Overview

In this book Jaco Gericke is concerned with different ways of approaching the question of what, according to the Hebrew Bible, a god was assumed to be. As a supplement to the tradition of predominantly linguistic, historical, literary, comparative, social-scientific and related ways of looking at the research problem, Gericke offers a variety of experimental philosophical perspectives that aim to take a step back from the scholarly discussion as it has unfolded hitherto in order to provide a new type of worry when looking at the riddle of what the biblical texts assumed made a god divine. Consisting of a brief history of philosophical interpretations of the concepts of whatness and essence from Socrates to Derrida, the relevant ideas are adapted and reapplied to look at some interesting metaphysical oddities arising from generic uses of elohim/el/eloah as common noun in the Hebrew Bible. As such the study seeks to be a prolegomenon to all future research in that, instead of answering the question regarding a supposed nature of divinity, it aims to complicate it beyond expectation. In this way a case is made for a more nuanced and indeterminate manner of constructing the problem of what it meant to call something a god.

Full Product Details

Author:   Dr Jaco Gericke (North Western University, South Africa)
Publisher:   Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Imprint:   T.& T.Clark Ltd
Weight:   0.272kg
ISBN:  

9780567683595

ISBN 10:   0567683591
Pages:   176
Publication Date:   26 July 2018
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
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Table of Contents

Foreword Acknowledgements Abbreviations 1. Introduction: What is a God? 2. Whatness and a Socratic Definition of God-ness via Common Properties 3. Whatness and a Platonist Perspective on God-ness as Form/Universal 4. Whatness and Aristotelian Essentialism about a God as Secondary Substance 5. Whatness and a Porphyrian Tree of God as Species/Genus 6. Whatness and a Boethian Distinction between Essence/Existence in a God 7. Whatness and an Avicennian View on the Quiddity of a God 8. Whatness and Abelardian Nominalism about the Status of a God 9. Whatness and a Thomistic Perspective on the Complexity of a God 10. Whatness and a Scotian Interpretation of a God's Haecceity 11. Whatness and a Cartesian Notion of a God's Principle Attribute 12. Whatness and Lockean Anti-Essentialism about God as Sortal 13. Whatness and Leibnizian Superessentialism about Necessity in a God 14. Whatness and a Kantian Concept of a God as Thing-in-Itself 15. Whatness and a Hegelian View of the Essence of a God in Appearances 16. Whatness and a Nietzschean Interpretation of a God as Will-to-Power 17. Whatness and Wittgensteinian Family Resemblances among the God 18. Whatness and a Husserlian Reduction of a God's Essence as Intentional Object 19. Whatness and a Heideggerian View of what is Ownmost in a God Identity over Time 20. Whatness and a Sartrean Idea of Existence preceding Essence in a God 21. Whatness and a Quinean Denial of Necessary and Sufficient Conditions for Being a God 22. Whatness and the Popperian Essentialist Fallacy in Defining a God 23. Whatness and Kripkean Modal Neo-Essentialism about God as Rigid Designator 24. Whatness and Derridian Differential Ontology for a God beyond Anti-/Essentialism 25. Summary and Conclusions Bibliography Index of Biblical References Index of Classical Sources Index of Subjects Index of Authors

Reviews

Gericke's survey is masterly ... [his] handling of a wide range of difficult material is to be commended, as is his integration of it in relation to a single theme. * Reviews in Religion & Theology *

Gericke's survey is masterly ... [his] handling of a wide range of difficult material is to be commended, as is his integration of it in relation to a single theme. * Reviews in Religion & Theology * The book, which is as unusual as it is ingenious, opens up the way for Old Testament writers to develop a precise language in view of the Old Testament understanding of God. * Zeitschrift fur die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft (Bloomsbury Translation) *

Author Information

Jaco Gericke is Associate Research Professor of Theology and Philosophy at North-West University, South Africa.

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