This book, one of the earliest by Christos Yannaras, was first published in 1967 and has become a contemporary classic. Yannaras begins by outlining Heidegger's analysis of the fate of western metaphysics, which ends, he argues, in a nihilistic atheism. Yannaras's response is largely to accept Heidegger's analysis, but to argue that, although it applies to the western tradition of what Heidegger calls "onto theology" (which regards God as a 'being', even if the highest), it does not take account of the Orthodox tradition of apophatic theology, of which Dionysius the Areopagite is a pre-eminent example. A God 'beyond being' escapes the criticism of Heidegger, and provides an alternative to Heidegger's nihilistic conclusion.

Christos Yannaras is one of the most significant Orthodox theologians of recent times. The work of Yannaras is virtually synonymous with a turn or renaissance of Orthodox philosophy and theology, initially within Greece, but as the present volume confirms, well beyond it. His work engages not only with issues of philosophy and theology, but also takes in wider questions of culture and politics. With contributions from established and new scholars, the book is divided into three sections, which correspond to the main directions that Christos Yannaras has followed – philosophy, theology, and culture – and reflects on the ways in which Yannaras has engaged and influenced thought across these fields, in addition to themes including ecclesiology, tradition, identity, and ethics. This volume facilitates the dialogue between the thought of Yannaras, which is expressed locally yet is relevant globally, and Western Christian thinkers. It will be of great interest to scholars of Orthodox and Eastern Christian theology and philosophy, as well as theology more widely.

Divine Providence and Human Agency develops an understanding of God and God's relation to creation that perceives God as sovereign over creation while, at the same time, allowing for a meaningful notion of human freedom. This book provides a bridge between contemporary approaches that emphasise human freedom, such as process theology and those influenced by it, and traditional theologies that stress divine omnipotence.This book argues that it is essential for Christian theology to maintain that God is ultimately in charge of history: otherwise there would be no solid grounds for Christian hope. Yet, the modern human self-understanding as free agent within certain limitations must be taken seriously. Jensen approaches this apparent contradiction from within a consistently trinitarian framework. Jensen argues that a Christian understanding of God must be based on the experience of the saving presence of Christ in the Church, leading to an apophatic and consistently trinitarian theology. This serves as the framework for the discussion of divine omnipotence and human freedom. On the basis of the theological foundation established in this book, it is possible to frame the problem in a way that makes it possible to live within this tension. Building on this foundation, Jensen develops an understanding of history as the unfolding of the divine purpose and as an expression of God's very being, which is self-giving love and desire for communion. This book offers an important contribution to the debate of the doctrine of God in the context of an evolutionary universe.

How can one think and name an inconceivable and ineffable God? Christian mystics have approached the problem by speaking of God using "negative" language—devices such as grammatical negation and the rhetoric of "darkness" or "unknowing"—and their efforts have fascinated contemporary scholars. In this strikingly original work, Thomas A. Carlson reinterprets premodern approaches to God's ineffability and postmodern approaches to the mystery of the human subject in light of one another. The recent interest in mystical theological traditions, Carlson argues, is best understood in relation to contemporary philosophy's emphasis on the idea of human finitude and mortality. Combining both historical research in theology (from Pseudo-Dionysius to Aquinas to Eckhart) and contemporary philosophical analysis (from Hegel and Nietzsche to Heidegger, Derrida, and Marion), Indiscretion will interest philosophers, theologians, and other scholars concerned with the possibilities and limits of language surrounding both God and human subjectivity.

Safeguarding the distinction between God and world has always been a basic interest of negative theology. But sometimes it has overemphasized divine transcendence in a way that made it difficult to account for the sense of God's present activity and experienced actuality. Criticisms of the Western metaphysics of presence have made this even more difficult to conceive. On the other hand, there has been a widespread attempt in recent years to base all theology on (religious) experience; the Christian church celebrates God's presence in its central sacraments of baptism and Eucharist; process thought has re-conceptualized God's presence in panentheistic terms; and some have argued that God might be poly-present, not omnipresent. But what does it mean to say that God is present or absent? For Jews, Christians, and Moslems alike God is not an inference, an absentee entity of which we can detect only faint traces in our world. On the contrary, God is present reality, indeed the most present of all realities. However, belief in God's presence cannot ignore the widespread experience of God's absence. Moreover, there is little sense in speaking of God's absence if it cannot be distinguished from God's non-presence or non-existence. So how are we to understand the sense of divine presence and absence in religious and everyday life? This is what the essays in this volume explore in the biblical traditions, in Jewish and Christian theology and philosophy, and in contemporary philosophy of religion.

