Paul Ricoeur in Dialogue with Theology and Religious Studies

In September I will have the great pleasure of taking part in a symposium at the University of Lund, Sweden, entitled “Paul Ricœur in Dialogue with Theology and Religious Studies.” In addition to looking forward to hearing what is set to be a fantastic array of papers, I hope to be able to contribute something to the discussion on the question of theology and philosophical systems as such. The more I look at the question of “theological” themes in contemporary thought, the more uneasy I become about the extent to which theological lingo can be fought over in quite a superficial way. What determines, for example, whether employing the term “miracle” merits a diagnosis of theological thinking, and at what point exactly does thinking become theological anyway? Just how miraculous must a miracle be before it tips over into the non-philosophical? And why do we tend to assume that the theological has to begin precisely where the philosophical stops? While such questions may well be interesting I’m not convinced they are terribly fruitful–won’t a miracle always end up being just what we define a miracle to be?–and so I want to use the opportunity of the Lund symposium to explore not discrete moments or motifs within a given philosophical system but the question of the relation to theology of philosophical systems as such. My jumping-off point will be two terrific essays by Ricœur, ‘Hope and the structure of philosophical systems’ (in Figuring the Sacred), and ‘Irrationality and the plurality of philosophical systems’. The aim is to find a more robust and satisfying way of thinking about “theology” and “philosophy” than the approach which repeatedly beats the bounds between them. I hope this will also allow me to reprise a theme from my last visit to Lund, when I cast doubt on Meillassoux’s claim to have demonstrated, finally, the anhypothetical principle of philosophy. Finally, the paper will also pick up on a line of thought I developed in Difficult Atheism in relation to Jean-Luc Nancy when he claims that

There is at the heart of every great philosophy (and this could be the measure of its greatness), a mystery concerning God or the gods. This is in no way to say that this mystery is the heart of the philosophy that bears it. It certainly is not; but it is placed in that heart, even though it has no place there. (Nancy, ‘Of divine places’ 129, translation altered)