Ontotheology

Ontotheology means the ontology of God and/or the theology of being. It refers to a tradition of philosophical theology first prominent among medieval scholastics such as Anselm, Duns Scotus and Thomas Aquinas.

History and Usage of the term

Kant

The term "ontotheology" was first coined by Immanuel Kant, and is a theology which "believes it can know the existence of a Supreme Being [Urwesen] through mere concepts, without the help of any experience whatsoever". As an example of such a theology see St. Anselm’s ontological argument

In is important to note however, that Kant, had little more to say about ontotheology, giving us just its definition. He also defined many other theologies, see: physico-theology, ethical-theology, moral-theology, transendental-theology, cosmo-theology and [[natural-theology].

The word's origin then is often, mistakenly perhaps, associated with Heidegger who used the term quite frequently as a reference to metaphysics in general

Hegel

G. W. F. Hegel, writing after Kant in the Nineteenth century, sought to demonstrate the unity of theology and philosophy through the dialectic and ultimate sublimation of religion in the progressive unfolding of the Absolute Spirit.

Heidegger

For Martin Heidegger, ontotheology took on quite a different meaning, ontotheology, for him, differs little from metaphysics. This he argues in his works such as his groundbeaking book, Being and Time, his later essay on “The End of Metaphysics,” and in his most systematic treatment of the problem of ontotheology "Identity and Difference".

For Heidegger ontotheology contributes to the oblivion or forgetfulness of Being. Indeed “metaphysics is onto-theo-logy,” and Western metaphysical “since the beginning with the Greeks has eminently been both ontology and theology.” The problem with this intermixing of ontology and theology according to Heidegger’s analysis, and the reason why it has been sought to be overcome both by Heidegger and his successors, is at least twofold.

First, by linking the philosophical with the theological, and vice versa, the distinctiveness of each respective discourse is clouded over. As such, the nature of philosophy as a factually unknown and structurally unknowable path of thought is restricted by an economy of faith. Likewise with theology, as the science of faith, theology at its best testifies to the irreducible mystery of its source in revelation and to the unapproachable and incomprehensible aim of its desire in God. However, once theology becomes onto-theological that mysterious source and incomprehensible aim are reduced to the order of beings.

Second, and on a more fundamental level, the ontotheological problem is part and parcel of the overall degeneration of Western thought and the consequent troubles of Western technological culture. The problem in a nutshell is the human desire for mastery and ontotheology contributes to this by presuming knowledge regarding the “first cause” of philosophy and the “highest being” of theology.

Contemporary Writers

Contemporary scholarship on ontotheology is divided between those who accept Heidegger’s analysis of the problem of ontotheology and continue his efforts at “overcoming ontotheology,” and those who are rethinking Heidegger’s view and thus re-imagining the relationship between philosophy and theology and reconfiguring the conditions for philosophical theology.

With regard to the latter, which takes its cue from Jacques Derrida’s statement that,

With or without the word being, Heidegger wrote a theology with and without God. He did what he said it would be necessary to avoid doing. He said, write, and allowed to be written exactly what he said he wanted to avoid,”

Heidegger’s differentiation between philosophy and theology, upon which his entire analysis of the problem of ontotheology rests, must be fundamentally reassessed. Indeed, Heidegger was careful to claim that his work was philosophical and not theological, and argued that a Christian philosophy or a phenomenological theology was a logical impossibility likened to a square circle. However, through a certain reading by Derrida, Heidegger’s sustained and comprehensive critique or “destructuring” of the Western philosophical tradition can be understood as also having some theological implications.

Based upon this perspective, ontotheology is not so much a problem to be overcome as it is an inevitability of thought that is impossible to be avoided and that conditions all human inquiry, whether theological or philosophical in nature, or whether religious or secular in orientation. Yet Derrida claims in his essay Différance that différance both exceeds and inscribes ontotheology.

With regard to theology, a number of Christian theologians, such as Brian Ingraffia, Merold Westphal, and Jean-Luc Marion have argued that a genuine biblical theology of revelation escapes the problem of ontotheology by giving priority to a specifically theological language as disclosed through scripture and as passed down through tradition. According to this perspective, the God of the Bible is fundamentally different from the God of philosophy, and thus, while the ontotheological problem sometimes eventuates in the pronouncement of the death of the moral-metaphysical God, this means little or nothing to the biblical portrait of the God of history who inspires and empowers the community of the faithful.

Thus many concepts have been considered to be the ultimate or absolute entity beneath all reality: Form, substance, essence, soul, geist or spirit/mind, extension, God, monads and can also be considered in some way as ontotheological in their reliance upon the metaphysics of presence.

One can delimit such a closure [of metaphysics] today only by soliciting the value of presence that Heidegger has shown to be the ontotheological determination of Being;...Derrida

Notes and References

• Dombrowski, Daniel A., "Deconstruction and the Ontological Argument", American Journal of Philosophy and Theology, Vol.21, No.1, 3ff (January 2000) [1] (caution: 448kB .pdf file, full issue of Journal)
• Heidegger, Martin: Identity and Difference
• Ingraffia, B.: Vanquishing God’s Shadow: Postmodern Theory, Ontotheology, and Biblical Theology
• Marion, J. L.: God without Being: Hors-Texte
• Robbins, Jeffrey W., "The Problem of Ontotheology: Complicating the Divide Between Philosophy and Theology", The Heythrop Journal, Volume 43, p139 (April 2002). Abstract available at [2] .
• Robbins, J. W.: Between Faith and Thought: An Essay on the Ontotheological Condition
• Ruf, H.: Religion, Ontotheology, and Deconstruction; M. Westphal, Toward a Postmodern Christian Faith: Overcoming onto-Theology.
• Thomson, Iain (2005): Heidegger on Ontotheology: Technology and the Politics of Education, Cambridge University Press., exerpt available at [3] (.pdf file)