A Theology of Compassion: Metaphysics of Difference and the Renewal of Tradition

by Oliver Davies

The wholesale rejection of metaphysics today has become the test of the postmodern. In this groundbreaking volume Oliver Davies argues for a renewal of metaphysics, as the language of createdness, based not in a return to outmoded concepts of essence but in a dynamic new understanding of ontology as narrative and performance. This repairing of the Western metaphysical tradition is grounded both in the divine self-naming in Exodus — which, for the rabbis, identified God's presence in the world with God's compassionate acts — and in the compassionate resistance of Etty Hillesum and Edith Stein to the violence of the Holocaust. Building on a new metaphysics of compassion that is attentive to the histories of the contemporary world, Davies offers a renewed systematic theology of divine speech and relation, focused in Jesus Christ, who, as the triadic "Word" of God, speaks creatively at the heart of human culture and action and who, as the redeeming "Compassion" of God, regenerates the world.

Genres: Theology

398 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2001

About the author

This is the disambiguation profile for otherwise unseparated authors publishing as Oliver Davies

For the British crime author see Oliver Davies

Reviews

[Bruce Prescott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly recommended to readers with a background in philosophical theology, particularly continental philosophy.

Paul Ricoeur's and Emanuel Levinas' influence is apparent on nearly every page.