Protestant Metaphysics
What is the relationship between Martin Heidegger's critique of metaphysical theology and Karl Barth's? Or, more broadly, what is the relationship between the Greek metaphysical tradition and Protestant Christianity? My research challenges both an oversimplified conflation of Barth and Heidegger's thought as well as the pretense that an (a)theist philosopher and dogmatic theologian have nothing to say to each other. The result of this juxtaposition of Barth and Heidegger's work is a clear articulation of two different Protestant attitudes towards metaphysics. Whereas Heidegger interpreted Luther in a way which ultimately led to a divorce between metaphysics and theology, Barth saw Luther as the progenitor of a non-foundationalist affirmation of the being of God. In either case the boundaries between theology and philosophy were radically reconfigured in a way which continues to dominate both disciplines to this day. Protestant Metaphysics after Karl Barth and Martin Heidegger has been published in June of 2010 by SCM Press, and has been released in the US under the imprint of Wipf & Stock.
Other Publications and Presentations
"Why Protestant Metaphysics Today?" Paper presented at the Theology Research Seminar in the School of Divinity at the University of St. Andrews, April 21, 2010.
"Before Analogy: Recovering Barth's Ontological Development." New Blackfriars vol. 90, no. 1029 (September, 2009): 577-601.
"One Trinity, One Election, One Jesus: Seinsweise in Barth's Theology," Paper presented at the Society for the Study of Theology Annual Conference 2009, Kontakt der Kontinenten, Utrecht, The Netherlands, March 30 - April 2, 2009.
"Returning Barth to Anselm." Modern Theology vol. 24, no. 3 (July, 2008): 413-437. *
"Heidegger on Luther on Paul." Dialog: A Journal of Theology vol. 46, no. 1 (Spring, 2007): 41-45.*
“The Post-Ontological Paul?” Paper presented at The Society of Biblical Literature 2006 Annual Conference, Washington, DC, November 18-21, 2006.
"Barth's Prolegomena to Any Future Protestant Metaphysics which Can Possibly Pretend to Be a Science," Paper presented at Belief and Metaphysics, The Centre of Philosophy and Theology in partnership with the Instituto de Filosofia Edith Stein de Granada, Granada, Spain, September 15-18, 2006.
"Heidegger's Hidden Theology: Revisiting Martin Luther's Influence upon Martin Heidegger," Paper presented at the 16th Conference of the European Society for Philosophy of Religion, Tübingen, Germany, September 1-4, 2006.
What is metaphysics? Heidegger asks this question in an essay by that title, and the image above goes very well with his later continuation of this discussion in "The Way Back into the Ground of Metaphysics." Here, he develops an analogy between philosophy and a tree, arguing that the tree trunk and branches, or all we see, is what the sciences explore. Greek metaphysics inquired into the roots. But what of the ground the roots grow within? In asking about the ground of those roots Heidegger calls for a kind of Metaphysics of metaphysics, or Ontology of ontology? Heidegger's Metaphysics are punctuated with a question mark because by the end of his philosophy in essays like "Time and Being," he talks about leaving Metaphysics to itself in favor of another path to thinking (Denkweg) altogether. Read further...