Though Paul Ricoeur is inarguably one of the most prolific and profound philosophers of the 20th century, his influence is also immense within the realms of biblical studies and theology. Ricoeur, however, famously resisted ever being called a “theologian,” despite his ongoing interest in the question of God for his philosophical anthropology. In Ricoeur at the Limits of Philosophy: God, Creation, and Evil, Barnabas Aspray dives deeply into this borderland territory between philosophy and theology. He examines Ricoeur’s earliest writings—primarily Ricoeur’s trilogy Philosophie de la volonté (“Philosophy of the Will,” although the three volumes are translated into English as Freedom and Nature, Fallible Man, and The Symbolism of Evil)—and discerns a thematic thread, what Aspray calls a “keystone,” which then weaves its way throughout all of Ricoeur’s later philosophical work.
In Aspray’s view, this methodological keystone is hope: “As a method, hope means the commitment to searching for truth based on the belief that we can grow in understanding, but that we can never attain the fullness of truth” (43). Aspray argues that Ricoeur’s philosophy of hope emerges out of an anthropology, specifically Ricoeur’s understanding of human finitude as being dialectically related to two infinitudes: God and evil (in theological terms), or transcendence and nothingness (in strictly philosophical terms). Indeed, Ricoeur was a philosopher of mediation, often finding the commonalties and links between two ostensibly divergent thinkers or perspectives while simultaneously transcending them with his own original thinking. Aspray takes up this mediatory posture, with his study often setting up two sides to an argument—reflexive philosophy and existentialism, Gabriel Marcel and Karl Jaspers, Immanuel Kant and Georg Hegel, Martin Heidegger and Karl Barth—then demonstrating how Ricoeur finds a fruitful via media between and beyond the binary.
The first three chapters set up the methodological foundations for Aspray’s understanding of Ricoeur’s philosophy of hope as rooted in epistemology. For Ricoeur, a hopeful view of reality and truth is found in navigating the dilemma between dogmatism and skepticism—we cannot know all things with absolute certainty, but we can know in part, even as we are fully known and will fully know in an eschatological sense. It’s hard to miss the theological undertones here, and Aspray thus turns in chapter 4 to the question of God, making a strong and unique claim in Ricoeurian scholarship: that Ricoeur made an argument for the existence of God in his philosophy (86–87). Through our awareness of our own finitude as human beings, we also become aware of the possibility of infinitude or transcendence—indeed, we can only become aware of our finitude precisely by going beyond it, transcending it (103). However, Aspray contends that this is not a Christian apologetic for God, nor a theological argument. Rather, Ricoeur’s claim, in Aspray’s view, is simply this: “in the heart of the human condition is an openness to transcendence that is acquired by a participation in that same transcendence. Whether that transcendence will turn out also to have personality, or any of the other features commonly associated with the Christian God, is an entirely different question that forms no part of the argument” (114–115).
Having addressed one infinitude (God), Aspray then turns to the other infinitude: evil, or nothingness. In chapters 5 and 6, Aspray makes a strong original claim for how Ricoeur distinguishes between “finitude” and “evil,” suggesting that Ricoeur’s entire philosophical career “can be characterized as the effort to seek the good essence behind the corrupt appearance” (129). These chapters are some of the most robust in what is an already excellent study of Ricoeur’s work, in that Aspray discerns an optimistic (or, better, a hopeful) anthropology rooted in the symbol of creation; that is, Ricoeur contends that our human finitude is not an inherent flaw or a site for evil, but rather a positive good, one that can be seen as good precisely in light of the possibility of a Good Creator.
This leads to the final three chapters, which take up Ricoeur’s understanding of the mysterious unity and original goodness of the poetic symbol of creation. Once again, Aspray (and Ricoeur) walk a fine line between philosophy and theology, as “creation” is not assumed to be the religious doctrine of Judaism and Christianity found in Genesis 1-2, but rather a poetic theological symbol which (Ricoeur famously claims) gives rise to philosophical thought. Aspray summarizes the distinction well: “Theology looks at the symbol, proclaiming the revealed truth that cannot be reduced to pure reason; philosophy looks through the symbol at the world illuminated by it, wagering on the greater understanding gained by the symbol’s lens” (179). As Ricoeur looks through the symbol of creation, he discovers a reality that speaks of the fundamental goodness of all things, including our human finitude. And when we can accept our finitude—what Ricoeur calls “consent”—we are then freed from both the dilemma of guilt and the danger of attempting to usurp the divine.
Ricoeur at the Limits of Philosophy is one of the strongest arguments for Ricoeur’s theological significance in recent history, even as the book nevertheless maintains the philosophy–theology boundary Ricoeur held to so tightly. Aspray summarizes and makes accessible some of Ricoeur’s most important yet underappreciated works, namely Fallible Man and Freedom and Nature, while also drawing upon archival materials from lectures and letters to reveal new insights into Ricoeur’s thought. It is an excellent and erudite book which in itself elicits hope and gives rise to new philosophical and theological thought, a response I think Ricoeur himself would joyfully approve.
Joel Mayward is an assistant professor of Christian Ministries, Theology and the Arts at George Fox University in Newberg, Oregon.
Joel Mayward
Date Of Review:
April 19, 2023