The Religious Philosophy of Simone Weil: An Introduction

Lissa McCullough

Jul 2014 · I.B.Tauris

About this ebook

The French philosopher Simone Weil (1909-1943), a contemporary of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre, remains in every way a thinker for our times. She was an outsider, in multiple senses, defying the usual religious categories: at once atheistic and religious; mystic and realist; sceptic and believer. She speaks therefore to the complex sensibilities of a rationalist age. Yet despite her continuing relevance, and the attention she attracts from philosophy, cultural studies, feminist studies, spirituality and beyond, Weil’s reflections can still be difficult to grasp, since they were expressed in often inscrutable and fragmentary form. Lissa McCullough here offers a reliable guide to the key concepts of Weil’s religious philosophy: good and evil, the void, gravity, grace, beauty, suffering and waiting for God. In addressing such distinctively contemporary concerns as depression, loneliness and isolation, and in writing hauntingly of God’s voluntary ‘nothingness’, Weil’s existential paradoxes continue to challenge and provoke. This is the first introductory book to show the essential coherence of her enigmatic but remarkable ideas about religion.

About the author

Lissa McCullough is an independent scholar and writer who has taught religious studies at Muhlenberg College, Hanover College and New York University. Her previous books are Thinking Through the Death of God: A Critical Companion to Thomas J J Altizer (edited with Brian Schroeder), The Call to Radical Theology and Conversations with Paolo Soleri.