The religious philosophy of Simone Weil : an introduction

Author(s)

    • McCullough, Lissa

Bibliographic Information

The religious philosophy of Simone Weil : an introduction

Lissa McCullough

(Library of modern religion, 34)

I.B. Tauris, 2014

  • : hb

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Note

Includes bibliographical references (p. [251]-256) and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

The French philosopher Simone Weil (1909-1943), a contemporary of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre, remains in every way a thinker for our times. She was an outsider, in multiple senses, defying the usual religious categories: at once atheistic and religious; mystic and realist; sceptic and believer. She speaks therefore to the complex sensibilities of a rationalist age. Yet despite her continuing relevance, and the attention she attracts from philosophy, cultural studies, feminist studies, spirituality and beyond, Weil's reflections can still be difficult to grasp, since they were expressed in often inscrutable and fragmentary form. Lissa McCullough here offers a reliable guide to the key concepts of Weil's religious philosophy: good and evil, the void, gravity, grace, beauty, suffering and waiting for God. In addressing such distinctively contemporary concerns as depression, loneliness and isolation, and in writing hauntingly of God's voluntary 'nothingness', Weil's existential paradoxes continue to challenge and provoke. This is the first introductory book to show the essential coherence of her enigmatic but remarkable ideas about religion.

Table of Contents

Abbreviations and Textual Notes Introduction Biographical Groundings Reading Simone Weil 1 / Reality and Contradiction Reality: The Irreducible Truth and Affliction The Role of Attention The Negative Role of Will The Value of Contradiction Right Use of Dogma 2 / The Paradox of Desire We Desire the Good The Good Is Absent The Good Is a Nothingness Detachment of Desire Waiting for God The Earthly Criterion (Not) To Speak of Holy Things 3 / God and the World Creation as Withdrawal The Absent God "Original Sin" The Self-Emptying God Crucifixion as Redemption Supernatural Harmony 4 / Necessity and Obedience Abdication to Necessity Providence Beauty Suffering Necessity: Root of Beauty and Suffering Obedience of Matter: Gravity Obedience of Spirit: Grace Amor Fati 5 / Grace and Decreation Sin Says "I" Grace Decreates the "I" Nothingness: The Humility of God Heaven and Hell Transparence Compassion Action as Incarnation 6 / Conclusion: Weil's Theological Coherence Background Theological Influences Dialectic of Nature and Grace God Beyond Good and Evil Weil's Anonymous Christianity Endnotes Selected Bibliography Index

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