Description
Through a fresh reading of the French Catholic philosopher Maurice Blondel, this book confronts a fundamental theological and philosophical problem: how an infinite God can be united to finite human beings without bringing about their annihilation.
Unusually for his time, Blondel is presented as undertaking a proto-ressourcement of ascetic themes drawn from the mystical tradition. This recovery enables him to articulate a robust yet intricate realism that avoids the dangers posed by two competing, annihilative visions of personhood: absorption into nothingness, exemplified by Arthur Schopenhauer, and absorption into the infinite, exemplified by Baruch Spinoza.
Pritz-Bennett locates Blondel's philosophy of action between two extremes: the nothingness of creatures and their absolute identity with God. She asks how divine–human union can be possible without finite beings ceasing to be themselves and argues that Blondel's answer lies in a reciprocal abnegation of the human and the divine,; this is a proposal that calls for a renewed assessment of the value of ascesis within finite life.
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Table of Contents
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
Part I: Annihilation from Below
1. What can Negation Yield?
2. Action and the Abyssal Will
3. Will We Find a Salvation?
Part II: Absorption from Above
4. The Problem of Beatitude for Finite Creatures
5. No One Sees God Without Dying
6. Becoming Real
Conclusion
Index
Bibliography
Product details
| Published | 21 Jan 2027 |
|---|---|
| Format | Ebook (PDF) |
| Edition | 1st |
| Pages | 256 |
| ISBN | 9780567728579 |
| Imprint | T&T Clark |
| Series | T&T Clark Studies in Ressourcement Catholic Theology and Culture |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
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