Caputo’s Postmodern Understanding of Religion

Yıl 2024, Cilt: 15 Sayı: 1, 149 - 180, 08.07.2024

Bilal Bekalp

https://doi.org/10.12730/is.1435255

Öz

The most important characteristic of the age in which we live is the prominence of pluralistic and local understandings. In modern thought, the importance of reaching universal, objective, and precise knowledge is known. In postmodern thought, on the other hand, almost the opposite situation is put forward, and religion finds its place among pluralistic and local understandings. Religion no longer has valid, inclusive, and generalizable claims for everyone. In the postmodern age, religion is referred to as something between things. John Caputo, who has a very important place in contemporary thought, develops his thoughts from a postmodern framework. However, Caputo develops a hermeneutic approach to avoid falling into relativism. In doing so, he is under the influence of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Derrida. In particular, he develops an “event” theology based on Derrida’s concept of “religion without religion”. Combining this idea with hermeneutics, Caputo believes that life is always interpreted differently but that life still has a religious aspect. From this point of view, he puts forward an understanding of “weak theology”. Caputo’s “weak” theology rethinks various theological tropes and themes through a lens that significantly reshapes our understanding of the role and purpose of theology. In this paper, we address the concepts of weak theology and religion without religion and critically examine how religion and theology are situated within postmodern thought.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Weak theology, hermeneutics, postmetaphysical thought, postmodernism

Kaynakça

• Alpyağıl, Recep. Derrida’dan Caputo’ya Dekonstrüksiyon ve Din. İstanbul: İz Yayıncılık, 2017.
• Best, Steven - Kellner, Douglas. The Postmodern Turn: Critical Perspectives. New York: The Guilford Press, 1997.
• Caputo, John D. Against Ethics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993.
• Caputo, John D. “Atheism, A/theology, and the Postmodern Condition”. The Cambridge Companion to Atheism. Edited by Michael Martin. 267-282. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
• Caputo, John D. Modernity and Its Discontents. New York: Fordham University Press, 1992.
• Caputo, John D. On Religion. London and New York: Routledge Press, 2001.
• Caputo, John D. Radical Hermeneutics: Repetition, Deconstruction and the Hermeneutic Project. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987.
• Caputo, John D. The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida: Religion without Religion. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997.
• Caputo, John D. The Weakness of God. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006.
• Caputo, John D. What Would Jesus Deconstruct? Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007.
• Caputo, John D. Truth: The Search for Wisdom in the Postmodern Age. London: Penguin Press, 2013.
• Chalamet, Christophe. “Caputo and the Unidentifiability of God”. The European Reception of John D. Caputo’s Thought. Edited by Joeri Schrijvers - Martin Koci. 175-190. London: Lexington Books, 2023.
• Derrida, Jacques. “Letter to a Japanese Friend”. Derrida and Différance. Edited by David Wood - Robert Bernasconi. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1985.
• Erickson, Millard J. Truth or Consequences: The Promise and Perils of Postmodernism. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001.
• Ferry, Luc. Apprendre a Vivre - Traité de philosophie à l'usage des jeunes générations. Paris: Club France Loisirs, 2006.
• Grenz, Stanley J. A Primer on Postmodernism. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1996.
• Guarino, Thomas G. Vattimo and Theology. New York: T&T Clark International, 2009.
• Hanson, Jim. “Surviving Postmodernism: A New Ontotheology”. American Journal of Sociological Research 5/3A (2015), 13-21.
• Hart, Kevin. The Trespass of the Sign: Deconstruction, Theology and Philosophy. Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
• Hollinger, Robert. Postmodernism and the Social Sciences: A Thematic Approach. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1994.
• Küçükalp, Kasım. Jacques Derrida: Felsefenin Dekonstrüksiyonu. İstanbul: Ketebe Yayınları, 2020.
• Robbins, Jeffrey W. “Introduction: After the Death of God”. After the Death of God. Edited by Jeffrey W. Robbins. 1-24. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.
• Sands, Justin. “Confessional Discourses, Radicalizing Traditions: On John Caputo and the Theological Turn”. Open Theology 8/1 (2022), 38-49. https://doi.org/10.1515/opth-2022-0193
• Sands, Justin. “Radical Theology’s Place within Theology”. The European Reception of John D. Caputo’s Thought. Edited by Joeri Schrijvers - Martin Koci. 217-231. London: Lexington Books, 2023.
• Simpson, Christopher Ben. Religion, Metaphysics, and the Postmodern. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009.
• Swart, William E. Religious Experience at the Limits of Language: Lévinas, Marion, and Caputo from a Post-Phenomenological Perspective. Dallas: The University of Texas, PhD. Dissertation, 2017.
• Tarnas, Richard. The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas That Have Shaped Our World Views. New York: Ballantine Books, 1991.
• Ullrich, Calvin D. Caputo on Radical Political Theology. England: William Temple Foundation, 2022.
• Vanhoozer, Kevin J. “Theology and the Condition of Postmodernity: A Report on Knowledge (of God)”. The Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology. 3-26. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
• Vattimo, Gianni. The End of Modernity: Nihilism and Hermeneutics in Post-modern Culture. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991.