Postmodernity's Transcending: Devaluing God (Faith in Reason) - Softcover

Postmodernity's Transcending is a highly ambitious and provocative work, and Hemming demonstrates impressive range and erudition in his analysis of both historical and contemporary figures. Hemming's investigations of temporality and causality in the figures he investigates are particularly insightful.' -- Mary Troxell Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 'Although published as part of SCM's 'Faith in Reason' series, Postmodernity's Transcending is not intended only for readers with an interest in theology. Indeed, Hemming turns to eschatological categories in his closing remarks about Christian liturgy as appropriate theology in the postmodern context, and here he is at his most lucid.' -- Tim Gibson Theology A highly intelligent, original and provocative study...and is bound to stimulate considerable discussion in postmodernism and, in particular, in philosophical and theological discussions of the sublime and transcendence: two areas that are central to contemporary intellectual work. The work is densely thought and nicely written: it makes significant demands of the reader, but the reader it engages is precisely the sort of person who will rise to its challenges. -- Kevin Hart University of Notre Dame

Postmodernity's Transcending: Devaluing God in one way undertakes a history of the concept of the aesthetic sublime; in another it is an exploration of the limits of theological thinking, where theology is understood either as a practice arising from faith or from thinking. By examining concepts like soul, experience, analogy and truth, the author issues a provocative challenge to much contemporary Christian theology to return to a more serious engagement with philosophy. Hemming explores the confrontation with God and the gods to be found in Protagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger and Derrida, often offering innovative readings of these thinkers sharply at odds with accounts to be found elsewhere.