Browsing by Author "Delport, Khegan"
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- ItemInterior intimo meo : Rowan Williams on the self(Pieter de Waal Neethling Trust, 2018) Delport, KheganIn this essay we discuss Williams’s notion of the self as a social mediation. The argument is made that from early on Williams was influenced by different streams of thought that directed him to analogous conclusions regarding language and personhood. I will show that through internalizing of Augustine, Wittgensteinian philosophy and certain strands of Eastern Orthodox thought, Williams came to an understanding of language that was grounded in the particulars of human interaction, one that is finally kenotic since the imago dei is reflective of the imago trinitatis. It is within this context that one should place Williams own relationally-centred, non-egocentric construal of human personhood that finds its centre in the dynamic exteriority of love.
- ItemOn tragedy and transcendence : a critical exposition of Donald MacKinnon and Rowan Williams in the context of a modern debate(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2019-04) Delport, Khegan; Vosloo, Robert; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Theology. Dept. of Systematic Theology and Ecclesiology.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This dissertation is focused on the relation between Christian metaphysics and philosophies of the tragic. Its context is within a modern debate, a setting where this interrelation has become contested. Its research question can be phrased so: can a classical account of transcendence account for 'the tragic'? Or to put the question from the other side: are there grammars of transcendence associated with 'the tragic' (here understood as a metaphysical or philosophical trope) that hinder the reception of 'tragedy' within orthodox theology? For the purposes of this study, such a question becomes concretized within the debate around the critical reception of Donald MacKinnon, particularly amongst David Bentley Hart and John Milbank. The core argument of this dissertation proposes that the most pointed tension within this controversy is centered on the language of transcendence, and how Christian orthodoxy has traditionally conceptualized it (e.g. aseity, the analogia entis, the transcendental convertibility of goodness and oneness, etc.). It also suggests that there are refractions of 'the tragic' and 'transcendence' within the modern period that have created problems for the interrelations of a classical-orthodox metaphysics and the tragic. We specifically note three incarnations within the modern period, namely: the Kantian sublime, the suffering Absolute, and a rejection of the privatio boni. All of these concepts are related to the question of 'the tragic' in the contemporary debate, and also have application to the discussion of MacKinnon, as seen in the critical responses to his work we will be addressing. This study hopes to move the conversation forward by engaging in a critical exposition of Donald MacKinnon and Rowan Williams within the context of this contemporary discussion. The research suggests that MacKinnon's insightful commentary on the interconnections between metaphysics and the tragic is marred by a strong dependence on Kantianism, as well as some misguided attacks on the Augustinian account of evil. Thereafter, this study wagers that Rowan Williams provides a corrective supplementation to MacKinnon: he adopts Mackinnon's emphases on taking tragedy in complete seriousness, while simultaneously transcending several drawbacks associated with MacKinnon‘s approach. This can be seen in the way that Williams is able to incorporate a deep sense of historicity and the tragic within a robust metaphysics of creativity, language and analogy. Moreover, he offers a defense of aseity, analogical participation and the privatio boni in a manner that exhibits a coherency with a sense of the tragic. Overall, we desire to make a contribution to the conversation by placing MacKinnon's and Williams's reflections on the tragic within their wider theological projects, hereby developing the argument that classical orthodoxy is able to sustain, with integrity, a vision that includes tragedy within it.
- ItemTowards a Platonic critique of ideology: On method and metaphysics(Pieter de Waal Neethling Trust, 2020) Delport, KheganENGLISH ABSTRACT: Plato is accused by some of being a totalitarian, "top-down" thinker, a claim that is linked not just to his politics but to his philosophical proclivities more generally. This essay will argue that Plato's method and metaphysics collectively provide a few avenues for questioning this outcome. I think Plato's Socratic-style provides resistance to a hegemonic and carapaced metaphysics, and moreover I would argue that there is a greater coherence between Plato's method and his positive teaching than is allowed for by some. Through an engagement with central Platonic doctrines, namely his account of philosophical dialogue, the transcendental Good, as well as participation, and recollection, it is argued that Plato's relational metaphysics does not fit seamlessly into an "ideological" or "naïve" rendering of intellectual intuition, an exclusionary dualism of material and spiritual substance, or an uncritical evocation of "innate ideas," and, moreover, that it allows for a greater plurality of perspectives, all ordered towards a deeper realism and unity within the Good Beyond Being.
