Philosophy and Theology

by John D. Caputo

A highly engaging essay that will draw students into a conversation about the vital relationship between philosophy and theology.

In this clear, concise, and brilliantly engaging essay, renowned philosopher and theologian John D. Caputo addresses the great and classical philosophical questions as they inextricably intersect with theology--past, present, and future. Recognized as one of the leading philosophers, Caputo is peerless in introducing and initiating students into the vital relationship that philosophy and theology share together. He writes, “If you take a long enough look, beyond the debates that divide philosophy and theology, over the walls that they have built to keep each other out or beyond the wars to subordinate one to the other, you find a common sense of awe, a common gasp of surprise or astonishment, like looking out at the endless sprawl of stars across the evening sky or upon the waves of a midnight sea.”

Genres: Philosophy, Theology, Religion, Nonfiction, Christianity, Spirituality, Faith

84 pages, Paperback

First published March 31, 2006

About the author

John D. Caputo is an American philosopher who is the Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion Emeritus at Syracuse University and the David R. Cook Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Villanova University. Caputo is a major figure associated with Postmodern Christianity, Continental Philosophy of Religion, as well as the founder of the theological movement known as weak theology. Much of Caputo's work focuses on hermeneutics, phenomenology, deconstruction and theology.

Reviews

[Joshua · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good introductory essay to Caputo's thinking and provocative read for pastors and philosophers alike. The penultimate chapter in which Caputo lays out his readings of Derrida and Augustine could have been slightly clearer (in fact, I've heard him deliver this material more clearly in lectures), but on the whole, a decent essay.

[Ivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think that John Caputo's 'Philosophy and Theology' is a great introductory book for any student of philosophy interested in the history of the discipline. While not explicitly framed or composed as a history of philosophy, Caputo manages to trace the historical development of this discipline as it has found itself closely tied in varied ways with the question of God, as an object within and outside reason. In the context of the western philosophical tradition, Caputo shows how for reason, that which lies outside its ambit holds as much concern as that which comes under jurisdiction. Accordingly, through philosophers such as Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Derrida, Caputo explicates the almost urgent engagement of these figures with theology and the theological.

Thematically and in terms of the broad historical epochs in which Caputo frames his exposition, the book could be sectioned into three parts. The first has to do with the question of the theological and the philosophical as representative of revelation and reason respectively. Here, Caputo shows how even though early theologian-philosophers such as St. Aquinas and St. Augustine attempted to demonstrate the common origin of both reason and revelation in God, it is with the putatively modern philosophers such as Descartes and Kant, that philosophical rationality comes to position the theological as outside the bounds of legitimate and reasonable knowledge. In what could be described as the second broad section of the text, Caputo argues that despite the apparent delegitimization of God and the theological vis-a-vis rationality, philosophers such as Kierkegaard reveal the aporias of reason, as it attempts to subsume that which is revealed by itself to be outside its jurisdiction. While modernity renders reason and science as laying rest to any claims of legitimacy by theology and revelation, it is through philosophers such as Kierkegaard that this separation and its implied hierarchies are problematized as illegitimate and overreaching. In the third and final section of the book, Caputo himself performs a conciliatory move through his discussion of the relationship between the postmodern and the theological. The postmodern, Caputo argues, enables the recognition and re-legitimization of the reason-able and revelatory as but two different languages of "seeing" and living, with neither having primacy over nor being uninformed by the other.

While Caputo's effort towards condensing this long and complex intellectual history within the span of less than 100 pages may be considered by some to be excessively ambitious, I believe that these efforts have some good results. Firstly, Caputo manages to produce an interesting historical summary of the engagement of western philosophers and philosophical traditions with the question of God, without reifying already existing binaries between the existing academic disciplines of philosophy and theology. Secondly, I believe that Caputo's book could serve as a great introduction to critical figures in western philosophy from a perspective that seems rarely available to new students in academic philosophy i.e. of philosophy's engagement with God. It is accessible in terms of its relatively easy language and is a meditation on the role of philosophy as that which could be deeply and empathetically concerned both with objects that seemingly come under the jurisdiction of reason and those that do not.

All that said, the last two chapters of the book are not uninteresting as much as they seem to be in a hurry towards reconciling the problem of reason and faith through the postmodern and the theological. Owing to this, it seems that notwithstanding the interesting parallels drawn by him between Derrida and St. Augustine (7th chapter), Caputo too easily conflates their "faith" and in a surprising move, marks the difference between the two, as that between an indeterminate and determinate faith, respectively. While Caputo's argument is passable, it seems to draw too simplistic a picture of Derrida's analytic engagement with faith as an object of philosophical reflection against Augustine's own faith, that is on the one hand reason-able and on the other, not available as an object and without determinate object for its faith. In the end, it seems to me that Caputo places too much faith in the postmodern philosophical as a site of indeterminacy and possibility with regards to faith, without engaging adequately for instance, with contemporary theological critiques of the postmodern as well.

