Holiness after Logos
Susan Taubes’s Religious Atheism
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 19224405 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Elad Lapidot (0000-0002-8174-1139, Université de Lille, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Pages | 1-19 |
| Publication date | 2026-04-16 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Political Theology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1462-317X • E-ISSN: 1743-1719 |
| Publisher | Routledge (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/1462317x.2026.2658929 |
| OpenAlex | W7154623216 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 7 |
Engaging thinkers such as Martin Heidegger, Simone Weil, and Hans Jonas, this essay argues that Taubes offers a radical critique of modern Gnostic tendencies. Whereas Jonas and Emmanuel Levinas read Gnosticism as dualistic, Taubes interprets it as a symptom of monism—an oppressive logic of identity culminating in atheistic mysticism. She diagnoses Western theology as a totalizing logos that reduces transcendence to immanence. Through her readings of Heidegger and Weil, Taubes reveals modern theology as both culminating in and betraying its own atheistic core. Her concept of “religious atheism” seeks to move beyond both Gnosticism and theology by recovering the symbolic and performative dimensions of religion, envisioning a post—theological religiosity grounded in liturgy, holiness, and ethical rupture
Agnosticism · Atheism · Philosophy of religion · Secularism · Karl Barth and Christian Theology · Pentecostalism and Christianity Studies · Religion, Gender, and Enlightenment
| Highly cited | No |
|---|