Andrew (andrewspink@mastadon.green) reviewed Hoping against hope by John D. Caputo (Theology for the people)
Review of 'Hoping against hope' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
I was a bit disappointed in this book. For a start, I found the writing style of John Caputo to be mildly irritating. He tries just a little too hard to be popular or accessible and the splitting of himself into multiple personalities roughly corresponding to stages in the development of his thought during his lifetime just didn't work for me. He also repeatedly announces he is going to state something terribly radical, only to come out with something which doesn't go that far beyond Tillich (who he is fond of quoting). The book is also very strongly framed in relation to the Catholic Church, which is not so interesting for me (but I can hardly blame the author for that).
That much is mostly stylistic. However, what I had a more serious problem with is that he is very inward looking, completely ignoring issues that concern many such as …
I was a bit disappointed in this book. For a start, I found the writing style of John Caputo to be mildly irritating. He tries just a little too hard to be popular or accessible and the splitting of himself into multiple personalities roughly corresponding to stages in the development of his thought during his lifetime just didn't work for me. He also repeatedly announces he is going to state something terribly radical, only to come out with something which doesn't go that far beyond Tillich (who he is fond of quoting). The book is also very strongly framed in relation to the Catholic Church, which is not so interesting for me (but I can hardly blame the author for that).
That much is mostly stylistic. However, what I had a more serious problem with is that he is very inward looking, completely ignoring issues that concern many such as environmental destruction. Creation is mentioned as being (obviously) a gift of God, and it is exactly that attitude which has given moral 'permission' to people to mess the world up. His starting point is nihilism, based on the thought that at a given moment the sun will burn up and the earth will be no more. Interestingly, it doesn't seem to occur to him that those sort of cosmic timescales are long enough that a serious amount of evolution will have taken place by then, so people as we know them won't be around anyway. He makes a point that 'thought' will be no more at that point, which aside from not realizing the evolutionary aspect, also appears to ignore the extreme anthropomorphism of that statement.
All that criticism gives an unduly negative impression though. There was also plenty of good thoughtful stuff to read. He does indeed take the demythologizing of Tillich a step further, especially in relation to the afterlife and eternity. I enjoyed his chapter in inter-faith dialogue which though I didn't find it as radical as perhaps he imagines, nicely emphasises the value of diversity, which in these popularist days is always a good thing. "There is not one true blue form of life but a rainbow; and while it is true, it is not The Truth", is a nice quote.