God Without Being: Hors-Texte, Second Edition - Paperback

by Jean-Luc Marion (Author), Thomas A. Carlson (Translator), David Tracy (Foreword by)

Jean-Luc Marion is one of the world's foremost philosophers of religion as well as one of the leading Catholic thinkers of modern times. In God Without Being, Marion challenges a fundamental premise of traditional philosophy, theology, and metaphysics: that God, before all else, must be. Taking a characteristically postmodern stance and engaging in passionate dialogue with Heidegger, he locates a "God without Being" in the realm of agape, or Christian charity and love. If God is love, Marion contends, then God loves before he actually is.

First translated into English in 1991, God Without Being continues to be a key book for discussions of the nature of God. This second edition contains a new preface by Marion as well as his 2003 essay on Thomas Aquinas. Offering a controversial, contemporary perspective, God Without Being will remain essential reading for scholars and students of philosophy and religion. "Daring and profound. . . . In matters most central to his thesis, [Marion]'s control is admirable, and his attunement to the nuances of other major postmodern thinkers is impressive."--Theological Studies "A truly remarkable work."--First Things "Very rewarding reading."--Religious Studies Review

Back Jacket

Jean-Luc Marion advances a controversial argument for a God free of all categories of Being. Taking a characteristically postmodern stance, Marion challenges a fundamental premise of both metaphysics and neo-Thomist theology: that God, before all else, must be. Rather, he locates a "God without Being" in the realm of agape, Christian charity or love. This volume, the first translation into English of the work of this leading Catholic philosopher, offers a uniquely contemporary perspective on the nature of God.

Author Biography

Jean-Luc Marion is professor of philosophy at the Université Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV), and the John Nuveen Distinguished Professor in the Divinity School and professor in the Committee on Social Thought and the Department of Philosophy at the University of Chicago. Thomas A. Carlson is professor of religious studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the author of The Indiscrete Image: Infinitude and Creation of the Human, also published by the University of Chicago Press.