In any case, I recommend this as a great book for both beginner and advanced students of philosophy, whether engaged in academic departments or not.

[John Martindale · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think the first few chapters would be worth revisiting. I appreciate that Caputo included the quip that "Philosophy means 'unanswerable questions', and theology means 'unquestionable answers'".

I am completely done with that type of theology--which seems to have no interest at all in the pursuit of truth, having wrongly assumed that church tradition and sound biblical interpretation have already dropped it in their lap. Christians are confident that they have the true, beautiful, and the good, even when this includes dogmas that are absurd, morally repugnant, irrational, and obviously false. It really does seem many Christian theologians use their intelligence to simply rationalize and defend the indefensible.

The history of ideas and development situates the "answers" that cannot be questioned, placing them in a time when they were by no means obvious or sure. When we see how they became dogma, whether it was by accident, due to chaos and chance, or by battles, politics, strong personalities, or powerful people working from an alien framework, the unquestionable dogma becomes questionable. What many do in theology would be like the medical establishment only teaching and defending, and justifying all of Galen's conclusions--perpetuating bloodletting today. Resistant to reality, to doubt, to questions, as it is fashionable to assume, Galen had the whole truth.

I suppose part of the problem is that many of the things theology deals with (If we remove the childish faith in the absolute timeless authority of what developed and was handed down) end up being, well, unanswerable (with any degree of certainty). But with Socrates, rather than deluding ourselves that we know what we don't know, I think it is better to have the humility to acknowledge the limits of our knowledge.

Caputo's formulation of how elements from Post-Modernism relate to theology today seemed reasonable--he did not seem to present a nihilistic and pure relativism, but instead, provides an acknowledgement that no human being has God's eye perspective. That every attempt at objectivity is ironically performed by a subject, who is culturally situated in time, and who reasons from certain presuppositions that are by no means certain.

[Jim Besaw · Rating 3 out of 5]

Caputo had me hooked for the first six chapters. Unfortunately at around page 63 or so it seemed like Caputo realized he had to finish this book/essay. The ending was a bit unclear and unimpressive. Nevertheless the majority of the book was an interesting read on the history of Philosophy and Theologies relationship.

[Richard Worden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Professor Caputo's knowledge of philosophy and theology is extensive and he has the wonderful ability to communicate with ease and simplicity. This book is a major study for anyone wondering how the world arrived at postmodernism.

[Alex DiDonato · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great history and overview of two fields that often talk past each other. Traces the two through pre-modernity, modernity, and post-modernity. I found it very helpful!

[Chris Halverson · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was like a generous gift, a call to struggle and love with one's whole self, especially your mind!

[Caitlin Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. I went into this with incredibly low expectations but am leaving it completely blown away. Wow.

