I said I'd say something about Jack Caputo's second talk that happened the week before last,

a seminar with the philosophy faculty and majors. The talk basically presented much of the content of " hilosophy and rophetic ostmodernism! Toward a Catholic ostmodernity" an article Caputo had in the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly "#utumn $%%%&, which was, in turn, a transcription of a lecture he had gi'en to a consortium of Catholic colleges in (urope. In large part it was a historical o'er'iew of the nature and practice of philosophy among Catholic institutions in the )nited *tates o'er the past century or so, arguing that Catholic departments ha'e something to continue learn from Continental philosophy "and postmodernism in particular&, that they should not abandon Continental philosophy for the aridity of the #nglo+#merican analytic tradition, and that these are important considerations if Catholic intellectuals want to retain a prophetic 'oice in our culture. ,irst, let's go back a century or so. In the wake of ope -eo .III's encylcical "#eterni atris" and in the midst of contro'ersies with /ar0ism and /odernism, #merican Catholic institutions had circled the wagons and plunged themsel'es headlong into hard+core "neo+&Thomistic philosophy, rejecting thereby what were "rightly& seen as the deep errors of the (nlightenment. 1ere at -a *alle, for e0ample, well into the late 234%s all students, whate'er their major, were re5uired to take 26 credits of Thomistic philosophy and barely cracked open someone so wrong+headed as 7escartes. 8n the continent, howe'er, things had begun to open up "this is me talking now, not so much Caputo&. hilosophers like Joseph 9leutgen, /aurice :londel, and (rich r;ywara had simultaneously returned to a more authentic study of the church ,athers and medie'als along with engagement with Continental trends, particularly emerging from 1egel, <erman idealism, and e0istential+phenomenology. Theologically these trends came be de'eloped in 'arious directions by the nouvelle theologie "e.g., de -ubac, 'on :althasar& on one hand and by transcendental Thomists "e.g., /arechel, =ahner, -onergan& on the other "for more on this di'ide, see my essay "=ahner and de -ubac on >ature and <race"? this way of di'iding things, of course, neglects the contributions of the "-ublin Thomism" of the oles, which has, I think, a closer affinity with that of the nouvelle theologie&. @hat Caputo suggested is that the study of Thomistic philosophy, in some respects, especially prepared Catholic philosophy in the )nited *tates for appropriating the philosophy of the e0istential+ phenomelogists "e.g., 1usserl, 1eidegger, /erleau+ onty, /arcel& in ser'ice to Catholic philosophy. In part this was the result of growing scholarship regarding *t. Thomas #5uinas himself, freeing him from the 'arious nominalistic accretions that date back at least to *aure; and were perpetuated by the 23th manuals. Thus scholars like <ilson "and later Chenu& did much to o'ercome the essentially ahistorical neo+Thomism of the 23th century, situating #5uinas in his 2Ath century historical conte0t, treating his work as an organic whole, and e0ploring the deep influence of Christian neo+platonism "#ugustine, seudo+7ionysius& on his thought. The #5uinas that emerges from this historical reconstruction is one that is significantly closer to phenomenology, who sees the "essence" of a thing in terms of dynamism towards particular ends, who is interested in the whole range of li'ed human e0perience, and who defines the human person in terms of an essential openness and orientation towards <od. >ot only are these themes deeply resonant with those of e0istential+phenomenology, that philosophical mo'ement itself share many of Catholicism's suspicions with regard to the (nlightenment project and the Cartesian paradigm. Thus it should be no surprise that some of the earliest #merican translations and discussions of 1eidegger, 1usserl, and so on, emerged from Catholic institutions of higher learning "e.g. James Collins of *t. -ouis )ni'ersity or @illiam =ichardson of ,ordham )ni'ersity and later :oston College&. @hat worries Caputo is the turn that Catholic philosophy and institutions of higher learning ha'e taken since the 23B%'s. In particular, he is distressed by the dismissal of postmodernist philosophers such as ,oucault and 7errida and an increasing turn towards #nglo+#merican analytic philosophy as somehow more consistent with the rigors of scholastic methodology. Caputo argues that there are two tendencies at work within postmodernism! a more >iet;schean or 7ionysian theori;ation of differance as 'iolence and a more -e'inasian theori;ation of differance as alterity. @hile the former may pose problems for Catholic philosophy, the latter, he suggests, is an indispensible tool, rooted within the biblical narrati'e, and pro'iding for a prophetic stance towards the world "see, for instance, in the work of Jean+-uc /arion&. ('en if 7errida's early work may ha'e celebrated a more 7ionysian play upon difference, in the past 24 years "and indeed, running all the way back to his early essay "Ciolence and /etaphysics"&, he has emphasi;ed the latter notion. Indeed, some of 7errida's more recent work is e0plicitly religious in tone "e.g., Circumfessions&. Caputo's talk ended with an analysis of the phenomenology of "the impossible"++the absolute future, the unforeseeable that shatters our hori;on of e0pectation. @hile modernism was often preoccupied with the

