Cyril O'Regan

Jacob's Boehme's Haunted Narrative

Gnostic Apocalypse

Looks at the influence of Gnosticism in modern intellectual history, philosophy, and theology.

Gnostic Return in Modernity

This compelling work is the most comprehensive and sophisticated account to date of the relationship between Hans Urs von Balthasar—a Swiss theologian and Catholic priest—and the German philosopher Georg Hegel. While underscoring the depth and breadth of Balthasar’s engagement with the philosopher, author Cyril O’Regan argues that Balthasar is the most concertedly anti-Hegelian theologian of the 20th century. For him, it is essential to engage Hegel because of his corrections of sclerotic forms of premodern Christian thought, but even more importantly to resist and correct his systematic thought, which represents a comprehensive misremembering of the Christian thought, practices, and forms of life. An important and original work, this book addresses a topic that puts the possibility of an authentic postmodern theology at stake.

Von Balthasar's Response to Philosophical Modernity. Hegel

The Anatomy of Misremembering

Argues that the discourse of Jacob Boehme represents the return of Gnostic thought in modernity after a thousand year hiatus.

Jacob Boehme's Haunted Narrative

Gnostic Return in Modernity demonstrates the possibility that Gnosticism haunts certain modern discourses. Studying Gnosticism of the first centuries of the common era and utilizing narrative analysis, the author shows how Gnosticism returns in a select b

O'Regan pointed to the "exile" of apocalyptic in the modern period, and its "contemporary return" in a host of theologians, including, but not limited to: Hans Urs von Balthasar, Jurgen Moltmann, Johann Baptist Metz, Sergei Bulgakov, Karl Barth, Stanley Hauerwas, Jacques Derrida, (to a limited extent) the Pope Benedict XVI, David Bentley Hart, Catherine Keller, John D. Caputo, and Gianni Vattimo. Apocalyptic is not so exotic before, especially since we find such diverse thinkers sharing the same theological "spaces" (e.g. Balthasar, the "Pope's theologian," and Derrida, share the same space - this is surprising) O'Regan finds it helpful to map out three spaces in order to distinguish these different thinkers. He has three of them: 1) Pleromatic: maximum level of content; 2) Metaxic: in-between level of content; and 3) Kenomatic: empty of content.

Cyril O'Regan

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