Ebook: Saint Paul and Contemporary European Philosophy

Offers a new systematic account of the philosophical potential of Saint Paul’s letters

• Shows the present-day philosophical importance of the letters of the founder of Christianity
• Argues that important ontological problems concerning dualism, nihilism and the event appear in an unexpected light when read through a Pauline lens
• Shows a new philosophical appraisal of the Pauline conception of faith in terms of an art of living
• Offers a new systematic approach to the intriguing present-day philosophical turn to the Letters of Saint Paul in the works of Heidegger, Taubes, Badiou, Agamben and Zizek
• Discusses how Saint Paul allows philosophers to rethink the notions of law and community giving rise to a new type of political philosophy

The re-examination of Saint Paul’s letters in contemporary European philosophy is one of the most important developments at the crossroads of philosophy and theology today.

In discussion with a range of authors contributing to this movement, including Heidegger, Badiou, Agamben, and Taubes, Gert-Jan van der Heiden offers a new and systematic account of the philosophical potential of these letters. He does so by uncovering a dialectic of exception, which revolves around the Pauline notions of the outcast and the spirit.

Against a general tendency to understand the significance of Paul in politico-theological terms alone, van der Heiden focuses on the ontological potential of Saint Paul’s letters by elucidating what they imply for our thinking about (non-)beings, world, event, time, exception and spirit. Ultimately, he shows how this dialectic implies a new understanding of being and thinking and gives rise to a new art of living, both ethically and politically.