Thinking Faith after Christianity

Martin Koci is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for Philosophy at the University of Vienna, Austria.

Winner of the 2020 Emerging Scholar's Theological Book Prize presented by the European Society for Catholic TheologyThis book examines the work of Czech philosopher Jan Patöka from the largely neglected perspective of religion. Patöka is known primarily for his work in phenomenology and ancient Greek philosophy, and also as a civil rights activist and critic of modernity. In this book, Martin Koci shows Patöka also maintained a persistent and increasing interest in Christianity. Thinking Faith after Christianity examines the theological motifs in Patöka's work and brings his thought into discussion with recent developments in phenomenology, making a case for Patöka as a forerunner to what has become known as the theological turn in continental philosophy. Koci systematically examines his thoughts on the relationship between theology and philosophy, and his perennial struggle with the idea of crisis. For Patöka, modernity, metaphysics, and Christianity were all in different kinds of crises, and Koci demonstrates how his work responded to those crises creatively, providing new insights on theology understood as the task of thinking and living transcendence in a problematic world. It perceives the un-thought element of Christianity-what Patöka identified as its greatest resource and potential-not as a weakness, but as a credible way to ponder Christian faith and the Christian mode of existence after the proclaimed death of God and the end of metaphysics.