“Simone Weil: The Impossible”
in Doering, E. Jane & Springsted, Eric, eds, The Christian Platonism of Simone Weil, Notre Dame: IN: University of Notre Dame Press, pp. 229-241
in Doering, E. Jane & Springsted, Eric, eds, The Christian Platonism of Simone Weil, Notre Dame: IN: University of Notre Dame Press, pp. 229-241
The book is the first major study to bring together the two early twentieth-century theologians Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German Lutheran pastor, and Simone Weil, French philosopher, and convert to Christianity. Both were victims of Nazi oppression, and neither survived the war. The book explores the two theologians’ reflections on Christian responsiveness to God and neighbour, being the interdependence of the two great commandments of the Jewish Law reiterated by Jesus. It sets out the common ground and the differing emphases in their interpretations. For Bonhoeffer, responsiveness was the transformation of the whole person affected by faith (Gestaltung), and the responsibility (Verantwortung) for one’s actions which it implies. For Weil, responsiveness was the hope and expectation of grace (attente) reflected in attention, the capacity to listen to, understand, and help others. Both Bonhoeffer and Weil faced a world dominated by aggression and horrendous suffering. Both endeavoured to articulate their responses, as Christians, to that world. The relevance of their thought to the twenty-first century is explored, in relation to perspectives on grace and freedom, on aggression, suffering, and forgiveness, and on the role of the church in society. Conclusions are illustrated by reference to contemporary theologians including Rowan Williams, Daniel Hardy, Frances Young and David Tracy.
Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang, 2004
in Doering, E. Jane & Springsted, Eric, eds, The Christian Platonism of Simone Weil, Notre Dame: IN: University of Notre Dame Press, pp. 61-76
Retrieved by The Anarchist Library (2020), Arthur Wills and John Petrie, trans., Routledge Classics (2004).
in Doering, E. Jane & Springsted, Eric, eds, The Christian Platonism of Simone Weil, Notre Dame: IN: University of Notre Dame Press, pp. 77-94
in Doering, E. Jane & Springsted, Eric, eds, The Christian Platonism of Simone Weil, Notre Dame: IN: University of Notre Dame Press, pp. 61-76
“Anyone interested in Simone Weil will want, and need, to read this superb collection.”―Diogenes Allen, Princeton Theological Seminary “These essays―some written by leading specialists in Simone Weil’s thought, others by prominent theologians and philosophers of religion―are especially valuable not only for elucidating Weil’s reading of Plato but also for showing what one or another form of Christian Platonism can mean for us today.”―James A. Wiseman, O.S.B., Catholic University of America
“This remarkable and penetrating collection of essays on Simone Weil’s religious philosophy illumines the living intersection between serious metaphysics and ethics. The authors carefully examine this relation that much post-modern reflection has until now only skimmed, but that Weil herself managed to embrace with breathtaking intellectual discipline and self-giving. The book is a bracing testimony to the deep moral consequences of classical ontology and its challenging Christian reorientation.” ―The Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner, Ascension Episcopal Church, Pueblo, Colorado
In this book a group of renowned international scholars seek to discern the ways in which Simone Weil was indebted to Plato, and how her provocative readings of his work offer challenges to contemporary philosophy, theology, and spirituality. This is the first book in twenty years to systematically investigate Weil’s Christian Platonism.
University of Notre Dame Press, 2004
in Doering, E. Jane & Springsted, Eric, eds, The Christian Platonism of Simone Weil, Notre Dame: IN: University of Notre Dame Press, pp. 159-180
in Doering, E. Jane & Springsted, Eric, eds, The Christian Platonism of Simone Weil, Notre Dame: IN: University of Notre Dame Press, pp. 133-158
Arthur Wills trans., New York: Routledge