Event overview
Lecture 4: A Fearless Look at the Unspeakable
For generations, and with increasing intensity, the question has been debated whether it is rational to believe in God. Based upon a two-volume work, this paper will seek to overturn the debate by challenging the standard of rationality that has created problems for faith and proposing to describe faith as the ‘rationale for rationality’ thus affirming it, ultimately, as intrinsically rational.
Lydia Schumacher is Senior Lecturer in Medieval Philosophy and Theology at King’s College, London. She works across the fields of philosophical theology and medieval studies. Her books include Rationality as Virtue (2015), and Divine Illumination (2011).
The event is free and no booking is required. All are welcome!
Series conveners Jean-Paul Martinon & Jorella Andrews
A Fearless Look at the Unspeakable
During this five-week programme of talks, we will dare to address what is often considered either obsolete and therefore unworthy of philosophical and art-theoretical debate or, more radically, as anathema and therefore vigorously to be opposed: 'faith', not in the sense of a belief in the doctrines of a religion, but as an effort to persevere in the face of what cannot readily be verbalised. The aim for this series of talks is not to resuscitate and/or revisit old theological turns in western thought or return to a transcendental narrative against the prevailing materialist and immanentist status quo of today, but to hazard a look at how we interact with what stubbornly presents itself as already beyond words and is therefore consistently dismissed as unreal, fictitious, hypothetical, irrational, dangerous, or false. The argument for this series is that contemporary forms of incredulity with respect to faith are historically, culturally, and ideologically embedded within modern logocentric paradigms. We argue instead for the urgency of entering a broader field of awareness and endeavour in which 'faith' is understood as part of a number of perceptual, corporeal, and ritualistic ways of engaging with what knows no proper rationalization.
Dates & times
Date | Time | Add to calendar |
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1 Feb 2018 | 5:00pm - 7:00pm |
Accessibility
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