In a consumer-driven and technologized world, can we still experience the mystery of God? This book answers yes by exploring the rich resources of the Christian tradition of thinking and speaking about God. Focusing on God’s dialectical character—divine availability (“presence”) and divine excess (“absence”)—and the belief that “God is love” (1 John 4:16), professor Anthony J. Godzieba tracks how God became a problem in Western culture, then responds by showing how human experience is open to divine transcendence and how that openness encounters the revelation of God as Trinity. The book’s contemporary edge comes from its insistence that belief as embodied performance is the most authentic way to participate in the mystery of God’s love, which is “the answer to the mystery of the world and human beings” (Walter Kasper).

Basilio Petrà sees Christos Yannaras (b. 1935) as a philosopher and theologian whose refiguring, on the one hand, of Heidegger’s refusal to define being in ontic terms and, on the other, of Wittgenstein’s willingness to admit the inexpressible character of the mystical has led him to articulate a powerful vision of true human existence. This bold interpretation outlines the passage from an ontic ‘mode of nature’ governed by necessity to a ‘mode of self-transcendence and self-offering’ beyond the limitations of decay and death. In his native Greece, Yannaras revolutionised the way theology had been done for much of the twentieth century. This book examines the trajectory of Yannaras’ thought from his initial encounter with Heidegger’s philosophy to his formulation (via the tradition of the Greek Fathers) of a modern critical ontology. It is for both advanced students of philosophy and the growing scholarly audience interested in Yannaras’ work. Written in accessible language that does not compromise intellectual rigour, it is the only survey of the development of Yannaras’ philosophical thought as a whole.

In his new book, bestselling author Sam Keen challenges the notions and habits we've formed about religion over the centuries in order for us to build a deeper faith, that is relevant today. He asks: * How has religion failed us'. * Must we choose between dogmatic religion and atheism? * How might religion unite rather than divide us? The answers, Keen discovers, point the way back to the primal emotions, to the life-giving sense of dwelling in the presence of the sacred.. In the Absence of God sets out to recover the elemental experience of the sacred in everyday life. By appreciating emotions like wonder, gratitude, anxiety, joy, grief, reverence, compassion, outrage, hope and humility we may once again find ourselves in the presence of an unknowable but all present G-D. We may also regain the commonalities between Christians, Jews, Muslims, and other spirit traditions and end the contentious differences that have divided them and our world.

Christos Yannaras (born 1935 in Athens, Greece) has been proclaimed ‘without doubt the most important living Greek Orthodox theologian’ (Andrew Louth), ‘contemporary Greece’s greatest thinker’ (Olivier Clément), ‘one of the most significant Christian philosophers in Europe’ (Rowan Williams). However, until recently the English speaking scholar did not have first-hand access to the main bulk of his work: in spite of the relatively early English translation of his The Freedom of Morality (1984), most of his books appeared in English fairly recently – such as Person and Eros (2007), Orthodoxy and the West (2006), Relational Ontology (2011) or The Schism in Philosophy (2015). In this volume, chapters shall examine numerous aspects of Yannaras’ contributions to Orthodox theology, philosophy and political thought, based on his relational ontology of the person, later popularised in the Anglophone sphere by John Zizioulas. From political theology to Heidegger and the philosophy of language, from Yannaras’ critique of religion to the patristic grounding of the theology of the person and from Orthodoxy to the West, this volume comprises a panorama of Christos Yannaras’ transdisciplinary contributions.

Ineffability – that which cannot be explained in words – lies at the heart of the Christian mystical tradition. This is the first book to engage with the concept of ineffability within contemporary philosophy of religion and provides a starting point for further scholarly debate.