Doctoral Research

Ph.D., Philosophical Theology, May 2008
The University of Manchester, England
Dissertation Title: Protestant Metaphysics according to Karl Barth and Martin Heidegger
Supervisor: Professor Graham Ward

Brief description:

How does Luther's proscription against "foolish metaphysical questions" in his Lectures on Romans relate to the post-metaphysical character of contemporary continental philosophy (e.g. Derrida, Levinas, Vattimo, Marion)?

In order to address these questions I began to explicate the manner in which Lutheran dispositions towards metaphysics and theology had been transfigured in the work of Martin Heidegger. This appraoch led me in two directions. Firstly, Luther clearly did influence Heidegger's early metaphysical deconstructions as well as his conception of a distinctly Protestant form of theology. Secondly however, Heidegger himself recognized that he was correcting, if not changing, the essence of what he perceived to be Luther's unfinished project. This raised a question in my mind. Were there any other philosophical theologians developing alternative readings of Lutheran critiques of metaphysics at this time? It was at this point that I began to investigate Karl Barth's theology. Barth provided a perfect dialogue partner to Heidegger not only because his theology developed contemporary to Heidegger, but also because many scholars such as Graham Ward and Merold Westphal discuss their critiques of onto-theology as being complementary to each other. 

Attempts at comparisons between Barth and Heidegger have been made in the past (e.g. Heinrich Ott), but more recent scholarship has opened up new possibilities for clarifying their relationship along onto-theological lines. Hence, my thesis could be summed up in the following question: What is the difference between Barth's critique of onto-theology and Heidegger's?  

As it turns out, when we compare Heidegger's understanding of Luther's proscription against metaphysics with Barth's we find significant differences between the two.  In shorthand, it is possible to read Barth's theology as one long clarification of the metaphysical implications of Luther's theologia crucis. Or, said another way, Barth's theology is a contemporary explication of how Jesus is both fully unique Existent Divinity and fully human being and why there is no other way it could be otherwise. When Heidegger cites theses 19, 21 and 22 of Luther's Heidelberg Disputation in his Phenomenology of Religious Life, he therefore points out the reason why he, and many of those who followed him, had to abandon metaphysical theology altogether. For although in thesis 19 Luther critiques the theologian "who looks upon the invisible things of God as though they were clearly perceptible in those things which have actually happened," Luther then goes on in thesis 20 (which Heidegger skipped) to explicitly cite the proper possibility of metaphysical theology as follows: "He deserves to be called a theologian, however, who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God seen through suffering and the cross." Martin Luther, Luther's Works, Vol. 31, pg. 52.

It is hoped that my research may have profound consequences for how we conceptualize the Protestant task. For instance, Protestant theologians could far more justifiably locate themselves  at the heart, rather than the periphery, of contemporary philosophical debate about the merits of a God without Being, or post-metaphysical theology more generally.