conditions and limits of possibility, what is definiti'ely gi'en and made present, the postmodern is interested in the e0cess of gi'enness beyond e'ery possible attempt to contain it, perhaps beyond the possibility of e'er being gi'en as "present" in a final way. The impossible, concei'ed in this phenomenological manner, is, for Caputo, the condition for the possibility of prayer, for the fiat of the :lessed Cirgin who gi'es herself o'er to the <od of the impossible. The impossible is the sphere of the three theological 'irtues! faith, hope, and lo'e, where faith belie'es what is incredible, where hope "hopes against hope" "=om D!26&, and lo'e embraces the utterly unlo'able. ,rom this standpoint, 7errida's "deconstruction of presence" can be seen as continuous with the biblical polemic against idols, in fa'or of a <od who surpasses all we would think to ask for or to imagine. It criti5ues merely human 'irtue as constrained by the possible and self+possessed, in fa'or of faith, hope, and lo'e in which we are possessed by that which is greater than oursel'es. In these ways, then, postmodernism can be a deeply #ugustinian retrie'al of the distincti'ely Christian and Catholic, filling out Catholic philosophy's earlier Thomistic appropriation of e0istential+ phenomenology. #nd in this Catholic philosophy can also once again become a prophetic 'oice.

-ast week John Caputo "of Cillano'a& came to -a *alle )ni'ersity to speak again, rounding out our semester series on ostmodernism and ,aith. 1e ga'e two talks, one a general lecture aimed at the undergraduates and one a small seminar aimed at the philosophy faculty and majors. The general lecture was called "Cyber *pirits" and co'ered material that can also be found in his recent book On Religion. 1e began by re'iewing some of the dualisms that emerged out of the (nlightenment and their general effects, particularly with regard to issues of faith in relation to science, society, politics, an so on. :y now, the story is a familiar one++the modernist stance towards knowledge is characteri;ed by a detached and disengaged reason that throws off the shackles of superstition and tradition in the name of a new science, unfolding into dualism, instrumentalism, and social atomism. This situation is one that is, in many respects, singularly hostile to faith! faith 's. reason, sacred 's. secular, religion 's. science, church 's. state, and so on. @ith the postmodern criti5ue of the (nlightenment, howe'er, they all dualisms ha'e been unmasked as binary oppositions founded, not upon the neutral, objecti'e demands of knowledge, but upon the far more unstable sands of politics, power, and arbitrary pri'ilege. Thus postmodernism points beyond to a future in which such dualism no longer thri'e. #t this point Caputo asked us to consider the world en'isioned by the *tar @ars films++a set of highly technological and scientific cultures set on the stage of inter+galactic politics. #nd yet, it is also a world suffused with the demands of faith! the e'erpresent ,orce, religious hierarchies, societies of Jedi knights, and so on, all seamlessly intertwined with science, politics, and intellect. Caputo's point was not to recommend the religion of *tar @ars per se, which by all accounts is rather more (astern in fla'or than it is Christian. =ather, he finds the 'ision projected by *tar @ars to hold out a tantali;ing possibility for people of faith! that the world that lies beyond the modern, though fraught with its own dangers and snares, may be one that is, nonetheless, more friendly towards, and indeed more cogni;ant of its need for religion and people and faith.