- ItemTowards a visionary and historical consciousness : Rowan Williams’s four quartets lectures (1974–1975)(Church History Society of Southern Africa and Unisa Press, 2017) Delport, KheganThe aim of this essay is to provide a critical exposition of Rowan Williams’s unpublished lectures on T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets. A thorough examination of these texts has been lacking in various interpretations of Williams’s writings, and this essay aims to remedy this paucity, making available the argument and content of the lectures open to scrutiny and historical investigation. As will be seen, Williams’s interpretation of the poems is robustly theological, and seeks to articulate a radically incarnational reading of the Four Quartets. Such an interpretation seeks to assert creation’s fundamental historicity and often tragic contingency, while at the same time suggesting that it is only when reality is seen for what it is that a vision of redemption may be truly glimpsed.
- ItemThe white line : Rowan Williams on time and tragedy(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2014-12) Delport, Khegan; Vosloo, Robert; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Theology. Dept. of Systematic Theology and Ecclesiology.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In this study, I will be concerned with the viability of a tragic theology that is at the same time able to cohere with the standards of a classically orthodox Christian theology. My study will focus on a particular figure, namely Rowan Williams who, I will argue, exemplifies a blending together of these two concerns. However, as we shall see in this study, ‘tragic theology’ is by no means an uncontroversial affair since some argue that it implies heterodox conclusions in relation to God, creation, sin, etc. My aim is to counteract this claim that a classically orthodox theology cannot coexist with a tragic perspective. I will make the claim that tragic theology aims to emphasise the reality of contingency, conflict and suffering in relation to human life as seriously as possible, without effacing the difficulty it proposes to thought and the limits of human action, while at the same time holding onto the conviction that these beliefs can exist comfortably with an orthodox theological perspective. Through my study of Williams, which will largely follow a genealogical approach, I aim to show that Williams is able to emphasise this difficulty of tragedy, while at the same time believing in the fundamental goodness of creation, the possibility of transformation, hope and healing, as understood within a incarnationally-centred understanding of ‘the redemption of time’. Systematically speaking, I will attempt to arrange Williams’ understanding of tragedy according to four motifs which recur throughout his oeuvre, namely contingency, contemplation, compassion, and non-closure, all of which can be understood within the context of a classical Christian theology of God, salvation, and creaturely finitude.
- ItemWhy faith makes sense : on Graham Ward’s unbelievable(Pieter de Waal Neethling Trust, 2017) Delport, KheganWard’s recent volume on the entwining of belief and perception, while not being an explicitly theological monograph, nonetheless evinces a subtle texture that displays his continuing fidelity to certain aspects of Radical Orthodoxy’s vision. (Ward, Graham 2013. Unbelievable: Why We Believe and Why We Don’t. London and New York: I. B. Tauris; ISBN: 971780767352) This can be seen in its interdisciplinary focus and its rejection of dualistic philosophies (including the supposed divisions between the sacred and the secular, nature and grace, transcendence and immanence, visibility and invisibility). He argues for the ultimate ‘fittingness’ between mind and world, thereby rejecting any representationalist account of this relation. Viewing the practices of belief within a re-telling of evolutionary history and phenomenological accounts of perception, Ward seeks to show the pervasiveness of dispositional beliefs within all worldly interactions. Consequentially, ‘belief’ cannot therefore be relegated to an epiphenomenal or lesser form of knowing, since all seeing is a seeing-as, with the result being that it is imbued with the valences of affect and valuation. Religious faith then is simply a deepening of the logic that is already present within ordinary modes of finite engagement, and therefore should not be seen as an ‘unnatural’ intervention within the realm of human culture. Overall then, this work can be summarized as an apologetic for the rationality of belief in our ‘secularized’ societies, and furthermore, for the constitutive role of belief and faith for sensibility as such.