The Gift and the Understanding of God

There is a growing demand that God be understood through a non-dualistic, non metaphysical discourse. This book tries to meet the demand focusing on two contrasting postmodern features: the impossibility of the gift in Derrida and unconditional givenness in Marion engaging with the critical response of Milbank. Based on the negative understanding of God as "wholly other," this book examines the (im)possibility of the gift as God's giving in relation to the (im)possibility of speaking of God with a critical discussion of Marion's iconic theology of the unconditional divine gift: the saturated phenomenon of givenness. While heavily influenced by current developments in poststructuralism and phenomenological theories, it is ultimately motivated by a constructive theological agenda. This book should help cast light on a new understanding of 'Gift' or 'givenness' as an alternative discourse of traditional ontological discourses in theology and should be useful to theologians or seminarians and anyone in religious studies and philosophy of religion who may be interested in recent postmodern theologies and thoughts including Deconstructive, Postmetaphysical and Radical Orthodoxy.