Abigail Adams Institute Voegelin Event: February 16, 2021

Next Tuesday, February 16th, the Abigail Adams Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts welcomes Research Fellow Dr. J. David Franks for Scholars Workshop presentation and discussion on his forthcoming article titled: Apocalypse of Reality: Eric Voegelin, For and Against Political Theology. 

AAI Scholars Workshop welcomes faculty, postdocs, graduate students and advanced undergraduates in the humanities and social sciences to discuss their works-in-progress.

The event will take place via Zoom February 16th from 12:15 – 1:30 pm EST, and we would like to request your participation. 

If you decide to attend, you can RSVP online to receive the Zoom access information. The speaker’s paper will be made available later this week to those who RSVP. Abstract is pasted available below. 

Abstract:

In his later works, Eric Voegelin (1901-85) sharpened his attack on Christian theology as a historical enterprise: the more continuity he saw between modernity and the dogmatic corruption of philosophy soon after its birth in the classical age, the more responsibility he assigned to theology for the deformations of consciousness wrought by modern ideologies. Plato is his exemplar for a mystic maintaining the balance of consciousness despite having experienced the divine ground’s unbalancing revelation of the structure of reality and its movement beyond itself towards transfiguration. Plato elevates mythological harmony with cosmic rhythms into a reality lit up by divine transcendence. For Voegelin, the philosopher is the true guardian of revelation, while the professional theologian and dogmas obscure the luminosity of the divine ground. His critique of theology as unbalanced philosophy is assessed, leading into an initial comparison of his philosophical mysticism with the political theology of Johann Baptist Metz.