Awaiting the Impossible

A Dialogue with Derrida, Deconstruction, and the Endless Wait for Messiah

See Seng Tan

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781666741629, 9781666741636
• eBook ISBN: 9781666741643
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Deconstruction in Philosophy

This book dialogues with deconstruction's "religion without religion" and its implications for theology. In the view of many, deconstruction is a purely nihilistic force bent on the wanton destruction of long-held philosophical, religious, and moral traditions. However, this perspective ignores the fact that deconstruction--in the hands of its standard bearers like Jacques Derrida, John Caputo, and others--has all along been a religious exercise in demythologization. Furnishing a Christian rejoinder to deconstruction's claims about and objections to orthodox religion (and particularly to Christianity), the book addresses the following questions: How can deconstruction open a space for an affirmative faith to occur and be professed? Can deconstruction ever be hospitable toward Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah for which it waits?

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Self Before Other
• Chapter 2: Deconstruction’s Promises (and Perils)
• Chapter 3: Awaiting Deconstruction’s Impossible God
• Chapter 4: Hello from the Other Side
• Conclusion
• Bibliography