Protestant Metaphysics
My doctoral thesis asked the following question: what is the relationship between Martin Heidegger’s critique of onto-theology and Karl Barth’s? To question onto-theology is to ask whether it is possible, or even necessary, to speak about the being of God. This research challenged 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 philosophical and theological aspects of Barth and Heidegger’s work was a clear articulation of two different Protestant attitudes towards metaphysics. Whereas Heidegger interpreted Luther in a way which ultimately led to a divorce between ontology 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. Protestantism Metaphysics after Karl Barth and Martin Heidegger is due to be published in early April of 2010 by SCM Press.
My current work, however, goes beyond this focus on Barth and Heidegger in order to demonstrate more clearly how the heart of a number of contemporary postmodern theological debates are deeply Protestant in their ethos and orientation. Having said that, this is not to say either that postmodernity marks the end of Protestantism, nor its fulfillment. Rather, Protestant theologians must ask, before they reimport their theology in its current postmodern guises, "what have you done with my little ones?" So too, cultural and political theorists must pay close attention to the manner in which theological ideas have been carried through in contemporary philosophy.
Publications and Presentations
Protestant Metaphysics after Karl Barth and Martin Heidegger. London: SCM Press, 2010.
"Putting Luther's 'hoc est corpus' Back on the Table," Paper to be 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).
"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).
"Heidegger on Luther on Paul." Dialog: A Journal of Theology vol. 46, no. 1 (Spring, 2007).
“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...