The Folly of God
A Theology of the Unconditional
God and Human Future series, vol. 1
John D. Caputo
Inspired by Paul Tillich’s suggestion that atheism is not the end of theology but is instead the beginning, and working this together with Derrida’s idea of the undeconstructible, Caputo explores the idea that the real interest of theology is not God, especially not God as supreme being, but the unconditional. The Folly of God continues the radical reading of Paul’s explosive language in 1 Corinthians 1 about the stand God makes with the nothings and nobodies of the world, first introduced in The Weakness of God (2006) and The Insistence of God (2013):
At a time when Jews expect a miracle and Greeks seek enlightenment, we speak about God’s Anointed crucified! This is an offense to Jews, nonsense to the nations; but to those who have heard God’s call, both Jews and Greeks, the Anointed represents God’s power and God’s wisdom; because the folly of God is wiser than humans are and the weakness of God is stronger than humans are. (1 Cor 1:22–25)
The Folly of God is the first volume of the new God and the Human Future series, edited by David Galston. This series tests the very limits of “God questions”—the meaning of God, the existence of God, the future of God. Books in this series take seriously that such questions are mediated always through human language and scientific thought. In this sense, even God is historical. What, then, is the value of religion? Does God have a future? If so, in what changed or altered way?
Contents
Introduction: The Interests of Theology
1. God Is Not a Supreme Being
2. The Unconditional
3. Proto-Religion
4. How Long Will Religion Last?
5. In Praise of Weakness
6. Weakening the Being of the Supreme Being
7. A Theology of Perhaps
8. The Folly of the Call
9. Mustard Seeds Not Metaphysics: The Theopoetics of the Kingdom of God
10. Does the Kingdom of God Need God?
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Learn more about the author John D. Caputo.
“We were taught to believe in God, but Caputo shows that the more important question is how we think about God.”
—Bernard Brandon Scott, Phillips Theological Seminary
“This volume represents the most accessible and arresting account yet of John Caputo’s radical theology. His brilliant questioning challenges the reader to rethink religion after the death of the God. What survives after the deconstruction of the Supreme Being of Metaphysics? What remains of the bold folly of faith, indeed of the bold folly of God? What can we still say yes to, unconditionally, madly, with our whole heart and our whole soul? This book is a mind-changer.”
—Richard Kearney, Boston College
“Caputo is our most prominent contemporary philosophical theologian, and in this book he crosses Paul Tillich with Jacques Derrida. The Folly of God offers a vision of God as weak force that calls us from the depths of our existence as opposed to a sovereign power that commands us from on high. Here God, as the name of what happens when we listen to the unconditional demand for justice, is an event that transforms us.”
—Clayton Crockett, University of Central Arkansas
“If the traditional notion of God stops being a solution or salvation and instead becomes a problem “more trouble than it’s worth,” what then? If you face traditional atheism with the same incredulity as traditional theism, what then? Is there a space for God’s “may-being” (or insistence) in between being (existence) and non-being (non-existence)? It’s not easy to find a guide who knows the rough terrain of these questions, but Jack Caputo occupies this zone and will take you with him if you have the curiosity and courage to accept the invitation.”
—Brian D. McLaren, author of We Make the Road by Walking
“Caputo reorients contemporary theology in order to challenge its assumptions and transform its fundamentals through that most basic of Christian symbols: the cross. The Folly of God is as playful as it is serious, as foolish as it is wise, as theological as it is atheological. Working paradoxically and biblically, Caputo asks how far into the theology of the cross we are willing to go, and what certainties we are willing to give up along the way.”
—Amy Frykolm, editor at The Christian Century and author of See Me Naked: Stories of Sexual Exile in American Christianity
