter with the divine.

Theopoetics is a plea for a more fully human way of speaking about God in the twenty-first century, a way that offers new life to dry and dying platitudes. Drawing deeply from linguistics, theology, philosophy, and even quantum mechanics, theopoetics attempts to reimagine the relationship between human language and speech about God through poetic phrasing and metaphor--thereby proposing a new God-talk. Interacting with selective works from within the discipline, Silas Krabbe offers a guide that not only maps the diversity of thought but also charts what is going on in the depths of the field. Using the metaphor of a river, Krabbe attempts to baptize the reader into theopoetics by leading an immersive exploration: sounding its waters, hearing resonances and echoes, feeling its flow, and becoming entangled in the braiding of its streams. Plunging ever more deeply into the differences that exist within the discourse of theopoetics, Krabbe is able to identify common aims, currents, and even hints of where this theopoetic river may lead. Not only a text about theopoetics, A Beautiful Bricolage is a work of theopoetics itself. It thereby draws the reader into a mode of inquiry that repudiates those who attempt to grasp it.

Heaney traces the hidden history of music's presence in Christian thought, including its often unrecognized influence on key figures such as von Balthasar, Barth and Bonhoeffer. She uses Lonergan's theological framework to explore musical composition as a theological act, showing why, when and how music is a useful symbolic form. The book introduces eleven ground-breaking theologians, and each chapter offers an entry point into the thought of the theologian being presented through an original piece of music, which can be found on the companion website: https://bloomsbury.pub/suspended-god. Heaney argues that music is a universally important means of making sense of life with which theology needs to engage as a means of expression and of development. Musical composition is presented as an appropriate and even necessary form of doing theology in its quest to engage with the past, mediate truth to the present and tradition it into the future.

“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, to the unforeseeable. Perhaps constitutes a theology of what is to come and what we cannot see coming. Responding to current critics of continental philosophy, Caputo explores the materiality of perhaps and the promise of the world. He shows how perhaps can become a new theology of the gaps God opens. “John D. Caputo is at the top of his game, and he is not content to reiterate what he has already expressed, but continues to develop his own ideas further by way of a thorough engagement with the fields of theology, Continental philosophy, and religious thought.” —Clayton Crockett, University of Central Arkansas “For those allergic to theological certainty―whether of God’s existence or of God’s death―Caputo delivers storm-fresh relief: the theopoetics of God’s insistence.” —Catherine Keller, Drew University “In my life I have read no more stimulating book of theology. Buckle your seatbelt!” —Dialog “An excellent text that opens the way into new forms of theological thinking. He puts forward an argument that must be wrestled with and brings to light new avenues for both religious and theological thought. Caputo is not for the faint of heart.” —Reviews in Religion and Theology

Way to Water has two primary intentions: to trace the development of the nascent field of theological inquiry known as theopoetics and to make an argument that theopoetics provides both theological and practical resources for contemporary people of faith who seek to maintain a confessional Christian life that is also intellectually critical. Beginning with the work of Stanley Hopper in the late 1960s, and addressing the early scholarship of key theopoetics authors like Rubem Alves and Amos Wilder, this text explores how theopoetics was originally developed as a response to the American death-of-God movement, and has since grown into a method for engaging in theological thought in a way that more fully honors embodiment and aesthetic dimensions of human experience. Most of the extant literature in the field is addressed to allow for a cumulative and comprehensive articulation of the nature and function of theopoetics. The text includes an exploration of how theopoetic insights might aid in the development of tangible church practices, and concludes with a series of theopoetic reflections.

In complex philosophical ways, theology is, should, and can be a "theopoetics" of multiplicity. The ambivalent term theopoetics is associated with poetry and aesthetic theory; theology and literature; and repressed literary qualities, myths, and metaphorical theologies. On a more profound basis, it questions the establishment of the difference between philosophy and theology and resides in the dangerous realm of relativism. The chapters in this book explore how the term theopoetics contributes to cutting-edge work in theology, philosophy, literature, and sociology.

Theopoetics is a plea for a more fully human way of speaking about God in the twenty-first century, a way that offers new life to dry and dying platitudes. Drawing deeply from linguistics, theology, philosophy, and even quantum mechanics, theopoetics attempts to reimagine the relationship between human language and speech about God through poetic phrasing and metaphor--thereby proposing a new God-talk. Interacting with selective works from within the discipline, Silas Krabbe offers a guide that not only maps the diversity of thought but also charts what is going on in the depths of the field. Using the metaphor of a river, Krabbe attempts to baptize the reader into theopoetics by leading an immersive exploration: sounding its waters, hearing resonances and echoes, feeling its flow, and becoming entangled in the braiding of its streams. Plunging ever more deeply into the differences that exist within the discourse of theopoetics, Krabbe is able to identify common aims, currents, and even hints of where this theopoetic river may lead. Not only a text about theopoetics, A Beautiful Bricolage is a work of theopoetics itself. It thereby draws the reader into a mode of inquiry that repudiates those who attempt to grasp it.