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A remarkable interrogation of the corporeality of the divine undertaken by a renowned philosopher/theologian
Does God appear “in flesh and bones,” that is to say, “made of flesh and bones”? Or is the resurrected Christ’s appearance simply “in person”? These questions, which might appear inconsequential at first sight, obsessed the Fathers of the church and medieval scholars, but are neglected nowadays. Perhaps we no longer dare to ask them to ourselves. The Flesh of God attempts to return to what Paul Ricoeur calls a “second naïveté,” analyzing important questions concerning the Resurrection and trying to face head-on the problem of the embodiment of the divine.
This book retraces a philosophical triduum (Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday) but also highlights the crucial and neglected topic of Holy Saturday. It emphasizes that Christianity can no longer sustain itself by forgetting the organic and disregarding the soul. Far from getting bogged down in questions of boundaries, or erecting barriers, we come back in the book to finding out how we can “cross the Rubicon” between philosophy and theology. The confrontation of these disciplines and their different fields can revitalize thought and faith, for those who feel the importance of sharing it.
Emmanuel Falque is professor and honorary dean of the Faculty of Philosophy at the Institut Catholique of Paris. He is a specialist in medieval philosophy, phenomenology, and the philosophy of religion. His books published in English translation include a Philosophical Triduum: The Metamorphosis of Finitude; The Wedding Feast of the Lamb; The Guide to Gethsemane; and Crossing the Rubicon: The Borderlands of Philosophy and Theology. His most recent publications in English are: The Book of Experience: From Anselm of Canterbury to Bernard of Clairvaux; Spiritualism and Phenomenology: The case of Maine de Biran; and, with Nikolaas Cassidy-Deketlaere, The Emmanuel Falque Reader.
George Hughes (Translator)
George Hughes was formerly Professor of English and Comparative Literature in the Faculty of Letters at Tokyo University. He is the author of Reading Novels (2002) and the translator of four other books by Emmanuel Falque: The Metamorphosis of Finitude (2012), The Wedding Feast of the Lamb (2016), The Guide to Gethsemane (2019), and The Book of Experience (2024).
Opening: The Incredulity of Saint Thomas | 1
Introduction: In Flesh and Bones | 7
The Fear of the Body, 8 ■ Of Flesh and Bones, 9 ■
Phenomenology of the Flesh, 11 ■ In Flesh and Bones or “in
Person,” 12 ■ The Weidenhausen Bridge, 13 ■ The Richness of the
Perceived, 15 ■ Phenomenology of Christ in Flesh and Bones, 15 ■
The Eleven, 16 ■ Thomas the Apostle, 17 ■ Body-to-Body or
Flesh-to-Flesh, 18 ■ Philosophy of the Body, 19 ■ A Praxis of the
Body, 20 ■ The Real Human “in Flesh and Bones,” 21 • Against
Idealism of the Flesh, 23 ■ Praxis of Christ in Flesh and Bones, 25
■ Encharnellement [En-flesh-ment], 27
Part 1: From Suffering to Passage: A Philosophical Passion
1 This Is My Body: Holy Thursday | 35
§1. Philosophy to Its Limit, 37 ■ §2. The Passover of Animality, 39
■ §3. Hoc est Corpus Meum, 41 ■ §4. The Power of the Body, 45 ■
§5. Eros Eucharistized, 47 ■ §6. Abiding [La manence], 52
2 Suffering Death: Good Friday | 54
§7. The Scenarios of Death, 56 ■ §8. The Doomed Staging, 57 ■
§9. Fear and Anxiety, 59 ■ §10. Suffering Occluded, 64 ■
§11. Useless Suffering, 65 ■ §12. Suffering Incarnate, 66 ■
§13. The Incorporation of Humankind in God, 67 ■
§14. The Surplus of the Suffering Body, 68 ■ §15. Suffering
of the World, 69 ■ §16. To Pass to the Father, 71
3 Extra-Phenomenal God: Holy Saturday | 73
§17. Holy Saturday and the Extra-Phenomenal, 75 ■ §18. Hell and
the Regions of the Dead, 77 ■ §19. A Kenosis of Finitude, 80 ■
§20. Silence and Oblivion, 84 ■ §21. Ab-sence and Death of
God, 87 ■ §22. Solitude and “Being-with,” 89
4 Metamorphosis: Easter Sunday | 94
§23. The Unsurpassable Immanence, 98 ■ §24. Time in Terms of
Time, 100 ■ §25. Is There a Drama of Atheist Humanism?, 101 ■
§26. Resurrection and the “Over-Resurrection” of the Body, 103 ■
§27. The Resurrection Changes Everything, 108 ■ §28. The
Human Incorporated, 113 ■ §29. The World Become Other, 114 ■
§30. From Time to Eternity, 117 ■ §31. A Flesh to Be Reborn, 118
PART II: Solidity of the Body and Problem of the Soul: The Unit of the Triptych
5 The Three Bodies | 131
§32. The Living Body, 132 ■ §33. The Suffering Body, 134 ■
§34. The “Flesh” 135
6 Flesh and Body | 137
§35. The Obstacle of the Organic, 137 ■ §36. Incorporation and
Incarnation, 139 ■ §37. The Numerical and the Constitutive, 141
7 The Dead Body | 148
§38. Finitude and Decomposition, 149 ■ §39. The Dead
Christ, 154 ■ §40. Soul and Body, 159
Part III: The Great Crossing
8 The Hermeneutics Question | 175
§41. What Hermeneutics in View?, 176 ■ §42. Hermeneutics and
the Senses of the Holy Scripture, 177 ■ §43. Of the Body and the Voice, 180
9 Deciding to Believe | 183
§44. Irreducible Belief, 184 ■ §45. Philosophy of Religious
Experience, 185 ■ §46. Deciding In Common, 187
10 In Passing | 190
§47. For a Recovery, 191 ■ §48. To Each Its Own Path, 193 ■ §49.
Of the Meta-physical, 195 ■ §50. Finally, Theology, 196
Conclusion: Charitable God | 199
Agape or How Two Make Three, 200 ■ Eros or the Sense of a
Humano-Divine Empathy, 203 ■ “Com-passion in Common”
or the Conversion of Eros by Agape, 205
Notes | 211
Index | 247