An Augustinian response to Jean-Louis Chrétien's phenomenology of prayer
This article interrogates Jean-Louis Chrétien's phenomenological appreciation of prayer as a call to the transcendent other, by juxtaposing it with the style and content of Augustine's Confessions. In the Confessions, prayer is less the contradiction (shattering') of presence than it...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Taylor & Francis
[2018]
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| In: |
International journal of philosophy and theology
Year: 2018, Volume: 79, Issue: 3, Pages: 311-322 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Chrétien, Jean-Louis 1952-
/ Phenomenology
/ Augustinus, Aurelius, Saint 354-430, Confessiones
/ Prayer
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| IxTheo Classification: | AG Religious life; material religion CB Christian life; spirituality KAB Church history 30-500; early Christianity VA Philosophy |
| Further subjects: | B
Phenomenology
B Confessions B Jean-Louis Chrétien B St Augustine B Prayer |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) |
| Summary: | This article interrogates Jean-Louis Chrétien's phenomenological appreciation of prayer as a call to the transcendent other, by juxtaposing it with the style and content of Augustine's Confessions. In the Confessions, prayer is less the contradiction (shattering') of presence than it is the paradox of simultaneous presence-and-absence, God being both the most intimate and the most remote at the same time. It is concluded that Chrétien's phenomenology fails to understand prayer as the reciprocity it claims to articulate because, despite affirming both the presence and the absence of God to the one praying, phenomenology cannot hold both these propositions in tension but must continually resolve them into a contradiction in which the subject discovers' God only by falling back on the self. The question is one of style and genre: Augustine's speech addresses someone whereas Chrétien's does not. In as much as he follows the phenomenological style established by Husserl, Chrétien cannot value any speech except that which is descriptively' self-referential. |
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| ISSN: | 2169-2335 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: International journal of philosophy and theology
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/21692327.2018.1433549 |