[Father Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

In an effort to renew the relationship between philosophy and theology, John Caputo traces the relationship between these rivals back to the source of the conflict between them. In the present day, philosophy and theology are commonly understood as different perspectives on the same set of questions. Philosophy is understood as driven exclusively by reason from its principles to conclusions, without reference to any external authority and universally accessible (at least in principle). Theology, on the other hand, makes use of rationality, but derives its foundational content from revelation, and is conducted by people already invested in the community defined by its belief. Attitudes about philosophy and theology are largely determined by whether they are seen as two modes of thinking that are mutually complementary and capable of coexisting “in the same head” or as defining two entirely different types of worldviews that are fundamentally at odds with one another.
The latter view being the more common, Caputo takes up the history of the conflict to discover its contours. In the Middle Ages, figures such as St. Anselm and St. Thomas exemplified harmony between reason and faith. Anselm proposed his ontological argument not so much as a proof for God but a way of “clarifying something intuitively obvious to all those who experience God in their daily lives.” Thomas was disposed to seek God more in outward, tangible manifestation. Under both accounts, faith sought understanding by way of the gift of reason. However, in this synthesis reason was subordinate to faith, and the rise of modern science in some sense proceeded as a backlash against faith’s supremacy.
According to Caputo, the development of modern thought allowed natural science to displace philosophy and enthrone itself in the cathedra once occupied by theology. Descartes severed the link between faith and reason with his foundationalist approach, building all knowledge on the certainty of the dubito and undermining the longstanding authority of theology to arbitrate valid insight. Reason was thereby elevated to unprecedented levels of independence and universality. Kant took this a step further by regarding philosophy as a mere “second order reflective science” that contributed nothing to the enterprise of reason; theology was to abandon historically mediated dogma and be constrained to the limits of reason alone. Finally, the atheist critiques of Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche pushed theology into a romanticized interiority based primarily on feeling.
Caputo values the tutelage modernity offered to human reason, seeing the period as a traumatic transition to maturity (as Kant did). Nonetheless, he takes up Kierkegaard’s insistence that the overreaching scope of reason which sought to construct a totalizing system was faulty. Postmodernity emerged out of skepticism toward the Enlightenment project that arose from a recognition of the historically conditioned presuppositions of all reasoning. The paradigms of human knowledge, postmodernists insist, are not purely objective, but demand that facts be incorporated within plausible yet necessarily provisional accounts of reality. The effect of this awareness is to engender skepticism towards all-encompassing narratives.
The transition to postmodernity weakened the barriers behind which modernity had walled up philosophy and theology, giving them the chance to once again “assert their rights.” Wittgenstein saw each rational discipline as carried out according to its own proper rules that cannot be simply translated into some supreme way of knowing. Theology is just such a discipline, and the postmodern turn has given theology a credible voice again. The relationship theology has to philosophy is no longer one of hierarchy, with one exercising authority over the other, but of commonality, such that knowing and believing look more similar than ever before. For reasoning involves a reliance upon a kind of faith in the presuppositions of all thinking—such as the reigning paradigms of knowledge—while faith permits one to assume the pivotal interpretive “as” that bestows a perspective and a vocabulary with which to carry out the pursuit of insight. Philosophy and theology’s relationship isn’t so much “reason versus faith” as “philosophical faith along with confessional faith.”
The point is driven home with the example of Jacques Derrida. A confessional autobiographer in the style of Augustine who nonetheless “quite rightly passes for an atheist,” he refused to lay to rest the play between confident reason and inquiring faith. Caputo sees in this painful straddle a source of vital tension that nourishes a more vigorous and satisfying existence where philosophy and theology go hand in hand, as “fellow travelers” who “are not opponents but companions on dangerous seas, attempting to make their way through life’s riddles.”

[Jefferson Chua · Rating 4 out of 5]

Caputo succeeds in divulging (rather quickly) the troubled history of philosophy and theology. While he succeeds in untangling ambiguous strings that both philosophy and theology both find themselves into, I would also have preferred a more systematic treatment of the relationship. I acknowledge that the content was an effect of the kind of readership the editors (and probably Caputo) had in mind; perhaps it was just too short an analysis for me. But through and through, a wonderful introductory reading to the relationship between philosophy and theology, not to mention to the thought of Jack Caputo himself, especially with the fact that it is a relatively easy read.

Three essential things worth noting:

(1) I think he gives a too-narrow conception of St. Thomas. In the earlier chapter he gives a more or less adequate treatment of Thomistic thought, but towards the end, when he chooses Augustine over Thomas, his reasons (cf. p. 59) amount to an assent to the very thing that he tries to go against, which is the narrow distinction between faith and reason. But perhaps Thomistic thought was never an easy thing to explain, given the rather apparent readership that this work intends to. Another thing that might have contributed to this is the fact that Caputo is from Villanova University, an Augustinian institution if I'm not mistaken.

(2) One should be careful in interpreting the narrative in the book to be one meta-narrative of both faith and reason. Though the discerning and careful reader will be mindful of this, it gives off the presupposition that both faith and reason and their different modalities are just part and parcel of one narrative that suddenly breaks off from itself. To follow Reiner Schürmann, we should be mindful that both rational discourse and religious discourse are ordered within an epochal economy that structures itself according to foundational principles that are in turn accentuated by political forces (i.e., the "publicness" of these language-games). Hence, the misconception with postmodernity, that the narrative "breaks down." It is not that the narrative dissolves upon itself; the plurality of narratives was only made more apparent because of the "incredulity to meta-narratives," to follow Lyotard. So point: postmodernity is about the emergence of the once-latent reality of plurality. Caputo no doubt is mindful of this; one just has to be careful of the rather strenuous tight-roping that postmodernity must contend to, given the rather hasty generalizations of its critics.

