Richard Oxenberg

Theology Without Walls - or 'trans-religious theology' - is a theological approach dedicated to reflecting upon the nature of divine reality as it may be revealed in any of the world’s religious traditions, without confining itself to any one in particular. In this paper I discuss some of the basic assumptions and implications of the Theology Without Walls project and suggest that this approach to theology, and to religion in general, promises to help resolve antagonisms and divisions that have long plagued human religiosity.

Where does suffering come from? If divine reality, ultimate reality, is a reality of bliss (as religion posits), how can suffering arise? What is the relationship of suffering to bliss? This is the question I explore in this essay. I suggest that, to make sense of this, we must think of bliss as subject to fragmentation and of suffering as fragmented modes of bliss. As we advance beyond fragmentation through our spiritual lives, our suffering is transmuted more and more into the love and bliss of the divine.

William Alston has written that religious belief is justifiable because it is based upon epistemic practices similar to those justifying belief in sensory facts. In this paper I argue for a different understanding of religious belief. What is called for in religious belief is not affirmation of factual truth-claims but devotion to God. The significance and validity of creedal formulae lie in their capacity to elicit and express such devotion, not in their factual and/or informational character. My paper considers four fundamental questions with respect to religious belief: 1. What is a religious belief? 2. What is the basis upon which one should adopt a religious belief? 3. What is the relation between belief and salvation/sanctification? 4. What attitude should one adopt toward alternate belief systems? I argue that these questions are best answered when we recognize the radical dissimilarity of creedal formulae to empirical truth-claims.

I write as a Jew who has come to see the Jewish and Christian religious movements as complementary, at least as each may be ideally envisioned. This complementarity does not entail the ‘supersession’ of Judaism or the negation of Judaism. It does not in any way imply that Jews should abandon Judaism. On the contrary, rightly seen it can lead to a greater affirmation of Judaism and of the teachings at Judaism's heart. In this article I discuss the nature of this complementarity and argue that its recognition can help further and deepen the spiritual missions of both traditions.

The paradox of 'the One and the Many' might, more generally, be understood as the paradox of relationship. In order for there to be relationship there must be at least two parties in relation. The relation must, at once, hold the parties apart (otherwise they would collapse into unity) while holding them together (otherwise relationship itself would cease). It must do so, further, without itself becoming a third party which would then, itself, need to be related. This paper considers this paradox as we find it manifest in the theories of quantum physics, the Socratic pursuit of universals, and, finally, at the very heart of human personhood - where we discover it at the core of interpersonal relationships, existential anxiety, and social distress. It is suggested, in the end, that though reason cannot resolve the terms of this paradox, there is a potential solution to the existential problems that spring from it, a solution lying in what Jesus calls, simply, 'faith.'

The Book of Job is often read as the Bible's response to theodicy's 'problem of evil.' As a resolution to the logical difficulties of this problem, however, it is singularly unsatisfying. Job's ethical protest against God is never addressed at the level of the ethical. But suggested in Job's final encounter with God is the possibility of a spiritual resolution beyond the ethical. In this paper I examine the Book of Job as a response to the spiritual problem of despair; despair engendered by the ethical problem of evil. My reading is informed by Kierkegaard's analysis of despair in The Sickness unto Death, and Stephen Mitchell's extraordinary translation of the Book of Job, as well as his insightful commentary.

Both Christianity and Judaism have their basis in the Torah, the five central books of the Hebrew Bible that culminate in the revelation at Sinai. This very commonality, potentiality a source of mutual respect and concord, has played itself out, in the two thousand years since the advent of Christianity, in a disastrous rivalry of interpretation. Christians have interpreted their own religion in such a manner as to disallow the separate legitimacy of Judaism. Jews, in response, have often adopted an insularity of focus at odds with the universality of God as Judaism itself understands it. I believe this rivalry has had a distorting effect upon both religions. The purpose of my essay is to search out some theological positions that both traditions might be able to accept, and that might permit each to adopt an affirmative, and informed, acceptance of the other.

We can attend to the logic of Anselm's ontological argument, and amuse ourselves for a few hours unraveling its convoluted word-play, or we can seek to look beyond the flawed logic, to the search for God it expresses. From the perspective of this second approach the Ontological Argument might be seen as more than a mere argument - indeed, as something of a contemplative exercise. One can see in the argument a tantalizing attempt to capture in logical form the devotee’s experience of the presence of God in the contemplation of God. It is a peculiarity of the argument that it can seem hopelessly silly or richly evocative depending upon which of these approaches one takes. In this essay I examine the flawed logic of the Ontological Argument, but then attempt to reflect upon the contemplative experience that may underlie it.

What was Heidegger thinking? Heidegger's own writings suggest that the most fruitful approach to understanding them will be one that seeks to uncover the arché, or roots, of the central concern that motivates them. That they reflect such a central concern is testified to by Heidegger himself. As late as 1966, in an essay entitled "The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking," he writes: "The following text belongs to a larger context. It is the attempt undertaken again and again ever since 1930, to shape the question of Being and Time in a more primordial fashion." It is this thematic unity of Heidegger's life work, so easily obscured by the sometimes jarring shifts in terminology that occur throughout it, that makes Kisiel's and Sheehan's book so provocative and important a contribution to Heidegger studies. The book allows us to follow the progress of Heidegger's early thought in its formative stages, from his university days as a student of medieval theology in Freiburg to its culmination in the publication of Being and Time in 1927. In doing so it helps to illuminate the thread of concern that runs to, through, and beyond Being and Time.

