Cloud of the Impossible: Negative Theology and Planetary Entanglement

Insurrections: Critical Studies in Religion, Politics, and Culture

by Catherine Keller

What generates the cloud of the impossible is what becomes possible in the very face of what appears to be impossible, whether it be radical democracy or the reversal of climate change. The experience of the impossible peaked at the end of the last century—politically, sexually, economically, and ecologically. The dream of progress became the trauma of reality, and confidence in better outcomes waned. Yet the connectivity and collectivity of social movements, of the fragile, unlikely webs of an alternative notion of existence, keep materializing—a haunting hope, dense in relationships, suggesting a more convivial, relational world.

Catherine Keller brings process, feminist, and ecological theologies into conversation with continental philosophy, the quantum entanglements of a “participatory universe,” and the writings of Walt Whitman, Alfred North Whitehead, and Judith Butler to develop a “theopoetics” for all relations. Global movements, personal embroilments, and the inextricable relationship of humans and nonhumans—these phenomena, in their unsettling togetherness, are exceeding our capacities to know, grasp, and manage. By staging a series of encounters between the relational and the apophatic, the inseparable and the nonknowable, Keller shows what can be born from negative entanglement.

-from Columbia University Press

Genres: Theology, Philosophy, Religion, Nonfiction, Spirituality, Academic, Ecology

384 pages, Paperback

First published November 5, 2014

About the author

Catherine Kelle is a contemporary Christian theologian and Professor of Constructive Theology at Drew University's Graduate Division of Religion. As a constructive theologian, Keller's work is oriented around social and ecological justice, poststructuralist theory, and feminist readings of scripture and theology. Both her early and her late work brings relational thinking into theology, focusing on the relational nature of the concept of the divine, and the forms of ecological interdependence within the framework of relational theology. Her work in process theology draws on the relational ontology of Alfred North Whitehead, fielding it in a postmodern, deconstructive framework.

Reviews

[Stephanie Berbec · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished this one last night. I hope to get my hands on a hard copy soon for re-reading. It’s a loaded book, incredibly poetic, and heavily influenced by Nicholas of Cusa, Alfred North Whitehead, Gilles Deleuze and Judith Butler, covering topics such as apophatic theology, panentheism, ecopolitical theology, quantum theory, planetary entanglement, climate change, dreams, trauma, mysticism, transreligious solidarity and a theology of multiplicity. I haven’t been as moved or impressed by an academic book in a while as I was by this one. It’s one that I found myself saying ‘yes!’ to all throughout, both affirming of and resonating deeply with the trajectory of my own theology in more recent years.

[Carl Holmes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Message is good. Uses pretty heady and heavy language more than necessary, but once you understand the message if comes together.