Theology without Metaphysics: God, Language, and the Spirit of Recognition

Kevin W. Hector

Sep 2011 · Current Issues in Theology Book 8 · Cambridge University Press

About this ebook

One of the central arguments of post-metaphysical theology is that language is inherently 'metaphysical' and consequently that it shoehorns objects into predetermined categories. Because God is beyond such categories, it follows that language cannot apply to God. Drawing on recent work in theology and philosophy of language, Kevin Hector develops an alternative account of language and its relation to God, demonstrating that one need not choose between fitting God into a metaphysical framework, on the one hand, and keeping God at a distance from language, on the other. Hector thus elaborates a 'therapeutic' response to metaphysics: given the extent to which metaphysical presuppositions about language have become embedded in common sense, he argues that metaphysics can be fully overcome only by defending an alternative account of language and its application to God, so as to strip such presuppositions of their apparent self-evidence and release us from their grip.

About the author

Kevin Hector is Assistant Professor of Theology and of the Philosophy of Religions at the University of Chicago Divinity School. His essays have appeared in Modern Theology, the International Journal of Systematic Theology, the Scottish Journal of Theology, the Journal of Religion and Expository Times.