Unfinished God: The Speculative Philosophical Theology of Ray L. Hart (New Perspectives in Ontology)

Ray L. Hart is one of the most radical and creative theologians active in contemporary speculative philosophical theology. Breaking on the scene with his immensely influential Unfinished Man in 1968, he published his magnum opus, God Being Nothing , in 2015. This volume advances critical consideration of Hart’s theological thought. The nature of time, the meaning of personhood, the being of God, and the role of the imagination in Hart’s work are discussed with clarity and erudition. Hart’s deep rootedness in modern speculative theology, from Boehme to Schelling, comes to the fore. The wide scope and profound depth of Hart’s thought have never been more evident. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Contents Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations Foreword: Ex Nihilo Aliquid Fit Preface: On God Being Nothing Introduction: Saving God Being Nothing or the Labour of Becoming Part I: From Fundamental Ontology to Meontotheogony 1 A Meontological Speculative Theology: God Being Nothing 2 The Creation of God Being Nothing 3 Nihilne Plus? God Being Nothing More 4 The Ontological Foundations of Hart’s Meontology 5 Beyond Transcendence and Immanence: The Hermeneutical Spiral Part II: Hart’s Thought in Context 6 Ray L. Hart and the Böhmian Tradition 7 Meontotheology and the Idolatry of Being: Hart and Schelling 8 The Wheels of Ezekiel: From Unfinished Man to Unfinished God 9 Nihil without Nihilism: A Linguistic Model of Theogony 10 Questions for Ray Lee Hart Part III: Themes and Method 11 Hermeneutics, Imagination and the Temporality of the Helical Spiral: Reflections on Hart’s Phenomenological Theology 12 Between Two Nots: Human and Divine Turba 13 Night Watches and the Work of Days: Learning Experiments and the American Existential 14 The Arousal of Freedom or Danse libre with the Nihil 15 Seeing From the Centrum: Theogony as Empirical Theology 16 The Trinitarian Source of Freedom in the Thinking of Ray L. Hart and David G. Leahy 17 Not Speaking God, Speaking Nothing 18 On Hart on Afterthinking Afterwords to Afterthinking God Being Nothing: Toward a Speculative Metaphysics of Ultimates The Poiesis of Place: Notes for a Biography of Ray L. Hart Ray L. Hart Chronology Notes on Contributors Index