Christianity is bound up with the very idea of the West: we cannot
evade it even if we would like to. While many people no longer
believe in Christianity, we cannot deny that it has left a deep
imprint on Western thought. But how might we develop a philosophy of
Christianity that is not a Christian philosophy? How can we take a
view that is external to the traditions of apologetics and
criticism? For there is a question that concerns us all here: are
the coherences of Christianity still useful for thought, and
especially for thought about existence?
To address this question, François Jullien considers Christianity as
constituting a set of resources. Resources are available to all and
can be used by those who discover and exploit them; they belong to no
one. Christianity offers us resources inasmuch as we can draw some
benefit from it, inasmuch as it can be the source of an effect,
without our having to believe it or determine its truth in advance.
Jullien reads the Gospels, and especially the Gospel of John, as he
would read any other text, seeking to account for the text's coherence
(rather than its ‘meaning’), seeking to account for its pertinence
(rather than its ‘truth’), but without any need to adhere - the
exploitation of resources demands no conversion. And in reading the
Gospel of John in this way, we discover the fertile veins of a theory
of existence.
This fresh and erudite reflection on Christianity will be of great
value to anyone interested in religion and its relevance today.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781509546978
Publisert
2021
Utgave
1. utgave
Utgiver
Polity
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter