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Author: Chris Watkin
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The academic life and paying taxes to Caesar
In this post I want to think about how academic study fits in with the rest of our lives. I will suggest two defective models, and propose a more adequate model. There is a very powerful contrast in the film Chariots of Fire that brings out the dangers of an defective model of any vocation, and
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Temptations of the academic life (4): cynicism
A few years ago I had the privilege of spending a week with a group of Christian painters and sculptors. God showed me something important through being with them. He showed me just how cynical I have become. There was a lot of talk among these artists about joy in creation, about creativity, and about an
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What is a theological concept? Part 5: Quentin Meillassoux, reason, and hyperchaos
This is the final post summarizing some conclusions from Difficult Atheism, before this series launches out into some new territory. In previous posts I have introduced the series, discussed a schema for distinguishing between different atheisms, sketched Alain Badiou’s interruption of the mytheme by the matheme and Jean-Luc Nancy’s “Christmas Projection”, and reflected upon Nancy’s own
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Temptations of the academic life (3): Idolatry of work
One of the main challenges we face in the academic life is not to make an idol out of our work or status. I gain great satisfaction from my work and enjoy it intensely, but I know that the moment it becomes the place where I run for my consolation or for affirmation, instead of being able
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How can I justify spending so much of my life on academic research with all the problems in the world?
I work in an obscure corner of some unfashionable discipline. My ideas will never change the world. How can I justify spending so much of my life on academic research? How does it serve the kingdom of God? These questions read like a typical diary entry from my time as a doctoral candidate. I still struggle
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What is a theological concept? Part 4: Jean-Luc Nancy’s “something in Christianity deeper than Christianity”
In the previous post I explored Nancy’s reading of Badiou’s interruption of the mytheme by the matheme as a theological moment in Badiou’s thought. But what about Nancy himself? Does his own atheism—for atheist he indeed professes to be, providing that atheism is understood in a way that avoids the Christmas projection—avoid theological concepts? In
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What is a theological concept? Part 3: Alain Badiou’s interruption of the mytheme by the matheme and Jean-Luc Nancy’s “Christmas Projection”
In this third post in the “what is a theological concept?” series I focus for the first time on a specific philosophical moment: Alain Badiou’s account of the interruption of the mytheme by the matheme. I am particularly interested in Jean-Luc Nancy’s reading of this Badiouian move, for Nancy sees in the interruption of the
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What is a theological concept? Part 2: A schema for distinguishing between different atheisms
In Difficult Atheism I offered a schema for understanding varieties of contemporary atheism. In this post I want briefly to summarise that schema (adding some diagrams not included in Difficult Atheism), before going on to develop it further in the future. If you want to explore these ideas in greater length, please refer to the
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Let’s read Pascal’s Pensées
Today I’m going to start re-reading one of the books in my personal intensive treasure trove, Pensées by Blaise Pascal. I remember the time I first read it, fourteen years ago now, after picking it up almost by accident in a second hand bookshop. That first reading was on holiday (misty forests and long walks
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Art, sense and concept
“we comprehend the world aesthetically, in ways that cannot be derived from other forms of knowledge and artifice.” (Paul Crowther, “Art’s making: why aesthetics matters to art history,” unpublished manuscript) it is the integral fusion of the sensuous and the conceptual which enables art to express something of the depth and richness of body-hold in
