This article explores Simone Weil's account of the relationship between human suffering and intellectual life, with reference to the issues raised by the allegation that as an enterprise theodicy evinces a failure to 'take suffering seriously'. The article shows how Weil's understanding of the relationship between suffering and attention gives a clear and powerful account of the way that compassion-which involves an uncompromising acceptance of suffering-can be discerned in patterns of thought. Nevertheless, it is less clear in her work how these convictions might serve as a guide for theological statements. Weil's understanding of the Christian conception of life is centred on the experience of finding God present in and through suffering, and this leaves her with the problem of how to reconcile her commitment not to 'sweeten what is bitter' with consolations or compensations with her intuition that the truth of creaturely existence is made available through suffering. Through an analysis of the inner contours of this conflict, it is argued that Weil's central problem is of how to articulate spiritual reality in such a way as to encourage undivided attention, which is the only ground for the hope that truthful, compassionate thought about suffering might be possible.
This volume brings together papers discussing the formation and use of the intellectual boundaries that distinguish philosophy from theology, language from experience, knowledge from belief and the natural from the supernatural. Although the aim is not to reach a consensus as to how these boundaries should be drawn and what use they should be put to, broadly speaking the contributors share a belief that the task of exploring the tensions and ambiguities that arise as we try to make sense of such distinctions is a necessary one if theological or philosophical discourses are to be fruitful engagements with life rather than sterile and restricted repetitions. Although the distinction between 'analytic' and 'continental' philosophy might be a boundary in need of blurring, it is the latter that in this volume provides the main impetus for this task.The two introductory contributions by the editors are both useful discussions of the relationship between philosophical and theological discourse in general. Martin Warner begins with the question of knowledge and belief: Job (via Handel) declares 'I know that my redeemer liveth', and both philosophers and theologians fret about what kind of knowledge he can legitmately claim. Warner suggests that although the distinction between 'knowing that' and 'knowing how to', or 'belief that' and 'belief in' seem to be indispensable, drawing the line too clearly between them should be avoided. Vanhoozer's essay is more ambitious, and aims to defend a refined notion of doctrine as 'not only statements of what is -and what is coming to be -but directions for how to rightly relate to it' (p. 50). He begins by focusing on the work of Donald MacKinnon and the question of the role of metaphysical questions within Christian theology -does even the simplest level of biblical interpretation demand at least the beginnings of philosophical speculation, and if so, how can this demand be met without it resulting in a set of disembodied propositions? Despite being appreciative of the efforts of narrative theology to keep theology grounded in the particularity of the Christian story, and the idea that doctrine should be pragmatically directional rather than propositional, Vanhoozer suggests that some kind of wrestling with propositional truth is essential if theology is to avoid becoming 'a species of ethnography whose task is simply to describe how one particular community
This article highlights some of the difficulties that accompany any attempt to articulate an understanding of forgiveness that is at once coherent, just and desirable. Through a close examination of Charles Griswold's book Forgiveness: A Philosophical Exploration, I suggest that there are good reasons to think that forgiveness is intrinsically ambiguous, both conceptually and morally. I argue that there is an underlying tension between the concerns that shape the definition, and those that are invoked when affirming the good of forgiveness. Using Charles Taylor's A Secular Age, I then provide some commentary concerning this ambiguity and make some brief suggestions about how this ambiguity might be theologically fruitful.
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