Anné Hendrik Verhoef

Sisyphus, happiness and transcendence

What is the relation between transcendence and happiness? What type of transcendence can still be part of the concept happiness in our modern age? To answer these questions, I analyse the myth of Sisyphus from the existentialist perspective of Albert Camus, and investigate whether Sisyphus is (or can be) ‘truly’ happy and what role transcendence plays in this kind of happiness. This prompts a question about the relation between the concepts transcendence, meaning of life, and happiness. Taking Sisyphus as an exemplar, I argue that, although our contemporary culture has a flattening tendency regarding transcendence, various types of transcendence remain inextricably related to happiness.

How to Do Philosophy of Religion: Towards a Possible Speaking about the Impossible

Abstract It is postulated from different philosophical traditions, and explicitly in recent literature, that there is no further need for doing philosophy of religion – it has become an impossible task. I argue, however, that there remains a philosophical space for this practice and that this space determines greatly how philosophy of religion can be done. The starting point of my argument is the current discussion in the SAJP between De Wet and Giddy and the significance of my article is that it puts this debate within the broader international philosophical context by engaging the work of Trakakis and Desmond to resolve some of the apparently intractable issues raised. Trakakis discusses the divide between the analytic and continental philosophical traditions in which De Wet and Giddy’s work is further contextualized and clarified. Desmond’s work is seminal in its search for a metaxology wherein he advocates a new ‘in between’ position for doing philosophy of religion. I take this view of Desmond further by applying it to the current debate in South Africa and also using it to indicate some possibilities of speaking about the impossible.

Trinity, time and ecumenism in Robert Jenson’s theology

Robert Jenson, an American Lutheran theologian, is well known as a Trinitarian and ecumenical theologian. In his Trinitarian theology he makes specific choices regarding the relationship between God and time as an attempt to overcome the Hellenistic influences on the early church’s theology, especially about the timelessness of God. Jenson proposes a temporal infinity or timefullness of God, which is central to the relationships within the Trinity. Jenson temporally defines the unity of the Trinity in relation to the claim that God is in fact the mutual life and action of the three persons, Father, Son and Spirit as they move toward the future. In the Trinity’s relationship to time the person Jesus fulfils a very specific role, namely the “specious present”, and this temporal location of Him leads in Jenson’s theology to a very strong ecclesiology and eventually to specific proposals regarding ecumenism. In this article I will investigate this link between Trinity, time and ecumenism in Jenson’s theology.

Violence, liberation and the legacy of modernity: towards a theology of peace

Since the rise of democracy in South Africa violence has been erasing freedom and justice. In this article it is argued that the different theologies of Liberation, such as Black, Feminist, Ecological and other contextual theologies, might have perpetuated violence as part of the modernistic tradition they stood in. The irony is that the emancipatory motives of these theologies precipitate the oppression they are fighting. Theology therefore needs to revisit the modernist foundations of these theologies in a robust dialogue that challenges the limitations of modernity in order to discover emerging alternatives that nurture a theology of life, freedom and peace. David Hart proposes a theology where the theme of beauty, as essentially peace, adheres to every moment of the Christian story: A theology which celebrates a God whose being is beauty; whose works are an expression of his beauty; and in which the gospel is a story that persuades only by its beauty. This theology stands in contrast to the dichotomies of for example Black and African Theologies which are based on ‘modernity’s violent legacy’ – a reductionistic ontology.

Robert Jenson's ecumenical vision based on his Trinitarian thought

The American Lutheran theologian, Robert Jenson, is well known as an ecumenical theologian. He is also well known as a significant and prolific writer of Trinitarian theology during the last forty years. These two themes, Ecumenism and Trinity, are very closely interconnected in Jenson’s life and work. We can say that his Trinitarian theology has been his leitmotiv and inspiration for his life-long ecumenical engagement, and vice versa, that his ecumenical vision and dedication has influenced and motivated his Trinitarian theology in many ways. In this paper I will explore the ecumenical perspectives and proposals Jenson has made as logical implications of his Trinitarian theology. I will argue that his understanding of the relationship between the Trinity and time helped to form his ecumenical vision and contributed to some of his ecumenical proposals. This will give an indication of how Jenson is searching for a theology of the one church of the future.

The relation between evil and transcendence: new possibilities?

Evil has always been a main interest in the field of philosophy and, lately, in the field of ethics – in both continental and analytic traditions – the idea of evil seems to be making a comeback. The propensity in philosophy is to understand evil in radical immanent terms. Lars Svendsen, in A Philosophy of Evil, argues for example that evil is about inter-human relationships, not about a transcendent, supernatural force. Emmanuel Levinas, on the other hand, describes evil as something that cannot be integrated into the world, something that is always on the outside: the radical Other. Furthermore, evil appears to us as something chaotic, defying comprehension. Does this mean evil is something transcendent? In this article I will analyse the concept of evil in terms of the typology of transcendence that was developed by Wessel Stoker. I will argue that there are, within the (post-) modern discourse, and due to new developments in the understanding of transcendence, new nuanced possibilities of thinking about evil and its relation to transcendence – especially to ‘transcendence as alterity’. Traces of this kind of understanding of evil will be indicated in Paul Ricoeurs view of evil. This notion of evil may enhance our ethical responsibility towards it.