“Whoever does not love abides in death,” writes John in his first epistle (1Jn 3:10). This statement presents us with a paradox. Death, so we suppose, is precisely that in which one cannot 'abide.' Our first thought is to interpret this as metaphor. John is saying that a life devoid of love is a life somehow like death. But, having never died, how do we know what death is like? My paper explores these questions with the aid of two philosophical interpretations of the meaning of death: Heidegger’s in Being and Time and Kierkegaard’s in The Sickness Unto Death. Having looked at these I then seek to grasp their relation to the Christian idea of agapic love as presented by John.

This paper is a reflection on the ethical and spiritual ambiguities of Monotheism. It proceeds through an examination of Thomas Aquinas’ concept of desire and René Girard’s notion of victimage. It is divided into two parts. In the first I examine Thomas’ ideas of desire and goodness in order to develop some key terms and concepts. In the second I employ these terms and concepts in a critique of René Girard’s victimage thesis, in an effort to shed light on the ‘uses and abuses’ of Judeo-Christian Monotheism.

Moral violation often takes the form of material harm, which might lead us to suppose that it consists essentially in the harm done. And yet we might suffer the same harm through nature or accident without feeling morally offended. If a hurricane destroys my property, I suffer harm but no offense. If another person deliberately damages my property, I am offended. But why? Wherein lies the difference? My essay employs Arthur Schopenhauer’s ethic of egoism and Paul Tillich’s theology of love to explore the ontological basis of moral offense. I argue that moral offense has its roots, not in a concern for material well-being, but in a fundamental drive for Unity, unity with others and with our own ontological ground. This drive is both conditioned by, and frustrated by, our ontological separateness as individual beings.

This work is a revised version of my dissertation, originally presented in 2002. It explores questions of God and faith in the context of Martin Heidegger's phenomenological ontology, as developed in Being and Time. One problem with traditional philosophical approaches to the question of God is their tendency to regard God's existence as an objective datum, which might be proven or disproven through logical argumentation. Since Kant, such arguments have largely been dismissed as predicated on a priori assumptions whose legitimacy cannot be substantiated. This dismissal has led to a widening divorce between 'faith' and 'reason,' as the rational grounds for faith have come under increasing, and radical, attack. Heidegger's phenomenological ontology provides us a new approach to the question of faith by showing that concernful relations lie at the heart of our apprehension of Being. This affords us a new way of approaching the question of God philosophically; one which pursues this question, not in terms of metaphysical categories, but in terms of the existential concerns central to human life. At the same time that Heidegger allows us this new approach, however, his existential analyses seem to deny any legitimacy to religious faith. For the Heidegger of Being and Time, the human being is 'Being-towards-death,' i.e., essentially enclosed in finitude, whereas for religion the human being has an essential relation to the infinitude of God. This work, then, has a twofold purpose: It seeks, first, to explore the meaning of God and faith as these may be understood in the terms provided by Heidegger's phenomenological ontology. It seeks, second, to examine the way in which that ontology might be challenged and revised through a religious conception of human Being.

Sut Jhally begins his essay “Advertising at the Edge of the Apocalypse” with the following provocative claim: “Advertising is the most powerful and sustained system of propaganda in human history and its cumulative effects, unless quickly checked, will be responsible for destroying the world as we know it.” Jhally argues that the advertising industry, in fostering an association between human aspiration and desire for consumable goods, creates an artificial demand for such goods that is, at once, far in excess of what is needed for human flourishing and catastrophic to the global environment. Jhally sees capitalism as the ultimate culprit. In a system in which wealth is defined as a “vast collection of commodities” (Marx, Capital), those who produce such commodities have no other choice but to promote excess consumption. Hence the advertising industry emerges as the propaganda arm of capitalism. My paper argues that, though Jhally’s analysis of the problem is both compelling and alarming, his diagnosis fails to reach its heart. Indeed, it is not Marx but Plato who provides us with the terms needed both to understand and respond to the problem Jhally cites. My paper provides a Platonic analysis of these issues and concludes with some suggestions as to how to address them.

The purpose of my paper is to show the derivation of what is sometimes called the ‘new liberalism’ from the basic principles of classical liberalism, through a reading of John Locke’s treatment of the right to property in his Second Treatise of Government. Locke’s work sharply distinguishes between the natural right to property in the ‘state of nature’ and the societal right to property as established in a socio-economic political system. Whereas the former does not depend on the consent of others, it is qualified by strict limits on the amount of property that may be rightly acquired. The societal right to property lifts these limits but is justified only under the principle of universal consent. This principle, I argue, implies the Rawlsian difference principle; i.e., that the regulation and distribution of property must be such as would elicit the freely proffered consent of society’s least advantaged members.