On Religion (Second Edition) - John Caputo

Published in 2019 by Routledge, New York, NY

230 pages

ISBN: 978-1-138-71486-1 (pbk)

Suffice it to say, religion does not have a stellar reputation in the Western world, especially in the realm of academia. Along with exes and politics, it’s one of the few things to never bring up on a first date (a fate in which, as a scholar of religion, I can never seem to elude). In a world beset with violent acts of all stripes, we often see religion - along with politics and soured relationships - as a primary source of much strife and violence in our world today. While there are still undoubtedly more religious than non-religious people in America (with 70.6 % identifying as Christian and nearly 6% of other faiths), those who identify as non-religious have sharply increased in the past decade (23%), echoing trends that have been occurring in Europe for the past century. Coupling this with a mass exodus from Christian evangelicalism among Millenials and Zoomers (Gen Z) after the 2016 election, many people are left wondering: is there a future left for religion? 

In his updated second-edition of his classic work On Religion, Villanova University professor of religion and philosophy John Caputo lays out the framework for his postmodern, post-secular “religion without religion.” Tackling topics such as religious violence, secularization, cosmological discoveries, and the advent of the post-human and Singularity, Caputo constructs a “weak theology” that combines mystic insights with postmodern critique. Borrowing insights from Tillich, Kierkegaard, and Derrida, Caputo offers a radical Christian theology and practice that addresses our postmodern world, blurring the lines between theism and atheism.

Overview: 

First of all, this second edition of On Religion serves as a significant reworking of the first edition (originally released in 2001). In this new edition, Caputo removed two chapters from the original, replacing them with four entirely new ones, and lightly edited the remaining three chapters. In doing so, Caputo hopes to address the issue of religious violence in the wake of 9/11, as well as new developments in technology and cosmology that brings forth issues in transhumanism and Singularity. 

Throughout this extended essay, Caputo is attempting to answer one singular question, originally posed by St. Augustine: “What do I love when I love my God?” For Caputo, religion is the love of God; yet, the precise meaning of this question haunts us, keeps us restless, and disturbs our everyday existence. Borrowing heavily from Paul Tillich and Jaques Derrida, Caputo makes his case for his weak theology, or cosmotheology, that addresses the conditions of life and the uncertainty of faith. Following Derrida’s model of deconstruction, this radical theology is not necessarily an external alternative to confessional traditions, but is rather parasitic to it, an internal disruption that disturbs traditional religion by reminding it of the dark, mystical core of Being. In this sense, radical theology haunts confessional faiths, always calling for a conditional response to the unconditional Ground of Being.

This Tillichian approach dissolves the barrier between religious and secular, as Caputo promotes his saline theory of life: those who are full of passion give life its salt and are thereby truly religious, while those not worth their salt, who are passionless and turgid, are devoid of religion. Caputo contrasts his view of religion with the fundamentalists, who, rooted in an unshakable certainty, believe that they have knowledge of God and thereby have the authority to speak on God’s behalf. By contrast, Caputo’s weak theology is held in a constant state of undecidability, or tension, since we can never truly know if God is ever real for certain. For Caputo, this is not too much of a problem, since the main question of theology shouldn’t be what we believe, but rather how we believe. By removing certainty from the equation, Caputo believes that this constant tension provides the real passion or saltiness, that faith requires: believing something even without knowing if it's real. The ability to love without a reason why. Doing good without the certainty of receiving a reward. These are the marks of real religion for Caputo. 

Caputo’s negative theology is marked by what he calls “the unconditional.” The unconditional is the realm of the impossible, beyond the human, and its insistence in life elicits our conditional responses to it. For Caputo, we can easily mistake these conditional signs (liturgy, ritual, theologies, doctrines, etc) for the unconditional, believing them to be Real, which Caputo likens to a person clinging to a raft while missing the entire ocean on which it rests. Caputo relies on the notion of “theopoetics” to both give language to and also limit the access to the unconditional. Religious traditions, Caputo argues, allow us to give language to the unconditional in creative and constructive ways. Yet, these traditions turn dogmatic and violent when adherents start to believe that these metaphorical, figurative doctrines and rituals are made literal and beyond critique. 

For Caputo, the unconditional is what insists on and in the name of religion. This call to the unconditional is marked by undecidability, which Caputo argues is “the reason faith is faith and not Knowledge and the way faith can be true without Knowledge” (193). This “not-knowing” drives the most intense forms of passion and is guided by a faith we never fully understand or see coming, yet which also gives life its flavor and salt. This undecidability helps keep faith from closure, and by putting faith at risk through uncertainty, also keeps it safe from the risk of violence. Faith for Caputo doesn’t require an answer, but rather a response. The name of God is an eternally open-ended question and is the name of the passion of life. God is a how, not a what, which is served in spirit and truth, not in propositions (200). The meaning of God is not debated but enacted through a radical openness toward the future, driven by multiple movements of love, which pushes us to the limits of the possible. 