(3) Taking off from my second point, I would also have preferred if Caputo made mention, even only in passing, of the phenomenon of secularism, and how "postsecularist" thought entered into public consciousness (cf. p. 44). In this vain it seems to have been important to include Carl Schmitt and a host of other thinkers (Simon Critchley seems not far off, given that he is his contemporary) into the discussion. This would have given the "postmodern turn" more "flavor," in that it could have shown the dynamism of the plurality of distinctions, as I would have called it, of faith and reason.

But all in all, I really loved how Caputo has interwoven his own narrative - his own "prayers and tears" - with that of the "on-and-off" relationship of philosophy and theology, and to that of Augustine and Derrida. The penultimate chapter was the best one in my opinion; it demonstrated not only Caputo's skill in scholarship, but also his ability to tell stories, not to mention his "passion for life," which after all, lies at the heart of both theology and philosophy.

I would want to end with a quote from this book, which I think captures the passionate drive of Caputo for the impossible, i.e., faith: "Philosophy and theology are for wounded souls. Indeed those of us who take up the study of any of the humanities, of language and literature, history and art, philosophy and theology, or any of the natural sciences, have been pierced to the heart by something precious, beautiful, deep, and enigmatic that leaves us reeling" (Caputo, Philosophy and Theology, p. 71)

[Ted Rohe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Caputo sets down 4 thesis in this book about wrestling with the two disciplines of theology and philosophy.

These no named chapters examine these disciplines from various points of history, theologians, philosophers, and scientists. It is from this that Caputo sees the best working relationship of these two disciplines first starting in the pre-modern era and then now in the post-modern era. The former allowed some flexibility between them and the latter more flexibility. It was in the modernity age where the walls of meta-narratives divided and conquered the two disciplines.

The author does a great job of quickly, efficiently, and passionately fly through these various perspectives and thesis capture his conclusion. While I have some disagreements with what he says and how he goes about certain things, I think he does an amazing job in showing how post-modernity can actually help the Christian faith rather than work against it. Especially in the context of Philosophy. He does it better than many of the Emerging/Emergent crowd (like McLaren who endorses the book), but I think he is missing some nuances that maybe he thought was expandable to fit in this quick read.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is about how philosophy and theology intersect and the completer nature of each towards the other. Caputo gives a working definition of theology: “the place where the community of faith does its thinking, examining, clarifying, conceptualizing, and updating the common faith over the course of history” (4). Philosophers tend to think of themselves more as freelancers. Each, however, claim the same turf: ultimate questions, the good life, what being human means, and God’s relation to humanity. Caputo interprets Heidegger as opposed to Christian philosophy, because the idea of a believing thinker or a thinking believer is a square circle to him, for “if you are a believer, then you have decided to take an early retirement on thinking” (7).

[David Gregg · Rating 4 out of 5]

### Middle-Point Thoughts ###
I had expected to find this exceedingly boring. I am now pleasantly surprised. It won't pull you out of your seat -- but in few pages it does a commendable job of summarizing the history of the relationship between philosophy, theology, and science in the West, expressed in Pre-Modernism, Modernism, and Post-Modernism from the Classical Era through the Enlightenment, Romanticism, Post-Kantian Scientism, etc. With only one or two minor quibbles, I can recommend this book -- despite the terribly unoriginal title -- as a fascinating read by the middle point. Thus far, it serves as suitable and concise introduction to the critical topics and the prototypical thinkers involved (though be careful not to miss Footnote 5, on Duns Scotus).

[Chet Duke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read and valuable resource for the theologian and philosopher alike. The superficial dimensions of postmodernity are largely overlooked or shunned by a majority of theologians, yet they are at the same time utilizing the tools of postmodernity; philosophers, in some respects, embrace postmodernity and yet still cling to the skepticism underneath modernity's lurch from the religious. I know these are "blanket" statements, but reading Caputo draws this out elegantly. Both groups are overshooting one another in communication. This short read will definitely be an encouragement.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing book. One that should be re-read every year.

[Ken Holt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good discussion on the relation of philosophy and theology in the pre-modern, modern, and post-modern era. I appreciated the bios of key people at the end of the book.

[Paige · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed Caputo's thoughts on how philosophy and theology tie together yet can be at odds at the same time. It certainly makes me want to read more by him!

[Giovanni Generoso · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for anyone wishing to understand philosophy and theology in a specifically postmodern context. I simply couldn't put the book down. Caputo is superb.

[Jonathan Huggins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent introduction to the relationship between these disciplines/ ways of life. Especially interesting is the comparison between Augustine and Derrida.

[Meriah J VanderWeide · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quick read but great thoughts. Solid meat but not too heavy to process.

[Jamall Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Couldn't put it down.