Spirituality

The Religious Philosophy of Simone Weil: An Introduction

Lissa McCullough read

The French philosopher Simone Weil (1909-1943), a contemporary of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre, remains in every way a thinker for our times. She was an outsider, in multiple senses, defying the usual religious categories: at once atheistic and religious; mystic and realist; sceptic and believer. She speaks therefore to the complex sensibilities of a rationalist age. Yet despite her continuing relevance, and the attention she attracts from philosophy, cultural studies, feminist studies, spirituality and beyond, Weil’s reflections can still be difficult to grasp, since they were expressed in often inscrutable and fragmentary form. Lissa McCullough here offers a reliable guide to the key concepts of Weil’s religious philosophy: good and evil, the void, gravity, grace, beauty, suffering and waiting for God. In addressing such distinctively contemporary concerns as depression, loneliness and isolation, and in writing hauntingly of God’s voluntary ‘nothingness’, Weil’s existential paradoxes continue to challenge and provoke. This is the first introductory book to show the essential coherence of her enigmatic but remarkable ideas about religion.

New York: I.B. Tauris

Stephen Plant on Simone Weil: Parts I & II

Stephen Plant watch

Dr. Plant is Dean and Runcie Fellow at Trinity Hall and lectures on Christian theology and on ethics in the Faculty of Divinity. He has written and edited several books including Bonhoeffer (Continuum, 2004), Simone Weil: A Brief Introduction (Orbis Books 2008), Letters to London (SPCK, 2013), and Taking Stock of Bonhoeffer ( Ashgate, 2014). From 2007-13 he edited the influential journal Theology for SPCK/SAGE. His current research includes theology and international development, on which he is writing a book for Bloomsbury Press, and the theology and life of Karl Barth. He is willing to consider doctoral students in 20th century Protestant theology, theology and international development, and political theology.

YouTube, April 22, 2012 // Part 1 here  // Part 2 here

Awaiting God: A New Translation of Attente de Dieu and Lettre a Un Religieux

Bradley Jersak (Translator) with Introduction by Sylvie Weil read

Awaiting God (Fresh Wind Press) combines a fresh translation (by Weil scholar, Brad Jersak) of Simone Weil’s Waiting for God and Letter to a Priest (Attente de Dieu and Lettre un Religieux) in one volume. These works are considered Weil’s primary essays and letters.

In addition, Simone Weil’s niece has contributed an introductory article entitled, Simone Weil and the Rabbi’s: Compassion and Tsedekah, which puts Weil’s relationship with Jewish thought into perspective. She includes source material from the Rabbis that put Weil (however reluctantly) in line with rabbinical thought throughout her major themes.

The book is the ideal English introduction to the works and thought of Simone Weil, including important preface material (by Jersak) on how to read her work, as well as her relationship to Roman Catholicism and Judaism

Table of Contents

 • Translator's Preface
 • Introduction by Sylvie Weil

Part 1 — Essays 
 1. Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies 
 in View of the Love of God 
 2. The Love of God and Affliction 
 3. Forms of the Implicit Love of God 
 a. Love of Neighbor 
 b. Love of the Order of the World 
 c. Love of Religious Practices 
 d. Friendship 
 e. Implicit and Explicit Love
 4. Concerning the Our Father 

Part 2 — Letters 
 • Preface to her letters: Weil on Catholicism and Judaism 
 5. Hesitations Prior to Baptism
 6. Hesitations Prior to Baptism
 7. Departure from France
 8. Spiritual Autobiography
 9. Intellectual Vocation
10. Last Thoughts
11. Letter to a Priest

“Christianity and the Errors of our Time: Simone Weil on Atheism and Idolatry”

Mario Von Der Ruhr

Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement, vol. l. 68, pp. 203 – 227

The Saint & the Hero: Iris Murdoch & Simone Weil

Anne Rowe &  Pamela Osborn

Sofia de Melo Araujo & Fatima Vieira, eds., Iris Murdoch: Philosopher Meets Novelist (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2011), pp. 103-116.

“The Supernatural as a Remedy to Totalitarian Regimes: Simone Weil and the Sanctity of the Eucharist”

Marie Cabaud Meaney

in Rozelle-Stone, A. Rebecca & Stone, Lucian, eds., The Relevance of the Radical: Simone Weil 100 Years Later, New York: Continuum, pp. 38-52