Commendations: 

Caputo, like in most of his other works, is deeply poetic in his writing. He writes with a passion and energy, always wearing his heart on his sleeve, which is rather rare to find within most philosophical treatises. Caputo’s writing is stylistic, imaginative, and even beautiful in places, exuding pathos on every page and stirring the reader out of their comfort zone and into uncharted waters. There are plenty of tongue-in-cheek moments that keep the reader on their toes and help add a dash of levity to an otherwise philosophically-driven work. It’s a relatively short and entertaining read, and while it can be rather dense in places, it is still a great introduction to Caputo’s particular brand of radical theology, especially if you’ve never read him before. He also provides plenty of footnotes and references to his own and other works throughout the text if you want to dive deeper into the topics he introduces here. 

Caputo also deftly integrates postmodern philosophy with traditional theology to make a compelling argument for a type of weak theology that integrates insights from both Christian and atheistic perspectives (into what Caputo calls a “nihilism of grace”). Caputo is well versed in the fundamentals of postmodern theory, and beautifully articulates and integrates these insights into a theological paradigm that refuses to be pinned down by rigid definitions. As hinted in the dedication to the book, Caputo is heavily influenced by Jacques Derrida, and Caputo takes Derrida’s deconstruction to task in the service of theology, constantly playing with words, revealing the slippages within language, and always hinting at the ghosts that continually haunt us within philosophy and theology. Caputo is not simply employing “deconstruction” as it’s commonly understood today (as in taking something apart for analysis), but rather it’s more formal intent, which is the analysis of the metaphysics of presence. 

Caputo navigates a space that seeks to overcome the limitations of modernism, not through a nostalgic return to a form of conservative pre-modernism, but through a post-liberal perspective that retains the echoes of traditional religion and the life that it provides, and which has also worked through the postmodern critique. Such a position elevates epistemological humility (we are limited in our ability to Know), the enthusiastic affirmation of life and reality, and the call to act in the world with love, not counting on an eternal guarantee of reward, but for the sake of love (or God) itself. Dodging the propositions of the systematic theologians, Caputo’s weak theology calls us to love “without why,” turning our gaze from the heavens back down to earth. Here, among the poor, the orphan, the widow, the neighbor, the Other, we see the face of God, calling us to act in service and love. Such acts of love are a testimony to the love of God, as the unconditional insists and demands us to act. It is certainly an emotive, evocative invocation, inviting and provoking us out of complacency and throwing headfirst into the concerns of this world. 

Such a theological proposition is undoubtedly appealing to those who are disaffected by traditional religion, or who are deconstructing in their faith. Caputo’s weak theology turns many of our commonly held assumptions regarding religion and God on their heads, revealing how they’ve been shaped and shrunk to fit Enlightenment rationalism while calling us to imagine a radical theology that addresses the concerns of our postmodern world. While it covers a wide array of topics, it still has a philosophical depth and sense of playfulness that is unique and rare to find among philosophers of religion. It’s a relatively accessible essay that distills the essentials of Continental philosophy and applies them to theology to construct a fascinating form of radical theology. 

Critique: 

On the other hand, while this is a great introduction to Caputo’s thought, there’s not much new here if you’ve read almost any other work by him. This essay is more of a primer to his larger work, so if you’ve read The Insistence of God, Hoping Against Hope, Christ and Cosmos, The Weakness of God, or What Would Jesus Deconstruct, then there’s not much new material here for you to sink your teeth into. Here, while he does provide a zoomed-out overview of the philosophy of religion, it is a bit oversimplified. While it’s perfectly fine for an introductory text, Caputo glosses over several key concepts and thinkers, regulating their thought into neat categories that are not always the most helpful in painting an entirely accurate picture of religion and philosophy. Some of Caputo’s newer additions to this volume, especially the role of Singularity and the post-human, are also a bit underdeveloped. It seems like he occasionally bites off more than he can chew, and while I am interested in hearing more of his thoughts on these topics, the few short pages on them were a bit underwhelming.

Furthermore, in terms of Caputo’s stylistic choices and conversational tone, the cheeky tongue-in-cheek moments and snide jokes can be hit or miss, sometimes making me smile and other times making me roll my eyes. I’ve found that this is a running theme in much of Caputo’s other works as well, as he tends to enjoy lightly mocking the stuffy religious types and the overly-rational atheists in equal measure. While some of it is certainly deserved, he tends to harp on the same lines over and over again and constantly interjects little jokes and asides in parentheses throughout the text (aka. “this would raise the eyebrow of a bishop or two” ). Aside from being a bit too flippant at points, Caputo seems to get a strange sense of enjoyment from his position as a provocateur, which, while humorous at times, can tire out and become quickly monotonous (We get it! You’re not exactly orthodox! No one asked, but okay. (see, I can do it too.)) However, I admit that this is purely an aesthetic critique, which is a matter of personal preference and taste. In short, if you’re a fan of Caputo’s writing style, then you’ll likewise love this book. If you’re a bit more ambivalent toward it, as I am, then this book won’t change your mind. 

