On the Absence and Unknowability of God: Heidegger and the Areopagite

(Paperback)

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This book, one of the earliest by Christos Yannaras, was first published in 1967 and has become a contemporary classic. Yannaras begins by outlining Heidegger's analysis of the fate of western metaphysics, which ends, he argues, in a nihilistic atheism. Yannaras's response is largely to accept Heidegger's analysis, but to argue that, although it applies to the western tradition of what Heidegger calls "onto theology" (which regards God as a 'being', even if the highest), it does not take account of the Orthodox tradition of apophatic theology, of which Dionysius the Areopagite is a pre-eminent example. A God 'beyond being' escapes the criticism of Heidegger, and provides an alternative to Heidegger's nihilistic conclusion.

Author Bio

Professor Andrew Louth is Professor of Patristics in the University of Durham. He was formerly Dean and Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford, UK. Among his many books are Maximus the Confessor (Routledge) and Dionysius the Arepoagite (Continuum) Christos Yannaras is Professor of Philosophy at the Pantion University, Athens, Greece. Haralambos Ventis received his PhD in Philosophy from the Catholic University of Leuven