The following is a reflection upon two conferences I participated in a couple of years ago which did not make it into my dissertation.

Over the summer of 2006 two international conferences on metaphysics were hosted in Europe. The first was the 16th Conference of the European Society for Philosophy of Religion held in Tuebingen, Germany, September 1-4, at a prominent Protestant seminary called the Evangelische Stift. The conference title theme, Religion after Metaphysics, is of particular interest here precisely because of its use of the preposition after. This after was problematized many times throughout the keynote and short papers, most notably by Ingolf U. Dalferth’s opening address. How do philosophers of religion respond to the postmodern end of metaphysics articulated in the work of Gianni Vattimo, [1] and the subsequent attempts to articulate the nature of religion and theology in that post-metaphysical context ala Jean-Luc Marion? [2]

What was even more interesting however, was how the uniquely Protestant nature of this after was raised. It was an ecumenical conference, most evidenced in the chapel service held with its markedly minimalist liturgy. But there were three papers given on Luther’s relation to postmodern philosophy where Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Marion played dialogical roles. [3] This was by no means the focus of the conference, and these were all short papers with no real claim to prominence in the conference itself. But they were raising a crucial question. The question came down to whether or not Luther’s deconstruction of metaphysics and his notions of the infinite otherness of God could be correlated to the post-onto-theological nature of Marion and Derrida’s thought.

For my part, I addressed the anachronistic tendencies of such readings of Luther by addressing Heidegger’s early Freiburg lectures. Here we find that Heidegger himself draws upon Luther both in his own theological turn from Roman Catholicism, but more importantly in his own deconstruction of western metaphysics. My paper at this conference was entitled, “Heidegger’s Hidden Theology: Revisiting the Relationship between Martin Heidegger and Martin Luther.” [4] This relationship between Luther and Heidegger has to be articulated carefully. Although Luther does in fact critique metaphysics , [5] this is not to say that he would disbar the category of being from the theology reflection altogether. As Karl Braaten notes, “Luther's notion of faith does possess some understanding of the structure of being... the antimetaphysical aspect of Luther's thought is a result of his understanding of love but not an indication that he would abandon the use of the concept esse in the proprium of theology”. [6] In other words, the distance that we must focus on in Luther’s thought is not the infinite distance between the idol and the icon ala Marion, [7] but rather, between Martin Heidegger and Martin Luther’s own way of thinking theology after their critiques of metaphysics. This is a distance which is all too easily concealed in the current literature on their thought, a distance echoed in the recent work on Luther by Finnish scholars at the University of Helsinki. [8]

Although I doubt it was the intention of the conference organizers, the Religion after Metaphysics conference in Tübingen indirectly demonstrated how important the Protestant nature of this “after” really is. For what it entails is the relation of Protestant theology to metaphysics and whether or not Protestantism is at the root of the postmodern critique of metaphysics. And this point was made all the more explicitly by the title of the second conference on theology and metaphysics in the summer of 2006, Belief and Metaphysics, organized by the University of Nottingham Centre of Philosophy and Theology in partnership with the Instituto de Filosofia Edith Stein de Granada in Granada, Spain, September 15-18. Here, the explicitly Roman Catholic feel of the conference could not be missed, for here the conjunction “and” echoes how this Christian tradition never abandoned the Thomistic recognition of the inextricability between metaphysics and theology. “In Catholic theology, of course, the attempt to supply a metaphysical foundation for theology was never really abandoned, only modernized.” [9]

The side question this conference implied therefore, regarded the place of the Protestant theologian in such a conference. Could it be the case that whatever is at stake in the relation between belief and metaphysics is also at stake for the relation between Protestant and Roman Catholic approaches to theology? It is in light of these concerns therefore - where Protestant theology’s own resources for resisting postmodern negations of metaphysics are raised as a question - that I took Karl Barth as my subject at this conference. This may seem an even more peculiar choice of Protestant theologian than Luther if one wants to defend the relation between ontology and theology. Barth is all too often cited as an anti-philosophical fideist, and positively correlated to Heidegger and Marion’s thought by two of the keynote speakers at this conference, John Milbank, [10] and Merold Westphal. [11] However, I argued in my paper that Barth’s theology may hold more insight into Protestant metaphysics today than he did in his own epistemologically infatuated era. As Barth himself says, “A free theologian does not deny, nor is he ashamed of, his indebtedness to a particular philosophy or ontology, to ways of thought and speech.” [12] By addressing Barth’s work therefore, I sought to raise the issue of Protestant theology’s relation to metaphysics in the most abrupt way possible. By demonstrating that Barth’s thought is in fact deeply rooted in the recognition of the importance of ontology for belief, we accomplish two important tasks. Firstly, we articulate new possibilities for ecumenical debate between Roman Catholics and Protestant theologians. Secondly, and maybe more importantly, we begin to explore the resources available to Protestant theology if it wants to resist contemporary critiques of metaphysics and offer credible alternatives.

[1] Gianni Vattimo, The End of Modernity : Nihilism and Hermeneutics in Post-modern Culture (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1988).

[2] Jean-Luc Marion, God without Being: Hors-texte (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991).

[3] Marius Timmann Mjaaland, "Optimus Philosophorum. Luther on Religion and Metaphysics in the Disputatio Heidelbergae Habita (1518)" (paper presented at the Religion after Metaphysics: The 16th Conference of the European Society for Philosophy of Religion, Tübingen, September 1-4 2006), Timothy Stanley, "Heidegger's Hidden Theology: Revisiting Martin Luther's Influence upon Martin Heidegger" (paper presented at the Religion after Metaphysics: The 16th Conference of the European Society for Philosophy of Religion, Tübingen, September 1-4 2006), Marisa Strizzi, "Delimiting the Metaphysical Side of Theology: The Premodern/Postmodern Connection" (paper presented at the Religion after Metaphysics: The 16th Conference of the European Society for Philosophy of Religion, Tübingen, September 1-4 2006).

[4] A version of this paper has can now be found in the Spring, 2007 issue of Dialogue .

[5] Martin Luther, Luther's works, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, American ed., 55 vols., vol. 25 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999, c1957), 361.

[6] Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdman's Publishing Company, 1998), 135.

[7] Marion, God without Being: Hors-texte.

[8] For some recent texts by the Finnish scholars see, Tuomo Mannermaa and Kirsi Irmeli Stjerna, Christ Present in Faith : Luther's View of Justification, 1st Fortress Press ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005). Braaten and Jenson, Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther. For a correlation of the recent debates on gift and giving in relation to the ontological implications of Finnish Luther scholarship see, Risto Saarinen, God and the Gift : An Ecumenical Theology of Giving, Unitas books (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2005). Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, One with God : Salvation as Deification and Justification, Unitas books (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2004). It is important to note that Karkkainen does not consider himself to be a Finnish Lutheran, however, he did study with Tuomo Mannermaa and is an able interpreter of their work. See also my discussion of their work in Appendix Two below.

[9] Wolfhart Pannenberg, Metaphysics and the Idea of God (Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans, 1990), 5.

[10] John Milbank, Catherine Pickstock, and Graham Ward, Radical Orthodoxy: Suspending the Material (New York: Routledge, 1999), 33 n1, Neil Ormerod, "Milbank and Barth: A Catholic Perspective," in Karl Barth - A Future for Postmodern Theology?, ed. Christiaan Mostert and Geoff Thompson (Adelaide: Australian Theological Forum, 2000).

[11] Merold Westphal, Transcendence and Self-Transcendence: On God and the Soul (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004), 145.

[12] Karl Barth, The Humanity of God (London: Collins, 1967), 92.