Due to Caputo’s heavy reliance on Derrida, the critiques that one can make against Caputo are essentially the same ones that have been levied against Derrida for over half a century. Essentially, many critiques of Derrida (often coming from analytic philosophers) insist that his project of deconstruction encourages sloppiness, lacks analytical and logical rigor, and is too obscure and obtuse to be of any real use. And, to a degree, I understand where this critique is coming from. Whenever I read Derrida, I am equally delighted and driven mad by the language games that he plays, eluding direct definitions and clear terms to push language to its limits, revealing the gaps inherent within it. In the same vein, when reading Caputo, the logical side of my brain is just begging for a substantive argument, an anchor in which to steady myself in the turbulent, oceanic wordplay that Caputo employs. But this is part of the post-foundationalist project of Derrida/Caputo, as they work to reveal the deconstructability and metaphorical nature of language. So on one hand, knowing the Derridian context from which Caputo is operating, I appreciate and understand where he’s coming from. 

However, I also have to ask whether this book is ultimately preaching to the choir. For those who are already in the process of deconstructing their faith, this is a great resource. For those who are sold on postmodern philosophy and want to apply it to theology, this extended essay will be a book to read over and over again. But for theological conservatives, or those wholly unfamiliar with postmodernism, they will most likely find it a frustratingly unsystematic work, eschewing hardline definitions and rigid argumentation in favor of indeterminate meanings and poetic, emotive rhetoric. Some conservatives would charge the book as being too simplistic and emotionally laden, rather than logical and rationally driven. They might argue that Caputo essentially waters down the concept of religion to the point of becoming a useless term, which others like “passion,” “love,” or “justice” would just as well suffice in its place.

Like I mentioned before, I see where this critique is coming from. There were, at times, instances in which Caputo’s glossing of terms and playful, poetic prose seemed to obscure any sort of meaningful, solid definition. Again, this strategy is undoubtedly part of Caputo’s point, as he follows Derrida in bringing language to its limits. Yet, for those looking for solid ground, they will likely become frustrated with Caputo’s verbal gymnastics. While Caputo would probably dismiss them as being “overly-rational” and “lacking in salt,” it’s not exactly a compelling way to convince those who might already be skeptical of radical theology. Furthermore, with such a thorough redefinition of words, it's difficult to see how such a construct helps to build bridges of understanding and communication between those of us “in-the-know” of radical theology (admittedly a small minority, to be sure) and those outside of it. 

Finally, if Caputo’s weak theology is wholly decentralized and parasitic to confessional theology, then one must wonder what the actual ecclesiastical/political implications of such a movement could achieve. Caputo insists that the radical theologian essentially lives between two worlds in a constant space of unresolved tension. This is something that I can deeply identify with. Oftentimes, I feel like I occupy two different worlds of (un)belief. On Sunday mornings, I know that my ideas of the Divine and the central message of Christianity is, in all likelihood, very different from those who are singing alongside me. Yet, in interfaith and humanist settings, I still have to navigate through a more secular setting, even though I do hold religious convictions. I don’t feel 100% at home in either, and while this was a mark of much of Derrida’s writing and identity, this indeterminacy of belief/nonbelief isn’t exactly the most satisfying place to live. It’s always great to find other people within each of these environments that hold similar ideas or think about our beliefs in interesting ways, but it's difficult to navigate this indeterminacy in a practical setting, which speaks to social, organizational, and ecclesiastical issues more than philosophical wonderings/wanderings. While these thought exercises are great fun, I am left wondering what the political/material/organizational implications for such a radical theology might be beyond just ruffling the feathers of a few stiff-necked bishops (as Caputo would likely phrase it). This would be an immensely fruitful line of inquiry, and one that I believe Jeffrey Robbins addresses in his book, Radical Theology, which I am excited to read in the near future.

Conclusion:

Overall, Caputo’s second edition of On Religion serves as a wonderful entry point into his larger corpus of thought. While a bit dense in a few places, Caputo’s writing is so unique and poetic that it’s difficult not to be taken in and charmed by his imagery and snarkiness. For some, this excessive playfulness with words (both in his elusive definitions and the jokes he tells) might be a turn-off, especially if you’re looking for a rigidly structured, systematically argued work. But if you are interested in acquiring a basic overview of Caputo’s unique branch of radical theology, I can think of no better starting point (aside from perhaps Hoping Against Hope, which is a bit more autobiographical). Despite its tendency to only be discussed in the hallways of the academy, or hushed tones outside of the walls of the church, weak theology still has a real potential to disrupt and evoke substantial change in the current religious/political landscape, and I’m hopeful (as a radical theologian) that these ideas can be used in constructive ways to address the contemporary issues we are currently facing.