God as Otherwise Than Being: Towards a Semantics of the Gift

Speaking as one of the founders of American Continental philosophy, Calvin O. Schrag offers here a discussion of a complex question: whether and how the
death
of the god conceived as a
highest being
in Western and modern traditions might open a new space within which to rethink God in terms of a
gift
or
giving
that would stand beyond the usual spate of metaphysical categories. Schrag begins by elucidating traditional theistic conceptions of God in terms of Being and explains how those conceptions inevitably give way to atheism. Moving beyond atheism and theism alike, he explores alternative understandings of God in terms of
the gift
by turning first from ontology to ethics, and then from ethics toward an understanding of the gift as beyond any economy of exchange and return. Thus understood, the gift becomes the content and measure o fthe fitting response within the corridors of civil society. Throughout, Schrag draws with grace, ease and precision upon the history of Western metaphysics, from Plato and Aristotle to Nietzsche and Heidegger. Most important to his central question of God as
otherwise than Being , however, are such influential post-Heideggerian thinkers as Jean-Luc Marion, Jacques Derrida and Emmanuel Levinas. Schrag’s inquiry engages these thinkers at a serious level and also expands recent discussions of the god
beyond
or
otherwise than
Being by relating them to the work of figures hitherto overlooked or underplayed, most notably Paul Tillich. Seeking a notion of God compatible with the postmodern perspective, Schrag’s work stands as a helpful guide, providing an insight into an often impenetrable philosophical and theological enigma.